Post by Sileauniamh on Sept 21, 2008 22:40:03 GMT -5
Mintiper dreamed, and even the profound slumber in which he retreated to during the day wasn't enough to veil the discomfort that wrecked his body while these dreams burned through his mind. His hard, corded muscles shivered, and across the somber plane of his brow gleamed a thin, rosy perspiration...
_______________
He was naked, stripped of clothing and bereft of any dignity, a limp sculpture of pale contours and bleeding emotions. His sable hair lay listlessly upon the curves of his shoulders, contrasting starkly with the white flesh, and his gaze was eclipsed by his shadowed eyelids. Dry lips were parted in mock imitation of breath, for it had been years since air was summoned into the chapel of his bosom.
His confinement was one of sorcery, an intricately designed prison of glass and chanted words that kept him deep within the hallowed halls of Barrowhame, and only that immeasurable span of loneliness called 'thought' was his companion. Blood he had been denied; his Hunger clawed through the passages of his body and set ablaze the realms of his mind.
Then she had come, and in that instant he knew hatred as a joy that could be harbored and dwelt on for eternity. When she spoke, he heard the words that had confined him to the muddy earth with a spell and the shattered hilt of his sword, words that were not her own, but those of her lord, the Bloodsmith...
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The heavy lid to his coffin slid aside under the persuasion of his awakening, and he lay there in the darkness staring up at the wooden beams of the room he rented in the Claw and Cross. That time in his dream had been so long ago, and yet he still found that it burned against his conscious like the sun, and the wrath of its impression followed him even into the satin retreat of his coffin. His imprisonment in Barrowhame was
short, but the mental trials he endured had bruised his psyche nonetheless.
It was the purple hour of twilight, and the sun's descent into the west still gashed the sky with ribbons of crimson as he rose. His coffin was shrouded with a heavy black spread, and his attentions were designated to the lighting of several tallow candles whose light threw shadows across the paneled walls and low ceiling. Mintiper took up a silent vigil at the window after brushing the drapes aside, and he allowed a cool autumn breeze to
drift in on phantom wings. A contemplative gaze was dropped to the avenues and the docks below, and out to the buttery lights of ships on the water as they came in. Faint cries on the water and the rattle of carts mingled with the voices of the patrons in the Claw and Cross, and his senses became alive with dizzying speed.
Near to a month had been spent in reclusive living, for he ventured out only to feed and aqcuire books or parchment; his nights were mostly spent in that very room which he now stood, scribbling prose and poetry down upon paper that flowed with the skill and familiarity of one enamored with the written word. His inspiration was infused by the tender image of Jausserande, whose power and sway lay like mithril beneath the velvet of her beauty.
Yet despite her warm and welcoming invitations upon his arrival he was yet to confront her at Shadowspire Keep, to lay in the compliant embrace of her willowy arms and breathe in her golden hair, all the while surrendering to her light kiss.
"Jausserande," he whispered. He removed himself from the window and dressed with little ceremony, his shadow like a fey image of writhing tendrils on the wall. An ivory shirt of loose silk rippled across the expanse of his chest and shoulders, open at the throat so the dip of his carved collar bones was revealed, and tailored breeches of black crepe noir swathed his legs.
"Perhaps the night, in her vast conspiracy, shall unveil to me this night something to stir the blood." Mintiper retrieved his narrow sword sheath and belt from a chair and donned the flowing mass of his ebon cloak, becoming only a whisper of shadow after the candlelight was murdered and his exit taken.
(\/)intiper (\/)oonsi|ver
Originally posted:Date:10 Oct 2002 23:17:32 EDT- Mintiper