Sometimes, Leon still found it difficult to believe that he was awake.

Selphia was too peaceful. It made him uneasy. Ventuswill was alive and well, and he was happy about that – that was the whole point of becoming a Guardian, after all.

But he was so used to turmoil and suffering. The people who confided in him, who poured all their worries into the only listening ear they had, all they knew was fear and hardship. Life back then was difficult, and that was what he grew used to.

Being here, in Selphia, where people hardly had to worry and where lives were peaceful and prosperous, felt like a fantasy. It didn't seem real that he was older than most of them, Ventuswill being the sole exception.

Every 365 days, the Earth made one revolution around the sun. He had lived through so many revolutions that he lost count, and yet the same stars spread across the night sky, creating an astral map identical to the one he saw so many years ago, right before he sealed himself in the tower.

Sometimes, it felt like if he took in a deep enough breath, he'd wake up and he would still be confined in the same void, neither alive nor dead, simply existing.

He didn't realise when she first started talking to him, but he began to wonder whether she knew how he felt, deep down beneath the smiling façade.

Maybe it was the lingering looks. Or the way her breath hitched when she called his name. Maybe it was the way the moonlight illuminated her hair and touched her green eyes, giving her an otherworldly radiance that he couldn't look away from.

No matter what it was, he found himself breaking his promise, unconsciously yearning for someone he couldn't have. He knew the way the others in the town looked at her. They all wanted the Princess, how could they not? And he was but a relic from an ancient past, trapped in the quicksand of time.

Being with him would simply drag her down, and he refused to pull another victim into the murk with him. Maria was enough. His anguish, his regret – he refused to allow another person to bear the same broken promises. If he could leave once, he could leave again, and he didn't deserve to see that precious smile on her face.

If Leon was the moon, then Frey was the sun, blinding and radiant, lighting up parts of his soul he had wanted to keep hidden for the rest of eternity. She threatened to dig into the exposed cracks that he showed her, and every so often he realised just how close he was to telling her the truth. But he held his tongue.

When she confessed, he didn't know what to say. He couldn't believe that she ever took him seriously – that someone as brilliant and life-changing as the Princess of Selphia could ever take him seriously. He made sure to tease her, to be playful and capricious and unavailable so that she would reach for someone who could treat her the way she deserved, but she came to him with her eyes open and heart giving and honestly, who was Leon to say no?

He warned her, he did, he tried, but she told him they didn't need to get married and his heart cracked at her sincerity. He couldn't just tell her no, not when she was so stubborn about being with him, not when she was willing to give up the dreams of other girls just to be by his side. So, he gave in and she smiled at him, a fairy-tale smile that made him yearn for something he didn't know how to describe.

There was an uncountable number of stars in the sky, sparkling like bits of frost on a dark tundra. They formed maps and constellations that guided and misled, and he swore he could see those same stars reflected in her green eyes. He wondered if those stars were meant to lead him in the right direction. He wondered if he would get lost following her, going places he promised never to go.

But he realised there and then that even if she wanted to bring him back to the tower and seal him away once more, he would close his eyes with a smile on his lips because her eyes would be the last thing he ever saw, and he could die happy.

The first kiss they ever shared was almost nothing. It was the barest brush of lips against lips, and he could feel her breath against his skin, warm and fluttering.

A part of him ached. Traitor, it whispered, but the rest of him reasoned that he only promised not to marry. There was nothing about light touches and holding hands and feeling his heart jump when she gave him that precious, precious smile that sparkled like the moon and the stars in the night sky.

He dared not ask or hope for too much. He took whatever she had to give with the desperation of a drowning man clutching at straws even when he continued to keep his distance, letting her inch into his world while still finding ways to keep her out, subtly withdrawing into a shell that was becoming more and more uncomfortable.

She was never impatient. She knew, he could tell in the way her green eyes dimmed ever so slightly, that there was something he wasn't telling her. At the end of every date with their fingers intertwined and her sweet whisper telling him that she loved him, and oh how he wished he could repeat those words to her, but he always stopped himself because Maria deserved more than him finding his happiness – that was when he hated himself the most because he was hurting the woman he loved and he couldn't stop himself from doing so. He told her he was fond of her, and that was the most he could say because anything else would just sound unfair.

