Dark welcomed it like a sister. After all, a Neverborn had nothing to fear from cold or darkness, for his kind had a millennialong pact with them. To the vampire, it felt like the embrace of a loved one: warm and comforting, full of the promise of life. It was a wonderful feeling to one who had had to watch time pass in front of him, while he remained ever undying. Over nine centuries he'd watched, seeing the present become history right under his nose.
And he was quite bored of it, to tell the truth. But this girl...
Looking back, he frowned slightly at the sight of Desert and Embyr curled up in one corner of the cave they'd found, sleeping soundly. The two were a nuisance, but there was something about the Flygon that piqued his curiosity. Something strange... but it really didn't matter. He'd follow them for as long as it took to satisfy his intrigue, then leave.
And if they got in the way... well, the sand covered bodies very well.
Standing, he removed his cloak, walked to where the two Fusions were sleeping, and draped the thick material over them, tucking it in to stave off the cold. Satisfied that they wouldn't wake up, he strolled out onto the sands, his head lowered in thought. The waxing moon lit up the desert like a all consuming fire, bathing everything in its soft glow. Added to its mystique was the unearthly calm of a windless, soundless barrier that the night cast upon the living, beguiling them to sleep as a new day dawned for the ones who thrived in the inescapable Darkness.
It was indescribably beautiful to a Neverborn, and the sole survivor of that race grinned, his feet launching him into a run seemingly of their own accord and speeding him along the sand at a ferocious pace that soon outstripped any human's efforts.
The night brought freedom, and he cherished every minute of it. Back in the cave, Desert slowly opened her eyes, groaning at the effort of untangling herself out of sleep's comforting embrace. How long had she been sleeping? Dark should have already woken them up, stirring them to another night of travel with a wordless stare and a clawed hand on the shoulder... but he was nowhere to be found, and his cloak was wrapped around both her and Embyr, the heavy cloth keeping out the freezing cold.
Where could he have gone?
At that moment, the Neverborn was streaking along the moonlit sands, leaving a massive cloud of dust in his wake. His pistoning legs had long since become an unintelligible blur, and had reduced the distance that had taken the three of them days to cover down to a few glorious minutes of frenzied speed.
Skidding to a stop, the Gallade took a moment to survey the surrounding area, looking for all the world like a schoolboy on an innocent, happy outing.
"Yodelayheehoo! Where are you, little bugger?"
The crystal voice sang out across the desert for a single, perfect second... and then a titanic pillar of sand swept up in front of him, a bloodcurdling roar shattering the peaceful night into an irrepairable mass of glass shards. Before the Neverborn's smiling face crawled the monster that had antagonized them only a few days ago, its wrinkled, stubbed head glistening wetly with freshdrawn blood. It had been feeding on some animal or another, Dark surmised, and he'd stirred it out of its midnight snack, when it was at its most irritable.
The Gallade barely kept himself from salivating as the unbearably sweet fragrance of life swept up his nostrils, and he settled for drawing his smile into a predator's toothy grin, looking the creature up and down appraisingly, noting the cracked and blackened fingernails, the dirty, sorestrewn skin, and fetid breath, thick with the stench of rotted meat. The thing was a fallen figurehead, something once worshipped, now a savage and unpredictable animal.
God, he loved the stinking thing already. "Oh, my... you're a big one, aren't you?"
The monster roared in reply, revealing a mouth full of aging, yellow teeth, pitted and stained with blood. The smell of heavy decay hung thickly in the air, but Dark never noticed as tears began streaming down his face in anticipation of the heady taste that would soon fill every pore of his body, bringing with it the unholy satiation of life.
Slowly, he extended a hand, the shadows gathering in it to form his weapon, the deadly Black Sagani, the scythe of dreams. A bit overmuch in ceremony, he thought, but a thing like this deserved it for the ritual that was about to be performed.
And, after all, he liked having the thing around, especially since he didn't possess a typical Gallade's arm blades. Too restricting.
Still grinning, he waited calmly, scythe in hand as the creature bellowed, lowered its head, and charged, knobbly knees pounding against the silverlit powder.
Desert and Embyr had decided to continue on without Dark, operating on the hope that he'd return... at least for his cloak.
"He's probably just out for a walk or something..."
Dark yawned, wiping a last drop of glowing bluewhite liquid from his mouth with his wrist as he leaned against the remains of the beast, licking his lips at the memory of his snack. The creature had been enraged beyond all sanity, clumsily swiping at him with ham hands that could flatten a house, much less one Neverborn. But it hadn't taken long for fatigue to take over, and in that moment, the battle had been decided. The Gallade smiled at the thought of thick meat parting like silk before his blade, and the glowing essence of life fountaining out in a cobalt spray.
He hadn't let a drop hit the sand.
As power screamed through his bones, the Neverborn patted the rapidly chilling meat a final time, banished his weapon to from whence it had come, and sped off into the night, tearing the sand into ribbons as the ageold process of entombment began swathing the beast's dead weight in powder."See?Told you he'd come back."
Desert looked the Gallade over as he came jogging up out of the gloom, obviously pleased with himself for some reason. "Where have you been? You could have woken us up."
Dark shrugged, his smug smile not deterred in the least. "Oh, nowhere...
...I just went out for a bite."