Mournful Sun – Young Female Éoin

The procession flows through the city like rivers of light.

A small girl raises her head, big soulful eyes glittering like dozen blue stars under the orange light of the hanging lanterns and candelabras. She wears a plain looking dress of fine white linen, and over it she dons several thick layers of cotton and fur to protect herself from the frigid winds.

It is all useless when the very act of breathing seems to freeze her lungs out, the cold air is as unforgivable as the solid wall of blackness blocking out the sun. She looks around fearfully, eyes wild and puffy from the dry cold winds. Her grandma told her stories of monsters hiding in the dark, lurking in wait.

During the month of Shadowfell the only light that thrives amid the enclosing darkness comes from thousands of torches, lamps and candleholders littering the almost empty streets of the populous city of Solarys. Portable mage's light are useless, their pale glow are no match against the surrounding shadows that appear to drain every bit of warmth and any trace of hope, no matter how small or insignificant.

Around the little girl several others are in the same state of distress. The elderly and their quivering old bones—shivering in the cold like dying leaves in a breeze—just counting the hours till their inner light is snuffed out by age. Parents comfort their children. In the solace of their mother's bosom the little ones are protected by the worst of the cold, but in the end is a futile attempt of delaying the inevitable.

In the bronze district, the poor and the less needy join together for the procession to the nearest temple with the gold domed roof. Armored blessed zealots are already standing in watch at the front of the limestone building an its several white marble columns. Their thirty one days of silent vigil has started, together with the last rays of sunlight.

Grief blankets the world. The sun god is in mourning.

A croaky voice breaks the eerie silence that had befallen the parade.

"You must promise me to behave, child." The little girl's grandmother insists. Her clothes are much the same as the child's clutching her bony hand. Her features, aged by a life time of work under the sun, are set into grim determination. "Not with empty words, for I grow tired of your incessant babbling by the day. Put real conviction behind your words this time, you know what happens to kids that go against their elders' wishes, don't you?"

The child's face moves from awe to sheer fear. With lips trembling she manages a shaky whisper. "The darkness and its master eats them."

"That's right. Now come, we don't have all day, the gods' wrath will be upon us if we don't hurry." The old woman, still clutching her granddaughter's hand, hurries ahead of the crowd as if reaching the temple was a matter of life and death.

A few paces behind them a couple and their daughter walk hand in hand, their pace unhurried. The girl in the middle can't have more than thirteen summers of age, while the two men on either side of her appear to be on their thirties, if the few wrinkles on their face are to be believed.

"I thought the reason people would go to temples was to pray, to find comfort in the presence of the gods." Éoin, the young girl, whispers amid the frigid winds. Her parents are the only ones to hear her hushed words. "Why would that old woman use the gods to threat the little girl?"

The two men look at it each other and then to the redheaded girl holding their hands, her freckled skin is flushed from the cold and some snow have gathered on her long eyelashes. The men stare at each one more time and Aryn, the shorter of the two, clear his throat while choosing his words carefully.

"The place where we're going is a house of worship, little ember. The eyes of the gods will be shadowing our every movement. We must thread with care, even if Sol's presence won't be felt, it doesn't mean he is not listening, alright?" His words are soft and almost carried away by the wind.

Éoin's brows furrow in confusion, just when she thought she was beginning to understand the gods...

"The 'gods' don't give a sailor's cuss about what we do, Ary. As long as we don't go parading around town shouting the name of you know who we should be fine." The taller male exclaims, words barely louder than a whisper, but their effect are almost instant.

"Don't utter such heresies, Julian. We all know how cruel the gods can be; we should be taking every precaution we can not to anger them any further than we already have." His hand squeezes Éoin's shoulder in a knuckle white grip, fear lacing his every word, however the girl can barely feel her father's touch through the thick layers of clothes that thankfully keeps her from getting frostbitten by the cold wind.

"Sometimes I fear you might get bald spots with all that worrying, darling." Aryn's glare does nothing against the teasing smirk adorning his husband's lips. "Oh, what's this? A white hair?" He goes to plunk a single graying hair from an almost literal forest of black curls, but his grabby fingers are quickly swatted away by the shorter man.

"Surely you must know is just the snow. The gray hair trait does not run in my family, unlike yours, darling." The retort doesn't have any real bite to it, but Julian's hand still flies toward his temple, trying in vain to hide the strands of silver hair that appeared during the last few years. He grumbles something about useless genes, and pestering husbands which only serves to turn the situation even more against himself.

At least the silly banter draws a fit of giggles from little Éoin that is practically being sandwiched between the two men, it helps warm off part of the chill freezing her small bones.

Julian, sensing he has already lost the fight before it even began, sighs dramatically with fondness glinting in his brown eyes. "Glad to see my suffering makes you happy, little sprout."

"I just don't like the way you say things, as if all the gods are terrible monsters. Like they are all incapable of acts of kindness, when in reality they gave us two of the most wonderful presents imaginable." Aryn's eyes turn distant while warmth tugs at his lips.

"Uh-oh, I know that look, and something tells me you are about to tell us what those presents are." The taller man nudges Éoin on the ribs, already relishing the opportunity to see Aryn being all emotive and in touch with his feelings, an is extremely rare occurrence indeed.

"Our love, that endured even the wrath of my father." He directs a pointed look at the man beside him before squeezing young Éoin's shoulder. "Your dad came knocking on my door every single morning to pester your grandfather in allowing me to go on a date with him. For whole three months if you can even imagine. He was relentless. You know, I have a suspicion he was quite fond of your visits, Jules, just by the way he would let the tiniest of smiles grace his lips after banging the door on your face."

"Ha, I knew it! The pumpkin cakes with honey syrup worked. Ma was right, the way to a grump man's heart is always through his fat belly." He jokes, slapping his not-at-all fat belly. From all the heavy lifting he does all day, in the transportation of the dead, it is more than enough to keep his physique in check.

Aryn stares at him like the man just cursed the existence of the entire pantheon. "You have a death wish?! Don't let him hear you calling him fat or he just might come back to life just to haunt you."

Young Éoin sees the perfect opportunity to derail the impeding argument before it starts. "What is the other present the gods gave you, papa?" The men are both taken aback for a moment, Aryn being just about to launch himself into a lengthy argument. Throwing his husband a look that can only mean that they will continue this later, the man sighs heavily. The memories regarding Éoin's adoption are far from pretty, but he has no doubt that he and Julian were blessed.

"Well, little ember, that would be you." Giving the girl a loving look he reaches down, kissing her fluffy crown of red curls.

"Of course! Just an awesome girl like her would choose awesome dads like us. As if ever could be any doubt about that."

Éoin secretly reaches into the hidden pocket of her tunic, it takes a little maneuvering to get past all the layers of linen and fur but she eventually succeeds, her parents none the wiser while they continue to banter about some of the clients that sought the mortuary's services recently. Her cold numb fingers coil reverently around the dry piece of folded parchment, the edges already dangerously frailed from all of her handling.

The single word written on it is already seared on her brain and very soul. The simple act of reading it over and over again, or just simply touching it, is enough to calm her racing heart about the incoming ceremony. If she is honest she never really enjoyed this types of ceremonies, the ones she never have the choice to pray to the deities she likes the most.

Or at least for the only one her soul feels more connected to.

For the time being however, her words of reverence and silent nightly prayers are a secret worth keeping, even from her dads.

Beneath endless layers of rock and water, the lonely figure of Death hangs upside-down in a cocoon of Úrudum chains. Among the limitless chamber, with only darkness as company and their essence just an echo of what it once was, the faint whispers of a young girl grace the deity's ears for the first time in centuries.