Title: The Rainy Dawn
By: Luna Atra
Category: Diablo games
Genre: Fantasy/Adventure
Rating: T
Story's Status: All under major repairs - including the following chapters I had to remove
Summary: At the hour of Destiny's decision, wanderers from distant lands and different people are gathered in the place of the very beginning of all. The chessboard is prepared: the Five, the Three. When black and white start mingling in shades and a little mistake costs one dear, let the game begin…
Disclaimer: Diablo, first or second - and even the uninvolved future third; locations, classes of characters and most of skills, quests, most of townsfolk and monsters (save one definitely belonging to another company) go to Blizzard. What I claim are the lives of characters themselves and this suggestion of how exactly everything could have happened.
Author's note: Your reviews are most welcome!
...
The Earth was never enough to fulfil human's imagination. And perhaps, there are no – and never in Time-and-Space or beyond them existed such personae and things, and thus everything might have never come true. Fiction or truth, it's just a story that, as the two sitting before the fire asserted, someone once saw in dream.
...
Prologue: In search for troubles
The waves of scarlet Sun flame were flooding the evening sky, colouring the side of a corpulent grim cloud approaching from the North into ardent tints of love and wrath. Green lands spreading vastly beneath seemed to be unnaturally quiet; the Wind stirred lazily in the sappy blanket of grass, playing, for a lack of what to do, with a lonely submissive last year's leaf, or purposelessly chasing hither and thither a flighty speckled butterfly. Moments after he abruptly stopped his games; he was alone no longer. Disturbed, the eternal inhabitant of the wilderness sniffed and rose to face the newcomer.
"The Sun is bleeding," the cloaked traveller thought absently. Rubbing his blade one more time, he sheathed it and took a quick glance around. No move on the green plain. A quiet, calm sound of water was flowing from the right side, caressing his ears. Then he let his body relax.
Never before we travelled in Ensteig hand-on-hilt constantly.
Once again he gazed up at the drowning Sun; and in its rays the sparse drops of blood on his cloak and face reddened more. Then the warrior turned to walk towards the river.
The stream was purling friendly at his feet, calming a tired mind, as if inviting an exhausted traveller to lower on the smooth grass nearby and give in to soothing slumber. The man's face softened. He knelt and closed his eyes, slowly dipping his hands into cool, crystalline water. Water… Cleansing, rejuvenating… Water can heal wounds, both body and soul. The traveller scooped, and washed his face, wiping away sweat, blood and weariness; scooped again and drank, letting the pure liquid refresh him from inside.
A cramp needled through him as something stabbed into the back of his leg. Quite jumping with a groan, he wheeled around, glimpses of sunset-glow trickled down the naked blade. The creature was close – something like a large porcupine – was standing just in three-yard distance and staring. Where the hell had this emerged from? The man's face darkened. Whatever it resembled, it was not to be dismissed as little animal. Pursing his eyebrows, he extracted the thorn from his leg and moved forward slowly. The creature chose to skedaddle. But after few steps it stopped and stared insolently back, into his eyes, growling dully like preparing to attack again. One pass – and it is slain. The blade red again.
Even animals here by someone's evil will, have lost their mind.
The storm cloud had soundlessly claimed one half of the sky, coming closer to the Sun, which had turned deep crimson, touching the very line of the horizon. A single droplet fell onto the warrior's nose.
"Make haste, brave traveller," he smirked to himself sadly. "Night comes down quickly, and I'm afraid there'll be no steeping in slumber after dampness gets all in this place. And those porcupines are quite annoying things…"
Slow northern wind touched his face deliberately as he turned around, trying to define the proper direction; inhaling deeply, he froze for a moment – then allowed himself a smile, not smirk. "Now you are talking," and then he strode up-stream – northwest – from whence the wind had brought a slight but certain scent of smoke.
Half an hour later he found himself approaching a stockade adjacent to the darkening river by one of its sides. As he did, his eye singled out a restless movement against the wooden gates: someone like a light-haired young lady in leather armour happened to be there pacing lightly to and fro.
'''
"Fourteen! Fifteen… Sixteen!" Arrow after arrow, until all the blades of grass stood rigidly at attention, not one giving a rustle. Finally the Amazon stood alone. She returned a prepared arrow back to its fellows and thoughtfully scratched their feathering.
