Wind. The inevitable rush of air sweeping the grass, spreading relentlessly against the greenery even as the waves crashed again and again upon the sheer cliffs below. Great, rolling blue and shimmering swathes of green as they coming crashing, crashing down upon the rocks; breaking, shattering and sent spraying into the air as a fine mist. A grey haze that lingers, watching quietly from above as the assault continues.

A smudge of red tinges the horizon, blood spilling across the slash of blue upon grey, where the ocean's breadth meets the depths of skies above; blood spilling through the cracks in the bit of glass as I hold it before my eyes – veins springing forth from the centre, spiderwebbing of cracks in the shards and splinters of colours that remain. I linger a moment there, hand held on hip, hand held before eyes – thoughts in a time and a place far, far away... and yet very present. Very near. There is a voice in the wind: screams, at first, and then the gasping breaths of some creature who's death is doubtless near at hand. My hand wavers. The fingers twitch. The glass sways and with it the colours, blood drying and vanishing, cracks dulling, blackening and then vanishing altogether.

I draw a breath. Make as if to hurl the thing into the depths below, to send spinning with it the last of the thoughts, the last of the memories... the last of the regret... and yet instead I watch with some kind of disgusted fascination, as my hand draws the piece toward my breast, holds it close there as I turn my back upon the waves and leave that place.

She is waiting for me, as I knew she might – perched upon the single living branch of a gnarled old oak; her gaze is upon me, her smile bores into me – her words cut through me, shearing away at the scattered thoughts I have already built up around the memory, paring away and bearing naked the pain of the moment. She laughs, pushes down from her perch and approaches me with cocksure steps.

“You are thinking too much, Nestor... holding too much... do you not remember?”

I bow my head, heave a say and remark in response: “But that is the very trouble, I always remember...” She laughs again. That familiar laugh of hers. That chilling sound, of wood ringing hauntingly against ice, echoing in the hollows of my mind as I brush a hand before my eyes... and wet. The spray of the sea. 

The warmth of sweat. The coverlets drenched. Nestor gives a cry, springs in a moment of shock fused with fear, feet planting firmly upon the chill tile and form springing to its full height before he seems to realise where he finds himself. His room. His tiles. The grey of a full moon springing into life from beyond the uncurtained windowpanes; the city beyond lays in a hollow of deathly quiet, and yet for me the disquiet within continues on unabated. I see her eyes through the glinting light, hear the quiet of her laughter from that perch upon the windowsill. 

“Ill dreams, sweetest one?” I bear my teeth, one hand clenching with involuntary motion at the leathern pouch dangling from my neck. Sleep is out of the question. Casting about in the dark as best I might, I begin to dress myself. Mechanically. Methodically. Doing my best all the while to avoid so much as glancing in her direction... and yet feeling the eyes all the same, feeling up to the very point that we step together from the room, slip wordlessly through the empty halls and into the streets beyond.

There is little to be heard beyond – the growl of a stirring mongrel. The squeal of some luckless cat. The constant pattering and scratching of rats against the slimed cobbles. But there is something... something strange in the air, and I find my hand resting absently against the hilt of my sword as I pad through the fog, following the whispering tendrils of fate as they see fit to lead me...