Slowly she watched the figure of her companion slide across the terrain.  Every graceful move taken into her sight, each minute detail caught in her mind.  Yurei could see the eyes flickering over the body of her friend and sister.  Desire showed in some eyes, envy in others.  A want to be or to possess held in the hushed breathes, a secret whisper that Yurei heard all too well.  In the shadows there were all secrets and for those that lived in the shadows those secrets became only another voice.  So each unspoken request was hers to hear.  Eyes moved away from the scene so that she might instead focus on her part to play.   Yurei would indeed become the shadow of the other woman, a silent figure to guide and watch over.<br/><br/>Quietly her gloved hands extended out to her side.  An inky darkness reached up from behind her.  Hands moved like a lovers caress over her shoulders.  Fingers stretched out from the shadowy image.  Each digit elongated to form a sinister hold on the fragile woman.  Yurie kept her arms extended to her side, palms faced downward in a look of supplication.  Eyes looked down to the shadow of the tree behind her to see the unwavering motion.  Around her ice began to fill her veins while something inhuman breathed a sigh of relief in her ear.  Yurei felt the alien presence come to possess her, to take from her the very essence of being human.<br/><br/><em>The first time was always the hardest.  Everyone said so and Yurei had no cause to doubt her clansmen in their statement.  Certainly she hoped nothing was ever so difficult again.  Ice raced down her flesh.  Excited and hungry, Yurei’s own shadow rolled over her flesh in an effort to consume.  A primal hunger raced into her mind as the creature of her own making was taken into her body.  Nearby her Master watched with a blade in hand.  Nearby other watched with breathes held in their lungs.  Everyone watched from her clan as the first night of shadow came over her.  Ice poured from her veins and into her soul.  Yurei screamed while her own shadow laughed inside her.</em><br/><br/>Hands suddenly moved to brace before her.  Each finger now arched upward and inward so that they formed a cup.  That inky darkness pooled inside the cupped palms, rushed forward across her while the hands moved before her.  The right formed the top, facing downward while the left came to rest below facing upward.  Eyes stared down at the space between while her focus was drawn there.  Around her the hunger turned to away.  There would be no feast tonight, be no place for the shadow to hunt inside her body.  The shadow knew that its equal now commanded respect and so that respect was shown.  The darkness spread from her palms to along her arms and then to her body.  A watery, inky blackness not unlike the depths of some great ocean washed over her.  No light shined over the surface of her body as she now consumed herself in the shadow.<br/><br/><em>Yurei had not meant to scream.  To scream was a sign of weakness in their eyes, but each of them knew that everyone screamed the first time.  The creature they commanded was not a human one, but rather an alien that lived in the shadows.  In order for her clan to be like the shadows, they must first cloak themselves in a shadow.  So to do so they brought forth their own shadow, their own personal hunter to be their guide and armor in its own world.  Invite the predator into their bodies and then make them the prey through the force of their own will.  That was the claim of her clan, the motto of their world and the method to their madness in letting an outsider consume them.  First though, Yurie had to give the predator a part of her.<br/><br/>The bargain as struck and part of herself given over to the creature.  Then her hands came together as she was taught.  Guided by knowledge so ancient that few even remembered the first, she confronted her hunter.  Inner focus gave her purchase with the intangible essence of her shadow.  Mastery was now to be obtained as she brought the darkness forward like a cloak.  Limbs became wet with the shadow of her own making, body slick with the inky blood of her tormentor and her essence blackened from the taint of the alien species.  Yet she lived and grew stronger.  Eyes lifted to stare beyond those near her, lifted to see the window above her where another pair of eyes watched.  Yurei heard the whisper of her friend’s secret, knew that she watched the sacred ritual.  Yurei watched from above her, watched from the shadows that framed her friend’s body.  <br/><br/>Eyes once white with innocence stared up at Chunyang.  That darkness consumed them now.  Like black marbles her eyes stared without passion, without soul.  Yurei was not gone, but another was to be her face now.  That gaze waivered and she looked away.  Monster was the single thought in her mind.  A monster she must be for her clan.</em><br/><br/>The shadows around her waivered as if a puddle.  Her body now cast in the darkness of herself, she watched with new eyes.  Everywhere she saw the shadows of the night.  Darkness cut by streams of light from artificial suns formed more places for her to hide.  Each streak of shadow became like a window to her that she could peer into the world of the living.  Yurei let her hands touch before her so that the way to another world opened at her feet.  Slowly she sank beneath the surface and into a world so close to her own, yet still so foreign.  Windows to the mortal realm showed themselves to her and she walked through the envious world of the shadowy plane.<br/><br/>Chunyang could hear the soft whisper of her companion in her ear.  The whisper of her words so faint that one might believe the wind had taken up another’s voice.  Yet the harshness was there, the cold seduction that meant she had given over to the shadow.  Yurei was indeed her shadow now.<br/>