Darrell Drake

There is a duality to darkness known only to those who__e been infected by its touch. Everyone knows the shadows: shallow, comfortable, mostly harmless places where one might nest for a night. But the depths of living pitch only visit the aristocracy of madmen and women who__e unwittingly pledged fealty to the curse. For some, it outright ruins minds like a hound to fresh meat; for others, it wanes into the deepest parts of its less caustic sibling and waits for the time to strike, returning periodically through life like an incurable disease.

She did not belong to the healthy group of widows and widowers who, after mourning, would nurture the seed of their grief into growing from loss__erhaps continuing the dreams of the lost, or learning to cherish alone the things they__ cherished together.She belonged instead to the sad lot who clung to grief, who nurtured it by never moving beyond it. They__ shelter it deep inside where the years padded it in saudade layers like some malignant pearl.

If the years have taught me one thing it's that those who care are always scarce. Those who genuinely care; not the acquaintances, false friends or those with similar aspirations. The few who seek your company, the souls who would plainly step off the world for you. Once you resolve to ignore them, only regret will follow.

You aren__ falling apart. You__e well beyond that. You__e just rattling along now. Elven dolls doing what little you can to gather the pieces as they fall away. But you don__ know how to properly reattach them__ doll does not repair itself. So you hug those brittle fragments to your chest until you simply cannot hug anymore. Until you__e had to leave so many behind that you no longer remember what it is you__e missing.

Ashtadukht slumped and let thenightingale__ song flood her brain. She knew that empty tone, that defeatedoutlook; she knew it intimately. Even now, it burned in her as limply as asnuffed flame. Passion burned with unchecked verve, devoured its fuel, andsputtered out. Despair required no upkeep; it heaped barely-glowing coals inthe back of your mind and fuelled itself.

Battle is gruesome, but it is vigorous, alive. The aftermath is the worst of it: adrenaline fades, quiet sweeps in, and there__ nothing to distract you from the mess of bodies and disturbed earth.

She could have rambled with all the fervor of a woman who had loved one entity for longer than most races live, and with the inviolable, unquestioned certainty found in dementia. There were references dated and sealed with meticulous care which she would have enthusiastically opened with the mirth of one proclaiming a lifetime of honors and awards. But that singular event was freshly disturbed; its pores still drifted on the faint zephyr of remembrance.

She set out for revenge, to run them through, to do what an elf, an elf must do._ The next verse was Merill__ to improvise. __limbed that roost, alighted right there. Made mush of his head for the onlooker bears._ __ two-pronger her prize, a meat most rare. Do-gooders will pay. Do-gooders will fear._ __allad of the loneliest ones,_ lamented Merill. __he loneliest ones,_ said Almi. She accepted that title; they were the loneliest. The elf gloomed.

I was pregnable once,_ Merill thought to contribute. She remembered how troublesome it made getting around, having a ripe belly. Couldn__ roll properly, couldn__ hop properly, couldn__ romp or flop properly. There were the cravings for roasted cabbage__he loathed cabbage, with its leaves and growing in rows. And labor! Merill passed out during childbirth. She__ endured burns, lacerations, rips, serrated teeth, nails, hooks and a trove of unmentionable harm-inflictors. Labor trounced them all and wriggled gleefully in the spray of blood and gore. __eing pregnable is no good. No good at all. Like growing a bitter melon in your belly.

_ Climbed that roost, alighted right there. Made mush of his head for the onlooker bears.A two-pronger her prize, a meat most rare. Do-gooders will pay. Do-gooders will fear. _

Deception was an inherent trait of intelligent beings. Even his love, in her ample ardor, would weave him a guilty lie for his own good. And he treasured her just as well for those tales he was sure she'd already spun.

Unnatural, unorthodox, amoral: those pretensions crumble when confronted by true happiness. You shouldn't give another the authority to draw a line defining the boundaries of acceptable joy.

She murdered for her truth, and they had died for theirs.