<style type="text/css">.erebor2_container{position:relative;z-index:1;width:540px;background:#1A1617;padding-bottom: 20px;border:1px solid #000;box-shadow:0 0 10px #000}.erebor2_container p{margin:0;}.erebor2_gradient{position:absolute;z-index:5;top:260px;width:540px;height:100px;background:-moz-linear-gradient(top, rgba(26,22,23,0) 0%, rgba(26,22,23,1) 100%);background:-webkit-gradient(linear, left top, left bottom, color-stop(0%,rgba(26,22,23,0)), color-stop(100%,rgba(26,22,23,1)));background:-webkit-linear-gradient(top, rgba(26,22,23,0) 0%,rgba(26,22,23,1) 100%);background:-o-linear-gradient(top, rgba(26,22,23,0) 0%,rgba(26,22,23,1) 100%);background:-ms-linear-gradient(top, rgba(26,22,23,0) 0%,rgba(26,22,23,1) 100%);background:linear-gradient(to bottom, rgba(26,22,23,0) 0%,rgba(26,22,23,1) 100%);filter:progid
XImageTransform.Microsoft.gradient( startColorstr='#001a1617', endColorstr='#1a1617',GradientType=0 );}.erebor2_message{text-align:justify;font:12px 'Times New Roman', serif;padding:15px 30px;color:#57654B;}.erebor2_quote{text-align:center;font:12px 'Times New Roman', serif;color:#CCCA9E;text-transform:uppercase;letter-spacing:2px;}.erebor2_name{text-align:center;font:32px 'Times New Roman', serif;color:#1A1617;text-transform:uppercase;letter-spacing:2px;text-shadow:0 0 4px #FFFCC5;}.erebor2_title{position:relative;top:-2px;text-align:center;font:12px 'Times New Roman', serif;color:#CCCA9E;text-transform:uppercase;letter-spacing:1px;}.erebor2_italic{text-transform:none;letter-spacing:0;font-style:italic;color:#57654B;}</style><center><div class="erebor2_container"><img src="http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b278/ruinedecho/erebor2_zps4qypmr4o.jpg"><div class="erebor2_gradient"></div><div class="erebor2_quote">fire burns brightest in the dark</div><p class="erebor2_message">He smells her before he sees her, and he feels her just as he always does, feels her approach through his bones. He has dreamed this so many times, he knows how it goes. He knows how she rounds the corner, indigo and just as perfect as when he'd left her, smiling and lovely. And so it happens now, the dream runs its course and he sees her –
And it's then that he realizes. It can't be a dream. It can't be a dream because he has never known her to have three horns on her head. He has never known her to smell of the Chamber like she does, not so deeply, as though it's worked its way through her bones and become part of her. His face is raw emotion as he processes all of this, shifting with a profound understanding that she's <i>here</i>-
And for once, the man with the answer to everything, the boy who's always been so precocious, who's always got the right words, is speechless.
He looks at her like a starving man looks at a banquet, like a man lost in the desert looks at his first glimpse of water. He still can't believe she's here, can't believe she's <i>real</i>, can't believe <i>he's</i> real, can't believe any of it. She speaks his name, and it's every nerve in his body alight with bliss and pain in equal measures. Pain because even now he hears it, something broken in the voice he'd hoped would never break again. And still he wants to talk, wants to tell her everything, but he doesn't know what to say and his voice doesn't work.
When she presses into him, closing the distance impossibly quickly, his reaction is pure instinct. Despite his weakness, despite the impossibility of the situation, he folds her in and they fit just like they always have. His brown eyes close as he returns her gentle embrace, and she is his whole world (was she ever not? Was there ever anything but her and the Chamber?) Her touch is light, feather light, as she traces his pulse and <i>oh god how he has missed this</i>-
But as suddenly as it begins it is over, and she is facing him with ears pinned and teeth bared. And the transition is so sudden that he doesn't know how to react. She keeps him on his toes again, speechless again, and he is stunned, silent. Her words are like a punch to the gut, each accusation a kick harder than anything he'd ever sustained in his battles. She speaks and he can do nothing but listen, his mind struggling desperately to process. Had he left? He tried to wrack his brain – he remembers being there, and then he remembers dreaming. But how long? What had happened? As she speaks, as she paces, a horrible reality starts to crystalize in his mind, and he begins consider just what he might have done to her.
And just as she makes her final statement, just as he's about to try to react, to try to explain what's happened, the whole world goes haywire.
His first instinct is to lunge forward, to protect her at all costs, but the world is having none of that. The ground is heaving beneath them, and as much as he tries to fight it, something sharp strikes him and he feels himself falling, falling, falling. The last thing he knows before unconsciousness takes him is that Malis' name is on his lips.
