In an abandoned palace, a man sat before a woman he did not know.
She sat on a stone throne, a golden crown on her head, cat ears, and a quiet smile frozen on her face. She had not moved for a very long time. She did not speak. She did not breathe.
The man had white hair, with ten white tails dragging behind him like weights. Every morning he looked at her with the same empty gaze.
"Good morning."
No name. No memory. No pain. No love. Just the words.
Outside the palace, stars were dying. Entire languages were vanishing. He saw none of it.
---
Before that white-haired man with the ten tails became merely a shadow, there was an emperor named Xerion.
He had lived long. Very long. So long he had forgotten when he began. He saw empires rise and fall, saw cities built and burned. After all that, he no longer saw anything worth seeing.
People feared him. They built statues of him then tore them down. They wrote legends of his cruelty, then burned them. No one ever truly knew him.
His heart was just an organ that pumped blood. Nothing more.
One day, news reached him of a strange creature living on the edge of his kingdom.
A being half-human, half-elf, with cat ears.
Her name was Nello.
He wasn't interested. But he went. Out of habit.
---
Nello lived in a small village on the edge of the world. A forgotten place.
She had been different since birth. The experiments performed on her as a small child had made her half-cat, half-elf, half-human. She belonged nowhere. She resembled no one.
The villagers feared her. They threw stones at her. They chased her through the streets screaming: "Monster!"
At night, she cried alone in the rain.
She had one major flaw: she was afraid of confrontation. She always ran. From people, from feelings, from herself. She preferred crying in the open to screaming in the face of those who hurt her.
So when she heard Xerion was coming to kill her, she sat and waited.
It wasn't courage. It was a final escape. Escape from escape itself.
She told herself: "If he's going to kill me, let him. At least I'll rest."
---
Xerion finally stood before her.
A giant in black armor, his red eyes glowing. He waited for her to scream, to cry, to beg.
But she looked at him and said:
"You're tired."
He raised his hand to kill her. It stopped.
"You don't know anything about me!"
"I don't." She said quietly. "But I know what tired eyes look like. I see them in the mirror every night."
He turned and left the hut. But he returned the next night.
He stood before her in silence.
"Why did you come back?"
He didn't answer.
"You wanted to apologize?" She smiled sarcastically. "Don't think I've forgiven you. I'm just tired of being afraid."
He looked at her. No one had ever spoken to him like this.
"I don't ask for your forgiveness."
"I know." She said. "That's why you're tired."
He fled again.
On the third night, he came angry. He burned a tree before her.
She looked at the burning tree, then at him.
"Do you feel better now?"
"Be quiet!"
"No." She said sharply. "I won't be quiet. You're the one who came to me. You're the one who breaks into my hut every night. I didn't ask you for anything. I just wanted to die in peace."
He exploded in anger, smashed the hut wall, and disappeared.
On the fourth night, he didn't come.
The fifth.
The sixth.
The seventh.
On the eighth night... he came while she slept.
He sat on the ground beside her. He looked at her for a long time. At her trembling ears, at her face wrinkled with exhaustion, at her wounded hands.
She wasn't beautiful. She was exhausted. Broken. Human.
And his eyes wept.
For the first time in thousands of years, his eyes shed a tear.
In the morning, she woke and saw the tear traces. She saw him sleeping beside her.
She touched him gently. He woke startled.
"You cried."
"I didn't."
She looked at him for a long time. Then she took out a piece of bread from her pocket.
"Want to eat?"
He looked at the bread. At her wounded hand. At her tired eyes.
And he took it.
In that moment, he didn't collapse. He didn't cry. He didn't admit anything. He just ate bread with a woman he didn't know.
But something inside him changed. Silently.
---
The early years passed slowly.
At first, he returned every few months. Then every month. Then every week. Then every day.
Once, he returned to find her sick. High fever. She was trembling.
He stood looking at her. He didn't know what to do. No one had ever gotten sick before him. They died before they got sick.
