As Deleaduindill tread down the entrance hall, the tapestries seemed to writhe of their own accord, colors drinking in the hollow light at some inflections of the candellabra's flame, at others, seeming to be shone upon by full daylight so that the reds, blues, and violets actually cast light into the place of shadow, tinting the silent, cold stone around them with their respective colors. Within the ancient Silvanesti elf, his thoughts felt as empty as the hollow black flame that bobbed lightly atop the dark wick it drew it's life from, and perhaps as fragmented as the periodic manifestations of random color and shadow that he walked through. The silence, save the wind that howled softly through the mountains to the South, was at once a comfort and a curse. It was peaceful - but it left him utterly alone with his thoughts. In his long life, Deleaduindill knew that the host within was by far the more fell, and now that he felt to have nearly died because he was so different, he could not help but wonder at those things which had survived. Like an illness that is beaten back only part-way - the strongest proponents of such a malady are the ones that live on. He knew well the content of his reverie, and the emotions of hate and rage that ran so very deep through them. With a soft exhale, the Dread Lord's shadow-blue eyes searched the walls around him with more than a mild interest - he did not trust them. Deftly, the ancient elf took the great black blade that hung at his side from it's scabbard, the dark metal appearing as a void amidst the minagery of chaos he walked through. He held the cold haft at the ready, the weapon unusually light and deft - as bequitted it's nature - as he walked, the Dread Lord well aware of it's ability to assail the unseen. Tension followed the stepps of the ancient elf, even as he turned at the end of the hall, vanishing from the corridor in a magical flury of pale light.

At once the shadows peeled back as the pure, quiet, silver light of Deleaduindill's bedchamber came into view. The two Candellabras of Souls were a safe haven from all save the living, and clearing his chambers with measured stepps and poised ears, the ancient elf sheathed the blade, feeling again the hampering exhaustion that Joylah's achingly gentle touch had left him with. He stood in the archway to his inner chamber, the Candelabras of Souls standing their faithful vigil at each side of him, his armor turning away their silver light in a shining splash of silver on the cool granite walls, floor, and ceiling.

In a dance of silvery pale across the cool granite around and above, the ancient Silvanesti elf knelt where he stood - though tired - reining his mind to open itself to it's own observation. With only a few subdued breaths, the clarity of meditation came to him, and the farscape of his conscioussness, revealed; it was desolate. The Dread Lord had always caused his thoughts to take on the likeness of a dark pool, where each disturbance to the deep waters was - conscious or not - a machination of his thinking. Mist of an equally shadowed color served to symbolize emotion - though as he looked upon the dimly lit representation of his mind - it was nearly static. The ancient elf found his memories and glided through them as they came to him - these he still had - though they felt as so many empty wineskins, wan and drained of their purpose. At length Deleaduindill stopped his exploration of his memories and looked back to the calming pool, the ripples of the thoughts of his memories growing smaller as they expanded to the edges of the pool where the black mists began, and yet further - the center of the pool resumed it's placid still.

Almost.

Like a small stone dropping into the water, the dark pool bloomed with rings of throught without the ancient Sylvanesti's bidding, the dark mists coiling languidly around themselves in response. As swift as thought, Deleaduindill's mind's eyes dove into the pool, immursing himself in his mind's reflection.

His eyes were closed, though the feeling of another's presence was as palpable as the cloak he wore, and as enwrapping. Delicate feminine hands were just barely warm against his cheeks, the wind and sound of the sea a powerful, peaceful rolling thunder amidst the storm of his emtions. Resistance was being pressed further and further away as...a beautiful elvish voice spoke more in thought than in voice, the feathery caress of equally soft lips against his long, swept ear, repealing his will with simple unguilded tenderness. And then, a candle of trust seemed to light itself somewhere deep within the Dread Lord's closed heart and mind. His will and the walls around his heart crumbled - made of the old, neglected stones of hate and fear. The rush of vulnerability, fear, and the exhileration of a chance at the freedom from such battlements via the foundation of trust gave Deleaduindill the pause he needed as the anxiety and hope he fostered grew, hand in hand. Soon, he abandoned the breaking walls of his former dark solitude for the soft, sweet singing elvish voice that cooed gently amidst the deafening tummult beneath him. In a very real way, the Dread Lord felt as though he were ascending into the sky, caught by the tether of tender song, and saved from the flood that broke apart the walls of the old fortress he had defended for so long, beneath him.

Real tears - then and now - flowed from Deleaduindill's shadow-blue eyes, moruning the loss of the bristling walls that were so familiar. Yet too, he shead tears because of how humbled he felt - that in the moment of his most vulnerability - he did not feel the stab he had feared for so long. Trust had set him free from nearly a mellinia of isolation and now kept him safe; his hate had simply kept him alive.

The lingering feeling of Joylah's magical song and tender touch, in it's subtle ways, gave the ancient Silvanesti the realization of how delicate as well as resiliant Trust was, versus the adamant barriers of hate and fear. These crude tools always needed to be refreshed, to be given fuel so that the fire wherfrom could blaze unhindered - so many times it had almost consumed the Dread Lord, only to spark more flames in the people and circumstances surrounding him - so that these too were offered up to the fires of his passionate loathing. Once-hard and perhaps handsome walls were smeared with mortar and shoring after the unkind years - though they kept at bay what one wished; and they kept away what one desired. The Trust that the ancient elf felt was immediately more delicate, though the promise of friendship and tenderness - should it be needed - spurred a familiarity that was all but lost to Deleaduindill. That he was not alone was at once a painful, though breathtakingly honest joy; and that he had fnally accepted that even he needed tenderness, along with every other living thing, gave the ancient Silvanesti elf a gentle though staggering release from the inflexible mettle he had tried to preserve; it was well, even healthy, to want and not conquer, to seek and not posess. The phantom grace of delicate elven lips kissing the tears he had shead a handful of hours before washed over him once more, letting his desire remember and his fulfillemnt be played upon by the memory that he would have until he died, now.

Hate and fear had left the ancient Sylvanesti, though he bore a healthy respect for the oblivion of what was to come. Opening his shadow-blue eyes, Deleaduindill found himself bathed in the silver, unwavering light of the Caldellabras of Souls, still, his inner chambers before him. Though still exhausted, the Dread Lord felt as though he had swam long and hard, and now ran on dry ground - weary, though feather-light.

With lingering uncertainties, he stood, feeling the call of his bed more keenly than before, though with a growing doubt. His next reverie would take him through each day of his life since he had been born, and he would watch the cheerful young boy he was, be destroyed by the slavers that took him from his family - over a thousand years ago - and it would not stop until he was where he was now, standing in a halo of silver light on a cool spring night in his home. Deleaduindill did not know if Joylah's affectations would be as sure, as sensual, and as clear as the days and nights of the rest of his long life. Would he wake having been born into childhood, die to his innocence time and again through hate, pain, and fear, and at long last be born once more into living, and not simply life? Or would re-living a life of living nightmare condemn his hopes and desires to die each night, for the rest of his days?

With a thought, Deleaduindill dispelled his armor, the gleaming black metal vanishing in a flurry of shadows from the silver light. The white satin shirt and trousers he wore beneath it were old, though in excellent repair, traditional garments worn by the officiating members of House Protector. As he stepped forward into his inner chambers, he began shedding these as well, at length coming to rest in his bed of dark, soft, heavy satin and cotton coverings, moving closer to his reverie. So reclined, the ancient Sylvanesti elf felt consciousnes slipping from him, though was not afraid to meet it. No matter the outcome of his evening-dreams, he would have at the very least memories of what it was to be free.