Life is lived for moments. Though you may not yet realize it, you know this to be true. For many, the moments that are lived for come at the end of a day when you get home from work and kick up your feet, a beverage in one hand and a remote in the other. Such lives are taken one day at a time and enjoyed one day at a time. For others, the moments that are lived for do not come so frequently. The artist knows this. The writer knows this. The politician knows this. Men and women who cling to professions like these do so because they wish to have their lives cultivate grander moments. They struggle through trial and error. They gamble what they have on hopes and dreams. And when their aspirations are met, when that canvas is painted, that book written, or that position obtained, the moments are so much sweeter because so much more was put into them. It is a drug called ambition, and it is highly addicting. For a select few, it is so addicting that they will forgo all other pleasures so that they may build themselves towards a single moment for the whole of their lives. Romantics such as these are seeking a climax. They are trying to make their lives like a story that would be worth reading and remembering. Though it may not explicitly be their goal to do so, it is nonetheless the result.

Daemeon’s life culminated into this moment that comes next. He relinquished almost every worldly pleasure in search of truth. No matter how certain he became that any of his truths were what he was looking for, his hungry mind still pressed on. It wanted a climax. It wanted a moment that would bring sense to every other moment. He sought the moment that would once and for all prove to him the value and righteousness of his own life. He did not realize for himself how painfully addicted he was to the search until this moment that follows when his life as he knew it ended.

Daemeon’s and Colgate’s eyes bounced back and forth between the large, carved double doors to the limp form of the priest beside them. The man’s first thought was not to panic, for of course the door was locked. Fr. Allen always locked it. It was not until a moment later when he saw the door begin to creak open very slowly that Daemeon realized that on that day of all days, the man who was even older than himself had left it open just for him to come along.

His mind immediately went to the mare he loved, and he whispered to her with extreme seriousness, “Hide under the pew, and don’t come out unless I tell you. We can’t let anyone find you.”

She did not want to hide away. She did not like the thought of leaving her man alone to whomever might come through that door. He seemed very scared, and that terrified her. This was not her world though, and she did not know what was about to happen. So she conceded and hid beneath the pew out of sight. She saw her man stand and stared at his black loafers which were pointed to the door.

Warrun stopped his advance halfway through the door, causing a chill Autumn breeze to roll in from behind him. Dressed from head to toe in his uniform, the First Officer stood blinking repeatedly at Daemeon. The first few blinks were out of confusion. The next few came from recognition. The blinking stopped all together, and his eyes widened like saucers when it dawned on him that the curiously dressed and ill groomed man before him was none other than the Devil. And of all places he had to find him, he found him in a cathedral.

Daemeon was a perceptive man. His skill at reading people’s emotions was unrivalled. His many years living on the streets helped him to follow the emotions of the exchange that occurred in silence. He saw the confusion. That was to be expected. His stomach was already tightening into a knot when he realized the man was an officer of the law. When that confusion became recognition, he felt real fear. Having spent his whole life trying to blend into the background, the thought that anyone should recognize him unnerved him. Then that confusion turned into hate. Daemeon had never seen such a transition in his life. There was nothing in between. It was as though a chunk of ice had been dropped into lava and evaporated without ever becoming a liquid. It threw him off guard, making him feel very uncertain. His quick thinking mind stumbled backwards, and so did he. He did not know the man before him. He didn’t think he’d ever seen him in his life. Nothing could have prepared him for what happened next.

Lifting a shaking hand, Warrun pointed an accusatory finger at Daemeon and said with a powerful voice full of righteous fury, “You!”

Feeling timid to the point of nakedness before such a man, Daemeon stuttered, “Ye-yes?”

Breathing heavily, his face red with bloodlust, Warrun both stated and demanded, “You die now!”

