The sky is always beautiful, the water clear and blue - a perfect reflection of the world overhead. He stood on the edge of the lake, watching the man walking towards him over water, footsteps not leaving a ripple. "Endymion-sama," the white-haired man bowed low, grace in every movement.

"Elios," Endymion nodded his head in acknowledgment, his smile a welcome enough.

They stood at the edge of their two worlds, as Elios stepped onto the sighing grass and joined Endymion in his silent contemplation. "Do you get lonely here, Elios?" Endymion asked suddenly.

The priest next to him did not start or looked surprised. He only looked to the sky and pondered a long while before answering. "The dreams keep me company," he said vaguely.

"Was... the other life, that world of the past, something like this?" Endymion asked.

"You mean the Earth Kingdom, Endymion-sama?" Elios inquired.

"Yes," he answered softly, reverently, at the memory he could not recall and cherishing the little that he could.

"There had been a lake like this," Elios said with a smile. "Yet there had been no prayer room. There had been a forest like this, yet it lacked the dreams." Elios raised his hand and a white nose nuzzled his palm as a Pegasus appeared, silent like a ghost. "There had been a horse like this, but without his wings." Then, ever so softly, "There had been a man like me, without longings or promises..."

"Was I... like this, before?" Endymion asked. "Were we so different then?" In that moment he thought back on the great kings of the past, the men who fought and ruled and died before him. His Shitennou, but he dared not utter their names, even as their stones and his thoughts of them lay close to him, even in his dreams.

"You are still noble and kind, my Prince," Elios answered with a vague smile of his own, as if he knew what Endymion had meant to say but chose to answer only that which was given to him.

In the quiet beauty of the world of dreams, they could only wonder on the could-have- and the would-have- beens.