"With such a tempo I'm gonna stay without arrows at all. And imagine: Me thrashing fiends with my bow. Mm-yeah, the perspective..."
She leered at the arrows sticking out from the corpses, and then at her almost empty quiver; again at the defeated beasts – then bit her lower lip. No, she dared not.
"If I only had my javelins… Who knew that grizzly-overgrown had such an adamantine structure of muzzle!" she murmured dissatisfiedly as she traversed the meadow and approached a shady tree-planting.
The drab thicket not far away parted like curtains, and out of it seeped two women. The dusty and regrettable look of their suits made her think they were either kind of dregs of the western society or, like her, exhausted seasoned travellers. Even as she was pondering, the ladies slowly raised sharp spears to point straight towards her.
"Whoa, look, the last time I saw a piece of gold was, well, actually, across the mountains… and I don't have bread, and I can't remember the smell of mea–"
The twisted branches of the shrubbery snapped back to freedom as the women, still wordlessly, stepped back from sight; the curtain closed. The Amazon blinked – then suddenly the two reappeared, storming round both corners of the shrub bar and swooping on her on both sides, spearhead-first. Time began ticking countdown in the panicky head of the Amazon as she – painfully slowly it all seemed to her – released an arrow to the right, prepared another while turning to the left; and it would be curtains for her had the remaining enemy not lingered a bit, affected and embittered over her comrade's death. Involuntarily, she wobbled to the side in her attack, as though wanting to help the fallen spearwoman; and the final, shrillest twang of the bowstring kept reverberating in the Amazon's ears for long. Then silence fell.
The Amazon put her hand to her perspiring forehead, and stood still, listening to the thumping of her heart.
Rule number one: Never. Relax. Near. Trees, shrubbery, rocks, and such.
Occasional chills smothered her breath. Swirling through the leafage, a breeze came down and tousled the bangs of her hair.
So few arrows rem– wait…
She weighed the now ownerless spear in her hand. Well-sharpened edge; polished shaft; fine balancing bob; the weight just for her. The Amazon twirled her new weapon and, satisfied, left the place, arming herself with caution also.
Beyond the row of shadowy trees, a side of a wooden stockade struck her eye and the smell of water crawled in her nostrils. The wall in front of her was blind, supported by a lower wall of boulders mossy and moist; the entire construction good and steady.
"Mmm, this–" the Amazon gauged the distance from the encampment to the closest high tree, "–might be too close. This tree wants an axe."
Several moments she stood in thought – then shook her head, the ponytail patted on her nape. It wouldn't do talking to herself, she stated, it's time to talk to others. Twilight was falling down sleekly, enwrapping the fortified camp; the sheen of the river turning dark and velvety: the night was about to claim her right. The Amazon turned the corner and knocked on the gates humbly. Nothing happened.
After waiting she knocked louder. Again, no answer.
She coughed emphatically. She knew: by the moment the cold hours of darkness were over, her coughing would assume a very inartificial sounding – unless somebody open the door and let her in to warm herself. She could hear noises, a small sound of human voices from behind these walls – but nobody wanted to hear hers?
She hailed, and hammered at the gates; hailed again, and then dropped to the grass helplessly and sulkily. She was facing a doss right here, under the questionable protection of this fence. The cosy orange light of campfires was oozing mockingly through the wooden paling.
Surlily, she sniffed the smoke-filled air and in another moment jumped up and began walking up and down busily, thinking, – then her gaze filtered out of the dusky landscape someone approaching here to face the same problem – just a moment before she would start bashing the lifeless gates in with her boots.
…
They would not move, surveying each other. He was about thirty, taller than her; the wiry upper strands of his hair had the colour of lighter brown - like having faded in the sun of long journeys; and his nose, in her opinion, was built perfectly for meddling in other people's troubles, be that on good or bad intentions of its owner. The most beautifully-made sword she had ever seen in her life was as though accidentally stuck unsheathed in his scabbard by about half a feet.
The Amazon's green eyes swiftly locked with his dark-blue, scanning for a menace. He watched her calmly, perhaps making, in turn, his analysis of her straight features of a pretty peasant girl. They stared, until some flicker of understanding crossed the eyes of both; and the darkening sky answered by slowly revealing the first of its host of faint eastern stars.
The gates creaked, swinging open.
Here comes...
