18th of Theneruo, 1155th of the First Age.
In distant, deepened unhallowed halls He sat alone, His large desiccated eyes of the deepest black stared aimless as he dreamt awake. Each dream He lingering His mind were the very same set in a war-torn field bereft of life and warmth of the seasons of nurture.
Bushes dried and gray, trees collapsing as the ravages of time gnawed at their once proud forms, the grass, foliage withered and pale as a corpse while the ground oozed with the stench of life’s finality. And there was only He and Her. A beauty of aldraelhyn blood with epidermis white as the softest snow of His once homeland devoured by the will of His cruel king.
Her face mesmerizing, adorned with a melodious expression of deep sadness as dark tears of blood flowed down Her chiseled cheeks. Hair darker than the empty night sky contrasting Her snow white skin, long and tousled as each collection of strands danced on their own as the wind gently blew.
Yet as the more He stared at Her, the more He felt angrier, sadder as if the dagger piercing Her heart was plunged into his instead. He watched as life faded from Her, each night with increasing length. Once it was no longer than a few seconds, now it felt an eternity.
And each time He awoke from the day dream, He felt ever more reduced. No longer could He recall His own name, His purpose, His punishment metered out by Himself. The thought dreaded Him each day and night yet in the end He continued on His accursed existence.
Each day He stood from the slab of gloomy basalt column collapsed into the center of the spacious bedroom right beside the bed He felt no need for. Many times He wondered why He placed the bed but in the end no answer came and with a shrug continued on with His days.
Each morning He commenced the day with long stroll in the silent halls fit for only one person. His mind wondered if He built it with loneliness in mind, knowing only the spiders sewing silently in the shadows would be His company for the eternity ahead.
Yet in each room of this vast maze were bones telling otherwise, bones laid in their hewn beds covered by cold, stiff blankets with strange runes carved onto them. On certain days He wondered whether one of these was Her, yet He gave up on remembering as He could no longer recall even His own name.
His long wandering always came to the same end, a bedroom He many times thought to be once His own room as He felt a strange calling to this spacious room cramped with towering, decaying shelves with legions of books. Some with hardened backs contained eerie runes, crude drawings of bodies bereft of garments like His own layered pieces revealing parts of His dry and rugged skin akin to centuries old parchment.
Page after page, His bulging empty eyes flipped through each tome of esoteric knowledge penned so that even He could understand the contents. He knew these were parts of a spell to raise the dead, and He felt familiarity with each carefully drawn rune and piece of macabre artwork. Have I written it because of Her? He wondered each day and night.
And like each and every day and night, He closed the tome and reached for the next. While half far from the entrance were of tomes of the same kind, the others contained tales of heroes filling His resting heart with a childish admiration, a book detailing receipts which felt strange to His mind and often He hovered His right hand growing elongated finger over His caved in abdomen.
And the last section closest to the entrance contained tales penned down by those whose beds filled the other rooms, detailing long-forgotten tales about a lonely monarch and his silent entourage wandering the long-dead worlds to visit those in their hour finality to listen to their tales while escorting them on their final road.
Will this monarch and his entourage come to me? He pondered each day and night, yet He felt no desire but dread at the thought as if He had still left some long-forgotten, most important matter to attend to.
Was I not alone? The question rang in His head as the careful tremors bereft of steps vibrated through the dusty floor, quivered His slender desiccated form. From His seating He slowly rose and dusted off the end of His dark robes with an uneven hem.
He turned and the two broken horns looping around His head like a crown scraped the edges of the doorway as He hastily exited the room, leaving the book of ancient tales on the empty open stony bed. Not long before, the source of the steps showed itself, a young man clad in leathery armor with a skirt of many straps.
A terrified look on his face sword clutched in his right and shield in the left. His mouth opened and the young man’s quivered mouth opened into a silent scream which trembled His body with coldness. Gloomy, dim nekrotic matter danced around his withered arm, gently wrapped his clawed fingers as it assembled into a ring in front of his vein decorated husk of a palm. A dart formed in its center within seconds, and flung towards the heart of the young man.
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The young man raised his shield while backing away with fear mumbling empty words. In a lonely piece of bone, his footing failed and his smaller form hit the floor and dart flew by his head, graying his richly brown hair then disappeared in the yearning darkness occupying the endless hallway. A second followed the first and this time the young man frozen in fear, bawling tears fell motionless onto his back.
He looked at the fresh corpse amongst the rest devoured already by time itself. The first thing He expected from Himself was disgust or guilt maybe both but instead He felt only joy, thrilled at the thought of extinguishing a life, releasing them from the accursed state of seemingly endless life.
