She’s so peaceful asleep, a shadow ponders to itself. Her room is cold, as most rooms at the Forgotten Knight, and all of Ishgard, tend to be. The fire has gone out, leaving behind naught but smoldering ashes in a blackened hearth. She doesn’t seem to mind the cold, laying across her feather bed, blankets askew, fast asleep. The shadow has eyes, and they linger on her form, soaking in the details: her left arm draped over her stomach, her right to her side, bent at the elbow, both covered in the fading remnants of void burns winding like pale ribbons on her porcelain skin. Silver eyes are closed, flicking to and fro behind her eyelids as she dreams, something decidedly peaceful, or the shadow assumes she would appear more perturbed.
It watches in silence, for what could be an eternity, the only light in the room the pale moonlight spilling in through a haphazardly-closed curtain. Her weapons are out of reach, carefully placed upon the rickety table off to the side; her armor and the remnants of her shield lay beneath, dented and shattered and otherwise unusable, shards of silver and gold peeking out from beneath the plates, tassets, chain mail and skirt that lay in a crumpled heap on the floor. It ignores these things after brief consideration, and watches on.
Long red hair is spread over the sheet, a few unruly locks brushed across closed eyes. She shifts, turning her head, but doesn’t wake. Still the shadow watches. It takes in the bruises on her diaphragm and arm, the clear signs of fracturing in the bone beneath the skin. As the moonlight moves across the wall with the passing of time, the shadow slithers with it, filling the room, the air, her lungs, her dreams. It peers through her eyes, sees the letter on the table, Gallows Glass scrawled hastily across bloodstained parchment. The shard is with it, and then it’s gone.
Her breathing quickens. With a devil’s maw the shadow spreads a jagged smile.The letter lies on the table, but the shard is missing. Beside it sits a small pile of trinkets: a pair of rings, earrings, a locket on a worn silver chain, a tiny, black iron key, a bangle scuffed where a blade had struck it and glanced off. No shard. It spreads to the armoire, fills the pockets and creases of fabric piled within. No shard. It fills the hearth, the chest of drawers, the chairs and blankets, beneath the bed. Still no shard.
Determined and undaunted the shadow turns yet again to the woman on the bed. There’s ice in her dreams again, a song that paints the air and hovers over a bridge like a thick cloud. More ice, silver eyes and blue eyes, the song rings louder, a bonfire flares in the darkness. Fire and ice, a scream, the splitting of a barrier, a kiss to the forehead, a whispered prayer, a stolen glance. A frozen island swallowed by the raging sea. The shadow fills her dreams again and, again, it watches. The shadow is good at watching.
Roses and Ashes 