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[Arahim]

---

Seven silent stones stood in frosted vigil, hemming away the trees in a large semi-circle, creating a clearing.

Al'lyria nestled a low standing stool into the yielding snow that covered her feet, before laying out three slender rods of tapered steel. Each a hand's length in size, and topped with oddly fashioned blades. Two curved to differing degrees. One flat, wide, and straight.

At her waist hung a small pouch of leather from which she produced two roughly rounded rocks of a smoky, unnatural opacity. Both scarce the size of a peach pit.

The tools and stones set side by side by side on a peculiar table of smiling onyx centered upon the snow choked field. The void-like surface slick, and streaked with dimming moonglow, a milky white.

Birdsong trilled out tentatively, heralding the coming of Day.

A short distance away, a song similar quavered as if in answer, but slightly swollen with confidence. The notes lingering longer.

A distinct echo of music with new voice carried from tree to tree.

A chorus embellished. Whistled as if colors in the night.

The avian singers held raptly with joy to hear a spirit kindred also awaiting Lady Dawn.

Rose fingered, and fire wreathed.

Gossamer wisps of cloud and dream Her filmy rainment.

Splendid in all Her varied guises.

Terrible in Her enduring reign.

Soon the forest was a symphony. Al'lyria within it's eye as it swirled all around her. Laughing, she spread her arms wide and inviting.

Maple scented wood carvings of serpents coiled at the ends of her many braids, clicking with the bob of her head. Blending her song without a hint of disharmony.

Windless, the towering pines and evergreens rolled and fluttered with life, and waited.

[Arahim]

---

Threadbare scraps of cloud rode along rails sallow red and gold.

Cobwebs caught in an uncaring breeze.

Time incidental, unabated.

A new day trumpets, and onto it's cusp, like afterthought, comes change.

Arahim broke boundary between sylvan evergreen and stark, ice white with purpose; dragging his shadow behind him in disjointed motion. Where it fell, star dappled crystal shrank away.

Grim in visage. Hooded, cloaked, and gloved.

In his wake...quiet.

Al'lyria watched her cousin undistractedly. Her silent prayers for his unavoidable delay dissipating with forgotten night. Broken into unnumbered flecks of nascent blooms of tomorrows yet unborn, but impossible to ignore.

Gods, so soon...so soon.

[Arahim]

---

A light feathering of snow fell lazily in tufts and drifts with the first hints of Day. A warm crimson spilling through the lowest branches of forest, barely brushing Arahim as he approached his waiting cousin. Both still mantled in Night's gauzy shroud; reluctant to relinquish the comfort they found within it's secret embrace.

Al'lyria's face told the story of his state of disrepair, her lips parting slightly as she stared. Begging to give voice to her concern, but opting for quiet.

Stopping just before the low, black block, Arahim bent to one knee, scooping up two handfuls of snow. Scrubbing his face vigorously, and scratching at the crust, he washed himself of the offending dried blood as best he could.

"How I look has ever been a failing of mine," he smiled fakely.

Al'lyria's expression did not soften as she looked him over.

"Not just..." she paused to point out each sign of the hurts he had carried with him, "...that. But, if we proceed ahead, here and now..."

Holding her gaze, Arahim slipped his satchel over his head and dropped it upon the gaping obsidian table with a dull thud.

"This...is a waste, Arahim."

His eyes of scorched Autumn earth mirrored her own fervently. His answer etched along every cut, bruise, and scrape. Punctuated with silence, he began to peel his prize of it's membranous covering like some obscene, over-ripe fruit.

The Heart flamed to a life brighter than that of before, burning a blue after image across both of their visions, and breaking their contentious eye contact, before fading slowly to a steady, pulsing glow.

"What more have I to do?" he asked quietly.

"Gloves." she answered, "And I'll need your arms bared to the skin."

Palming a stone from the table, Al'lyria watched Arahim toss his leather gloves and armor to the waiting snow. She motioned him near, and used one of the curved blades to cut the sleeves from his shirt. Pointing to the side of the table opposite her stool, she bid him kneel.

"Lean into the cube, boy, let it take your weight. We will be here til the sun tires of our world and seeks another," she stated flatly. "Elbows here. Palms up."

When this was to her liking, Al'lyria set the Heart of Winter into his hands, and sat leaned over in front of him. Both resting on their elbows on what seemed to be a carven piece of Infinity. Displaced and sentient.

She carefully chose a different blade, and held it at the ready. Her left hand clutching one of two rounded rocks just under the blue tinged shard of ice held slightly aloft, as though in offering. Arahim's arms propped up and bent towards her.

As Dawn bloomed fully, slowly, by incremental degrees, The Heart of Winter gave way.

[Arahim]

---

Sunlight sent waves of curved white flowing along the spilt ink black of the squared dais. It's surface was littered with flecks and slivers of marbled, milky blue. Some rocky, rough, some of a distinctly crystalline veneer. Upon a corner, further marring the stark absence of chromatic decoration of the obsidian table, set the end-product of Al'lyria's painstaking work. A perfect sky-colored diamond; multifaceted and clear. Smaller than a pinky nail. Accented with the reflected glimmers of Day and all it was, or could be.

Her task only half done, she held a semi-formed gem beneath Arahim's upturned hands and waited without word.

Pain and discomfort had long since dimmed to simple inconvenience. Cramped, bunched muscles and unnatural posture registered with his body as a slight heat, evenly spread throughout, but persistent, and invasive.

