Rosethorne pushed her regiment forward through the last reaches of her Lord's lands, scouring them for the residence of this wraith named Bjorn Stangald. She had found half-leads and half-truths, but all were leading her inexorably toward her goal.
They had been marching for two weeks now, and had eliminated most of the wraiths residing in her Lord's realm as possibilities, leaving the rest of the Underworld to explore. She hoped to herself that this Bjorn didn't call home in another Deathlord's lands, for this would cause...complications.
She now rode, searching in the unclaimed lands, where the outcasts and unwanted ones resided. If one were to travel alone in these lands, it would be inviting danger and calamity to one's doorstep, since the ones who called this scorned and forsaken place home were reviled, even by the cruel and malicious other wraiths. They also tended to band together, though their suspicious natures rarely kept a large group together for long; usually only long enough to accomplish a goal.
She saw something that caught her eye. There was a cave, made of the greyish-black dust and ash that comprised the land of the Underworld. This in and of itself wasn't strange - it was that there were flowers, bright and alive, growing around the entrance. These flowers by rights could not and should not exist here, as the soil of the Underworld was not in any way pleasant for growing things of the World Above. Instinct told her to check here, and so she called a halt. Her soldiers stopped gratefully, the grueling pace she set taxing even the endurance of the wraiths in her service. She turned to her Lieutenant. "Make sure they're ready to leave at a moment's notice."
He saluted her, and bore the news to the regiment. They were predictably unhappy with the news, with some muted grumbling, but they held themselves ready at her order.
Going alone into an unknown place, especially here in the Badlands was usually not a very bright idea, were she anything else but what she was. Her kind were an enigma here in the Underworld: a living, breathing, eating mortal that had been touched and empowered by death and the Abyss itself, and as such, she was more than capable of holding her own.
She decided to be polite, as she wasn't sure whose residence this was, but she had to satisfy her curiosity. She knocked heavily on the steel post set outside the cave for this purpose, and waited. She did not wait long, before a cloaked, and cowled figure seemed to melt out of the cave, and outside.
Its voice was like oiled and torn silk over water. "Ah, right on time. The General seeks the Mirror for her Lord, and this seeking might be granted favorably, depending on the General's thoughts and answers to an old one's questions."
She hid her surprise well. Living as and how she did, it was unseemly to be taken by surprise. "If you are Bjorn Stangald, then I will answer your questions."
The figure shook, with noises that sounded like dusty laughter, and then stood upright, removing its cowl in the process. Unlike most wraiths who looked nothing resembling how they did in life, this one resembled a person is nearly all respects, apart from being a wraith. He had ebony skin, and long, thick braids of hair that was tied back at the nape of his neck. "Aye, I am he. Walk with me on the lookout above my home, that we might speak a while."
With that, he walked with the long-legged, ground-eating strides that befitted someone of his size up the side of his cave, and onto a flattened area on top of it, with benches made of some sort of stone.
He motioned for her to sit on the bench opposite him, and he sat at the same time she did, holding eye contact. He smiled broadly at her, an expression of amusement in his eyes. "So, General. I have answers for more questions than you think, and more questions than you know the answers to. We shall begin with the obvious one. Do you know why you are here, at this precise time?"
She removed her helmet, and sat a bit more comfortably on the bench, to give her a bit of time to think. "The most obvious answer would be that I was asked by my Deathlord to retrieve an artifact of the First Age from you, with no specification on whether you were to be still roaming, or claimed by Oblivion after I've done so."
He chuckled. "Yes, that would be the most obvious answer. But you were looking all around for me, and where I call home. It took you a paltry two weeks to find me. Do you know why this is?"
She took a breath, calming the growing irritation she felt. "I looked here because of the flowers you have growing in front of your cave."
He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees as he stared at her. "And why would such a simple thing captivate your attention so?"
Her expression stayed with her carefully schooled calm. "Flowers like you have growing in front of your cave should not be found in the Underworld, as they are a product of the World Above only."
He smiled, and leaned back, resting his arms on the back of the bench. "Yes, that is true. Living things normally have no place here in the Underworld. The Underworld itself presses down upon the living, suffocating them, robbing them of the spark of life, forcing them to join the quiet peace of death. However, there are various ways, not very well known of course, to cultivate and nurture life, even in this place where the dead are trapped by their own selfish desires."
She narrowed her eyes slightly. "Yes, you're obviously proud of your accomplishment, but you haven't said how you've done it."
He smiled at her, and got to his feet, walking around behind the bench to lean on it with his hands. "I am very old, General. I died and was first trapped here during the First Age, and only the fact that legends are still passed of how I died among my family still gives me strength to move on. They remember me, and speak well of me. I have left most of the torment of being trapped here behind, and I'm preparing to leave this place, and be at peace at last."
He walked to the left side of this small plateau, and clasped his hands behind his back, looking out at the dusty plains below, his broad back to her. "There are two ways of living in this place, General. One is to be infused by the purest essence of this place: Oblivion itself. Life sputters and slowly dies down as a candle flame might, but never completely goes out, kept fitfully alive by the hungry essence of death." He turned, and looked at her directly.
The implication was not lost on her. "So you're calling the Abyssal Exalts a fitful flame of life?"
He smiled, and turned to face her. "Precisely. The tiny spark of life within all of the Exalted of Oblivion will never be truly extinguished, but in time, it becomes a grotesque parody of life itself."
