A SACRIFICE

The wind stirs the soft downs.
                The barren land lies still.
A creature that doesn’t belong here is easily detected in this shelter less space.
            It stands.
                                Incredibly,
                                it stands.
It has come a long way…
                                                                        …too long.

Black feathers make a faint trail across the plains.
                            Some are whirled up occasionally by the ceaseless wind that plagues these
parts for miles and miles.                                    There are no barriers.
              Some bury in the ground.
Others stay because they’re too heavy.
                                                                Heavy with blood.
The trail is marked not only by black feathers, but by two tracks in the white dust.

                            They tell a tale of pain.

The White Plains stretch through eternity.
The milky blue skies are not a dome, but a light mantle…
                            …so close, so close…
In this surreal landscape there is but a plane of white, a plane of blue, and a black speck.
              It’s dying.
The death of the immortal is incomplete.
                                                                    It
                                                                        is incomplete.

           Dust, tears and blood.
That is all that’s left of life,
                            all mingled on the backdrop of black despair.
               Swirling like stars in the hemisphere, black feathers the black universe.

                                He has come to plead the skies.

He should be blind. The white stardust is thick, covering the bones of the earth in death.
                                Covering grief in a silent mask of white despair.

Death is bleak in the graveyard of the stars. It’s dry, the winds of loneliness sweeping all
                               …clean
                                                    …of
                                                                            …life.

But he will see.
               The pure waters of sorrow wash his wounds time and again, sliding ragged tracks through the star scarred landscape of his features,
               revealing vulnerable skin,
                                        marring perfect youth.
His eyes shine with the untouched waters, their blue competing with the never ending skies.
              They shine with his immortal soul, mirroring the endless wastes of his icy despair,
                                                                                                                      stretching through
                                                                                                                                                    infinity.

               The Necropolis of Stars has no beginning and it has no end. But he has crawled through it.
                                                        And now he stands.
               Midnight wings stretch out and embrace the eternal day.
The effort rips through exhausted flesh,
                                                            …but still he stands.
Stiff blood pregnant with dust contracts at his feet, forming thick landscapes like spilled wax.
                                                        Black.
His perfect body, stained by blood and despair, smudged by dust and washed by tears is ripped and torn.
His ebony garments are rags, flying with the air stream, whipping him.
            Pallid hair dances with the winds.
            Long streaks point across the white wastes.
There is defiance in his gaze
                                                    For stars are merciless
              And he has come to plead.
His long hands touch.
                                            He stares fixedly at heaven: Heaven nonexistent.
                         …He prays…
He has never prayed before, and he shall never pray again. He prays for death.
               It shall come swiftly.
He prays to pay the price.
                                            Prays to fulfil the debt.
                                                                                        Prays to bring her back.
                                                                                                                                    Prays for release.

For reunion.
For death.
                …For her…

                                                    He prays 
                                                    For her
Nothing exists in cosmos but him, the dust, the skies, the prayers.
The music.
                …She shall come…
It sweeps with the wind, destroying all that is not there.
                                He cannot be present.
The terminate mystery                …Her soul
The last enigma                                                    …A soul
The true firmament                                                                            …The soul
The ultimate price                                                                                                                 His soul.

…She has come…
                            …He has gone…
There is no faith, no belief.
                          He never had any faith.
            He only had her.
                          He never had any belief.
            He only loved her.
                                                                 The stars are merciless
            Only ever immortal love
Only ever mortal
                        …mortal.

The Ultimate Price;
                He pays the Ultimate Price