3 comments/ 10345 views/ 0 favorites When Night Comes In... By: MINKX This will be a bit different from what one might be used to from me. The first chapter is rather harsh and brutal, but that would have been basically the reality for my Geneve. Reena is much different then her fragile, gentle birthed mother. The past three weeks had been hell. It seemed that the meeting of Bane had opened upon Reena the very floodgates of chaos and allowed all manner of confusion to rush in. Firstly, Markus, the fat, sweating, red faced tavern owner of the flea favored dung heap Ciara danced in had tried to forbid Reena entrance to his little piss hole, claiming she only caused trouble. It had done little good to remind Markus that it was that hell spawned Warrior bastard who had started the fracas. Markus knew Reena's temper, and had horribly vivid images in his head of her murdering the man within his tavern. Disaster for all within those rude walls, as the man's sword mates would then surely raze the building to the ground. In the end he allowed that she could come in as long as she stayed in the very darkest corners, where not even the sharpest eyes could discern the shape of a wandering pig from that of an always smoldering hellion half bit. And she had to surrender her vicious little knife to the seven foot bouncer Grund the moment she stepped over the threshold. After all, Markus assured himself, how much damage could one tall, skinny, barely into womanhood wolf's whelp of a bitch do with her bare hands? Markus was as stupid as a brick wall. Reena signaled her friend Ciara that all was settled, then walked out still cursing under her breath, at Marcus but mostly in favor of that fucking no brained dick driven barbarian Warrior. She turned a corner into a rancid little squalid alley…and right into the malevolent plot of three lack luster lame brained cut throats who didn't realize she wasn't a fat, richly dressed merchant in time to pull their attack. "Bloody fucking hell!" She snarled. And kneed the first one with all her pent up frustration. He dropped immediately, crawling frantically fast as he could away from the scene, clutching his throbbing jewels and whimpering. The second had time enough to realize and think "Oh sh…." before Reena was taking a half step spin and driving one long leg viciously into a flabby belly. And as the hooligan's head came down when he folded in half to clutch his belly, Reena's two hands, clutched together, came up fast as a summer storm, caught the thief under the chin and sent him flying backwards to slam the length of his body against the brick wall behind him. The third lack wit, with plenty of time to know who their "victim" was, got nailed to the back of the head and knocked out cold as he ran like hell, with an abandoned ale bottle that Reena snatched up and flung without even looking. "Morons!" Reena spat. "Imbeciles!" And strode on to be lost in the dark gloom of the fetid alley. When the luckless cut throats reconvened, they all agreed that it was terrible luck that Reena had to go and beat the fat old merchant in entering the alley. The worst insult was that when the damned merchant did arrive as usual, all three were still sprawled about unable to do more then whine and whimper. The underbelly of that city did know Reena. Reena, that almost still a child. A skinny embryonic woman of above average intelligence, "sight" and guts. An always skittish, mistrustful never really was a child who had been on her own since her mother; frail, fallen Geneve, had been brutally raped unto death by the four men she had serviced to buy food and shelter for her child. The fragile, gentle Geneve had been of privileged, high birth-whipped from the family estate when it was discovered that she was with child. Of the man who had beguiled her with pretty lies and worthless promises, nothing was ever known. Geneve had danced and whored in the taverns for a few years, but Tavern dancing was for the young and fresh of pretty face. When the strain of caring for a sickly, fragile infant started to show on that uncomplicated face, the simple Geneve was sent packing. The only way open for her to care for her daughter, the only thing that mattered to her anymore, was whoring on the brutal streets, where there was no one to step in, even if it was just an indifferent Tavern Master who kept a whore from being beaten to death only because having to bury one would cost coin. And a live whore earned coin. Kiara was 13 when her mother died. But before the woman died…she taught her daughter how to survive in a world where women were nothing. Geneve was a pampered daughter of wealth. A woman physically weak, and not very smart. But as she staggered bloody and bruised away from her home, she knew the child in her womb would have to