On a Darkfall Night

The rain.....

It comes, and comes and comes, sometimes by wind, others just by gravity, but it seems never ending. I do not notice really, it makes moving though just about anywhere, easier. Washing away my scent, covering my light steps, the relentless grey, only assisting my passage.

I had lingered in the darkness, for more than half a season, so when I slithered out of my slumber, the life of Aagos again, was pulsing through my veins. I craved contact, and happened upon a foolish, defenseless girl, sitting on the beach, in the storm....alone. Oddly though, I felt no need to toy with, or even challenge this girl. No, instead I simply talked to her, something about her just seeming kindred. Perhaps I sensed the solitude in her, the isolation. It was something I could relate to, connect with, and it was pleasant to sit, and talk without judgement.

I spotted a Kin, wander close to where we are, but then he moved beyond my attention, but I did not mind if he were there either. I was not a threat this night, I can not explain why. We moved down the beach after a time, looking for a place dry, perhaps warmer and more private. We were nearly there, when slithering sense of...danger crawled up my spine, and my eyes shot sharply back the way we came. A wolf was there, again....time to step up the pace.

Slipping though the old door, I pushed it firmly shut behind me, and rested against its old wood, my companion concerned for what might be on our tails. A howl outside the door reinforced that feeling, but then silence met our ears, and we rested easy for a while. It was during that continued conversation, that the sensation of danger, of warning, crept over me again. "we have to move....now!", I grab the girls wrist, if they wanted her, I could not very well just leave her there. But to no avail, for the wolves...yes there were suddenly two of them, hunted us at a dead run to the bridge into Milford. We were just over it, when they overtook us, and I knew I had to face them down.

Their attack came swiftly, the pair of them both leaping at me, out for blood. I shoved my companion out of the range of their snapping jaws, and unleashed my fury upon them, one at a time. Oh but how they both did the same to me. One I put down fairly quickly, a nicely placed underbelly shot, dropped him like a gunny sack. But the other, stronger and far more determined to tear my throat out, was far closer to my match. I prayed, and tried to break free of the fight more than once, as more arrived a cloaked women bent on assisting to the downed dog, and seemingly no offer of aid to me.

Finally, I managed to get a powerful hit off to this snapping mass of fur and fangs. And it was enough, because as suddenly as it had begun, the fight was over, and they all turned tail, and withdrew. They both took their licks, but I was bearing my own trophies of the battle.

I was only too willing to withdraw and tend to myself, as my companion had fled during the fight. It was just as well, it was a stupid mistake to let my guard down like that. I had wanted....that connection again. But look what it got me. I hope I did not cause her too much grief with my error. It was not my intent, and I will leave her in peace now. It was nice to be her friend, if only for a few hours.

I miss my Treasure....

A Scream in the Night

I heard a pained, panicked scream, echoing far down the dark streets, the deepest bowels of the slums. Not many patrols here, not this time of night. My eyes pick up movement, but it is someone..falling to the ground in a slumped heap. Oh yes, someone else is out and about this night. In spite of their blasted curfew, and this someone was up to no good...seems I am not the only predator afoot after dark.

I turn and head the other way, I want NOTHING to do with it. Hard enough to keep a low profile in this damnable stone prison. I have been trapped in these walls for three nights straight and it is beginning to wear thin upon my nerves. It is like a cat, in a maze full of mice...but unable to partake, because of that big damned blue dog skulking about the city!! Ah....but I digress.

I lingered near the gates, as dusk fell, and people began to crowd the entrance, both coming and exiting, all trying to get through before curfew closed them for the night. I spent all day miserably bored to tears, waiting for my chance. I had a plan in place, when the guard...just came out, and left the gate open, and jogged up the dock. Well, could not let that opportunity pass me by. Out I slipped, through the gate..and was breathing fresh air again, when did my sharp eyes pick up...that bastard dryth...only for a moment, but I am certain I saw him back there. I stepped up my pace, I clipped off the road and into the fields, and left him far behind.

Need to do something about him.

A New Perspective

I have tasted death, from both sides now.

The evenings, three in a row to be precise, had been peaceful within the city walls. Yet, while behind closed doors, and among the back tables of the afternoon taverns, whispers of dark things, dark times, of bad weather and bad omens.

The first one fell, easy, like all the others. Then...well....I spy with my little eye, something alone in the alley. I could not resist, so cocky and confident I had become. And so, I crept weightlessly towards him, his armor unexpectedly deflecting my first strike, and his sword flashed in the lantern light streaming in from the street. Two shots, or was it three. It does not matter, because in that next moment, I was lying in the sand, naked, alone and laid bare.

Slowly lifting my eyes to the alien surroundings, I rise shakily to my feet, gazing out over the molten river, and beyond its shores, to the great walled city. It seemed like forever had passed, and yet, as if but a heartbeat, when She rose, lifting like a pool of liquid pitch, seeping against the laws of the Gods...upwards and formed into the Dark Queen.

"Sooner than expected......" a gentle voice, a lighter touch, alive and yet devoid of it...."perhaps it is just as well....this way...we can talk" and converse we did, for eons, or was it hours, moments? I am not sure, it is like a drifting haze in the back of my brain. I remember Her saying, "I am sending you back now" and the vacant hole it left somehow in my soul, as I was ripped from Her side, will never again be filled, or complete without Her Presence. I remember those words, and my new purpose, and I have tasted death from both sides now.

Sins of the Flesh

All the kings horses, and all the kings men...ashes, ashes, they all fall..down.

