The skies cried that night, a deluge that had lasted for days and nights, in truth. Perhaps the heavens were upset, and maybe the gods who governed them were shedding their tears into the realm beneath. Some said, at least. Others might accuse those deities of being too indifferent to even glance at the ground below their crown. With or without faith, that singular truth remained: it had been raining in these lands from morning to evening, day after night, until some no longer recognized time or space absent of rain.

Through the thick and thin of this existence, nothing changed except the days. In the welkin grey as ash, one that swirled with storm clouds that threatened to crack the sky like glass, sunlight remained in slivers. Sometimes, when the torrents were more merciful, it even shined to deliver warmth to the denizens as it did these thickets; branches and leaves haunted by droplets.

Those people? Citizens. Visitors. Civilians. Government officials. Nobles. Peasants. Whether under the serfdom of a local lord, perhaps in the north furthest from the crownlands where even the Black Queen’s abolition of feudalism didn’t completely reach, or free laborers everywhere in between.

The ones over them, from the upper echelon of the peerage seats to the lower courts. From the landed knight to the hedge knight, the bandit to the baron, the hunter with hounds to the bounty hunter. All of them, those isolated inhabitants of this ancient island, with fortunes or misfortunate, predators or prey, from the wolf to the hyena, the lion to the mockingjay, shared the same fate: they were the remnants of Orisia.

One of them had been riding for days and nights. Journeying from the mountains in the north to the plains in the south, he was a lone rider, one who found company only when he passed others on the path, perhaps the open road or a forest trail. Again when he managed to come across an inn and order hot food on a plate and ale in a tankard at a table instead of chewing on hard biscuits under a tree canopy.

Throughout his travels, he recognized none and was recognized by none. This was deliberate. He wanted no others to discover his actual identity. So he rode with his dark grey cloak draped over his shoulders, the hood upward, courtesy of the rain as much as to hide his face. His horse didn’t mind, of course; a brown mare with a black mane.

The previous evening, the rider had slept in a cave after driving the wolves within it away, and they weren’t so dire. The next morning, his bedroll rested at the back of his saddle, his halberd sheathed at one side, his bow and quiver of arrows at the other amid pots, pans and saddlebags with tools and personal possessions.

Finding a measure of comfort to read a book, however, was few and far in this weather except when it came time to find the right brook at night for a campsite beside him, light a fire and retire for the night, if he was fortunate enough.

Maybe later. This morning, the rider was focused on only one thing ever since he began this journey. Everything else was supplementary, from being thirsty and hungry to feeling a longing for his home and its own comforts like his hall’s hearth and his bedchamber’s tall bed of feathers. Those were luxuries he had forfeited for his adventure that was just as much of a mission. It is what it is.

The man sighed into the breeze, lucky that it wasn’t a gust. The last thing anybody wanted in this rain besides a flood was a bitter wind to greet them like a wicked grin. So, between the trees of a forest, with morning sun peeking beneath the grey clouds looming above verdant crowns, the rider steered his horse forward at a comfortable trot, breaking his gaze with the thicket.

Leaves and twigs crushed under hoof. His steed whinnied to express her resentment to all this water. He accepted her complaint as he patted her neck. “Easy, girl,” he whispered. "You're all good.” However, they were powerless against the clouds. It was all they could do to go onward, save their strength, and head south. Day after night, night after day, a lord and his horse, but just victims of this endless rain.

@Blessed Blight

Once upon a time, when she had been but a small, golden-eyed, cherub-faced child, the sound of thunder had frightened her, while the display of lightning had been a source of sheer delight. And a hundred years later, in her young adulthood--for time was a strange construct to beings of her race--the sound was still a terrifying ordeal, and the light a great comfort.

And what of now? So many centuries after the fact--the abuse of recklessly ambitious parents and a disgustingly violent extended family fed by the corrupted founts of power--what remained of that little girl?

“Nothing,” she said aloud, and droplets of water that had collected upon her face rolled into her suddenly parted lips.

Not the taste of blood. Not the hearty warmth and intoxicating clarity that came with it. Just water--just nothing.

