Somewhere deep within him, Saïx is aware that he and Axel are very much alike, similar in ways that he prefers not to dwell upon. The pride, the passion, the deep, fierce conviction of commitment; Axel is a riddle, a mystery to him that has the ring of strange familiarity, with a longing and a fire reminiscent of love affairs long past. Saïx realizes, even if Axel does not, the strange affinity between them. He cannot deny it. If he did not know better, he would almost claim that Axel was the heart that he had lost… that fierce, desperate sense of caring too much that, if he stays up late enough and stares at the moon long enough, he can very nearly feel again.

But Saïx also knows all too well their differences. Axel is what he might have become without inhibitions, without self-imposed limits, without remoteness and aloofness and that cynicism which the world in its folly calls 'knowledge.' Axel is like a fiery reflection of himself in a mirror, a Saïx without restraints, a Saïx with courage and daring and hope.

And he, Saïx… he is merely a pallid reflection of a heat and light long past. A shadow which preceded Axel, mimicking shape but never substance, reaching out before him in the sunset hours, as shadows do.

For Saix is the moon. He is graceful and remote and stirring, but ultimately insubstantial, ultimately empty. A passing phantasm, a dream of the night, dissolving on waking, unmourned and unmissed.

But Axel… Ah, yes. Axel is different than he. Blessed, fiery Axel full of passion and pride and pain… he burns, and will burn always, heart, mind, and spirit, shining beyond death with the heat and light of the Sun.