Vyntacular

The neckline was a jagged plunge, revealing the curve of her breast and the glistening glass prison which held the ruined pieces of her heart. The slow beating muscle was held together by nothing more than magic and the fractures that ran through it were visible to all. Rosalie stared at herself in the mirror as her fingers brushed the cool glass. She had been like this ever since she could remember. No one ever told her how her heart had been broken when she was so very young, but could they hide the damage. Her feelings were different from most, subdued and sometimes hollow, and doctors had warned her that anything else might cause her hea

They called her The Queen with the Broken Crown, Primadona of the Opera. Rose petals rained in her wake while men and women alike swooned for her passing smile. Rosalie fit this role like a glove. Charismatic, beautiful, and blessed with a voice that rang like the clearest of bells. It was like she'd been made for this. The stage was like home. What else was there? Sitting in the makeup chair, Rosalie admired herself in the mirror as her attendants fluttered around her like worried little birds. They fussed over everything until not a hair was out of place. No smudges in her make up, red lips perfect as a polished apple. Wild red hair fell

Inside the vast corridor the darkness gradually fades into light and, through the light, come revelations. And confusion. Another form is granted to him, one both with substance and flesh… and also with limitations and pain. Pain that is no longer just a memory. The sort of pain that comes with life, with a body that can be damaged and ruined. There were benefits to being an unfeeling wraith but even more to being alive and to be able to feel. In the darkness he allows himself time to adjust to the sensation of taut skin stretched over brittle bone and thick bandages binding flesh. When he emerges at last into an open space filled wi

"Good luck, idiot." Zanshi stood at the edge of the tournament grounds. He'd been granted access to the challenge but just him. The one who had shown him the way, mostly by her own choice, had decided she wouldn't pursue life. 'Been here too long,' she'd explained, 'and maybe I deserved it just a bit more than a moron like you.' In the short time that he'd known her Zanshi had concluded this was her way of showing affection, or at very least, kindness. He probably did deserve it more than she did, but that didn't make him any happier at the thought of having to leave her here. "If I don't make it, what's the worst that will happen?" "You

II. AFTERLIFE Zanshi woke. It was not something he ever expected to do again. It took time to adjust to seeing through the burial mask, but he was content to sit still and wait. It took time to process all of this. He knew, without a doubt, that he was dead but what he didn't understand was how he was here. It was too hard to forget that he'd been torn to shreds and, by all rights of his priesthood, he should not have been able to materialize in the land of the dead without a body to materialize in. Yet here he was. The dry-cracked landscape broken by monolithic structures that defied perspective and logic, drought-resistant trees like gnarl