“Nothing,” she repeated, her head tilting as strands of soaking hair fell across her brow to cover nearly half her face. The black tendrils transformed into an obsidian-like substance under the weight of water. The tilt of her head was a consideration, followed by a narrowing of her eyes as she mused, “...perhaps, everything?”

Was she really any different from that frightened child?

It was fear that had forced her hand, and it was the promise of light--an ending to the darkness--that had sealed the tragic fate of all the people of Orisia. She was a miserable coward who had hidden for too long behind the façade of a tragic hero. But there was no pang of pain at this acknowledgment. She had come to these conclusions at least a hundred times before, for at least a hundred days in counting—perhaps even longer.

Gabriela had come to accept both what she was and what she was not.

A pale hand, leached of any semblance of color, reached out and touched the rough surface of the bark upon a tree. She didn’t need to steady herself; she was not dizzy or suddenly overcome with emotion to such a degree that her limbs felt weak. However, she did feel herself sway upon the edge of dissociation, and she could not afford to dip away into the blissful numbness that came with forgetting everything.

The rain was threatening to let up just enough to let the morning sunshine break through the tumultuous black clouds overhead. She could feel the sting of it against her cheeks—the heat of the glorious sun. And she, who was now made of nothing more than ice and glass, found the threatening heat to be an absolute inferno. Though she might be deserving of death for her more despicable attributes, she had not sunk low enough to engage in physically self-harming behaviors. The psychological warfare she waged against herself was more than enough.

In her tattered rags—a soaked-through tunic of black, a pair of fitted breeches torn and ripped in various places, drenched leather boots, and a cloak that clung to her form and outlined her small figure as a thing of dense darkness--Gabriela turned away from the sight of a familiar lake. Yes, she had been here before, and yes, something tragic and beautiful had happened here, in a lovely cabin across the way. Somewhere—perhaps similar, perhaps not really here. Her mind was a great expanse, mostly hidden by fog.

She couldn't recall, but she didn't truly want to.

The sun was coming, and the clouds were rolling over themselves, threatening uncertainty, whether they would remain or dissipate. So she sought out the safety of that distant, abandoned building. But when she came upon it, she found it different from the image in her memories. This place was not warm and comforting; it was small and rundown, not the prison where she had spent a happy handful of days once upon a time.

She climbed up rotting wooden steps, careful not to break through the weakened material, and then crossed a creaking, tired deck that had been drowning under the rain for weeks. The door was locked, but she easily forced it open with a push of her shoulder. Into the dusty interior she went, where what was left of the furniture was hidden under thin sheets colored gray by age and dirt. Past the sitting room, into a dark hall, and into a bedroom where the curtains had rotted away and revealed a large glass window that would welcome all the light of day. Not a suitable place to rest. Not the sort of place a vampyre needed. She turned away and sought another space, a small bathroom at the end of the hall. The window was small here, and her cloak was more than enough to cover it.

Gabriela did not shiver as she climbed into the porcelain bathtub. Her slender limbs did not quake as she leaned back in her sopping wet clothes. She did not seek comfort or adjust her position. Instead, she lay flat on her back with her knees bent and her arms crossed over her stomach. She breathed in deeply the smell of mold and of the magic of things turning back into dirt. A sickening smell.

There was a flash of lightning, but she didn’t see it. It wasn’t until the thunder crashed that she jolted, though the movement was contained within the tub. Not a sound spilled from her lips. But it was with this fear, suddenly gripping her heart, that her golden eyes closed, and she found some semblance of sleep.

Not long ago, there was balance between the sky and the land. Sunshine, brighter than this morning, would bathe the scenery from plain to lake. The grass was dry right to the blade. When it rained, the island was wet and grey, and the next day changed back. Nature had her way. The weather of Orisia was in order. Morning dew might linger like residue from a forest fire, the like of which was no less vital to rejuvenate vegetation, but the cycle was final.

These darkened days, though, no flames could take trees drenched day and night, and even time could not escape the rain. The very forest floor, once hardened, was treacherous as quicksand in places. The mud was soaked as much as the hood and would break the hoof so that the horse and rider would share the same fate if it could.

