Memento mori

[Sorrow]

Sedate footsteps over snow and ice alike draw a silent figure to the lakeside, not for the first time in months; not even so much as a week has passed without some visit here, no matter how abridged. There is a whisper of furs, folds of snowy wolves pelts brushing against one another as gloveless fingers reach into their depths for a memento. Moonlight's pale glow is mirrored, echoed back with new distortions from silver and ebon glass as this lovingly crafted creation is inspected one last time before being released into the care of what flora survives winter's icy grip, but not without cost. A razor edge claims a tear of blood that falls between the glossy layers of black on black, and draws a silken murmur,

"in remembrance.."

Brushed by frigid winds, perhaps covered by an errant leaf, it remains as if a rose upon a grave. In some ways it is just that. Leaves of silver hammered near thin as paper with veins painstakingly etched over each one, a simple stem of this same precious metal supports those viciously sharp petals, the duplicitously delicate bloom of a dark, unnatural rose.

[Teron_Ashfiend]

Wilted ferns clutched onto the frost visited upon them, cancerously spread with a rapacious hand that refused to let go. The hand that had visited such plague upon the half-slumbering flora brushed aside errant leaves that leprously paled beneath fingers that curled about the wrought rose left upon the makeshift tombstone of this small, private glade.

"Who has come," a sepulchral voice escaped parted, barren lips hidden beneath a loosely-fit grey scarf. The question rumbled into the air about him, polluting the world with a reminder of such enduring, hateful existence as is marked by a pair of glittering crimson eyes whose burning depths were reflected back as a dozen ferocious pinpoints.

Beneath his curious scrutiny, the length of a black cloak trailing out behind the stooped remnant of a man, the Ashfiend felt a distinct pull that caused mirrored eyes to dance and swim with some unsuspected sorcery. His other hand produced, fromt he folds of his cloak, a rose like the first save for its deep, penetrating blue hue as if taken from the sky and hammered into poetic compliance.

A gaze for the first again, a gaze in return, an image that took shape within the folds of the multifoliate rose. A memory knit together in shadows, where a figure knelt, clutching desperately to a broken sword that slowly wept onto the trodden ground below. A figure armored and otherwise simply adorn
by the length of golden hair that cascaded about armored shoulders and framed bold, strong features in a gently curved halo. Proud lips had fallen earthward with the quiet weight of silent tears that stained his flushed, living countenance before joining those etched onto the chestplate of his armor where roses wept and wilted without the blackening fire of countless ages.

Penroll knelt in the shadows, weeping, his weapon broken, and peered downward while taking in hope through the struggling strangle of barely controlled breaths. A living beauty yet painted mourning features with a distinct, healthy flush beneath the brilliant stare of a cobalt gaze that blinked, wavered, and failed to burn with any flame beyond human art.

Slowly the armored figure struggled to his feet, bearing a half of the sundered weapon in each hand, and strode towards the Ashfiend as he watched. Blue eyes sought and held a gaze that remembered such definition and clarity without the eternal smoke of never-ending hate.

"Penroll," the living one murmured in a voice that echoed about him.

With a start the rose fell to wintering ground blanketed in slumbering life and snow. Carefully falling to one knee, Teron laid the first rose in his possession beside this second one and considered that the gifter would, indeed, be the same.

"Why torment me thusly?" he whispered into the bitterly stagnant air.

[Sorrow]

"Torment? No." However softly spoken, those sepulchral tones have power enough to bind. As a whisper on the wind she returns, with all the promise of tattered cobwebs, within sight and yet out of reach. Calloused fingers extend to sweep through the chill air, and it is no casual gesture that indicates what treasures lay before him.

"Bring them, and come." The peculiar, silken sadness of her voice allows for such words; requests masquerade as commands for a creature who will perhaps abide neither. Moonlight guides muted footsteps away from this lakeside memorial, from him, and toward the dark silhouette of the forest.

[Teron_Ashfiend]

Bring them she bids to the colossal wreck of a man, fallen to one knee as searing eyes outline twin roses, blue and grey, whose invisible thorns prickle what vestigial humanity lies left in tatters beneath entombing armor. Care and torment adorn each false petal and delicate angle that reflected an infernal gaze back upon its bearer, dimmed by whatever craft has rendered metal and glass pliable beneath the whispering stranger's sorcerous touch.

A command veiled in a question balks him, setting one hand into a loose, reactionary fist used to shattering mirrors rather than adjusting or repairing them. He recalled this one, this shadowy other, who had haunted him almost from the moment he had set physical foot upon Myrken's forested veils. Amidst the growing memorial alongside the lake, whose tentative waves lapped amidst broken ice and withering ferns who bowed beneath the Ashfiend's burdensome presence, he plucked the pair of false flowers into an armored hand and rose to his feet.

The meeting with Ariane fresh upon his burning thoughts he fell into silent steps that crushed and bled slumbering life from wintering earth. The rustle of scorched, scarred armoring plate lay mute beneath some phantasmic hand, the tattered length of a black cloak fluttered in a nightmarishly soundless banner while the chill pooled and collected about him, preparing to probe this one who had at first offered a gift and then made demands.

"You will explain your presence here," he rumbled in echoing challenge as the broken chains rattled against his leg like slightly dissonant, diminutive bells - the only sound to come from him, besides a tomb-like voice; each link mournfully missing his wife's remnants.

"I am no longer in the habit of obeying another."

[Sorrow]

"You have questions. Come, or do not." Shoulders hunch tightly against the cold beneath hard-won furs, and unpainted lips peel from teeth in a soundless snarl as those eyes that see all too much are cast back toward the fiend in her wake. Madness consumes as sorrow ravages, and still all those tiny carved up pieces remain scattered through the night, all beyond the reach of such a tenuous grasp, all save for these two. This feral gaze is softened, made more aware by lonesome chains that call out past that which had dampened those other senses.

"You are injured." Broken, laid open like a festering wound with so much pus and bile that the mere sight of it sickens. "Death is kinder. That they have done this.." There are no words for it, at least none to be offered up into this night, in this place. "Come, please."