Angels of Donegal

[Lewi]

The young angel was laying strewn across the cold and hard ground outside. Her physical form one should say for her spirit form was nowhere near where her body was. Shallow breaths left the girls pink perfect lips and her marvelous blue eyes were shut. She'd be this way for a long time. It would be hard telling how long.

Her body was still as perfect and beautiful as any woman's could be, but it was also sickly. More sickly than before. She was as pale as the snow nearly her skin only holding the basest form of color. Her hair didn't seem to shine as it had before. It was rich in color but dull. Her tattered clothes had allowed patches of her skin to become purple with the cold. Especially her feet and fingers. Her nose was pink from the cold. And tears streaked down the young woman's face.

But her being was not with her body. Not entirely. She was being punished. Punished severely. Even though in a strange twisted way the girls words were meant to try to help lady Wynne and to help her get some bearings about herself. It was not that she was being punished for. It was her feelings of jealousy.

The older lady and young charge inside the red crossroads house had no idea how much suffering the little angel really was going through. She felt pain so much deeper than the others here because before now she'd never felt it before. She'd never known pain and suffering. She'd never known these complex emotions. She'd always been taught that she mattered. She was more than just a person. That she was special. That her happiness mattered.

But now she was being told the opposite. Her happiness didnt matter. All that mattered was that she get to Tir Cadyr and birth the savior child. She was a tool nothing more. Meant to be cast aside like a child's old play thing when they were through with her. Left to wander this earth alone and without her child once it had grown to considerable size to be trained. She was to be cast out to do as she pleased. Alone.

Lonliness was perhaps the most painful of wounds. It was the hardest to heal. No pain of the flesh could measure to it. And it couldn't be healed with medicines and tonics. She was feeling the suffering of the emotion. The fear that it would come to her. For she had never been completely understood in this world. She probably never would. But she was thrust into it overnight and she didn't know if she could bear it alone.

When she thought of who she wanted to take this lonliness away and prevent it from happening Adalis came to her mind. She wanted his companionship. For it had already been said once. She loved him more than life itself. She would give up her wings to have him feel the same.

Her wings. The only appendages that freed her of this world. That allowed her to soar in the sky like a bird. Of course it's been said angels were the original creatures of flight and that they themselves taught the birds. That when someone saw an angel fly it was an indescribable thing. A beauty not seen by man. But she would give them up for Adalis.

Her punishment was severe and by no means quick. It was going to make sure she learned her lesson. But she did not understand how to control what she felt. No being could. They could pretend but they could not control how they felt. She was no exception. So it basically rendered her punishment another form of suffering.

After the long bout of time she was sent back. And the first thing to work was her ears.

 

[Sir Basil]

It didn't take the All Sword long to find the angel, lying face down in the courtyard. There was a small crowd of people gathered around her, gawking at the creature. A few drunks that Aidalis recognized from last night were laughing at her, this pain wracked angel. He could smell the drink on them. Alcohol brought out the wickedness in men. Most men, however, watched with fear in their eyes. Aidalis could her the murmur through the crowd, the fear in their voices. As All-Sword approached the crowd, they parted. Aidalis reached up to lower the mask down his face. A hand went to his sword. The few stragglers vanished within the Red Crossroads House - the sight of an All-Sword was enough to make most men run back to their drinks, their whores, and their sad little lives. Aidalis stared down at the angel, studying the diminished form lying upon the ground. His heart hammered in his chest. He thought, for one terrible moment, that he had killed her. The All-Sword could not react to anything for a moment. He was lost in thought, in memories of a different girl, in a different time. The way that the angel's body was wracked with what seemed to be pain, with what seemed to be sickness - that reminded him uncomfortably of the Blight, and the Blighted that lingered around the High Church in Tir Caredyr. His heart dropped in his chest. Perhaps she had been in the world for far too long. Maybe this was a sign that he had failed. An angel amongst the Blighted. The All-Sword had seen many Blighted in his time - they clutched to the skirts of the Sisters and Mothers as their bodies were wracked with pains and fevers - their hands shook. Aidalis knew that the hands of cannibals shook too, from the rotten core of them to the outside. The Blighted King - as his fellow Blighted called him - demanded that the Church of All take measures to prevent the Blight, but Aidalis had never seen any cures. Their facial features began to coarsen, and the tips of their appendages turned black. The skin and eyes erupted with blackened, raised, firm nodules that were insensitive to cold, touch and pain - but they ached constantly. Some people lost the use of their limbs as they withered into blackened husks - others went blind. Most died, though, most succumbed to one of the wracking fevers.

