Castle Telomere

[Telomerase]

A massive storm cloud races across the skies, its black talons tearing the sun's rays asunder. It was rare to see the light break through the impenetrable dark of this storm, a storm that seemed to go without end, one that moved far too quickly to possibly be natural.

Lightning flashed, its pale light spreading across the lands locked in night. No rain came. The tears of Heaven, so terribly harmful to the flesh of the dead, did not descend upon the parched earth. Only the dark came. Only night followed the storm, and the storm followed its heart...

This heart held a secret all its own, one hidden from the prying eyes of the curious. It held an island, forever cloaked in the shadows of the everlasting storm. An island that bore a vibrant forest, a small grouping of mountains, rivers, and a single castle so ancient that it had witnessed the birth of many stars through the ages. As has its master.

The castle was large, a structure that was held aloft by massive butresses connected to the various mountains grouped around it and a single shaft that speared into the ground far below it. A draw bridge was the only easy access to the building.

The style of the castle was highly gothic, complete with ancient statues lining key points on the walls, the well known flying butresses, and many, many towers. The largest of these towers almost broke through the clouds that surrounded the island. The stones were black. The interior... well, few know how the interior looks.

The storm cloud settled just outside of Iora, over the mountains that lay to the West. Thunder rolled across the mountains, the sound carrying through the treacherous passes and into the city itself... a distant, and barely heard echo.

[Telomerase]

Yellow eyes looked down upon the pool of water that lay before him. The fact that he used water for this was a testament to his power. He had forced something so inherently dangerous to his kind to serve his purposes. Many thought such achievements to be pathetic, or nothing of note. Those were the fools, who later choked on their dying breath in their final moments. They didn't understand that one must conquer what could kill them, and use it to forge them into a stronger being.

Of course, they were all as mere children to him. Not a one could hold a candle to his age. It was like a newborn dust particle yelling to the star with great pride that it had lived long, and seen much. Enough to know more than the star, in all its countless ages past.

Telomerase trailed his hand through the pool of water, the smell of long dead flesh burning filling the room as rapidly as the steam that embraced his hand and form, pouring upwards towards the roof. The water was boiling, but the images were more than clear enough to his eyes. These vampires were all children. They had not the years or power to truly catch his attention. Yet, somehow, they held sway over his waking moments as of now. They intrigued him somehow. Perhaps it had been far too long since he had seen just how much the Vampiric bloodlines had degenerated? Perhaps this was all just some kind of morbid curiousity?

Or perhaps he was, which is admittedly the most likely of cases, terribly terribly bored.

Telomerase pulled his hand out of the water, casually examining what remained of it. The flesh had been eaten away by the water, as were the muscles. Only bone remained, held together by negative energy and what small amounts of tissue remained. He closed and opened his hand. Then did it again, watching the muscles rebuild themselves over his destroyed limb, followed soon after by pale flesh. In a matter of moments, it looked as if nothing had happened at all. The only evidence that remained of his recent loss of flesh was the smell that still suffocated the stagnate air locked into the room... along with the smell of freshly dug earth.

Telomerase did something he had not done in many an eon. He smiled.

[Celeondris]

A gust of wind, and the hat comes flying off of the woman's head. It tumbles on the wind, further towards the castle. Every now and then the storm drops its little straw plaything, and it lies there, its white ribbon beating in the wind. Then it picks it up again, and it flies many feet up into the air, twirls, dips and picks up again.

The owner of the hat, a woman in her mid to late twenties, comes running after. She tries to pounce the hat, or to catch it out of the air, but her shoes are not made for running, and she is obviously having a hard time running with her rucksack. Her short blonde hair is being blown about and messed up, and the storm threatens to blow up her skirt, which she has to beat down every other second. The three little pendants on her necklace tinkle against each other as she runs.

Eventually, she manages to put her shoe down on the white ribbon of the hat, and it remains fixed, though the hat itself blows about violently, like a flag on a flagpole. She kneels and picks the hat up. She does not make the mistake of putting it back on her head. She inspects it, holding it tight, with one of her hands on her skirt to prevent it flying up. Her hat in her hand, her hair still flying about, she walks the rest of the way to the castle, panting slightly from the chase.

Behind the steel-rimmed spectacles, the woman's green (or are they blue?) eyes survey the castle. She jumps a little at the sound of thunder, and hastens her pace. On her face is the determined, slightly worried look of a traveller in bad weather. She comes up to the draw bridge, the wind tearing on the hat in her hands, and peers up at the wall over the gate. She waves the hat a little, anxiously clutching on to it, hoping that someone might be standing guard at that gate. Maybe somone will welcome her into this ominous looking place. The pendants on her necklace tinkle against each other in a particularly strong gust of wind.

[Telomerase]

The draw bridge was down, the portcullis drawn up. There were none to be seen on the parapets of the castle's large walls. In fact, she has yet to meet a single individual on the island, and this structure was the only hint of civilization she had encountered.

The bridge was massive, a collection of drawbridges that made up the whole, with stone pillars dipping down, into the depths below. At the top of each pillar stood a stone structure complete with a portcullis on both sides, a kind of guard house of sorts, and the chains that lifted or lowered the draw bridges on both sides of the structure. There were about five of these, and then the castle itself.

The winds picked up slightly, and then died down once more. The fires that lit the torches spread through the guardhouses never faltered.

[Celeondris]

The woman peers around the placea little nervously, and holds the hand with the hat to her head to keep her glasses from being blown off. Very carefully, step by step, she walks on the precise middle of the bridge, so as not to be blown off by sudden gusts of wind. Her white skirt beats in the wind, and the loose strap ends of her rucksack beat on her shoulders. She heads for the gate of the castle proper, every time she passes under a porticulis peering up anxiously, then dashing past.

