花樣年華，or: the age of blossoms

[No night, no golden sun]

A bony finger runs across elaborate oil on canvas, steps far heavier than any step ought be thudding throughout a tiled room, those tiles smooth and dark as the sands' night.

[Immolate]

three years eight months four days three hours eleven minutes fifty two seconds

I snapped awake as I often did these days, every bone and joint crackling as I rose. Old scars made a maze across my body, each and every single one with a tale attached.

"I used to like to tell the stories about them, you know it? A wide grin splayed across my inked over face, perhaps some kind of drink in my hand. I'd taken it up, ignored the fact it made me feel so sick..." I paused then, puffed out my lips a little bit and ran the length of this skinny Elf over with my eyes.

"Could I have some tea?"

He obliged, I'm glad to say, and we talked for a while, about people with pacts, lost loves, growing old. Two friends on the precipice of eternity.

[No night, no golden sun]

A wooden door creaked as it was pushed, and the face of an Elf known to every man who carried a whip from Almraiven to the Mir poked through the space in between door and the outside world.

"Hil ra'aytih, hu min al'ahmir?" he asked, blinking those disparate eyes just once, just once, but he was there for just a hair's length over eleven minutes.

The den was silent, sweat stained faces torpefied at just the sight of this thing, how informal it spoke. A serpent playing at being man. One of the faces, a farrier from Memnon, mumbled something just quietly to himself.

The serpent stepped forward, his head tilted softly.

"Qil li ya 'akhi, 'ahdar lakum kl alhurriat alty tastahiqunaha," it said, and then it had the gall to smile.

The farrier swallowed very hard, a silent prayer to the Crying God fired off in his mind.

"Lqad ra'ayt, ra'ayt rajulana bikhibat kirahiat ealaa wajhih, fi Memnon! wasat alqatlaa," the craftsman murmured, his eyes firmly at the feet of the Elven serpent.

"Thay," he whispered.

The Elf reached forward, a gloved hand going to just lightly brush at the sweating farrier's cheek.

It was cold, and Firuk yn Omar yi Memnon slept uneasy that night, as well as for many after.

[Immolate]

two years seven months three days fourteen minutes seventeen seconds

They called me the Fiend, these days. Whispered tales of "the most brutal slaver in Calimport," and more loudly spoke were his skills with the scimitar. They said I had once killed seven djinn in a single strike.

It wasn't true, naturally. It was only one djinni, six mirrors and a very lucky swing.

I didn't bother to assuage the stories, though. I liked being a figure of myth, an infamous scoundrel who'd disappeared. People thought I was dead, and maybe I liked it that way.

I certainly acted like it, myself, living in a mausoleum in Memnon. My only company were the dead and my paintings.

On paintings? The subjects were somewhat varied, but these days it was Elves, I found myself most usually drawn to describing on canvas. Some of them were brown haired, eyes a-twinkle with wonder and kindness. Some of them were ruined, broken things with noses held high and robes of crimson. Whether it was blood or dye I left ambigious - an artist's flair, I liked to think of it as.
I think the truth was just I didn't know the answer myself.

My favourite subject was the various interpretations of the Gloom, an Elven abolitionist feared for his detachment and cold determination. The stories said he was immortal, that he bled starlight and rode a huge white dragon through the skies.

They said he had an especial love for children, would give them treats: little pink, edible flowers from somewhere. They tasted as bliss itself, made you feel even better.

They said he was terrifying, nightmare given shape, and to gaze into his single eye was to look into death itself.

Schlock, I'd imagine, just like they talked about me. But it was fun to paint.

I wondered if he'd ever find me, and what I'd say when I met him. I wondered when he'd try to kill me, if I'd kill him instead. Or if he'd have his success, if he'd kill me?

I didn't care, and the worst part about that is it didn't even give me pause.

[No night, no golden sun]

Lodi's first thought was just how many paintings there were. How busy the Fiend had been.

An artist!

He thought about Vivian (sweet Vivian!) and her little sewing of that doll, how eager she'd been to show him. He smiled, just very wistful for a moment at how happy she and Heinrich were - really, how wonderful it all was, he'd hoped they'd gotten married by now - and continued his march down the hall.

The Gloom whistled, hands in the pockets of his baggy, brown cotton pants.

[Immolate]

three years eight months four days three hours eighteen minutes four seconds

"Well, you know mister H'thanna-"

"Please," I said, interrupting, "you might just call me Kolja."

"Very well!" he piped back, setting his own teacup to the side. "You know I'll have to kill you, Kolja. The things you've done just aren't forgivable, see. Not by any moral standpoint."

I sipped at the last of my tea, looking into his eyes. One was all... wrong, covered in a greasy film, but it was there. Two eyes, one emerald and one sick. He was so very thin, like he hadn't eaten for such a long time. One arm was covered in a black leather guard, its movements eerily precise and controlled.

I thought about Stalvandt.

"I'm quite aware you feel you have to try, and that's fine," I replied, giving a little smile.

"You're a very skilled painter, mustar Kolja. I like-" the Gloom paused, making a subdued choking noise at one in particular. One of the Danlenocelles, it looked like, that one Elf ruined by licks of flame.

"Who is this?" His voice had taken a very much more grave weight to it, as if some fool woman in a painting had some serious measure of importance.

"It's, oh... what's her name. One of Buppi's friends. The Elven woman- Relia, that's it," I said that, albeit distracted. I ran a hand through my hair then, tying it back with a piece of string from the nightstand we'd set our finished teacups on.

"She's so beautiful. It's like I'm there, all over again... oh!" he put that black glove up to his forehead, glancing up to my ceiling with that wistful denouement.

He was Gods damned strange, even for an Elf.

[No night, no golden sun]

They strode out of the tomb together, heads lifted high. Both flinched at the sun's rays. The Elf moved a scarf into place, specially tailored to cover his more macabre orb and not the other, the emerald Elven eye left bare.

The Thayvian just scrubbed his eyes, stepped a bit into the shade while extracting a rusted blade out of a scabbard.

The Elf withdrew a shining blade of his own in a graceful and fluid motion, the sun reflecting off it like shining silver.

They met blades there, the Fiend and the Gloom, two terrors amidst a desert's soft breeze.

[Immolate]

three years eight months four days three hours twenty five minutes twenty three seconds

I was faster than he was, even despite the fact I'd been inside a tomb, painting for the past year or so.

Minutes passed, and like lightning my blade met Elven flesh, biting in deep, meeting something hard within him - ribs, maybe?

"I killed the Gloom," I murmured, as black ichor, as starlight, crawled like syrup down his side.

The Gloom disagreed, neatly separating my weapon out from himself without even the most quiet of whimpers.

Behind the walls, I heard the sound of so much sand falling, of it moving.

I thought of pale dragons, of white dragons.

I shut my eyes.

[Immolate]

zero years zero months zero days zero hours zero minutes zero seconds