The Amazon turned, expecting to see a member of some old respected Order of ascetic men who despise women and never have interactions with them. Now the gatekeeper would politely nod for the warrior to come in and then, barely letting his gaze wander in her direction, curtly ask her to go her own way.
"Halt, strangers." The gatekeeper warned in a severe and most certainly female voice. "Name yourself if you wish to enter."
The first moments the Amazon merely gathered her first impression of a Rogue: from under the ashy fringe of hair looked, in an unfriendly manner, the treacle-hued eyes of a female archer, whose figure was shorter than her own. Fire dancing up and down - not in a torch but on the tip of a warningly nocked arrow.
"Oh, very well," the Amazon drawled then. "Ee-va Yateegriss, an amazon from the Islands." Have you here heard of the law of hospitality? her tongue itched to add.
The rogue's eyes turned upon the warrior.
"Xaeron Nor-Theran from the East." He said mildly.
"A follower of the Zakarum Church?" the guard inquired. The Paladin nodded, frowning ever so slightly.
"And what business do you have with us?"
"It's okay, Iantha." A new voice fell on their ears clear in the night; the next moment its owner loomed in the gateway with the opalescent pallor of her skin, and the cloud-shaped hair likening this tall belle to the blazing torches that were dug into the ground on either side of the gates. Upon one of the steely scales of her sleeveless armour, on the level of heart was engraved a tiny rune reminiscent of an eye without a pupil.
"It is okay…" she repeated sweetly, sweeping every inch of the newcomers with her eyes; "You may enter," muttered in such a tone of voice one would use for grumbling 'Leave at once!', – then wheeled around and paced inside the camp, past the quickly nodding Iantha. Xaeron and Eva exchanged glances and followed.
"I believe you're seeking rest for the night," the red-headed spoke agoing (Eva noted that the ends of her collar-length locks were singed); "But if you're also looking for troubles then this is the right place. The time is past when we were giving a helping hand to those who could prove us the rightness of it. Now we've lost the Monastery, and the rest of our outposts, except for this one. Yet this is not the end of the Sisters of the Sightless Eye!" She rapped out the last words, every sibilant coming out with dire certitude. She glanced back, as if to make sure if the two following her were hearkening, and suddenly condescended to courtesy: "I'm Kashya, the captain of Rogues. I command them in battles."
She chose the largest campfire to stop by and mull over something, ignoring the red-hot sparkles it was spewing abundantly in her direction. "I see you both are warriors. Well, all the better. You may try to change this entire situation in the wilderness, if you are brave enough."
A challenge? the Amazon thought. Kashya continued: "And please, spare us the heroic legends of your birthplaces. We do not appreciate words and reassuring fables. Here I leave you." And indeed she did, without a second glance.
Xaeron heard a deep sigh: the next moment Eva settled down on the nearest log and stared into the fire reflectively. Not disturbing her, he looked around. Wide, or small, tents all over the camp. Rough trucks and wagons, covered and uncovered, heaped up with bales; hens were strolling among them and venturing into exuberant weeds that were drinking from the damp riverbank soil to grow taller wherever a sickle avoided them. Rogues, armed and unarmed, were spattered over the camp and variably occupied. One struggled to read from parchment, holding it so close to the torchlight that its edges began shrivelling. Other two were purifying the water, pouring it noisily from one bucket into another through some kind of flimsy filter. And one of somewhat sallow complexion was immobile in penumbra, so he first took no notice of her; her glassy almond-shaped eyes reflected back the dancing firelight.
Others were out of sight, standing on guard of their improvised fortress.
The pulpy clouds had now covered all the sky, distant flashes of lightning conquering the horizon; but it never rained, and no thunder pealed. Not even the wind stirred at the moment. The Rogue Encampment was quiet; those not asleep kept vigilance, and their readiness for a fight was in the air.
"Kashya's a tough one." The Amazon voiced suddenly.
Xaeron recalled that he was not alone. "In a good sense or bad?"
"Both." The Amazon stated.
He made a small sound in his throat. "I suppose she conducts herself well, considering her Order is crumbling–"
"Stop, stop, stop. What is it all about?"
"What is it all about? Of all things!" The short brunet of middle age who made that exclamation was clad in foppish eastern garments, which rustled as he approached and made himself comfortable before the fire. "Excuse me, noble paladin, amazon," he raised his hand to the inexistent hat; "I'm Warriv. And theeese–" a wide gesture around "–are fragments of my caravan."