He comes to with a start, finding himself in a totally unknown meadow. His first instinct is that he's been unmoored again, that he's once more floating in nothingness, and that perhaps this has been nothing more than a dream again. Perhaps she was never real; perhaps this is just part of the most cruel twist yet. But he can't chance it, can't risk it, and so he calls for her. His voice is hoarse, lousy with disuse, but he screams for her nonetheless. <b>"MALIS!"</b> He coughs several times, like a heating system during the first days of fall. <b>"MALIS!"</b>
He is so consumed with finding her, with everything that's happened, that he doesn't even notice what's just come to pass elsewhere. It doesn't occur to him that he was tossed around by the world. It doesn't occur to him that he felt the warmth that has been a constant companion drain away while he was tossed and turned. He'll discover all of that later. But for now –
<b>"MALIS!"</b> </p><p class="erebor2_name">erebor</p><p class="erebor2_title">lost servant of a lost land</p><p class="erebor2_title erebor2_italic">warship x straia</p></div></center>
Author's note: immortality for his temp trait, please ^_^
XImageTransform.Microsoft.gradient( startColorstr='#001a1617', endColorstr='#1a1617',GradientType=0 );}.erebor2_message{text-align:justify;font:12px 'Times New Roman', serif;padding:15px 30px;color:#57654B;}.erebor2_quote{text-align:center;font:12px 'Times New Roman', serif;color:#CCCA9E;text-transform:uppercase;letter-spacing:2px;}.erebor2_name{text-align:center;font:32px 'Times New Roman', serif;color:#1A1617;text-transform:uppercase;letter-spacing:2px;text-shadow:0 0 4px #FFFCC5;}.erebor2_title{position:relative;top:-2px;text-align:center;font:12px 'Times New Roman', serif;color:#CCCA9E;text-transform:uppercase;letter-spacing:1px;}.erebor2_italic{text-transform:none;letter-spacing:0;font-style:italic;color:#57654B;}</style><center><div class="erebor2_container"><img src="http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b278/ruinedecho/erebor2_zps4qypmr4o.jpg"><div class="erebor2_gradient"></div><div class="erebor2_quote">fire burns brightest in the dark</div><p class="erebor2_message">He smells her before he sees her, and he feels her just as he always does, feels her approach through his bones. He has dreamed this so many times, he knows how it goes. He knows how she rounds the corner, indigo and just as perfect as when he'd left her, smiling and lovely. And so it happens now, the dream runs its course and he sees her – And it's then that he realizes. It can't be a dream. It can't be a dream because he has never known her to have three horns on her head. He has never known her to smell of the Chamber like she does, not so deeply, as though it's worked its way through her bones and become part of her. His face is raw emotion as he processes all of this, shifting with a profound understanding that she's <i>here</i>-
And for once, the man with the answer to everything, the boy who's always been so precocious, who's always got the right words, is speechless.
He looks at her like a starving man looks at a banquet, like a man lost in the desert looks at his first glimpse of water. He still can't believe she's here, can't believe she's <i>real</i>, can't believe <i>he's</i> real, can't believe any of it. She speaks his name, and it's every nerve in his body alight with bliss and pain in equal measures. Pain because even now he hears it, something broken in the voice he'd hoped would never break again. And still he wants to talk, wants to tell her everything, but he doesn't know what to say and his voice doesn't work.
When she presses into him, closing the distance impossibly quickly, his reaction is pure instinct. Despite his weakness, despite the impossibility of the situation, he folds her in and they fit just like they always have. His brown eyes close as he returns her gentle embrace, and she is his whole world (was she ever not? Was there ever anything but her and the Chamber?) Her touch is light, feather light, as she traces his pulse and <i>oh god how he has missed this</i>-
But as suddenly as it begins it is over, and she is facing him with ears pinned and teeth bared. And the transition is so sudden that he doesn't know how to react. She keeps him on his toes again, speechless again, and he is stunned, silent. Her words are like a punch to the gut, each accusation a kick harder than anything he'd ever sustained in his battles. She speaks and he can do nothing but listen, his mind struggling desperately to process. Had he left? He tried to wrack his brain – he remembers being there, and then he remembers dreaming. But how long? What had happened? As she speaks, as she paces, a horrible reality starts to crystalize in his mind, and he begins consider just what he might have done to her.
And just as she makes her final statement, just as he's about to try to react, to try to explain what's happened, the whole world goes haywire.
His first instinct is to lunge forward, to protect her at all costs, but the world is having none of that. The ground is heaving beneath them, and as much as he tries to fight it, something sharp strikes him and he feels himself falling, falling, falling. The last thing he knows before unconsciousness takes him is that Malis' name is on his lips.
He comes to with a start, finding himself in a totally unknown meadow. His first instinct is that he's been unmoored again, that he's once more floating in nothingness, and that perhaps this has been nothing more than a dream again. Perhaps she was never real; perhaps this is just part of the most cruel twist yet. But he can't chance it, can't risk it, and so he calls for her. His voice is hoarse, lousy with disuse, but he screams for her nonetheless. <b>"MALIS!"</b> He coughs several times, like a heating system during the first days of fall. <b>"MALIS!"</b>
He is so consumed with finding her, with everything that's happened, that he doesn't even notice what's just come to pass elsewhere. It doesn't occur to him that he was tossed around by the world. It doesn't occur to him that he felt the warmth that has been a constant companion drain away while he was tossed and turned. He'll discover all of that later. But for now –
<b>"MALIS!"</b> </p><p class="erebor2_name">erebor</p><p class="erebor2_title">lost servant of a lost land</p><p class="erebor2_title erebor2_italic">warship x straia</p></div></center>
Author's note: immortality for his temp trait, please ^_^