[sub][i]CyKhollab Productions present[/i][/sub]
[centre][img]https://i.imgur.com/ApJH3g8.png[/img]
[h1][sub]ROSALIND[/sub][/h1]
[b][sub]RAGING ROSA | THE DANCE-DEMON | FEVERFOOT | LEAPING LINDA[/sub][/b]

[sub]in[/sub]
[h2][sub][b]A First Account of Hell[/b][/sub][/h2]
[img]https://www2.gvsu.edu/vangm/backgroundsandotherpictures/pinkrosevine.gif[/img][/centre]
Now I do not wish to begin this melodramatically, but when Rosalind the Feverfoot died she found that she went the way of most dead things in those days; the gods are not as special as they think. She hovered above her still-bleeding corpse, half-swallowed up by the tree she had died against, and was in all ways dumb and useless. But the attentive reader would know that this was hardly unique to that particular moment of her mediocre existence.

She wandered in a befuddled daze around the Blood Grove of the Empathy Dance - which, I will reiterate, had become a rather revolting lake of divine ichor at this point thanks to her incessant bleeding. She circled that grove perhaps thirty-thousand times, give or take some, until her circumambulating soul was discovered by a passing vahura. The great spirit, with the naked upper form of a bewitchingly beautiful white-haired woman of almost ebony complexion and the lower body of a golden falcon or hawk, did not take its predatory yellow eyes off Rosalind as it circled lazily above. Rosalind watched the spirit and the spirit watched the soul, and then without warning it plummeted and struck right for the dancer, who stumbled back and scrambled away just as the vahura swooped by and ascended again, coming to rest in the branches of a tree and folding its wings.

“Now my girl, I mean you no harm,” the vahura crooned maternally, smiling down at Rosalind from beneath her hawk-like eyes. The twilight-haired spirit of Rosalind cowered by a tree and glanced nervously at the odd bird.

“Who are you? Where did you come from?” Rosalind asked hesitantly, her eyes sweeping across the sky in case there were more like the strange being, but she found only the one siren.

“From above, from the clouds, from the sky,” the bird-woman sang back, “where else? Tell me, little one, have you ever wanted to see what it is like up there? Come along, and I can show you.”

Rosalind could not help but smile then. “Oh, I was born up there. I know what it looks like. I know what heaven looks like unobscured by the lens of an atmosphere. I know what the innards of clouds are like and I’ve rowed across the sky. I know all about that.” She spoke it with the slightest hint of pride and happy abandon. The siren looked startled for a moment before she turned her head like an owl to examine Rosalind more closely. Whatever it was that the siren saw (or didn’t see) in her appeared to calm her, so her poise relaxed as Rosalind babbled on. “So I’m happy to wander down here instead, though thank you for the offer.” She glanced heavenward again to once more check that there were no more of the sirenlike bird-woman up there. “What’s your name? Are you on your own?” Rosalind asked curiously, relaxing somewhat against the tree.

With a haunting smile, the siren leapt to find a perch within the boughs of another tree that was closer still to Rosalind. “You conjure enchanting little tales, child. Melusine is my name, but call me Mother. I’m one of many, just like you, and it is a delight to finally meet you. Eventually I meet all of my children, see. Would you let your mother hold you, Rosalind dear?”

The avian talons loosened their grip on Melusine’s perch as the siren ready herself to hop down at last to the shallow lake of ichor. Only bafflement was written across Rosalind’s face, however. “Mother? What do you mean?” The soul asked. “I…” her brows furrowed at the sudden realisation, “I don’t have a mother.”

Upon hearing trepidation in Rosalind’s voice, Melusine froze - leaning forward on the branch in anticipation of hopping down as she was . Still, she didn’t settle back; she leaned forward and was deathly still - in such a manner that she seemed to almost float in defiance of Galbar’s pull. “Of course you do,” she insisted, “you have me, and I’m right here. A mother bore you into this world, and a mother must likewise bear yo– well, nevermind that, Rosa dearest. I ask again: would you let me hold you?”

