After Tilda spent a few decades in the dark forests of what would later become today’s Germany she traveled on to Austria, hearing of another immortal soul. Curious as to why someone else had been granted the same favour, the same curse, that once fell upon her and her siblings she searched for this other person. The trail brought her to the small village Skagen, the northernmost part of Denmark in the late 19th. century. But the person she was searching for had already left the scene. Tilda encountered many artists in Skagen, discovering her own love for creating - poems not paintings - and for the first time she heard of those that belong to covens of the Luna.
From Skagen her search led her to London where, in 1889, she met a young man called Riley Ashford. Upon first glance Tilda realised that Riley had a strong and powerful soul, magic cursing through his veins. She was growing weaker, she needed a sacrifice, a soul she could carry to Death for a few more decades on this earth. She needed to become a Reaper once more. And Riley Ashford, confused by his own magic, crippled by self-doubt and depression, was the perfect soul for that. He was young, he was strong, he was close to the edge. She only needed to take his soul, deliver it to the underworld, feed upon his magic and the gifts granted by Death.
Their love was passionate, dangerous. It burned like a flame, but too fast, too strong. In a short amount of time it had devoured everything, dwindling, dying. And once again the light disappeared leaving her with a starless sky.
Alduin was the lightning to her storm, over and over again. A powerful force that rushed into Tilda’s life and never really let go of her. She sees part of that in Riley, but he is a single lightning stroke, where Alduin was thunderous destruction, nothing compared to the great power and great love she felt such a long time ago. It is not history repeating itself but a mere whisper, a shadow of what has once been. And yet it leaves both of them breathless.
In the end she did not reap Riley’s soul. In the end he recovered from these lost years of shadows and went on to become a powerful (and feared by his enemires) member of the Luna coven. And Tilda found a different witch to sacrifice. Her initial goal of finding the other immortal has not been fullfilled but the years in England have given her a safe space, a sanctum, she can return to whenever the eternal knights are too close on her heel.
AU(s):
And our soft whisper lives on... - Riley’s and Tilda’s passionate love affair has produced another child, Edith Morris, Baroness of Ashford / Nephele Stormbringer. In this version of the verse Tilda reaches London several decades earlier.
