A/N: This story takes place over two decades after Jack, Lili and the gang thought that they had dealt with The Lord of Darkness.
It features a female OC who I have only physically described in vague terms so that readers can imagine her in any way they want.

Contains: Blood, gore, disturbing themes, animal death and non-graphic sexual content.

An explicit version is on AO3 under the same pseudonym.


Time Without Light


Before the great black tree, a figure waded through the wetlands. It was a woman who had made the trek to gather several carnivorous plants in order to sell them to the wood witches for coin. They were highly sought after and she knew where a small cluster grew midway through the bog.

The woman was youthful and brawny built, her hair was silver-blue and it tumbled beyond the small of her back if she did not braid it up out of her eyes. Simply going by the moniker 'Daphne', she made her living by harvesting trade goods. Her home was in the forest near town where she set fruit and herbs out to dry, brewed sun teas, cured and smoked meat and pickled vegetables. The townsfolk may have done business with Daphne out of necessity, but to them anyone who was friend to the woodland spirits was trouble.

Daphne spotted the pitcher plants at the foot of a dead tree and tried to take a step toward it only to find that she was stuck fast in the mud. A large splash issued a few yards ahead which caused her to withdraw her short-sword but in the mist, she could only make out the hulking figure of some beast rising from the water, sputtering and growling. To her dismay, it began to move closer.

Trying not to make much noise, Daphne worked to pull her feet out of the muck, successfully freeing one with a tiny squelch. Ahead, the beast crouched and cocked it's horned head, crimson eyes blazing through the fog. "A Minotaur?" she thought, doubting her ability to slay such a creature. With relief, her other foot came loose and she turned about to look for some cover but was met by the beast itself, looming over her. How had it moved so quickly? Daphne gazed up at it's face, human in features, as plumes of steam escaped his nostrils.

And she ran. Ran for her life, further into the mire as the beast pursued.

"Yes, give chase! 'Tis welcome sport!" she heard him say with a roar of laughter. The woman struggled fervently to outrun him but she could hear the creature getting closer with each bound. A burning pain shot through her back as claws tore into her skin, knocking her face first into the dirt. She rolled over and thrust the short-sword into the horned being's side, causing him to howl in pain so loud that was sure she had struck a death-blow.
To her terror, he merely wrenched the blade out and cast it aside, cursing "Damnation!" and quickly clutched her neck. "Stung me good didn't you, little mosquito?! Matters not." Tightening his grip, blood and oxygen was cut off to Daphne's brain as she kicked and scratched. "I shall reward myself with a feast of your tender flesh!"

When she finally lay limp, he released his grasp and examined her face, stroking the earth and peat away. The man-beast stooped over her, black as obsidian with the wine red horns of a bull, to run his giant hand over her form and sniff her clothes. Finding her appearance most agreeable, he hefted her to carry at his hip along a muskrat tied on his belt.