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[Haydn ab'Arawn]

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Looking around, Haydn realized that she was in some sort of dark stone antechamber. The walls were grimed with the dust of countless years and bedecked with copper-tinted chains, some still dangling the remains of some poor soul. A breeze crept in from somewhere, swirling patterns in the dust and in the distance, she could hear the faint "pit pat" of water dripping.

She crept through the chamber as quietly as she could, for the silence was so thick she dared not penetrate it. Her eyes could make out much in the darkness of the place, the night vision a gift one of her fathers had bestowed and she was grateful for in this rotted place. She noticed that the walls were covered in carved murals. The images depicted men being sacrificed, slaughtered, chained together near a pit. The reality of where she was hit her, now. Khaldun. Her mother had taught her of this place, of the things that had occurred here.

Of a sudden, she realized that she did not rememeber how she had come to be here. She turned about quickly, rationing that she must have entered somehow to now be in this room. But, alas, upon scrutiny of the way she had come, she saw that there was no door in that wall, in fact, there were no openings of any sort.

Some force from behind belted Haydn roughly in the back, smashing her into the wall. A cry of pain escaped her lips as her cheek collided against the brick surface. As she was about to push away from the wall to face the attacker, pain flooded through her once more, as a punishing blow lanced into her stomach, and all air escaped her. She gasped weakly and slid to the floor. Bent over in pain, she turned her gaze upward to at last view her aggressor. Her eyes widened as she recognized the man from her previous nightmare.

The Dark Man.

Involuntary tears leaked down from her eyes. Though from anger, pain, or fear, she did not know. She knew only that she had to fight back, or she would be killed. As she gulped air down greedily, her right hand eased a venomous shuriken out of her belt. She felt firm fingers yank her hair upward, and she moved with the momentum. The shuriken flew forward in her hand as her head was tugged up, and it bit into the man's gullet deep enough to infect him. His yell of surprise did not signal the release of her hair. If anything, the venom only served to further enrage him. The last thing she was aware of was a sudden thump to the side of her head before the world went black.

What occurred next she only saw in bits and pieces. Her eyes had trouble focusing, and she faded in and out of consciousness. The brief moment when her vision cleared she managed to recognize the familiar face of Indigo. He seemed to be locked in a struggle with the Dark Man. She passed out again with a soft smile of relief on her face.

Haydn awoke staring at the familiar ceiling of her bedroom. She sat up in bed, looking to the window. Light streamed in, illuminating her tools and weapons.

It was just a dream.. thank the Void.. What the..?

"No!" She screamed and leapt out of her bed.

She was drenched in sticky wet blood.

It's not my blood... it's not my blood..

But whose was it? The Dark Man's again? Or worse.. could it have been Indigo's? She blanched at the thought of him possibly dying to save her.

Her feet pounded the wooden floorboards as she ran haphazardly through her door and across the hall. She stood, dripping blood that was not her own, pounding on Tay's bedroom door with her fist. The door opened, revealing a sleep-tousled Tay.

"It's not mine!" She cried, shaking her head.

[Haydn ab'Arawn]

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Indigo’s calm eyes widened slightly as Haydn’s ghostly form vanished. Indigo wasn’t sure how he had come to be there, with her, but he knew that it was for a good reason. The carefully, trained blow had landed just in time upon the dark figure now towering over him. Indigo looked up in to the man’s black eyes.
“A fool for a fool,” muttered the dark man, his black greasy hair glistening in the dank light. A slight cackle escaped his disheveled lips as his hand reached for the now frozen Indigo.
Indigo had encountered evil before. He had fought it, and won. But that was in his home land. There, he was something more than what those had known him to be. Indigo Swift, of the Swift Dynasty, King of his home lands, or destined to be anyways. He had fled in the night before his coronation, fearing the responsibilities of the station of King. Adopting the persona of a Life Servant, a thing foreign to these lands, Indigo had lived in peace for the past months.
The dark man’s scabbed and scarred fingers slithered their way around Indigo’s slender neck. Indigo dare not struggle, it was not his way. He would wait until the man was to kill him. Yes, evil was most vulnerable in the face of what it loved most. Death.
“I am the Lord of Khaldun. Welcome to my lair,” the dark man said, his voice the sound of a crackling flame consuming the home of an innocent man. Indigo could almost hear the wails of agony as this darkness consumed him.
Indigo’s vision blurred as the grip tightened, and he knew now was the time. As he dangled limply, he found the muscles within his right arm. Forming his hand in to a blade, he thrust the hand quickly upward, his fingertips jabbing the dark man in the soft tissue below his jaw. With a cry of pain, the Lord of Khaldun dropped Indigo to the ground and stumbled backward, clutching his throat. The whole dark and damp cave began to crackle with the energy of his rage.
Indigo quickly righted himself after ragdolling to the floor. He stood in a readied position, his lips fixed tightly together and his eyes now adjusted to the darkness. A slight pang of fear quelled up within him, but quickly subsided as the Lord of Khaldun rushed toward Indigo.
A crash of flesh against flesh as the dark man and Indigo flew to the stone floor. Indigo’s skull cracked against the hard ground, and the air from his lungs shot out in a hurry. The dark man straddled Indigo’s chest as he sat up, raising a hand in the air. His face seemed shadowed even now, while the rest of him was lit by some unseen light.
“The Dreams are no place for a mortal to walk,” said the Lord of Khaldun, his raised hand balling in to a dark fist.
“I walk my dreams alone,” spat Indigo, defiant in his last moments.
“Dead men do not dream!” wailed the dark man, his fist crashing down upon Indigo’s throat with a sickening crack.
The limp form of Indigo Swift was left lying there, among the countless remains of others who had met a fate similar to his. Indigo Swift, the King of his lands, now lie dead and uncelebrated like a common murderer.
The walls of Khaldun began to bleed.

(reposted with permission from author)