Sorrow's Hill
He removed the long silver flute from its case and leaned against the tree, holding the instrument softly in his hands. Several blank sheets of parchment were scattered haphazardly around him waiting to be written. Anyone might've commented on their unnatural dark blue color, but few would have been able to define it as one of the underdark's most sought after produce of parchment. He touched the flute to his lips and closed his eyes, his long ebony hat's rim falling slightly over his face. He began to play. Softly. blowing the cool winter air into his music with a finesse that bordered on the sensual. His lithe, long fingers flowed over the instrument as if caressing it, coaxing it into producing that eerie, melancholy melody. As if in a response to his music, a sad wind began to rustle the leaves of that nightly portrait as the notes swirled slow and pensive through the air. Indeed it was as if the spirit of wind himself picked up the sounds which were emerging and carried them with him under his wings, taking them away and scattering them over the hill's plutonian scenery, imbibing every leaf, every shoot, every nook with it's unnaturalness and mystique. And the cold moonlight showered over the landscape an onyrical ambience, clothing the dewy grass with streaks of silver and standing pale and gaunt in the blackness of the sky. And the figure under the tree, playing his unrelenting melody sat inert as if in a silent rapture with himself - a powerful reverie of emotions which were outpouring in the clean tristesse of those notes. He sat almost invisible as his dark skin and robes melded and fused with the night around him, giving a ghostly luminescence to the silver flute on which he played, and on which too, played the pale moonbeams. Here and there, to accompany moon and flute and grass, glittered a few strands of the whitest, silvery hairs ever to grace a semblance. They were almost defying in their contrast to the dark figure under the tree, and fell placidly over his unstirring face as snow upon a mountain. He was oblivious. All his self was focused on the painful recollection of the razing of Tha'l, on the screams and shrieks of the villagers as the dragons had torched the houses, on the warriors which had slaughtered the children, drenching the soil with their blood; on the smell of the burning flesh and the endless sobs and cryings which tore into his soul. He had watched all of it from afar, from his sumptuous luxury rooms. He had not cried, nor moved a muscle. Perhaps he could've helped. He would never know. Now the notes became more interspersed and more sustained in a sadness which bordered on misery. His music was now black and fed on sorrow. He was giving life to their tears and showering the hill with them. It became unnatural, bizarre. Each note was a soul extinguishing, each the mourning of a lifetime, a man could be driven to madness if he listened to but one of these heralds of despair, yet the dark- skinned figure placidly played on. The wind grew colder still, and the trees moaned a long and drawn-out moan, as if the land could bear no more - no more of this torturing melody. And then it was gone. Silence fell as a heavy weight upon that grief-stricken scenery. He lay down the silver flute beside him, opened his eyes slowly, produced from his garments the long plume of a quill, and then a phial of silver liquid. He dipped the quill into it, smoothed out one of the sheets of parchments, and began to record his composition. He wrote until the moon went down, whence he gathered the sheets together, put them away and stood up, a tall gaunt figure under a dark oak. Silently as he had come, he left, a shadow upon that landscape. He had shed no tears for the dying, but the dying had shed their own. Tears which now glittered silver every evening upon the grass of Sorrow's Hill. And the wind which blows across that lonely place at night, chills adventurers not with its cold, but with the undying lament of a melody never to be forgotten.
He removed the long silver flute from its case and leaned against the tree, holding the instrument softly in his hands. Several blank sheets of parchment were scattered haphazardly around him waiting to be written. Anyone might've commented on their unnatural dark blue color, but few would have been able to define it as one of the underdark's most sought after produce of parchment. He touched the flute to his lips and closed his eyes, his long ebony hat's rim falling slightly over his face. He began to play. Softly. blowing the cool winter air into his music with a finesse that bordered on the sensual. His lithe, long fingers flowed over the instrument as if caressing it, coaxing it into producing that eerie, melancholy melody. As if in a response to his music, a sad wind began to rustle the leaves of that nightly portrait as the notes swirled slow and pensive through the air. Indeed it was as if the spirit of wind himself picked up the sounds which were emerging and carried them with him under his wings, taking them away and scattering them over the hill's plutonian scenery, imbibing every leaf, every shoot, every nook with it's unnaturalness and mystique. And the cold moonlight showered over the landscape an onyrical ambience, clothing the dewy grass with streaks of silver and standing pale and gaunt in the blackness of the sky. And the figure under the tree, playing his unrelenting melody sat inert as if in a silent rapture with himself - a powerful reverie of emotions which were outpouring in the clean tristesse of those notes. He sat almost invisible as his dark skin and robes melded and fused with the night around him, giving a ghostly luminescence to the silver flute on which he played, and on which too, played the pale moonbeams. Here and there, to accompany moon and flute and grass, glittered a few strands of the whitest, silvery hairs ever to grace a semblance. They were almost defying in their contrast to the dark figure under the tree, and fell placidly over his unstirring face as snow upon a mountain. He was oblivious. All his self was focused on the painful recollection of the razing of Tha'l, on the screams and shrieks of the villagers as the dragons had torched the houses, on the warriors which had slaughtered the children, drenching the soil with their blood; on the smell of the burning flesh and the endless sobs and cryings which tore into his soul. He had watched all of it from afar, from his sumptuous luxury rooms. He had not cried, nor moved a muscle. Perhaps he could've helped. He would never know. Now the notes became more interspersed and more sustained in a sadness which bordered on misery. His music was now black and fed on sorrow. He was giving life to their tears and showering the hill with them. It became unnatural, bizarre. Each note was a soul extinguishing, each the mourning of a lifetime, a man could be driven to madness if he listened to but one of these heralds of despair, yet the dark- skinned figure placidly played on. The wind grew colder still, and the trees moaned a long and drawn-out moan, as if the land could bear no more - no more of this torturing melody. And then it was gone. Silence fell as a heavy weight upon that grief-stricken scenery. He lay down the silver flute beside him, opened his eyes slowly, produced from his garments the long plume of a quill, and then a phial of silver liquid. He dipped the quill into it, smoothed out one of the sheets of parchments, and began to record his composition. He wrote until the moon went down, whence he gathered the sheets together, put them away and stood up, a tall gaunt figure under a dark oak. Silently as he had come, he left, a shadow upon that landscape. He had shed no tears for the dying, but the dying had shed their own. Tears which now glittered silver every evening upon the grass of Sorrow's Hill. And the wind which blows across that lonely place at night, chills adventurers not with its cold, but with the undying lament of a melody never to be forgotten.