The chase had gone on for a nearly half of an hour.<br/><br/>The word “chase”, though, would easily have led to misconception in the telling of the tale.  If the truth matched the way Vardhyn Drall would have liked to tell it, it would have involved an epic pursuit through the forest between a hunter and his quarry, a deadly game of cat and mouse.  It would have involved leaps through the air, rolls across the ground, and the constant lingering thought that the pursuit could turn at any moment, with the hunter becoming the hunted, just for that extra bit of danger that every good story needs.<br/><br/>Vardhyn, however, valued being honest and, if he ever even remembered this insignificant event after what was to come later that day, he would likely not bother telling the tale at all.<br/><br/>No, the truth of the matter was that the chase had started with Vardhyn having seen a half-starved hare grazing in a meadow in the distance.  The last half hour had involved him slowly dragging himself closer through the dirt and underbrush to try and get within range of his bow.  He was dealing with a small and skittish target, and, at this range, any sudden change in its movement would waste even the best planned shot.  Even he knew that much.<br/><br/>It had only been a week, maybe two, since Aithne and Vardhyn had finally purchased a small cottage on the northern edge of Wornshir, and as two Coraiary elves, they had not been given much of a bargain and a degree of debt was accrued.  The wages of their work were essentially someone else’s money for the time being.  As a result, food had to be obtained any way possible.  That was the reason he was currently doing his best attempt at sneaking through the underbrush.   There was nowhere Vardhyn would rather be, than somewhere else.<br/><br/>He winced as a fallen branch cracked under his foot.  The hare froze in place, looking directly at him.  Vardhyn’s hair was pulled back from his face, tucked behind his pointed ears, giving him an unhindered view of the scene before him.  His quarry was in a relatively open area, with the nearest possible escape being some low lying plants to the left.  He knew the next few moments were crucial.  All it would take would be proper timing and he could bring his wife home something more interesting than the roots and mushrooms he had in the bag dangling from his back, next to his quiver.<br/><br/>With as cautious and as deliberate a motion as possible, he slowly pulled back the draw string of his bow, till the fletching of the arrow almost brushed against his pale face.  The slits of his red eyes locked with the eyes of the hair.  The small mammal’s noise twitched just once before instincts kicked in and it darted towards the nearest bush, just as Vardhyn had predicted.<br/><br/>Vardhyn’s fingers opened, releasing the string and sending the arrow slashing through the air.<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">Thuhk</span><br/><br/>A curse filled the air as the arrow embedded itself into the trunk of a tree, nowhere even near the hare as it ran for its life.  He tried to pull another arrow from his quiver, but his crawl through the underbrush had twisted the quiver sideways, so that, when pulling out one, the rest of the arrows were pulled free as well.  They clattered to the ground around his feet.  By the time he brought the arrow to the bow, the hare was out of sight.<br/><br/>Feeling the blood rush to his face, he looked down at the bow in his hands with a certain loathing, despite inwardly knowing full well that it wasn’t the bow’s fault that the shot had gone wide.  Tucking it under his arm, he picked up the arrows from the ground, along with what remained of his dignity, before turning back in the direction of his home.<br/><br/>***<br/><br/>The sun was drawing close to the horizon, as he finally drew close to home.  For no reason he could not consciously identify, his eyes moved along the path south that lead towards the main village center.  Wornshir had been their home for the last year, but they were still outsiders to most of its residents.  This house on the northern outskirts had been the best they had been able to find.  Anything closer to the village center would have been unthinkable to their neighbors.  Still, the jobs offers were coming more frequently.  The stares of their neighbors were becoming a little less suspicious.<br/><br/>There was very little movement visible.  Apart from a single man in the distance, drunkenly stumbling his way from the local inn, it seemed as though the village had all retired to their homesteads.  Light flickered in many of the windows, occasionally cut off by passing silhouettes.  The contrast of growing clouds stained with the colors of sunset contrasted beautifully against the fog rising up as a backdrop to the village.<br/><br/>All in all, it was a wonderful sight.<br/><br/>He could not explain why it actually made him a little uncomfortable.