[Telomerase]

There are several long since faded tapestries that were untouched by the winds, hanging in the rather short halls of each guardhouse. A large wooden door edged in metal lead into the insides of the actual houses, but these were locked.

After she passes through the various guard houses, she reaches the gates themselves. They were vast things, crafted from what looked like stone instead of wood. There were several murals on their face, but they had long since faded, unlike the rest of the castle, which seemed to be in perfect condition.

The bridge shuddered, and a plume of dust shot out of the hinges of the doors, caught and carried off by the winds. They began to slide outwards, slowly.

[Celeondris]

The woman glances at the tapestries as she passes them with some curiosity, and she tries one door, but upon finding it locked, she heads on towards the gates. The wind blows her hair in her face, and blowing through the jacket it fills up one of the sleeves, blowing it round.

Once she reaches the gates, she looks at them a bit uncertainly. The skirt beats against her legs and her pendants tinkle. Then the bridge shudders, and she has some trouble to remain standing.

The woman steps back a little so as not to be in the way of the opening doors. There is a bit of a confused frown on her face, and she stares at the opening doors with some surprise. She clutches on to the hat, though, and waits till the doors are far enough open to allow her through, and to not crush her upon sudden closure. She dashes through, as best as she can with one hand on her skirt and the other against her head.

[Telomerase]

The doors stop and grind back to their original resting place after she clears the threshold. They slam together, the sound echoing briefly through the chamber before dying out completely.

The chamber Celeondris finds herself in is extremely large, and crafted of black marble. There was a massive staircase off in the distance, one split into two seperate staircases that wrapped around the higher portions of the room several times. There was a large winged statue of woman, her arms held out, not unlike the way a warrior holds his arms out to show he is without a weapon. It was highly detailed, with an intricately carved robe, and long flowing hair. One could even count each feather on the pair of wings, though some of them must be remarkably fragile, due to how small they were in comparison. One of the most distinctive features, however, was the complete lack of a face. It had eyes, but nothing more. The statue stood about 40 or so feet high.

Other than that, one other thing of note was the complete silence. Try as she might, Celeondris could not hear thunder or wind... just the sound of her own breathing, which seemed all the louder in the silence.

[Celeondris]

The young woman looks around the place in wonder, and steps closer to the statue, examining it- peering through the spectacles. She puts the straw hat back on her head, and pushes it down a little, till she feels the little stubs under the straw. Then she lets it veer back a little, and brushes some of the hair under it back in position.

She lets go of her skirt and adjusts some of the straps of her backpack to make it a little more comfortable. The denim purse by her side hangs there limp. She beats some sand and stone dust off her black jacket and white clothes, but quickly desists when she notices how loud the dull thuds of her hands on the clothing are in the silence.

Celeondris takes a few more steps in the hallway, her feet echoing. She looks around uncertainly.

"Hello...? Anybody home? I'm terribly sorry, there's a storm outside and... hello...?"

She has a quiet voice, and even when she calls like this, she does not raise it much. The young woman glances around, looks at the statue a little closer, then she shrugs and heads for the stairs.

[Telomerase]

Her voice rings ominously through the air, echoing quietly here, then there. It died off soon enough, as echoes always do, to be replaced by the overly loud sounds of her shoes against the stone of the floor.

As she approaches the stairs, she can see there are several halls behind them as well, under the crook of the case. The stairs themselves stop before they meet with the wall, forming a small balcony before it connects to the walls to form the stairs spiralling towards the higher levels on either side. Before her was large tapestry with a complicated pattern on it, a kind of circle with various knots and loops, not unlike a celtic design. It seemed to form a crest of some sort, but it was difficult to make out, since the tapestry was quite large.

Celeondris was currently at the back of the statue, its wings spread out and up, and its hair running down its back. There was no reply, as of yet.

[Celeondris]

The woman puts a foot on the stairs to try out if they can hold her. Should they appear alright, she climbs up, looking closely at the tapistry as she ascends.

[Telomerase]

The stairs were solid and in fine condition, neither giving way nor making any noise other than what was natural. When she gets a better look at the tapestry, she makes out the figure hidden in the complicated mess of lines... it was a dragon, with two spiralling lines on its chest, connected by lines and with small symbols at the tips.

Not long after she sees this, a soft voice sounds to her right. Unlike her own soft voice, his lacked an echo.

"I was unaware that I had a guest. Sorry, I would have greeted you sooner."

[Celeondris]

Celeondris actually stands still to admire the tapestry. She smiles slightly when she makes out the figure, but then she jumps and turns to the right at the sound of the voice. She blinks through her spectacles, and the straw hat slides a little to the side. The little pendants on her necklace tinkle.

[Telomerase]

A man whose features are not entirely unlike a doll's steps into the faint light cast throughout the room, wearing a long black coat that went down past his waist, nearly down to his black boots. Strands of moonlight were woven through the collar and the cuffs of the coat, and gloves of deepest night were pulled over his hands.

The man bowed, his hair falling exactly as one would expect it to when his head tilts, never a strand falling into his flawless face.

"Welcome, traveler. I'm sorry if I startled you."

[Celeondris]

Celeondris blinks again behind the dim spectacles, and watches the man in some surprise when he steps forward. She smiles a little uncertainly. The silver bells on her bracelet make little ping-ting sounds as she moves her hand to hold her skirt a little to the side while she curtsies.

"Not at all. I am sorry for intruding- there was a storm outside."

Trying not to stare at the man's face, because she does not want to be impolite, she stands straight again and adjusts the straw hat, but her eyes do seem fixed on his a little intensely. Her own hair does not behave itself as his does: one strand got caught on the straw of the hat and now the hat stands straight on her head again, that strand seems to curl up and cling to the bottom of the hat for dear life. The woman is clearly unaware of this.

"My name is Rahel. How do you do."