Match did not weep as she sat gently cradling Ryoran's dead body, his ruddy fur soiled and matted with blood and his luminous grey eyes still staring upward with a sightless gaze. She had been sitting there for uncountable hours, shivering violently in the wintry gales, but could force her stiff limbs to do nothing but crawl drearily across the frozen ground to the place where the withered Opalescent Tree stood; a dim and weatherworn memory of a forgotten age. It had been over a thousand years since the Desolationes and the irrevocable fall of Evankyanesse, the centre of all the world, and here Match sat blinking away her first tears as she viewed the last striking blow of the Darkeness.

Tenderly she laid Ryoran's body into the shallow grave she had barely found the strength to hollow. Her sobs now came fiercely, convulsing her own slender form as she covered over the grave with soil and then sketched atop it a small, intricate rune to mark the final resting place of the one she had loved for so many centuries. She passed her hand over her golden eyes to ward off the horrific images of Ryoran's gruesome and brutal death. He had succumbed to the Darkeness, having no other option
frankly- it had grown simply too strong for him to combat any longer.
She feared she would never cease feeling, in her mind, the dying shiver
of his body or the laboured whisper of his final breath.

A glower of uncannily familiar crimson eyes startled Match from her lamentation.
Glancing up, a shudder of astonishment and rage took full possession of
her body as she found herself staring into the face of someone who
could not be real, but was.

Dr. DeWolfe smiled as he evenly returned her gaze without batting an eye. "Match," he said, coldly. "You
were hardly the person I expected to find here. This is a
cemetery, you must understand, of course." He scanned the fresh grave
they now stood beside with a glitter of avarice in his eyes.

"Yes," replied Match, a deadly ember simmering in her voice as she took a
single step towards DeWolfe. "Ryoran is lying beneath that soil. This
you already know- I see it in your eyes."

"Ryoran?" DeWolfe chuckled scornfully. "That miserable fox never deserved to take his
first breath, let alone his last. He was altogether too simple to be rid
of. It only took one twist of his faltering Spirite, and he fell, he
fell far underground." His smile reeked with madness as he stepped
nearer and nearer to Match. "Perhaps you will be next, Match. You
trusted me for centuries. Besides, I know what a fascination you have
always had for the things of Darkeness. I know you have grown to doubt
Lighte's power, and certainly that of Boundlesse- after all, both have
crumbled into ruin; and both are now completely useless. Darke will
prevail, Match. Darke will prevail."

Match's body quivered violently with the force of her rage as her eyes kindled into scarlet embers of sheer hatred. "It was you who murdered Ryoran- it was you all along."

"Yes, of course." He seemed unfazed. "Surely it didn't take you all this time
to figure that out, Match, the splendid author of the Book of Reasone."
A scornful smile emerged from his face as he began to mockingly recite
one of the phrases Match herself had penned in the aforesaid book, which
had once rested on the bookshelf of the Library of Evankyanesse.
"'Sometimes the truth lies beneath your eyes, but you see it not, for
your gaze is clouded by worthless emotions. Cast them away. They are
prison bars, and love is a chain, binding you to the pleasures of the
world.'"

Match did not respond to this, for the mere conjuring of
her own words was the final straw to snap the hesitation in her heart. "I HATE YOU!!" she
screamed, springing forward and fighting like a mad thing, clawing and
kicking and biting with every ounce of her strength. Dr. DeWolfe was
caught off guard by the sudden action, but did not appear to be wounded
in the least by her violence, which only served to kindle her rage even
further. She now began to shout curses at him, ancient Shadowe-spelles
of ruin and disaster, and she sensed that they were effective; she could
feel DeWolfe's iron will slowly weakening and giving forth under the
strain. She did not realise that exactly as he had predicted, she too
was swiftly falling. Or perhaps she did, but cared nothing for it. Her
mind was twisted solely on unravelling and destroying the very innermost
Spirite of the one who had murdered Ryoran, the only person she had
ever loved.

With a mere snap of her fingers Match summoned a
scythe-like weapon of hideous shape, carven with the images of garnet
snakes and ghastly creatures; and with its curved blade she lunged forth
and drove it into her enemy's bare neck. DeWolfe fell with a cloven
head, his blood gushing onto the ground in black rivulets.

