His hands move, restless now, the cards turned, divided, sifted, split, shuffled again.

Pushing all the thoughts from his mind as he stares into the swaying, slow dance of the flames, beyond them, into the distance, no sight to be seen.

"Oh don't talk of love" the shadows purr Murmuring me away from you "Don't talk of worlds that never were The end is all that's ever true There's nothing you can ever say Nothing you can ever do..."

No, better not to think of such things. His road is meant to be tread alone, his own feelings and wants not meant to be a factor. A touch is enough to set things in motion. He is but the vessel, a tool of sorts. What should happen if that touch were laid to one his heart leaned towards and doom befall...

The cards are cut. Set down the deck, his fingers touching the top card, and the dark eyes fall closed again.

Still every night I burn Every night I scream your name Every night I burn Every night the dream's the same

This time the vision is different. A Hunter, a predator among predators, stalking his prey...a Hunter herself...a deadly, spiraling dance, words of death spoken in a land set afire by the sun. Threads, bright and golden and dark and red, bonds of burning blood between them. For a moment, it seems, the threads are nearly cut, a moment when the life and death of either might be altered irreparably...and from the darkness, the unmistakable cry of the crow, the bird of omen and memory beckoning the Hunter to find the Tempest he's been looking for.

He opens his eyes, ebon eyes, settled upon the face of the card before his eyes.

The Lovers.

Every night I burn Waiting for my only friend Every night I burn Waiting for the world to end

For a moment, his eyes settle upon the paired lovers. The male figure a darker shade, the woman entwined with him lighter, a fall of windblown black strands, her head turning to look his way, a flash of blue so brilliant it pulls at his heart...

The card falls from his fingers, landing face down on the table before him.

Just as well.

"Just paint your face" the shadows smile Slipping me away from you "It does not matter how you hide, We'll find you if we're wanting to..."

He had tried to hide, at first. The first time he touched, the first time he saw...everything...the need for justice to be satisfied, a burning that took over his mind and heart. Feeling that were his...and yet, were not.

It didn't matter. No matter how or where he hid, he could not escape the visions before his very eyes.

Just like now, as he sits in the Glen, gazing at the starlit sky.

He's put the cards away - lovers haunted his sight, the strangest flickering visions of heat and hope that he cannot grasp for himself.

The burning woman and her dark hunter, their souls separated by death, and from the first moment of new life seeking each other again.

A trio of figures, black and twisted, anger and rage and blood lust their common ground, but bound together by that same force of love, a triangle meant to be completed.

Feline shapes, entwined and shifting to dusky human lovers, and in the same moment another pair, wolf and woman. All afraid of being torn asunder, and yet for the power they have they do not see the unbreakable chains that will forever bind them to each other, no matter the events of their lives.

A man on fire with rage at all that had been lost, with regret that he had become what he hated most, and blind to the path that leads him to a beautiful belle that dances with the shadowy forms that surround her. Not understanding that it was all part of a plan.

And so many others.

"So just lie back down and close your eyes Sleep a while, you must be tired..."

Settling back, he closes his eyes again. Rest, perhaps, is needed, even for those whom Death had claimed.

For the moment, the visions stay away, as if they realize that he has seen enough of other lives, other paths.

The warm, womblike little death of sleep comes to claim him, dragging him into its grasp and holding him in to its bosom, pulling him along.

And every night I burn Every night I call your name Every night I burn Every night I fall again

Just before he is pulled away, the name comes to his lips, a soft murmur that is half plea, half summoning call to the stars, a name that is at once familiar and foreign to him.

"Skalde..."

Sleep brings dreams, as always. Dark dreams, and yet pleasant. His reward for doing as promised, even though he'd not known the price he would pay.

Not the Harbinger he is, but instead the human he was, alive and vital and content, the woman in his arms young and carefree, her long raven hair unbound, brilliant sapphire jewels of eyes that look up at him with a smile of perfect happiness. Her ivory skin a sharp contrast to his dusky red-brown as he pulls her up in his arms, their lips meeting in a tender, loving embrace...

...just before it shifts, and she is gone, stolen away, all that is left are onyx feathers fluttering to the earth.

And every night I burn Scream the animal scream Every night I burn Dreaming the crow black dream...

The raucous cry of a crow in the night, its voice somehow sad and heartbroken. His heart aches at the sound, the pain of all that was once human felt as acute as if he lived again. The shift of dreams has left him laying in the grass, under the nighttime sky, and as he lays there he sees it.

The crow, ebon black against ebon black, floating on unseen currents, closer and closer.

And just before it reaches him, that dreamlike shift again, and there she is, the lovely, willowy shape of the woman that has haunted his visions since rebirth.

Raven strands of windblown hair, the ivory skin and heart-rending beautiful blue of her eyes looking down into his as he stares back at her, enraptured, so vividly real that a bizarre part of him thinks that this can't be a dream...