All except for that one fixation of attention and presence, the small metallic band that was slowly being twisted between this person's fingertips. It was apparently a ring, fashioned of gold, of course meant to be worn on a finger...but this ring could not have fit on the fingers of its bearer. The ring was far too small in diameter to have fit on any of this person's fingers.

Unnoticed before, but directly in the line of site of this huddled figure in the corner, was a small shape on a far shelf, up and across from the previously observed chair and table. This shape alone was the only item that had been crafted with skill, seeming to have been carved with great care and investment of time. It was covered with a glass protection, sealing in an image of a young woman. She sat, smiling outwards, teeth bright and hair and eyes vibrant. Her eyes seemed to possess some thirst for the quality of life that was so bereft in the portrait's present surroundings.

What is assumed to be a man sat staring intently at this portrait, a portrait of a woman entirely unidentifiable to anyone in this realm. Apparently it was her ring he now clung to, languidly watching the shards of firelight reflect from its spherical surface. The eyes of the man bore directly through the absent center of the ring, directly though this view to the portrait of the woman, his entire essence intent on both the person and her possession.

Now, what was lacking before was now clearly evident--a deep longing and desire, of things past and presently absent, of feelings now too cold to be revived, and of unfathomable loss. The eyes of this man held the intensity of an abyss, and this abyss had long been looking back.

So here now, in this place, he had cast himself aside, to live out some self-enforced punishment or mourning that appeared to be, for all that is known, a permanent state meant only to end in an eternal end. Perhaps an end where peace can finally be found in utter nothingness, or a peace that reunites him with what he lost.