Lord of What? Pt. 2

        Darkness flowed around Moonshadow.  It surged through the gaps of consciousness, caressing her frantic mind as she fought against the tide.
        And suddenly it was gone.  
        She lifted her head and looked around, before her was a tall tower but it stood on nothing, for around it was nothing. No landscape, no back-drop just unending darkness.  The tower gleamed icily, as if touched by light, and yet she could not find the source.  
        She had to get to that tower!  
        Walking quickly she stepped towards the building, as if drawn to it.  A thought suddenly came to her that maybe she could find a way inside and away from this nightmare, and get away from the forest.
        What had happened there?  She could not remember but soon her thoughts were too focused on the tower to care.  She came to a halt at its bottom and began looking for a door through which she might go, but even walking around the entire thing revealed nothing.  She became somewhat worried; she had to get into the tower!  
        She just had to!  
        Why?  Asked a small piece of her mind, what is in the tower?  She ignored the voice.  Stepping back, she looked up.  There at the top of the tower was a spire.  Perhaps there is a door at the top. she thought.  She opened her wings and felt a cool breeze ruffle the flashing silver feathers.  Just as she was about to jump into the arms of this heavy air, she remembered something.  She looked at her outstretched wings, the feathers glowing in their normal silver circlet.  Nothing was wrong with… suddenly it came to her that her feathers had changed color, or that the color had been taken from them, for the indigo feathers that enabled the shadow portion of her flight were missing.  There instead was a pair of solid silver wings.
        What’s going on?!  She looked around as if someone were watching her and noticed that the blackness was changing.  It no longer swayed silently around her, instead it began to gather in front of her, and then suddenly, the tower disappeared.  
        She stepped back becoming frightened.  The darkness bled into a pool of shadow, swirling into a single mass.  It shifted before her eyes and she suddenly saw the shape within the madness.
        “Well it would seem that perhaps the choice was yours after all.”  That voice!  Moonshadow glared as the owner of that deep bell voice strode forward, his black cloak swishing at his feet.
        “Sir,” she spat, “tell me where I am then please kindly return me to where I once was, and,” she waved furiously at her changed wings, “return the color to my feathers!”
        The man in front of her stood silently while she ranted.  Moonshadow let her demand stay in the air, retracting nothing out of either courtesy or fear.  She did not care that it was Lord Death himself who stood before her, and neither did she fear how he might respond to such words.
To her, a woman of Rowenden, a place where your name and wings were one in the same, nothing could be worse than their loss, or even partial loss.  Without the deep blue, her wings meant simply, Moon, and the loss of shadow’s touch was beginning to weigh heavily on her heart.
        She glowered across the now grey space at where the dark one stood.  His face remained expressionless and his body still.  The only difference from before was that now his cloak and feathers were fluttering in an unseen wind, one that did not touch Moonshadow.
        “You are in Meyal-Ka, the gate to the After-world.”  Moonshadow stiffened at the sound of his rich voice, but continued to glare.
        “Where is this gate then?”
        “It was and is here”, he replied calmly, “To you it would have appeared as a tall gleaming tower, one with no door around the base or middle but one at the pinnacle, where wings make it easily accessible.”  Death looked straight at her with another piercing fiery gaze, though when she offered no comment he continued, clasping his hands behind his back he began to walk around the grey space.  “The gate eventually draws everyone to it; there is no turning back, no escaping.  There is only one way to free yourself, though the affect is usually permanent, I have only seen several who have managed it.”  He glanced up as if from thought.  
        “As each person approaches the gate, they remember nothing of their past, and have no thoughts of the future.  Wounds are healed, the week, are given strength, in other words, all the means to find and enter the gate.  And I say find, for it must be entered willingly, and that is where the trick comes.  None would enter the gate willingly if they remembered where it led to; this is why loss of memory is necessary.”  
        Moonshadow caught herself nodding and quickly ceased. Seeing this, Lord Death smiled, but returned to his explanation.  “Though all memory is lost only a small portion remains, that is the part that deals with our appearance.  Before each person enters the gate, a small portion of his or her appearance is changed.  The shift is usually minute for in it lays the key to freedom.  By recognizing the change in oneself the person is able to break the gate’s pull and ultimately, is able to escape its fate.”  
        He stopped his pacing and looked up.  “I will remind you of what I said before, that only several have ever broken the pull and received their freedom.  This was in fact a little less than the truth, at this moment there are only two people who have ever succeeded, you Lady are the second,” he bowed to her in congratulations, and then he looked into her eyes and continued, “and I am the first.”