The Blighted King had been cured, it was said. Aidalis had heard that the Blighted King had once been an All-Father of the church who had been stricken with the Blight and gone mad. After the stupor, after the convulsions, came the psychosis. His blood had been restrained and blistered within the skin, and finally, necrosis had set in as firmly as the psychosis. The rumors said that he had taken the blood of dead women and children, sitting on slabs in the Halls of the Dead, and had bathed in it. Then, he had taken a dog, the most holy of all animals, and rendered the dog's bodily liquids down into a potion that he drunk. This removed the lesions from his skin, removed the sickness from him. Aidalis didn't think he was ready to go to that extreme. Still - it looked as if Kieara had contracted this disease, and he responded in the only way he really knew.

He leaned down at the angel's side, and slipped his hands beneath her neck to lift her head up. He stared at her with his amber-gold eyes, the hand not supporting Kieara's head moving to clutch at one of his pale hands, giving it a small squeeze. he then released that hand to reach to his side, withdrawing a small bottle. It was a bottle for emergencies. The white-ceramic bottle had a maker's seal stamped into the side in the shape of a nine pointed star impaled by a sword. The cork was sealed by wax. Aidalis lifted the bottle to his mouth and closed his teeth around it, yanking out the stopper roughly, chunks of white wax flaking off of the ceramic. The smell escaped, first. It was a strong, acid smell that burnt at the nose and made the eyes water - like onions, in a highly concentrated state. There were onions in it, Aidalis supposed. It had been made by the Seekers - a potion to keep All-Swords in-tact. His jaw twitched, and he coughed slightly, gagging at the smell. He had been Changed. For him, the potion was one of healing, but he had no idea what it would do to Kieara. She was not human. She was not Changed. He could only hope that because the Change had brought him closer to the Gods - the physiology of Kieara was similar enough to his that it would benefit her. If nothing else, it would take the pain away. He knew what was in it, this potion. He had seen his region's Seeker make it. He had used tar, rendering it from the roots of birchbark trees. That would purge the body. Onions would make the draught as sharp as a mercy-killer. Rosewreath, a flowering green herb, was ground into the mixture. The flowers would help the body retain its shape, and prevent the body from further infection. A branch of Angels' Mantle was stripped of the small golden berries that grew on it, and they were burnt. The smoke was bottled. Inhaling it would take the pain away. And then, as was the base of all potions in the world, blood was added. It had come from a maid of nineteen summers, who had sold her body by the road-side. The Seeker had called for Aidalis, and the All-Sword had cut her down. Her body served a new purpose, now.

He held the potion under her nose, allowing her to smell it, and then brought the potion to the edge of her mouth. Aidalis cleared his throat, and said softly; "Kieara. You need to drink this. It will take the pain away." He gently shook the bottle, tilting it slightly against her lips, pushing them open. A few droplets of the black fluid slid out from the bottle, as lazily as oil crawls away from water. "You must drink - it's foul smelling, but strengthening." His tone was carefully neutral, but soothing, an attempt to encourage her to drink the potion. It would help her, and then they could move on. Perhaps it would invigorate her for the journey. Perhaps it would give her the strength that he promised - Gods knew they needed it.
.

 

[Lewi]

Kieara did not have blight. It was frostbite. The cold was turning her purple. Her delicate skin was burned by the wind and cold. And because her spirit was halfway in her body and half of it was being punished that was what had caused her sickly appearance.

His potion would do little to wake her. Perhaps help her body it might. But she would not awaken until her punishment was over. She feared that it might take longer than expected. They'd already been at it for what seemed like hours. Though how much time had really passed she didn't know.

When he slipped the liquid down her throat she stirred a bit. The half of her spirit keeping her alive and intact to this world stirring in response. She opened her eyes a bit. They were half lidded. And she looked directly into his. They almost looked dead. But in her eyes was a vision. A rather disturbing vision. If Adalis looked and noticed with his heightened senses he would see it.

The vision that was being shown was one of pain. It showed Kieara going through her punishment. Being beaten and preached to. Put through horrible pain. Blood dripped from her wings and her body. Whether Adalis could see it all had yet to be determined. But it all shown in her eyes looking back at him. As if a movie playing to him through her eyes.

