Asharlyn looks upward towards the snowy darken night and screams against the brutally cold wind and blowing snow, “What did I do to deserve this? Is this my fate to die alone, frozen in an unknown land and place?”
Asharlyn continue to struggle against the winds and snow. The winds and snow intensified, she cried aloud, “I can’t die like this, I refuse to accept this as my fate!” Asharlyn stubbled forward, as she reach out to break her fall. She touched the frozen stone of some nearby doors of an ancient building resembling a temple.
Asharlyn struggled to see if there was a way through the doors thinking, “Maybe shelter, a place to protect myself from the fierce winds and blowing snow.” As she traced her fingers around the outside of the stone she said to herself, “You don’t exist! You’re just stories told to children to keep us from being disobedient! Aren’t you? Answer me!” Only the silence of her mind replied to her cries, the rising howl within the storm screamed louder than anything she could muster against her current predicament.
Asharlyn huddled near the doors as they helped to break some of the wind. She thought back that she had been on the run since escaping her prison. Thinking back to those days; “Why was she taken away from her home at such a young age? Why were they so intent on practicing their art of pain on her?” She thought back to the beatings where they would come in and never ask her a single question but just use their open hands to beat her already bruised face, her shoulders and back. She had no clean clothes, and nothing but rotten scraps for food.
Asharlyn Fìor-fhuil (pronounced fee-ur-oo-il): Meaning “true blood”, never knew why she was made a prisoner at such as young age. She only knew that one day she overheard a strong argument upstairs on the main floor of their home. She remembered hearing both her parents arguing with some official, then her mother came down to her and said they were going to have to travel right away. Her mother took her hand, and they went upstairs and out to a carriage.
She was wondering as she was hurried out of their house and into a nearby carriage. She had thought, “Why were there so many of the towns people watching the events of those moments with what looked like fear and concern. It was edged deep in their faces and eyes.
Asharlyn remembered the ride was long, then a trip on a large ship, another carriage ride when they arrived on some strange island somewhere. Her mother and her were separated and she was roughly taken to a prison cell deep within the fortress they had come to.
She never knew the reasons behind all of it, only that they came and used their open hands and some type of device with twisted braided leather tied to it to beat her. They beat her back, her shoulders, the back of her legs and left her at the end of the day laying there in a pool of her own blood. After a while, she only remembers going through the motions of eating, drinking, then sleeping each day.
Now that she had arrived at the age of what her people called the “song of awareness”. She couldn’t remember what that meant, those memories of her life before and what had happened to her had become lost. Her resolution to pain was to escape deep within herself. She had barely survived the endless torture of her keepers.
However it happened it faded into bits and pieces of memories, but one day she woke up and an opportunity presented itself that allowed her to escape that place of darkness. After her daring departure she traveled a great distance of many weeks. She had traveled barefoot across the rough stone of this land, through ancient woodlands of hardwoods and conifers with only the ragged clothing she had worn each day in the prison.
As she neared the shores of this island she had been imprisoned upon, she found an abandoned sailboat that she used to escape the island. She did not know what way to travel from here. Wherever here was. So she followed the path of the winds and kept the small craft moving in the direction that allowed the sail to stretch to its full swell, thus leaving her fate to the winds.
However, the seas had protested her leaving and a storm swept in with a terrible rage that swelled the seas and left her clinging to the seat huddled along the floor of the boat until it crashed upon this foreign shore.
Traveling inland and ever upward along the rising mountain paths. The weather had turned decidedly colder and snowy as she continued her journey upon this ancient path. The winds were threatening to tear the life from her cold fragile body when she he had come to this place where stood an ancient stone temple.
It had huge intricately carved stone doors with a curved arch surrounding them. Each stone of the arch had a runic symbol inscribed deep within its skin. She stood before the great stone doors thinking on what to do next. She thought to herself, “Surely, I will perish if I stay here without shelter.”
Suddenly, a disembodied voice spoke, “The song awaits, touch us! Save yourself for you are Dez of Diiv!” She replied with a horse and parched voiced, “What, what do these words mean?” Her shivering was ending as her body turned numb from the increasing cold of the air. Then a reply came, “You are destined, daughter. Touch us, the song waits.”