"Xaeron…"
"Eva."
"Delighted, delighted." The caravan owner fidgeted on the log. "So, as I was telling, which of the Two Moons you have fallen off, my beautiful young lady?"
Eva's expression grew dry and wry, but Warriv looked not confused. He delicately brushed his trim beard before continuing: "I thought even the furthest shires of Westmarch had heard the news. My fair Lut Gholein is cut off the Western World and it's not like I'm reaching there any time soon: the Monastery is the only way east, except for the impracticable detour through the Barbarian lands. Smiling, Miss Eva? you shouldn't. For recently the Monastery of the Sightless Eye became the place of a great massacre by Demoness Andariel, that hell-spawned Maiden of Anguish herself. She and her demonic creatures now feast in the blood-splattered sanctum sanctorum of the Rogues… But what is more terrifying, some of the Rogues chose to follow the Demoness, betraying their Sisterhood. You know," the man leaned forward and lowered his voice to a mysterious whisper, "some say, Diablo, the Lord of Terror, is back, roaming our world again." The flames rose brighter in that moment, mirroring in Warriv's pupils, giving somewhat ominous to his eastern face. Xaeron squinted, and Eva raised her blond eyebrows with a look of scepticism. Warriv continued lowly, "I believe you are familiar with the story of his legendary defeat." Both listeners nodded silently. "Now it seems to me, those who believed it drank to the victory too early. They speak of the Dark Wanderer who has passed here, and Evil that followed like a black twisted shadow of him, engrossing the land… Anyway, I do not know exactly. Maybe it's naught but rumour," he finished in an unusually swift manner.
"By the way…" he stood up, rubbing at the nape of his short neck. "I could sell you a couple of nice tents; look into that truck and choose yourselves. You ain't going to try out the advantage of sleeping on the nude ground in point of health, eh? Wish you not to see Andariel in a horrible dream tonight…" his jaw twitched, subduing a yawn. He dropped his hand into a rather bottomless pocket of his wide trousers – then poured barberries into his companions' palms, a handful to each; "…but if she does wake you, walk around and talk to people here. You'll see from their tales that she's nothing like what you've imagined. You know, there is an only tiny upside in times like these: suffering from insomnia you can always find an awake companion, no matter what the hour… Poor Akara, the High Priestess and Healer, has barely three hours a day to lie down. Then there is Charsi the blacksmith, a good hard-working girl, a night bird. In the daylight keep both eyes open when you deal with Ghid - I picked this warmy fruit on my road to Lut Gholein and now I regret it. Don't let him cheat you. Well, I believe you'll see everything soon enough," he finished, yawning irrepressibly. "I hope to communicate with you again, on the morrow or any other time. Now, will you excuse me?.."
"Warriv the chatter-box," the Amazon whispered once the caravan owner left. Unable to restrain it, she yawned too.
Xaeron smirked, "But sometimes they are quite useful."
...
"There." The hooded woman in damson-hued mantle stirred a heavy caldron with a long wooden stick. Inside, the crimson liquid was gurgling and bubbling, currently emitting a haze-like steam with a berry-sweet subtle aroma. "Two minutes – and it's done."
Xaeron was watching the process patiently. Tall and stately, Akara looked not old and probably had been quite good-looking a couple of years ago. Now the outer shell of her was fading prematurely.
"This is it." Easily the woman took the caldron off the fire and disappeared for a long moment in her humble tent – then reappeared carrying a tray of glass phials. "We need only to wait until it's cool. Many lives this potion did save and more it will save. Most unfortunate is that some of few who know the secret formulae are now our enemies."
She placed the phials near the caldron in a row, rubbed a little stain off one of them with her sleeve, uncorked them. Turned her gaze on the Paladin. The High Priestess' forehead was unseen behind the low-pulled cowl, making one guess about the number of hidden wrinkles. "You now know the real state of affair, Holy Warrior. What will be your decision?"
…At the same time Eva left the warm room of the smithy and quickly looked round, her gaze searching for her companion. She was content: Charsi appeared to be a friendliest person and it was pure pleasure to talk to her. Besides, she had given Eva half-quiver of arrows for free. Holding the gift in her hand, the Amazon then remembered where the Paladin had directed his steps: he like wanted to inquire the Healer if local porcupines were not poisonous. Whistling, she walked across the encampment towards the small tent with an awning, in front of which lay stretched on the ground two characteristic human shadows. Crickets chirped all around, and the young Amazon felt quite in good mood.
