The Weeping Rose
Posted: Sat Jan 26, 2008 4:10 pm
The boughs of windswept trees swayed gently beneath the winter wind's heavy hand. Naked of life and entombing snow, they bowed and swayed in supplication towards twilight heavens - all clasped together in slumbering community over the small clearing visited by the stillness of a partially frozen lake. Icy tendrils and plates clung desperately to the shore, just as a bitter, mercenary chill clung to the clearing's occupant beneath.
A bold rock that swelled from the ice bore the burden of paired gauntlets, empty and ancient. Countless scars crossed each other in a decrepit maze of torments and torture visited and received and somehow ending up the same as the thread of history became lost in frenzy and boiling blood - or at least the memory of it. A probing gaze, an endless and narrowed sea of venomous crimson, searched the lake's depths and traced the images of Foggy Bottom howling in lunacy, and the Chapter House ablaze.
Slender fingers, bloodlessly pale, blossomed from the scorched and scarred forearm guards that entombed the corrupted flesh beneath. Bared to the evening, Teron occasionally wondered when the evening breeze would stir between the digits, even as palms cradled a small, silver urn. His touch caressed the ash-bearer's outer curves as surely as if he explored the gentle visage burned forever into his memory. A visage cradled in shed tears, framed in auburn hair, silhouetted by the sun; bouncing and laughing and living. Even the urn's silver sheen, crisp in the starlight, haunted him with the spark in Elysia's eyes.
Eyes that would remain forever closed.
Myrken Wood required destruction, he considered with a heavy sigh that rattled the hammered breadth of ancient shoulder armor, even as the hundreds slain, driven mad, or raised to slaughter kin took shape in the urn's mysteriously reflective surface to haunt the ghostly shape of Elysia that had settled there. A land united against horror, hardened to cruelty, sprawled about him to be slaughtered, burned, and made safe. Even with all of Myrken Wood laid waste there would still be the task of bringing her back, of convincing her to stay here, with him, in the ruined bouquet of a land he would present to her.
A present clutched in hands that had cradled the bloodied betrothed he had awoken to find beside him in the ruined church. A present stained with her blood, and the blood of all he had murdered in his age-spanning fury to hammer the world into submission and strangle it into compliance with what was right, with what was fair.
Gripping the edge of the hood with one hand, he pulled it back from his visage, and removed the dark gray scarf. He stuffed the coarse garment, which felt as if mummified, into his belt. starlight shed flickering blue ghosts onto his horrific countenance - pallid, taut flesh; blackened bone where the skin had been ruined in battle; torn, lifeless lips; searing crimson flames within empty eye sockets; and patches of blond hair that fell to armored shoulders in length. The added color from the wintering heavens nested within the shadows of gaunt cheeks and beneath his eyes, alleviating the darkness that had laired about his infernal gaze since the moment of his death and in that instant they whispered blue.
His hands shook with trepidation as he leaned slowly forward, the hair tumbling forward and about his countenance as a battered and weathered halo, and slowly traced his fingertips along Elysia's cold urn. Teron's eyes glistened as he leaned even closer, and pressed a gentle kiss upon the aged silver with tattered lips.
"It has been six thousand years, Elysia," he whispered. "But my feelings haven't faded."
Teron inhaled slowly, deeply, to steady himself before continuing. "Do you remember the vows we were to exchange, my betrothed?"
He smiled a weak, trembling smile and felt a shiver course through his forever-stilled heart. His voice wavered as he went on. "I have not forgotten them," he exclaimed in a hurried whisper and, trembling, lowered himself to one knee. He tightly clasped the urn fiercely as, nearby, the Silver Lake quietly reflected the distant star light.
A bold rock that swelled from the ice bore the burden of paired gauntlets, empty and ancient. Countless scars crossed each other in a decrepit maze of torments and torture visited and received and somehow ending up the same as the thread of history became lost in frenzy and boiling blood - or at least the memory of it. A probing gaze, an endless and narrowed sea of venomous crimson, searched the lake's depths and traced the images of Foggy Bottom howling in lunacy, and the Chapter House ablaze.
Slender fingers, bloodlessly pale, blossomed from the scorched and scarred forearm guards that entombed the corrupted flesh beneath. Bared to the evening, Teron occasionally wondered when the evening breeze would stir between the digits, even as palms cradled a small, silver urn. His touch caressed the ash-bearer's outer curves as surely as if he explored the gentle visage burned forever into his memory. A visage cradled in shed tears, framed in auburn hair, silhouetted by the sun; bouncing and laughing and living. Even the urn's silver sheen, crisp in the starlight, haunted him with the spark in Elysia's eyes.
Eyes that would remain forever closed.
Myrken Wood required destruction, he considered with a heavy sigh that rattled the hammered breadth of ancient shoulder armor, even as the hundreds slain, driven mad, or raised to slaughter kin took shape in the urn's mysteriously reflective surface to haunt the ghostly shape of Elysia that had settled there. A land united against horror, hardened to cruelty, sprawled about him to be slaughtered, burned, and made safe. Even with all of Myrken Wood laid waste there would still be the task of bringing her back, of convincing her to stay here, with him, in the ruined bouquet of a land he would present to her.
A present clutched in hands that had cradled the bloodied betrothed he had awoken to find beside him in the ruined church. A present stained with her blood, and the blood of all he had murdered in his age-spanning fury to hammer the world into submission and strangle it into compliance with what was right, with what was fair.
Gripping the edge of the hood with one hand, he pulled it back from his visage, and removed the dark gray scarf. He stuffed the coarse garment, which felt as if mummified, into his belt. starlight shed flickering blue ghosts onto his horrific countenance - pallid, taut flesh; blackened bone where the skin had been ruined in battle; torn, lifeless lips; searing crimson flames within empty eye sockets; and patches of blond hair that fell to armored shoulders in length. The added color from the wintering heavens nested within the shadows of gaunt cheeks and beneath his eyes, alleviating the darkness that had laired about his infernal gaze since the moment of his death and in that instant they whispered blue.
His hands shook with trepidation as he leaned slowly forward, the hair tumbling forward and about his countenance as a battered and weathered halo, and slowly traced his fingertips along Elysia's cold urn. Teron's eyes glistened as he leaned even closer, and pressed a gentle kiss upon the aged silver with tattered lips.
"It has been six thousand years, Elysia," he whispered. "But my feelings haven't faded."
Teron inhaled slowly, deeply, to steady himself before continuing. "Do you remember the vows we were to exchange, my betrothed?"
He smiled a weak, trembling smile and felt a shiver course through his forever-stilled heart. His voice wavered as he went on. "I have not forgotten them," he exclaimed in a hurried whisper and, trembling, lowered himself to one knee. He tightly clasped the urn fiercely as, nearby, the Silver Lake quietly reflected the distant star light.