The twilight-haired woman stepped forward timidly, walking on the surface of the blood lake as though it were solid ground. She took in Melusine’s form again; her snow-white hair, her ebony skin, the captivating, unearthly beauty of her face, the way powerful muscles rippled beneath a layer of softness, which in turn was enveloped in velvety skin (Rosalind could tell as much even from afar, even without touching it) which gave way at the waist to feathers and the forceful torso and talons of a hawk. As her gaze drifted across Melusine’s form, she was caught quite suddenly by the siren’s piercing yellow eyes and could not look away. “But if you are a mother - [i]my mother[/i], then why do you have such terribly predatory eyes, Melusine?”

“Why, the better to see with,” the siren patiently explained. “There are dark things out in the world, my sweet Rosa. I must always be vigilant and ready to protect you, and all of my children, from their clutches.”

Rosalind nodded slowly. “Well, that makes sense.” Her gaze fell on the vahura’s resting wings; they were great powerful things that seemed to have been cast from pure gold. “But if you are a mother as you say - and my mother at that - why do you have such great powerful wings?” She asked curiously, leaning forward even as she kept one cautious hand on the tree behind her.

“Why, to travel the world and find all my children, to bear them to safety when the dark ones come. Would you like to see, dear Rosa? I could carry you up, up away from all this blood and muck. You could [i]truly[/i] see the clouds from up there.”

Rosalind’s eyes seemed alight, then, with a certain child-like wonder at the thought, and she let go of the tree and took a single step forth. Her eyes caught on Melusine’s talons, though, and she stopped. “But,” she said hesitantly, “if you are a mother like you say - and [i]my[/i] mother at that - then why do you have such wickedly curved talons on your feet?”

Something in Melusine’s hawkish eyes - not that Rosalind noticed - suggested that the siren’s patience was thinning, and yet Rosalind was so close. Almost close enough. The vahura leaned further forward, and came to rest completely horizontally. Her smiling face stuck out right in Rosalind’s, and its beauty and the feathery bulk of her lower body now completely obscured the sight of those fearsome talons.

“Why, don’t worry about those. They’re not for hurting you dear, I promise. So please… [i]forgive.[/i]”

Slowly, tenderly, she extended her womanly arms out as if to caress and hold Rosalind. The twilight-haired dancer’s eyes widened in momentary fear - for this had every appearance of her run-ins with Yesaris and the Exile before him. But she was utterly still - why, not even her feet moved. In fact, her feet had neither trembled nor shaken at all since she awoke. The tender fingers of Melusine caught her and Rosalind allowed herself to be embosomed against the diaphanous skin of the vahura. It was warm and safe and protective, and it promised that no harm would touch her ever again.

Rosalind released a pent-up sob and allowed her arms to circle her mother, and she held on tightly and released what little pains and complaints about the world she held in her chest. At last she leaned back and looked up at Melusine. “You said… there are dark things - what dark things? And you said something about forgiving - forgive what? And you were saying something about bearing in but stopped - what were you going to say? Tell me.”

“Why, my dear, you’ll understand it all soon. There, there. Let’s fly away from here. Those dark things come for lost and vulnerable children, and they destroy them. But I promise you child, I won’t let them take you away,” Melusine whispered soothingly, looking deeply into the woman’s eyes of twilight even as her arms continued to envelop Rosalind, curling around the soul’s back. Rosalind could not break the siren’s mesmerizing gaze so long as she spoke, but when the bird-woman finally grew quiet for a moment, she glanced down and realized that the siren had already lifted her up. These were not the lowest hanging branches of the trees behind her now, but rather their highest boughs! And before she could say anything or even realize it, they had crested the crown of the tallest oak and ascended above the point of the greatest pine. 

