Some things just don't fit. Like oil and water, some things will never mix. No matter how she tried, Miandah could not get past her father's cold, cruel nature.<br/><br/>But it wasn't always so....All of her life, he'd been daddy... He'd been her mentor, her teacher, her friend, her guide... She'd wanted nothing more than to please him. She'd worked so hard in her studies all of her life for him. It was all for him. She never cared much for his craft. All of the rituals and spells... the runes and herbs... the demons... She didn't like it. But it made him so happy when she did well.<br/><br/>Her father was never an emotional man, but when she did well, she could see it in his eyes. He had to remain harsh to maintain obedience in his men. She knew that. He had to appear cold and calculating to keep them in line. He ran a tight campaign, and there was no room for error. But she knew him. She could see it in his eyes that he was proud.<br/><br/>Then... it all changed. The pride she thought she'd seen... changed. He became fierce, cold, harsh. She assumed he was only trying to motivate her. Then the servant boy who had lived with their family all of her life... the only other child she'd known... was to become her subject. She was to practice the new regimen of spells she was learning on him. She couldn't do it... he sat there, tied to the chair her father used to keep him from harming herself, his eyes so familiar to her, staring at her with that pleading look... and she failed.<br/><br/>For the first time in all of her long years working as her father's apprentice, doing everything he told her to do... she couldn't do this. He was furious, of course. Any master would be furious at his apprentice for such disobedience. He was right to be so angry. She deserved the punishments he gave her for it, and she took it willingly. He demonstrated the spells he was trying to teach her... by using them on her, since she wouldn't use them on the boy. She tried not to scream... she tried to be brave, to show him that she was still useful, that she could still be what she wanted to be. She failed. The last thing she remembered before blackness took her was her father's face, looming over her, a hateful glare in his eyes.<br/><br/>For the next few weeks, she tried to get him to change his mind. She worked hard in her studies, but he ignored her. She was just another recruit to her. He paid her no more attention than he did the other initiates. She knew he was working on something big... he was planning the big, final attack on the king he'd been talking about all of her life... and she was kept out of it.<br/><br/>She needed to prove him wrong. She needed to show him that she was still worth his attention. She could still be as great as he'd always told her she'd become. She used the spell he'd taught her most recently, a method of bending the shadows around herself to conceal her from sight. It was a difficult spell that required constant attention to maintain. The slightest lapse and she'd become visible. She practiced and practiced, sneaking around the house, trying to hide from the servants... and found she could go unnoticed rather easily. So she sneaked into the big meeting her father held with several of his highest ranking officers. she hid in the corner silently, listenning in as they plotted against the king... and she learned what they would do... She saw them plan the deathly raids on small villages, heard them coldly describe the deaths of the families living there... the horrid poisonous gases they would release into the forests...<br/><br/>Everything she'd thought she'd known all of her life.. was a lie. The tyranical king her father sought to overthrow was in fact a just and loving leader. It was her father who was the tyrant. It was her father, and his men that were the evil bandits... and she'd been one of them. She was evil... irrevocably tainted by the curses, shadows, and demonic power he'd pushed her toward all of her life. She could never go back. She would forever be dominated by the darkness... the knowledge she carried...<br/><br/>She fled her father's estate, taking only what she could carry on her back. she took a few serious injuries from his men as she made her escape, but in the end... she disappeared into the darkness, searching for a hole to bury herself in.<br/><br/><a class="postlink" href="http://i668.photobucket.com/albums/vv41/666DemonicWolf/dark-forest-night-image-31001.jpg">[ img ]</a>