~The War Lady's Vow~
"My battle vow! Vie Victus! ~no minster walls
Gave back the burning word,
Nor cress nor shrine the low deep tone
Of smothered vengeance heard:
But the ashes of a ruined home
Thrilled, as it sternly rose,
With the mingling voice of blood that shook
The midnight's dark repose.
I breathed it nae o'er kingly tombs,
But where my family lay.
And the startled vulture at my step
Soared from their precious clay.
I stood amidst my dead alone~
I kissed their lips~ I poured,
In the strong silence of that hour,
My spirit on my sword.
The roof-tree fallen, the smouldering floor,
The blackened threshold-stone,
The bright hair torn, and soiled with blood,
Whose fountain was my own;
These, and the everlasting hills,
Bore witness that wild night;
Before them rose the avenger's soul,
In crushed affection's might."
~*~a Song of Shayanna by a daughter, Edain VryceGriffinsbane~*~
Shayanna Danielle Griffinsbane
My friend, my kith and kin, one of mine Beloved...she is the founder of the Griffinsbane legacy of the Eastern lands. She is the Great Warlady of the Castle.
- "Shayanna in her idle hours had learned to make
A thousand pretty, feminine things;
For her Den Labout suited for her beautiful strong hands.
That morning she had been at work in wax,
Molding a wreath of flowers for her room~
Taking her patterns from the living blows,
In all their dewy beauty and sweet bloom
Fresh from the Forest's gardens.
Fuchsia, tulip, rose,
And trailing ivy, grew beneath her touch,
Resembling the living plants as much
As Life is copied in the form of death:
These lacking but the parfum and that, breath
And now the wreath was all completed, save
The mermaid blossom of all flowerdom,
A water-lily, dripping from the wave.
And twas in search of it that Shayanna had come
Down to the lake, beneath the glittering moonbeams,
and wandered on the beach,
To see if any lilies grew in reach.
Some broken stalks, where flowers late had been;
Some buds, with all their beauties folded in,
she found, but nae the treasure that she sought.
And then she turned her footsteps to the spot
Where, all impatient of its chain, her boat,
"The Swan" rocked, asking to be let afloat.
It was a a beautiful row boat~
strong, yet light;
Each side a swan was painted snowy white:
A present from some forgotten foe, just before
He sailed with Death, to that mysterious strand,
Where freighted ships go sailing evermore,
But none return to tell us of the Land.
Dispatched there by the Great WarLady's hand!"
----from a song of Shayanna by Edain VryceGriffinsbane