It had been a cold day - leading into a night that was colder still, the sky black as pitch and contrasting cruelly with the pallid snow. In the moonless night, the flakes of ice fell relentlessly upon the Lady's unprotected head.
She had been sitting there for quite some time, now...long before the snowfall had begun. Her thoughts had been allowed to wander, unchecked, over the painful thoughts of her past.
Her fault...her fault....
"It was all my fault...." Her hand tightened around the scissors, the old, blood-stained metal threatening to cut into her fingers. The silky, fraying violet ribbon mingled with her bandages, creating a pallet of red, silver, black and white.
If she hadn't been there...if she never knew them....
"...They could have survived...."
The Lady stood slowly, staggering forward without her cane. She dropped the rest of the box, letting the odds and ends fall away...only the scissors remained, pressed into her hand.
"...I can't reconcile...."
She rushed forward suddenly, darting around a thick tree trunk and shutting her eyes. The flood of memories was too strong now,and she was falling into them....
The snow had melted away, shifting and blurring into a modest little music room - white sheets of music covered the floor, stained red in places.
Vincira let out a scream, drowning in her thoughts. She jerked her gaze down to stare at the scissors - blood and rust and ribbon and bandage - then past the scissors where a little girl lay upon the ground, deathly still.
"Wait - who...who is that? She's...no, no," the Lady staggered to and fro, completely confused and bewildered. Her wings fluttered erratically behind her,the pendant around her neck blinking brightly. Her vision was clouding - images darted before her, then shattered away again.
For the moment, she again saw the little girl, looking up at her doefully. She moved up close to where she lay, crimson, tear-filled eyes belying the brightness of the true form before her.
"...I'm going to help you now...I won't let myself...I...I'm going to help you...." She bent down, struggling to lift the form onto the top of the...stone? No, it was a piano...the images flashed back and forth with maddening speed and reality, forcing Vincira to her knees amongst the...feathers? No! Sheets of music!
It was then that she heard them...relentless, pounding footfalls, each beat causing a flicker in her pendant.
One - her wings folded back in a protective gesture.
Two - her eyes wrenched shut, a soft hiss of anger escaping her gritted teeth.
Three - the beats were slowing...they were circling her...
Four - she rose into a crouch, the hand with the scissors clenching and buckling...
Five.
KA-SHINK!
Vincira had pushed to her feet, whipping around to sink the scissors into her taunting company - but the images shattered so effectively together, it was as if a piece of film was being torn apart being run through the projector.
The figure was knocked back against the piano, just beside the...glowing, white...no, the little girl...the scissors had been plunged into the metal vest beneath the...stone? No! There was a person there! There was! But now she could see only that she had jammed the scissors into a glimmering stone, with a glimmering form atop it. But that was the little girl! She saw her! She was there! This stone was a piano!
Confused, the Lady staggered back, falling into a blissful oblivion as the scissors took on a blinding glow....
The music room was gone.
So was the stone with the fallen Herald.
So was everything else.
