[Salone]

Falling through blackness, surrounded by the infinite dark of churning ice. The void is broken by light, by bright flashes and cold tables, then returned to the black embrace of the soil, only to be disturbed once again by the dark of sky and fire. The unceremonious pyre burns away what the ice took, the remains scattering across the skies. The world turns, and the ash scatters eternal. Through famine, through prosperity, through tumultuous oceans and the continents between them, the ash bears witness to the struggles of all mankind. To the falls of empires, to the rising of others, to furious atomic desolation of those before. The winds blow the ash across all lands, and throughout the span of one hundred years the ash sees all. And throughout this span of the century, the ash does not rest. Is not allowed to rest, by its own words from when the ash was still dust that walked upon the Earth.

The ash is whirled by wind, and it flurries for a moment before it is pulled along the skies of the world. The continent rolls below it, civilization and its absence running together as it is forced upon the cityscape that is Avignon. The ash is rushed through the streets, through pipes and chimneys, tossed about and dispersed in to nothing.

With eyes that are not eyes, it observes the woman occupying the lone bedroom. With a voice that is not a voice, words formed without a throat, the emptiness speaks in a tone rendered hoarse by river and fire.

"Grigori Rasputin answers the call of the Master."

Cold grips the room at the words spoken with no mouth. Each breath with no lungs spreads small lattices of thin ice across every surface. With no body, The Ash of Rasputin bows to its Master.