Daemeon’s mouth fell open to speak, but no words came. He would not have had the chance anyways. Warrun charged like a bull, as fast on his feet as a man in his prime. In a second, the twenty foot gap between them was closed and Daemeon saw the man full of hate land his first blow. In his mind, he realized just how much hate this man whom he’d never met had for him. He might have knocked him out if he’d gone for his head. Any number of the tools on his belt could have incapacitated him. Any number of attacks every officer would know could have quickly disabled him. Daemeon knew this, yet Warrun chose instead to ram his fist with all his fury right into his stomach. The impact was so brutal, Daemeon was lifted several inches off the ground, and he lost his vision. He knew it had only been a fist, but he almost couldn’t believe it wasn’t a sledgehammer.

Down on his knees, Daemeon opened his mouth to cry, but a sharp feminine voice beat him to it. In that instant, he realized that it was not just himself that had been punched but also his dear little Colgate as well. No matter how painful the punch had been, it was a worse agony to know that Colgate received it in equal measure because of him.

Warrun reached down to the man on his knees and grabbed the front of his hoodie in two tightly clenched fists. Looking into his eyes, he shouted, “You are the monster I’ve been looking for.” Lifting him high in the air as though he were a rag doll, he slammed him into the ground while demanding, “What are you doing in God’s House?”

The blast knocked the wind out of him. Like a fish out of water, Daemeon tried desperately to breathe, but his lungs would not open up to admit any air. It was at that moment that he thought to himself, “I’m going to die.” With the tiniest haze of vision coming back to him, Daemeon looked over at his mare curled beneath the pew shivering in agony. “We’re going to die.”

Shaking with adrenaline, Warrun bent down and straddled Daemeon’s chest. A very animal part of Warrun wanted to claw the man’s face off. As angry as he was, he was not without some sense of mind. “I won’t do that.” He reached forward with his hands and grasped them firmly around Daemeon’s neck. “I’m not the monster. He is. I’ll do it quick. It’s more than he deserves.”

He clenched his hands. They were large hands. Warrun was a robust man. Maybe he was not the largest or the strongest of those noble men and women to come out of the academy, but he was certainly the most honored and convicted. In person, Warrun almost couldn’t believe that the Devil was such a small, almost scrawny man. Nails dug into his forearms as Warrun tightened his vice like grip. He didn’t have to ignore them. They were so insubstantial and weak as to be unregistrable. Warrun was in ecstasy as he watched the man beneath him begin to die. “He’s so weak! He’s nothing! Thank you, God. Thank you. Die! Die, you sick fuck! You schemy, slimy, scummy piece of shit. Die! Fucking die!”

Daemeon submitted. For an instant, he was beyond panic. His mind flooded with bitter resignation and inward tears he did not have the strength or time to release. The man above him, whoever he was, had dark blue eyes full of pleasure and hate, layered upon each other until they became one and the same. He did not want those loathing eyes to be the last thing he saw in life. He tried to look right towards his little Colgate, but he could not. She was out of his gaze, away from him, suffering alone without him there to comfort her. The thought sickened him, but he had no time to dwell on it. He looked left instead and rested his gaze on a curious figure that was both familiar and foreign to him. It was familiar in that he knew of it. He knew just about everything there was to know about it. The world in which he lived would hardly be the same if the figure he saw weren’t recognized by so many. It was foreign though too. For everything he knew about the figure, he did not understand it. He did not see its value. To him, it was an icon that meant nothing. Still, it drew his eyes and sparked the tiniest thought and fear. He wondered in that moment what death would mean for him. He wondered what being nothing would feel like. The thought of not being was so far outside his realm of understanding that he could not help but wonder in that moment between moments.

Enraged though he may be, Warrun saw the man give up before it was truly over. The Devil was not dead yet, yet he was submitting as though he were. Those dark grey eyes, almost orbs of black, were focused intently on a figure to their left. That focus drew his focus, and Warrun stole a glance to follow where they gazed. The figure on which his eyes came to rest stunned him. It mortified him. It terrified him. It caused his heart to skip and flooded his body and mind with immeasurable shame, powerful shame. It was a boiling and burning shame that struck him with the force of a train.