"That's why I'm asking you to slay them in their nesting site, as they do not expect your appearance and can't come en masse at once…" the Amazon heard, as she approached the two standing before a lamp embraced in a cloud of hectic green midges.
Porcupines, huh?
"And what about me?" She cut in unceremoniously and grimaced toward the Paladin; "Forgot to call me and ask if I too want to go kick someone's ass–"
"Of course not," he grinned. "But you were so deep in talk with Charsi, while I learnt a lesson from my boyhood: To interrupt two women talking is not just impolite - it is quite impossible."
"All right, you're right," she rolled her eyes – and then started, "Meaning you don't mind if I join on whatever little hunt you're plotting?"
"No." Xaeron sighed and looked at Akara, "Tomorrow morning seems like a good choice of time."
The woman smiled. "Yes. Now go and rest. You may ask Amplisa for meal, if you're hungry." A fresh gust of wind swept, and she hurried up to fix one of the awning's legs that was already in the air. "Good night to you."
"Tell you what," Eva said, as they were walking back to their campfire, "I've such a feeling… like we are stuck." She stroked her bow and the last four arrows of her kinsfolk – the reminder of motherland Philios – then suddenly smiled. "But I do not complain. All around here does not look so bad and… long have my body desired to rush into real battle!"
Xaeron raised his head to look at the night sky. Clouds almost gone, pearls of stars were gleaming above the Encampment like immortal keepers of Hope for all men. He smiled. His future comrade sometimes seemed too carefree, or maybe even thoughtless. But he was no doubt glad to have a company. The Paladin inhaled the fresh air of the night deeply, discerning every little scent the northern wind had brought to here from the faraway sleeping plains. Things were changing, he sensed, once and forevermore.
The next morning began with a deafening cry of a cock. Its haughty crest proudly jerked up, the bloody bird had marched up to Eva's tent and then realised it would die if hadn't announced the beginning of a new beautiful day, with all might of its throat.
"Damned…" replied a muffled murmur. Groaning, the Amazon turned onto another side, rumpling the pillow (her own backpack, now filled with grass), firmly intent on her return into the sweetest embrace in the world. What she was never allowed to do, though.
"Come on, Eva, get up. The day is delightful and we are on our way to make it even better."
Xaeron smiled, watching her sleepy face appear from behind the flap-entrance.
"What… Xaeron! Why the hell so early!" she groused. "And was it you crowing?"
"I assure you the cock has been here. 'Twas wondering whoever crowed here, in this very place yesterevening, for it wouldn't suffer a competitor among its hens - so it said. I personally recall that I, too, heard a crowing yesterevening… something like… 'By all kippers! starting from another sunrise, the defilers of plains haven't got long to live!'"
The Amazon finally rubbed her eyes clear, and looked scathingly, and bared her teeth at this annoyingly brisk man who was tranquilly limbering up before her tent and discomfitting her with her own words. She got to her feet, irritated and irritable, fingers trying to implant some more order in the bush of her hair; but smells, mrmm, the delicious smells of grilled food filling the morning air – rogues in a majority were already boiling with activity – little by little did raise her spirit. "Breakfast?" she suggested cheerfully.
"I've had mine," he stepped aside to reveal her ration already served on a log before the dead coals – a lonely sandwich with some burdock leaf and, in a small napkin, a mix of kernels with wrinkled berries. "This is yours."
"You call that a–" The girl's voice fainted and she tried to feign a famine swoon. Nevertheless, later she would appreciate the merit of moderation.
Half an hour after, they stepped on a narrow pathway snaking through the wilderness toward unknown future. Eva had protective laces round the naked areas of her legs and forearms; a simple leather strap rimmed her head, holding the wind-licked bangs and coming under the high-set ponytail. As for Xaeron – Charsi, once she knew about their raid, had given him a simplest breastplate, simply saying that he could pay for it later. With a nervous chuckle, she had suggested him not to disrupt her faith in her work's quality.
The shining brilliant of the Sun hung straight ahead. Rare smoky clouds kept dissolving and re-forming, obscuring the sunlight, and the sticking-out tendrils of the Amazon's bangs were looking now like golden lustre, now like dim ears of drooping wheat.
