She was so frail and the depth of her eyes were always filled with profound sadness. She never spoke to him after that eve, just watched him from the distance, as he walked by the forest each starless night. That eve she asked him to take an oath of secrecy, and the promise to never look for her again. She knew that she loved him and that living without him would be a meaningless existence, where each day is another step towards a pain relieving death. He was no stranger to her: she had known him from another world, and their souls were one. But it was too early, she couldn’t leave the woods behind. She felt so safe there beneath the green branches, and when the wind was playing in the forest, she could hear her own sighs and sorrows. The woods understood her, she was one with the trees now. And still, every time she saw his shape appear under the darkening horizon, and every time she had to turn her head away as he beckoned to her, the wretched feeling of helplessness surrounded the deepest chambers of her soul. She ran away, not looking back, into the shelter of the forest, which wasn’t a shelter anymore against sadness.

He didn’t understand this renegade of the woods, but he still came back day by day to watch her bathe in the lake near the glade. He used to call out to her sometimes, to her witch, but she only replied with a wordless gaze. As the days grew shorter and the darkness longer, she appeared more and more rarely near the forest, and after one cold dark night she never came again. He wandered the woods for days to find her, but all he found was small footsteps in the moss, proving that what he saw was not just a dream…. As the nights passed, his hope grew fainter, but when he returned to the gray walls of the city, something inside his heart told him that this was not over, it will never be…he will find his witch and bring her back even if he has to go to the end of the world. The rain was pouring, whispering tales about untouched worlds.”My witch..” he whispered and sank into a deep reverie.

The rain was pouring down slowly over his window, in endless streams separating the outside from the inside, obscuring even the light that was fighting to penetrate into his room.

“The heaves cry”, his grandfather used to say in moments like these, but he wasn’t around anymore.

It was amazing how nature had its way of giving substance to his inner feelings, each and every time crying or smiling with him.

“This is the power of the Goddess” he told himself, or rather he thought to himself. Doubts had long left him and needed no more convincing since the missing link that place life, existence and soul together in harmony was there.

But that was not what his mind was lingering upon in the darkness of his room, sitting on the window stool with his chin resting on his knees.

Ever since he had first seen her, he knew there was something fundamentally different about her. After all, in his world and his circles of people he had met a few people of which he could say they did not belong in this crude world but she carried this impression that she truly belonged to another place, another time.

His head sank against the window and a sigh escaped his lips. What he was living in those very moments was not something he was accustomed to neither was he ready to accept it so lightly. Ever since their first touch it was like something fell into place, something that he always hoped it existed but had never seen or experienced … in this reality or any of the many he had created along the way. There was peace, there was solace.

The falling drops hitting the window were singing, or so he thought. “His witch” he had called her, but in truth she would need to magic of her own to keep things that way. All the needed things were already there … and what magic could be greater than the truly improbable even that two kindred, lost and wounded souls would find and heal each other? This single bond in itself would be strong but there was something inside that told me there was so much more at work.

But now he longed for her. He did … every second of every minute of every hour of every day since he had left her in the night. That was something he had long before sworn to himself he would never do, but that night he was torn between his oath and her request. And then again she was The Voice, the voice he listened to even without knowing.

Could he had been so blind that he didn’t see this coming? The raindrops were whispering something and shiver came down his spine. He carried her within his heartbeats.

But all else faded before the simple fact that they had found each other and given all the things they already shared maybe, just maybe, all the suffering and hardships of the past, all the betrayal and the pain, they all had but one purpose: to bring them both together, here and now, a road so masterfully designed by Fate or whoever else was caring for them, that it threw them one if the arms of the other. If that was so, then everything was worth it.

He turned around to rest his back against the window, feet dangling downwards toward the floor.

“This is how the story begins” he muttered out loud.

