~Prologue~

The sky was a tapestry of grey and gloom. The city itself and the buildings were left drenched in a morose design of apathetic and monotone shades to compete and match the sky. Overcast and hazy the sidewalk itself seemed eclipsed in a hardly tangible filigree of fog and soot, smoke and shadows. The solitaire figure that walked and kicked at the cobblestones with shining black boots had to wonder if perhaps this was what the end of days must be like. So desolate and so still and yet she felt not an ounce of despair or loneliness.

If at any other time the girl would have whistled or found some cheerful song to compete and shatter the silence but not today. Time seemed to have stopped. Time itself seemed to be waiting to take one deep breath in order to learn again just what it was to breathe.

A tilt of head and a lift of eyes brought the forecast to clarity as another drop of rain decorated her pale dainty nose. It was a conquest to consider if it was really worth the time to compete with the rain. Then again, she always did love a challenge. A dimpled smile touched her lips as ivory gloved fingers curled delicately around the handle of the umbrella. With a shake it was lifted up towards the gloom dusted clouds and for a moment the girl mirrored everything so perfectly in her very own shades of grey, ivory, and jet black.

It would have been a perfect vision of ink dust memories and broken dream landscapes if not for those fatal flaws she was damned to possess. One by birth and one by choice.

She bit back a gleeful laugh that was threatening to spill into a stage of near childlike giggles as the rain drenched horizon exploded in a flourish of color as simultaneously a blood red umbrella was opened while the hood of the girl?s cloak descended to her shoulders to reveal a shining mane of crimson.

It was just a spill of color to prove not all was lost from a girl more prone to wander then to feel just so lost.

No reason to feel ever so lost if only for the wonder and the wander that would prevail in the spirit of the girl. She just couldn?t resist the pull.

It was just a whim after all? a fanciful little whim? just like the girl herself used to be.