It hurt like nothing ever hurt, and in the way that dreaming used to. A phantom pain that screamed but he didn't feel. It was a memory of pain, imaginary at best.

Auron knew himself well enough by now. It was a simple fact; and he had grown used to it, oppressive as it was.

He smiled because she would have made him smile, and pretended to love because she was beautiful. But everything was a faded mirror of what it used to be. He couldn't love, and he couldn't hurt for it, no matter how badly he wanted to.