It isn't, you know. Just because I have green eyes... just because I happen to wear a green school uniform. It's not like I get to choose what uniform I wear, and it's not like it's my choice what colored eyes I have. It's just something that happened at random, yet people automatically assume that I like green.

I do like green, actually. It's just not my favorite color.

Umi was shocked when I said that. Hikaru had looked so sad... she had gotten me a green stuffed animal on my birthday, convinced that she knew me well enough to know my favorite color without asking. It took me a while to reassure her and to make her understand that she *did* know me well enough to know what I liked. It's my fault she didn't know what color was my favorite, since I never told anyone and never mentioned it.

My favorite color used to be green. So I don't blame anyone for assuming automatically. They were right to an extent. I loved the green of the grass, of the color that nature represented, and how green always seemed so fresh, so lively.

But lately I've been thinking of a different color altogether. It's predictable of me, since I had grown up in a relatively normal enviroment and had just one big shock of my life.

It was when I found out I was a Magic Knight: One of the three young women summoned to the country of Cephiro in another world to fight for a land that I knew nothing about, other than the fact that I couldn't let this beautiful place vanish without doing my best to save it.

It was there where my best memories were formed... and my worst. Hikaru, Umi, and I had gone through many trials to get where we are today. We assumed that we were going to be heros, like some manga story where the lines between good and evil are so definate that you can tell a good character from a bad one just by looking at physical descriptions.

How wrong we were. We were fooled to thinking that we were the saviors of Cephiro, there to rescue the princess that everyone loved so much from an evil sorcerer. That everyone would praise us for all the good intentions we had.

I never once realized back then that we were living in a fairy tale. Things like that just didn't happen. There were no lines between good and evil, and we ended up killing that same princess we were trying to save, fulfilling a prophasy that had been prodicted far before we were even born.

She was the princess. Emeraude-hime. She loved her land so much that she gave up everything worth living for to prey for the earth everyday. To live her life afar from all her admirers, smiling politely yet not fully being there mentally. It was a life that she could not keep up, pushing away everything that endangered her devotion to Cephiro. She pushed away her younger brother when she grew to love him too much, and longed to have someone kill her when she finally fell in love.

Everything that we had assumed from the very beginning had been so wrong. We were not supposed to assume things like we had. Yet we did. We had been fighting with all our heart against Zagato, downright hating him for enprisoning Emeraude-hime and destroying Cephiro. We could not understand his reasons for letting such a land fall into pieces.

We could not see that he was willing to sacrafice everything in order to keep Emeraude-hime alive.

We had been selfish. Not once trying to see things from a different point of view. I know that Hikaru still sometimes cry about the incident. Umi would sometimes stop whatever she was doing and stare at the sky, looking infinately sad.

No one noticed a change in me. Only that I seemed sadder than before. Everyone dismissed it as stress from school. But in truth, I was thinking about how we destroyed such a beautiful relationship. How we killed two people that were the epitome of soulmates, of love.

We had atoned for our sins later, fighting the three countries that tried to invade Cephiro now that the princess was gone. We later brought the entire place to peace, and calmed the storm that had threatened to destroy Cephiro and overtake our hearts after Emeraude-hime died.

But I still can't stop thinking about him.

My prince. He who first came to trick us, to use us to help him find a way out of the forest. I hadn't trusted him then. I was so sure that he was just another challenge that we had to pass in order to reach the princess. I just knew he was there to cause us ill will.

I was wrong.

Ferio was kind, and quick to forgive. I had been the only one who had been suspicious of him, the others being charmed so easily. But it was after that when he gave me the ring that I could not get him out of my mind. The others forgot him easily- they had so much else to think of. But I couldn't. I always wondered why he had bothered to help us, to think if his words were true or if he had finally tricked me also.

He told me that I could do anything.

I believed him. He wasn't the only one to tell me that- my friends tell me that. My family tells me that. But they get a certain look in their eyes when they do... almost as if they're feeding me a fairy tale that they had once believed in.

But he looks like he truly means it. Like he doesn't know that I could fail. He convinced me that losing was all in my mind, and that I just had to put my mind to something in order to accomplish it. He was my dream, my hope for tomorrow. He was the one person that I hoped to see again every day that I spent in Cephiro. And even though I couldn't recognize it at that time, I was slowly starting to fall in love.

It had been over all too soon. With the tragedy of Emeraude-hime, of how we had killed someone- a living, breathing person. The tragedy of how we had killed so many others came crashing down on us. How many people had been crushed who were in the way of our quest? All the people who had tried to protect the princess.

Suddenly, we realized that this was no game. It was real, and we were not the good guys.

Sometimes, my sister had told me, we do the worst things with our best intentions in mind.

It couldn't have been more true in our case. We came back to Tokyo crying, trying to destroy this pain in our heart that told us that even with the best things in mind, we made the worst mistake.

And the worst thing was: it was the only thing we could do.

