#sorry i took forever to move this over skjgdkdgjdg !

[lovetaled-a]

✧*. ◟  @ringwrath,   witch  king.

not even the air is spared from the winter he brings with him.     it smells foreign and feels foreign,  of a different magic than his own;   but few things remain unaffected by the terrible chill in the space around him   —   unforgiving and quick does it freeze all it touches;  blackening all under his gaunt, bone-white palm and draining it of warmth.    but his hands touch nothing,  remaining gloved and adorned by light armor of what glitters as silver but is harder than it.    the same metal is found in the mask concealing his face.

aye,  and he reveals that too   —   or at least what he presents for a face   —   as his hands reach up to remove the heavy hood of his white cloak,  and he lets the unfamiliar warm light of early spring reflect off its flawless surface.

the mask is expressionless and frozen in a mildly pleasant expression.    it hides a face given to him by his beloved master;  one dead and rotten and wreathed in the pallor of something that should have died long ago.     white and silver upon his form are but a mockery of good and light,  hiding the evil stirring   [ silent,  patient,  ever-present ]   beneath bright robes and glittering metal.

“   i cannot show you my likeness even if i wished to,   ”           the voice behind the mask speaks;   deceptively pleasant in tone yet still bearing a hint of the haunting roughness he carries with him.     he pointedly ignores the first question.           “   as it is not my own magic that made me appear the way i do   —   it is a curse that cannot be lifted by my hands,  or anyone else’s …    perhaps not even by he who cast it.   ”           [ there is a truth in those lies,  though he does not know it. ]       even despite his own cold,  his master’s fire burns in a part of his black heart forever.            “   you have my gratitude for no longer aiming your arrow at me,   for i carry no weapon of my own.   ”

and indeed;   does he truly need one?

the  spring  coalesces  around  them,       a  whirlwind  of  earth  at  its  purest  iteration.       it  tosses  about  the  grasses  and  carries  away  pollen  like  a  dusted  hearth,       but  the  cries  of  those  the  bloodstone  queen  would  rule  reach  the  ears  of  the  successor         (  each  blade,       a  voice  its  own,       whispers  of  more  than  this  silver-gilded  stranger’s  intrusion;       of  broken  silence  and  corruption  like  rot  and  carrion  on  the  wind.       and  the  trees  too  have  spoken  in  their  turns,       reaching  the  ears  of  the  huntress  though  the  creaking  in  their  roots,       and  she  knows  them  to  be  stifled  by  a  great  fear,       the  age  old  sentinels  of  the  spring  court,       twisted  wood  to  which  all  passing  things  owe  reverence.  )     she  scents  ash  upon  the  wind,         this  too,       a  flavor  that  burns  together  with  the  sweetness  of  flowers.     yet  despite  the  hastening  devastation  of  the  other’s  presence,       the  springmaid  is  yet  intrigued  by  what  must  come  of  two  antithetical  forces  meeting  together:       one  young  as  a  sapling,       the  other  perhaps  older  than  the  ice  that  sinks  deeper  in  the  ground  with  each  season,       with  the  hunger  that  comes  for  all  in  the  end.  

must  one  always  inevitably  take  their  fall,       to  discover  what  exists  to  oppose  them  ?

eyes  of  loam  green  witness  the  shroud  fall  away,       pale  and  pure  as  diaphanous  cloth  the  mortals  used  to  bury  their  most  sacred  dead.       strange  to  adorn  oneself  as  though  mortality  were  elegant  in  its  own  way  ———  but  in  her  recollection  dances  living  brides  that  wear  the  same  or  similar  garb,       the  habit  of  adorning  themselves  with  flowers  of  soft  snow  and  veils  like  mist.      what  symbolism  does  the  stranger  carry  with  them,       rife  and  palpable  ?      demise,       the  wilting  of  all  things  slowly  over  time.       the  blackening  of  the  earth,      an  unfathomable  trail  of  carnage.

❛❛     it  must  be  dangerous  magic,    ❜❜       speaks  a  songbird’s  voice  to  the  snake  in  the  garden,     ❛❛     if  not  even  its  maker  might  control  it.    ❜❜      things  are  not  so  old  here  as  newmade  and  as  undying  in  their  newness,       and  even  the  most  ancient  corners  of  her  wood  are  not  so  darkly  corrupted:       not  even  the  portal  to  the  otherworld  so  stains  the  thirsting  ground.       ❛❛    i  have  not  yet  relinquished  the  arrow  entirely.    ❜❜        lips  like  full  waxing  crescents  press  together.       upon  her  mount,       a  mare  red  as  the  blood  that  flows  through  the  stones  of  villages  and  colors  the  wine  of  victorious  battle,       she  does  not  seem  to  tremble,       even  through  the  upset  of  balance  tremors  through  her  with  each  wary  word.      ❛❛     i  am  curious  to  know  how  you  made  way  into  the  wood.     it  is  not  simply  found,      you  understand.    ❜❜