Sitting in the highest tower of her castle, it was all Pristine could do to scold herself and postpone tears. The warmth of the tower was minimal, so Pristine was forced to sit wrapped in a hand-knit blanket of the warmest wool. Her wicker rocking chair sat by a wide bay window whose glass was thick and cool. Inlayed in the glass like a border were several tiny orbs of colored glass that shined each in its own way, creating a rainbow behind Pristine, and in her eyes. It wasn’t the peacefulness of it all that made Pristine weep, but the view.
A frozen lake stood at the center of it all, frozen and shining like an expansive disk. All around it were drooping willow trees, each one graced with the thinnest traces of the frost of autumn. The willow trees, though clustered around the lake, were scarce elsewhere as they gave way to the mighty blue-green of spruce trees, the tallest of which stood just off to the left of her window and about forty yards in front of it. It was an odd pairing, the willows and the spruce, but whatever fit nature had had, it had deemed its creation worthy to continue on, perhaps only because of its sheer beauty.
The trees and lake were flanked on all sides by high rising mountains. These snowy crags, lapis in the rising sun, rent the sky all around her castle, providing fortification where her mighty stone walls could not. The sunrise, a splash of pinks, purples, and reds was just beginning to form a reflection on both the lake and the mountains when the sting of tears in her eyes could be bared no more.
Pristine immediately turned her chair away from the spectacular view, and pressed her left forearm to her abdomen, a technique she used often when life overwhelmed her. Still, however, she saw the radiant sparkle of a myriad of colors on the cold stone walls. Tears spilled down into her lap as she bit her tongue and cursed her weakness. Her throat ached as it constricted and she found herself reliving the same memories she had hoped to banish with the spectacular view.
As was the Gods’ wont, her life was a continuous cycle of torture and rebirth. The problem lying therein was that for every rebirth, there was always a torture. For every accomplishment there was a failure, for every friend there was an enemy, and for every love there was a loss. So many of those men she had met in her travels and magic workings had left her, quietly, in the night. The knights, the merchants, the travelers and explorers; none had returned.
In her two thousand years and more of life, she had yet to experience the truth of a relationship or the extremity of love until a man named Thobold. The sailor had stumbled into her life when he had brought a friend of his to one of the various infirmaries she worked at. He had been interested in the story of her life, and had attempted to relieve the pain and misery of her memories.
She and he had talked often, sometimes with his friend and sometimes with his little sister, whom Pristine had taken a liking to. She’d taken it as a sign that they had more in store for one another. Through thick and thin, the quiet times and the demon attacks, Pristine had been there for Thobold. The loved each other, she thought, and wondered how their love could be denied.
Then one day he had shown her to the dock at which his ship was anchored. There, hope glimmering in his eyes, he had shown her his new wife. Hundreds of emotions raged like a hurricane within her heart, boiling and beating at their restraints. Demons of jealousy clung to her ears, drinking in her hatred and whispering ugly words. “Why not you?” they said, “what’s so special about her? Does he really hate you this much? Why don’t you steal him back? What are you waiting for?” She had left the dock before she could act on any urges, on the falsity that the water made her feel sick.
Not but a week later, she was contacted by his wife, who had found him, bleeding to death, in a copse of trees on one of Furcadia’s uninhabited islands. Against her better judgement and the small devils of anger pinching off the warmth to her heart, she had helped his wife bring Thobold to the infirmary in her castle. There, with precise coldness, she had healed him, and left the two alone to share their horrid tender moments.
Later, he had come to her, his heart ill and friends abandoning him. In return for her help and graciousness, he had given her the golden compass he had worn around his neck since childhood. It had been her only source of solace through the painful years that followed… mostly because she knew, at a time before Thobold’s birth, she had carried the compass herself. It had simply found its way back to its owner. Long ago, the compass had been hers, and item purchased simply for a trip, and lost later afterward as most of her worldly possessions were. But when he had come, and given it to her, she felt her essence on it.
Now she had it, but not him. Foolishly, she had let him sail off in search of his mate, who had disappeared one day and not come back. She thought it would bring him happiness, and she imagined that it had, and they had found each other and were now together forever on a desert island, somewhere she would never visit. In all likelihood, Thobold had never found his mate, and had died trying; the sea was no place for man or beast, land lover or even sailor. She had lost her love to the sea.
As Pristine sat alone in that room, thoughtfully quiet now that she had stopped crying, she admired not the view nor the colors nor even how the temperature of the room seemed to have come to a perfect average. She sat, lost in her own sadness, something she did not indulge in often enough. She wished she had the heart and conviction to sail after Thobold, wherever he might be. Ironic, she thought, that all my years of wandering have come to this. Now, no matter where I travel, I will always be lost.