Earning swift rebuke for every shift or readjustment, he willed himself into a perfect state stillness. Adhering, for once in his life, to a set mold. Sublimating self to the inaction of actually becoming the task.

For all the life he exhibited, Arahim may as well been another stone rooted within the ice-frosted henge around him.

A single drop of freezing water seeped through his hands, and began a slow crawl down the length of his naked left arm. The scars of old altering it's downward course like well planned channels until tenuous it hung from his elbow as he carefully lifted his arms from the glassy surface.

The Heart of Winter no larger than an orange at this point.

Hissing through clenched teeth, Al'lyria moved the unfinished jewel below the bead of dangling drip just as it fell. Catching it upon it's cool surface, she quickly slid her long steel blade along the wetted contours and shaved away more of the stony exterior. Smoothing and polishing as she went, until the lubricant was spent.

This was the ritual.

[Arahim]

---

One by one...bright holes tore through the purple smeared veil of a new Night. Telltale reminders of things beautiful and true sometimes just past the dark times that blanket us with alarming regularity.

The interplay of songspun silver beacons strewn upon the dizzying deeps of nothing, verdant fodder for those who refuse to drudge. For those who willingly supplant bowing, to cast their gaze to the heavens, and wonder.

Al'lyria was visibly spent, though her hands remained steady and strong as she finished some minor aesthetics to her act of creation.

Arahim shook as though with fever. Cold leached into the very core of his body, changing it. Even as he put on his leather armor, and pulled his coat close, the shivers subsided but little. Every movement shooting a fresh bonetight chill through his being.

"Seashells," he said looking over his cousin's handiwork, "Set within seashells, I thought we had discussed."

Lightly squeezing tiny prongs together with a miniature set of tweezers, Al'lyria held out an opened hand. Her finished product on display.

Two intricately carved spiralled serpents of white-gold sat in her palm. Both clutched blue diamonds within their mouths; fangs conforming to the angles and facets of the glinting gemstones.

"Serpents...said your boy." she replied, "In truth, he said the Serpent and the Hunter. She gets serpents though. Give her the respect to name her own Hunter doomed to stand at the ready. Forever poised above her. Afford her that freedom."

"Serpents..." Arahim repeated quietly, taking his gift from her extended hand.

"It is a thing well done." he said, draping his gaze over the minute details of the jewels in his grasp.

"No." she answered immediately.

"It is done well...but not well done. I fear it is a thing you will be reminded of for all your days, boy. For you, I pray to the spirits you are able to reconcile what you give with what you have given up."

"Only time will answer that, cousin. Til then...I think I'd like to go home."

[Arahim]

---

Several months ago...

A mewling black kitten circled and snaked figure eights about Arahim's legs as he stepped across the Bramble Rose's threshold. The attention heaped upon him with such fervor and suddeness that it caused him to stop in his tracks or risk tripping over his new friend.

Purring contentedly, the black ball of fuzz unended itself onto her back, and swatted oversized paws at the laces on his boots. Biting at the leather cords whenever a tiny claw hooked into them and became briefly tangled in its frenzied play.

Righting herself with a comical quickness, the cat leaned happily into Arahim's affections as he sat himself crosslegged on the floor, and stroked his feline greeter in long passes from head to tail. Paying great attention to scratch pointedly at her cheeks, and behind her ears whenever she rubbed her head against him, thus marking him with her scent.

Without displacing this new bond, his eyes roamed around the theatre searching for a sign that told him someone was at home, though strangely reluctant to give voice and speed discovery.

The theatre was empty, and quiet but for his booted steps, as he stood and walked around the well ordered and tended chairs and tables, and the rapid purr that followed him with interest.

Arahim was dressed in a long grey coat which he kept buttoned all the way up, despite the unseasonable mildness of the day. A thick red scarf of wool bulging out near the top button. He held fur lined suede gloves in his hands, and a plain leather bag at his hip.

His gait was slow and measured. His movements economical and unnatural, without any sense of flow. Anything else, any sharp motion caused fits of shivering like a child wracked with fever.

He hardly remembered the layout of the theatre, though it was not so long when last he visited. Cezanne had played hostess to an open house, inviting any with a desire to take her stage, and share whatever it was that had made them special or unique with those of a like mind. The event was well received.

Trailing his fingers lightly along the grain of the stage, memory washed over him gently in truncated fits. Fragile pieces of jigsaw that melted away at his touch.

She had sang that night, and he could no longer hear the words.

His midnight escort turned away to clean herself in feigned insouciance as Arahim paused and took in the room. Punishment for what she saw as his lack of attentiveness, as surely he had heard her at his heels.

In opposite corners, music and fortune.

One his gift to her, the other her gift to him.

Somehow they both seemed lonely to his eyes.

Choosing the stone table over the ornate, free-standing box, Arahim pulled out an unadorned wooden container the size of his hand, and laid it down. From within his coat, he produced a sheet of yellow paper, folded over once to secret what was written. He placed the letter under his gift with care, allowing it's corners to stick out and garner attraction.

Heading for the door, Arahim stooped down to say goodbye to his tiny, fur-addled companion. Alternately scratching her sleek flanks, and tweaking her ears in a fierce cycle of comfort and pouncing, bounding play.

Laughing between the ensuing shudders, he leaned in and spoke:

"Tell her I stopped by, but could not stay. Show her where I left a present. Can you remember all that you rascal?"

Gold eyes watched him leave, curious and questioning.

She padded quickly after him, though she dared not the larger outdoors, and stopped at the property's edge.

A single plaintive meow at his back, Arahim turned and smiled, and then left.