Darkness

-A Legend Fanfic-

*Written By Gale*

Disclaimer - Same goes as before.

Prologue - Judgement

I am alive…

Darkness' flexed his clawed fingers experimentally, feeling a disbelieving grin stretch across his angular face. He remembered only too well his final moments in the Mortal World, the sound of blades and horns and hoofs in mad clutter and competition, the burning, scorching bands of daylight that flowed and scraped across his nocturnal flesh and blinded his poor eyes. Fear gripped him for the first time, then, for he stood for the first time, completely exposed to the eyes of the present. No shadows draped comfortingly over his form, nor over the deed he'd attempted. The sound of his own voice still rang in his ears, echoing entreat to the name of his Father for protection in those last moments, and how his beating heart wrenched in his chest when for the first time he neither heard nor felt a response.

But now, as he drifted about in the still, soothing blackness of the void, he felt his element slowly cool and close his wretched wounds.

He lived.

A low, rumbling laugh came up from his chest, hesitant at first, but the instant the sound touched his ears, its intensity built with a sudden rush of bravado. The initial anguish at the thought that he'd been abandoned by his sire was long gone, now, for surely he had been mistaken.

"Father…" he breathed, eyes closing against a wave of exhilaration. "Thank you."

"You are a FOOL!"

Darkness grimaced, and he tasted a coppery wetness on his tongue from where his fangs bore down too hard upon his lip. Aching reverberation shot through his ears, and he hissed in pain as a biting gale displaced his course and stung like salt at his not fully healed injuries, there and gone again in a flash. His cloven feet came in loud contact with a stone surface, and he stumbled in disorientation as the feeling of his own weight once again occurred to him.

The void was gone. As he regained his footing, he took note of the boundaries the resonance traveled to, instinct allowing him to rationalize the existence of walls and pillars, their density, and how close and far away each of them were from where he stood. The chamber came to light, bathing him in a cool blue haze under the blazing ends of an array of mounted torches. He quirked a heavy brow at his own reflection in the floor beneath his hoofed steps and drew his tattered robe up around himself in a self-important manner.

He knew his surroundings vaguely, seeing as how in a lifetime spanning several millennia, he'd seen it maybe twice. Despite the fury in the voice that drew him here, he was no longer afraid, but rather pleased, still so when it spoke again.

"You dare entreat your Father?"

Pleased he was, but knowing better than to add stupidity to his list of flaws, Darkness cleared his throat and ensured himself of a more humble tone before speaking. "It has been too long that I've been denied the sight of your face, Mother Night. If I have done you wrong, then please, face me and allow me to amend it."

"You have done more than that, Darkness." The cobalt flames of the torches leapt from their watch points and melded together in the floor before him, rising and shifting along the form which came to being within them. They licked and danced over flesh and robes of a deeper hue before dying, obediently relighting themselves on the torches they abandoned once their task was finished.

It was not her nature to appear in too off-putting a shape, and in turn was a great deal smaller than Darkness remembered. A crown of silky, silver hair whispered around a near blue-black face. Her stark eyes glowed with the borrowed light from the flames, much like his own had a propensity to do in dim areas.

She raised her chin expectantly at him, and understanding, he knelt before her.

Mother Night, being of an ever solemn demeanor, found ways of expression beyond mere sight. As it was Darkness that was born from her, she chose to interact and exist among the living without the necessity of a Mortal's characteristically superficial eyes. Darkness was unable to distinguish how or when exactly she drew herself closer to him, but suddenly she was there just the same. Smooth, azure hands slid up along his shoulders to his neck, brushing over where the enemy's arrows had lodged themselves into his hide, and with a light sting, they were gone, the abrasions they made now sealed and painless. Night's face was barely inches from his own, much so that her own breath and inner warmth mingled with his own.

Her palms found his face, and in a matronly gesture, she bent forward and planted her cool lips on his brow. In a simple, smooth motion, her arms slid around his neck, cheek to his cheek, and Darkness found himself exhaling slowly, tiredly, and drawing his own massive arms around her seemingly meek and breakable form. His hands hesitated upon her back, claws retracting somewhat into his fingers; the nerves in his skin jolted, guardedly halting him from making excessive contact with her.

When she spoke again, she still remained firm, but the sheer intensity that'd been in her voice moments ago was no longer there, favorably replaced with a patient whisper. "You know what it is you tried to do, my child."

"I am ashamed of nothing, Mother," he said cooly, retaining his stillness for her.

"And that is part of the problem." Her lips brushed against his ear. "There is but one law for our kind, Darkness. You all but tore it asunder, then dared to act surprised when Death graced your stronghold." She squeezed his shoulder meaningfully. "What's worse, you gave the credit for your redemption to your Father, who would have cut you down himself before answering your cry."

A low growl rose in his throat, and Darkness jolted away from her. Night's arms broke from him as swiftly and effortlessly as passing through smoke. She was neither amused nor alarmed by his faint outburst, and he could not expect her to be. In one of her seldom bouts of facial expression, however, he did see the gradual narrowing of her eyes, the only visual sign of her growing irritation.

"Know this, my child," she said. "It was I who petitioned Death for your life, just as it was I who gave birth to you, not that insufferable peacock you call your sire. You live because I wish it, and because you will not pass on without accounting for what you have done."

Darkness drew himself up onto his feet, standing his full height before her now. "You would choose to judge me, Mother Night?" he inquired.

"I would do more than that," she corrected. "I have been the one chosen to mete out your punishment."

That feeling again. A sinking, aching feeling creeping up from the pit of his stomach.

Mother Night seemed entirely unaware of it, however. "As a whole, our kind know what has taken place, and they agree that you can hardly be punished for what has come to be your nature," she said gravely. "So it has been agreed that in order to prevent this happening again, you must be removed from it."

"Removed, Mother?"

Once more, she was suddenly close to him again. However, the feeling of comfort he received in the past was replaced by a sinking, groggy feeling that made him stagger yet again on his feet. His vision swam, and were he not so impulsively tired, he might have had his first experience in panic.

"You have a task to perform, my son." Her voice echoed, seemed so very distant, now…

Darkness felt the coldness of the stone floor against his back as the void engulfed him once more. Still, his mother's voice resonated in the back of his mind like a dream.

If you wish to return to your throne, you must earn the responsibility… You must…

When he woke again, it was under the hateful gaze of the sun.

…Live…

TO BE CONTINUED…