A/N: Hi there, sweethearts. I have spinned this little intrigue as a part of Soulafein's rather tragic background and for further use in our RP, which pretty much begins to resemble a depressing psychological thriller. :D Also, I needed a break from my regular writing activities, so I thought that writing in a world not entirely my own - therefore not demanding that much attention to detail - might be a nice change of pace. Like a holiday, really. As this story came out rather long for a single chapter, I decided to split it. It is actually sort of a one-shot, only I tend to protract things in general, let alone my writing, so there are probably about two to three chapters ahead. And to conclude it all - English is not my native language. I don't even live anywhere near to an Eglish-speaking country. My native language is one of the Slavic tongues, so please excuse any mistakes in grammar. I tried. ;)

Reviews are, of course, loved, flames are, of course, ignored, and all that usual stuff. Anyway, feel free to express yourselves and your opinion, or only drop a note to tell me that you are alive and breathing. ;) 'Hoj! Enjoy. :)

Warning: Soulafein Jiole Su'aco absolutely belongs to himself, that means me, no arguing about that, and under no circumstances let Gromph, CX or the Plane of Shadows delude you into believing any nonsense of theirs. Also, all the characters, places, spells and things you don't recognize are the product of my personal Army of mages, so hands off, you could get bitten. To death. :D Admit it, you would never know how to use any of it properly, anyway.

Rated mature for language, sexual tension, psychological torment, violence and angst.

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The Darkness Nightly

I. Found

Shivering in the dark. That's all there was. Ever. The creatures of darkness caressing with their soft breaths, whispers, brushing his face with gentle deceptiveness, deceptive gentleness… it didn't matter in this place of shadows. It wasn't even a real place to begin with, a mirror image only, a desperate distortion of the true thing. Not real.

But guess what.

The place just apparently wasn't paying attention.

There was no way out! And it hurt! The loneliness, the fear…

The night, their voices, screaming, filling his head… the slow pulsing of the shadows… murmuring, enchanting, threatening…

There wasn't much of anything any more.

Just his head full of their breathing.

Of their night.

And it was cold, so very cold here. He couldn't stand it.

The creatures of the darkness would hunt him, and he would run. They would say things to him now, their dim consciousnesses like small twirls of violet fire in the black. And maybe he would get lost again, like in the beginning, and see the citadel, looming somewhere where nothing should have been.

The creatures of the darkness would hunt him, and he would become one of them.

Already had.

-----

The tall man stood silently, contemplating the broken, huddled figure in front of him.

Looked like another drow.

Certainly not what he had been expecting when stepping through the self-made portal. Well, he did expect an ambush, he always did, paranoia a good old friend of his surprisingly high age. But it was more like, he thought in terms of small armies, his beloved, pissed off sister or, perhaps, the rest of Sorcere combined?

Not a young boy shuddering on the ground… sort of.

Someone was trying to get clever.

Counting by the distances out there, he was far from the city by many miles now. The silent, grey shadows roiled around them, a warped, crude imitation of some plain or cave… who could tell. It could possibly even be a fake of the Suraface as far as he was concerned… the space being a strange thing here. With his next step, he could end up back in the Underdark without a fuss… or not. Who cared. He could find his way around if need be.

He examined the guy, not as much suspicious as morbidly curious. Didn't they always get all creative in the end.

It wasn't as if there was much to look over. The kid was a wisp, of a very slight build, his face hidden by his arms and waist-reaching, irregularly cut white hair. They had a rare, peculiar silver shine about them. His ears were strewn with sapphire piercings.

Hmph. The Plane of Shadow didn't seem like an optimal choice if one was considering the possibility of taking a nap.

The tall drow crouched next to the prone form, alert but unconcerned. He'd already cast some detection spells, the first thing any healthy, self-respecting wizard'd do, and the results came back happily skipping, no Quenthel in the neighbourhood. Whatever.

He got up again and prodded the stranger with his foot, then stooped over and grabbed a handful of long, sleek strands, none-too-gently turning the other elf's head so as to see his face.