finish growing up alone, and her planning started even before her blood stopped flowing. And so, begging, pleading, sweetly complimenting, she cajoled all the men she was mistress to into teaching Reena what they knew. And all obliged, because it amused them. And Geneve fucked so much better when they did as she softly begged. Mostly, these were men not much beyond mediocre in regards to fighting skill. But, in a violent, brutal, bloody age, they were men still alive. And that meant something. And every last one of them had at least one little talent, that few if any others had. It might be an unbreakable hold, or a certain lunge with a sword that was unstoppable . Maybe a way of weaving about the man meaning to spill your life blood. Just one little thing, different with each, that these men used and depended on. That certain something their counter parts could not meet. And Reena was not a slow witted child. What ever else her father might have been, was a good bet that simpleminded he wasn't. She never once thought about her mother dying, but… Reena knew from her first thoughts, she was a female. She had no money, no place or presence…no power. She was an alley baby, and her mother was a whore. Reena loved Geneve. Almost all the mothers where Geneve and Reena lived were whores. Being a whore wasn't anything. But being a whore to shoddy mercenaries and drunk, horny petty merchants…that meant even the offal and pure shit that was collected off the streets to fertilize the farmer's crops had more value. So Reena saw, and knew. And she watched, practiced, and learned. She took all that these nothing men knew, and made the few worthy parts better. When she was five, she took in hotly fierce hand her first wooden practice sword. At ten, she was given a real sword. The men her mother slept with had joined their coins and had one crafted suitable for a young, still rather weak arm. Reena was young, healthy and fierce by now. By the time she was 12, and inches taller then the squat, stocky men of her village, she could dance their steps, and get the better of all. She was purely untouchable. You could not kill what your weapon could not find. Even if that was just a scrawny 12 year old girl with eyes that spat out fire… Reena was strong for her thin build. But mostly, she was almost unnaturally fast. She fought by darting in and out. In a real battle, she'd have bled her opponent out, dancing in like quick silver to open a dozen cuts. One of her trainers, half way to unconscious with drink, slurred that she reminded him of a wolf, leaping in to cause a grievous wound, then gone like a nightmare, only to lunge back in again and give another.. Reena learned to be that most deadly of opponents. One who thought. It was just a game though. Even if Reena did know Geneve expected her to learn it well and use it as needed. But it only a nebulous game…and then Reena was 13, and she killed for the first time. They were traveling with a raggedy band of baseborn mercenaries, little better then thieves and killers for hire really. But this band actually had a written contract-not that any among the group could read-with a minor land owner to help him settle a dispute about boundaries lines with his neighbor. That of course meant the two sides would skirmish about and mainly just cause trouble for the common people until one side got lucky and managed to kill the other side's leader. Geneve could actually read, which wasn't at all common for a woman, even among the nobility, but her father had wanted to save on the cost of hiring a woman to manage the house after Geneve's mother died in childbirth. He was also a very suspicious, untrusting man, and he wanted to be sure that if a merchant charged him a certain price, the man wasn't fiddling with the accounts. So she knew enough to at least earn a few pennies by reading the contract to assure the mercenaries that they were to be paid a certain amount each day. And yes it was there in writing that they could eat as much as their bellies could hold. Normally Geneve wouldn't have even entertained the thought of traveling as a camp follower. It was a sure fire way to end up dead. Even if you did survive, more times then not you'd find yourself abandoned miles from home with no food or shelter, and likely nothing but a few pennies to your name. But in this particular case, Geneve knew two of the mercenaries. They had been customers of hers whenever they came through the village for almost ten years. And for men she knew to be thieves and most likely murders, they had been decent to her. They didn't slap her around…or even bite overly much when they rutted away on top of her. The deciding factor was that they always paid her well. She knew it would be a hard few months, she'd spent most of her time on her