The cold and the sound; both creep upon her black unconsciousness so stealthily that she'll never know which wakes her; so simultaneous they seem linked, connected…except the sound is mellow, golden like drops of sunlight, a thing that could have no relation to the icy teeth gnawing at her bones. No, they are adversaries; the sound presses onward and the cold quails before it and she realizes it is music; a melody that curls around her like a quilt until her numb extremities tingle. Her eyes open and blink confused at a dancing red-gold flicker, interrupted by vague shadowy forms.
She has a moment's impression that the light moves in rhythmic synchronicity with the music and that both are birthed from the same place. Wood, broken, splintered and consumed, glows in the heart of fire like the chunks of an earth-fallen star. The music swells and entwines, seeping into her mind because it is familiar, too, somehow, and knows all the right passageways, unlocking and wandering through doors she'd shut and forgotten.
The muffled murmur in the background separates itself into voices she knows. Doli's, gruff and somehow reverent; Taran's, startlingly close, almost in her own head, which she becomes suddenly aware is cradled against his chest. And Fflewddur's voice, a voice she associates with joy and warmth and laughter, yet now it holds a note that rends her heart; she finds his face in the light and sees his hands stretched achingly empty toward the fire's inexorable song.
With a wordless cry she starts up, only to fall back, stiff and weak with cold. Taran catches her arms and pulls her into the warmth of his shared cloak, but it is Fflewddur who locks her gaze in a look of shared, pained understanding, and in the fire reflected in his clear eyes she sees a spell book burning, a part of herself consumed in the relentless flame of sacrifice.