Rosalind held onto Melusine as tightly as she could, and pleaded that she not let her fall. But the vahura had no such intention, and she flew higher and higher into the sky, so high that Rosalind saw - for the second time in her life - the wondrous bow of the horizon and the the luminous line where the light of her father’s palace disappeared over the side of the world. Small inadvertent pearls formed at the edges of her eyes as she beheld the sight, and dripped one by one from her long dark lashes and plummeted like raindrops away and then disappeared. “It’s beautiful,” Rosalind mumbled, and pressed her cheek into her mother’s soft chest and was at peace for a time.

Melusine ascended through the clouds, beating her golden wings and holding Rosalind near, and the great wispy things roiled and parted about her until - like a whale breaching - she surged from the final layer and the white-red ocean of clouds spread endlessly beneath them; and before them - spreading almost from horizon to horizon - was a Gate of Nebel. Melusine set Rosalind down, and the woman found that there rested beneath her what was, to all extents and purposes, solid ground. Darkness swirled before Rosalind and the shadows formed up until a hooded figure made of pure tenebrosity stood by her.

“You have arrived at the Gate of Nebel,” the shade declared. “Only the worthy dead may pass.” Rosalind looked at the shade with undisguised fear, then turned to Melusine.

“I don’t want to go, Melusine,” she mumbled. She glanced upward. “I… I want to go higher. I want to be as high as the sun. Then I will go, I promise.”

“Oh but dear child, here we are at the top of the sky. The sun that you know and speak of is far, far away; a whole life away from us now. Why, do you think my eyes so sharp as to find another sun? Why, do you think my wings so strong as to carry us even above the sky? Why, do you think my talons strong enough to keep hold of you long after these arms give out?”

But her child mewled and stammered and nodded, and so with a weary sigh, Melusine the Mother acquiesced. “Very well, Rosalind dearest,” she finally spoke, “but I will hold you to your promise!”

So while the umbral shade just stared impassively, the siren once more picked Rosalind up. She bore the soul higher, higher, and ever higher. The night sky above looked so much like a sea! The stars were little bubbles and minnows swimming around in its darkened water. The currents of water were cool to Rosalind’s skin as they dove ever deeper into that strange celestial sea, but Melusine’s warmth never left and it kept the shivers away. Here and there Rosalind even thought she spied a laektear!

“Wait,” she breathed once to her mother, but the siren did not seem to hear. In truth she was panting from exertion, fatigued as she was from having to swim so far through the sea with her wings. How a soul can be fatigued, ask not! But eventually the cool currents grew stronger. In Melusine Rosalind felt not panic or fatigue so much as relief – the currents were conveying them where they needed to be, and so the siren’s wings beat slower even though their flight did not slow.

Made drowsy by the long journey - how a soul can be made drowsy, ask not! - Rosalind finally blinked her sleepy eyes and suddenly Saw that they were drawing nearer to a great whirlpool.

[center][hider=The Vortex in the Sky][img]http://www.textures4photoshop.com/tex/thumbs/space-vortex-tunnel-stock-image-free-thumb36.jpg[/img]
[i]And welcoming was its glow, for the siren, the soul, and all the bubbles and fish in the celestial sea.[/i][/hider][/center]

In the eye of that vortex was a great maw of light and color – Melusine had done it! Her mother had found another sun. But this one, indeed, was not so much like that mighty fire that blazed across Galbar’s sky. It was not cold, but neither was it terribly warm or welcoming. As they came to land upon the lukewarm surface of this alien sun, Rosalind beheld a great black gateway nearby that looked terribly familiar. And despite this strange sun’s gentle glow, she still cast a shadow; that shadow soon evaporated, though, and from its inky steam there coalesced an altogether familiar figure.

“You have arrived at the Gate of Nebel,” the shade declared. “Only the worthy dead may pass.”

A weary siren at last murmured soothingly to her child once again, “So you see, dearest Rosalind, we have come a long way and found for you a sun, and yet here we are at much the same place. Do you understand now, child? You have died, and yet your journey is not over; through the darkened gate you still have a ways to go, and yet I cannot take you any further. These shades will guide you.”

