Hinura's eyes saw only what she fancied to be a wisp of smoke, or a breath on a cold day, but the clear laugh of a child reached her ears as cool, invisible hands snatched the sparkler away from her and danced off among the dead grass. Her face remained set, yet her eyes held a sad smile for that soul, seeking only a little joy and mirth in a dead place.
Her eyes were drawn away from the child ghost's path, towards the castle doors. No forms visible there; yet the very air seemed to visibly shiver in those doorways, and she felt a powerful malice being projected towards them from there. Hinura instinctively held the harp cradled in the crook of her arm more closely to herself, as a mother would shield her child from an unseemly spectacle in the street.
Then another harp answered their music; Clear, pure notes came from a mithril harp with several strings missing, suspended above the ground a little ways from the doors. Immortal sorrow flowed from it's strings. Hinura could nearly make out a hazy outline of the one holding it.
She began to play again; she dimly heard Estelarion's flute weaving it's music into her own as she began to sing once more:
Mis' amuigh air luing a' seòladh
'S mi gun dòigh air tighinn gu
baile
An cuimhne leat an oidhche bha
sinn
'S a' luing bhàin air bhàrr na mara
An oidhche sin a chaidh ar
fuadach
Thànaig a' mhuir mhùr 'na
gleannaibh
She stopped, and closed her eyes, her harp silent once more.
[ February 06, 2003: Message edited by: tangerine ]
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