Whenever they kissed she would sigh a little into his mouth and he wondered what she was thinking with that sigh, whether it was a sound of disappointment or hope or some other emotion he couldn't fathom – he wondered whether she ever had regrets being with him, watching her friends get married one by one while she was left behind, her hand loosely twined with his, wishing her friends good luck and happy lives with that faint look of pain and longing in her eyes.

One night he walked her back home and they stopped outside her door and she turned to him with a question in her gaze. He hesitated but she reached up on her tiptoes and pressed her lips against his and he found his arms wrapping around her waist, yearning for the feeling of her soft skin against his. He could breathe in her scent and she smelled like wishes and dreams and he didn't know what might have happened if Volkanon didn't walk in and clear his throat, making them spring apart.

"Hey, you." It was one of the few ways he used to make sure she was really real and not some kind of fantasy his mind conjured up to distract from the reality of being sealed away, a living sarcophagus – she somehow seemed to know what he meant and she'd look at him with that understanding smile on her face. He wondered what he ever did to deserve someone who seemed to know, even without him saying a word, what he really needed. If any good karma he accumulated as a dragon priest was enough to bring him someone like her, someone who could soothe his pain and sorrows with a single whisper and whose touch made him forget who he was.

If only he met her instead of Maria. But at the same time he couldn't bring himself to really believe in that, because as much as she was part of his present and future, Maria was a childhood friend, a sister who was as precious to him as his own soul – the girl who believed he would marry her, who held fast to their foolish promise even when he decided to become a Guardian, even when he broke her heart. He could never in his life regret knowing a childhood friend, but instead, he sometimes wished he had never been born so that she would have no anguish, no suffering.

It was not like him to have such thoughts and he tried not to linger on them, but the more the guilt ate away at him the more the thoughts came until one night he had a vivid nightmare that felt more real than reality itself and he woke up gasping in his bed, fingers clenching tightly at his blanket, sweat rolling down his forehead. And from then on, he greeted her with bad night instead of good morning and she always asked why he said this, but he didn't, he couldn't tell her.

She asked him to call her love and he was willing, doing whatever she wanted to make her happy, but he saw the way her eyes glimmered whenever the empty endearment fell from his lips and he had to wonder if it sprung from joy or sadness – whether such pet names led both of them into thinking something more could happen when honestly, it could not. But he played along, willing to dance with her in this performance because it was so much easier than confronting other possibilities.

The days passed and he began to wonder how much longer they would remain this way – how much longer she would be willing to stay with him before she finally got tired, too tired to stay behind. One day she would be with someone who could be with her the way she wanted, and that someone wouldn't be him. He would wait and watch and wish her nothing but the best, but he could never blame her, not when for a few fleeting months or years of his life she brought him only happiness.

If she was a wishing star then he would make a wish upon her and he had little doubt that it would come true, but she wasn't one and he no longer believed in childish dreams or fairy tales and so this cycle continued, never-ending.

"Why do you love me?" he decided to ask one day when they were out on the airship and they felt the night breeze ruffling their hair, singing against their faces.

It was nice and cooling and they were standing side-by-side, comfortable and familiar with each other as ever, but as always Leon wasn't quite as relaxed as he'd like to be, and he filled the silence with words that would fluster her. He studied her face and saw that instead of that familiar pink blush that tinged her cheeks she was actually considering his question, her green eyes thoughtful, and he began to think about how she might answer him. What would she say? Why did she love him?

"I just do. Is that a good enough answer for you?" She laughed a little, her voice quiet but her eyes were tender in a way that made his breath hitch and he glanced away from her, not wanting her to see the look on his face. "I don't think there's an easy way to answer these kinds of questions. There are many reasons why I like you, but why I love you…" She shook her head, but he didn't need to hear the rest of her answer to understand what she meant.

They remained silent for a while, but then he felt her fingers resting gently against his arm and he looked back at her to see her green eyes studying him intently, a small smile on her lips. "Will you ever tell me about your past, Leon?" she asked.

He paused, wavering. He wanted to. But at the same time, he felt like if he talked about it, he would just fall apart and the last thing he wanted was for Frey to see him being anything besides his usual self. He wasn't ready to appear so vulnerable even to her – he was too used to fighting with himself, and if he couldn't even trust himself then how could he confide in her? "Look at the stars," he told her instead, placing a hand on her cheek and turning her face gently towards the night sky.