The vahura shook a bit, droplets of water falling from her rustled feathers. And realisation dawned then on Rosalind. [i]‘No…’[/i] she thought. Her mother was preparing to leave, to fly back.

“You see, my dear,” Melusine crooned, “a mother bore you into the world of the living, but you knew that I was not that mother. I am a different sort of mother, the kind that must bear her children [i]away[/i] from that place, to the next world. So here we are, see. I would so much like to cradle you for longer, to soothe and comfort you, but I cannot, for I have many more children that I must look after, see. That’s how it is.”

Rosalind looked from the silent shade, who gazed at her with unseen eyes, to the gate and then back to Melusine. Sighing, a dissatisfied pout lined her mouth as she looked beyond the strange vortex, which held no Palace and did not feel like home. Her eyes scanned the endless void but saw little sign of the planet she had left behind or even her father’s sun. They had come a long way and the only path left was ahead, through the tenebrous gate. Sadly, but without tears, she held onto Melusine’s hands and bid her a subdued farewell, then turned and followed the shade towards the towering gate. She paused before it, tears now bubbling from her eyes and now a small scowl spreading over her face - tears of frustration, scowls of anger; it was unfair, she thought, that she would not be able to see her father once more before leaving. Then she stepped forth, shimmered briefly in the gate’s dark maw, and wandered in the world of the living no more.

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And that was how Rosalind the Feverfoot died. Now I don’t mean for this narrative to grow long and unwieldy - I know well how frustrating it is to read narratives that seem to be going nowhere - but I considered it of some importance to detail these happenings if only for the historical record. Reluctantly walking through that Gate of Nebel, having reached such distances from the Galbar as no divine before her ever had done, Rosalind found herself - once the darkness had dissipated - standing on the white cobblestones of the Death-Road. It is of note that the Death-Road has at times been reported as being of unbroken white marble, at other times as white jade or jasper, even white coal. Some have found it to be tiled, others cobbled, others perfectly unbroken. Whatever the case, in all reports its colour alone is unvaried.

When Rosalind the Feverfoot set foot on the Death-Road, she found it crawling with spirits. Souls streamed in by the hundreds, ambling on in a daze. And yet no matter how many were on the road, at no point did it strike her as being crowded. There was always ample space to step forth, to look around and look ahead. The sky above was of nighttime and the stars, and yet the road was awash with a soft white light - as though the road itself was alight. It was not blinding in any way and washed over all things, until it gave way at last to the darkness that lay beyond the edges of the road. In that stilly darkness there seemed to now and again be movement, the glittering of a single eye, a waving hand, a welcoming smile, a greeting and a call. Ever-curious Rosalind found herself drifting closer and closer to the road’s edge, watching - searching - for those captivating movements and sweet-sounding calls.

A sparrow landed ahead of her, on the cobbled side of the road, and the woman walked slowly up to it. It turned its head to reveal the visage of a viper with fangs bared, and she flinched away in shock. It hissed and and leapt forth warningly, causing Rosalind to scramble away from the edge of the road and the dark shapes and their cooing calls. She continued along the Death-Road, glancing every now and again off into the calling wilderness beyond, and did not wonder why it was so alluring or question why it called and pulled on her so.

At last, a gate rose up ahead and a shade exploded violently into being before her, causing her to stagger away. “You have arrived at the Gate of Rosalind,” it declared, “alone you have walked, though throngs swirled about you, and alone will you be tried.” The soul of the woman took the shade in for a few confused moments.

“The Gate of Rosalind?” She asked. “That’s… that’s me, isn’t it?” She pointed at herself and the shade considered her for a few moments.

“That’s your name, but…” it leaned forward, the darkness beneath its hood swirling, “you are no divine. A shared name, nothing more.” With those words, it leaned back and gestured for her to go on.