back. Or her knees while some smelly brute with a hard on and ten minutes to spare rammed her. But each man who used her would pay her something, and Rashu and Malkar promised her that they'd make sure the men DID pay her, and also that none of them would rob her either. They were big men both, and not just simply hired swords. So she took a chance on trusting them. She had no real choice. Reena would need new clothes before the cold set in, at 13 she was growing so fast sometimes Geneve felt she turned away for just an instant, and turned back to find her little wolf cub another inch taller. She was already at least 5 inches taller then the diminutive Geneve, and taller then a goodly portion of the short, stocky village men. Geneve was actually glad of that. With her thin body that had yet to show even a hint of womanly curves, the scowl and the sneer, the ill fitting ragged clothes and the dirt Geneve encouraged her to cultivate, Reena was unlikely to catch even the most depraved man's lusting eye. But even so Geneve insisted that Reena pretend to be a boy, and Rashu and Malkar agreed to keep the secret. It wouldn't be hard for them. They barely recalled her name, had seen her maybe a few times as she slipped past them with eyes lowered the times they had arrived early or unexpectedly. They thought the downcast eyes were from fear of them or shyness. They were men. They were used to slender, soft woman fearing their size and their roughness. They were wrong. Reena kept her eyes down because if either had ever seen her eyes they would have drawn steel on her instantly, scrawny girl child or not. Because those green-gold eyes blazed with hate and rage and blood lust. Those fey, unworldly eyes roiled and boiled with a savage, murderous aching hunger to cut them down where they stood. She wanted them bleeding and dying. She wanted them dead. She wanted to kill them. And one day she would. Reena hated the men who used her mother. Hated them all, fiercely and feral. She didn't care if some were nice in their own rough way when they used her. She didn't think better of the ones who didn't beat on or hurt her mother when they rutted Geneve. She didn't care that both her mother and herself would die with out those handfuls of pennies. She didn't care. She just burned-and hated! Geneve did have an idea that her daughter felt thusly, where Reena was concerned, Geneve was not slow witted. Reena was the one single thing that Geneve loved . The only thing that mattered to Geneve. But what could she do? Turn to her daughter and put it in words, drag it out in the open, give it weight and a threatening, rumbling, rushing towards them reality? Was she to look at her beautiful, abyss dancing daughter and say "Don't kill them." So she said nothing. And tried much harder to keep the men and her daughter from ever crossing paths. They were three weeks into the trip to where the mercenary band was to meet the landowner who had hired them. He wanted to keep them secret, as his neighbor had not yet upped the scales by hiring his own band of mercenaries. Geneve was cautiously optimistic. Happily no one among the mercenaries needed to beat a whore half to death before they could spend their seed. She'd only had a few black eyes, and none of the bites were festering. That was always bad for business. Of course she was standing rather then sitting when ever she could, a couple of the rougher men seemed to like nothing but her back door. She would not admit that she was exhausted, aching and scared. She could not allow herself to entertain the idea that she might quite possibly have made a grave mistake. It was just…there were over 20 men in the band, and the only other whore was old and a bit fat, and missing most of her teeth. About the only time she saw use was when a man couldn't wait and Geneve didn't have a free hole or hand. There was still a week until they reached the meeting place. She couldn't just sneak off in the night with Reena. There was no water and little food to be found, even if you were willing to eat grubs and other unpleasant things. There was nowhere to go. There was nothing to do-but endure. At least she could keep Reena away during the day. Reena loved the land they were traveling through, after the squalid village it was a sweet smelling paradise. Geneve could send her off before the sun rose and tell her not to return until it had set, and Reena thought nothing of it. She didn't realize her mother didn't want Reena to see her under the harsh glare of the sun. When the men got a certain kind of drunk, angry and sullen and aching to fight, Geneve would make her daughter go out a mile or two into the wild lands. Geneve knew the animals of this strange, unsettling land were less dangerous then the human animals they traveled with. She