Aurora Pendant

Prologue: Frosted Arrival

Faint whispers of tears brushed across soft youthful cheeks as the silhouette of a stumbling traveler went across the horizon. From a distance, it was nothing but a mere girl-her vibrant crimson tendrils challenging the rays of the sun above in it's flaming hues. Though they seemed to struggle with each lung stinging step, they shoved on as if the holy grounds lay before them just out of a single desperate grasp. Shaking legs carried the bundled up figure farther up the mountain, snow whipping around her and laughing cruelly in it's howling tune of vengeance, determined to stop this new arrival at all costs. Clawing, ripping, and nipping at the body mass, clutching dearly to the fur trimmed clothing that protected her delicate build as much as it could, the wind growled in it's disapproval and abandoned the fight, settling down for a moment only to circle back around. This had been the vicious cycle, a tilting and dizzy world under leather clad feet as they stalked closer to the only shimmer of hope that rested as the peaks crowning jewel. The ivory tower standing proud above the icebound region beckoned all who dared to come to it's resting place, taunting the failures in their travels as it's shadows leapt and danced over mounds of slicked over snow. They taunted all who had not managed the wondrous climb to the heavens and they laid across the rigid forms of those that had fallen to their new frozen mother, their soulless bodies nestled in the piercing cold bosom of their tombs. They held no stones with marked script and loving words as they laid above countless corpses before them, all to be trampled upon by the feet of newcomers who held the bravery in their beating core to have their victory built upon centuries of the fallen.

Crumbling in the knees, the body trembled and the gasp of shattered confidence escaped from frost kissed lips. As if a final clip had been given to the strings holding the tiny little doll up, the youth fell to the sealed ground, soft milky snow long ago turned hard by death and wet storms from the eastern waves. The shivers that had racked her body when she first began had died down by now, the crunch of snow under her once moving feet still echoing in her ears and yet she could no longer move if the gods had swept down themselves and placed her back on her feet. A vision of crystals and intricate flakes from the heavy clouds above draped down and gracefully landed all around. They began their ritual, swirling and burying the body of the rose haired damsel who had began to pray to the goddess who wept for another dying child on her chilled battlegrounds.

Stiff porcelain fingers reached into the folds of the pelt and leather clothing, Emerald orbs framed by dark shimmering lashes found themselves searching the surrounding scene until they landed upon the dainty item within their bare hands that had began to turn the shade of her lips. The very edges of her vision began to fade, blinking in and out like a flickering ember in a summer breeze once the sun had kissed the world goodnight. The pulsing light from the center crescent on the silver coated charm seemed to falter as much as the glowing of life inside of it's owners eyes. Though she was slipping fast, she struggled to open the face, a spinning center of crystals and the hands of time within, not halting in it's quick movement as it warned it's host that the end was crawling near. A simple laugh flowed from her lips then, the sound of crunching growing loud around her and harsh voices tingling within her eardrums. Attempting to move her stiff neck, the beauty glanced upwards, her body going truly numb as she laid upon her side within the snow mounds that so eagerly held on to it's newest victim. Shadows much smaller than that of the tower ahead scampered across the grass, no true forms able to register in her exhausted mind as a pitiful sound escaped her in a language surely gone from this world. Lights bounced across fluttering eyelids as they found themselves focusing, no strength left behind in the soon to be corpse.

The gathering tones and voices flooded every sense she had left, consuming her but she could not fight them off nor would she if she had the willpower still within her form. As if to taunt her, her predator returned with a howl of victory, piercing the sky with it's white noise and wiping all other noises from existence. These mountains had won their battle once more, joy within it's throat as ringlets of misty azures slithered from her only personal possession in her hands as a last distress then settled down suddenly, vanishing as the soul slipped from between her lips as a utter goodbye to the world. Lifeless, body rigid and in the tender hold of the peaks, her lingering mind registered nothing else, boots falling just before her closed eyes but they knew it had already occurred: this one was as gone as the others and she now belonged to these lands and the goddess that allowed it to thrive.

So was the fate of the fallen guardians before her.