Discordant Echo

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[ 75] Nymaya: Discordant Echo
Fri Feb 26 13:26:24 2010
To: All RP Imm Necrucifer ( Anastormia Telthian Crelius )
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She became aware of a sound.

Faint, like the breathing of someone as they slept, or of a predator as it stalked it prey.

Alert and awake now, she remained still in the black cushioned chair and settled to simply listen. Nothing moved. There was no sense of life, just the faint breath of sound - the awareness.

It grew in depth the longer she remained unmoving, became pronounced and certain. Familiar even. So familiar that a deep dread began to rise beside it. It was no physical manifestation. It was something she knew all too well. She had known this sensation for centuries and its resulting whisper for an eternity.

It wasn't calm and it wasn't comforting anymore.

It no longer reinforced any certainty in how she lived her life now, in the decisions she made that had managed to help keep her alive. She couldn't call on it to protect her, to guide her or even lend her much needed reassurance.

"...what brings you peace from it, Lady Kayen?"

And abruptly, it was no longer a gentle if ominous sound. It was a cacophony. Distorted and riding the precarious edge of agonizing. She knew how easy it would be to slip into it, to allow it reign over her sanity. She could understand how elves had fallen prey to madness in its wake.

Her hand blindly grasped for the hilt of the sword she knew she had propped up against the side of the chair before she'd sat down to doze, intent on grounding herself with its familiarity - but stopped abruptly when she realized it was gone.

Her eyes snapped open only to find equally familiar brown eyes gazing down at her. He'd lifted the scabbard in one hand while the other held to the side of the chair, allowing him to loom over her. He was so close she could see the detail in his iris's, feel his breath across her lips. But he was
dead...

'Don't let it rule you'

His mouth never moved but she heard his whisper.

'You were my purpose' She seemed to breathe the very words, all the while wondering if she had already lost her mind to the discord.

'I have faith in you' Stalwart and as certain as ever.

'It is a part of me' And she could feel despair wisp through her.

'Then accept it, understand it - seek to overcome it' There was indomitable strength there, a certainty that had carried her in the past. 'Live only to serve Him in all ways. I taught you well - the choice has always been yours how best to use it and to what purpose'

And then the feather light touch of his lips met hers gently after a breathless, timeless pause.

---

She awoke slowly, aware of a deep and empty calm. The sort of peace she had recently admitted to. Attempting to examine the feeling told her only that it was unlike anything she had ever experienced before; she had come to an acceptance in at least one aspect of her life.

She felt nothing more than certainty as she rose up from the self-same black cushioned chair in her dream, the Kayen manor yawning mostly empty around her, though she was beset with the haunting surety that she contained a tainted discord at her core, where once reigned the pure fiery song of her soul.

It was a disquieting realization but with a focused effort, she pushed it to the background of her thoughts and left the darkened parlor without a glance back.