How clear is my purpose now, razored brutal focus upon the task at hand. By Her will I am a force to be reckoned with. There are still many I must slink from, but there are oh so many more that must fear me. Sharp, singluar fixation, my Treasure even said, how cold I have become. She sees it. It is impossible not to.

I still hunger, but it is different now, more intense, more....lusting. I have given into it now, and oh how sweet it is.

Just like mulberries....he did not lie about that either.

Family Affair

I was orphaned during my eigth summer, and my sister...well, she died months later, and for the first time since that day, I do not recall..how. It used to haunt my nightmares, yet now...I barely remember her. My parents, too..distant, vague, like trying to recall a dream. So long was I alone, until Treasure...took me into her family, and yet I never truly stepped into what she offered, I kept myself from it, and oddly, I do not recall why. It all seems so trivial, and unimportant now.

There is another now. Mentor, Patron, Leader. He called me beautiful, and for the first time in my life, I truly felt so. With the weightless grace of serpent, I slither to my feet and oh how alive the world suddenly seems to me. How disconnected from it had I been my whole life, dwelling in my own pain, keeping it close to me like a shield. But in this moment, to feel the pulse of the city in my viens, to not just linger in the shadows, but become them, it was breathtaking, and humbling. He took my hand, and set his cold appraising gaze upon me...and he approved. Remade, in Her image.

He had been true, all this time I lingered in doubt, in fear, in unending, tormenting pain. But he had not lied, he had not been decieving, no, it was true. Once I had accepted the gift, without trying to control it, trying to bend it to MY will, did the pain cease. That was the key, accept it, absorb it, become it. And oh how incredible my transformation, how easily the pain slipped from me the moment I fell into blackness, unafraid.

I knew, from the beginning, that doubt would by my downfall, that it would push me from the path, and be my undoing. But I did not allow that to happen, he did not allow that to happen. I finally, threw myself into the abyss, fearless and without regret and finally, after this long, grinding soul wearying road, am I truly free. But it was his faith in me, never faultering, he guided me and did not give in, unlike the priest, who so quickly turned his back on me. No, he stayed with me though it all, being harsh when he had to be, gentle when I needed it. He saw me through the pain, and brought me to Her. For all this I am truly, deeply grateful. Thank you father.

Resignation

Lying on a cold, wet rocky surface, I woke, covered in blood and a strange blade in my hand. I have no idea who it belongs to. My head aches as I rise, and the blood has crusted to a stiffened mess upon my clothing. As far as I can tell, there isn't a scratch on me, and even as I stare around in this lightless place, I can not imagine where I am. The blade in my grip pulls my attention, and as I stare at it, in the monocromatic darkness, a flash of the beach wall, and a man cowering before me. Who...?

I struggle to my feet, and my world spins, and pain seeps into every molocule of my ravaged body. I did not ask for this....I did not know...when I followed him, that this would be the curse upon me. I stumble to a pool, the water calm and oddly warm and I barely recognise my own reflection in the surface. The humanity that remains in me, screams out to be cleansed, and so mechanically, I try to wash away the taint, but I only wash away the blood. I scrub at my skin, what I can get to, and try to erase the anger, erase the guilt, and I weep tearless pain into the dark, and I pray. There is no safe altar now, no place to go to find solace, the Dryth saw to that. So I pray here, and still no matter how I plead, how I pour myself into my prayers, She is deaf to me. Is this a test? Must I go only on my faith, that She will not abandon me, and that this suffering somehow serves her? I can not say.

I sit there then, in the quiet, in the ink blackness, and my mind is pulled towards those I love. yes...I love them, me...even as I am, still ache with the pain I cause them. A little smirk curls up one side of my ashen lips, as I recall another time, in a warm pool, with wine and strawberries and laughter. They still, desperately cling to the hope that those days will somehow return to us all. I know better.

They have each other, and I protect the flickering hope, that one day they can forgive me, for my time is short, and I can not go on like this.

The Hunger

The pain....it floors me sometimes, and I find myself quivering on my knees, pleading for it to pass. It feels like there are a million needles just beneath the surface of my skin, pushing to be free. It tears through my mind as well, a haunting, blinding torment, riddled with self-doubt, nightmares, and an emptyness, the lack of Her deeply felt. Oh how I desperately want to help, how I desperately NEED to be sure I am. My friends say I am being used, and I am inclined to agree, but at this point, there is little to be done for it. I am too far in now, to claw myelf out again.

I ripped through the priest's refuge, while he was off doing whatever it is that occupies him so thoroughly these days. I found nothing, nothing at all that could lead me to the truth. There was a chest there, locked, and I hammered upon it with a shovel, trying to break in, but to no avail. I was so angry, so frustrated, that I sliced my hand, and smeared my own blood upon that prescious altar of his, and the gift he gave me and left it hanging where he would find it. It was not a necessary gesture though, because at that moment, he returned, and caught me...red handed...so to speak. It was only by the blessing of Elbahn did I manage to slip past him, his hand reaching for my cloak, only my panic and speed allowed me to escape. I would be dead now if not for that luck.

So my search goes on, and I am driven to find my prize, I MUST find it. The hunger...oh GODS the hunger never ebbs, and no matter how often I try to satiate myself, it comes back in force. I fear one day, the hunger will claim me forever, and I will forget what I once was, and become something...primal, driven only by base instincts.

I pray for strength, but am met only by silence.

Please...let me be doing the right thing.