Warrun faltered. He withdrew his hands violently and jumped away from the Devil’s prone body as a child jumps away from a spider. The First Officer stood trembling, his eyes bouncing between his hands, the body, and the figure on the wall. For the first time in a long time, he felt profound fear for that indefinable thing that people for thousands of years have been struggling to define: his immortal soul. He saw in his actions in that moment what he believed them to be, what he knew them to be. And what they were was a terrible, terrible thing. They were evil. They were murder.

Still he struggled. Warrun shot his hand into his holster and withdrew his handgun. He pointed it directly at the head of the shallowly breathing, unconscious man and moved to end him once and for all. Try as he might, he could not force those fingers to follow through. Not there. Not in God’s house with his Son looking down at him, reminding him that his deeds were not justified. Warrun was not God. He was only a man, an ignorant man who could not begin to understand the complexity of God’s creation. Because he knew this, he understood that there was no way for him to justify what he wanted to do. There was nothing in him that believed he was in the right for committing cold blooded murder, even if he completely believed the world would be made better because of it. At his sister’s home, he’d found his faith. Now, there was no letting it go.

The man holstered his weapon, bitterly cursing while tears drenched his eyes. He slammed the man’s chest and pressed lips with his, forcing breath into his lungs. He was not going to be a murderer, not even of the Devil.

Daemeon knew consciousness by its pain. His body was wracked with it. It hurt to move. It hurt to breath. It hurt to be. Yet, he was. As far as he could tell, he was still alive. If that was not the doing of Lady Luck, he didn’t know what was. He felt himself propped upwards in a sitting position, his back against a cool, hard surface. It took him a moment to fathom the implications of his still being alive. The first thought he had was for his dear mare. This was his motivation to open his eyes. Needless to say, he was surprised by what he saw.

That police officer who’d tried to kill him was sitting on the floor across from him, his back also relaxed against a pew. In his arms, he cradled that tiny creature who was so very, very dear to Daemeon. Daemeon’s gut reaction was to leap forward and snatch his little Colgate away from the man, but he did not have the strength and feared for his mare’s safety. Instead, he suffered himself to observe silently as the man across from him gently petted and caressed the tiny pony. Daemeon watched intently, searching for signs of breathing. He couldn’t help but let loose a sigh of relief when he saw her ribs shifting just as gently as the man pet her.

Warrun lifted his eyes at the sound and raised a gun towards Daemeon. His face was firmly set. Instead of hate staining it however, there was only concern and curiosity. He asked quietly, “Are you alright?”

Daemeon nodded slightly, “Yes.”

In a stern voice, Warrun demanded, “Did you kill my uncle?”

Struggling to shake his head, Daemeon grunted, “No. He died of a heart attack.”

Warrun sighed and set down his gun. He cradled the mare in both his arms and stated, “That’s what I was afraid of. I still have nothing on you. I could bring you to prison, but I have nothing real to charge you with except maybe several trespassing fines. That wouldn’t be very satisfying though, would it? It would have been better if you’d murdered him, then I could charge you with homicide and put you away for a long time.”

Confused, Daemeon couldn’t help but ask, “Why do you believe me?”

“It’s not what you do,” he answered, shrugging his shoulders. “You are nothing if not consistently chaotic. You’ve never killed anyone directly before. I’d just as well assume you didn’t directly kill my uncle either.”

Silence ensued for several moments as the pair sat across from each other. It might have been better for Daemeon if he’d not been such a curious person all his life. His desire to know anything and everything had gotten him into a lot of trouble over the course of his life. Most especially, he had a hard time shutting up when perhaps he should have. He was immensely fortunate in that moment that the man before him was no longer out for blood as Daemeon asked, “Why didn’t you kill me?”

Without looking up, Warrun answered simply, “Jesus told me not to.”

Daemeon was forced into a gaping mouthed silence.

“Well, not me personally,” Warrun clarified, looking up to meet Daemeon’s eyes. “He told all of us a long time ago. You know, love you neighbor as you love yourself. God help me, I want to kill you. That’d be the only revenge I can get out of you that’d be worth it. But the way I see it, that’s really the one thing I can’t do. Jesus told us to love each other, so that’s what I’ve got to do.”

