Hedarya

"Come with me, my darling, let us dance among the stars..." The methodic, metronomic clink of the teaspoon against a porcelain cup was her opus. Sugar, just a bit, cream, a dab of honey, cinnamon. Like everything, her tea had to be just so, but the wait was worth it. That first soothing sip that bloomed across her taste buds was a ritual performed every single morning. Without it, she may as well stride into town naked. Eventually she finished and glanced downward, tipping her cup so that the granulated liquid clinging to its bone belly shifted this way and that. Sticky, sickly sweet, the remnants would be far too overpowering for her refined palate, though they had their uses still.

Her brand of augury may not be the popular practice, but it had served her well over the years. A flick of her finger and the ring upon her second digit separates, top from bottom, to reveal a thin shard of opaque glass. She lances the pad of her index finger, no wince of pain marring her smooth countenance as she then inserts the bleeding flesh into the sludge at the bottom of her cup and begins to stir. There is power in a number: once, twice, three times, she stirs, the wound already itching and tingling where spice and other residuum intrude. A low hum rises in her throat as she withdraws her hand, holding the wet finger aloft while grasping the cup firmly and tipping it over onto the matching saucer waiting below.

Twisting the bottom of the cup in sharp, concise rotations, she counts slowly backward, storm-cloud grey eyes traveling along with its counter-clockwise path. When the elegantly curved handle arrives parallel to her once more, she stops, then closes her eyes and lifts the vessel, setting it aside. A strange mural unravels before her - unassuming and no more than a mess upon fine dishes to the untrained eye, but she sees far deeper. Scanning from left to right, up and down, she releases a quiet, introspective, "Hmmm...", then carefully wipes a still bleeding finger on the cloth napkin in her lap. "Well" she muses, a slight smile catching the corner of her mouth. "I suppose I had best get dressed."

Hedarya
Status	Active
Race	Kaldar
Gender	Female
Guild	Moon Mage
Instance	Prime

It drifted over her face in fine powder, clinging to pale hair, lashes

and skin before melting into the warmth found there. Bleak, shining, the

sun made dazzling diamonds of the snowfield around her, a sparkle born

here like an upturned sky in which the earth is reduced to foggy

atmosphere above the blinding radiance of a white-starred veil drawn

over a Lady's chilled countenance. Frigid air slid into her lungs, a

deep breath was taken; stillness breaks as from poppy-induced trancing

she finds herself alone.

Rather than seek respite in the fur mantle she wears, her cold fingers

brush errant patterns in the snow, a soft flurry of words released in

plumes of crystallised moisture to stain the brittle air biting her sore

lips like glacial suitors intent on stealing kisses. "You are cold, and

You are beautiful", she sings, though her voice is lost in a gust of

wind. "Where the winter moon shines in hardship, the stars beckon". The

timbre of her voice deepens as she reaches back with a hand and tugs the

pelt from her shoulders, shrugging it off and leaving her bare as a babe

in the boreal recesses of abandonment. Frosted tears like ornaments from

flushed cheeks slide, caught and held, precious gems upon her skin --

she is afraid.

Frigid, the climate penetrates, exacerbates, and lifting a mirror in

shaking hands she gazes upon her other self within the fogged glass. Her

twin smiles and becomes the face of the moon -- pale and unflawed,

though this imagery is broken as a crimson trickle slides across its

ice-sheet surface. "A prophesy broken" she murmurs softly, the bloody

portent noted with drawn brows while she presses a wounded hand to the

mirror-self and washes her away in a smear of scarlet.

Something profound slithers beneath her ivory skin, something pulses to

a beat not unlike that of a heart. This rhythm refuses to synchronize

with hers, instead coaxing her heart's thrum to play counterpart in an

enthusiastic recital. Unable to do else, she takes up the drum and sets

a beat with her palm, the soothing balm of a mystic's hymn uniting these

two pulses of life in one purpose -- A symphony of spirituality.