text: [Themes: love & dating, serious, romance]
  
  It happened so suddenly, Kei had no chance to catch her, no hope of doing anything but watching as she fell.
  
  One moment, he was alone on the beach, sun sparkling off the waves, nothing in the sky but a few white fluffy clouds, the next---
  
  At first he thought she was a kite, bright colorful cloth flapping in the wind of freefall as she flew earthward.
  
  When he understood the shape was human, it was too late, and she struck the shimmering sand with a soft, muted sound.
  
  Kei ran towards the sad, bright crumpled form.
  
  It was a girl. Shreds of crimson and indigo did little to conceal the fact. She lay still on the sand.
  
  Kei reached out towards her. His hand barely brushing her
  
  [Author's Note: A boy and a girl in a shattered land.In this world, there can be no chance for happy endings.]
  
  > Hand
  Kei knelt and took the girl's hand.
  
  It was cool and dry and fragile.
  
  He held her hand and looked into her face.
  
  > Then she opened her eyes
  They were the color of the sky just after sunset.
  
  She looked at him with all the glassy stillness of a tide pool, unseeing, uncomprehending.
  
  Kei spoke.
  
  > say "Are you all right?"
  The limpid pools of her eyes overflowed, small crystalline teardrops sparkling like starlight for an instant as they melted into the hot sands.
  
  She didn't seem to realize that she was crying, or even to have understood his words.
  
  He lifted her feather-light body in his arms, and she rested her head against his chest as he carried her.
  
  > Kei took her back to his cottage
  It was a simple beach house, like most of the others in the area.
  
  Humanity had learned not to build too high, or too close together.
  
  Kei lived there with his sister Yumiko.
  
  Their parents had died, along with most of the population of Cantus V, in the last Promethian attack.
  
  The Promethians had moved on- to other worlds, other wars, other lives to be destroyed- and what was left of the people of Cantus V struggled on, because there was nothing else to be done.
  
  Yumiko sold her body to the fishermen for food and supplies, and Kei walked the beaches, searching for remnants of their lost way of life.
  
  Kei felt
  
  > Hopeful
  when he thought of what his life had become.
  
  At least he and Yumiko were still alive. At least they still had each other.
  
  They could build a new life.
  
  Maybe this girl could be part of it.
  
  > He brought the girl inside and waited for Yumiko
  She was crying when she entered the cabin.
  
  She cried a lot, these days.
  
  Never loudly, never with any sense of anger or outrage.
  
  The tears simply flowed, silently, hopelessly, as if there were too much sorrow inside her to be contained and this was the only way it could be released.
  
  When she saw him, she tried to smile a hello.
  
  He hated her new smile.
  
  The old Yumiko had been dazzling. A straight-A student, outgoing and popular- everyone had been drawn to her beauty and charm.
  
  This Yumiko was like a ghost, some pale reflection of his beloved sister, with all of the life and sparkle in her gone.
  
  Then she saw the girl on the bed, and her expression changed to something like fright.
  
  > say "What is that?!"
  Yumiko stammered in shock.
  
  "I found her on the beach. She fell from the sky."
  
  "Don't you know what that is?" she gasped.
  
  Kei knew.
  
  From the moment he saw her, he had known what she was.
  
  But somehow, he didn't feel she was dangerous. Something in the way she looked as she lay on the sand. She had seemed- broken, discarded, a lost thing. Nothing like those monsters. Nothing monstrous about her.
  
  Kei tried to explain his feelings to Yumiko. Her response was
  
  > Angry
  "It's a monster. It's a monster, Kei, and I won't have it in here."
  
  Kei tried again to explain. He was sure she wasn't dangerous.
  
  Yumiko argued with him. So what if it was a defective model? It was still a Promethian, a sworn enemy of all humanity.
  
  He almost changed his mind, but something made him stubbornly insist that the girl be allowed to stay.
  
  > His anger at Yumiko
  How could his sister behave that way? Didn't she trust him?
  
  Kei was determined to prove her wrong.
  
  > They named her Kite
  Most of the time, she trailed after Kei, like a lost shadow.
  
  She never spoke.
  
  Yumiko thought perhaps her programming had been damaged in the fall.
  
  Kei could tell his sister didn't trust the Promethian.
  
  Damaged or not, helpless or not, in Yumiko's eyes, Kite was a monster, and nothing could change that.
  
