Torasin is dead.
Yseulte wanted nothing more than to rage and scream and drown the murderer in his own blood once she slit his throat and spilled his precious life force for all the world to see, as the murder had surely done to her Torasin. She had killed before, and she would do it again, and again, and again, if that's what it took; she'd kill a thousand times over for Torasin, the beautiful golden heart with the emerald eyes. But for all of her grief and insatiable fury, she could only fall into a numb stupor, withdrawing deep into the darkest cobwebbed corners of herself, throwing up iron-barred walls to stay hidden from the world and the cruel reality of it all.
Now, let's get something straight, here. I don't know who Torasin is, and I don't particularly mourn for his passing, but nonetheless, Butler had practically dragged me by the tail (she's a very rude, disobedient Butler, you see, she's still in training) from the warm fireside to attend his dismal "funeral speech" given by the silver stallion with the flecked golden back. She had seemed immensely glad to see him, this other master of hers. A smile brighter than the sun had graced her lips at the sight of her master armorer and words of greeting blossomed joyfully on her tongue, but had quickly wilted and blackened to ash in her mouth as he announced Torasin's murder.
She didn't cry for him, no, the iron maiden never wept. Her face might be fashioned of stone and steel, but inside, her heart wept, red and wet. Images whirred and flickered through my mind, and I realized Yseulte was actually sharing her sweet, sunlit memories with me, rather than locking them deep within the chambers of her heart. I'm usually forced to pry thoughts and words and images from her mind in a rather brutish fashion, the nosy tiger that I am, but this willingness to give all of her precious memories to me leaves me nearly as numb and stupid as Yseulte herself.
The memory is hazy and shimmering; a mirage glittering under the harsh glare of winter sun. It's snowing, nearly a year ago today, but it's a light, fluffy snowfall, cold kisses on Yseulte's skin as she saunters playfully towards a serious-faced sentinel on the cliff, moving with grace unhindered by the crippled leg she bears now in the present. The sentinel has skin polished a deep gold, golder than the sun itself, and his eyes are as green as emeralds. Torasin, I think vaguely. Not even a hello falls from her lips, no greeting, no nothing. Silence. And in one of her brave, random impulses that makes Yseulte who she is, she scoops up a last bit of spring slush in her mouth and flings it at him before wheeling away with the golden man and his dragon in hot pursuit, peels of laughter rippling from their pale lips like a merry, bubbling spring.
The memory fades, but the snow is still falling, gently embracing Yseulte's shoulders like a long lost lover. I have learned a new word. Friend. That is what Torasin was to Yseulte—the most precious of friends. I steal a glance at my solemn butler. She stands, quietly, still swallowed in the numbness of her grief, listening to her master Glazier speak, but his words fall on deaf ears. She is still lost in the folds of time, racing in the snow with a golden friend with eyes like summer.
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[O] A time for Action [Crafters, open]