In the end this warm sensation thrilling Him came to an end, and wonder followed as He pondered where the young man came from. He felt the gentle breeze of warm air tickle His desiccated cheeks, wrinkle His robes and decided to follow the path without preparing His mind for the long trail ahead.
Many turns and twists laid ahead, absent of the grim décor laid all over whence He came and lived for the past encounterable years, decades, centuries or maybe eons. At the stairs seemingly endless with radiant whiteness at the end, the air turned warmer, cleaner carrying a floral scent He forgot about so long ago.
With slow, yet careless steps He climbed the steps counting each as if those were the years He spent in the small section of His self-imposed prison. At the top, a hands-made aperture of crude proportions awaited, leading to a world beyond which He forgot, and which forgot Him.
Through the crack He cautiously climbed through and found Himself in a small room decorated with strange statues of figures akin to Her. Sharp features, long ears with sharpened tips, gently contoured, carved eyes, long hair frozen in the chaotic yet also orderly state of waves and in armor segmented and with angularly geometrical curves.
Each of the four statues looked inwards, each staring at the stone-hewn beds with rigid sheets pulled over them as they slept in eternity. Yet He felt the faint whispers, pleads for help as the sheets served as their shackles confining them into dampened, cold spaces.
With His right hand raised, the sheets fell and mimics of the statues rose from the beds, tired expressions on their visages as they rose and silently thanked their savior while inquiring on His next set of wishes waiting to be fulfilled.
At that moment, He only wished to see what laid beyond the forgotten cage and the small group wandered out to be welcomed by an ever colorful foliage of dozens of vibrant and warm colors. He stared at the picturesque surrounding, an illusory tear flowing down His desiccated cheeks while looking at the new, obedient entourage.
Even His desiccated form could enjoy the soft caress of the colorful foliage as he strode across the vast field surrounding the small and dim structure leading down to His forgotten home. Beyond the field, a vast forest of just as many colors surrounded and offered cold and soft shadows from the harsh rays of the blinding Illius hovering high in the infinite sky.
As they traversed the seemingly endless forest the light faded then returned many times while life avoided the group spewing suffocating miasma, fading the vibrant forest. As they passed strode along the foliage covered road, wonder filled His mind with myriad thoughts.
What awaited Him beyond this natural border, will there be others wishing to join their entourage, should he had awoken the young man who met his end and one which teemed His silent heart with dread, why was He confined there.
After two more cycles of darkening they arrived at elevating structure of fifteen or more wooden stakes closely forced together into an unnatural union at the top of a cautiously rising slope, He felt the sleeping heart wakening once more as He spotted Her standing in front of the arched structure.
And She was not alone, four at least stood alongside Her including another of the same pale-white epidermis, a long well-kept mane of contrasting shade of the tinge of the great Beyond promised to all. A merkin on the other side of myriad oceanic shades, glinting scales and expanding and collapsing slits numbering six while also clutching a stave of peculiar design.
Behind them a vampyr hiding under many layers of dark brownish garments and carefully segmented and curved armor, a plant-folk of androgynous looks dressed in amber shaded garments holding no weapon yet oozing with a menacing aura. Lastly a tall northern man whose brutish face was riddled with scars, his long fair blonde hair let out and unruly, his arms exposed and adorned with runes overflowing with marhaikos energies granting him power beyond his natural limits.
Yet none of them mattered to Him, only her, or at least whom He thought led to the confinement of uncountable ages imposed by Himself onto Himself. Or was it Himself who acted as judge for a sin only the formless beings could remember. It did not matter.
His withered legs moved forward, His slender dried up arms raised forward while in His lipless eternally grinning mouth the rows of teeth clashed onto each other in repeated cycles as He wished to utter Her name, yet He could no longer remember.
Is that truly you? He wished to convey but His voice long been faded by the time He reached her and found not the one who crumbled into dust, but saddened Moirstyria who vanished in the blink of an eye and pierced through her sword His once more sleeping heart as the emptiness began to spread anew.
Once more He stood at the center of the dead plains, looking at Her trying to learn where He went wrong, what was the sin which brought Him into the arms of oblivion. Yet no answer left Her soft lips as the desiccated skin and muscle began to crumble away around the blade.
As His arms and legs fell down, dissipated in the wind and relief settled on His horrid visage while the four members of His new entourage followed Him into the dark path where the pale maiden in black awaited with a teary eye and an aching heart.
“May your dreams be undisturbed.” Moirstyria uttered as she was hit with the force of the pain coursing into her, tears streaming down her scaled pale cheeks as the Djinn nekromancer finally faded away in the warm, gentle air.