arsenicwaltz

She is walking across a desert, parched skin cracking in a dry furnace wind, her bandaged feet leaving bloody footprints behind her as she trudges ever onward through the infernal gale towards some unseen point on the horizon. Her clothing flutters from her in torn, colorless rags, leaving bare skin at the mercy of wind-driven sand. Eyelids lowered, she squints into the storm, hands wrapped and bound, and clutched protectively to her chest around an empty golden chalice. The metal weighs her down and burns her flesh, and in the golden curve of the vessel one can see flames dancing. Stretched in front of her ad infinitum is a sentry line of silver chalices, each similar and yet different from the one she holds, each containing cool water in a tiny pocket of storm-free calm. But the girl's gaze does not wander from the horizon, her blistered hands cannot stand to unclench from her burdensome treasure, and she stumbles on, unseeing. Finally, she sinks exhausted and weeping into the sand, her broken hands automatically releasing the golden chalice, which rolls quickly down the dune she has just climbed. Empty now her hands, nay, her whole body yearns towards the cup which glints merrily, far from her grasp. As the sand piles at her back, sticking in her clothes and hair, she throws out her hand in one last desperate grab, and comes back without the golden chalice, but not empty. A silver chalice, light as air and encrusted with sapphires, now lies beside her, spilling an endless stream of cool, clear water through her hands and into the pocket of calm that has reached out to envelop her.

Inside the Palace the girl turns away from the image on the page, her face troubled. The bindings on her hands shed bloodied sand onto the hearth as she stands to lean against the ornately carved fireplace. She drops her head into one hand, trying to make sense of the image and failing.

The frame in front of her is of a bright red wood, polished to a dull natural gleam. Inside it hangs a small scrap of plaid fabric wrapped into a cylinder by a tiny black leather strap. The girl leans agains the wall opposite, her eyes fixed on the interior of the frame, but obviously seeing further and far more than the simple symbol it contains. The black taffeta rustles softly as she sighs, closing her eyes. The Gallery is filled with a great sense of vacancy as she vanishes.

Elsewhere in the Palace, life and unlife continue as normal. The Shadows go about their business, the City bustles nonspecifically outside the walls. But inside the Parlor there is a stale, heavy gloom. On the hearthstone are scattered a pen, ink and the blank pages of a book, though it is obvious that there are many more missing. Beside the coals of a now-dying fire rests a single page, one corner eaten and blackened where it barely escaped the kiss of the fire. The page itself is filled with line after line of a black scrawl, the same phrases repeated over, and over again.

He is not interested. It would not work. Give it up.
He is not interested. It would not work. Give it up.
He is not interested. It would not work. Give it up...