“I’m… not divine?” She asked, a frown lining her face. “But… but my papa… and Yudaiel, she’s my sister. And Iqelis. And Voligan. They’re my brothers and they’re gods. So… so surely I am too. You’re wrong, I’m a god.”

The shade’s unseen eyes bored into her and it took a single step and brought the darkness of its face right up to her nose. “If that is so, Rosalind, then save yourself. Call on your powers. Weave the world to your will. Surmount the Death-Road.” The woman was still, her eyes wide and frown deep. “Well, go on.”

“I… I can’t. I… don’t know how. I’m not like the others.” She stammered.

“You are not like the gods, you mean?” The shade asked.

“I… guess I’m different.” She trailed.

“Not a god, perhaps?” The shade spoke slowly.

“I- I am!” The woman insisted with a frown.

“Human… all too human, perhaps?” The shade asked with finality. Rosalind blinked, tears leaping to her eyes.

“I’m… I’m not. I’m a god.” The shade wrapped an ethereal arm around her and tapped her shoulder comfortingly.

“There now, Rosalind. There is no shame in having been human; all souls are alike in the end. Even the gods, when they die, come here. The Death-Road is wide and withstands the ambling of mortalkind and the march of gods alike. Step forth now, it matters not what you are; here your mettle alone is tested and who you chose to be.” Still frowning and eyes yet wet, the slightest pout on her lips, she tramped off with a sigh and melted away into nothingness. The shade watched after her for a few seconds, muttered, “well, how curious,” and with a puff was gone.

[centre][img]https://i.imgur.com/c9onbgf.png[/img][/centre]
I will not bother with suspense here and will say it outright: Rosalind the Feverfoot failed her trial. If one were to summon up one word, one characteristic, with which the entirety of that hapless woman’s personality could be defined - if we, for a moment, put aside some of the virtues she learned vicariously in becoming Mamang - then the word most suited to her would be ‘coward.’ Rosalind the Coward is by far more apt than Rosalind the Feverfoot ever was. It is therefore to be expected, and stands to reason, that such an ill-famed coward would fail any trial of courage. There is little of historical value in the substance of that trial and so I will spare the gentle reader the tiresome details. Suffice to say that she failed most ignobly and so was consigned to the depths of hell.

And here we arrive at something singularly unique as far as the chronicles of history and natural philosophy are concerned: an eyewitness account, or as close as we can get, of hell from mortal eyes. It is one thing for a divine to wade into that plane and observe the suffering of its denizens, quite another for a mortal inhabitant of that unholy plane to give an account. They are quick in forgetting, are mortals, and no sooner is their punishment complete before they are reborn and all their previous memories confined to the fields of forgetfulness. And what is mortalkind but an endless cycle of forgetting? But that is by the by. Here begins an account of how Rosalind arrived in hell and what horrors she witnessed and punishments endured while there.

As the Gate of Rosalind closed before her and the Death-Road melted away, the shade stood above her and the darkness of his face was cold and judging. “You have failed,” it stated, the slightest tinge of disappointment in its otherwise flat and monotonous tone. Countless failed, and countless passed. “You could not demonstrate your courage, and so your journey ends here.”

She did not attempt to defend herself and instead allowed herself to wallow in self-pity. But that timeless shade had no patience for such folly or even for her anymore; her stolid guide had already consigned her to the Ashen Plains and promptly dissipated. The ground underfoot vanished and she was falling. She fell a long, long way through miserable darkness. Flakes of hot soot pressed against her suddenly sweaty face, and the air grew warm, and then stiflingly hot, and then at last torrid. The darkness all around was maddening, and yet it was her shield though she did not know it. 

An infernal red glow emanated from somewhere far below to cut away at the umbral gloom that wreathed and shrouded her. Tormented screams and howls echoed up from the depths below, louder and louder, and then before she knew it she had fallen into some horrific pool, or lake, or sea… it made no difference since it was so wide that she could not fathom whether it was bounded or boundless. It was inky black and made of broiling, fetid sludge. She could not swim in it – she would not have been able to even if she knew, for it was too thick – and so she began to sink into that searing ooze which burned her flesh. 

