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All year round, she sang her songs. Some of woes and some of mirth. Through her songs I saw a truth. A truth I simply could not deny.

Winter’s grip was tight as iron. Merciless and unforgiving. But this young girl was not deterred. Unassuaged from my lake.

Through the bitter chill, she saw its beauty. She trudged through snow and walked through sleet. In icy cold, she sang her song. Lilting melodies much too sweet. Much too calm whilst bound by Beira.

Just this once I’d play along. Flute in hand I’d add this timbre. So by my rock I sat and played, watching my girl from a distance. In an instance she would hear.

Oh, but she stopped a while to look around, her bright emerald eyes full of wonder. Her cute open mouth akin to a guppy.

“Who is there?” she cried out. Unremitting, my tune went on. My one and only answer. Were she The One, she would understand.

I allowed a moment of silence before I changed the song. A plume of mist escaped her mouth as she huffed impatiently. As I played my haunting piece, her furrowed brows softened and a shy smile gave way. She took a seat on the snowy blanket. Immersed by the chilling trills, she closed her eyes. So serene she might have been a meditating monk.

I arose from my rock and stepped on the icy lake; the thin sheet fragile as a babe. My nimble feet glided quickly across as the ice cracked beneath me. Relief washed over me when my bare feet stepped on frigid snow. As I turned around I saw that my lake was a fractured beauty— the waters peaking beneath broken shards of ice. Not once had I allowed my melody to stop.

As I approached my girl I allowed a pause. A moment just to appreciate her beauty. Her hair was dark as the depthless seas, her ruddy cheeks in contrast, glowing. My webbed fingers stroked her cold, soft cheek as my eyes consumed her long dark lashes and angular face. She shivered from the contact but did not open her eyes. She could not and she would not— my song had ensured that.

“Who are you?” she asked. More probing questions. Gaps of knowledge to be filled. Could she not hear the truth as I did?

I brought my flute back to my lips, continued where I left off. Calmness returned upon her, smoothing crinkles on her face. She would remember. She must remember.

She rose to her feet, singing the song she had heard many years before.

 

Glittering lake, giver of life;

                A gate to a world you cannot fathom,

                Pure perfection, splendorous.

                There the woes are nevermore.

 

On she went with her song. As I stepped back, she came along. Blindly did she follow, not a worry did she show. As my feet touched ice, a web of cracks did appear. Eyes still closed, my girl placed her feet on that path. Lithely she followed with her dainty feet, careful to avoid the ever-cracking web. How foolish I was to tempt Beira’s cruel nature.

A bright crack tore through the ice, cutting my melody short in my throat. Only could I watch as the cursed ice cracked slowly beneath her feet. Eyes flung open, did her orbs shine—glisten— till my heart smashed, broken, as she sunk into the lake.

For but a moment was I numb, as shards of pain pierced my heart. The absence of her voice forced me to regain willpower, and I flung into the lake.

She was a fallen angel, sinking deep into the abyss. Her ivory hand stretched out to me as her body sank and I grabbed for her, so sure that I could save her.

A high pitched cackle grated through the murky lake and I truly knew that all was lost. I had loved and lost, and damned this dear child also.

The girl pleaded with her eyes at me but she was passed the point of saving and I was all too far from redemption. So I sang a lament for her. I put all the fragments of my soul in it, and hoped for such thing as a heaven for her even as my throat burned with the need to wail my woes. I sang through the cackle, knowing this revenge was that bitter woman’s triumph over me.

And my girl sank, so too with the remaining fragments of my soul.

The end of a life was a natural thing. Yet, how natural could it have been for I, a father, to have slain a daughter?

Wretched thing that I was, I meant to take her with me. Wicked thing that I am, I must be with her.

But soulless as I am, I have no place in her afterlife. And so the divide goes on and on, with only the shadow of a melody to remember her by.

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