"They're beautiful," she breathed, and he watched her watching the stars and he couldn't help but feel like she was prettier than all the stars combined, but he would never tell her something like that because it wasn't him to say such a thing. "It's a little odd but I can still identify all the constellations. I can't remember anything about my past, but I can still remember the stars. They're like familiar strangers."

"Familiar strangers, hmm?" And he thought that was the perfect way to describe himself now – him in the past would look at him now and scorn the way he was so hesitant. Past Leon was quick to think and quick to act and that was how he knew that he would become a Guardian – because he had his duty and his friendship with Ventuswill and of course, it made sense to sacrifice himself for the greater good.

But it was past Leon who also caused a precious friend so much hurt and that was a terrible lesson to learn while trapped in the darkness, and now he refused to hurt anyone ever again, so he held his tongue and kept his feelings buried within him. "What are you thinking about?" she turned to him and asked, and he saw the little spark of curiosity in her eyes, his curious love always wandering to places unknown and seeking the truth of everything. One day she might even dig all the way into the furthest reaches of his heart, and he would be powerless to stop her.

"Nothing. Just how lovely you look under the moonlight," he answered, a semi-truth, and she blushed and glanced down and he wished he could preserve this moment forever so that he would never forget that beautiful look on her face.

On the day Kiel asked him to translate an old story and he found out the truth of Maria's life, he wondered what to do now that his heart had been freed. It was very strange to feel the weight lifted from his shoulders, and for the first time in a long while he felt like he could actually breathe.

Frey was with him the entire time. She never left him alone, and though normally if she was with him for this long he would tease her to no end, today he couldn't find it in himself to do so. He didn't have the energy or the words for it, but it was nice to feel her beside him, her comforting presence grounding him somehow.

For the first time in a long while, the choking grip Maria had over his conscience lifted and it felt like he could finally see the sun. Warm rays seemed to spread throughout his entire being, washing over the cracks Frey had managed to expose within him. She knelt beside him with tears in her eyes, but she still managed to smile. For once he was lost for words, and for once, he didn't want to say anything.

"Will you marry me?" he asked. It had been so long since this all first began – so long since she told him that she loved him and told him she didn't mind not getting married. He knew it was a lie, but he still strung her along and he knew it was unfair, so he wanted to do right by her this time – because now that she knew the secrets of his past it only felt right to bring her into the future. He was sorry, he knew there was no way he could make up for any hurt he caused, but if she was willing to give him just one chance to right his wrongs, he would make her the happiest person in the world. He swore on everything he had, on himself, on the meaning of his existence.

And she hiccupped slightly and she said yes without even a moment's hesitation and that was when he knew he was the luckiest man in the world – not just because he survived hundreds of years when others crumbled into dust, not just because in the end everything he suffered for worked out in the most perfect of ways – but simply because he had a wonderful partner and lover who stuck with him on even the worst of days, and no matter how much he teased her, he loved her to no end.

"Did I ever tell you? You remind me of the sun." He held her hand and rubbed his thumb over her delicate skin, watching her blush a little, waving his compliment away. But to him it was no compliment, it was merely the truth. Even Ventuswill had compared Frey to the sun during one of their hushed midnight conversations, old friends catching up over a past long gone, and Frey herself had simply no idea how much light she brought into their lives. If only she knew how special she truly was.

She was the sun and he was drawn to her like plants to sunshine. She was tender and nurturing but she could blaze when she was protecting her friends and her town, and he supposed it was that duality that made him love her because he would never fall for a simpering princess but she could look after herself in a way that made him want to protect her. And he would make sure she thoroughly understood that because if they were to be married, he'd never let her hurt again.

On their wedding day, Frey sparkled in a pure white dress that reminded him of moonlight while her smile beamed with the light of a million stars. At that moment, he knew that she would be seared into his mind forever – in the years to come no matter how old they got or how much things changed, he would never forget this beautiful, surreal day that seemed to whip past in a blur, fading into the twilight of whispered promises and dreams of the future.

She was the sun and the moon and the stars to him, and now that they could finally be together with nothing to keep them apart, he would never let her go.