So he knew to go slow. He navigated with patience. He was alone as he rode, eyes and ears alert to his surroundings, where even critters who once found no taste for the rain had adapted to it and come out. They still had to eat. Like them, he learned to see between the cascade, to hear beyond the droplets, watch and listen for trouble.

That was adjustment. It was accepting this new reality, where every moment was a puddle, and the very ocean had all but swallowed this island with the crying sky as its ally. He tried not to look up, not least because he need not get his face wet beneath his garment, but needed not be reminded of his opponent. Those skies were winning, every raindrop like a taunt as if to tell Orisia’s victims that they would never go thirsty but would wish for thirst if it meant an end to the pour.

Lost in thought, it was all he could do as he watched for signs for a squall. He had also learned to almost sense the presence of a storm like a shadow at his back, more than ever before when the lord had a tower and a forest in his land, and was not merely some traveler in a forest on horseback with a sword and a backpack. These were no mere woods though. The bark, so soaked it peeled off like skin from bone as his fingertips brushed it, was from an ancient tree that stood as a sentry of many—as much as an orchestra for Orsia’s queen.

He walked onward, peering between the trees, seeing the past, present and future amalgamated in a silent symphony save for the rain. He tilted his head, spied an abandoned nest in the canopy, glimpsed large wings arcing above the crowns if beneath the clouds. He turned his face, spied no tree, no lake, but something that nature had not made.

It was an abandoned building.

Clicking his teeth, shifting the reins, the rider led his steed toward the structure, every step measured, but unwavering. The mare paused not but a walk away as the rider swept his gaze over the home, or what he had taken for one. Like everything else, it was not spared time’s scar. Its wooden steps, once proud and hard, looked rotten. Sparing a look at the clouds as lightning flashed on the horizon, and thunder rocked the stones, he dismounted his horse and approached.

Guiding his mare by the reins, he wrapped them around a post. With her secured, offering a whinny as if to tell him not to take too long, he cautiously walked up the steps. He wondered if their wooden frame might break like that bark did as much as whether some threat might dwell within. Who could tell? Yet his sword was sheathed at his hip, and he did not fall, as he entered the building, footsteps creaking over the floorboards, and walked into the hall.

In her porcelain tomb, knees bent and arms forced to cross over her chest, she pondered a reality wherein the measured beat of her heart might eventually stop entirely. What if, rather than the stained remains of a whole-body basin, this was the pristine white top of a mortuary’s examination table? What if she had followed a path that led her to some timely and natural demise, her remains set upon such a cold place to be washed and disinfected, posed and prepared, and finally dressed and painted for one last observation?

For surely, being the Black Queen of Orisia, upon her death her subjects would wish to have one last look at her body before it was set to its infinite repose. And so, in the distant span of her heartbeats -- where nearly a minute or more trickled by before another slow, heavy, and tired contraction forced blood through her veins -- she lay and daydreamed of death.

She imagined being fully conscious within her body, yet unafraid of the prospect of eternity. In this daydream of hers, she was a tired but satisfied soul, having lived a long, prosperous, and happy life. The preparation of the body, she thought, might be met with curiosity and wonder in those final moments of awareness.

A lick of metal -- a scalpel pressing into the center of her clavicle, then cutting down between the valley of her breasts, through the hollow of her ribcage, toward her navel. She saw herself marveling at how skin was rendered like something other than skin -- like silk, or soft bread, only to bloom into blackened flesh. No black blood would flow, for it had long ceased its tired movement through her body. The syrup-like liquid would have coagulated by then.

It wouldn’t be messy or ugly...

In the darkness, just as another crash of thunder shook the walls of her small enclosure, Gabriela opened her eyes. A dim but warm glow emanated from the golden irises that stared, bereft of any will to live, at the ceiling speckled with stains from new and old leaks. And there, in that cocoon of shadows, where she was meant to find some reprieve from the potential sunshine, she felt the sickening sensation of constraints crawling across her limbs.

Trapped. She was trapped.

