Blacktail Deer Plateau the swelling of broken violins

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armand turned his head until his cheek lay against the grasses, and fixed his eyes upon the soft verdancy set in a lovely face. her words churned about him with unwelcome cheeriness, and he rolled back to the sharp points of his spine with a low sound of annoyance. and yet her face loomed above his own, the sweetness of her tones mishandled by his bitter ears. armand softened toward the woman, and blinked, clearing the cold webs from his vision until he met her gaze once more with clarity wreathing his features. she meant no harm, this fairy-woman, who had undoubtedly sprung from some ring of violets.
but she knew not the ire he carried, nor the memory of all he had seen. "all the world is words," armand whispered up toward the dream of her face, the gunmetal and smoke wreathing into a cloud of soft down beneath which her sculpted form was clearly visible. "and all the world are devils. you -- and i -- we are no different."
armand lifted himself upon until his haunches met the earth -- the boy's head spun and he gasped aloud, a short sound upon which he quickly closed his teeth. "the blood that beats in my veins; the heart that beats in my chest! yes! all these things hurt me," he growled, raising his head to regard her with a pair of sunken eyes set like glittering night into the skeletal narrowness of his feminine face. "if there is a hell, then i am in it."[/tr][/td][/table]