 

[Sir Basil]

Men were blind. To the plight of angels, to the face of evil, Men were blind. The Changed were not considered to be of the race of Men by most anymore - they were the stalwart defenders of a race that they no longer had any stake in. They were at their very best, tools, and at their very worse, monsters. Seekers were the monstrous ones, or so it was said, and the All-Swords were tools of the Gods of All, pawns in their game. They could follow the scent of anything in the world, they could survive attacks by demons that would kill most -- they were supposedly immune to the corruption of the Prime Evils. But they too were blind to the true evil in their work, in their world, even though they had each sworn the solemn vow to protect it. Aidalis was Changed - but he was a man, and men were blind.

The All-Sword slipped the bottle back into the side pouch that hung from his belt. He took a sucking inhale of breathe as he stared down at the angel. he brushed back her hair with one of his gauntleted hands - looking at this blackening and withered thing. It was a mild day - true, there was no sun, no warmth to be found from the Light, but it was mild enough that there was no reason to think frostbite was the cause of this sickness. Aidalis studied her blackening fingers, and the black peeling flesh upon her cheekbones. He had broken her, he had polluted her. His shoulders deflated, as he knelt with her in front of the Red Crossroads House - he had failed. He pulled her head into his lap, cradling her. Tears sparked around his eyes and he could feel his heart pounding hard in his chest. His hands were shaking. What had he done wrong? He had not touched her - there had been no violation. Aidalis let out small animal sobs. This was where the story ended. He had corrupted her. And she was dying.

And then - her eyes opened! And he looked, the blind fool looked. Her eyes whichh had once been so perfect and clear now showed something that was not his face. He could not see his face in her eyes. A chill ran down his spine, causing his skin to bristle with goosebumps. His chest tightened, and his eyes widened. His hands went limp around Kieara. In her eyes, the eyes that should have been clear and pure; he saw pain. Pain was how an All-Sword saw the face the Gods. He could feel the burning at his throat, he could feel the blistering around his eyes. He was blind and drag and dumb, all that was there was the dull ebb of pain that blocked to all of his supposedly superior senses. He recalled a small dark room.

The room was made of stone, and the walls were carved with spirals and sunbursts - in the memory of a sun that no longer hung in the sky. He was seated on a roughly made wooden bench, and he wore only sack-cloth pants that had never been dyed. The room was filled with smoke, and it scratched and burned at his chest. There was a lonely looking door on the far side of the room, but it felt impossibly far away. A man in the distinctive peaked and cowled red-robes that all in the Church knelt before him. The light from a solitary torch made the skull-like mask beneath the hood glimmer and shine. The surface of the Pain-Taster's mask seemed oily. In his hand he held a sharp knife, the edges of it jagged and rough - it was made for skinning animals, Aidalis knew. It was meant for skinning him. The All-Sword sucked in a deep breath of acrid air, and the Pain Taster leaned in closer, and he could hear the smile in the man's voice; Do you want to see the face of the Gods? The All-Sword could not speak, his throat felt too blistered - but he nodded once. And then the Pain-Taster raised the knife high, bringing up his entire body in the movement - adding strength and power to when the blade came crashing down, slicing once down each of Aidalis' cheeks. The All-Sword had howled, eyes blazing and burning, not yet golden. He had not drunk from the Basin of Stars, not yet. But the white burst in his eyes, the sudden sharpness on his skin - he saw a face, with golden eyes and a smile, and a warmth that flooded his being and numbed the pain. But it did not last. He clutched at his face, and whined and whimpered, blood pouring from in-between his hands. The Pain-Taster had pushed his hands aside, and collected his blood in a little white cup. The blood sloshed about in the ceramic, staining it. Tears crawled down his eyes. The Pain-Taster caught them too.

His eyes shot open. He was not aware that he had closed them - beneath the lids they were golden and blazing, bloodshot and teary. He shook himself, red hair falling out from his braid partially, looking more haggard that he already did. Mercifully nobody could see his face beneath the mask. It was a mess. There were drunks staring at him. Their murky eyes watched the All-Sword. He could hear them stifling laughter at his actions, at the angel. One of them muttered something about Witchbabies, another of them pointed at them, and had the gall to break into nervous, embarrassed laughter. Aidalis scooped Kieara up, over one shoulder. His hands still shook - fury took a hole of him. He stared straight at the group of drunks, and his words came out cold and toneless, but cruel. Cruelty was the true aim of an All-Sword, and he had been a fool, a daft and stupid fool to think otherwise."Through each perplexing care and strife, that marks the checkered path of life, my god's guiding light I see, and know that they still leadeth me." The drunks silenced, quickly.