A seething exhilaration took possession of Match, shivering from the
depths of her heart to the hands which clasped the bloodied scythe.
Repulsed by the sight of DeWolfe's corpse, she kicked it away from her
as one might kick the corpse of an animal. She was disconcerted to watch
as his body abruptly shriveled to nothing but a disheveled pile of
ashen bones, and then nothing at all; even his garments had vanished.
Beneath the place where he had lain the grass was charred and black.

Match's hands trembled with still unquenched fury as she lifted the blade and
stabbed it into the ground, attempting to cleanse it of DeWolfe's dark
blood, but nothing happened. She frowned and tried again, abruptly
drawing it out at last and gingerly scraping the scythe over her arm to
test its sharpness, but she was utterly astonished when it drew no
blood. Her eyes widened as she attempted several other experiments, but
still nothing happened; the blade slipped through her flesh as through a
mere mist. There was neither pain nor injury.

Bending over the still pool of water nearby, Match's eyes widened with amazement as she
saw that they were yet golden, but now intricately wrought with scarlet
flames which danced round her catlike pupils. She reached to unfasten
the clasp which had held her previously ash-brown tresses in place, and
now they rippled down over her shoulders in a cascade of glorious raven
black. She gazed at the unfamiliar reflection of herself and touched the
water as if expecting to touch the face of an ethereal sprite of these
dark waters. But her hand withdrew instead a small silver chain, bearing
upon it a large and strangely familiar ice-blue stone. She gasped with
wonderment and disgust and tried to cast it from her, but it remained
attached to her fingers as if having put down roots into her flesh; and
the Lighte-spelle which bound its centre penetrated her corrupted soul
with hideous pain. She cried out and at last mustered the strength of
will to throw it far from her, but still it glimmered tauntingly in the
dewy grass several yards away.

"I hate you," Match hissed through clenched teeth, "I hate you, I hate you!"

Immediately a voice responded in answer, shriller and indignant: the voice of her
former self, or so she thought. "Do not say you despise Lighte! Do you
not fear Monoríel? She has the power to destroy you!"

"Does she?" Match responded scornfully, for it had been the Queene of the Origines'
face itself that she had glimpsed in the Voide Crystal she had so
violently cast away. "Coillia Burneheart used to say that if I looked
long on the face of Monoríel, I would die, but yet that did not happen.
Lighte lies. Lighte is weak. It hides behind an armour of lies."

"You are foolish! You pen your own death sentence."

"Nay! It is you who are foolish, Childe of Lighte. Leap into the Voide Sea and die! I wish to never hear your voice again."

And Match did not hear that voice again. Her wish had been granted, but it
was a hollow victory, and she knew it. Nevertheless she hardened her
heart and marched unafraid to the place where she had thrown the Voide
Crystal, and lifted it up, fingering it this time without pain or
difficulty in the palm of her hand. The pale sunbeams grated harshly on
the blue stone and shattered its light into a thousand facets, revealing
within them a whirling and bewildering mass of faces, armies, legions.
Match's heart shivered with excitement as she gazed on them, and for the
first time caught a strange glimpse of herself among them; upon her
head was set a circlet of gold and in her hand she wielded a
double-edged sword of adamant, Darke-flames licking at its lethal blade.
But she was not consumed. She would avenge what had been brutally torn
from her. Wouldn't she? After all, she had already destroyed even the
Spirite of Dr. DeWolfe- heinous murderer! Captor of souls! Shadowe of
ancient fear! He lay dead, but that was far from enough for Match.

She glanced down at the Voide Crystal once more but once more her eyes were
riveted upon it, though not painfully so. A pair of eyes was staring
wonderingly back at her- cold eyes, splendid eyes, the palest blue she
had ever before seen. One was slightly darker, the hue of winnowed
sea-glass; and it was this that instantly drew Match's gaze to
alertness. The eyes drew back, revealing the blonde head and large,
ruddy Fennec fox ears of a young male Delphixi. His chapped lips had
opened wide as if to speak to her, and speak he did. Match felt herself
violently thrown back, the Voide Crystal knocked presently from her
hand, filling her with rage anew. The pale eyes remained burned in her
memory as a brand to the forehead, and that very day she strung her
metaphorical bow and sought the downfall of Faterii Dawnhollow, for he
was the last living soul to defy her in that Realme. Like Dr. DeWolfe,
he too would fall.