had a little whistle, and when the last man had finally fallen asleep or passed out on his face, she would call her daughter back to the camp. She told her daughter that even though the men thought she was a young boy, she had fine, straight limbs, even if they were a bit thin, and a delicate, pleasing face. Reena was of course not an innocent, so she simply nodded when her mother told her that some men liked young boys, and slipped quietly away those nights her mother gave her the signal This night, Reena waited and waited for the whistle. Long, long past the latest her mother had ever called her back to the camp. She had no timepiece, of course, but she could track the moon as it wandered over head. And it was very late. She was a skinny 13 year old child in a camp of over 20 trained mercenaries. As always, she was powerless, she was weak. She was nothing. So she waited, and waited, and waited…unaware of the tears slipping silver and moon kissed down her face, her mind blank, ignoring the child who was slowly dying inside of her. So she waited. And every part of her knew there was bloody evil in the air… She was in the arms of the wild lands. Tales of them had been passed down from before memory itself. It was whispered that magic flowed there; strange powers, and even stranger creatures. That night Reena knew. And she believed. Death was in the air. She had flung her arms out to rend the smothering, hiding, secret darkness and she had screamed against it, her back arching, every muscle clenched tight and throbbing it's agony into the blackness. She clawed at the night and she screamed, and screamed, and screamed, until her throat ran thick with blood. And the sound was something that was other then human. Calm filtered down. She lowered her arms, her eyes, and straightened her back. And when she raised her eyes and the moon filled and glittered there, those beautiful eyes held no trace of sanity. In her eyes was Berserker fury. It had started. And rage would for ever more bring it forth. The wild lands were magic. And the killing began. She found her mother's body by the campfire, Geneve's beautiful golden hair strewn among the softly glowing ashes, charred, stinking, still smoldering. The body was viciously mauled by livid bruises, brutal bite marks, and long bloody scratches. Geneve was still wearing the shredded rags of her shabby dress. Her murders had never bothered to remove it during their sport. The eyes were closed. Was it Reena's imagination, a trick from the moon, or were those tear drops still sliding down the swollen, battered, bruised cheeks? Her mother was dead. She screamed again, once, short and sharp. And the calm was destroyed forever. She killed them all in their sleep, 24 off them, and most had barely began to stir before she gave them everlasting night. When it was finished, and she stood there bathed in blood and sweat and tears, Reena knew that it had not been simply her work. The night had come in. Would it ever again leave? When Night Comes In... Ch. 02 I know it's still moving slow. I am getting to Bane...honest, probably next chapter. Unless of course I continue having sooo much fun fleshing out my chapters and trying to make them better. Reena is at the reins here, I'd push buttons on Bane sooner then I would Reena! I honestly think she's meaner. But I am so caught up in this, I am posting really fast. And hey, the darkness wants Bane. If Reena can't resist the darkness, what chance does a simple lil author have? * "I'm so tired of killing Ciara. I want it to stop, but where can I go, what can I do? How do I find a place that has no Monsters to let the night out? I can't exactly go live out in the wild lands, now can I? Well I suppose I could, but I don't think I could get mad enough at a bear or a wolf." Ciara blinked her sky blue eyes for a moment. "Huh? Oh, the darkness!" Reena nodded dejectedly, her chin cradled in one long fingered hand. "Hell, I like animals, I wouldn't wanna go all night on one. Well maybe if it was chewing my arm off or something. But I like em a damn site better then I like fucking people...except for you Cia, you know I love you." Reena hastened to add as her friend's open, innocent eyes started to tinge dark with a shade of hurt. "You better!" Ciara snapped a bit hotly. "You're all I've got!" Reena leaned close to give her friend a brief, but nearly bone crushing hug. "And you're all I have." Since Geneve had died, Ciara was the only human Reena had ever been touched by or touched in return that she hadn't killed. Or at least grievously injured. Sometimes she could pull in the darkness that tiny, needed bit. Once in a great rarity she could get back enough human to turn and run. Normally though she simply killed whatever called out the darkness. That not a one of her