The stranger's eyes snapped open and there was a brief gleam of pure turquoise in the gloom.

Then something weird happened.

The turquoise disappeared. Tendrils of black materialized out of nowhere, coiling in his pupils; the surrounding darkness appeared to coalesce around the lying body in a flash, dissolving his silhouette in a whirl of shadows.

Gromph Baenre had seen his fill of weird things during his lifetime.

He spun around, left hand raised just in time for the bluish shield spell to halt two bolts of lightning zipping in his direction.

Well, that was mildly interesting.

The kid was standing behind him, streaks of shadow curling around his slender frame and up his shoulders, the whites of his eyes completely overlayed by shifting, swirling grey, a small ball of electricity curled in his left palm.

He looked totally insane.

The whelp wasn't asyoung as he'd first seemed to be; could be about eighty, ninety years of age, with delicate, clean-cut features, and was easily the most breath-taking man Gromph had ever seen. Intricate lines of an elegant white tattoo threaded down the silvery black marble skin under his right cheekbone, casually underlining his unusual looks. There was another sapphire piercing in his right eyebrow and two silver pellets in the inner corners of his eyes. The venomous glare he was sending the other elf's way was not entirely natural.

Gromph took in the fluid way magic came to him, that his clothing was expensive but somewhat out of date… Something was off here. It must have been a shadow being mimicking the Prime, probably by reading reflections of Gromph's mind… but he was shielded against such attempts.

No-one messed with him. He snapped his fingers unconcernedly, a mind-binding spell springing to life and wrapping itself tightly around the opposing spell-caster in a shimmer of purple. "Reveal yourself!"

The thing narrowed its striking eyes, sneering. "We are the night, flesh. Die for us." The voice was hissing, echoing in the empty space like a choir of wraiths' whisperings, and most certainly didn't belong to anything originating from the Prime Material Plane.

Gromph slightly raised an eyebrow. Kind of impertinent, wasn't it, considering whose spell was holding whom.

"You're not holding us, meat. We are all around you. We are this place you are treading."

Gromph didn't comment, not liking any kind of idle threats as it happened, and clapped his hands, meaning to kill the thing and move on. It'd got too much of his attention as it was already.

But.

Suddenly, the darkness left the young drow's eyes and his body went rigid, rising in the air. He screamed, coils of black piercing through him violently, holding him near, then releasing him abruptly. He fell on his knees, trembling uncontrollably while harsh pants struggled to escape his throat. His irises went to bright turquoise once again, a dazzling shine in the never-ending twilight. "Sons…ofa…"

But the shadow still hadn't left his proximity. Still curled around his forearms.

The young man didn't even seem to notice.

Gromph stopped his movement, a fleeting interest piqued.

"Tired of fighting them… damned cheating matter-shifting bastards…" The drow's head was bowed, long unruly bangs effectively hiding his expression. His tone sounded breathless, slightly hysterical and very much acidic. Then… "WHY the HELL am I stuck in this goddamned place in the first place, I ask!" he yelled suddenly, causing another gentle rise of Gromph's eyebrows. ,,What the fuck!! Wish I could drag their interstines all over the place, cook them, throw them away, except they have no interstines and I used the word place for the third time in one sentence, WHATEVER!"

If Gromph had been used to emoting, he might have wondered.

At the same moment, the young elf lifted his head. "Vith!!" He was on his feet immediately, the incredible turquoise gaze narrowed suspiciously. "And what would you like, good fellow? A-ah!" He wiggled his finger at Gromph when the afore-mentioned made a move to step closer. "Stay the shit away from me!" He broke off, shutting his mouth with a snap. "Didn't make much sense, now did it," he muttered.

Gromph just looked at him. The child was raving mad. He should probably simply kill him and get over it.

However… the way he seemed to be…

He crossed his arms on his chest. "Spit out your name and station, pup."

The weird drow regarded him somewhat warily. "I have no such thing." His voice went to coolly practical in the blink of an eye. The shadows on his arms crawled higher and promptly disappeared in the vicinity of his heart.

