No Rest on the Brink ( Kwars )

She stood to the right of the large iron gate, leaning idly against the
tower itself. The late day shadows had stretched across the sandy ground,
lending a much needed break from the dry heat that wafted up from the
ground.

The Bakali were out there in the distance, but it was beyond them that she
found her gaze settled. She had walked the paths out there time and again
to reach Storm Keep and had watched, time and again, as Reklah disappeared
into the blistering heat and sands as he returned.

An abrupt ache began to throb through her left hand at the thought,
following the line of the scar that had torn a ragged path from the palm to
mid-wrist. She had sustained the wound for Arinas Schwartz, in Necrucifer's
name. It struck her as appropriate. She had shed blood willingly for
Shalonesti to prove herself, it stood to reason that, for the duty she oft
found herself employed in, it be the same elsewhere.

She had also been an exiled elf of Shalonesti about to walk into a world
ruled by humans of the dark pantheon then. She hadn't been prepared for
that, no matter how many of them she had come to know throughout her
lifetime.

Setting the memories aside as best she could, she tore her eyes from the
dunes to gaze down at her left hand. The pain was increasing with each
throb, a thing it had never done before. It creased her brow and with
growing concern, she uncoiled her arms from across her chest and slowly
peeled her leather glove off.

...to find that the white gash of the scar had reopened.

Blood spilled down her arm and her hand, dripping from her fingers to pool
on the sand below, and pain coursed up through the rest of her arm as if the
blade were ripping its ragged path into her flesh again.

* * *

She awoke with the nails of her left hand dug painfully deep into her palm
and a dull ache coursing through each of her scars. Confusion held her in
thrall for a handful of moments before she managed to push herself up from
the bed. She hadn't bothered to dress for sleep, not with war so close on
the horizon, and she was paying the price for that now.

Sore through and through, she rubbed her right hand back along her neck and looked to the window. A gentle, cool breeze was ruffling the curtains and the faint light without told her that she'd only gotten two, maybe three hours of rest at most.

Sighing heavily, she arose, grimacing at the shallow crack along her spine
when she straightened and grabbed up her weapons and baldric.

If she wasn't going to be allowed much rest, the least she could do was make
herself useful by walking the escape routes again. She knew them
blindfolded now - but her archers could always use the refresher.

One Duty ( Kwars )

Perhaps they knew her name.

Perhaps they knew some reputation she may have gleaned during her tenure in Shalonesti, in Verminasia.

Or perhaps someone had told them who she had been and what she had become, for when she stepped up to the line of archers, all dressed and arrayed in armor befitting New Thalosian troops, not one held her gaze. Not one moved beyond what it took to breathe air into their lungs and expel it.

There was a time when she might have been chastened by such behavior, set
aback even, but the storm was coming and fear was her ally. Leniency had
proven a tactic to be used sparingly and in her case, had led to the most
profound betrayal she couldn't have conceived of.

There would be no mercy for any of these men and women if they failed. She
had one duty; to protect the royal family. Their failure would be her
failure - and that was unacceptable.

She did little more then walk through their tight formation, taking in their
armor, their expressions. She spoke no words, she told them at a glance
what her intentions were, what they were there to do until she deemed
otherwise.

And when she was certain that the tension had strung itself tight enough to
break, she stopped at the head of the columns to face the men and women of
the Fourth Thalosian Archers.

"You have one duty." She said in a quiet tone, devoid of any warmth,
gazing hard over the archers before her. "One. Duty. Tell me what it is."

"To protect the royal family."

The cacophony of their voices rising together to proclaim the only thing she
had asked to hear, was pleasing.

"Good." She whispered softly, falling silent in the wake of remembered
words she had already spoken to the Sultana.

..I won't fail you..

Tilting her head back to gaze up at the night's canopy and the myriad stars
that dotted the sky like tiny diamonds, she could only pray that she was
truly up to the task. That these men and women could take their task as
seriously as they needed to, should the worst befall the Desert Jewel.

'Lord...let it be so.'

Dissonance

The chessboard was crystal and set on either side with clear and white frosted pieces. The board itself mirrored the crystal of its pieces and sat upon a pedestal of black and white, stark and clearly out of place in the middle of the sands that stretched for countless miles in either direction.

