It was a dark, moody day in early November. Rain painted the window in futile attempts to get in, and an elderly woman with dark grey hair and deep blue eyes sat by the fire, her knitting forgotten in her lap. She gazed out the window, seemingly lost in thought. Her eyes were blank, but reflected the light of the stars outside and the beautifully sad clouds. She grunted quietly and leaned all her weight upon a crooked stick, it's bark oddly black, with sharp angles and a glimmering quality deep in the wood. Her knuckles turned white with exertion as she slowly rose upwards. She was very old, but tall, and carried herself with the musty air of a princess. Her eyes were larger than anything that was strictly average, and their dark blue color was striking against her pale skin. They reminded you of a cresting wave, churning and salty, a spark of sadness obscured in their mysteriously dark depths. She could have been beautiful if it weren't for the burn mark and scar that covered the left half of her face, obscuring sight in one of her ethereally beautiful eyes.

She moved towards the front door, opening it slowly. The thunderstorm outside flashed and shrieked. Her face was brought to life within the thunder, her scar glowing in the wild, sparking air, a rabid quality appearing as she gazed face-on into the savage cesspool of snow and thunder. The old woman trudged outside, no house to be seen for miles, feet crunching in the restless snow, her face angled towards a hill not far off, where an oil-black trunk resided above the wind and weather. It was the residue of a long dead tree, it's color a deep ebony, identical to the stick she still held. Memories lashed through her skull in torrents, aching and deep. Still, she trudged forward, feet scrabbling for purchase on the steep incline. The clouds above twisted and wrenched through the sky, and she couldn't hear herself breathe over the screaming of the wind, tossing of the snow, and the bellowing of the thunder.

78 years earlier

She woke.

Clouds surrounded her. She seemed to be sitting with her back to the trunk of a tree, it's clawed branches groped down towards her. It was black. Her darkly colored hair snaked around in the silent wind, tangled and rippling. The tree she sat against was the only living object for miles, as far as she could see, the ground was covered in white, sparkling snow. The wind whistled and moaned about the moor, it's achingly sad dirge the only voice around her. She tried to stand, but found that she couldn't. Looking down, there wasn't anything securing her to the ground or trunk, but she couldn't move. That's when she noticed she was on top of a hill, the single difference in the landscape for as far as her eyes could see.

She began to fade into hysteria. She had no memory of who she was, she couldn't move, and she was stuck in the middle of a moor, the only living object an obsidian tree, which she was invisibly chained to. She began to scream. Her voice seemed to ache, and the first time she called out it was nothing more than a whisper, echoing about the throbbingly white landscape until it died away. She lost track of how long she screamed, tears rushing down her face, freezing against her skin in the cold air, until her voice was nothing more than a whisper. She cried herself to sleep, terrified and confused.

Four years later

It was morning. The girl woke for the millionth time, the strangely familiar landscape hurting her eyes. She wondered how many times she had woken up here, each day greeted with the same weather, the same circumstances, the same events. But this morning...there was something different. Broiling black clouds gathered in the west, rapidly moving towards her. She gazed at them intently, hoping beyond hope that this change in the weather could bring salvation. They moved towards her, thunder rumbling in the distance, glinting upon her face. Then all at once, the peace was shattered, and the storm was right on top of her, thrashing, churning, the rain slashing down in torrents, but she was chained, but she was alive, and it was something different, and tears raced down her face, her throat aching with her cries of exhilaration, and lightning flashed about her, but that one strike was too close- and then it all went black.

She woke facedown. Her head was lanced with pain, a pain so bright she cried out. The storm was gone. But...she wasn't against the tree. She wasn't...against...the tree. She was free. She stood shakily, tears rushing down her face as the left half of her face throbbed, the pain like tens of thousands of hot knives scraping along her face. She screamed, falling to her knees, gazing at the dark blood that dropped from her eye, melting and staining the snow. That was when she noticed, she was blind in her left eye. She stood again, clasping her arms and shivering. Looking up, she was still upon the hill, and a crimson stain littered the snow where she had lain. But next to her...the cursed tree...it was nothing but a stump. A black, ebony, charred stump. She cried out to the heavens, her voice lifting in happiness, until it faded into sobs and she fell to the ground.

The curse was lifted, but what curse still remained? She had no memory. She was stranded upon a moor. And the only object she had ever known, was splinters.