- Oh if these walls could talk, I would talk right back
I would talk, I would talk 'til they fade to black -

And the Mountain said unto Rock: "You shall be Rock. But you are a wee little Rock. You'll get kicked around easily." Mountain, by sheer magnitude alone, considered this to be the ultimate of dooms, for mountains were complacent beings and heavy and accustomed with the passage of time, rain and other corrosive elements leaving miniscule marks upon their faces that took eons to register – basically they weren't very keen on going up and about.

But Rock did not know that. When Rock was born and the world was young and things had yet to settle into place – except for, naturally, mountains, who were anything but unsettled and were patiently waiting, as was their wont , for the concept of Mountain to transit into the magic of Mountain – Rock did not know great many a things. Magic was raw at the dawn of time and quite indecisive. And from that peculiar difficulty Magic encountered in setting its all round purposes straight that Rock, tiny, durable and restless Rock, came to be.

First, it tumbled down a hill. Gently, of course, as mountains, under the gentle breeze of magic, were still asleep. Rock was a child by then, plump and fresh and signaling Dinner! to every ogre that dwelt in the shadows of the sleepy hills. Rock asked if she could play. They came at her with clumbs of iron, pelts of rain and hoods of thunder. Rock shivered and shook but she was too tough to chew so they cast her away.

Sniffling, Rock met the dwarves, small, squat and stony. They forged her jewels and took her deep underground, where very few dared to venture. Rock was young when she entered the Kingdom of Stone. The dwarves clad her in pretty clothes spun of the dewy web of the mechanical silver spider. They wrung her out like they did their precious metals, hammering her rough edges until Rock was as perfect as a perfectly fashioned diamond in its pretty gold casing. But Rock grew tall in the stony underworld. Tall and dark and longing for the Sun, for without him she withered like the flowers that never grew down in the depths of the Stone Kingdom. With Sun came Life and Love and the Fire in Rock's heart.

Magic was tricky like that. It cast a heavy spell, pretty for all its deceitfulness, on little Rock until Rock put aside her princely raiments and ventured back into the world above where Sun leaned a little closer.

But the world is not so young anymore and Rock is tall and true and clad in sparkling diamonds. She is a Rock, sharp around the edges, because diamonds cut deep, and the world marvels at her beauty. But the sky where the Sun dwells is ever out of her reach so Rock tries to reach higher.

"Fashion me a sword" she commands her dwarf lords in the dead of the night, when she returns to their stone halls "so I may wake the mountain giants and command upon them to take me to the skies where Sun abodes when his light shines no more."

On his cold throne, the tallest of dwarves, his beard a long river of mists, looks upon Rock, night after night, as she chants her pleas, and rues the day he fashioned Rock to their deadly liking. He is old, this king of dwarves, and even though his sires had been great and fair, he was born stunted and dark. So dark in fact he slipped through the world above unnoticed and uncared for. But that had been many years ago, when the dawn of time was a mere wisp of light across the skies of the world. He knew not Sun, but only the bejeweled sparkle of Rock's golden eyes. Nothing should shine greater than that, he thinks, so he fashions her a sword and a curse.

The world is young and the magic raw, the dwarf king muses, she will be none the wiser.

The sword is mighty in Rock's hands. With it Rock raises mountains from their slumber and as they slowly crawl towards the sky, Rock climbs with them, sword in hand and swifter than shadow. But mountains are old and sluggish and forgetful and not all crest to their full height. Only one, youngest of them all, cracks its craggy eyes and gazes at the sky. Rock looms ever taller.

"Rise, rise fast and high so I may reach the skies where Sun's asleep when his light shines no more and taste of Life and Love and Fire."

And Mountain says unto Rock: "I may rise and rise until I bump the crown of heavens and still Sun sleeps ever higher, little Rock."

But Rock prods him with her sword and Mountain lurches to the skies above until they bump the crown of heavens.

Sun sleeps ever higher.

The stars are a constellation of tears in Rock's eyes. Above the world, on the single, highest rock in Elfland, she weeps for the Sun, waiting for the Golden Lord to rise and warm away her tears.

There was a great vault in Bethmoora, Nuada remembers, that bore imprinted on its widest wall a fresco of The Wait – a lone woman sulking from the top of a particularly dreary world. He had never known who'd drawn it or what it was doing, even half-forgotten as it was, in a city as full of life as his own. But Nuada remembered nevertheless the mournful cold that had crept and coiled round his back whenever he chanced to pass by the shaded chamber. He'd dared to enter the dreaded vault once and it wasn't sorrow that invaded his every cell with the malevolence of a jaded troll – it was loneliness, the likes of which he'd never felt, what with the ever present link he shared with his magical twin.

It was the same type of loneliness he now felt in Witch's lair, as things began to slip further out of place with each moment that the Witch slumbered on, obediently, at his feet. It preyed on him, this loneliness, like a starved warg, so much so that Nuada felt compelled to nudge Witch awake with his jolting knee.

The fires had grown dim so Witch readily decided that "Magic is dwindling here. We can linger in Bethmoora no longer."

He really couldn't fathom why he said it, but as the words left his mouth, Nuada clearly saw in his mind's eye the look the solitary woman on the rock had given him when he had so irreverently trespassed on her land, that one time in the Bethmooran vault he was never able to find again – it had been expectant.

"You are right. The wait is over."

A/N: There is a beautiful drawing by Luis Royo, called The Wait, that greatly inspired this chapter. You should go check it out, it well worth it :)

…and a review would be nice too!

PLAYLIST: Zeds Dead feat. Omar Linx – Jackie Boy