Only one dilemma hung between Match and the
success of her scheme, for Faterii's name eluded her. But that mattered
not. She could find it; yes, she could, the fair Darke Author of
Reasone. Only now this was reliable Reasone, not the foolery she had
spouted in days of yore. She knew that this Reasone would lead her
straight to the proverbial doorstep of the Nameless One whom she was
hunting, and not a doubt did she possess.

Red Szabo smiled as she glanced aside at her young Radiante wife, Beverly, who was at present bending over the small trembling Delphixi who lay curled before the blazing fireplace, his Fennec fox ears laid tautly back against his skull. "Where did you find him, Beverly?" Red queried softly, also kneeling down and placing her warm and soothing hands upon the boy's form, infused and glowing innately with healing Magyk of Lighte.

"I found him in the wreck of the Starfleet ship USS Pisces," replied Beverly, her tone aggrieved as she too quietly administered a Lighte-spelle of healing to the refugee. "I presume he was being cared for at one point by the captain, Annika Gold. I used to know her quite well- both she and her first commander, Steve Jackson, I found dead." She bowed her regal ginger head in sorrow, speaking softly so as not to further agitate the young Delphixi. "He is a Delphixi; that I know, but I think he is mute," she added eventually. "He hasn't spoken a single word since I took him back to our cabin, here in Édelesse."

"Perhaps," mused Red, "but I think it is more likely that he is simply too terrified to speak. If he's had to survive a starship crash and the death of his family- and who knows what else, potentially- I can imagine his fear indeed."

Beverly stroked the boy's large ears with a tender and maternal hand, deciding to attempt telepathy, as it seemed the only route at that point. We will not harm you- I promise, she said softly. I am Beverly Szabo and this is my wife Red. We are Lighte.. we will not harm you.

T-the Watchers, the boy whispered through chapped and trembling lips, though his actual words made no sound. T-they were once R-Radiante.. like you. And t-they fell.

The Watchers? echoed Beverly, distress clearly visible in her expressive and luminous blue eyes. They are seeking you, are they not? That is who you were fleeing.

Shakily the boy nodded and burrowed his head into his arms again, shaking compulsively with tearless, gasping sobs. Beverly glanced at Red with an anxious sigh, uncertain of what exactly to do for this obviously tormented soul. The latter's lips thinned into a taut line and with a nod she placed deft and gentle hands over the boy's head, murmuring softly in the language of the Origines (the native tongue also of the Radiante Ones); a pale blue illumination encompassed the area and slowly, reluctantly, the Delphixi's violent trembling slowed and then ceased. A new expression of wary familiarity lingered in his bright blue eyes as he sat up, his bony arms scarcely able to uphold his own weight. Again he spoke telepathically, only this time into both Red's and Beverly's minds. We cannot stay here- they are coming, he said urgently, eyes flaming with vehemence. They will dismantle your very souls. They will find me, and they will find the fox you call Ryoran.

Ryoran? Beverly echoed in amazement. That is impossible. He died over a century ago, when Red and I were first married.

The boy shook his head animatedly. No. It was a decoy, he explained swiftly, seeing the Lighte in them, and with a proverbial thunderbolt realising that they could in fact be trusted. He needed to lure them away from her.

Her? interjected Red, frowning intensely. Whom do you speak of?

The girl who fell underground, said the nameless boy. They called her Match, but now they call her simply Darke Flower. She was once Lighte. She loved Ryoran, but his feigning of his death pushed her over the final edge. He wants nothing more than to redeem her, but he thinks it impossible. We must find Ryoran quickly, before Darke can, and before Match is swallowed irrevocably! We haven't much time.

Red and Beverly glanced at each other uneasily, disliking what they heard. Nevertheless the former did rise immediately on a quest to locate satchels and portable rations. "Get Renfyre and December and Elen," she said quickly to Beverly, referencing their own infant triplets who slumbered unheedingly in the upstairs gable. "Pack your things, we won't be back again." She turned to the strange boy, realising for the first time that he had not told them his name. "We'll get out of here.. just hold on."

Coming soon, potentially. ^^