We dream as one

Her naked body shivered as the cold darkness closed its beastly hands around her. Her chest quivered. Her delusive eyes telling her that if she keeps them shut, this time it will go away.

But even in dreams Dreda knew she must rise. This was not a debt one could escape. Not a dream from which she could awake.

So rise she did. Sword in hand. Hard steel pressed firmly against her soft body. The hard edge that had ended so many lives kissing her pale skin, as if it were the gentlest of lovers.

The sword spoke to her. The sword called to her. The sword longed for her touch, and she for his. As if steel and leather could have a soul no different than blood and skin. They were drawn to one another. With a passion. With a lust. With a need.

The sword had to be fed. Its unquenchable thirst was too much for her waking hours alone. It had begun demanding her dreams. It now offered her no silence.

So feed him she did.

Their darkness intertwined. Their lust becoming one.

Was she still truly feeding him? Or was she now feeding only herself? Had this been but her lone desire all along?

But does it matter? She feeds him through her hand, or he feeds her through his blade. The ending is the same.

She needs to inflict unstoppable pain. She cries for the shrieks of death. The darkness of taking a husband from his wailing wife. The sadness of leaving helpless children without a father. This is her joy. And this is her sadness.

But is it in fact sadness that she craves? Or the spread of it? The unquestionable sharing of her own emptiness?

What makes her bow at the alter of such permanence?

What drives her to the sweet stench of flesh and blood? Like something from tales long forgotten. Something so horrid that it was stricken from even the darkest lore, for fear of bringing it back to life.

For fear it would awaken. For fear it would once again haunt and hunt the innocent. It would prey on the virgin blood, and feast on the screams of the children.

But it never left. It never died. It never slumbered.

It is her. It has always been her. Or an essence of her. Maybe not her meat. Maybe not her bone.

But her none the less.

Or was it the sword? Is it still? Does he wander from body to body? From host to host?

Or do they wander together? Are they joined through eternity? Subjugating death. Refusing to end. Forever the balance. Forever the hand. Forever the chooser.

Whoever, or whatever they are, death will always come with them.

Too old.

Too beautiful.