Thank you for looking in on my story, if you have any questions or thoughts please feel free to ask. However I have decided on much of the plot, so please be understanding of my plot decisions. Please enjoy my intro to my new story.

Wake child…

My eyes opened from a dark void, the sun trickled through a maple tree that stood unflinchingly over me. There was a silence where time didn't move, only a slight breeze I could barely feel on my cheek. My heart thumped almost painfully in my chest, my chest seized as I desperately gasped for air. I panted heavily as I struggled to catch my breath, my body tingling, the feeling softly trickling down from my neck through my body. I weakly pushed myself off the forest floor enough to lift my torso, my legs still beyond my reach.

I looked around seeing nothing but more trees and a little rabbit that was nibbling at some grass. I watched him for a moment as I consciously breathed, forcing myself to not collapse. My raspy breathing brought its attention as I cleared my throat, it glanced at me frozen before it slowly ate again.

I felt my breathing slow, It was relieving. I wasn't going to have a heart attack right then and there. Slowly, with tense frozen muscles I pushed myself up, my legs felt like lead. I took a moment to slowly raise my arms, my shoulders popping loudly as I pulled them behind my back. I slumped back down, I took another breath.

The rabbit had since vanished when I slowly looked back over, I slowly took my first step forward wobbling as I struggled to keep my balance. My body was warming up slowly and my muscles tightened as I took another step.

I squinted as the once-covered sun hit my eyes, the warmth filling my skin, which felt like receding frost. I curled my fingers, staring at them growing in color. I looked around once again, there were no trails, no people, just a silent forest. I chose a direction and took a step and slowly made my way through the clearing. The forest came to life as I moved, birds flew by and the wind pushed at my back.

It was strange to have to move manually, my body felt ancient and withered like it had forgotten to live…

Slowly I entered another clearing as I walked past another tree, leaves dusted the ground as it grew colder as the sun fell on the horizon. I shivered slightly, I looked on to see a small pond, a dusting of trees surrounding it, but it was exposed lightly to the sun. I stumbled down the bank softly coming to the edge as I looked over the water, my reflection gleamed. Silver eyes, shaded by long black hair as it reached down, my skin was almost deathly pale. I broke the mirage by dipping my hand into the water cupping it and bringing it to my lips. I choked slightly as the clean water shocked my dry throat, but it was beyond relieving, my raspy breathing no longer accompanying my very presence.

I sat back on my heels as I looked around the edge of the clearing. Crystal formations glowed, pulsing deep colors of varying shades and colors. The light dimmed further as the sunset, fireflies danced on the tree line floating around the pillars. I turned back to the water looking at it carefully as it still rippled softly. I sat down and wrapped my arms around my knees as the wind rustled the trees, nothing here looked familiar. I looked at my reflection again… who was I?

The wind bit at my exposed skin again, I was dressed in nothing but worn decomposing rags. I stood up carefully watching the water, and I stepped back onto the soft grass. I made my way over to a dark crimson crystal, it hummed as I drew nearer beating to a rhythm I could hear.

I touched it tentatively, it illuminated by touch, greeting me in its own way. I tried to greet it, but my voice died before it began. So I patted the stone in as friendly a manner as I could before I sat down against it. My eyes slowly shut as I felt a warmth fill my body as the crystal behind me hummed to me loudly, glowing a little brighter than before.

Many nights followed as did the days, slowly ticking by as I lived a life of silence walking the earth and marking it in my tracks. In time the leaves bloomed into their fall majesty before they once more bloomed in early spring. My voice had finally returned, never reaching beyond a whisper as my body healed in nature's soft embrace.

I found time, resting by the edge of my pond, never once had it dried nor had fish failed to bite. For all the love that had grown in my heart for this paradise, the silence was deafening so I sought refuge within myself. It was then I found my soul and in it serenity and protection, so I stayed for as long as it pleased me.

When I awoke a woman awaited me, her eyes a deep purple with hair as dark as night. She tended to a fire that burned brightly, staring into the hottest flames she stood motionlessly. "You've awoken finally…" she spoke with a heavenly voice that soothed me as a lullaby might. "I grow tired of tending this fire, it does not dim nor does it burn, but it's light is pure." she sighed bitterly before she turned away to look at me. "Mankind has been challenged by fate's cruelties, I do not wish to see their embers die, but I must be resolute in my duties. You will be their guardian, I will not take your right of death, but I will give you choice in death." she approached me as I watched silently as she slowly placed a kiss on my head with the grace of a mother. "The world will call upon you to prevent the flickering embers from the festering darkness, you are the will of humanity. Will you answer child?"

She flickered away into the wind as though she had never existed, leaving me staring at a fire that was all too real. It illuminated my grove pleasantly painting the first shadows behind the trees in a way the sun never touched. I found myself to be fine given purpose once again.

So I harnessed the power I was given a soul and dust, the power of the land. My humming companions fueled creations' survival and reason and defied any sense of logic. I projected my soul reinforcing my body over the years slowly day by day. I took the finest purest dust of the brightest crystals that glowed like a beacon and inscribed them across my body, a bloody painstaking permanent process that had left the ground soaked with my blood.

The fire continued to burn, beginning to flicker at times when mankind was born into the world. The Grimm I named them, nature's curse towards those that dared to not rejoice in nature's purities and blessings. Creatures who were the manifestation of darkness seeking only destruction of the lights that walked the world they too sought. The newborns of mankind's vast peoples who in their foolishness overlooked their own action as they dared to take what was never offered. However they were pure, they simply desired to exist as any might, repelling the darkness with what dust they could scavenge. They were pushed and pushed to the very corners of the world until they learned to repeal the ancient evils forcing them into the remote badlands where man never dared to explore.

A balance was born there and then between the light and darkness. Skirmishes danced wildly like the very embers I stalked, battling for every inch of ground at the cost of blood and tears, only to lose it the next day as the black tides pushed back. I stayed my hand, to interfere and allow mankind respite, to dull their fangs, mankind's gift of resiliency, pride, and most important weakness, was a curse lying it wait.

It was so for many years as the light fought a slow battle of attrition and the ancient evils hid in the darkest depths awaiting for weakness, waiting for a wound to mankind, waiting for me… It was then that a star that twinkled in the darkness flourished, and so I finally stood leaving the fire in my grove of solitude. A change had come.