Written by Lord Night and Lady Snow

                          

That’s just enough for now, lets fly back to the forgotten world, lets see what happens to the pirates and the ghost haunted island…

Lady Alustriel

                          

As the sun was rising today and the sunshine reached the dirty roads of the city, I had a dream of old and happy times. Memories of the first summer of my life since the years of darkness, the most beautiful summer that ever existed…these memories came unexpectedly, since it was a cold winter day still. But I saw what other people didn’t see yet, and I felt what others only hoped to feel. Winter has bid its farewell to the city, and spring gave its first kiss to the weary trees. And I walked on the streets, overwhelmed by memories of the past, beauty and joy. Summer brings up so many memories, and not just for me, I know. Summer has always been a time for watching the stars, reading the future, finding new dreams.

The sunbeams were caressing my face, reminding me that they remember those days as well, as being witness to every moment of that summer, the summer of miracles and dreams come true. The midnight walks under the green trees, and the first cool breeze just before dawn, my long skirt sparkling with the crystal dewdrops, tears of the new day. I remember his soft black hair, falling on my shoulders, as I lay my head in his arms. The summer shared the passion with us, with those drunken scents that floated in the air at dawn and before sunset. The trees kept the secrets we whispered to each other under their shivering branches. It was the perfect summer, and the memories are kept forever not just in the heart, buy in all those places where we left our footsteps. And the story goes on…

…Do you dream of summer?

                          

Written by Black Snow, who died when the Lady of the Snow was born

Why is solitude considered to be a burden? Why is it so hard for some people to be alone, to find a true friend within themselves? Everybody should have a chance to descend into the deepest chambers of the soul, to listen to that voice so very deep inside, which only speaks when all other sounds have died out.

I longed for loneliness many times….I truly do today…To be on my own and lose myself into a dream. All pictures become blurry around me, the colors get vivid and the sounds become soft…everything melts together. All that remains is me and my dream. Even if it is a sad dream right now, a memory from the distant past, a girl dressed in white, shore of oceans and scent of snow. Sweet misery…Right now I have such a powerful longing to that girl, to be her again, and forget everything…but this wish lasts only for a moment, for I know that the road leading back to that girl is far too long and painful.

I wish for solitude, and on the other hand I feel I am dying if I’m left all alone. My soul and my heart breaks over the weight of the world.

                          

The days of darkness were too long. Blackness covered me, from outside and from the inside. I grew pale like a rose on the snow, left unprotected in the middle of the coldest winter night. For too long did I spend dreamless nights, and for too long was I alone even in the biggest crowds. I prayed with each tear that I had to shed for a beam of hope, for a silent angel, and my prayers were heard.

Here I am now, trapped in a whirl of passion. I’ve seen your face hundreds of times in my dreams, I felt your embrace, your soft skin under my fingers, your hair falling over my face, veiling the coldness of reality. Every time I looked into those dreamy eyes I felt happiness running all over my body, every time I felt your soft embrace I shivered like the lakes do under the touch of the wind. The blackness is disappearing as you brought light and color with you from the lands of fantasy where you were born. After the blackness was gone, white, pure, untouched snow was left: the essence of me that I preserved in the darkest days, with all the endeavor not to be corrupted from within. The prince in my dreams was the one with the gleaming footsteps. The willows bowed before him and the wind greeted him with it’s symphonies. I never thought this prince of the oceans will one day step out of my dreams and come to life…My story begins with sadness, but the sorrow will be soon forgotten as the sunbeams of a new dawn arise from the darkness…

Written by Black Snow, who died when the Lady of the Snow was born

                          

All except her. When the shadows of the night embraced the cold walls of the city, her shimmering shape would descend from a dream and bring her light into his dreamless nights. Then their dreams combined would be forged in the fires of his eyes and cooled into the waters of her tears, hammered to take the shape of their desires.

They had no need for words then, but words came later, all by themselves, erupting when they truly wanted to share more than abstract ideas. And so … they became one.

In the silence of the night they had no need for names, but when the dawn broke the silence, blinded by the sun they had to call out to each other.