Aidalis braced Kieara against his shoulder, and he moved towards the stables. He went directly to Malack, and he set Kieara in the saddle, carefully bracing her the entire time - he would not let her come to worse harm under his care. With one hand, he swaddled her in his oiled blanket, to try to keep the cold out, to prevent her from taking fever and worsening her already fragile condition. He was oblivious to the fact that directly behind him, saddling and tacking their horses was the Lady Wynne and Maeve - Maeve doing most of the work while Wynne stared blankly at the All-Sword from the back of her dun-coloured mare. His attention was only attracted when Maeve greeted him.

"All-Sord." She said flatly, and she slipped into the saddle of a black and grey spotted horse, older and less fresh than Wynne's. Aidlais turned to face her, studying her red lips and wide-spead eyes. His entire posture was tense, and his hands were white-knuckled as he tacked his horse. He noticed, with some approval in his golden eyes, that they had exchanged their gowns, thank all the Gods, for more practical clothes. Both of them wore breeches and boots, and long men's tunics beneath heavy furred cloaks. Their circlets and jewels were gone - perhaps tucked in the saddle bags, perhaps sold. He dared not ask, nor did he care. He slipped up behind Kieara in the saddle, wrapping his arms around her midsection, holding her close to his chest, feeling the wings brush against his chest-plate. He turned his masked head towards Maeve. His eyes narrowed into golden slits. They needed to hurry. There was no time left in the world.

"We go. Now. Lead the way, Lady Maeve." He flicked one of his hands at her, before returning to hold Kieara tightly against him, "Gods grant us haste." The woman nodded once, and took off - Wynne's horse instinctively followed. Aidalis kicked Malack's sides, and they charged forward, away from the Red Crossroads House, up the road into the mountains where new horrors awaited, where Tir-Caredyr lay behind the snows and the dangers that were ahead. And in Tir-Caredyr, perhaps their would be salvation.

 

[Lewi]

Kieara suffered in torment as they tried to change how the little angel felt about things. It was all in vain though. They'd cast her down to earth, and in doing so, they'd allowed her to give up her otherworldly perfection. She was still perfect in most men's eyes. However, while she was still an angel, she felt emotion, she felt like a human. That could not be changed.

Once they saw this was going nowhere, they sent her back and she fell into a slumber amongst the all swords arms. She slept for what felt like days. Whether it be days, hours, or mere minutes though the angel could not tell. Her dreams were plagued with nightmares. Nightmares of the things that those angels had done to her, nightmares of losing Adalis.....nightmares of being alone....

After some time, the lady woke. She was herself again. Her eyes opened half lidded. They were once again her own. She groaned with a splitting headache. She could not yet make out the blurs of anything around. Her body was warm and cozy. The blackness of her skin gone, but the paleness remained like the falling snow. She knew Adalis was the form she saw when she'd first opened her eyes. She could sense him.

After only mere seconds she coughed. In one violent sputter blood left her lips a reminder that what she'd suffered was not merely a dream. But to look at her body, nno marks would be found.

 

[Sir Basil]

​

The road was long, and the winds were harsh. Aidalis did not speak, and his companions made no sound either. The road stretched through the grey-green hills, still verdant and lush. A heavy rain meat down, soaking Aidalis' cloak and hair. A thick fog had rolled in, stretching across the moors. The few scattered trees that grew amongst the rocky cliffs stood like somnambulist gods, awaiting an awakening that would never occur. Spirits had once lived in these hills, with their rocky crags and dusting of wildflowers, but they had been killed long ago, during the Brightening of the world. The first of the All-Swords had rounded them up, and slain them, each one by one. He couldn't imagine the task that might have been - but he knew that now, without any mages or monsters, the hills were very still, oblivious to the destruction that was happening not too far away, in Perth. Aidalis could smell it though, but he doubted that any human could, the stench of molten flesh and cracking bones flooded his nostrils - and he could picture it perfectly. He could see All-Sword David, his friend and brother, hacking through demons in the fog, but that was just a half-broiled dream. His brother danced through the mists of the hills, and then, disappeared.

And All-Sword Saul rode. He and the three women rode forward. Maeve and Wynne were slow, their horses were used to climbing through the rocky hill slopes, where speed would only be sure to make them slip and fall to their deaths, and the inevitable broken limbs that would turn them from horses into paste. Aidalis made not effort to hurry them. He could not afford to take chances, anymore. If not only for his own safety, for the safety of the three women riding with him. He pressed his gauntleted hand to Kieara's stomach protectively, running the edge of his thumb against the ridges of her rib-cage. She was breathing, and that was enough to comfort him for the time being. They traversed the adges of one of the grand ravines of Perth. Perth's landscape was dotted with canyons and cracks in the world. It was said that they had formed when Sahariel's wings had dragged across the landscape - and older tales said that the spirits of the world had cracked the world open to try to find the demons that plagued them. Aidalis doubted the merits of both stories, but knew that the cracked ground was treacherous, even if it wasn't supernatural. Rain slipped down the sides of it, in arches and gates of rainwater. The smell of wet ashes was overbearing in Aidalis' nose, but no-body elses.