<br/><br/>The nagging though lingered in his head as he opened the door, but was soon forgotten in a warm embrace.  Aithne’s hair brushed against his face as he somehow wrapped his arms around her, an accomplishment considering he had his bow tucked under one arm and the bag containing food was slung over the other.<br/><br/>“You’re missing an arrow I see,” she snickered as she stepped back, reaching up to brush a leaf from his hair with one hand, before deftly snatching the bag of food from him with the other.  After a brief glance inside, she looked back at him with a mischievous grin as she handed back the bag, “Did the roots put up a fight?  Help me get everything ready and you can regale me with the story of your heroic adventure while we eat.”<br/><br/>Of the two of them, she was the better hunter, and they both knew it.  If anyone else had mocked his consistent failure at hunting, he would have probably been annoyed or self-conscious, but this wasn’t anyone else.  There was no malice in her words, only affection.  He walked past with a sheepish smile and deposited the food onto the table.  Pulling back a chair, he sat down, pulled out his knife, and began cutting away at the roots in preparation for a stew.<br/><br/>“You did well, love,” she said lovingly as she passed by, kissing him on the forehead in the process.<br/><br/>His mind drifted as he felt into the repetitive process of peeling and slicing.  Aithne’s voice drifted out from the other room as she sang softly to herself.  It was a northern song, and it reminded him of northern lands.  It reminded him of the sound of the marshlands, of the morning dew…<br/><br/>The nagging thought from before returned in force and hit him hard.<br/><br/>Mist at sundown…<br/><br/>Knocking his chair backwards in the process, he rose and darted to the window.  The sound of the chair crashing to the ground brought an end to the singing, but his mind was on other things now.  The last traces of purple were vanishing from the sky above, but just enough light remained for him to see the unnatural darkness closing in, boiling towards them in a massive cloud.<br/><br/>Through the window, the sounds of screaming began to echo in the distance.<br/><br/>He turned to find Aithne staring at him from the doorway, eyes concerned, a dagger clutched in her hand.  The screams were becoming more and more audible.  The journey southward had had its share of danger, and the both of them knew what the other was thinking.  Without a word, she grabbed his bow from the table and, flipping the blade around, extended the dagger to him by its hilt.<br/><br/>“Back door,” he whispered, “now!”<br/><br/>The only response was a calm and quick nod.<br/><br/>Rain pattered against the grass and dirt as they rushed outside.  Another cloud of the black fog was moving towards them from the east as well, though was not nearly as close as the one from the west was.  They could escape it.<br/><br/>His back was to Wornshir as he ran.  But the sounds that arose from the south did not bode well for the town.  Shrieks continued to pierce the air, some of which seemed to end abruptly.  There were other sounds, however, that became more noticeable.  Inhuman roars began to drown out the sounds of terror.<br/><br/>Aithne suddenly came to a halt, her pull on his arm stopping him as well.  She was merely a faint silhouette now, but he knew her enough to be able to know exactly what her face looked like in that moment, most likely possessing the very same grim resolve he loved about her.  In this moment, for the first time, for the only time, he wished she would not be so resolute.  Faint light caught her red eyes as she looked towards Wornshir.  He could see, or perhaps just imagined seeing, her lips tighten.<br/><br/>“We can help them,” Aithne whispered, more to herself then to Vardhyn, “We have to help them.  Some of them?  We have to try?”<br/><br/>Before he could argue, she tore herself free from his arms and began to sprint back towards the city that was slowly vanishing behind the converging curtains of mist.<br/><br/>He gave pursuit.  Whether it was to stop her or to help her in her convictions, he honestly didn’t know.  All he did know is that she was running straight towards danger, so there was no other direction for him run then towards her.  Regardless of his reasons though, he could not catch up.  She was a much more agile runner then him, cutting through the dark terrain with ease whereas he struggled over the uneven, unseen ground.<br/><br/>Something moved in the corner of his eye, darkness amongst the dark, not just a silhouette, but a shape that seemed to absorb light, rather than just block it.  As he turned to look, it skirted his gaze, continuing to remain at the edge of his vision.<br/><br/>A heavy weight crashed into his back, sending him tumbling forward.  Whatever the weight was, it remained in place, pinning him face down in the dirt.<br/><br/>Skirting the edge of consciousness, he could feel what could only be described as fingers slide into his hair, before grabbing tight and wrenching his head painfully upwards.  