He sat beside her. Put his hand on her forehead. It was hot.
He stayed beside her for three days. Changing cold water on her forehead. Lighting the fire. Waiting.
On the fourth day, she opened her eyes. She saw him sleeping on the ground beside her.
She said nothing. Just looked at him for a long time.
---
Another night, he returned to find her crying. She sat in the corner, her face in her hands.
"What happened?"
She raised her head. "Nothing. I just... remembered."
"Remembered what?"
"The village. The nights I used to cry alone. I used to wish someone would come. Anyone. Even if it was a monster."
He sat beside her.
"I am a monster."
She looked at him. "I know."
"And you're still crying?"
"No. Not today. Today I'm crying because I remembered that I used to cry. Not because I'm sad now."
A long silence.
Then he said: "I don't understand."
She smiled. "Never mind."
---
On a third night, she was cooking. She suddenly looked at him.
"Am I the first person to sit with you like this?"
He thought. "Yes."
"Why?"
"No one dared."
"And if someone had dared?"
"I would have killed them."
She looked at him. "So I'm an exception."
"Yes."
"Why?"
He didn't answer. He remained silent for a long time. Then he said:
"I don't know."
---
A hundred years passed. Then two hundred. Then five hundred.
She learned to cook new dishes. He learned to eat without getting his armor dirty.
One day, she said to him:
"You're different."
"How?"
"You used to only kill. Now you sometimes ask questions."
He thought about her words. "Is that bad?"
"No. That's... human."
He hated the word. "I'm not human."
"I know. But you're becoming one."
He got angry. He left. He didn't return for three days.
On the fourth day, he came back. He sat before her in silence.
She said: "You returned."
"Yes."
"Why?"
"I don't know."
---
On a rainy night, she fell asleep with his head on her shoulder. She woke to find him still sleeping. She didn't move. She stayed for hours looking at the ceiling while he slept.
When he woke, he asked: "How long?"
"I don't know. Hours."
"Why didn't you move?"
She looked at him. "I didn't want to wake you."
"Why?"
"I don't know."
---
Another night, he returned tired. A wound on his arm. Not serious. But it was bleeding.
She looked at the wound. Then at his eyes.
"Can you die?"
He thought. "I don't know. I've never died."
"If you die, what will happen to me?"
Silence.
"I don't know."
She bandaged his wound. Her hands trembled slightly.
He said: "You're trembling."
"I know."
"Why?"
"I don't know."
---
A thousand years passed. Then two thousand. Then five thousand.
One morning, she woke to find him looking at her.
"What?"
"I was wondering."
"About what?"
"About the color of your eyes. You said they're green. Every morning I look to make sure. I don't want to forget."
She looked at him for a long time.
"Why are you afraid of forgetting?"
He thought. "I don't know. I just... don't want to."
---
One night, she said to him: "Tomorrow I'll make a new dish."
"What is it?"
"I don't know. I'll invent it."
He laughed. For the first time, he laughed.
She looked at him astonished. "You're laughing?"
He stopped. "Was that laughter?"
"Yes."
"I've never laughed before."
She was silent. Then she smiled. "I liked it."
"What?"
"The sound of your laughter."
---
On a third night, the sky was clear. She stood looking at the stars.
He said: "What do you see?"
"I don't know. Beauty. Something bigger than me. Something that makes me feel small."
"And you like that?"
"Yes. To be small. To not have everything be my responsibility. To have something bigger carrying the world."
He looked at the stars. He saw nothing. But he kept looking with her.
---
Ten thousand years passed.
One day, she said to him: "I don't remember my mother's face."
He looked at her.
"She always smiled. That's all I remember. A smile. No features. No eye color. No voice. Just a smile."
"Are you sad?"
"No. I don't feel anything. I'm just... afraid that one day I'll forget you like this."
Silence.
Then he said: "I won't forget you."
She looked at him. "How do you know?"