In great bubbles it burst up and covered her face in a layer of grime even as it slowly, ever so slowly, pulled her further into those forlorn depths. The putrid vapours forced their way into her nose and mouth and eyes; the nauseating odour and taste were acrid like bile, metallic like blood, rancid like soured milk, in all ways fouler than mere words could hope to describe. She wanted to scream and vomit, but when her mouth gaped open to gag she only swallowed the rancid substance. Bits of hair and bone churned in the mass too, scraping against her skin and forcing their way into her mouth and indiscriminately down her gullet and up her lungs. She should have suffocated and drowned, but she did not. She was already dead, and so now not even death could offer her any escape from this suffering. 

It felt like a slow eternity in there. The haze of insanity gnawed at her then retreated, then returned just when she thought herself lucid before retreating again with a laugh, and again and again with any signs of ceasing or mercy. However, before that terrible cycle, and those horrible teeth of madness, could chew and pulverise her mind into gruel, she was freed.

Salvation came in the form of a seeking hook, whose cruel iron barb slid between her ribs. It yanked and it pulled, slowly and yet violently jerking her bit by bit until her head once again crested the top of the fetid water. She gasped and choked, heaving up ooze, what must have been faeces, and then blood. The hook viciously ripped through her innards, and it was a snake in there, writhing like a knife slowly twisting inside a wound.

The hook was on the end of a long chain and she was being winched up and out of that rotting pit of tar. She found herself flopping and choking, dragged onto a shore of skulls. But it was no hero or angel or vahura (that she knew of) that had pulled her out; instead, it was a grinning fish operating that winch. Oh yes, in that inferno it was a fish who was the angler, and the unworthy and the sinners and the cowards was who it caught. Now whether that is ever the case, or whether it was unique to Rosalind is difficult to know. It is awfully suspect that one who spent much of her life prior this at sea should find herself tortured by fish, and so I would advance that hell is rather more personal than uniform narratives about it suggest, though a single account like this can hardly be concrete evidence of such.

“My, my, what a fine catch,” the pleased fisherfish purred. He had the [i]biggest[/i] mouth that Rosalind had ever seen, and his grin spread from ear to ear (for it was a strange fish with something like humanoid ears). His smile stretched even around and above those beady little eyes of his, which glowed with an inexplicable hunger. His smile bared six rows of giant yellow teeth that looked more like wicked stalactites and stalagmites in some vast cavern than teeth in a maw.

With a rag as rough as gravel, he scraped off the ooze that clung to her face as well as what little bits of skin and flesh still inexplicably clung to her skull before he tossed the rag aside, down by the great big barrel where all of that day’s catch lay. Naked, gutted bodies filled that terrible vessel, and yet Rosalind had no eyes for it, just for the angler. Even after she had been boiled in the sludge and should have been little more than bits of ooze clinging to a blind and bare skeleton, she was somehow whole again - perhaps just so that she could see and feel as this monster’s claws caressed her cheekbone.

“A pretty one, too!” He cruelly laughed. “Once.” A sharp claw poked into her breast, and when he pulled it back crimson blood dripped free. He licked his finger and gave off a satisfied moan. “Ah, I taste your soul. It’s sweet… so sweet. Better than milk! Almost like… tears, hah! Like tears!”

For a moment, a weeping and wailing Rosalind - she did not know when she had started doing that - saw a beautiful laektear before her, which was then overwhelmed and replaced by that cruel blue-eyed Exile. Her tears spilled out like rushing waterfalls as she sobbed in endless misery and despair. The angler laughed so hard that she failed to so much as hear the snap as his jaw came unhinged and he swallowed her whole, his teeth tearing her into a hundred ribbons and shreds.

