Iron would have reacted more to the ceremony. Though he sat quietly, respectful to the wedding, its guests, and the bride and groom, the man sitting in the bridal aisles held an expression easily identifiable as being unidentifiable. Neither a smile nor a frown, not a bitter look or a happy glint in his eye, nor any other sign of visible or imagine emotion touched his face. For all intents and purposes, he may as well have been a corpse sitting and decaying as he watched the bride and groom ... particularly the groom.

The iron-hard gaze had settled on the green-haired man the moment he arrived at the front of the church sanctuary and remained there. When the bride had entered, though his expression had visibly tightened and grown more closed, the warrior had been staring solidly at or through the groom. When she had begun her speech, when all eyes were naturally fastened upon her, when all the men were marveling at her beauty and all the women were mentally picking apart the ways in which they could have done better, his gaze remained on the groom. Even when she gave the permission to be seated, when most eyes would have moved away from their targets for at least a moment, the gaze of the only guest invited by the bride never left the groom. The steel in his two swords shifted and bent more easily than his stare.

Part of it was simple hatred. The other part was buried resentment. Neither showed on his face, but Kichaa felt them both and acknowledged them both with the firm constraint possible only in two kinds of people: the criminally insane and the truly cynical. He ignored them. If it meant giving his friend a day of joy and peace with a man she loved, he would burn every world in the known universe and throw the ashes into a star. Holding a rein on his own feelings and ignoring the desire to pierce a hole in her soon-to-be husband's heart was a simple thing to do, and he would do it for her. He wouldn't be happy about it, but he would do it. He owed her that much.

For the same reason he never looked at her, he never answered her. It was the least he could do. If it was the least he could do to say and do nothing, he would say and do exactly nothing. A small smile crossed his features, but it vanished just as quickly, fading into nothing.

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[Graphics by Me.]

[The signature links to Aleksandr Sokoll.]
["I believe in sleeping." ~ Bruce Lee]