"I don't know. But I won't forget you."
---
One night, she woke to his voice. He was talking in his sleep.
"Don't go... don't..."
She didn't understand the words. But she stayed awake until he calmed.
In the morning, she asked him: "Did you dream of something?"
He thought. "I don't remember."
"You were talking in your sleep."
"What did I say?"
"Don't go."
A long silence.
Then he said: "Strange."
"What?"
"To be afraid of something in a dream. I'm not afraid of anything."
---
Fifty thousand years passed.
One night, it was raining heavily. He was preparing to leave.
"Don't go." She said.
He stopped.
"I have a fight."
"Do you know how many rainy nights I spent alone? Thousands. Tens of thousands. Crying in the rain with no one coming."
He sat down.
"Now you're here. With me. And I'm still asking you not to go. That's selfish."
"It's not selfish."
"What?"
"I don't know what selfishness is. But what you're doing isn't selfish."
"What is it then?"
He thought for a long time.
"I don't know."
They stayed together until the rain stopped.
---
Another night, she was truly angry at him.
"Where were you?"
"Busy."
"Fifty thousand years I've cooked for you and listened to you. And all you say is 'busy'?"
"When did you start counting?"
"Since I stopped running. Since I decided this is my place. And you're still 'busy'."
She sat crying.
He sat beside her. "I don't know how to be with someone."
She raised her head. "Neither do I. I only know how to run. And with you... I can't run. That scares me."
"Why?"
"Because if I run now, I'll lose the only thing that made me stop."
---
A hundred thousand years passed.
One morning, she woke and didn't find him. She searched the forest. He wasn't there. She sat waiting. A day. Two days. A week. A month.
On the thirty-fifth day, he returned. He was wounded. A deep wound in his chest.
She ran to him. "Where were you?"
"Far away."
"Thirty-five days!"
He looked at her. "You counted?"
"Every day."
Silence. Then he said: "No one has ever waited for me before."
"I'm not no one. I'm Nello."
"I know."
She cleaned his wound. She was crying without realizing it.
He said: "You're crying."
"I know."
"Why?"
She raised her eyes to him. "Because I thought you were dead. Because I waited thirty-five days. Because every morning I said 'he'll return today'. Because I don't know what to do if you don't come back."
A long silence.
Then he said: "I'll always come back."
"How do you know?"
"I don't know. But I'll come back."
---
One night, while she slept, he asked himself: Do I love her... or do I love how I feel when she looks at me?
In the morning, he asked her: "If there was someone else. Someone who doesn't kill. Someone normal. Would you choose him?"
She thought for a long time. "I don't know."
"That's not an answer."
"That's all I have. I don't know what I feel. I only know I'm here. And I don't want to leave."
"And that's enough?"
She looked at him. "Is it enough for you?"
He didn't answer.
---
Another night, he asked her: "Do you love me?"
She looked at him for a long time. "I don't know."
"When will you know?"
"Maybe when I leave. Or when you leave. Or when I die."
---
After a hundred thousand years, the outside world began to move.
Spies noticed he no longer stayed in his palace. They noticed he disappeared into the forest. They planned to exploit this.
One night, while Xerion was in a distant battle, a group of mercenaries and sorcerers moved. Twenty fighters. They entered the forest at dawn.
Nello was alone. Preparing food. She heard heavy footsteps outside the hut. She saw them. Twenty armed men.
She ran. Through the forest. Between trees. Over roots. Under branches. She was faster than them. She knew the place better.
But she heard a crash behind her. She turned and saw them burning the hut. She heard one of them shout: "Find her! She's his weakness!"
She stopped.
She stood behind a large tree. Her heart pounding. She looked at her trembling hands. At herself, the coward who had always run.
Then she remembered he would return. That he would search for her. That they might kill him if they ambushed him.
She told herself: "I won't run this time."
She went back. She stood in a small clearing. They saw her. They ran toward her.
"I'm here. Take me."