She heard the creak of the mostly rotted wooden floors. But with exhaustion pressing down on her from every side, she couldn’t do much more than focus on a single thought:

I am at their mercy...

And what did Gabriela know of mercy? Only that it was a kindness never afforded to her. She pondered if death could be so gentle and swift, coming while she lay so securely tucked away in the unconsciousness of her torpor.

Was this how she would die -- killed in her sleep?

Murdered, but without the horror or fear of it.

Yet she was aware. She did know. It was coming -- surely, it was coming. The fog in her mind thickened until it covered every thought, every concern, every sensation, save for the piercing cold that felt as though she had frozen through, layer by layer.

Gabriela was no more. All that was left behind was a pretty, pale, but dirtied corpse -- for surely she would appear as such to anyone who came upon her, unless they were careful enough to notice the painfully subtle rise and fall of her chest.

Would you like me to do the same kind of light-touch edit for your partner’s last entry, so the pacing and voice match perfectly across both sides of the story? That would make the upcoming convergence scene seamless.

Up the rotten wooden steps. Next step across the deck. Beyond the doorway. Into the hall. Between the walls. There was naught but darkness within; the remnants of inhabitants long since forgotten amid this abandoned residence. Forsaken, even, and there was a difference. Morning sunlight tried to slide in past the frayed drapes, ever defiant to a wet appetite, but the rain had taken this place like swords in a storm, and decay was not compliant—like a mother who mourned her slain babe but would never forget his name.

Though, no attempt to restore this shelter was in order. There were no elders in this forest fit for the purpose. The linen sheets that covered furniture had served their purpose to futility; ancient as aged skin. Underneath their equally flimsy structure, emboldened by the holes, crept insects. Maddened with a need to feed, they danced at the corners the way snakes slid between the blades of grass.

This morning's visitor or, indeed, intruder, paid no other living thing any mind as much as he did to the dead abode. In the living room, a fireplace where the fire was once stoked remained ashen grey; cold, and even within this pit the mold was able to grow. A corner table, coated with the growth of dust that no lord could comprehend amid, had a complement of spider webs.

Take your blade to them. A voice beckoned within his head. Oh, he knew the stroke. He was trained to take the hide from a deer with his knife as much as penetrate a man’s bone with no fear. That sword in his scabbard was not for show. No. He approached, not webs or memories as he glimpsed trees and friends between them, and enemies in the valley to defend the former by breaking them, but steps.

Remember the embers, my son. Another spoke. He remembered as flesh rendered with bone. Wood and stone. Caught in this waking dream, it was all the son could do to envision the sun, and its rays were made to prevent him from sleeping. It was beyond dawn, the sun since risen in the sky outside this house, but a new dawn was yet to rise.

He climbed. He advanced. He moved with purpose as much as by chance. He did not know where he was going but he knew he had to go—no, not leave, even if his horse chanted a chorus at his back, but advance forward. Forward, Always. Brave. Foolish. It was the same fate anyway.

Bedroom. Window. Morning’s glory shone, its glow vacant of rain or storm, defiant to lightning, stubborn to thunder. Cadrian’s Wall. Even today, may it never fall. Thoughts lost, but he walked on. Bathroom. His hand rested on the hilt of his sword at his hip as he entered, though he could not remember a maxim, nor did he know whether it was fate or accident that gave his gaze to a lady in a bathtub. Maybe it was magic.

But it wasn’t a skeleton. The figure was pallid in complexion, a ghost to the bone, and covered in the dirt of the earth as with the drapes and the furniture of this abode. It was if, at first glance and if one would pardon the darkness of the vision, this person had slit her wrists and let fate take her away like the blades of rain.

Only there was no blood, not even coagulated, and no water in the bathtub. Knees bent upward, rigid as sticks, arms crossed over her chest, positioned with purpose. This was predetermined. Not languid. Not given to death, unless undead, what with her breath as faint as those blades on the window.

Is she asleep? Awake? He didn’t know. His words were light, though, like his pace, never mind perfection in a story or seamless scenes, for perhaps that would simply be boring, as his free hand gripped the edge of the tub and he leaned forward toward her. Though, he did not touch.

“...Hello..?