(Scars do not appear to be cause of death –shock ... - Bad Request

slowly bled into her pale irises until her eyes were a brilliant shade of green.
"Your eyes... can you see now, Yvana?"
She nodded, smiling, and her skirts swished as she left.
Art galleries have a habit of attracting the worst pretenders, who make a
habit of studying art for the sake of pomp. I found myself becoming one of
them, crossing my arms and tapping my lips and trying to act as if I knew
what to look for.
The abstract paintings weren't nearly as interesting as the sculptures. A ruby
statuette... a battle-horn that begged to be blown. Whoever came up with
the old apothegm of "feel with your eyes, not with your hands" had
obviously never met a Sensate.
I didn't leave a single painting or statue unmolested, and I had been
beginning to do the same with the sculptures and other oddities when I
came across “The Dark Birds of Ocanthus”.
It was composed of several shards of black crystal - or ice - swirling within
the freezing wind that the ornate pedestal gave forth. Each shard looked
razor sharp; touching or grabbing one was perilous, but curiosity got the
better of me.
As I reached out to grab one of the whirling shards, my fingers entered the
icy wind that rose from the pedestal. Instantly, a coat of numbing frost
formed around them, and I momentarily drew back.
I took it as a challenge.
With a determined grunt I thrust my hand into the frigid, numbing wind.
Unbeknownst to me, my entire hand froze solid as I wrapped it around one
of the Dark Birds. As another of the black shards spun into my fist, my hand
broke off at the wrist with a sharp crack and went clattering across the
galleria floor.
My jaw dropped as I stared dumbly at the clean plane of my wrist squirting
blood over the floor. As soon as I recovered, I picked up my frost-covered
fist and stuck it back onto the bleeding stump. The Dark Bird I grabbed - a
razor-sharp shard of black ice - had already melted away to nothing. It
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