“Don’t you hate me?”

Warrun sighed heavily at the pointed question. He answered softly, “I did. I really did. I did for so long, I thought there was nothing that could cause me not to. It’s strange how God plans things. If I’d found you any night before this one, I’d have killed you without a moment’s thought. Even tonight, I almost did.”

“What stopped you?”

Turning his head to the icon on the wall, he explained, “Just as I was about to finish you off, I saw you looking at that Crucifix over there. Seeing it reminded me of who I was and what I was doing. So I stopped. What else could I do? I couldn’t just kill you when I knew that I shouldn’t.”

In a somehow accusatory voice, Daemeon declared, “People do what they shouldn’t all the time! They especially are almost always hypocritical when it comes to their religion. Why would you bother to cling to your faith when no one else does?”

Scrunching up his face in consternation, Warrun commented, “You must be a very ignorant person if you think nobody holds to their faith. You might be surprised to know that most people hold to their faith. Exactly what that faith is is a different story. It hardly seems any of your business though, or mine. People will almost always do what they believe to be right. Nobody thinks of themselves as the villain after all. I bet you’ve got your own little justifications for what you’ve done. Unfortunately, your actions have been hurting a lot of people over the years. A lot of people. And I just can’t let that continue anymore.”

Daemeon grimaced slightly in pain as he asked indignantly, “And just what are you going to do about it?”

Stroking Colgate softly, Warrun returned, “The easiest thing for me to do would be to kill you. Unfortunately, that wouldn’t be the best thing to do. I can’t arrest you either, so I’m in the difficult situation of having to trust you when you have done nothing to earn it.”

“Trust me?!” Daemeon exclaimed. “Why would you trust me?”

“Don’t get your hopes too high. I may have forgiven your sins, but they are in no way absolved. You have amends to make, and I’m going to make sure you make them. If there’s any good to be had out of your miserable existence, I intend to squeeze every last drop out of it. The only trust I’m placing in you is that you don’t want to be miserable anymore. Do you think I’m assuming too much? Or are you as much of a wretch to yourself as you are to me?”

Daemeon’s lips moved to make a sharp retort, but rare prudence checked them. He had to admit to himself because Colgate had forced him to do so. His life was bitter. The only thing that made it sweet was her love. And the only thing keeping it alive was this stranger’s love. The thought confused him. It was illogical. It did not fit into his understanding of the universe. It caused him to demand, “Are you sure you don’t hate me anymore? Not even a little?”

The question perplexed Warrun. He was quick to answer though, and the answer surprised even himself, “No. I don’t. I can’t. I believe in God. I believe in the Word. Since I believe, I can’t really justify hating you or anybody for that matter.”

“Screw justification!” Daemeon cried. He lurched forward and struggled slowly across the floor towards Warrun. The First Officer watched him carefully as the insane man lifted his face to demand, “Hate doesn’t have to justified. It just is. You can’t love me. You must hate me. I’ve done terrible things, and you know it. Hate me! Hate me! If you love anything, then hate me. You must.”

Warrun felt a deeply rooted tinge of sorrow for the man. “He must have suffered greatly in his life.” He stated with strength and determination, “I don’t have to hate you. Love and hate, those things aren’t feelings. I can choose to love. And I can choose to hate. Believe it or not, you can choose to love everybody and hate nobody. It’s a difficult and endless struggle, but you can do it. It’s what Jesus did. It’s what he told us to do.”

Gasping, Daemeon cried, “But I don’t believe in God. I don’t believe in Jesus!”

“You don’t have to.”

The simplistic statement caught Daemeon off guard. His lip quivering, he asked like a confused and distraught child, “You, you don’t?”

Warrun shook his head and gave a soft, knowing smile. He explained, “Believing in something doesn’t make it real. Disbelieving doesn’t make it imaginary. Things just are or aren’t. With something as big and complex as God is, your disbelieving isn’t going to make him go away and my believing isn’t going to make him appear. It’s all a matter of faith. It’s not something that forces us to do what is best. It’s something that helps us realize what is best.”