He swallowed her, and then she was falling. She fell a long, long way down her tormentor’s gullet. Bits of meat and half-chewed food stuck to her sweating face, and the air grew warm, and then stiflingly hot, and then at last torrid. The darkness all around was maddening, and yet it was her shield even though she did not know it. An infernal red glow emanated from somewhere far below to cut away at the umbral gloom that wreathed and shrouded her. With a splash, she finally fell into a pool of viscous, liquid fire. 

She shrieked and howled and burned, until a harpoon skewered her and she was wrenched out. “My, my, what a fine catch,” an exuberant fisherfish crooned. But then he pursed those great big blubbery fish lips of his, and frowned. “Ah, but you’re not so pretty,” he spat with disappointment. “Half chewed already. Whale food, perhaps. Hah! Well, let’s see if you can at least dance!”

Still skewered by the harpoon, Rosalind was helpless as the monstrous fish used it like a great big lever to fling her over his shoulder. The harpoon’s wicked barbs kept hold of half her guts and flesh even as the rest of her was wrenched free by the whipping motion. With an undignified and agonied splat, she landed face-first on a searing rock. She sizzled there and felt every cut and burn, the weeping of her organs and cooking of her meat. Her flesh and body regenerated, but slowly, too slowly for her to flee as that great torturer plodded from his fishing spot to the edge of the burning rock. She cooked and cooked for a while, until the fisherfish impatiently gestured for her to stand up, and she found herself doing so. He started rapping his harpoon against the stony ground to a beat, and she felt herself compelled to dance, but the half-molten rock underfoot burned her worse than the Fever ever had. She could hardly even step on the ground, much less find her feet, and so she tripped and fell over and over until the fisherfish at last called her a worthless bit of chum and left her there.

The dark ocean of burning ooze receded and all around her the smouldering rock grew. Flames erupted all around her and then she was no longer alone, for her cries mingled with the cries of unknown thousands. Flames of blue and purple and darkest black licked at her form, and she burned and wilted away before reforming, then burned and wilted away and reformed, then burned to a smouldering husk before flesh cauterised itself back together and flesh wept its way across her form. The denizens of the hellish plains raised their hands upwards, and Rosalind did so too and saw, as her eyes exploded from the severity of the heat and then regrew, that above them flew a great multitude of black fiery beings. When the gaze of one of them fell on Rosalind it was as though liquid fire was poured into her eyes and across her face, and she screamed out in maddened pain and fear.

“Kohshello!” the people cried, “Kohshello!” The most tremendous of the flying beings descended from above - a thousand glaring eyes of blue, a thousand arms of fire and thousand legs, a thousand wings and a thousand mouths; in all ways as ice and in all ways aflame, in all ways headless and in all ways a face, in all ways impossible and in all ways inevitable. Simply beholding it was more agony than Rosalind had tasted in her hapless existence, and a gaze from one eye piled screams on her screams and tears on her burning tears. Where he turned a blizzard of poison cut across the hells, and where he looked the fires burned brighter and flaming waters poured on hell’s denizens. He did not speak, but opened his thousand mouths as if to do so, and a singular cry rose up from those whose punishment and torture was his purpose. “Don’t speak, Kohshello, don’t speak!” They cried. “But intercede for us with your lord, plead with your lord, let him annihilate us! Let us be destroyed, Kohshello; let this end!”

He said nothing, that Kohshello, but spread his thousand wings of flame so that all the world was poison and pain and ice and flame, and ascended with the cacophonous beating of those ten hundred impossible appendages. The flames flayed them and the creatures of torture - which, Rosalind realised after an eternity had passed, were vahuras, terrible vahuras - descended on them and gave them festering waters of flame to drink. Rosalind drank, and her lips burst and tongue evaporated and throat sizzled into nothingness and stomach opened so the waters ran right through her. They gave her ground and broken glass to eat as her lips and tongue and body reformed, and it was like swallowing a thousand hacking blades, which cleaved her up from mouth to belly. And then she found - to her horror - that her hunger only grew and she could not help but eat more of the cursed glass and drink the fetid flames that destroyed all they touched.