So bright was the sun that she could barely see beyond the chess board. It became the focal point of her world and she approached it with all the uncertainty that had long ago taken over who she was, that had smothered who she had been.

She looked to the frosted pieces, but she knew that that was not her side of the board. Not anymore.

She looked to the clear pieces and found the direction she desired, but her gaze inevitably turned to the center of the board. No move had yet been made, the pawns lined up pristine and waiting upon their individual squares. It seemed right that it be thus, though she could remember the last time she had seen this chessboard.

The pieces had been lying upon the ground, scattered in an apparent rage.

She blinked, her eyes stinging in the light, and beheld again the chessboard as it sat before her, its pieces arrayed and prepared for battle. She reached forward, impulsively, for the clear Knight nearest her but when her fingers closed on nothing she drew her hand back.

There was no clear Knight.

...though the opposing white Knight had drawn forward, to sit alone in the middle of the board.

* * *

She awoke with a start, though it did not hold the same sort of violence that accompanied her typical nightmares. She had long gotten used to them, used to waking in such a manner, though it never became any easier to find herself alone at such times.

The difference, this time, seemed to lie in the air.

The desert was there, dry and warm, instead of the empty hallways. There was no rain pattering upon her window, no forest scent, and though the chill that had long ago set its claws in her remained an ever present sensation, she dared to hope that the desert might help banish it. That it might return color and life to her world.

She slid from the bed and padded across the room, grabbing up a light robe to drape around herself as she did so, and listened at the window without surprise to the sounds of a kingdom at war - even in the dead of night.

It was one thing to witness it in Verminasia, the dark city never seemed to sleep even when war was not on the horizon, but in New Thalos, it struck her as out of place.

A dissonance in paradise.

It was no wonder she was dreaming of chessboards, though the connotations of her dream left her feeling restless.

Change

The creak of rough leather being crushed and stretched was a soft counterpart to the low crackle of a fire and the patter of rain against a window pane.

Nymaya sat hunched upon the edge of her window seat, the soggy lands of Iagothal stretching out in a mist-shrouded view from beyond the clear glass, slowly flexing her hand around the frayed remnants of her glove. The leather had lasted a good long while but, like to everything in her life of late, it needed to change. She needed new gloves, she needed new armor. New weapons, new everything.

She closed her blue gaze to the sight before slowly peeling the gloves off and casually tossing them into the hearth that blazed off to her right. Her hair was a curtain of silver that veiled her face as she lowered her head to run her hand back through the straight strands, so many questions racing through her mind.

There were only three people in all the world who had answers for her, and two of them were dead. The third, and she gave this one great consideration, would have what she was seeking but she could admit to herself that she feared the answer. There were not many people left who understood her so well...

"Countess."

The voice was soft, just this side of timid, and she lifted her head to affix the servant with a questioning gaze. A delicate hand held a fluted glass of deep red wine out to her. It was not a normal occurrence and red wine had never been her drink of choice. Against all this, she found herself reaching out to take the thin crystal stem.

The servant took hold of her black skirts and, after a practiced curtsy, departed the room. Nymaya watched her long black hair disappear around the door to the parlor and upon her first sip of the dry-tasting liquid, the soft notes of a piano drifted to her from down the hall.

She had never touched the expensive, beautiful instrument - and should have been angry that one of her staff would so boldly do so without permission - but she couldn't be angry at the grace she heard in the melody. At the depth of heartache and power that rose and fell with the flow of the music.

Turning away from the door, she set her faraway gaze on the sodden land outside the window while balancing the wine glass on her knee, and touched her fingers to the cooled glass, feeling the weight of her wedding band. Shewould find the burial site of her husband first, all else could wait.

Turmoil

She had been falling apart for a long time now, held together by the will and the love of a man whom some part of her had always known would go to his God. It did not make the hurt at his loss any less, but dealing with it had not come as too great a surprise to her, nor was it as difficult.

She could feel herself crumbling though, around the edges, like a sandcastle that has stood too long without repair. Trickling away, returning to the ground and the sand below it.