The edge of the woods came into sight within a few hours of their trek. It was here that Kieara woke, and cough, blood splattering on the edge of Aidalis' cloak. He glances down at her, hot orange eyes glittering and glowing in the weak late afternoon light. The roar of thunder could be heard in the turbulent skies above, rain drizzling out from in-between clouds of fog. Aidalis cleared his throat, and nodded once towards Kieara when she awoke, reaching out a hand to brush a bit of her hair back under the throughly soaked cloak - even wet, it would provide more warmth than anything else. The fur-lining would keep her safe. He hoped. Aidalis glanced behind him, masked face evaluating the condition of Maeve and Wynne. Maeve rode tall and proud, with no sign of fatigue. Even drenched, she was lovely, her strong features set in grim determination. Wynne, on the other hands, shook and trembled like a leaf on a breeze, slender shoulders shaking. She clutched limply to her reins, head bowed. She seemed folded and crumbled atop the horse. Aidalis felt the faintest twinge of sympathy for the girl, the feeling manifesting as the faintest twist of his lips, invisible beneath his mask.

The All-Sword glanced down again to the angel, and said quietly, softly, "We have many miles still to go - we will rest at the border of Dornarch and Perth - there is a ruin there that will shield us from the storm." He tilted his head upward, scrutinizing the sky. Water-droplets ran down the sides of his mask. "There will be lightening, and thunder tonight. The horses will spook if we don't get out of it. And then, we will be lost."

Maeve grimaces, her sharp eyebrows furrowing over her dark eyes. "You mean the ruin of Hûs De Tøden?" Her nose wrinkled, and Aidalis could see her hands going white on the reins. "That is a dark place."

Aidalis cleared his throat, "We need shelter - and I know that it is safe. " And maybe Esther would be there - she was his sister, and he knew that she had once made her home on the edge of the ruins, in a small shack. She was not the most social of All-Swords, and had only entertained the company of All-Sword David because David was David, and tolerated Margery because it was possible that she loved her. He felt himself yearning to see his sister, even though they had never been close. He had lost David - Gods knew what happened to Mara. Ruth, of Arsaid, was likely quelling the heresy of the coastline, the wild untamed South that had never truly bent the knee and clasped their hands. But Esther was reclusive - perhaps she would run from them. Or perhaps she would try to attack at first, not recognizing their brother. Regardless, if he saw her, he could leave Wynne and Maeve in her hands, and she could provide the guidance they needed. He found himself sorely tempted by that option. He nudged his horse forward, and murmured, "We still have hours still before we reach Hûs De Tøden." The name hung in the fog, a grim name in a harsh and unfamiliar tongue.

 

[Lewi]

Kieara couldn't much make out his first sets of words. All she could hear was a deep rumbling coming forth from the all swords chest that was his voice. She tried to look around but found that she had not the strength. So she settled for staring into the distance at blobs and blurs from her eyes lack of focus. She smelled rain water. Rain water was a soothing scent to her. She felt comforted by it.

She felt Adalis touch her hair and a warm sense of protection flooded her being. He'd keep her safe. He had before. He had to. If the humans had any hope of regaining this world he would protect her. It was when she had that thought that she was reminded she was just a tool. Humility was a hard thing to handle. Especially in a world such as this. But the reminder that she was a tool was as humbling as it got.

When she'd rested a bit in their riding, she dared to move her head. She tilted it upward to look around and to see what Adalis was doing.

 

[Sir Basil]

Aidalis road in silence for some time, guiding his horse over the steep edges of the rocks and hillsides. The sky was stained a curious rust red colour, and Aidalis had to assume that the sun, whatever sun lurked behind those clouds, was setting and nightfall was arriving. He could hear the rumble of thunder like some distant war drum. The storm was coming soon. The rain fell down cold and heavy, and beneath his armor, he could feel his hair prickling with goosebumps. Behind him, Maeve and Wynne shivered. Maeve tugged her cloak more tightly around herself, but Wynne did nothing but stare blankly ahead and mumble in Perthish. Aidalis could pick out solitary words in her mutterings - cynorthwyo, the Perthish word for 'help', followed by a phrase, os gwelwch yn dda - that meant 'please'. Though Maeve had explained what had happened to the girl, it was amazing that she was alive - given everything that had happened to her. Aidalis studied her, over his shoulder, watching the rain slip down the sides of her strong features, while her eyes glistened with unshed tears. She was brave, in her way.