I had started to distrust what Ferio said then. I couldn't do anything right. Why would anyone trust me with anything? Nothing I did would turn out right, and nothing I believed in was the same. I was just one person; what could I accomplish?

I had forgotten about Ferio, buried the pain in my chest whenever I thought of the boy with the cheeky grin. I had more things to worry about, more pain to carry and burden myself with.

I had banished all thought of Ferio until Hikaru mentioned wanting to go back to Cephiro, maybe attoning for her sins. It sounded so good... to be able to finally rid myself of this pain, of this sadness what I felt. I had instantly agreed, wanting nothing more than redemption.

But it was there that I met the Prince of Cephiro.

I had never known there was a prince. Emeralde-hime's younger brother, they said.

A sad boy, they had added. I longed to figure out who he was, to see if I knew him- and altogether trying to come up with an apology for killing his sister. After all, what were you to say to a man after you killed his only family, who just happened to be the most beloved princess in Cephiro?

Imagine my surprise when I realized that prince was Ferio. Imagine my shock and my fears about him hating me. I had nearly burst into tears the moment I saw his face again, even though I wanted to see him again in so long. It was most certainly not the reunion that I had imagined and had been waiting for. It had made my eyes water up when I realized that I had not only killed the princess, I had also killed the only sister of the person that I was falling in love with.

He was so understanding. So sweet and kind and charming, just as I knew him to be. But this time there was a sadness in his eyes, a sadness that I knew was caused by me. He could not deny it when I said that, although he gave a small laugh and said that if I were right, then this sadness also leaves only in my presence.

Sweet, sweet Ferio. He supported me throughout our battles, worried for me as I worried for him, and was still able to smile at me and look completely sincere. He told me that I was kept in his heart, and I believed him. I was slowly starting to rebelieve all that he had told me. All the whispers in my ears, all the stories or the beautiful land of Cephiro being able to make true our wildest dreams.

It was then that I felt guilty about Hikaru and Umi. They didn't have anyone, while I had the support of such a wonderful boy. I knew that Hikaru was not ready to give her love to a single person, though. She was still too kind and too willing to risk everything for her friends and those who she believed to be good. Yet it was Umi that I worried about. She and Clef spent a lot of time together, worrying over the small things and never realizing that they were starting to relax together. I was the only one who could see tension building in Presea when those two were together. It was something that told me Presea had feelings for the Master Magician of Cephiro.

Besides, I could also see how much Ascot blushed around Umi, even though she never saw it like that. I think she still sees Ascot as the small boy the we had defeated on our quest last time we went to Cephiro. Yet Ascot seemed to see Umi as a lot more than that, and I could only give him my blessings. Clef had an ancient pain that Umi would not be able to take on, but I had a feeling that Presea was willing to do anything for Clef. I wasn't wrong.

But I was so worried about Hikaru. She was the one who had taken the burden of protecting Cephiro onto her small shoulders, and she refused to give us any of the weight. She seemed changed moreso by the second time we went to Cephiro than the first time. It wasn't hard to tell her crush on Lantis, yet it also wasn't hard to tell that she didn't truly love Lantis the way I loved Ferio by then. She considered Lantis a very close friend, who would protect her yet try to ignore her at the same time. I guess she thought that was amusing.

Umi and I had been so frightened for her when she and Eagle took the test for Pillar. We wanted to plead with her to Eagle behind, as much as I hated to admit. Yet she refused to let her enemy die, as he had become another dear friend within the short time that she had known him.

It was her heart that allowed the sadly cheerful young man to live, and it was her heart that saved all of Cephiro. Yet I'm sad that she doesn't have someone like I do, that she didn't have a special someone dedicated only to her.

Like me. Like I have Ferio and am sure that he will always be with me.

I know. We visit the new Cephiro at least once a week, checking up on friends that we find more dear than those on Earth. I know I have Ferio supporting me... the prince with the golden eyes and the green hair.

Umi seems to have gotten closer to Ascot in the last few weeks, and Hikaru quickly took to Lantis and Eagle both. But Ferio and I have something that the others don't have. I don't mean to brag, although I could tell by the way those golden eyes look at me, how he said that my eyes were the most beautiful of all.

Everything thinks that my favorite color is green. They were wrong. Ferio's favorite color is green.

My favorite color... is gold. The brightest amber that I've ever seen, shining with love....

All for me.

Sanersa: *glares* ...how the hell did you do that?!
Alycilos: *smuggly* How did I take over the story, you mean?
Sanersa: Stupid male!! *steams* This is my story, not yours.
Alycilos: I'm a muse, also!!!
Sanersa: Yeah, well, you're a bad one!! What the hell is with the depressing mood in the middle?!

^^;; Please excuse my muses. They don't like each other. *whispers* You think they'll get together one day?

Alycilos and Sanersa: HEY!!!!!!!!

^^;;;;;;;;;;