The music in her soul, the ever faint, ever present whisper of the haunting song that was with her day or night was becoming too much to bear. Years had passed and with his help, she had been able to function past it, learn to ignore it, protect her delicate sanity but the days of nothing - of having nothing to focus on but the loss and the pain were taking their toll.

She had tread this path before, when she had wandered the wilds, looking for some new place to belong, knowing in her soul - that still longed for and might always long for - the Vallenwood, that another place might only ever offer distraction.

She was shaking again, the tremors had slowly begun to move up from her fingers, her hands, to her body and that was unacceptable. She was not a leaf, to tremble before the wind. She had always been the fire that consumed it.

She felt her breath shake as she closed her eyes and forced herself to find that inner calm, to grasp and hold it. Her lost melody was there, as always, making it nearly impossible and anger quickly rose to smother her control.

She opened her eyes, feeling bereft, lost in a sea of confusion and found herself looking up at the statue of Raije. The hesitation, perhaps, in the thought of 'letting go' was that even in death she would not join her lost husband who had always been set on a different path. No, he was at Necrucifer's side and she...would go nowhere, so torn was she that in her heart, she believed that there would be little more then a void to welcome her when death finally came.

She looked back up at the statue of Raije, the shrine nestled comfortably against Necrucifer's temple, and begged within the chaotic confines of her mind for an answer.

It came quietly, moments later, a memory dredged up from her past, and with a strange sense of relief, she drew her elven blade, dug a soft cloth from a pouch and began the surprisingly simple process of polishing a sword that had never needed it.

Bitter News

The bleak chill that wrapped her heart was unlike most of the emotions she had ever experienced before. It was numbing, painful, if put to small words but she stood where she was and let it in. Denial had never caused her anything but lingering grief and so, she hid none of herself as she let the truth settle in her head. She had no reason to doubt the words of an Elder of Shadow.

She was alone. Again. And with that thought, the curse that she had thought was mere imagination, arose to blacken her very sight. She had warned Reklah though.

'They all fell to death. All but one, who left.'

The world spun around her, the sounds of people talking, of business going on as usual, but there was no comfort to be found in any of it. She opened her eyes, finding herself still standing within Verminasia's Temple, the curious gaze of the priestess watching her closely. She had no idea what emotion, if any, was plastered upon her face but the priestess turned away abruptly when Nymaya met her gaze.

No one spoke to her as she paced away from the Temple, into the streets, trying to decide upon the warring emotions within herself and if any of themwere truly worthy of her. Would Reklah have wanted vengeance? Acceptance? Had his demise been more than it appeared to be? Should she give in to useless hatred for the God's forsaken paladin who had apparently slain him? Did any of these sentiments really do justice to the devotion she had shared with Reklah?

She thought back to the crazed paladin who had torn out his own eye before her and wondered at her choice of words when she had turned to her companion and expressed that she felt the world would be better off with one less sane paladin amongst it.

Noting her hands were shaking, though she couldn't yet feel much more then a thin current of grief and confusion, she curled her fingers into fists and simply strode away from the city, trying to escape the emptiness it seemed to embody - or perhaps it was the emptiness that yawned inside her that she was trying to outrun.

Eye of the Beholder

The cloth sat open before her and upon it was the now dried out eye sitting beneath a pool of dried blood. The contrast of rusty brown against the white of the fabric was not as startling as had been the fresh blood but it was still clear in her mind.

She tried to feel something then. Disgust, horror, pain or remorse but there was nothing. Nothing at all.

'The world could do with one less sane paladin.'

Her own words, whispering back to her from the marshy realm of Abaddon.Unease followed and she was glad for that little bit, though why it was important to her, she couldn't have said.

How could a man cut out his own eye? She found her gaze lifting to glance at the heavens above, and the answer was suddenly quite understandable. Disgust came now, but not for the deed that the insane paladin had done before her eyes. No, it was directed at the heavens and the Gods of Light. Faith - or lack of it - could do horrible things to a person.

Rewrapping the eye, his 'gift' to her, she carefully placed it away and decided that she was going to be a little more careful with her wording around the less than stable of mind.

"Eye of the beholder...indeed." She muttered to herself and proceeded out of the temple and into the streets of Verminasia.