Beauty.

What was it? It could describe so many things. It could describe a delicate flower, smooth and easily destroyed. It could describe a diamond, the toughest of all minerals, with it's clear, crystalline form. It could describe human aspects. Bravery was beautiful. Determination was beautiful. It could describe nature. These Waterfalls were beautiful, a forest was beautiful. It could describe emotions. Love was beautiful. Joy was beautiful. Innocence was beautiful.

Few of these things had anything in common with each other. If it's a pointy object, it's called "sharp", as is a blade, a spear, or a shuriken. If it's transparent, it is called "clear". Beauty was different. Trees could be as beautiful as a gemstone, or even the emotions of gentle pleasure. Beauty was formless, it was shapeless, it conformed to it's container.

Darkness was beautiful. Soft, pleasent to look at, the harbinger of sweet sleep. It was finality, it was something every living being would be returned to in the very end. It was space, the the realm of the stars, which had captivated all from astronomers to young children. Yes, the darkness was beautiful.

Nymphs were the incarnation of beauty's warped and twisted side. Lust. Need. Desire. They were beautiful, but much the same way an ocean was wet. Too much beauty. Enough to drown and lose yourself forever in.

Elves were nature's beauty, they were the divine beauty, sculpted by the gods. They were as beautiful as any aspect of nature, the gems, the flowers, the trees, as you cared to name.

Ian thought of all this, and gazed at his reflection in the pool where the waterfalls all joined. He was of darkness, he was part nymph, tempered with elven blood. This heavenly beauty was then cast into a human body, and that was Ian. What a sight he was to behold, he thought. His bronze hair, indistinguishable from the lustrous metal itself, hanging halfway down his back, being blown gently off his body by a cool breeze. His face a sculptor would look at, and be inspired for his next statue (A female one, mind you. Poor Ian.), a face of gentle slopes joined by sharp curves. His skin, a color paler than the average person, like a porcelain doll, flawless and smooth. His structure, a lithe physique, with little fat or excess skin, simply bone and muscle, pure as nature had intended.

Ian had given into the Sin associated with one's own percieved Beauty. Pride. He looked at himself and saw no flaws, however minute. Such was his bloodline, one bred specifically for breeding and enriching the world.

Ian continued staring at his reflection, contemplating his own beauty, inner and outer, further. Whatever he was thinking, it made him smile.