That morning there was no light but the gray glitter in the sky, and there was no breeze but the slightest chill in the air.

She danced through it.

The trees hung their leaves shiftlessly and let the misty rain fall where it pleased.

And she danced through them.

Her eyes were that same virescent gray and her hair held the glory of sunshine, swirling to her waist. Her voice was like a moonlit shadow, her song like the sparkle of the stars.

There was no sound but the whisper of rain and the thunder's growl, no scent but peppermint and ice.

He marched though it.

The wildflowers had long since shriveled and they hissed at the veil of rain.

And he marched through them.

His eyes were like soft stone and his hair like night itself. His face held a hundred years of joy but a thousand years of sorrow, and he muttered to himself as the leaves mutter to their neighbors, his thoughts like the wintertime sea.

And he smiled.

A sycamore slept in a field of churning emerald, breathing in sky-fire and exhaling the dreams that swathe the angels' hands. The tree itself was an empyrean miracle, born to guide the feet of children and the eyes of mystics.

Rain slipped through its umber hands and fell from leafy fingers that twitched in the peppermint breeze. Within this airy whisper was the song... sparkling like the stars.

And the lady followed, clad in silken cobalt blue and the liquid silver of moonlight on water. She danced into the verdure that stirred beneath the tree and laughed at the colors that scattered through the water-beads.

Oh how common that the dreams of night are the nightmares of day, that a white-whispered blossom could be a dark angel's snare. Yes, that is how it came to be, for some of the most beautiful things are also the most dangerous, and some of the most terrifying things are the most benign.

It was the redolence of teardrops on copper and the whisper of crumpled lace that summoned her to them, that invited her fingers to trace their misty shape, that drew her skin across their cold needles, stealing the warmth from her blood. It was their icy bite that sung her to sleep.

And she fixed her ice-clouded eyes on daybreak as the gold bled from her hair.

Oh how beautiful to say that he had found her there, beneath the guardian sycamore. To say that he had felt her song in the silver threads that drip from the starlight.

And, indeed, he found the guardian sycamore. He felt the shadow of the song.

And he marched through it.

But his eyes were like granite and his hair like the twilit shadow. His face held a hundred years of wisdom but a thousand years of pride, and his eyes slid past her as oil over ice, his thoughts like the springtime sky.

And he smiled.

But did not stop.