Lyre

The smell hung heavy in the air, sweet thick, and potent to Lyre's nostrils. He knew that, though they were inhaling it, no one else in the entire great dining hall could smell it. Lyre craned his neck slightly, over the dining table, so that he could better see the source of the aroma. It was a young woman with dark brown hair flowing down her back and even darker eyes. Her skin was also darker and more weathered-looking than anyone else seated at the table. She sat at the head of the table, that was closest to the fire. She never smiled, her face staying stoney and impassive her eyes gliding over the room like that of a Hawk's. The smell that emanated from her was the smell of lies and deceit, so strong and overpowering that Lyre found it extremely hard to focus. There was another faint scent in the air that he could not discern. One that was sour and repugnant. It was not of lies and he did not know of the smells that were not lies. He had been in Atrathra for 19 years, although if you counted all of his previous lifetimes, that he had lived here, and his time in the spirit world, Udici, then he was precisely 5223 years old. Lyre didn't like to think of his age, often, it was normal to have lived for thousands of years in Udici, but in Atrathra where creatures truly lived, it was not. All spirits felt the pull of life from Atrathra and longed to permanently live there, but not all of them could; for it was not easy to pass through the red gate. Lyre had done it, and a few others. Spirits in Atrathra were like gods, adorned with horns and claws and all the marks that had been left behind from their many previous lives. Lyre, himself, had the head of a tufted deer, from his third life. He was very aware of all the things around him and had a good eye, from his second life as a guard of the Prison City of Aringorn, in the third age. He was slightly sensitive to too much sound, from his short time as a Gilt Head Bream, a type of fish in the Smouldering Seas, for it was silent beneath the waves, a kind of silence that he missed dearly. And of course, the strange powers he had gained, the ability to smell lies.

To Be Continued