Daemeon sat back in a daze and asked, “You mean it doesn’t really matter what you believe? All that matters is what you do?”

“Of course it matters! It just doesn’t matter in the way you think it does.” Warrun frowned and puckered his lips pensively. “You are confusing faith with the thing people are aiming for. You think that believing in God or Jesus is the end of it all. And because that faith doesn’t change anything, it frustrates you. So I imagine you think believing in God is stupid. It isn’t though. It isn’t stupid, and it’s not the end. Faith is only a means.”

“A means to what?!” Daemeon demanded haughtily and angrily.

“Love.”

Daemeon scowled and scoffed at the answer. It made him bitter. That word was so frequently put up on a pedestal of what must be had or felt for a life to be worth living. Well, it wasn’t. Daemeon knew the truth, and he did not hesitate to counter, “Love is the spawn of hate though! How can that be the end of life? How can that be its purpose? When you love something, you learn to hate everything that threatens it. That is why you must hate me! Fuck your faith. Fuck it all! Hate me. You have to.”

Belligerent though the man before him may be, Warrun remained calm and stoic. He did not even cease his gentle caressing of the mare in his arms. He was completely at ease, yet he was not haughty. Rather, he’d found a profound understanding within himself when he’d let the man before him live instead of die. He’d found the conviction necessary for his answer. The memory of his wife in his heart, along with the love of his daughter and sister, Warrun explained the apparent contradiction to the angry human before him by asking a question, “Do you know the story of Adam and Eve?”

“Fuck that story.”

Not the least bit impressed with his apparent distaste, Warrun continued, “I’ll take that as a yes. Do you understand why they were kicked out of the Garden?”

Daemeon felt himself being lead. It was an odd feeling. It was usually he who did the leading. He wanted leave the police officer, but he could not. The gun, the warning, and his dear little mare held him in check. His eyes were glued on her as he answered with disgust, “Because they ate some fruit. They took it upon themselves to know themselves. For that, they were punished. The story is nothing though, and you know it. The Earth is a lot older than 4,000 years, and that story has nothing in it.”

“Things are whether you want them to be or not,” Warrun repeated. “Just because you choose not to see something does not mean there is nothing there. You are partly right though. They chose to know themselves as God does. They chose to seek knowledge instead of remaining as the animals do. They wanted to know what was good and what was evil. Perhaps you know the result?”

“Yes,” Daemeon answered snidely. “It’s a set up for a Testament of murder, lechery, and hate. What a great story to tell! The cunning pile of shit was written to cow people to ignorance. What does learning get you? It gets you nothing but despair. Better that we listen blindly to our authority figures who claim that their leadership is divine. It’s all nothing.”

“And yet,” Warrun stated, his voice practically a whisper in comparison to Daemeon’s exaggerated cries, “you used the word Testament instead of book. Funny that you should draw a line without explaining why. You’ve left out the last and most important third of the history.”

Daemeon averted his eyes and answered in frustration, “The rest of it is just as inconsequential.”

Now was the time for Warrun to speak up, “Inconsequential? Ha! It has saved your life. I would call that anything but inconsequential.”

“Your own idiocy saved me, not some fool and trickster born 2,000 years ago.”

“They both saved you,” Warrun countered vehemently. “They and the trillions of little events to come in between. But you are right about something. Exactly why you are alive is not so consequential. It is the fact that you are that is. All that history would have meant nothing if I’d killed you. It only matters because I didn’t. It matters to me. And it should matter to you.”

Daemeon stumbled on his words as he tried to answer, but Warrun’s logic fit his own logic. He could not argue against it because it was his very own. He sat back and again leaned against the cold, hard pew. Pulling his legs to his chest, he insisted softly, “I don’t believe in God.”

“Maybe,” Warrun interjected, “but you cannot ignore what the belief of others has done for you. Perhaps you think it’s foolish, but my faith in God has saved your life. It might even make your life better. It might just make you happier.” Warrun paused and silence ensued. He let the silence happen, let the man across from him ponder what he’d said. He broke the silence by asking, “Do you know what knowledge is?”

