Arelith

[The man stumbles into the city, he is past middle aged wearing torn leather shoes and a thick cloak with a ragged hood. His name is Balazar and he was once a paladin. Balazar was set upon a quest to slay a great evil yet captured and never returned. Assumed dead until he found his way home. Not escaped but rather, released. In the city square of ragged stone a light rain falls from the sky and the hazy smoke of long burning braziers fills the air. Those who knew Balazar rush to him, shocked to see he yet lives and quickly a crowd forms of knight, guard, and commoners alike.]

“I must tell you what I saw. I must tell you! Before my time is up. She sent me here to speak! I must speak! It is the last duty I carry before I pass. To warn you, all of you! This shadow comes for you!” [Balazar beckons the crowd scrambling forward, grabbing onto some and holding the fabric of their clothes as if his life depended upon it!]

[Trembling Balazar rattles out his words and casts back his hood as if to display himself in all his faded glory. His skin is white as if he had died already and had become a ghost. Pocks of plague mark his features. Eyes sunken and seeming sightless. Hair wispy white, long and patchy, blowing in the gentle breeze. As Balazar begins to speak again his words stumble out of him clearly spoken despite his fatigue. The onlookers listen with sickened shock.]

“She… She… I- I- I saw in her eyes… A sense of eternity. Her gaze is long, an ocean of blood red holding ruthless and forbidden wisdom… She is a shadow of a darkness blacker than any night we could know! She is a shade, yet… Yet there is life, too! Her hair… Her hair is white, white like a ghost, white and pure. Oh, how it flows down… Like water, smooth, gathering around her shoulders. The strands so… So… Delicate form into a small crown around her head. [He gestures, his fingers working around his balding head as if he was braiding hair.] I … I remember her eyebrows. Slender, particular, but furrowed, always furrowed, as if her mind is never without heavy thoughts…” [His voice trails as he gathers his thoughts and begins again a moment later.]

“She is a vision… A dark, beautiful vision.” [Balazar covers his eyes with his hands, wincing.] “Oh, oh - what a sight. [His voice croaks, lamenting or praising? Perhaps both.] "Her lips… So … Soft. Her words are smooth, Like… Like the caress of a lover. [He keeps his hands over his eyes as he speaks. As if he’s afraid to re-open them!] “I would have thought she an angel come to rescue me If I had not seen her!” [His voice trails as if the memory was fond. Soon after, he trembles!]

“But I have seen her! Death stands behind her! Not hunting her, no, no, NO! Death is her companion. Death seeps from her as if they are the same, perhaps they are? Perhaps she is death? A visionless skull, a kiss of eternal doom and damnation! Eyeless sockets of a skulled head. I feel the weight of it, oh the weight… The weight!” [He cries out now, sobbing, falling to his knees.] “She has killed so many… The ghosts of them haunt her steps. But she does not fear them. Even in death they are enslaved to her. They cannot escape her!”

“Oh what terror! What a burden she is! She is surely the companion of evil itself! Of the dark gods, she is the product of their union! Power… Power! I can feel it around her! Radiating! Surging! Yet… Yet… Soft… Soft - she wields it, the tender touch of a woman… Until the blade is driven through your gut! [He spits the words out hatefully!] Your soul! She is not content with just the destruction of your body! [Upon his knees he hatefully uncovers his eyes and clenches his fists. His eyes remain closed. He seems to grow paler and the strength begins to fade from him. His skin is sinking into his body, becoming like a wet cloth upon his bones.]

“Oh what a dark vision… What have I seen? Who is this? Who is this? [The man asks, but the question seems to be posed to himself.] “Sacred Magic.” [The man mumbles as if he knew the answer then keels forward. A nearby guard tries to hoist him up but his feeble body becomes limp.] “Sacred Magic…” [The man repeats in a mumble.] “Beautiful… Sacred Magic.” [The sound of rain fills the eerie silence. The ragged man heaves his dying breathes.]

“Sacred magic. She comes… She comes for the gods.” [A hacking cough, another cough, blood splatters across the cobblestone. The final fire of life departs him as his skin sinks into him hugging his bones as if they were a damp cloth. He slumps forward.]

“She said she would remember me.” [His voice trails… Barely a whisper.] “I do not wish for her to remember me…” [He concludes, his mouth opening again but no words coming out. He is dead.]

[The crowd of city goers, friends, and guards stares at the ragged corpse. There was a sensation in the air. As if someone was watching. A dark presence that lingers around the body. A presence that can be felt in the soul. An eternal gaze that sees all. The hairs upon one's neck raising, every instinct of a being telling them to run yet all remain frozen in fear.

Suddenly thunder crashes and the sky shakes! The rain comes down heavier. A jolt back to reality. The dark presence passes. The corpse seems now to just be a corpse.]