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the hours of midnight
v.2
notes – let's pretend that I've revised this only once. Original premise (i.e. basically being a Albert in PERIL!fic) still the same. Basically, I went through with a stick and smacked everything I hated. Which was…a whole damn lot.
rating – DOOM. PG-13.
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You can run, but you can't outrun it
You can hide, but it will find you
It is blind, and yet can see
What is it?
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prelude – ancients/
Complete night was rare. The scintillating silver of stars and the gleam of the moon always marred true darkness.
This night was different.
No moon graced the velvety black heavens, no starts winked high above. Utter and beautiful night: a perfect darkness. Gloriano was vast and expansive, stretching to the ends of the world it seemed, no light to mark the edge of earth and the beginning of sky.
Vellweb stood, dark against even the rich black of everything that was the night. Dark as oblivion. The towers that had once been home to the dragoons of old, faded with time, stood sentry still. Ghosts of the ancients that once clung to those sacred walls were long since gone, leaving nothing but crumbled remnants of lives past.
It was one tower in particular that seemed to draw the attention to the bent, withered figure. Topped with what was once brilliant emerald, now dulled, chipped and cloaked in mosses, the Tower of the Jade, Dragoon of the Wind.
Nothing much more than memories lingered in the still proud stones, but he had long learned that even stones told stories, their memories outreaching time itself.
He stood in the middle, idle it seemed. A cloak of ebony spilled out around him, hiding the skeletal from view, a hood falling over features like black rain. Hands gnarled beyond imagination supported a weathered book, no, nothing more than a few scraps of parchment now. Time took its toll on all things.
Except darkness.
…sealed forever until He Who Sleeps awakens. The Mharamw, the Fallen One, Child of the Damned.
Eyes like ruby fire searched the paper, finally alighting on the beginning.
Ti'shadizar of the Pri Dura forsook her people to warn the Humans of this evil, all in vain, for the Winglies themselves could no longer control their own creation, their own doom. Putting aside differences, the Winglies of the Pri Dura and the Dragoons of Light, Darkness and Wind fought and drove the Great Darkness to the fallen lands of the Pritha Duran, where the Mharamw was sealed forever until He Who Sleeps awakens.
Memories flooded this ancient beings mind; just feeling the old reed paper brought it back. He had been asleep far too long.
Syuveil…
A gusting wind whipped through the tower, a name called to being, a name not forgotten by the stones.
Ruby fire eyes flickered upward, up towards the beautifully immaculate night. He crumbled the paper in his withered hands, letting the brittle remains scatter on the night air.
"Snuff the Light, find the Darkness…"
From the surrounding night, three shadows slipped forward, birthed by midnight itself and holding all its dark mystery.
" And find him," said his whisper, a sound like bones on granite. "Bring me the Jade."
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