Daemeon’s mind rang out in answer, “It’s what I’ve spent my whole life searching for!” His lips did not speak the words though. They were not really an answer, surely it was not the answer the officer was looking for. Rather than argue what the answer was, he submitted by shaking his head.

Warrun followed Daemeon’s gaze to the tiny, blue unicorn in his arms. “She is such a beautiful thing,” he marveled to himself. Running his fingers through her mane, he explained simply, “Knowledge is love.”

The comment drew Daemeon’s surprised gaze and their eyes met once more.

Without looking up, Warrun continued, “The Old Testament is a bloody, ugly thing. That is because Adam and Eve did not really find knowledge in the Garden. What they really found was the ability to know. That is where good and evil, love and hate, are found. To know someone is to love them. No matter how cruel, how torn, or how unjustified a person is in what they do, you can only really hate them if you do not know or understand them. As soon as you do know them, you know why they are the way they are. You understand them. Therefore, it becomes impossible to hate them. Hate is ignorance. It’s only possible when you do not understand a person. That is why knowledge is love.”

Softly, Daemeon retorted with a tongue that did not spit venom, “But you do not know me. You do not know why I did all the things I said I did. How can you love me?”

“Don’t you know?” Warrun said gently, looking back up to the man. “It’s because I have faith in God. If God’s real, then that means you were created by a force that understands both you and me and the universe in its entirety. And in that vast idea is the fact that you and I are together right here in this moment. If I believe that God made both you and I, then how can I do anything but love you?”

The question was followed by a long silence. Some silences are deafening. You know these silences. They are filled with anticipation of something. They are awaiting something drastic or profound to happen. The waiting makes them hard to stomach, and gives them a length and depth that goes beyond our normal perception of time. Other silences are soft though. They are the silences after the battle has been fought and the field lays strewn with corpses and tears. They are the silences after the orgasm when two lovers are left relishing in each other. They are the silences after the climax signalling that a gentle end is nigh and an unknown beginning will come to be. Of these two types of silences, the lack of discourse between those two men represented the latter.

Warrun ended the silence with soft, deliberate movement. He got to his knees and closed the gap between him and the man before him. As carefully as he could, he relinquished the tiny, blue mare in his arms. Daemeon’s heart skipped as he took her into his grasp. A broad smile beamed across his face as he held her. He could not and would not help himself. She made him happier than anyone or anything in his life ever had before. He brought her face to his and imparted a tender kiss on her cheek.

A similar smile crossed Warrun’s lips as he witnessed the action. His smile persisted even as a small twinge of sadness rippled through him. That kiss reminded him so much of his dear wife, Maria, that he could almost feel her presence at his side. He sniffled, wiping a stray drop of moisture from his eye, and asked, “Will you stay here for the night? I want to take my uncle to the station and tell my family that he’s passed. I’d feel better if someone were here to watch the place.”

Daemeon was beyond the point of interrogating the man for the outrageous trust he placed in him. He only gave a gentle nod of assent and watched as the First Officer stood and walked to the slumped body in the pew. Warrun picked up the frail form with care, not struggling the least, and turned a firm gaze towards Daemeon. He stated in no uncertain terms, “I will be back tomorrow morning to pick you up. We have a lot of work to do.”

Again Daemeon nodded, watching in awe as that mysterious officer disappeared out the large double doors of the cathedral and into the dark night beyond. He would have continued to sit in mystified awe for a long time were it not for a soft, feminine voice whispering his name.

“Daemeon?”

The man’s heart skipped at the word and shot his eye downward. “Colgate!” he shrieked. “You’re okay. Thank goodness you’re okay.” He hugged her, nuzzled her, kissed her. “I was so worried.”

Wincing at her man’s sudden affection, Colgate grunted, “Not so rough. It still hurts.”

Daemeon flinched at the realization. The spell did not reciprocate the pain of his roughness since it was produced from affection. He loosened his grip and held her very tenderly. He begged to know, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. How long have you been awake? Did you just wake up?”

