As she begs me not to leave, I swallow hard, tears swimming across my multi-hued vision. This was all I ever wanted - Seele's affection and approval - but this was wrong, the way the colour of her voice was wrong. Do you know what blood smells like? Do you cringe away from it, realizing that its taint will wrap itself into your mind, drawing you in and repulsing you all the same? Such is the way Seele's fall haunts me, pushing and pulling at my emotions, coaxing me into a shivering sweat. "I won't leave you," I promise her in a whisper, my voice raw and wild. "None of us will. Just breathe."

Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.

Wrong.

My vocals try to soothe her, try to force a calming balm over her frantic, heaving terror. That is the only way I can describe what I see in her eyes - but I cannot look for too long before I find myself shrinking away from the pain I cannot heal, the darkness I cannot banish. How could I, when the same darkness lies in me? We are of the same blood, Seele and I - of course, she got the worst of it, but how can I help her when I have never been able to help myself? I have only learned to live with it better than she.

Schwere paces, flickering ever closer to Seele in what I can only describe as death's march - there is something hungry in the way he moves, the way he prowls, almost catlike, towards his other daughter. For once, his insanity is not meant for me, not focused on my alleged weakness - no, for once, I am stronger than she; and his memory, or his soul, or his ghost, or whatever he is in my vision, longs for some other victim. Liebling and Unheil, quiet but ever-present, are a gentle aura in the edges of my sight. But our father takes the stage, vivid and active, slashing and cutting through the air before me.

"There is nothing I can do, Midas," I answer the Czar, my voice hardened with the knowledge of my defeat. "Sickness of the body is easy - you remove the symptoms, treat the infection. It's visible, it's biological, it's right there in front of you. But the mind? Gods only know how our minds even work, much less how they get all fucked up." I pause, my breath falling shakily through my nostrils in a harsh sigh. "The God of the Earth might be the only one who could help her. I don't know. All I know is that I can't fix this. We can be here for her, but we cannot save her."