victims had ever been an innocent, that most could have easily given the very devil himself a run for the money in regards to evil and the horrific acts strewn in their past gave her no solace. She was a murderer, a killer of men, simple as that. This cursed darkness used her to become judge, jury and executioner upon any who's act of evil was so foul as to call up Reena's darkness. All she could do was try to avoid such acts. Because she sure as hell wasn't allowed to turn her back on them. The bitch of the matter was, simply and succinctly, evil sure as shit seemed to reign. When the butchery had ended that night four years ago, the first thing she had done was bury her mother, as deep as her thirteen year body allowed her to dig. Deep enough that the animals wouldn't smell Geneve. She had first cleansed her mother of the ocean's of blood that streaked and coated the tiny, frail body. Geneve had only owned that one shabby dress, so Reena had found the nicest blanket that the slaughtered mercenaries had owned amongst them, and tenderly wrapped her mother in the warm folds, easily lifting her mother's diminutive body. When it was done, she stood there staring down at the freshly turned earth. I should say something, she thought vaguely. But had no words to say. So she stood there, while the moon tracked over her head, it's slithery beams twining and writhing about the stiff limbs of the soul it had claimed. She stood there. Then dropped smoothly to her knees and laid both palms down flat on the raw earth, her heart twisting with a moment's raw agony that she thought might just slay her, as her mother's murderer's hadn't managed. She dropped her head and stared, hurting, that her mother was there. In the cold ground. But maybe, just maybe, this embrace was kinder then any of the ones that had proceeded it. No one could ever hurt Geneve again, after all, now could they? Mother was safe from all of them, the monsters and the almost decent ones. Mother was sleeping now. Her fingers curled to take up a handful of dirt, holding it tight in her grip for a moment before letting it fall free. She found her words. "I loved you mother. I love you. Always and until I finally can go to sleep with you...I love you!" Then she stood, and moving about the camp, coldly and methodically searched every body for coin and valuables. She took all that they had, and considered it merely justice. After all, hadn't this camp taken from her the one, the only thing that she had? She took warm blankets, a good cloak, all the food she could gather. She took all that she could find, all that she could use, all that she could carry. She took water. And she took her hate and the darkness and left that cursed place. She went back to the only place she had known. She went back to the village. She moved into a rude, mean little hut that had been left to fall down upon itself when the elderly farmer who owned it died of some sickness. She waited for that sickness to take her. When it didn't, she sighed, and went to work in his gardens, coaxing back into captivity the few animals that hadn't died of the farmers demise; a handful of chickens, two scrawny goats, and a cow that she grew to loathe as much as the creature obviously hated her. She managed to last a year before she had to slip into the village to have an important farm tool fixed. She went at a time she figured she could avoid people, avoid trouble. And she turned a corner and came upon blue eyed, auburn haired Ciara fighting desperately and fiercely against the four men trying to rape her. For one cold, crystal clear moment all froze, the four men, the two woman... Even as callous, wicked eyes began to gleam with pleasurable thoughts of not one, but two women to rape, the darkness came...and the killing started all over again. The men were down, bloody, broken...lifeless, in less then a minute. And Reena was bent over in a corner vomiting violently, trying to spew out the poison as quickly as she could, desperate to get away, to run, to escape. No more frail, fragile Geneve's for her. Not ever. Then the commotion got through to her. The tender little thing she'd assumed to be curled in a wailing, whimpering ball was bouncing around the bodies screaming like a drunken fish wife and kicking the shit out of the fallen bodies. "Goat fucking, shit eating, cock sucking son's of syphilis ridden whores! Mother fucking brainless bastard dickwads!" Reena straightened up in surprise, the nausea knocked out of her by the shock of watching the tiny figure apparently intent on killing her would be rapists all over again. The girl finally ran out of new curses, and started repeating her apparent favorites. Which was when Reena heard the voices rapidly approaching. She had dealt her death in complete silence. This girl