Where once where roses.... [FxF FxFuta]

Prelude

It was a scream of heart wrenching loss that woke Eddie from her sleep, bolting upright she stares blindly about her room with sleep shadowed eyes. (What...) she thought to herself, (...was that?) she reaches up to scrub the sleep from her eyes and finds them moist, she explores her face then, finding trails of wetness that lead from her eyes and across her cheeks, over her lips even, those lips part and she touches her tongue to one finger and tastes the bitter salt of tears of sorrow.

"Again?" she asks the quiet of the room, her voice slightly hoarse, the realization that the sound which woke her, came from her own mouth, the wetness on her face, her own tears. The loss, her own, still as fresh a wound as it ever was.

Eddie slips from between her silken sheets and parts the curtains that surround her bed in velvet darkness, a zephyr plays about the room, over her hair, fallen in sleep tousled waves of might-night purple down her back. She stands and walks to the open window that let the fresh spring air into her room and looks out it, gazing up at the brilliant moon, full, as always in this portion of the Land of Night, her eyes drift down as her mind falls back into memory long past....

~~,~~`{@

"I announce Her Majesty's Knight, Lady Edwina lys Farsalas and present her to the Winter Court!" cried the Court Herald, an ugly, toad like being with far too many eyes and tongues for something of it's size and overall shape.

"Allow her entrance to the Winter Court," murmured Her Majesty Baal'el sul Ren, Queen of the Winter Court and the Lands of Night, the noble lady's power making even those soft words echo around the vast hall.

Eddie gave a well concealed sigh of relief as her position was acknowledged by her Queen, who's sense of humor was more than slightly -off- at times. She presents herself at the throne, is given a cursory nod, then excused to join the general revelry of the Queen's party, the Queen herself being much distracted by her consorts' whispered conversation. Eddie makes her first destination the main buffet table, a plate of thinly sliced meats, cheases, and breads soon taking form as she listens to the chatter around the table. "Oh ho!" one of the courtiers says in response to another's boast, "That's nothing, the Fifth Drakkengard, under -MY- command, destroyed the army of Lx'vk the Red and...." She tunes the boasting court soldiers out as she makes her path around to the other side of the table, a drink being in order, she thinks.

"Pardon Great Lady" comes a soft, hesitant voice from behind the knight, who turns and steps aside in instinctual response to the polite request. What is reveale