There was something about him… the way he interacted with the plane. Gromph had never seen anything quite like that before. His keen interest for all things magical immediately set his mind to calculating.

"You cannot lie to me, drowling." He drew nearer, even as the other one skittered backwards, jittery, his nerves apparently in a very poor condition. "I know you."

The young dark elf's pupils widened and he shook his head frantically, a faint flicker of ruby igniting his eyes this time, hot and angry. "Don't you dare touch us, mortal!"

Ripples of black shot along the ground, humming faintly. The turquoise dimmed again.

"You don't want to die, do you." Gromph didn't let himself be interrupted, never once looking away from the lad. He took another step closer. "If you did, you would have surrendered by now. Nobody wants to die."

The drow froze. He appeared to be transfixed, staring silently at the other male.

"I know where you are from. You are not supposed to be here, child. No-one's supposed to stay here. This place is mad. Is it not?"

It was as if the older elf's words were spinning an invisible web around the imaginary circle the two occupied, like bars of a closing cage, so stiff and still the stranger became. His intense attention pierced through the short distance separating them, waiting.

"You are no longer sane. You know it."

That seemed to do it. A fear, an eerie, unspoken terror flashed through the young drow's expression for a moment, his darkened eyes admitting without wavering. Madness resided on their bottom, acknowledged and resigned upon. There was no more energy. No more hope.

"What do you want?" he mumbled. His voice, no longer hysterical, sounded soft and resembled black velvet – low, mellow, warm in quality.

"Your name." Gromph held his gaze with an imperiousness that shot straight to his core and didn't allow him to even breathe the wrong way.

"You're him, aren't you." A small amount of sanity trickled back to the stranger's features. "Menzoberranzan's Archmage."

Gromph gazed at him, unfazed, and pulled away the high collar of his cloak, the revealed insignia of power shimmering unobtrusively on the dark blue and red of his attire.

"Citadel." And the other one crumpled where he stood, a frail outline of silver in the dark.

Gromph slowly crossed the space between and crouched on the ground above the young man. The turquoise eyes were stubborn behind the curtain of tussled hair. A slender hand gripped the hem of the Archmage's robes, strong in its desperation.

"Take me out," he whispered.

"What will you give me if I do?"

"…everything."

Then he fainted.

-----

Whatever there was at first, the life as it once had been was gone forever now. Now there wasn't much of anything any more.

Oh, but yes. The insanity stayed.

Soulafein stared silently at the tapestry-covered wall mere inches from his face. It was dark blue and black, with a complex embroidery wrought in fine silver threads. The skin of his arm felt unusually cool under his cheek.

The sound of a door opening and closing came and went, muted by thick carpets covering the floor. An additional weight sat down on the side of the bed. Soulafein didn't turn around.

"Are you coherent?" The voice behind the question felt clear and composed, the kind of stern balance that only those powerful enough not to speak about it ever achieve.

Soulafein continued to stare at the tapestry. "Yes, Archmage."

"Do you remember anything?"

There was a short pause. "What exactly do you mean?"

"Our meeting."

A short pause again. "I had asked for a way out. Apparently, your intentions coincided with mine."

"What is your name?"

"Soulafein Jiole Su'aco."

"That is not a real name."

"I know."

He could feel a calm, contemplative gaze boring into his back. "Are you trying to set me off?"

The younger drow finally turned and sat up. "Not especially, Archmage. Don't think I don't realize that I'm in your debt. What would you like me to do?"

Gromph stood up and crossed his arms on his chest. He didn't look exceptionally threatening – he was just there. And the whole building could tell. "State your rank and profession."

Soulafein slipped from the bed and took a few steps in the direction of the exit. His gait was exceedingly graceful and light, like it cost him no effort to move at all. His piercings glittered briefly in the soft glow of purple faerie fire on the far wall.

"I'm a wizard. Graduated at Sorcere, a while back."

Gromph frowned a little. "How long were you trapped in that plane?"

"Half a century." The turquoise eyes went guarded.

The frown increased. "How old are you?"

"Ninety-eight, I believe."

"Impossible," came the immediate response.