was being everything but quiet. She ran over to the girl and grabbed her arm. "We gotta get out of here!" The girl savagely kicked a fallen body one more time then whirled. "Follow me. My room is just a few streets over." And that was how she met Ciara. Ciarra became her link to the village. On Ciarra's one day off from tavern dancing, which was all she did, she'd fiercely snapped, no whoring, she would make the trip to Reena's little hovel and bring her the things Reena needed from the village. It was never much. Reena didn't need much. The farm took care of her, even that damned evil tempered hateful cow. The two girls would spend the day together. It was the only true good that either had in their life. One day off Ciara managed to convince Reena that coming to the tavern could be safe. "You just slip in through the kitchen. I have friends there, if I tell them you're coming it will be fine. They can show you where to sit. No one will notice you. And Markus, well he is a total fool, but he's also a coward who hates the kind of brawling that goes on in most Taverns. He has almost as many men employed to keep the peace as he has customers. I've been working there over two years, and there has never yet been a single punch thrown. No one would dare." It took Ciara months to convince Reena. She had tried a time or two to make some small errand into the village, not really happy or easy with this dependency on Ciara. But evil reigned strong, did it not? She went three times in the day. And killed a fat merchant as he was involved in kicking to death a twelve year old boy who worked in his stables. The second time it was a man of the church who was trying to strangle his mistress after she told him she was with child and begged him not to abandon her. The third time, a man who'd tired of his wife and was trying to throw her down a steep, narrow set of stairs. That had been a bad one. Reena had exploded through the window, the husband had released the wife, who had nearly gone backwards down the stairs thanks to the sudden lack of support. Reena had snatched the woman back, then turned and ripped the man's throat out with her nails, and turning, threw herself back out the window, sickened and shamed that the woman had looked more afraid of her then of the dying man who had ten seconds before been intending to murder her. She went once, at night. And killed half a dozen before she wrenched her mind free enough to run like all the hounds of hell were baying for her blood. So yes, it took Ciara a very long time to convince her friend that Reena could visit the Tavern where Ciara danced without bodies being the price of admission. The tavern Markus owned had one thing to be said for it. It was the very last building on the edge of the village. If Reena approached it from that side, she could be slipping inside so fast that the chance of meeting any one to call forth the darkness, was very unlikely. And Reena ached with loneliness. She had no idea why that should be, considering she honestly did hate everyone other then Ciara. But she was missing something. It wasn't her mother, of course she missed Geneve. But that wasn't the hole, the emptiness that needed to be fitted with some...thing. Reena needed something, and the darkness whispered to her as she slept. The Tavern, go to the Tavern. It will be there, that which we need. It's coming, always every closer, slowly coming. It needs us to but does not yet know. It's so cold, this thing we need, so cruel and closed up and so alone. Hates even harder then you, my moon swept child. Kills even faster then we could ever dream. And it's coming, here, to us, to the Tavern. To find you, to see you, to know that it needs you. And then the darkness sighed, like a mother dealing with the latest transgression of a head strong, naughty child. And you will dump wretched, nasty stew in it's lap and knock it out cold with a loaf of stone stale bread! Reena had been slipping like a sleek, sly shadow into the Tavern for three or four month now. And somehow the customers knew. Perhaps one or two had seen-something. Whatever it was that had been seen or sensed, they left Reena to exist as if she wasn't even there. Unless she did something to alarm them. It was hot in the Tavern, and smelly to, but Ciara was on her break and she and Reena were huddling close whispering into ears, taking unspoken comfort in simple physical closeness. They sat close, pressing against the other from hip to knee. Ciara's head resting on her friend's shoulder, Reena's arm wrapped about the other girl's waist. Their free hands meshed and mated, the fingers moving and dancing with nervous energy. It was a sight that should have appeared lewd and sexual to the crude men sitting all around the two young women. It wasn't. The men would