"Where is he?"
"I don't know."
"We'll kill you."
"I know."
At that moment, they heard a sound behind them. Xerion.
He had returned early. He felt something wrong. He ran all the way. He arrived to find his hut burning. He followed their sounds. He found her standing before twenty armed men.
He killed them all. In minutes.
Then he stood before her. "Why didn't you run?"
She was still trembling. "Because if I ran... they would have waited for you. They would have ambushed you. Maybe they would have killed you."
"I would have killed them."
"Maybe. But maybe not. I didn't want to risk it."
"You're afraid now."
"I know."
"And you're still here."
"Yes."
"Why?"
She thought. "Maybe because I'm tired of running. Maybe because you're the first one who made me stop."
"I love you." He said it for the first time.
"I know."
"And do you love me?"
She thought for a long time. "I don't know. Maybe I love how I feel when I look at you. Maybe I love that someone sees me. Maybe I love that I finally chose."
"That's not an answer."
"That's all I have."
"It's enough for me."
She looked at him astonished.
"This. What you give me. It's enough."
---
Years later, the great attack came. A huge alliance. Multiple armies. Powerful sorcerers.
Xerion fought. Killing hundreds. Thousands.
But in the middle of the battle, he saw a group of sorcerers directing a spell toward the forest. Toward the hut. Toward her.
He realized they knew. He ran toward the forest. Left the battle. Left everything.
He arrived to find the hut surrounded by them. He saw her standing at the door. Looking at him. She didn't run.
He killed them. All around her.
But in that moment, while he was busy, the strike came. A hidden sorcerer. A killing spell aimed at his heart.
He saw it at the last moment. He could have dodged it. But he saw another sorcerer behind her. Aiming at her. She didn't see him.
He chose. He didn't dodge. He ran toward her. Grabbed her and pushed her away.
The strike hit him. A deep wound in his chest. He fell.
She looked at him. At his wound. At the sorcerer preparing a second strike. At the other sorcerer who would have killed her.
She screamed. She ran toward the first sorcerer. With bare hands.
But the second sorcerer struck her from behind. She fell.
Xerion knelt beside her. Blood bleeding from her.
"Why? Why didn't you run?"
She was smiling. But in her eyes there was hesitation. Doubt. Fear. Love. Everything.
"Because... I wanted to choose... for the first time..."
She could have healed herself. Her power was enough.
But she looked at his wound. A deep wound. She thought it was fatal. She thought he would die.
And she looked at herself.
And she began to heal his wound. With her last strength. She turned his deep wound into a scar.
Then she looked into his eyes. And suddenly... she saw something. His wound wasn't fatal. He would have survived. He could have survived.
In that moment, she knew. But it was too late.
She whispered: "You... you would have survived..."
He didn't answer. He was crying.
"If I had known... if I had known I wouldn't have..."
She stopped. In her eyes was conflict. Love? Regret? Anger? Fear? All together.
"What?"
She looked at him. One last look. Containing all the questions never asked.
"I don't know."
And she died.
---
He didn't cry. He lifted her body. Returned to the palace. Killed all who remained. Then closed the doors.
He placed her on the bed. Cleaned her wound. Talked to her. As if she were alive.
At night he asked: "If she had known my wound wasn't fatal, would she have died?"
No answer.
"Did she die because she loved me? Or because she decided not to run? Or because she regretted it in the last moment?"
No answer.
"What would her answer have been? 'I don't know'... what does that mean?"
A year passed. Ten years. A hundred years. A thousand years. And he asked.
---
After a hundred thousand years, he began to see her. A silent shadow looking at him.
At first he would ask her: "What would you have said if you had lived?"
The shadow didn't answer.
Another hundred thousand years passed. And he asked. And the shadow watched.
---
One night, he woke to find a white tail growing from his back.
He looked in the mirror. He hated it. He tried to cut it off. He bled. He regretted it. He left it.