Colgate smiled grimly and shook her head. “I’ve been awake for a while, but I didn’t dare let that other human know, not after the way he hurt us. But then, I also heard your conversation.” The statement cowed Daemeon to silence and she saw him avert his eyes from hers. She stated, “His life mocks yours, doesn’t it?”

Without looking at her, Daemeon asked with feigned ignorance, “How so?”

“He does everything you say men and women should do,” the little blue mare responded, “without believing any of the same things you believe. In fact, he believes in the exact opposite of what you believe. The fact that he exists makes everything you’ve done until now moot. People don’t need to disbelieve in God to be able to live together peacefully as you say.”

After an almost tense moment of silence, Daemeon gave a resigned sigh and acquiesced, “Yes. It appears you’re right. That man, whoever he was, just invalidated my entire life by not killing me when he had the chance to. I don’t know him, but I know he knows all the things I’ve done in my life. That kind of hate doesn’t just come out of nothing. I must have hurt someone very close to him. I might have even killed somebody he knew without ever realizing it. Yet without having any understanding of why I did as I did, he forgave me. The fool forgave me. He should have killed me.”

“You said yourself,” Colgate chided, “that nothing good can come from death. Since the future is uncertain, the only thing you gain from killing someone is the guarantee that they can never do anything good with their lives. I think that man believes the same thing. Why would he have let you live otherwise?”

“Because he believes some divine entity is standing over him. He is afraid.”

Colgate gave a small, sad half laugh and commented, “You told me that, whatever the reasons might have been and whatever had lead up to its creation, the couch is still white. Is this really any different? What does it matter what his motivations are? The end is still the same. He forgave you. I forgave you. Is our forgiveness any less relevant or real because it took two days of intercourse for me to understand and forgive you while it only took that man a moment to decide to forgive you. If anything, his forgiving you seems the more efficient route. He didn’t have to understand you. He just had to understand that he couldn’t fully understand you, so it was never really his right to pass judgment and kill you.”

Daemeon did not return her words. He seemed a little lost, a little broken. Suddenly it seemed to him that his life had no meaning. He sat dead, empty, devoid of purpose. He couldn’t say anything. He couldn’t even think anything. His face became emotionless as he set into a profound indifference towards his life and life in general.

His mare witnessed these changes in him. The look of defeat, utter defeat, was too much for Colgate to bear. She knew exactly what that look meant. Not two days before, her face had twisted in defeat as she had come to believe that her very purpose in life meant nothing. She’d seen herself as a replaceable tool who was only valued for what she could do. For believing as she had, she found herself in sadness, in despair, defeated. After spending those two days with Daemeon however, she’d discovered exactly what it was that made life worth living. She knew what it was that made it special. Daemeon had helped her to see it. Now she knew it was her turn to return the favor. She steeled herself for one final round of discourse, for she knew what was to come next.

“He was right about something, Daemeon.”

Distantly, her man returned, “Oh? What was that?”

Colgate rolled out of his grasp. Though it was difficult and her insides quivered with no small amount of pain, she stood up on her hind legs and placed her forehooves on each of his shoulders so that their eyes met at the same height. She needed to look at him as an equal, so that he would believe the importance of what she had to explain. She saw his eyes were dim, but she’d caught their attention fully. So she spoke, “The reason you haven’t been happy, haven’t succeeded at what you’re doing, is because you are trying to snuff out love with knowledge when really, as he says, the two are one and the same. To know a pony is to love a pony. To choose not to know a pony, that is hate. They are not mutually inclusive as you say. One does not lead to the other. Rather, they exclude each other. Hate can only happen where there’s a lack of love, a lack of knowledge, a lack of empathy.”

