[center][h3]Hiraga[/h3][/center]
She died.

She was eternal, immortal and all encompassing, and yet, she died. Died a slow, agonizing death.

Worse.

She was still dying, and there seemed to be no end in sight. When the gates to Heaven were locked, Hiraga's suffering could never be described in words, mortal or divine. Ever since then, she was sentenced to a life of a quadriplegic, that was the closest analogy the Guardian could think of. She made herself one with the Earth. It was her body. She was the soil the mortals treaded, she was the water that banished their thirst and the hand that fed them.

She felt everything that happened to the beautiful blue world, and then, with a turn of a key, it was all taken away, and she was numb. Cursed to see the world through her eyes only, banished to a human looking shell, and unable to stop anyone from harming the beauty of the fragile world. She wished Death came for her just like he tended to the mortals. she wanted him to come, take away her pains and anguish, and allow her to move on. [i]Finish the job![/i] she often cursed at him. She could find no reason to be punished like this, doomed to an eternal life of a dying, crippled being.

Over the eons, the anguish and the depression subsided, eventually even her anger at Desius. She could see his reasoning, albeit not agreeing with it. The recent era has even allowed her to start tending to the world again in some manner, with the now dominant humanity starting to care for the planet they were slowly making to kill them off. And, she had to admit, there was the silver lining of not having to feel the world suffer. She could imagine that two world wars, half a thousand nuclear weapon tests, several nuclear powerplant events and oil spills would have left her feeling cranky at times.

Who knew if she would have been patient enough with humanity to see them reach for the heavens and stand on the surface of the tomb where her father slept, and now cast their sight to one of the dead planets orbiting her mother.

Still, it couldn't get her motivated enough to get up early in the morning. It was 9:45, and Hiraga, or rather Sharon Woods, was entertaining the thought of silencing the alarm clock (snoozed three times by 15 minutes) with an inventive use of a picture frame.

Sleep was another of those pesky things that came with being an immortal being that was denied the source of heavenly powers. And unlike the mortals, coffee helped pathetic little to one of her own kind.

As she got up though, she had to wonder if she was finally getting used to the beverage. She always had to make it strong enough not to need a mug, and for little effect. Today she used up what was left in the can, and yet she was starting to feel refreshed. Slipping into her suit she checked her schedule. She was free until eleven when she had to go play an environmental consultant again, so she decided to take the scenic route and-

-ram into what must have been a jogger just as she was turning a corner. The papers she was carrying created a spectacular fountain in the air, gently kissing the surface of a muddy puddle, another one landing in dog turd and Hiraga herself banging her head on the mail box behind her.

Rotten luck.

[@mercenarius]