The only time she would allow herself the coldness of her breed was in recollection, in times when she, in solitude, could gaze at the scars blotched on the otherwise pristine skin of her pale body. She needed the ice in those times, because they were not the burdens of others; they were her own wounds to nurse.

The scars sometimes ran in ragged patterns, sometimes in loops, sometimes in flecks, sometimes in criss-crossing lines. Some were from cuts, some from burns, some from rips and tears. She could look upon them and recall the methods and means, her fingers tracing them tenderly as her mind's eye could not view the memories as such. She could recall the emptying of her soul, the hollowness she had embraced not as an acceptance of her fate but as a means of her only rebellion.

She could be as frigid as her homeland tundra if it meant fighting against the darkness.

It was in loneliness that she had found solace and in the company of neighboring birds that she found her only happiness. They reminded her that she was not empty yet, not just yet - that she could cling to the remnants of love and beauty in her heart if only she could keep them safe from the rest of the world, just like the beautiful tear nestled inside her belly.

It was their loss that broke her heart, that snapped her every reserve, and the misery was driven home with a sharp spike of guilt. She had no one to blame but herself. She was a slave to greed, and nothing beautiful was safe anymore. She cried for them - she cried for what she believed would be the very last time for the last thing she would allow herself to love for the world's own good.

She hadn't believed that she would be saved, and she hadn't believed that the human she had just met would feel sympathy for her pains. She could not feel sympathy for herself, not even now in the safety of Genkai's home where her only dangers were the mundane and she had the support of so many loving people.

The simple truth was that the only one she could not allow herself to cry for was herself. She had learned long ago in a desolate place that her pain gave evil its pleasure, and if that were to be the case, then she would give it nothing.