He walked with measured strides to the right side of the flat space above his home, his back to her once again, looking at the ashen plains below. "There is another way, General, the way that those flowers you saw and drew you to me are kept alive. This is to feed it with the things that it would need normally, making substitutions where you must. This is an oversimplification, but it gets the point across."
He turned, and sat down once again on the bench, leaning back, facing her once again. "But what happens when life is supplemented with Oblivion? Is it possible, do you think, to regain the roaring flame of life and Essence it has lost?"
She did not like where this was leading. "To my knowledge, no. It is impossible."
He smiled at her, the way a teacher might smile at a student who is grasping for the answer, but not finding it. "No, General, it is possible. Change must begin from within, embracing the light once again. A hard look at what is within you; all of you must be done. One must face all that one finds there, and let go of where Oblivion embraces you."
She took another breath, calming her once again. "You speak in riddles, wraith. What has this got to do with the mirror?"
He laughed, a deep, rich sound that echoed strongly through the plains. "I can see that you are not yet ready. No matter, the seed has been planted. In time it shall grow."
He chuckled again, and looked at her with kind amusement. "The one who seeks the mirror will not be able to unlock its true potential, as he cannot see all of what the mirror reveals. It shows all of what is reflected within it, and all the layers that normally obscure such a thing."
He got up, and indicated she do the same. She did so, carrying her helmet in the crook of her right arm. "You will have the mirror, General." He reached into his robes, and gave to her a small, flat mirror. It certainly didn't look powerful, it looked like an old mirror treated with abuse, and covered with the dust of misuse.
His voice cautioned her before she looked into it. "Do not look into it unless you are fully prepared to view what it shows you. You are not yet ready to understand what it will show you."
Her voice carried the barest hint of irritation that she was unable to completely mask. "And what would you know of what I am ready to see?"
He smiled at her. "I know many things, but I know of the one who would take my mirror as well. Take your leave now, General, and return your prize to it's new owner."
She tucked the mirror underneath her breastplate, nodded her thanks to him curtly, and strode down to her warstrider, thinking about what he said. She gave the barest hint of a shrug, thinking that he was completely insane, but at least he had taken a shine to her and given her the mirror before she had to rend his being.
She gave the order to move out, and they marched straight back to her Lord's castle, trying to give no more thought to the insane wraith, and mostly succeeding. However, little things began to bother her, such has his comparison of what he called "a grotesque parody of life," and "true life." What did it mean?
She arrived faster than she thought back to the castle, and dismissed her regiment, who promptly went to the tavern. She forced her warstrider into the stable, having to convince it to go back in with a well-timed kick. It was being stubborn and skittish, for some reason.
She strode up the passages to arrive in her Lord's audience chamber, and bowed with one knee at the center. "Lord, I have returned with the mirror you seek."
The Mask of Winters hid his irritation. Why did she have to return so swiftly, and why didn't she just rebel, to give him a chance to discipline her? Despite exemplifying everything he had ever wanted in a General, now that he had a General like this, he was deeply suspicious. She was barely gone three weeks.
"How did you find him so swiftly, General?"
She stood, facing him as she gave her report. "My regiment and I scoured all your lands first to find him, and then searched the Badlands, as it would be preferable to find him there than in another Deathlord's domain; were that the case, it would have complicated matters. He was found in the Badlands, alone, in a cave. He questioned me about inane things, and appeared to be satisfied with my answers well enough to hand me the mirror."
She took out the mirror, strode to the front of his throne, and offered it to him on one knee. He snatched it out of her outstretched hands, and looked into it, seeing only his reflection, with the hint of the Malfean touch within him. This made him smile, and he turned the mirror to look at her, as she walked back to the center of the room, facing him, and standing perfectly still. He saw the outer shell of the human being she was, with the Abyssal Essence within her, lying within her, diseased and corrupted. He put the mirror away. Had he kept looking, he would have seen a tiny spot on the Abyssal Essence within her shining a brilliant golden color, before it was covered up again.
"Very good, General. I made a promise to myself that I would reward you if you performed this task well. I will allow you to select new weapons from within my armory, or research anything you like within my personal library for a period of one week."
She bowed her thanks to her Lord, and spoke her request. "My Lord, I wish something else." Her words surprised him, but he allowed her to continue. "I wish to learn more ways of focusing my Essence to different goals. I wish to learn new skills, and to sharpen the ones I know now, to better serve you by leading your army."
He pursed his lips behind his mask. The Huntress kept surprising him, over and over again. So far, it had always been in beneficial ways, but he couldn't help but wonder when she would spring a malicious surprise on him.
Finally, after keeping her waiting for ten minutes as he thought, he spoke. "Very well. Tell me what you wish to learn, and I will have you taught. But I must ask you, Rosethorne, Huntress Clad in the Raiments of Shadow, why you would prefer this, rather than new weapons?"
"My Lord, I am satisfied with the armaments given me. They have served me well, have not rusted, lost their edge, or been broken in any way."
It seemed that not only was she a constant unpleasant string of surprises, she was also unambitious. He narrowed his eyes at her. "Very well. Dismissed."
She saluted him once more, bowed to him, and then strode from the room. He noticed with a smile that she never hesitated in spilling her blood for him. In fact, as she always stood in the same place, the tile she always sliced her wrist over was slowly getting stained red. He whispered to himself. "Oh yes, Rosethorne. Keep spilling your lifeblood for me, and pleasing me, and you shall keep your army, and your life."
He chuckled, which turned into a cackling laughter. "But, my little perfect weapon, should you ever fail me, your fall from grace will be a long and rocky one. Keep raising my expectations of you, and the further you have to fall."
