It starts in a field, by a cherry tree, at the end of one particular story.
Where the blossoms fell and floated, the tree's branches swimming in the slight breeze. Rays of sunlight flickered upon the man kneeling there, and the woman in his arms.
He was young, his hair brushed back behind his ears, his cheeks bare.
In that moment, it was his eyes that looked old. Like he had seen a thousand lifetimes, a thousand tragedies, a thousand joys, and each of them had left a mark on his heart, but not his skin.
His fingers were smooth as he brushed them through the woman's hair. It fell in long black waves, and his fingers ran through the length of it, as if savouring the touch.
The woman's dress was once white. Its form was simple. Its beauty was in its simplicity, its understated value. How it had been tailored to fit the waist, but flow by the legs like a curtain in the wind. How looking closely at the stitching revealed complex knots and gestures, spelling out the fine language of its thread. How the material allowed the sun, even now, to filter through and create the feeling of a light morning fog resting on the grass.
It was a bloody rag, now. Torn open, covered in pieces of human, brutally destroyed and soaked in blood.
The woman lay, eyes glassy and pointed to the sky, skin cold, unmoving, like a broken doll in red paint, and the young man stroked her hair.
A universe died in his eyes. They surged with anger, dissolved into sadness, stung with regret, and became dull, dead things by the end, to match the broken doll in his lap. His soft finger's shook a little more.
The cherry tree wept for him, petals floating gently by and landing on their bodies, but he did not shed a tear. His eyes, numb from pain, looked up from her corpse, dry, and to another body, a little way from the tree.
There lay the man who brings tragedy, with a sword buried deep in his heart, dead eyes staring back.
You will know his name by the end of this tale. You may even shed a tear for him.