  And one day, something happened that changed everything.
  
  > It was Kite who started it
  Kei returned from a shopping trip to find her standing, out in the rain, staring through the cabin's single window.
  
  At first, Kei thought Yumiko had pushed her outside, from spite or fear or malice. He opened the cabin door, ready to argue with his sister.
  
  Yumiko had brought a client home.
  
  The man glared angrily at Kei. "Wait your turn!" he snapped.
  
  "Sorry," Kei mumbled, and quickly shut the door.
  
  He took Kite by the hand, and led her down the beach to the shelter of a fallen tree.
  
  They sat and watched the waves.
  
  And then she kissed him.
  
  Her lips were cool and soft and he could feel the rainwater on them.
  
  She pulled away and regarded him curiously, head tilted a little to the side, as if she were wondering what he would do next.
  
  > Kei just sat there
  Was she merely copying what she'd seen with Yumiko in the cabin?
  
  Would he be taking advantage of her by continuing this?
  
  She made up his mind for him.
  
  Slipping out of her flimsy top, she leaned in close against him. Her gaze met his, and she smiled shyly.
  
  Her slim, pale hand closed against his, placing it softly against her breast.
  
  She spoke, for the first time since he'd known her.
  
  "Kei," she whispered.
  
  Never taking her eyes off him, she reached out and slid down his zipper.
  
  "Kei. . ."
  
  The world closed in around him.
  
  There was no wind, no rain, no sandy beach and darkened sky.
  
  Only Kite. Beside him, surrounding him.
  
  > The days moved on
  and this was their life.
  
  Kei and Kite, together always.
  
  She never said another word to him.
  
  Sometimes he wondered if he'd only dreamed that brief whisper when she spoke his name.
  
  But at night she came to him.
  
  And afterwards, they would lie entwined on the narrow bed and he would imagine he could hear her heartbeat, pulsing in time with his own.
  
  Yumiko never said anything to him about Kite.
  
  The reproach was in the way she looked at him, the way she avoided his touch- as if, in her eyes, he'd become unclean, a monster like the one he bedded.
  
  > It couldn't last, of course
  Kei had to go into the shanty town for supplies, every now and then. Kite could not go with him- the people would surely see her for what she was.
  
  Yumiko would not go into town now, though she often had before. It was her silent protest. Her small revenge, to separate them, even for an afternoon.
  
  This afternoon, the two women occupied the cabin in silence, moving about it in a strange, bitter waltz of avoidance.
  
  > Yumiko broke the silence
  She turned to face Kite, and spoke in a savage whisper.
  
  "You're not a real girl, you know."
  
  Kite took a step back, then anger blazed in her eyes and she stood her ground.
  
  "You're a monster, a thing!" Yumiko snarled at her. "Whatever my brother may think, I know what you are!"
  
  Stubbornly, Kite refused to back down. She gazed steadily at Yumiko, then sneered contemptuously and turned her back on the other girl.
  
  White-hot rage burned in Yumiko's heart. Rage against all the Promethians, and what they had done to her.
  
  Rage against this one in particular, this machine that dared to think it was a person.
  
  She ran forward, and caught the smaller girl by her long, silky hair. Screaming her pent-up pain and horror, Yumiko attacked Kite with all the strength in her.
  
  > Something flared to life in Kite's degraded circuits
  Her body moved of its own volition, remorseless and alien to her.
  
  Did she try to stop, when she realized what she was doing to Yumiko?
  
  A kind, forgiving heart would like to think she did.
  
  Whatever humanity she had found with Kei was gone, though.
  
  There was only her mechanical impulse, and Yumiko's shrieks of agony.
  
  Then, there was stillness, and silence, and the sound of something dripping slowly on the barren planks of the cabin floor.
  
  > When Kei returned
  the cabin was dark and silent.
  
  He lit a candle, and stared in horror at what remained of his sister.
  
  A sudden sound from the corner, and he whirled about with a startled gasp.
  
  "Kei," she whispered, her scarlet hands outstretched towards him.
  
  He spoke a single word-
  
  > say "Kite"
  he whispered, and stepped towards her.
  
  She stroked his cheek, gently, her hand leaving a crimson smudge on his pale skin.
  
  > And then
  they left that place.
  
  They went into the darkness, hand in hand, and there was nothing in heaven or earth to come between them.