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Message: <blockquote data-quote="GnomeWorks" data-source="post: 1640948" data-attributes="member: 162">Somewhere, the soul of Troi Delmontes wanders, a traveler of time and space... dreaming dark dreams...He finds himself in a dark alley, dazed and confused.  Lightning flashes and rain pours in great sheets around him, and the ground below him is muddy.  In a flash of brilliant purple, a dark form rises before him... and all sense of confusion is gone.Zidaniel Raziel.With the speed of lightning and a cry of thunder, he draws his whip, and dashes at his hated foe.  Zidaniel draws forth his longsword, and easily sidesteps the young man.Troi angrily turns, and the two face each other, locked in the gaze of the other - each staring into the reflection of himself."Let us dance, you and I." Zidaniel says calmly in his lilting voice, the recitation of that ancient ritual sending shivers down Troi's spine."Yes, let us dance." Troi replies, shaking his uncertainty away, readying his whip for the battle......and as suddenly as he found himself in that same dark alley, he finds himself in another place and time...He is in a small room.  A single large window allows the light of the full moon to shine down through thick, pale white drapes.  A woman, as pale as the moon itself and garbed in rich and elaborate garb made of material as dark and mysterious as a starless night, sits on the edge of a bed."Your roll..." A voice says somewhere from elsewhere, and a tiny white die rolls across the floor, black pips glistening in the moonlight."Four." Troi says quietly as the die rolls to a stop, and he looks to the woman in black, who only returns to him a vacant expression with eyes of ice and steel......and the face of the woman in black turns to the eye of a great storm, whirling with boundless force around him, yet does not envelop him.  Troi shields his eyes from the wind, though he knows deep within that he cannot fight this gale, that it will blow him away and dash his hopes and dreams to pieces like so much glass from a mirror......and somewhere, a voice speaks: "Carry on our wayward son... there'll be peace when you are done..."...and the voice solidifies before him, taking on the form of the woman in black - but her face is not the face of the woman in black, it is the face of Shiva, and Troi recoils in mental anguish as the memories of that fateful night come pounding full force into his mind, the pain as palpable as that caused by the blade of Zidaniel......and suddenly, the blade of Zidaniel is there once more, slicing through his shoulder, warm blood spurting from the wound and spraying them both, just as his whip's razor-thin edge slices against Zidaniel's face.  He falls back into the wall he knows must be there, as it had been that night......but there is no wall, and he continues falling, falling through the skies of a starless night.  He hears in a distant place the words of Shiva: "Star light, star bright, no star I see tonight, dare I may, dare I might, wish upon this wishless night?" The words haunt him as he falls through the darkness......and the darkness that cloaks him becomes the dress of the woman in black, enveloping him in its endless folds and creases.  He rises, and the woman in black looks at him with eyes of ice and steel, and a voice speaks: "They are the same, but different." He looks to the skies above, and two stars shine brightly......and the voice becomes that of Zidaniel - not as his enemy, but as his teacher: "What difference between right and wrong, success and failure?  There is no difference." And Zidaniel's voice laughs, a hideous sound that echoes through his mind, pounding against his skull with the force that only regret can bring......and the laughter melts into the sound of Shiva's laughter, and his heart melts at the sound.  She is there before him, standing next to the woman in black.  And he sees that they are the same, but different: Shiva is garbed in her blue cloak, and the woman in black in her black dress; Shiva's eyes are mirthful and mysterious, while the woman in black's are cold and cunning; but in both, he sees a sense of caring, a sense of purpose, and he feels as though he is truly at home......somewhere, a voice speaks, but the words are meaningless, echoes of a future that has been lost or a past that is yet to come......the soul of the traveler rests for a time, losing itself in the eyes of his star and his muse.  But which is the muse and which is the star, he cannot fathom...</blockquote>

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