There was the faintest trace of a smirk on Soulafein's face for a second. "Why so, Archmage?"

"Cast a spell."

Soulafein gave a somewhat crooked half-smile and stretched his right hand in front of himself. There was a moment of softly muttered words, swift, sure gestures, some quick jumbling of spell-components appearing out of nowhere, and a small ball of white-blue lightning, crackling furiously, levitated above the dark elf's upturned palm, aching to be released. It could probably blow up the whole floor.

"I am awaiting your commands, Archmage."

"Dispel it."

Soulafein shrugged, and the ball snaked up his arm, dissipating by the time it reached his shoulder.

"Any specializations?"

"Electric magic and… shadow… stuff."

Gromph studied the other drow pensively. He couldn't possibly be so lucky. The young mage had the looks, the education, was apparently flexible and outstandingly intelligent.

The schooling at Sorcere normally lasted thirty years, with the required age of students being twenty years at least. The Archmage saw him casting, thrice. This time, the kid went through the rhythm of magic with the same efortless ease with which he moved, the same ease he displayed in the Shadow Plane under the pressure of stress and madness, using incantations he shouldn't have been able to read, much less actually bring to work. Many of his elder colleagues had considerable problems with the complexity of gestures and pronunciation. Gromph personally could indeed name a few.

The child was an accomplished mage, a prodigy…

"Do I look young to you?" The fixed stare of a pair of turquoise eyes brought Gromph out of his contemplations. Soulafein stood ramrod straight and there was something almost angry in his expression.

"You don't seem young to me. You are young." Under normal circumstances, the Archmage would not suffer any impertinence from his subordinates. However, there was no way how to test behaviour patterns of something that new without giving it free reign for a while.

"I suppose you are bound to regard me that way."

Now that was a strange answer.

"How did you end up trapped in that place?"

Soulafein went guarded and wary once again. "An accident."

Gromph's stare held the weight of lead as it sharply nailed the other mage to the floor.

The young male hung his head slightly, his hair cascading to hide his eyes. "I do not remember, Archmage. I am sorry."

Gromph stayed silent. Methods existed to verify the truth of his words, and he would use them later if necessary. For now, there were other concerns.

"You didn't state your rank."

"I do not have any, Archmage." It was strange. All the signs of hysteria, of disrupted balance, aggression, they were gone now. There was almost no sarcasm, even. But Gromph could see it all nonetheless, lurking down in the depths of turquoise, biding its time. He reckoned that the kid was being in some kind of shock at the moment. "I am just me, I'm afraid."

"Cut it off, drowling. I'd told you you couldn't lie to me. State your rank. Now."

Soulafein sighed and looked Gromph in the eyes. "I used to be a House Wizard."

Check. The man was a noble. Check. The man was incredibly talented, unnaturally so. No-one becomes a House Wizard at the age of forty-eight.

"Shift."

"Excuse me?" Soulafein was still looking into his eyes, a silent question inscribed in his own.

"Shift. Like you did in the Shadow Plane."

And it was back. Immediately, blind panic arose to Soulafein's face, his whole body starting to shake. "No."

Interesting. "Are you defying me?"

"…no."

"So shift."

"No."

Gromph began to walk toward the mage, Soulafein backing away with every step he took. Then there was nowhere else to back to, unless one could move through solid walls.

The Archmage looked down at the shivering male, plastered back-first to the tapestry. "You said 'everything'."

And Soulafein closed his eyes. It was like a trigger word had been breathed into his ear, another one of their incantations, a command that compelled beyond the ordinary superior-subordinate relationship. Like it was magic. "I did," he whispered, and he dissolved into a whirl of shadow swirls.

Gromph turned around.

The liquid darkness formed again in the shadow cast by a bookcase on the other side of the room, stepping out of the dim frame on the ground as if it were a doorway. Then it coalesced back into Soulafein's slight build.

He was proud. He didn't give in to the tremble that was trying to overtake his body. But when he looked up at the Archmage, his eyes were insane once more.

"It is still there," he breathed.

And he fled.