Disclaimer : Only the various people who don't appear in the actual RAS books belong to me. Everything else may as well be behind glass walls.
Mirror Me Dark
By Semdai Bloodquill
Part Three : Temples
All things have a beginning, and so too must all things be possessed of an ending. With the light that accompanies the rising of the sun, so the dark of dusk follows behind. A mighty demon born in the pits of the deepest circle of the Abyss knows nothing of the true secrets of immortality. Even the great Liches of the world, reveling in their stagnant states of being, are felled by the sword and the spear and the arrow.
We are all possessed of a beginning and an end. A prelude and an epilogue. A birth and a death. It is the nature of all things and the great cycle to which all things belong. Humans, dwarves, elves, demons, even gods. We all die. By age, sickness, sword, and neglect are we all claimed by death.
Yet great in its way is death. A most mysterious and powerful entity. A killer of mortals and gods alike. Our last partner in the dance of life.
For indeed life is but a grand ball with a highly skilled orchestra. And we are the dancers. Sometimes our dances are graceful and elegant, much like those of the light elves, gliding softly and carefully across the floor. Other dances are mystical, tribal even, akin to the barbarians of Icewind Dale. There are the shaman dancers of the goblins and the orcs. Wild and frightening, but as powerful as any other dance, clothed s they are by the remains of their foes. Drow dance only to please the Spider Queen, thus are they always motivated to be the best. Humans are wondrously versatile creatures. They mimic all other styles at yet can make them all seem there own.
The drandil are most magnificent dancers. They are attired in beautiful, ritual clothing, silks and satins of all colors that shimmer and flow, adorned with bells and jewelry of all metals. They're steps are incredibly unique for they move with unfaltering grace and a melancholy loveliness that sets them apart from other elves. Humans have named such steps as 'belly-dancing.' Seductive, sad, joyful, all emotions are seen in the dancing of the dragon elves. They move alone, a lonely, solitary dancer, yet can captivate the eyes of all the watchers. They move together and are so perfectly in-tuned to each other that they appear as avatars of the gods of the dance itself.
And now we come to our orchestra. The finest to ever grace the world of music. Perhaps the Aruine made musical instruments as their holiest of items because they were enlightened to the orchestra of life. An orchestra with Death as the conductor.
A very wise, old elf once said to me a phrase I shall never forget. "Life has always been a dance, it is only fitting that Death sing the tune."
She was right.
- Nessa Seralon