The Duke of Doves

In the cold, quiet halls of the Mountain, the Duke of Doves stirs. His shrouded heavy head rising from under sheets of purple silk which slowly fall away. He is the first of the guardians the Ancients left behind them as they journeyed upwards, and he has lain silent and sleeping for many years. Yet for the first time in a long eon he senses something: An entrance. It is enough to wake him and enough perhaps even to invigorate him sufficiently to remember the reason for which he was created. In the cold, quiet halls he feels life creep over him like the fingertips of a lover tracing over the dozing body of her man.