The skies let out a plaintive cry, and white spiderwebs of lightning cracked across the horizon. The additional light made the silohuette of a multi-tiered ruin stand out stark and black against the violent skies. Aidalis wrinkled his nose behind his mask, drawing in the taste of the air. It smelled like peat - the wet, slippery smell of ashes and marsh. But the nearest marsh was around the harbor of Perth, deep in the south. He could smell something else too, something beneath the smell of peat and mud, a thick, sickly sweet smell that made his breath catch in his lungs. His orange eyes watered beneath his mask. His grip on Kieara tightened, and he jostled her slightly in his arms. Maeve stared forward, examining the faint-outline of the ruin still present in the wan evening light. Her eyes were going though, all of their eyes would go soon. Except for Aidalis, because he was not human anymore, he was one of the Changed, and he saw in the dark as well as he did in the light. His amber eyes seemed to have halos of golden light, trails of lampflame that radiated off of them. He could pick out the spires, that half ruined domes of what had once been a fabulous castle. But it was gone, now, the castle and all who dwelt there. Except for maybe, maybe Esther. He had to hope that she would be there, waiting for them.

Aidalis steered his horse unto a particularly steep path up the hillside. Beneath his horse's hooves, the ground clicked and clacked - there were cobbles beneath the moss and grass that had overtaken the path. It had once been a proper path - the path that had belonged to the König. The Dornarc word hung in his mind and memory - the language was as foreign to him as it was to any man of Igris - Dornarch was a world away for the good braided people of Igris. He felt a pang of homesickness twist around inside of him, but brushed it aside, nudging his horse forward. The horse's hooves continued to click against the King's Roads. Once, this nation had been ruled by kings, and now there were none left. There was an All Voice, there were governors and erils, but there were no longer any. A cold wind cut through the air, and the rain continued to fall heavy. It seemed to be a dark omen, he brewing of the clouds above. He could feel Malack trembling beneath him, between his legs. He feared for his cargo too - if it was caught in such a storm, and the horse was to spook, perhaps he could lose it all. and that was not a risk that he was not willing to take.

Maeve let her horse hang back for a moment, and she rode side by side with the trembling girl, reaching over to pull the girl's cloak around her shoulders. Wynne grasped at it with bone white fingers, and Aidalis could catch the faintest of vibrations, as if her very bones and knuckles were shaking. The woman turned her dark gaze on Aidalis and murmured softly, "Do yeh know tha' storeh of dis' place, All-Sord?" When Aidalis did not reply, she continued on to say; "Hûs De Tøden was the seat of tha' Dornac empire, undeh' König Stehhan. 'E was a bruta' man 'oo tortur'd those 'e 'ated an' thos' 'e luv'd. "E thaw 'is ladeh 'was see'in the Lor' of Lev - buh' Lev's Lor' 'ad defil'd 'er. 'Is angeh oveh-whelm'd 'im. An' he sen' 'er to tha' dungin', and 'ad 'er tortur'd." Maeve abruptly ended her story, when Aidalis turned his head, and the flare from his golden eyes was so bright it shone like torches in the evening gloom.

"No more dark stories." Aidalis muttered, and he turned to face straight ahead. He sung, quietly, under his breath, in a voice with the stray remainder of an accent that had long been cut out from his vocal cords.

"I once had a sweetheart, but now I have none​

She's gone and she's left me, I care not for one
Since she's gone and left me, contented I'll be,
For she loves another one better than me."​

 

[Lewi]

Kieara listened or tried to over the thunder. Even under the heavy cloak he'd donned her in Kieara was beginning to shiver. She was soaked to the bone and had no shoes to cover her feet and prevent her from taking cold. She coughed weakly more blood sputtering past her lips. Her coughs steadily became more violent and eventually she gasped to get her breath back.

"A-adalis?" Kieara squeaked out quietly. "C-could we s-stop for a-awhile?" The angel requested wearily. She hadn't heard they were near their destination. She was in pain and felt like her insides were all twisted up.

She looked up at him with bright blue eyes. Her eyes longed for a rest and for her pain to stop. Not just emotional anymore.