{{Take 2}}{{Same beginning - New Ends}}

[faitaccompli]

"By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes." ~MacBeth

épine-vallée. It was the very place of death, decay, and demise. Picturesque in nature, it's beauty was only marked by the shadows that sunk to cloud it's seamless surface like a tarnishing smog on a silver platter. Small streams ran counter to the lush grass. But everywhere, everywhere were the roses. The roses, at a glance, looked ethereal in countenance, but when stared upon they lost their blood-live redness and became a pale shadow with much the same beauty, but on the opposite end of the scale, sucked of the living, a pallor of not white but grey, not grey but the color of death itself.

The only souls to live here were those of the departed. Not the ones sent to heaven. Nor to hell, if there were such places. Only the ones whose presence still had need of those living in realms adjacent and below. The only to reach the realm were the ancient ones, who held the secret to entering; the dead; the those with who the dead must do dealing.

The place had been uninhabited for so long; it had forgotten the look of a hoof print, the smiled caress of wind in mane. It had also forgotten the pieces of shambled lives, the criers of eternal suffering, that had so long before been the frequenters of the rose encased dome. Until now.

The entire roof, a clear membrane, that seemed to be the only thing keeping the sky from colliding with the Utopian hell, started to suddenly vibrate. It began to shake all around, an earthquake in the sky. It the very zenith of the arc, a suddenly form begin to emerge. It was a clear crystal, something so dissolved, yet so complex that it's normal translucency had for the moment been opacified by the mere touch of the magic membrane. Ripples scattered from the object, shivered outward, looking as if they were fleeing what was to come, interrupting their solitude, their peace.

This was the form of a soul, not a living soul, but one that had not long been dead. It sunk in a flurry of half-visible crystal snow, until it had all reached the ground, whereupon it condensed, becoming transparent once again. It slithered hauntingly about, propelled from one thorny grove to another. There was no feeling, no thought, just pure pain, causing rapid movement in the departed being. It ripped and tore, but nothing else in the terra moved. Had someone been standing there ten minutes prior, they would have noticed no change if they came back now. But time was not measured so much in this place. Like a dessert it was taken only as much as needed, as much as desired.

In any case, the soul, slithering blindly about, somewhere in its unthinking depths, knew it was trapped here. It burned in anger. It knew as it sat here the moments would be years, and as the years passed, its enemies would slowly die off. Was this relief? Was there solace and peace in knowing its enemies would have an end? No. Not unless its own power had struck them down. But in a few minutes it would all be over...unless. Unless. Unless it could change, recapture the frame of time it needed to be in equilibrium with the world it had known before. It needed to claim that form now.

Efforts were made. And were made too late. Too inexplicable to turn out seamless. Too much unknown, variable, to be successful in purport.

Burning pain! Searing pain! Aziza would first remember, and forever more recall, the screams. They echoed through the domain, not cleansing the terra with sound, but simply adding to it-drops of blood for the roses and their thorns. Aziza could feel it in her mind, closing every corner. Then it occurred to her. She was the one screaming. Realizing that, she wondered, simply, why?

Then she could not think. She wished she could not feel. It burned her, seared her vision, her hearing, her smell. Her touched was sharpened, and she was aware first of the feeling of a large needle. It seemed to be pulling something, sewing her into it. She would be trapped. But this was what she needed. She knew. So she kept screaming but did not make any attempt to resist. It pulled through her, over and over, bringing pieces of something to be drawn over like the leather frame of a saddle on its delicate wooden tree in the middle. She could only hope that she wouldn't snap in the process.

The irony of it, though, is she already knew what happened when she snapped. And she hadn't gotten very far yet, only seconds had ticked by, so she'd be able to deal with going back. Seconds. She chewed over that phrase. Then she realized, with despair, she was too late. It was much, much too late. She'd be many years later, maybe in a different place. Still, she could only let the process be finished. And she could only hoped they'd be alive when this was done. So she could get them. If she couldn't have the ones she wanted, she'd have them all.

Her radiant coat shown with the same brilliance of the roses, and like them, if focused on, it would only show the hue of death. Death was not bright. It was greyer than black. Blacker than any night. She made a grotesque picture, permanent stitches of metal threading her body, holding it together like a strange, sad voodoo doll.

Aziza was set down into her deathly surroundings, a devil's creature completed. A horse every inch in mind, she was a demon outside. Now was time to start what hadn't finished well for her. She knew she could not finish it here. But challenges could be made. She let a laugh escape her maw. It sounded like metal scraping metal, not at all a pleasing to hear, almost as if it would shatter your hearing itself if it went on long enough. It was cold enough to freeze. With this sound she was summoning the leader who would be the opposition in her cold new war.

She had selected one in a second. One that was strong and protective, but still so full of innocence and good that it was enough to make him almost angelic. She knew he couldn't be so innocent. That was because of the main reason she had chosen him, and that jutted from his forehead. Yes, she would have her sweet, sweet vengeance. She would wait, and first find another, just one other with which to consort.

Aziza was ready to write her Tale of Vendetta, in blood.

[/blockquote][/blockquote][/size]