She's beautiful. There is no other word that comes nears that transcendent splendor that veils her. She's standing just there, enough in the shadows to leaver her face a mystery if not her nature. She is the great seductress. She is the Queen. She is the chaste, loveless Lady of all and nothing. She is Night's Patron, the shadows Mistress. Ice calm wrapped in black silk, strands of midnight sprouting from her head and flowing like water to meet her backdrop in seamless, sinuous lines that leaver her pale, beautiful face exposed to the moonlight. Lips as bright as blood on the snow, as calm and dark as the abyss, like holes in the world. Empty eyes, but full of the bounty and mystery of the worlds she dwells in. Her eyes are everything. She is omnipresent in the fact that she is unavoidable, where she isn't she will be, what you're seeing she has seen. Men court her constantly dancing on the bladelike edge of seduction and always getting closer to falling. Men fear her, fleeing from the shadows and constantly driving themselves further into her arms. Men crave her, seeking and never finding her embrace until they least expect it. She's waiting at every bend, around every corner. Always at the end of every road, your mother waiting to call you home. Yet here her dominion does not end, for her fingers and lungs are tuned for every note, can play upon any instrument, be it made by mortal hands or crafted by Natures will. All instruments are made for her, and knows she each, as intimate as lovers. Every string, every tube, every chamber she has laid her hands upon, and made from them the sweetest symphonies. Every song that is coaxed from them is a prayer in her name, every song a mass, every orchestra an orgy to her mastery. She is the Duchess of broken love, experience and loss. Through her do men learn the true paths of their hearts and are able to find the one they truly need, who fills the void of pain. But this she ends ture loves in time as well, to strengthen or break the hearts of men. She is the Goddess of Logic and Law, for only with rule set can rule be broken. She is the final judge, and your only hope. Shrewd and cold, as stoppable as a glacier, weaving webs and intrigues faster than a spider weaves it webs. She works these shadows like poison, for no warrior is she. She is the Queen, the Empress, whose words can kill faster than knives, and whose looks can pierce deeper than spears. You may have warriors guard your back, but no one beats one of her own to clear your path, for they will handle everything with quite, close, discretion and you may wonder if they ever really moved, and why your enemies lay dead before your men have even drawn their blades. She doesn't play chess. That's a game for those with limits. She and her kind play wicked little games like Shoots and Tiger Pits. They never give you a chance to win. It's not logical to do so. So they grease the rungs and mark the cards. No one will play chess with them because the pawns are poison. Not to say She never looses. Things can be overlooked, or well-laid plans can be shattered by the chaotic actions of outside forces. This is often followed by rare glimpses of emotion, and When the Lady is not Pleased, all the realms will know it. And then she sinks back to ice, learns from the mistake (that never happened) and moves on. Yet through her can your final hope be gleamed in the eyes of your peers, for while she is the final destination, her realm may be all that stands between you and it when others cast blame upon you. It was her logic that furthered science and discovery, for good and ill. Her realm ended plague but brought upon the earth weapons of ultimate destruction. Though last born she will be last standing. She is the Madame of Time, and its passing. She is the Shadow's Mistress, the Empress of the Natural State. People have thought the Shadow is the absence of Light, when really isn't light made? Shadow is not the absence of light, Light is the Absence of Shadows. Its always been true that the most vile things are those that appear fester in the most innocent, pure and good places. It's not because it's a greater, comparable, difference. It's because when the light pushes the shadows back, it compresses them, makes them purer, stronger, distilled. So when Good pushes all of its shadows into the deepest corners, it's compressed it into something stronger. A shadow that when the light fails won't be put down as easily. Because just as Life will never truly beat Death, Light will never get rid of the shadows. And When the Light Fails, as it can do, where will you be when the shadows come? Will you have feared their Empress? Mocked Her? Stood on your lofty pedestal and sneered to where she waited. Because when your pedestal crumbles, she'll still be waiting. And smiling.