Deleaduindill sat quietly in his chamber on the plush, red-upholstered loveseat that lay beneath the tapistry of Sosaria. His shadow-blue gaze found the cool flagstones beneath him, though continued past such a temporary thing so as to look into the past, and into the future. The shadows in the quiet were long and as dark as the rest of his keep, the only light being the small windows in the other room, and the two Candelabras of Souls that ever bruned with ghostly white flames, flanking the heavy, dark archway that lead into his bedchamber itself. Thoughts loped through his mind, rememberances, ponderances, and projections, though in a cool blue, slow-seeming way - the way they sometimes did.

Sometimes, life slowed to a crawl, and the moments between the clock's ticking streatched long and deep. In the vastness that was eternity, the pragmatic voice said that seconds or years were so close to the same that differentiating between them did not matter - not after eleven-hundred and seventy-six years of careful and previous differentiation between the same.

Blinking softly, Deleaduindill shifted as he sat, his long, etherially soft and dark cloak wrapped around him, his long, snowy fair hair traling in a thick cascade over his shoulders, ending at his waist. His deep blue-black eyes focused then unfocused on the ground before him as the thoughts swam by.

Time.

Yet again, the voice within him contradicted his thoughts. 'A moment and a year, quite nearly the same, but what one can do in a year - a score of years - and what one can do in a moment do differ. To what end? To the end of accusal or acquittal, of course. To outrun an opponent in the first mile, and to finish the race first are two different things, of course. Yet, too, who does a one truely compete against but himself? None. Of course.'

Memories from past centuries began to raise themselves from within Deleaduindill's mind, triumpths and setbacks, victories and losses. They were bittersweet - fond yet distant things, though with them came the ever-present half-dread that they always came with; always and ever - a measure to him.

His memories and reverie were standards, icons of progress and season, and with each reverie, every lesson he had learned in his life was reaffirmed - so much so that when he awoke, he felt a nearly painful drive to destroy the weakest things in his life and replace them with sterner stuff. Shortly thereafter anger followed - a reaction to the pain - and with anger, each time, came the strength to destroy those weak things.

It was a closely matched battle each time he woke to stay his swift desires, as it was now. At times Deleaduindill would force his thoughts away from what enflamed his darker humors, though inevitably, invariably, his throughts drifted back along the subtle ebb and flow of whence they had came to settle upon what truely enticed his sense of action and relevence.

Calista. Galen. For a length of time, Deleaduindill closed his shadow-blue eyes, his breath hissing softly as he reacted to his own arousal, listening to his heart crescendo within his breast, feeling his muscles begin to tense. More memories.

Calista had caught his eye when she was Casa, an elvish girl whose life was vital and young, purposeful, though merry. She was happy, not because of what she had, but because of who she was, and who she was with - remarkably mature for her youth at the time. She was not dedicated to a Cause, nor did she need to be; she was a free spirit who found the beauty in what was around her, and in animals, be they silent or posessed of speach. It was a simple attraction he felt for her - she was spared of such hardships he had weathered, and her chimerial youth showed it. While his conscious thoughts never suggested something so futile - perhaps his inner self wondered what it might be like to reverie for so short a time, and awaken again, refreshed and ready to live freely, live fully, as all elves in their youth do.

Though time would tell a slowly saddening tale between them - though no less beautiful. Indeed, Deleaduindill enjoyed how the elf girl had reacted to his killing of the vampire that she had bound herself to - to try and 'save' him. The cursed leech had trcked the young elf, and undoing such a thing was an undertaking in and of itself. Yet, the shadowed sorrow she bore was comely, if not moreso than her bright yearnings. It was innocent, true loss, and watching the elf girl slowly descend from her chimerical nature to a more sobered and somber - though no less wistful - creature, was as fascinating as it was enticing. Enticing. The delicate, soft fabric of whom she was spoke soundly into Deleaduindill's heart. In his long years she filled his definition of beauty, and having not experienced such a thing before, he reacted out of fear, out of elation. Few, if any, knew that he had forced himself upon the elf lass one evening - though so close were they already she did not know weather or not she wanted it to happen - another inky drop in the crystal essence of her soul that was stabbingly, maddeningly beautiful.

Though no authority on love, Deleaduindill knew that such intensity did not continue to wow those under its' sway as it did at first - not in the same way. Yet for him, the knowledge that Calista was his and his alone more than satisfied him - as did she - in her quiet, sincere, though more shadowed overtures.

Such a union was no novelty. It took long nights and longer months of patience for the both of them to disarm themelves - mostly himself - to reach a level that she could answer his advances with her own without a sudden reaction, at the very least, suspicion. Over much time a trust was built between them, and it came to its' full measure when Deleaduindill bound himself to the elf girl. They shared in the act of Communion. At the last, she asked him if he would allow a child of his into the world through her. He said that he would.

How all that was had fallen into what it had was still beyond Deleaduindill's reasoning. Calista knew his heart better than any in all of his life's time save his own mother when he was a child. Deleaduindill was a soldier before he was many things, including lover. Calista knew this as well - even admired the same. She knew how to love him - she even knew how to bear his wrath with some of her own, as he had needed a firm yet peacefully spoken warning some few times to stir his reason from under his, at times, insatiable persual of Self. She knew whom he was and understood how loving him would be far different than any other elf, and had accepted that. Ultimately, she managed to push all of that aside and tell him that she had forgotten those times, that she thought she could lay with a certain half-human because it was out of a sort of love when before she had said that she would always be with him but could never love him - for her first love (the vampire) was dead. In his absence she had managed to forget volumes of what they had built and find within herself the capacity to love - the one thing that Deleaduindill sought from her - and had spent it on a rake of a half-human that knew to whom she was beholden - that largely ignored her overtures before Deleaduindill was taken with the elven youth.

Opening his shadow-blue eyes Deleaduindill embraced a lucid moment of clarity - his adrenaline sending him into a sudden calm. He remembered of what he had spoken with Joylah, and he considered himself in that light. He did love the elf girl - they had told each other the same many, many times. Now...he could say that he wished to, yet no matter how much he wished to, nor how deeply - it was not the same as doing. Perfect love did not need reasons, nor even return for its' own presence - this was true. Though who would dres a swine in pearls - even if they were not as precious as they were? What happened to those that tried to make lakes out of rivers?

Treasures are ruined, and the best-lain plans are washed away.

There would always be something to say in the name of perfect love - in its many forms - though for all the care of the gardener, if an apple tree were to produce no apples, it would be cut-down and burned where it fell to make room for a tree that would respond to such careful treatment in an acceptable and like manner.

Deleaduindill exhaled softly, feeling somewhat heavier than before. The initial spirit of action now past, he sat quietly as he did before, his shadow-blue eyes staring past the cold, heavy flagstones below as he looked into the past, into the future.

Why?

He wanted to love the elf girl, but he wanted to destroy everything that reminded him of her as well, including her, herself. It was how he had resolved his past before - and it had worked well - cold lips were still lips, after all. His son, he would raise - though as careless as Calista had been with Deleaduindill's heart (which he, at times, regretted ackowledging having), he did not feel she was fit to be the mother of his son.

When would the gardener come? Would he bring a shoot to graft into the fruitless tree, or an axe and pitch?

• Re: Behind Walls Galen 12:27:48 am, 10/13/5 (0)
• Behind Walls Elizaveta 08:40:46 pm, 10/12/5 (0)