They wailed, those denizens of the Ashen Plains, they screamed tirelessly and screeched without ceasing, and they tore at what hair they had and clawed at their skin and eyes and bit their tongues and lips in regret. “Woe to me!” they crowed in unison, “woe to me!” And Rosalind wept and screamed it too - “woe to me!” she cried with all who cried, “woe to me!” she wept with all who wept. And the vahuras of black flame, those Wardens of the Ashen Plains, would now and again descend and sweep a group of burning sufferers, and Rosalind would watch as now they ascended a far off cliff and threw the group into smouldering cauldrons of lava, or ascend and hang them on hooks which tore away skin and flesh, or launch them into pits of burning tar.

In time - or rather, after an unknown eternity had passed - the giant Kohshello, that greatest and most terrible of hell’s Wardens, returned; the denizens of hell cried out in increased pain as he looked on them and they beheld him, and their screams came louder and more desperate and they clawed at their eyes that they may not see, tore at their skin that it may not burn, and ripped at their nostrils that they may no breathe in the poisonous gales which circumambulated Kohshello like cackling death.

“The lord has spoken,” Kohshello said, and Rosalind’s form disintegrated and reformed with every word, “and he has decreed that you shall abide,” came his verdict and promise of ceaseless punishment. Then Rosalind wept and was joined by all in weeping.

Something strange happened then. In all the eternity that the Ashen Plains had existed, there had never been something even akin to harmony in it, but that great wave of weeping that Rosalind led was a great symphony, a strange harmony, a sudden peace that if for a moment quietened the pangs of pain and eased the striking of hell on its people. It was not a harmony for too long - just as eternity stretches infinitely, that harmony did not last long enough for an eyelash to tremble.

Great Kohshello’s retributory eyes were on Rosalind at once, and in that moment all the weight of hell - in its eternity of suffering - was upon her; she wilted and she sobbed and she groaned and she could not even begin to claw at herself or wail. Kohshello took her up on a wing, and above her a single blue eye gazed into her and below her a single mouth spoke. “The coward dies a thousand deaths; the valiant dies but once.” The gaze bored into her, and all of hell disappeared so that only Kohshello was - Kohshello and her. “You are not of the valiant, Rosalind.”

She looked into the eye and her lips trembled and eyes flooded. “I…” she sobbed, “I’d like to be.” The gaze of Kohshello seemed to soften on her then, and his fingers prodded her and weaved her back together.

“Cowardice aside, yours are little sins, Rosalind. There is a seed of anger and spite in you, but it is not grown. In all other ways…” his single blue eye considered her. “All that you have tasted here, Rosalind, is but the seed of your cowardice. Hell was inside you long before you were tossed into it. Meditate on this, and perhaps when next you live you will extinguish it in you before you are flung in again.” The terrible vahura placed her down by a small grey door and disappeared without another word. She stood on shaking legs for seconds and then collapsed to her knees and buried her face in her hands and hair, and she stayed like that with no intention of ever being any other way.

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[list][*][hider=Summary]Rosalind’s soul departs her body. She is caught by a vahura called Melusine who takes her to a Gate of Nebel, where she is greeted in the usual way by a shade. It should be known that shades make a quick pre-judgement of individual souls and so decide which gates are best for them. Rosalind passes through the Gate of Nebel (her body was basically buried in the tree) and walks the Death-Road. She gets to a Gate of Rosalind, which tests courage. She fails the trial and goes to hell. We get a general description of hell and suffering. She sees the vahuras who are responsible for hell and the torture of its denizens, who are led by a powerful vahura named Kohshello. Eventually Kohshello plucks Rosalind out and places her by a grey door. It is not stated in the post, but the grey door leads to the Grey, or limbo.[/hider][/list]