Description

Work, work, work and more work - but I had to do this little picture for something at Epilogue. It's most unfortunate I didn't finish it in time for Exposé, but, ah well, can't have it all, eh?

All done in photoshop 7, and painter 7, by the by Like usual. Wacom tablet and all that jazz. Wallpaper version available at http://www.furiae.com in different sizes

Anyway - it's part of my dark fairy tales project.

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Mehach and Ereyon.

Tales speak of how Mehach, Goddess of Death, used to visit the world of Aii Chriaston in the past. She would herself step down from her ebony keep, and gently weave and coax souls from their discarded shells - and legends speak of how she, when gathering souls from a battlefield, met a wounded, but still breathing young man by the name of Ereyon.

Ereyon was beautiful in a way the Goddess had never seen before - she had seen beauty in Gods, but here, she saw beauty in life. In his pulse, in the beat of his heart, and she came to love him - and he came to love her.

She visited him every night, and every night they kissed. For nearly a year, they were together, but Ereyon had a secret he did not share with his mistress. Though her presence when she was with him was dimmed down - she was still Death, and she was slowly killing him. Rather than telling her, and losing what little time he had left with her, he kept quiet, and wasted away. Mehach was blinded by her love for him and suspected nothing until the day he actually died - and she felt his passing from her throne.

He did not come to her, though, as souls should. He clung to his grave and haunted the cemetery at night. Mehach called for him but he would not come - so she was forced to go down to him once again.

He did not want to go to the ebony keep, because he knew that then he would lose his memories and his love for her - he would lose what he had left. Haunting the cemetery, at least, would let him remember what they had shared.

Mehach spent the night in the graveyard, playing her harp - weaving patterns of his soul through her fingers, until, quiet as the wraith he was, he could no longer resist... and floated towards her, kissing her cheek - and she kissed him in return and thus stole his memories, and his love, and all that he once was... truly stealing his life before taking him back to the dark keep.

It is said that after this incident, after the tragic death of Ereyon, the Goddess of Death has never been seen on Aii Chriaston again.