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[Bailos]

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A frozen throne among the vast, desolate expansion of pure white snow. This was all that was left for him. How could one man go so wrong? How could one man...stop being a human?

He sat, his head propped up by his hand. His other boney, hand holds a brilliantly crafted shortsword...one of his plunders from Sanctus. He twirls it in the dim light. Two arrow-slit windows on the west wall of the room let in what little light was left in the day, this far north. A row of torches, 4 pairs, covers a path from a door, to his present seat, basking the room in the dull warmth of an orange-yellow light.

As he casually rotates the blade, his attention is elsewhere. His gaze affixed off in the distance, a mark of quiet contemplation and heavy thinking. Just then, as the flat side of the blade turns twords him, something catches his eye and his glace is averted to what he now sees....a reflection. The pale, light of the torches catching just enough of him. His mind stops...he is lost in what he sees. Or doesnt see? How many centuries, how many days had it been? How many months? Years?...Decades?...Centuries? How long since he felt cold or heat or hunger...or love?

While his present state of...wraithdom exempted him from commonalities of the time-stream, he was still fully aware of the passage, but only when he wanted to be.

He tilted the blade ever so slightly to the side, allowing the blade to reflect all the sides of his visage. Then it flooded him. The sounds came rushing back...he could hear all their voices. Later he would thank whatever powers may be that he did not see them all again...but damnit, he could hear them. Every scream, every clashing blade, the hooves of a battlehorse, the crackling noise the flow behind an energy bolt, the fires raging as building set alite...

Succumbing to the emotion of the moment he stood, staring intensely back, quizzically at the mystical power of this holy blade....or was he staring intensely back at the devastating and controlling power of his own mind? His grip grew weaker as the sounds got louder. He lets his fingers go limp and blade falls to the ground, the only sound in the room...but an intense battle was raging in his mind. Bailos versus the old Bailos. He buckled over, clutching his hands to his ears, trying to cover out the sounds...as if it would work. They all mashed together, an unfathomable cacophony of war, pain and suffering.

Some people say there are moments in history. Moments in destiny. Moments that the very fabric of the universe selects and grooms and prepares for just one man to experience and have as his own. If ever there was one of those moments, it was then, and for Bailos. He fell to his knees, still clutching his ears and started to sob. Oh if only he could cry, if his mind could shed the tears and lift this horrible burden he kept under lock and key from his very self. If only he could cry. Then in an instant...it faded. The noise stopped. And he was left alone. Alone in the room. A blade on the floor in front of him...and the unforgiving howl of the wind.