Black, ugly smoke billowed into the sky, covering the sun and casting its shadow upon the world. Grasping fingers of raging orange and crimson devoured all in its path, the earth screamed as it broke under the heat. The ground shook, great heaving pieces of land tore and ripped open, chasm's stretched like gaping wounds across the surface.

"Nárhína." Emerald eyes flecked with brown stared into her own. Pale hands covered her's, stained, unclean, dirtied with black blood.

"Mother." Salt on her tongue, something foul and acrid in her throat stung and cut with her voice.

"My little flame," her mother coughed, back arching and shaking. She cried out as the small bones in her hands ground together from her mother's clenching grip. "I need you to do something for me."

A great roar rent the air, splitting her mind, ringing in her ears and tightening her chest. And yet, she sought him out. Followed him as a flower to the sun.

He rose, an onyx god. Smoke twined around him in a morbid dance as the inferno caressed his body. Shining ruby eyes glowed with hatred and fury and a promise of absolution.

"Father." Hurtshurtshurts.

Her mother's grip loosened and she turned away from the otherworldly glory of her sire to the frantic wide eyed gaze of her mother. Her normally copper curled hair was lank, darkened with sweat and stuck to her face.

"Can you feel your father?" Speaking was difficult so the child nodded. She felt both her parents. Her mother was warm, golden, a small soft spot in the center of her chest. Her father was pressure, a weight she felt over her skin, the thrum of power through her veins.

"Feel for his fire. I know you can. Feel for his fire and pull." The child, met with the stern but desperate plea from her mother, obeyed.

A blaze, brighter and hotter than anything she'd ever felt before, burst within her. Flooding, burning, taking. A high pitch scream ripped through the air, raspy and torn with agony as a matching animalistic cry scoured the valley.

* * *

She shot up, out of bed and out of her dream to fall on the floor. Cool was the tile on her sweat soaked and heated skin. Her hair was plastered to her body, matted with perspiration and tangled in a macabre embrace with her limbs. The air stung as it rushed down her throat and her chest heaved with great gasping breaths as she tried calm herself. Why now? She has not had a night terror since her youngling days. And this was no ordinary dream. Her head thumped against the floor as she stared at the ceiling. She had no time for old memories, dark memories, to be surfacing.

Perhaps it is a one-time occurrence.

The woman sighed, hopeful but she knew it'd be otherwise. However, one thing was for sure, sleep would not come again tonight. She picked up her head and looked to her balcony doors before pushing herself up off the floor. Still clad in her sleepwear of brown breeches and a loose white tunic, the woman paused to grab her swords, careful to touch only the scabbards, before she slipped through onto the balcony.

The night was cloudless, the stars stark white against the deep black and a cold breeze blew down from the Misty Mountains, the few remaining leaves on the nearly naked trees shivered in the moonlight. Holding her twin blades under one arm, she placed her other hand atop the stone railing and vaulted off, her bare feet barely making a sound as she crouched in landing.

The moon was full, its light cast the world in soft silver as the woman moved silently through the shadowed corridors. Her eyesight was impeccable, the transition from daylight to night almost unnoticeable. The pads of her feet made no noise, passing over the pathways with hushed haste. She reached the farthest training area just as the moon started its decent from the center of the sky.

The dirt was hard and packed beneath her soles, centuries of training had worn the ground down and the only foliage present outlined the small area. The river was louder now, almost deafening, for it was just on the other side of the outcropping of trees. Her sharp hearing picked up the small sounds of the night life as she set her swords down. The eerie whisper of wind through the evergreens, chirping crickets and the soft buzzing of wings. An occasional lone hoot and the short squeaks of bats. Things rustling under the undergrowth with hushed chittering, and the lonely song of a Nightingale. She did her best not to interrupt for the soothing natural sounds were a balm to her heightened state.

Bending down, the woman grasped the black hilts of her swords tightly and flicked both her thumbs near the rim of the scabbard, releasing a catch and pulling the blades free with a smooth hiss.

Immediately her palms warmed with the power that lay underneath. I've missed you. An answering hum raced up her arms as the blades started to smoke lightly, anticipating the woman's actions, hungry for conflict. The hilt was perfect under her hands, a worn black leather without a hand guard. A small round onyx gem adorned the very end, the only part of the sword that shone. The blades were identical, long slim and slightly curved. She smiled, a frightening flash of white in the night before she lunged. Perfectly balanced, her dark swords were almost impossible to see in the night. For they did not glint nor reflect, their dull black metal soaked in what little light there was, wrapping the shadows thicker around them as the she moved.

Twist, kick, slice, duck, lunge.

A dance, embedded in her bones by pain and anger; a mantra, branded into her body through death and sacrifice.

Twist, kick, slice, duck, lunge.

Her red hair streamed around her as she moved her way through the clearing. Each step precise, measured, calculated. Each breath an even count in and out. She could not feel the soft brush of the loose tunic as it swayed around her form. Nor the rough scrape from small rocks in the ground under her feet.

Twist, kick, slice, duck, lunge.

Eyes of red fire burned bright in the darkness as she moved faster, her feet kicking up dust to float and weave and wisp in her wake. Her body, a marionette of memory, shuddered and shook as she bent and curved, her muscles tightening as her breathing deepened.

Twist, kick, slice, duck, lunge.

"Twist-kick-slice-duck-lunge!"

The jarring clang of metal on stone reverberated through the training hall as she collapsed.

"Again!"

She peeked through her hair as it hung limp in front of her face. She tried not to concentrate on the shaking of her arms as she lifted herself but it was hard. Her entire body hurt and she couldn't remember when she lost the feeling in her legs.

"Get up! I said again!" With a sharp crack, the whip came down hard on her back, tearing another hole in her tunic and slicing open the skin on her shoulder. She lost the slight progress she'd made and fell back to the floor with a pained grunt.

Harsh, choppy breathing was the only sound that echoed off the barren walls as she lay there. She knew the ground should be cold beneath her cheek but there was nothing, save for the salty metallic taste on her lips and tongue.

"Weak." The child cringed as if hit. The man's boots scraped along the stone floor with each heavy step as he made his way to her shivering form.

"You do not deserve these." A sharp cry escaped as he smashed his heel onto the back of her hand, digging and grinding, forcing her to drop her sword. Scooping up the blade, he did the same to her other hand, grabbing the twin. She did not scream this time, her body numb now as she struggled to breathe and stay awake.

The soft creak of leather was all she heard before her head was ripped back, held painfully by her blood matted hair.

"You are a disgrace." His voice was rough and harsh, trembling with the one thing she knew better than others. Hatred. "How can something so pathetic be worthy of the Dark One's legacy?" She knew she should care, for it was an honor only bestowed to her, but she found in this moment that she did not. And he could see it.

The man snarled and slammed her face against the ground. She screamed then, loud and broken as the bones in her nose shattered and her mouth filled with warm blood. She choked and coughed, gurgling while trying to breath but only succeeding in pulling in more of the crimson liquid. His lips were warm on her ear, his panting breath hot and wet against the side of her face as she struggled against his weight to get free.

"What now, little Princess?"

Her scream echoed through the clearing, furious and deep. Her swords sang as they sliced through the night, glowing orange.

The woman stopped abruptly as a creaking groan filled the air. Swords steady at her sides and throbbing in tune with her heartbeat, she twisted around to face the forest.

Only to freeze, her body suddenly locked. Not by the tree toppling backward, but by the bright blue eyes beside it.