They were alone. No creature was in sight; after a short time they turned from the path and plunged into the sea of grasses with shrubby islands, following the Priestess' instructions.
The moment a large mound came in sight, the black gape in it like a mouth of some giant earthworm poking out its head, the Amazon felt the need to clear up some questions.
"What about lighting?" She looked curiously but warily into the stepless downward darkness of the tunnel as they had come closer. A draught of dampness puffed out of there smelled like saliva of that earthworm.
Xaeron silently produced a simple torch. For a moment Eva's green eyes sparkled with interest, "And you will enkindle this with your Heaven Fire or such?"
"No." He smirked, taking out a piece of flint. "With mere mortals' methods. Spare festal illumination for demons."
"Porcupines you mean?" she corrected, which only made him raise his brows.
"What porcupines?"
"Well, porcupines," she repeated, perplexed. "Poisonous or not poisonous - you never cared to clarify, by the way. And we are going to smoke them out of here."
He stared at her hard and for a long while, before returning to his preparations, saying, "This cave's full of demons. And we are going to fight them."
The Amazon started back from the entrance.
Silence ended once the warm crackling of fire was summoned by the magic of flint. "Are you ready?"
She nodded abruptly, adjusting the bow behind her back and gripping at the two light javelins Charsi had bartered for her spear.
The grim Paladin stepped slowly into the dark passage. Almost tiptoeing, the Amazon followed him and both dissolved in it, leaving the carelessly shining Sun behind.
...
The tall rogue lingered for a moment at the Priestess' habitation. "You've sent those two to the Den."
"Yes."
"Such a waste of time after all." The voice of the tall one was tinged with irony.
Not responding, the High Priestess dropped her eyes, her face inscrutable, still. The other did not break the silence. Akara was revered in the Order not only for her wisdom.
When the Priestess opened her mouth again, she spoke with a stiff smile breaking through the words.
"They won't lose but find. Believe me. They will return."
...
The Sun had sailed up higher, just enough for its changing light to fall and cover all the Western Kingdoms till their furthest coasts, when the silence near the cave was broken by some rustlings. Dozily, the Wind shifted itself to the dungeon's entrance and blew through its pipe lightly, producing a sweet airy moan. The rustlings therewith paused – and then changed their course, growing more intensive and approaching.
The grassy curtain parted. Two white shins came in sight.
"Look," uttered the man of imposing height and width, pointing a murderous axe at the hole. The lack of clothes on him – half-length pants and a hide of a northern animal upon his shoulders – showed muscularity that would make a youngling warrior swallow at a glance. Black thin hair was covering the back of the man's head - but not higher than the line of the tips of his ears. Down from his left hand hung a soiled saddlebag and a big sooted sack, in which from multiple swells was discernible the presence of potatoes.
Behind him extended a trail of trampled-down weed; and out of it floated his companion. She seemed to lack everything he was rich with - body weight, height and especially width; and had in abundance what he lacked - wild curled chestnut tresses. Her once-upon-a-time white robe underneath the dark blue cloak also bore marks of soot, and tucked behind her belt was an ordinary kitchen knife.
After his exclamation she looked up for a moment with unseeing eyes and then planted the long magical staff before herself with a thud. "I see. So what?"
"Why not explore this?" He answered enthusiastically. "I hear some caverns keep many secrets… and treasures!"
"Of course," she grimaced. "Just waiting for us to find them. And with them, nice bleached bonelets of those who had found them before."
"You confuse things," he said with doubt. "We are not in your eastern empires where magic and curses and other stuff strikes at every step–"
"No, you confuse things," she countered. "Never in latest history the cursed chambers with treasures were found in Kehjistan, or anywhere near its borders. Then again, in the dead civilizations of Aranoch–"
"Can we explore it now and here? Or are you afraid of the dark?" The joke in his voice did not seem to elevate her mood.
"I've had enough of dungeon in my life," she confessed tiredly. "Enough of their compressive weight on my head."
"C'mon, we'll search this quick." He arched his eyebrows pleadingly, invoking a little smile to her face. "If the ceiling starts collapsing I will hold it so long you can get to the exit. I promise." He said as her smile grew broader, delineating the cheekbones.
"All right. But on one condition…"
Moments later the slothful darkness consumed the both.