violins are polished with petals and memories

violins are polished with petals and memories:

Sitting on the withered flowers, a Goliath lay. His back was arched over a fallen tree, eyes glaring glossy at the tinted and cracked the glass ceiling. The flowing frame of the ceiling was made of citrus copper bending with carved blots of metal. The windows were tinted ruby red but nothing could be seen through the ashen snow delicately resting on the glass outside. The place itself was a large hall with seats piled high in a semicircle, only parted down the middle by a once-grand mahogany door with a dried coat of varnish and carvings of instruments on its every inch. Some of the carvings were oh so beautiful, carved with such detail and eloquence. However, some appeared to be a mad scrawl of a claw or blunted knife loosely based on the look of a stringed instrument. From the door straight to where the Goliath rested was an elevated stage with a small plot of soil in the middle where a bountiful tree had once stood (now nothing but a rotting log). There were stools and holsters where instruments once perched in a loom of sound. But now all that was left were flowers, hundreds of flowers stamped and sleeping on the ground, some half-alive holding on to a semblance of colour and others petrified white and matte black oozing putrid oil like a cursed chessboard of rotten petals.

 The hall was silent for a time, no bug or beast dared move but through the jagged cracks in the high ceiling where drops of icy water wandered down onto the stage pinching the Goliath with the burning cold. He placed one of his mammoth hands over his face, which was covered by a barred and rusted helm, and he sat up his body cracking and splintering into place as if he was a frozen birch tree. His eyes, not particularly focused on any one thing in the hall, simply gazed bluntly with dark cherry red eyes. Uncoiling his hands like colossal basilisks, he reached for his nape feeling as if to check the skin was still there. It was there! It was about the only area in which any amount of a person could be detected. His skin was white as the snow outside and baked in dried blood, as his collar seemed to have been ripped open by an awfully sharp object. In a sudden way he stood up, feet stamping the floor as he leapt from the log. Then the silence was truly broken by an enormous echo bouncing and ricochetting off the hall being caught by every empty chair.

 Exposed in low light the Goliath was fully visible as if hopping from fantasy to reality. Although nothing about him looked particularly real. He was draped in a furry and matted pelt with dull ebony hide covering his skin. His feet were bare, dirty and cracked to look like aged bark stumps. The man's clothes had an odd hodgepodge of armour clinging onto the hide. Patches of chain mail with different rings and colours were netted together like a spider's web. A cracked plate protruded from his elbows with belts and rusted chains tied to his hands and legs. The Goliath glanced to his side and saw three items laid neatly placed upon each other:  a walnut wood box with shining brass metal simply covering its corners, a small yellow roll of parchment sealed with a delicate strip of golden fabric and a Verdant wax seal at its centre and finally a colossal long sword serrated with cracks and breaks like the jaw of a great drake. Although more peculiarly to the other side of him was a fourth object: a white sheet with crimson spills masking something underneath. The Goliath picked up the box. But before he opened it, he pounced on his blade. He heard running footsteps down the hall. Someone was coming.

The mahogany door swung open revealing a knight dressed in platinum armour engraved with shimmering red gemstones. His grand helm cut like a crown being pulled off by a boy, not past his sixteen winters. He glared at the Goliath as if staring into a cruel sun, tears welling in his eyes. For a moment, just a moment, no one moved. No words needed to be spoken. This was a vengeance brewed from the blood that rested in the Goliath and his sword. Finally, the boy unsheathed his blade and charged, shaking with rage he swung at the Goliath’s head. But the blade was caught in the gaps of the serrated longsword. In a single twist, the boy was on the floor with his blade out of sight. 

“BASTARD, THIEF” the boy bellowed “YOU TOOK EVERYTHING, ULV THE BUTCH”. Before The words had left his lips, the long sword had found itself in the boy's head, jammed into his eye socket. He did not bother pulling the words out. After all, there was no honour to be found in it. 

It was so sudden that the duel might not have happened at all. Ulv didn’t seem to linger on the kill. Instead, he went back to the walnut wood box finally daring to open it. He moved to the grooves of the box pulling delicately up. The box was lined with plum scarlet fabric covering an incredible glimmering violin.

It was so sudden that the duel might not have happened at all, the Butcher didn’t seem to linger on the kill. Only then, through the open door could they be seen: bodies piled into verboten stacks, knights, barbarians and anything in between. He simply tossed the boy’s bodies outside of the hall and went back to the walnut wood box finally daring to open it as if it was more difficult than killing a man. He moved to the grooves of the box pulling delicately up. The box was lined with plump scarlet fabric covering an incredible glimmering violin. He dared not touch it. He delicately placed the box down before ripping off his hide gloves to show his sullied hands. They were cracked and cut with no skin colour with purple and pink scarring of blades and time. His nails were broken and non-existent from finger to finger with his palm painted with sooty black sores. Worst of all was the way they stuttered and shook without rhyme or reason. Ulver whipped his hands on the matted pelt and finally reached... for the angelic violin.

He gripped it tightly. The rosewood violin barely fitted in his monstrous claws Its elegant curves and the obsidian black segment was resting out of place with the giant. His hands stuttered as he reached for the bow. The unicorn hair wires were splintering at their ends and the wood was unsure like a pet remembering its owner. For a brief eternity he waited, the bow pressed to string, but there was no sound to be found. His hands shook more now and tears began to well in Ulv’s eyes. 

Finally bowing the violin, a sound erupted from the stage. 

It wasn’t beautiful or elegant. It was a random amalgam of death tone screeches and pitiful play. He fell to his knees; his face unchanging but tears flowed like a volcano through his rusted helm. His mouth opened wide as if trying to pull poetry out of a minotaur, and finally, a whisper was forced out, 

“I’m sorry little ox”. The violin fell from his now loose hand and he hobbled to the aged roll of parchment. Unravelling it, to surely read again:

“To Ulver B Penter, first King's Musick,

I hope this letter finds you in good health Ulver. News of your concert has spread all through the Warren and even to some of the chiefs in the wilds. I know you're ready and with a strong mind. I’ve already started heading to the castle and cannot wait to hear your song and see you again. Love you - you big oath 

Yours forever, Lily O Penter”

By the time his eyes had unlatched from the last word, his tears had shifted to steam with no trace of ever existing. Ulver moved steadily past the old tree to the white sheet. Pulling it off revealed a dead girl. She looked like she had been dead for ages, but oddly enough no rot dared touch her. The only scarring on her was a small bloody hole in her chest and a stone lodged through her head. He brushed his massive fingers through her wild brown hair, his hand is the size of her head. Her skin was white as a northern bear, hIS eyes shut with messy lashes sprinkled all over. Ulver took one final look at her, his beloved Lily, and stamped her skull flat. He picked up the violin, crushed it under his feet and went to the body of the boy he killed and gutted him like a fish. He removed his helm, filling it with the bloody elixir. Donning his cursed crimson crown, he walked to the door. What good was it to cling to a memory that can never be again?– What good was it to yearn for the lost when all that is left is war.

“I can't remember when I could feel my beating heart. I can’t remember a time before blood.I can’t remember a time with you.”

And he left the hall, a monster with no name or memory, only lilies clinging to his feet.