Beware of Darkness

"speech"

'thoughts'

There it was the last city of the Human Kingdom of Katolis.

Naraka.

Beyond that were just the impregnable fortresses guarded by Katalis most elite soldiers, the Standing Battalion lead by General Amaya herself.

But that was still the future. Now after the very long run from Soren and Claudia the two princesses, one elf assassin, young dragon, and grumpy frog got a well-deserved rest...and a bath.

Gods knew that they all needed that.

Rayla dried her hair with the towels they got from the inn, carefully moving the fabric around her horns.

"Hahah stop it Bait! It tickles!" Ezran's muffled laugh came from the bathroom." Zym not you too!"

Rayla's lips curved upwards as she laid on the incredibly soft bed. During their clash with the dark mage children, she managed to liberate Soren's purse filled with quite a lot of coins.

So after a large feast, they decided to call it a night….

Well not all of them.

"Callum?" Rayla called her friend from the other room."You want to look around the city?" The elf knew that technically it was still enemy territory but a hooded cape and a pair of gloves could do wonders in the human kingdom. "Oj, Callum you're not asleep yet are you?"

After a few more seconds of silence, Rayla decided to go to his and Ez's room to check him out.

Much to her surprise, the room was empty. His backpack and clothes were there which meant that he did not leave for long.

"Yeah leave without tellin anyone in the middle of the night in the city none of us knew, no big..."Rayla uttered sarcastically impersonating Callum quite well.

"Ez! I'm goin out to look for your brother!" She shouted." Stay here and look after our stuff!"

"Ok! Just don't leave for long!"

"Don't worry I'll be back as soon as possible." Young elf said pulling on her hood and leaving the room.

She walked downstairs to the main room. The whole room, as well as the building, was made out of wood with a large fireplace in the middle. The wooden tables were now all taken with guest and traveling merchants. Despite it being the very edge of the kingdom the trade here was going strong. Maybe not as strong as before the war but since neither side took any action yet the merchants were still doing business as usual.

Quietly she left the room that currently was beating some sort of record in alcohol consumption. How humans were able to survive to poison their bodies with those amounts was a mystery to her.

Rayla left the inn straight into the crowded streets of Naraka.

Just like the inn most buildings were made of wood yet the street was paved with sturdy stone. The town was rich due to natural resources nearby.

The lush forests, the quarries in the mountains and iron ore mines which produced the finest steel in the 5 human kingdoms were a recipe for success.

Yet Rayla noticed something else on the streets. Something that in the past would make her feel gleeful satisfaction.

Fear.

She could hear the whispers of coming elven horde. The stories about the savagery and cruelty of the elves and so on.

While none of those claims were true with no small amount of shame she had to admit that...elves said the same things about humans,

That they were all fanatic dark magic cultists that makes bloody sacrifices for their unholy rituals and the land there were living in was living hell.

While traveling through the place she realized that...there wasn't much difference between your usual nowhere village of elves and humans. Well with exception of the magic of course but that was a detail.

People were the same, good, bad, smart, dumb.

'How foolish I was to believe all those stories." She thought to pass various vendors stopping for a moment to buy carbonized apple.

Yes if there was one thing that humans were doing way better than elves that were the sweets production.

They had an utter advantage here.

Coming back to reality Rayla tried to recall what Callum said to her before going to bath. After a few moments, she recalled that he was going to give a test run to the book he managed to take from Claudia. He stated that he would go to the nearby lake and practice a bit.

'Maybe I should leave him be...or he might electrocute me again.' Ralya frowned but dispersed that thought. They were still chased by a lot of people and they needed to stay together.

She left the city bounds protected by a large wall and moved towards the lake. The night was cloudless and the visibility, especially for moon shadow elf, was perfect.

So it was an instant when he noticed some sort of light on the coast of the lake.

'Bingo.' She smirked and walked towards the source of the light. As she came closer she noticed that those lights had a strange shade of purple.

The wind picked up and suddenly a shiver went down her spine as she realized that those light were purple flames coming from her friend's hand. But those flames were far from natural. There was something sinister about them.

She gulped hard and suddenly her throat got tighter as the sense of unexplained fear washed over her.

Runaan once explained to her once that all Elf's got that feeling when they were in presence of dark human mage.

