The fallen elf wheezed and glistening bubbles of crimson foam dribbled from his lips as he lay slowly drowning in his own blood.<br/><br/>The glow reached to him, faint but true as it licked like a mournful pet at his face and before sinking past his flesh to his wounds.  The collar's mad voice crooned now, the tingling sensation along Elandriel's neck almost a caress as that wordless voice murmured soft and excited in her mind, eager and hungry and needful as it encouraged the priestess to do what she was meant to.<br/><br/>The clash of metal drifted into her ears but along with it came the low moaning of the other elf as his bones and flesh shifted, drawing back into their proper places as the pain and injury transferred to Elandriel.  A sharp and raw stabbing as the jagged bone tore through her lung and began to replace air with blood and transform every attempt at drawing breath into a useless agony.<br/><br/>Darkness rose, stealing away the elven woman's senses and promising the release of oblivion from the terrible pain that filled her body.  The pain faded as her body seemed to melt away from her until there was only the distant light of the moon and a soft whisper that called to Elandriel.  But as she started to drift toward it, the sudden wrenching jerk of the collar stopped her and pulled her back.  Each pain filling her body returned abruptly and fully as a swirling cloud blocked the light from her and two eyes of darkness so pure that they stood out against the shadows around them bored into her.<br/><br/>"Death is a privilege that you have not yet earned child..."<br/><br/>It was less a voice than a cold wind blowing words into her ears and she could feel the terrible weight of his presence.  It was horribly similar to the sheer majesty she'd experienced when the Lady had turned her gaze upon her fully, but where the strength of that presence had been like the arms of a parent holding a child near this was a dark intruder in the night holding his victim helpless and weak before him... made worse by the undeniable knowledge of his kinship.<br/><br/>This was a god of her people... lost and forgotten and banished perhaps... but deep within her soul, she could feel a twisted connection that the Baron would never know no matter how fully he embraced the darkness.