Soul Reaver looks Asaki in the eyes for a moment after her question.

"In a way, I did not continue on. It was from that moment that I chose to abandon the name Rhavin Ironheart. It meant nothing to me anymore. Rhavin was a different person to who I had become. I assumed the name 'Soul Reaver' for myself a few years later, when my other talents became more obvious to me."

Soul Reaver draws in a slightly shuddering breath before he continues the story. It is obvious that unburdening himself like this is not easy on him.

"When I learned how to Warp Travel, I left my homeworld for the first time. Though it was beautiful, there was no longer anything to keep me there. Over the countless coming years, I would occassionally return... but as my world changed with the years, those visits grew more and more infrequent, until I decided I could not bear to see it anymore - it no longer felt like the place I had once known.

In any case, I began to travel through the Mortal Plane, and eventually, to other Planes, seeking to use my powers for some sort of good - to help people wherever they might be found."

Soul Reaver shook his head.

"During my journeys, I eventually fell in love again, with another woman, named Isabelle... but it was no longer the same as before. I felt... disconnected. I had the same feeling of time having no meaning. But not for her. Though I would try visit her often, she... she would always fade a little more. I could not remain with her all the time, for I felt that I was always needed elsewhere. And everytime I would return to her, she had grown older.

The last time I saw Isabelle, she was an old woman. She had married another man earlier, and had children, and they had grandchildren. For her, I had become a loyal friend who visited her throughout her life, even though she had once loved me deeply. She had never truly felt the same love for the man she married as she had once done for me... but he was mortal, finite, limited... and that was why they could marry, and why I could never be in the same position. It was humbling to sit beside her, as an old grandmother, and realise that I still looked the same as the day I had met her.

It dawned on me then that love... well, love is not eternal. It too ages, and dies. Twice had I lost those I had cared about - first to my own negligence, then simply to the inexorable ravages of time.

Over time, it became harder and harder to feel for others. I couldn't afford anymore to care about every person I met, to break my heart again and again upon every woeful tale I beheld. Everyone I had met was a short blur, a grain of sand in the neck of an hourglass, already hurtling towards the past.

Even immortals were the same... the first immortal I had ever met, a sorcerer from another world, was killed in front of my eyes in an ill-fated campaign. He looked almost... relieved to die. I realised then that that was my fate as well... to live on and on, until I was killed myself, or until I had no more reason to live."

Soul Reaver runs his hands through his wet hair.

"In the hope to find something to live for... and to ensure that my life had meaning... I dedicated my existence to those things that I felt were eternal and unchanging... things that would be there at the end of the Multiverse. I decided that Honour and Justice were the only concepts that would live forever.

Yet... yet even there I failed. Time is relentless in its advance, and there is always more time in which to fail. On too many occassions had I tried to help people, only to inadvertantly betray them. I failed entire civillisations. I would overthrow oppressors, attempt to quell the evils in the heart of their worlds... but there would come a point where I would have to abandon them to whatever fate awaited them afterwards. All too often have I been haunted by the shouts of dismay and betrayal from those betrayed worlds... worlds where my actions darkened their future. Worlds where I ushered in an era more terrible than the one I had ended. You saw some of this for yourself... the OGHRUN civilisation is but one of many worlds that I have 'touched' in this way."

Soul Reaver looks up at the falling snow.

"Yet what else can I do? I live on despite all this. While I have these powers, I must try to put them to use for the good of all... or I am nothing. The burden of responsibility that comes with this is heavy beyond mortal understanding."

Soul Reaver stays quiet for quite some time. However, finally, in a quiet, pained voice, he admits something to Asaki.

"I care for you, Asaki. I would even say I love you, as much as I am still capable of feeling that way. Though you might act frivolous in some ways, there is an iron at the core of your spirit that endures even in the most terrible fire. It reminds me of Shaana, in some ways. More importantly, it is that iron that allows us to endure for all these years, to uphold what is right. It is through this that I feel that way.

But I fear that feeling, Asaki. For mortals, they are not apart for long at the end of their lives... they will meet their loved ones on the Other Side in what for me is a blinking of an eye. Not so for the likes of us, though... if I grow close to someone... to anyone... I know that I may end up losing them and missing them for the rest of eternity... or that they may lose me in the same way."

Soul Reaver hangs his head.

"I thought I had conquered emotion all that time ago... that I could control it at last... but whenever I think that I have, they come back to torment me again..."

With that, Soul Reaver ends his tale, and once more begins to weep.