After a hundred thousand years, a second tail. Heavier. Harsher.
Every time he asked a question without answer, a tail grew.
He began to hate them. Hate the tails. Hate that he couldn't stop asking.
After a million years, ten tails. Dragging behind him like weights. Hurting him. Reminding him. He cursed them. They wouldn't disappear.
The growth stopped. Not because he healed. But because the questions ran out.
---
One night, he decided to burn the body. He lit the fire. Carried her toward the flames. His hand stopped. He couldn't.
He tried to bury her. He carried a shovel. Dug a grave.
He stood looking at her. At her dead eyes. At her smile. At that last look containing everything.
He filled the grave. Brought her back.
"I can't." He whispered. "I can't let go of you. Even if I don't know why."
---
In another attempt, he decided to leave the palace. To go anywhere. To start over.
He walked for three days. Then he returned.
He sat before her. "I can't."
He looked at the shadow. "Do you know why?"
The shadow was silent.
"Because if I leave, the question remains. And if I stay, the question remains. No escape."
---
On the millionth anniversary, he walked through the palace at night. He had killed everyone who was with him long ago. No one remained.
He sat before her.
"You know? I no longer feel a difference between myself and this wall."
He stopped.
"No. That's not true. The wall doesn't ask. I ask."
Silence.
"Is that the difference? To ask?"
No answer.
---
Billions of years passed. Stars died. Languages changed. Civilizations fell.
One morning, he looked at the walls covered with his writings. He didn't understand them.
"Who is Nello?"
He looked at the throne. At the petrified corpse.
"You are Nello."
He didn't remember her voice. The color of her eyes. A single word.
But he remembered one thing: a question.
"What would you have said?"
He didn't know who the question was for. But it remained.
---
He began to write on the walls. Everything he remembered.
"She laughed." "She cried." "She was jealous once." "She died." "Her last look." "She said I don't know."
Millions of words. The walls filled.
Every time he wrote something, he forgot something else.
The palace became a vast library for a woman he was forgetting.
At night, he would read what he wrote. As if she were a stranger. But the question remained.
"What would you have said?"
---
The next morning, wind entered through a broken window. Gently moved the ten tails. Moved the dust. Then left.
He opened his eyes. Rose. Went to the throne. Stood before the corpse.
He looked at her for a long time.
"Good morning."
He sat.
Then suddenly, he said: "I used to ask you something. I don't remember it. But I know I used to ask."
Silence.
"Maybe the question was: Would you have loved me if you had lived? Or: Would I have chosen you if I had known? Or: What would you have done if you had lived one more moment?"
No answer.
"It doesn't matter. Forgetting itself is the answer."
He looked at her.
"If there had been love, I would have remembered. If there had been meaning, it would have remained. Nothing remains but the question. And the question isn't love. The question is addiction."
The wind paused for a moment.
"And now... no question. No addiction. Nothing."
He looked at the ten tails dragging behind him.
"Even these, I will forget why they are here."
Then he said:
"Good morning."
---
In an abandoned palace, a man sat before a woman he did not know.
She sat on a stone throne, a golden crown on her head, cat ears, and a quiet smile frozen on her face.
The man had white hair, with ten white tails dragging behind him like weights. He did not remember why she was there. He did not remember why he was here.
Every morning, he opened his eyes, looked at the throne, and said:
"Good morning."
He no longer asked. He no longer remembered that he used to ask. He no longer remembered that she used to sometimes answer with silence.
Just the words. Just the habit. Just the routine.
Outside, nothing. Inside, nothing. Between them, nothing.
The tails still reminded him of something he didn't remember. But he didn't ask. He no longer asked.
He just sat. Just looked. Just said:
"Good morning."
Again and again.
After the last wall fell. After the last star died. After he forgot the last question.
"Good morning."
Words for a woman he didn't know. A meaningless habit. A routine without memory.
And on another morning, he would open his eyes. He would look at the throne. He would say:
"Good morning."