The mare closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She admitted what she had been avoiding telling him for most of the day, “That’s why I was unhappy in Equestria. It wasn’t because I had the wrong job. It wasn’t because I didn’t have the freedom to change. I’ve always had the freedom to do something differently. I’ve just been fortunate to live in a world that does not make mistakes about what best I could do with my life. Even then, that’s not what made me bitter. No. I was bitter because I did not bother to empathize with other ponies. I did not bother to form personal connections, to grow or understand them on any intimate level. And because of that, I thrived on my own ignorance. You and I are not so very different, Daemeon. In fact, we are so similar that you were probably the closest any human could come to understanding a pony. Maybe that’s why Celestia sent me here. I don’t know. All I do know is that I wasn’t happy until I met you. I didn’t love anypony until I was forced to spend time with you, until I was forced to care about somepony other than myself. And that’s what it’s always been about, hasn’t it? It’s always been just about love. That’s what makes life worth living.”

She opened her eyes, a small tear seeping out and dripping down her blue furred cheek. Daemeon could feel her trembling and he couldn’t understand why. He wanted to hug her, but she was so focused on him, intent on saying what she wanted to say, that he dared not disturb her thought. She pressed her final question, “Do you understand me, Daemeon? Do you believe me?”

The defeat was gone from his eyes. He answered her, “Yes! Yes, Colgate. A thousand times, yes. You’ve made my life so sweet, there can be no other answer. I love you Colgate. I love you with all my heart.”

His little mare shivered in delight at the words. She loved hearing them more than anything. But just when her heart leapt for joy, it also shattered violently. From behind her, she heard the air pierce and rip, and the church filled with soft blue light. The beautiful Colgate did not have to turn her head to know from where the light emanated. Now was the time.

Daemeon’s eyes shifted in wonder, then went wide with horror. His whole body trembled and he felt his stomach bottom out. He’d hoped so hard that it would not happen that he’d almost convinced himself it wouldn’t. How could it? How could such sweet intimacy end? Their words, their thoughts, their feeling, their touches and caresses and love; how could that end when it was such a miraculous thing? He threw his arms around her and pulled her in close. He cried out despairingly, “No! No! You can’t go!”

Colgate did not respond except to weep into his bare neck.

His heart racing, Daemeon’s eyes darted around the cathedral. He didn’t know why he looked. Perhaps he was searching for a reason why she must stay. There was nothing to find though. His eyes were constantly drawn back to the portal spiralling inward, a hole to an Earth he could only dream of, a place so wonderful as to almost be perfect. The fact passed through his mind in that instant, triggering the defeating thought, “Her world is so much better than the one we have here.”

Daemeon tried to control his breathing. He had very little success. There was even less success with his heart. It raced like a stallion’s. It raced for his little Colgate. It raced with love. And out of that love was born the realization that he could not contain her. She did not belong in his world, and he knew that. She knew that. Neither of them wanted to say it, but they both knew it. And he knew that there was nothing he could do to change that fact.

After that painful moment of tears, Daemeon whispered, “I’m going to miss you.”

Colgate was hiccuping. Everything hurt. Snot was oozing out of her nose and smearing all over her lover’s skin. She didn’t care, and neither did he. It took all her courage and control to grunt in reply, “I love you, Daemeon.”

Her man drew her back so that they were again face to face. The mare wiped a hoof across her nose and lurched into a kiss. It wasn’t their sweetest kiss. It wasn’t their most passionate. It was their most desperate though, and it was their last. It lasted for a long moment, but Colgate knew such magic could not last forever. Though it almost killed her to do so, she parted her lips from his and whispered through a struggling smile, “I have to go now.”

“I know.”

“I’ll never forget you.”

“You’ll be in my heart forever.”

“I’ll never forget what you helped me to learn.”

“And I’ll always remember what you’ve taught me too.”

“Goodbye, Daemeon.”

“Goodbye, Colgate.”

Giving her man one last nuzzle, the mare turned and faced the portal. In fear that she might change her mind, she did not look back. She leapt through the cascading blue light and traveled back to her own world.

Daemeon watched her disappear through the gate. It quickly collapsed, falling into itself, into nothing. For a long moment, Daemeon stared. For a moment that lasted until the sunrise, he wept. No moment had ever lasted longer in his life or been quite as painful.