Something raked across the right side of his face, sending lances of pain into his brain.  The vision in his right eye became obscured by a hot liquid that ran into it, but through his left, he was given a horrible view of Aithne, still visible through the ever shrinking gap in the mist, as more dark shapes bore down on her.<br/><br/>There was only a short moment before the two converging mists boiled together, sealing him off from Wornshir, from Aithne.  That moment, however, seemed to last a very long time, and, in that moment, he saw enough.<br/><br/>With a rumbling gurgle that held just the barest hint of laughter, his assailant released his head and the weight left Vardhyn’s back.  Despite his freedom, his head fell back down into the mud and he made no effort to rise.  His hand tightened around the hilt of the dagger, not wanting to let it go.<br/><br/>Somewhere deep inside Vardhyn’s mind, something important, something integral, broke with a scream that no one else would have heard.<br/><br/>Slowly, he rose to his feet, turned away from the mist, turned away from the screams, and numbly turned to walk north.  A quiet laughter seemed to fill the air.  If the truth matched the way the old Vardhyn would have liked to tell this tale, it would have been his attacker who had been laughing.  It would have been a peel of mocking cackles echoing after him, cruel and harsh.  It would have, in no way, been the sad laughter of a broken man who had seen his life swallowed up by darkness.<br/><br/>The new Vardhyn, however, valued being honest as well.  He would not bother telling this tale at all.  This silence would not be due to any lack of dignity, or out of remorse, and clearly it was not an insignificant event, even in light of what was to come later.  No, this tale would not be told merely because he would choose not to think of it.<br/><br/>He looked up at the night sky, wondering when the storm would break.  He always enjoyed a star-lit sky.<br/><br/>***<br/><br/>Water splashed across his face.<br/><br/>Vardhyn looked down at the basin in front of him, his red eyes focusing on the reflection starting back.  His pale hair, once long and smooth, had been cut short, with no indication of any skill, or even care.  At the sight of himself in the ripples, he ran his hand over his head, and located a small patch of hair on the back of his head that was slightly longer than the rest around it, that must have escaped his notice last time.  Holding the hairs taut, he reached back with his dagger and unceremoniously sliced them a bit shorter.  The blade needed sharpening, as it pulled a number of hairs out by their roots in the process.<br/><br/>“Sorry, love,” he whispered, “seems I’ve been neglecting you.”<br/><br/>The face in the water was distorted, and not just by the ripples across the water’s surface.  The network of scars on the right side of his face still stood out raw in contrast to the pale skin around them.  After all, according to the patrol who had come across him casually walking northbound, dazed and bloodied, it had only been one month since some creature’s claw had left its mark and, to be honest, he didn’t expect the wound to ever completely vanish, just as he knew the point of his right ear would never grow back.<br/><br/>Just as he knew the dead wouldn’t wake up, as if from a nap?<br/><br/>“Well that was certainly a morbid thought,” he said to himself, chuckling under his breath, “think of the bright side!”<br/><br/>Failing to actually think of any bright side, he instead chose to laugh at nothing in particular, cup his hands into the water, and splashed it over his head one more time before looking up from the basin.<br/><br/>The sound of his laugh earned him vile glares from a few of his fellow soldiers, nearby, as they worked on unloading a cart of its cargo of corpses.  Apparently the latest battle to the south had been especially brutal.  For a moment, Vardhyn considered offering to lend a hand, but the glares and muttered curses indicated the friendly action would not be appreciated.  With a half hearted shrug, he turned and walked away.<br/><br/>The camp was laid out before him.  The familiar sound of blunted swords clanging together rang up from the training field nearby.  He had spent nearly every one of his free days over the last month on that training field, practicing his swordsmanship, going to sleep exhausted, only to start the process over again the next day.  The occasional patrol or battle added a bit of variety to his life, preventing the repetition from becoming dull, or so he assumed.  Honestly, such events didn’t seem to stand out too well in his memory.  He did his best to mimic the serious expressions and mile-long stares of his fellow soldiers, in order to fit in, but in actuality, he was really enjoying himself!<br/><br/>Vardhyn patted the hilt of the dagger sheathed at his belt.<br/><br/>“Time to find you a whetstone!”