And so he became Nightwind, as the night that gave him spirit and the wind that chilled the trees just as she became Alustriel, the lady of the moon, daughter of the stars and princess of the green forests.

But only until the sun would set again …

Written by Nightwind, original post.

                          

Yesterday it was Valentine’s day, a day of lovers. Most of the people go with the flow and celebrate Valentine’s day, they buy heart shaped useless little things to their loved ones or a red rose, and they think this can prove their affection. Others, who are annoyed by this commercialized holiday try to ignore it and spend this day without making a big fuss about it. I don’t belong to either of these types of people. After all, each holiday is commercialized and there’s always an excuse for people to spend money on things that they don’t even need.

Valentine’s day shouldn’t be the reason to surprise your other half and spend a romantic day together. I’m so busy lately that I don’t even have work-free weekends, and my prince is even busier than be. But no day passes without romantic moments, without tenderness and passion. Lighting a hundred candles around the room, drinking red wine and sleeping on petals of red roses doesn’t have to be scheduled on only one day of the year, and it never is for us.

If this is what most people do on Valentine’s day, I am glad to say that each day is Valentine’s day for us. People shouldn’t need lovers day to prove their passion to each other and to spend a romantic day together. For true lovers each day is a beautiful moment of the forever that they promised to each other in their hearts.

                          

The Lady of the Snow missed real winters and snow, which seemed to be more and more rare in the regions where she lived during the day. At night she always traveled far far away, to a forgotten land where soft petals of snow were falling eternally, covering the landscape with their purity and white glamor. These were the Silver Valleys, magical realms of unicorns and fairies. Each night she strolled in the deep woods that gleamed in the silver moonlight, casting a green shadow over the snow that was falling and falling…The snow caressed her pale face and covered her long hair like a soft crown of crystals. The Lady of the Snow was happy at night because she found perfect harmony, beauty and magic within the lands, but every morning before the Sun left her bed she had to return to the city she hated so much. The gray, barren, cold city, where her dreams had to fade as the first sunbeams reached the window. She missed her dreamy dimension so much, that each dawn before she returned to the city, she brought a small piece of magic from the Silver Valleys with her. When people were still sleeping and dreaming colors into their gray lives, the Lady of the Snow took the treasures form her pocket and sprinkled it all over the city, over the dirty streets and the empty alleys. The magic of the Silver Valleys filled the roads and the air. Those mornings, when people opened up their eyes, they saw tiny crystals falling from the air, dancing, floating, covering all the ugliness around, creating a protective blanket of magic everywhere they landed. And the people were happy. They started their day with a smile on their face, and they were happy that the dark mornings were enlightened by the sparkling whiteness of the magical snow.

But people will always be people. They don’t want to sacrifice too much of their precious time to small things of beauty. After a few days of joy they returned to their monotonous, gray lives, and they didn’t notice the snow anymore. Their cars made the snow dirty and they trampled all over it carelessly. Not many days passed, and the snow lost its magic and beauty, it became gray and sad, just like the people living around it. The Lady of the Snow felt cutting pain in her heart when she saw what happened to the gift of beauty she brought from the Silver Valleys. In that moment she realized that people don’t deserve the precious magic that she carries within her, and she decided to leave the city forever. The icy winds took her on their wings and carried her away to her realms. Her emerald dress was floating in the air as she rose up into the sky, soaring high, never looking back…She returned to the Silver Valleys where the Lord of the Wintersnow, the ruler of the lands, was waiting for her already.

The people in the city didn’t notice that the snow was gone and that their souls became darker and darker every day. It was months until some of them realized that they chased away the only magic that ever existed in their city. But even these only gave it one moment of thought, and then they were instantly back to their precious reality, which they considered far more important than anything else in the world. And somewhere, far far away, in a forgotten world, the threes covered in silver snow started to bloom, as a fair lady dressed in white walked through the woods singing her song of beauty.

                          

For the Earth and everyone…blessed be!