'Noooo it has to be a mistake.' Rayla shook her head. Callum was the farthest person to ever become the dark mage. Supported by that thought she called him out.

"Callum?"

The young prince turned around.

Earlier

Callum was positively excited. His stomach was full, his body was clean and he was holding a spell book in his hands that he got from Claudia.

As soon as he got clean he left to some secluded area to practice those news spells.

"Ok good thing I brought some candles." He lit them and began to read the book.

"The gift of magic is a blessing bestowed on the individual by...BORING, let see something more interesting...the dangers of using magic thoughtlessly are...even more boring...ah there is it!" He finally found a fragment about spells.

"Let's see." Callum extended his palm." Anok...sarit..mecus...igni!"

He felt a surge of heat going through his arm as purple flames erupted from his hand in a medium sized wave.

"So coool!" The exclaimed in fanboy fashion feeling really good about himself." Anok… sarit… mecus…glob...igni!" This time a ball of flames formed in his hand. With childlike wonder, he threw it at the water surface watching the eruption of steam.

From there Callum went through dozen spells casting without consideration of what he was doing. For some reason, those spells worked without the source of the element so that was a plus in his book he could use them anywhere he wanted!

He lit his hand and again this time putting more of this new found power feeling the flame rise from his hand.

"Callum?"

The young prince turned around to look at his elven friend. She made quite a funny face with her eyes bulging out and mouth opening and closing like a fish.

"Ryala? Why are you-" Callum paused, something was wrong with his voice. It sounded rough, having a weird echo to it.

"What have you done?" Rayla said slowly staring at him warily. Fear was now evident in her eyes.

"I just practiced few spells! That's all!" Callum already hated the sound of his voice. Just then by pure accident, he looked at his reflection in the lake's surface.

His face now ghastly pale with black veins pushing out with the addition of eyes made of pure darkness with just a small dot of glowing purple in the middle.

"Gyack!" Callum shouted in fear as he stumbled backward extinguishing the flames. He looked at Rayla for help but all he did was frighten her even more as she took step back.

Without the glow, his face now looked like one of those monsters her parents used to scare her with when she was little.

Black bottomless pits for eyes, face pale like a snow, and mouth full of razor-sharp teeth.

With the exception of the teeth, her childhood monsters were human dark mages she realized. It chilled her to the bone that the clumsy, dumb, annoying yet goodhearted prince was now the personification of her childhood terrors. Yet when she looked at his face she could very well understand why it was fear-worthy. Even in broad daylight that would be frightening as hell.

Callum started to hyperventilate as his body was shaken by the mighty trembles. He let out a pathetic wail of pain curling into a fetal position.

Forgetting her previous terror she rushed to his side seeing that his face was slowly returning to normal but it seemed that the process was very painful.

"Hey pull yourself together!" She grabbed him by the shoulders.

"I-It's so cold..." He chocked looking at her with his now normal eyes." So cold..."

Rayla sighed. Runaan told her about what was happening to him.

Humans called it initiation. Elfs called it corruption.

Every human mage that practiced dark magic has to go through it. For the magic unnatural in its origin, it changed the body of the user to be able to withstand its strain.

Humans were going through what Callum was going right now. Elfs died in the process, none ever being able to survive the initiation/corruption. Something to do with their connection to the natural world she heard.

"Idiot." She muttered taking off her coat and wrapping it around him." How could you be so bloody stupid!"

"I-I'm sorry...I didn't mean..."

"Hush you fool rest, we will speak later." The white-haired girl sat near him drawing her knees closer to her chest and wrapping her arms around it. She closed her eyes but she listened intently in case someone came close by.

"How can they do it all the time..." Callum whispered after his trembles calmed down." It was so horrible..."

"Be wary of darkness Callum or it will consume you." She told him bringing the horrible image of her friend using this accursed form of magic.

She hated it.

A/N

there it is my little one-shot possibly two-shot story. Probably the first one from The Dragon Prince Netflix series on FF. Anyways I find the series quite interesting. Despite the start, I did not as the story got better with every episode so I decided to give the series a chance. The first season consists of 9 episodes and it's basically a prologue to the story so I hope it will only get better.

Anyways drop a review and tell me what to ya think!