G.O.D.-F. XIII:

File:1

BLACK Harlequin's Theory

Article:

The Pale Rider

& The Fire Dancer

By: Fermin D. Hernandez

Cold chills crawled through the young lad's spine as he shrouds himself under a black hood near a fire that burns brightly within the cold autumn night. Frustrated with the cold night, he removes his hood and rises from the ground; his skin is dead-pale, his hair is bone-white, and his eyes are ghostly-green. He walks away from the fire but keeps a close distance to the fire, and from the fire a spirit of that of a woman dressed as a jester slightly reveals herself from the flame to see what the boy is doing. The young lad returns with a large amount of small logwoods to burn in the fire. She watches as he gently places the logwoods into her flames, the fire doesn't seem to bother him at all.

He sat down closely to the fire and stares at her with a tired look in his eyes. Soon, he begins to pass out next to the beautiful flame. She rises from her flames and reaches out her hand to touch the boy's face, but he is out of her own reach. The next day, he sees the fire reduced to only a small ember within the remains of the logwoods. He quickly pulls out a strange but empty lantern for the fire spirit quickly jumped into. Successfully having the fire spirit to go inside the odd lantern he places it onto a hook that's attached to his holster. He walks within the fog of the forest and finds a road cutting right through it; he paces to fingers into his mouth and makes a loud whistle noise in the middle of the road.

A haunting neighing of a steed echoes down from the road as it begins to charge at his direction. A phantom steed appears before the pale boy; its body is made entirely of that of bones and an emerald-fire possesses the paranormal creature. He hops onto the "hollow-steed" and rides down the road leaving a trail of its emerald flames. Unable to see his path through the thick fog the boy pulls out his lantern and lights his path with its hellish fire. Finally breaking through the fog, the boy sees a small town further down the road.

Arriving at the town, he jumps off his phantom steed and looks away as the steed rides off and vanishes into thin air. He pulls out a darkly detailed notebook from his coat and reads a long list of names that appears before him describing the cause of death by each name. The town appears to be empty with no one in sight, but he apparently doesn't care to notice that. He puts his notebook away and pulls out his lantern out from his holster; a dark portal opens from the floor behind him, and a dark and well decorated scythe comes out from it. He pulls back his arm and graves onto the scythe's handle without looking, he then walks to the front door of the house before him.

Walking through the home of the people who know of his arrival hide behind closed doors afraid of the rumors they were told of him. He walks into one room and sees an old man slowly holding onto life; he walks up to his dying bed and lifts his scythe up high in the air. The scythe leaved no cuts of any sort onto the old man, but spiritually cutting his soul away from his mortal body. The room is now shrouded in darkness and only the soul of the old man appears before in the dark void. The old man's soul begins to see a bright light down the dark void, and so he follows it and could see a familiar face holding out their hand for him to grab on. The pale boy leaves the house and calls for his steed; he rides out from the small town and into the next one.