Minnesang of Love and Lament

Minnesang of Love and Lament is an Artifact in the set A Day Carved From Rising Winds.

Description

Blood-red wine gleamed in golden cups, water-hued jade lay upon pale braids.
Bare feet no longer treaded slivers of silver snow; only slivered silver fell about her feet like snow.
Beneath the shadow of the towering spire, amidst a prison of delusive enchantment, the huntress believed herself cherished by a tyrant.
Consider the wandering craftsman who proffered to her a mechanical singing bird of pure gold, begging only for his life.
Both his hands were shorn by her King's cold, sharp wind, lest such a toy ever be made again for another's delight.

When the bloodline, steeped in ancient ignorance, bowed down to the wrathful wind, offering her like a sacrifice to the king of the spire,
The huntress, who once roosted with owls on withered boughs and danced with hawks across the plains,
Knew not that the Lord of Wind, feared by all, would elevate her to the place of favored counsel, so skilled was she with the bow.
Before she met her king, she knew not the tenderness of love, nor the searing sting of hate.
Before she met her king, no human heart had ever stirred the huntress treading the plains.

If there are those born with dreams of kindness and liberty, yearning to cleave the wind-wrought wall of desolation with their song,
And if even gods may be ensnared by their own delusion and conceit, doomed to drown in the barren dream called eternity,
Then there are those, born wanting, only able to fill their hollow hearts with blind devotion.

"My beloved master... Save you, none have shown me gentle dreams."
"Neither the kiss of waves upon sand, nor greenwood's embrace of verdant earth."

The fierce wind never reflected the suffering of cowering ants,
And she beheld none but the lonely figure of the God King.
For her master and savior, who taught her the meaning of love,
It was fitting that those fearful, loathing eyes were quenched.

However—

It mattered not the victories she offered to her king,
How many throats she pierced in his dungeons,
How many rebel villages lay in ruins,
How many times whispers were gently spoken in his ear...
The king, enthroned atop the spire, crowned by the fierce wind,
Who scorned, oppressed, and indulged each of his subjects,
Never poured upon her the love he spoke of.
Never was he miserly in the love given to the commoners —
That fierce wind that could tear mortal flesh.

Awoken from blind devotion, she realized she was the only one who spoke with sincerity.
From the first meeting, and all the days between,
Her likeness was never mirrored in the depths of his eyes.

Yes, yes, if even dances offered beneath the veil of wind and gentle whispers could not earn her a moment of his gaze,
If all bloodied glory and the delight of slaughter could not make him look only upon her...

Then let his gaze linger forever upon the moment her image was seared into it.
This she could grasp, the sole treasure worthy of repaying the King's love.
This alone, of all that he had shown, might rightly be named as love indeed.
For he spoke of love, but was only accompanied by razor winds.

"My beloved master... Save you, my heart shall love no other."
"So I beg you — look only upon me, none but me."

— Thus spoke one, a mortal knowing naught of love, to a god who could not know it.
Even in the moment they tore each other apart, neither had ever truly known the other's heart.

Trivia

Etymology

• Minnesang was a tradition of German lyric- and song-writing that flourished in the Middle High German period (12th to 14th centuries).

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A Day Carved From Rising Winds Artifacts Flower of Life Windborne Flower's Spruchdichtung Plume of Death Dawn's Brilliant Oath Sands of Eon A Note in Spring's Leich Goblet of Eonothem Heldenepos's Unspoken Tale Circlet of Logos Minnesang of Love and Lament