Response.

A letter rests on Kohra's bed; apparently his singing Moogle had delivered his previous missive to Kreoss, perhaps against his knowledge....

The letter reads:

Dear Kohra:

Perhaps your letter was not intended for my eyes, but nevertheless, it has reached me. It is whimsical, the ins and outs of fate, is it not? I do not presume to know Fate's myriad workings, but it is doubtless that it has within its grasp myriad pathways, and it is but one that has attached your words to me.

Know that your words, although but ink on parchment, have pierced me as keenly as blade does to flesh, and I found myself moved, to the point where breath came shallowly to my aching lungs, and my eyes burned fiercely beneath their lids. For a moment, I felt connected to your feelings, so that your pain became mine, and your breath filled my lungs. I would that they were happier feelings, that the emotions that connected your heart to mine were more sacred ones, but it seems that all I have brought you by my presence is doubt and mistrust. Words are empty to take such doubts away, but I hope in time, my actions will prove to lift the burden of mistrust from your heart and fill it with a more glad feeling.

Your words invoke, first and foremost, the inevitability of pain. Yes, pain is inevitable, but alike pain, love is also inevitable, and the hearts of the living cling to love as dearly as they do to pain. It is not mere survival, my dear Kohra, that motivates the hearts of the living, but the desire to experience something more than mere existence, and among these powerful, elemental forces is love; I do believe that people care for others, even as it renders them asunder, for such is the dilemma of mankind. To Love, and yet to Hurt Another: by the very act of loving, we hurt others! But mingled with the pain, is the sublime ecstasy of knowing, to the soul, that one is loved; such feeling is not for our mortal minds to fully grasp, but instead, for our spirits to acknowledge. It is impossible, Kohra, to be alive without loving, and yet, I sense you seek to deny this possibility even as you long for it with all of your being.

Likewise, you deny my caring for you. Do not be ridiculous. I have thrown away the few certainties that I had in my life for you. Is that not, Kohra, sufficient proof that I care for you? What more must I do to show you, beyond any doubts, that I do care? Must I carve it into my flesh? If so, could you say with certainty that it would soothe your soul, or would it be for the part of you that exults in pain?

Know, therefore, that the time I come from makes the time that you experience seem like the playground of children in comparison; the Vana'diel into which I awoke was, like the Vana'diel into which I slept, a world racked by war, a world screaming in agony in the throes of destruction. I have seen horrors that would make your mind explode at the very sight; do not attempt to argue with me on that fact, Kohra, for I have seen into the depths of your memories, and I can say without quibble or doubt so. In the world of the Zilart, there were no such things as Dark Knights, for to linger so on one's own personal pain was unseemly; pain and such were shared by all, and agony not to be lingered on, as a public service.

Likewise, the pain of your heart that you so glory within is not your pain alone, but I taste of it every time I am near you. The grief and agony in which you so delight to wallow, and the anguish of others upon which you sip so greedily, this also I taste, and I feel your joy course within me all the same. It is the fate of a Zilart to share the thoughts and feelings of those that are near, and even so, it is your joy, sadness, pain, and giddiness that I feel. That you embrace such feelings leads me to feel only pity for you, and compassion; like me, you seek out the emotions of others to fill the hollow place in your heart that no others can hope to touch; and yet, why must it be pain that you seek out so? Why is love not sufficient for you? Were I given one thousand hundreds of years to fill with joy for you, I would, if only those years could teach you the truth that happiness, love, and joy can be as sublime and as meaningful as pain! If it were but given to me, I would try to give you joy as complete and limitless as the pain you crave--but it seems you reject joy as false, merely for what it is, rather than attempting to know it as deeply as you know pain.

As for my reasons for wishing to be around you, do not patronize me by your claims that I seek you out for protection. I am no mean warrior in my own right; no less than I could have hoped to serve the holy Dawnmaiden as her guardian and protector, and it wounds me to think that you consider me to be weaker than yourself. As for the people from this era that have contacted me: they have claimed to be my friends, and warily I have accepted this as a future truth, but I know them no better than I know you; nevertheless, I seek to make Caen'ir as happy as I do you, for I sense in both of you a longing for happiness. I hope, by feeding you to satiation with emotion, even if it is not pain, that you may grow to be accustomed to the presence of others, and that we may together grow to know these people who will one day become so important to me.

As far as your enamoration with pain, and likewise with Luzaf, I believe these attachments have a similar ground. I feel no jealousy in either case; for I am living, whereas Luzaf is dead; he is to you safety, whereas I am risk; pain will never confront you, nor challenge you, nor force you to grow, but instead is a constant knowledge; the dead never change, but the living grow. That which changes, that which is dynamic and mutable, is nevertheless a threat to you, and I can sense likewise that my very mercurial nature is an enigma to you. However, I hope in time you will grow to see that is merely your happiness that I so desire, your peace that I strive toward, and your comfort to which I labor.

As always, sincerely yours,
Kre'oss