not dare to try to take it as such. There was love there in the cuddling of the completely opposite, but lovely young girls. But it wasn't a carnal love. To be a human is to need, to crave, to search out touch . We are not animals, we can not be fobbed and fooled with a rude bottle and a crudely stuffed toy form to huddle against. We need to have contact with our others. Even if we feel that we hate almost everyone, there must be one single soul that we can melt against with a soft sigh and an unspoken plea that begs, touch me, see me, let me remember that I am human. It is those few among us that shy from that touch, that don't seem to need or want it...they are our human animals. Neither girl was yet, that far lost. Not even Reena, with her darkness trapped within. Something had given these two to the other. Reena never spoke of it, but she rather thought it was her darkness. She had been standing there in the even ruder, rougher building that was shelter for the animals, and turned at a noise to watch the two parts smoothly part and fall gently to the straw strewn floor. She had gawked for a moment. "Ah shit." She finally whined. "Can't just stay backed the fuck off?" She had thought about begging, don't do this to me, whatever your plans...just don't. But she had an idea she would not be listened to, so just kept silent. And that next night went. And now she was whispering to Ciara in the Tavern. "I can't dance. I'm too tall and skinny to be pretty. I'd hate spending the whole day in a Tavern serving swill to swine...and you know I'd kill the first drunk to grab my butt." Ciara frowned in deep thought. It depressed Reena a bit to realize that the fierce frown only improved the sweetly pretty face. "And I don't want to cook or clean, so being a servant is out as well." Reena added. "Maybe you should get married?" Ciara suggested. "Uh, oh...I mean..." "Hah!" Reena roared with such savage scorn that it cleared the entire table. Markus glowered from his spot behind the bar. Still wondering why the hell it was that a scrawny seventeen year old could send grown men skittering in such a frantic manner. "I told you. I'm not pretty. Men want pretty wives. That and boobs." Reena grumbled. "I don't have big boobs either. And then we get into the whole, get mad and decide to beat me to death and me and the darkness rip you to shreds. Forget that idea." Ciara tried to think of things they hadn't already agreed were hopeless. Reena glanced up at her friend and shrugged. "There's just no place for me anywhere. It's ok, I've always known that. I think sometimes I kinda wish they had whipped both mom and me to death...back then. It would have been better." Ciara had never met Geneve of course, but she loved the woman for the love she had so obviously felt for Reena. And Reena was her only friend, the only thing Ciara cared about. Her arm was whipping up, beyond her controlling. She knew she was going to slap Reena's face with all the force she could manage. Reena would make a wish to take those stories of a mother who'd loved away from Ciara? Reena would wish herself away from Ciara leaving Ciara never having a friend? There was a scream of pain and rage and rebuttal raising in her throat. And then the Tavern doors blew inward and Ciara fell off her stool and ended up slapping her own face. She saw Reena diving beneath the table, and a second later an arm darted out and snatched her, dragging her there as well as a body rolled to cover her own. "Go out the kitchen door!" Reena panted, her eyes darting frantic. "If there's danger to you the darkness will come. You'll be safe!" Ciara stared wildly up at her only friend, and fought the urge to explode into hysterical sobbing, so, so glad that no matter what came, she had fallen off that crude stool and slapped her own face rather then Reena's. This only friend, her sister of the soul, might have dreams of never having been. But Ciara realized that as long as Reena and Ciara were in this world, Reena would protect her with all that she had, even accepting, welcoming the darkness if it came to keep her friend safe. And then Markus, that fat, sweating buffoon of a man, poked his head over the bar, swallowed noisily, and choked out "Warriors of the land. My house is yours. Well met and welcome." Then the bloody nitwit passed out cold behind his sturdy bar. And wasn't that just...something. Reena crawled out from under the table, gently pulling Ciara along. They both got resettled. And Ciara realized an interesting fact. She wanted suddenly, to kill something! She had a feeling this was not a good development. Ciara gave Reena a fierce look, knowing that her friend was busy looking over the band of Warriors that had entered. Listen here, you darkness thing here you! Ciara hissed silently. You cause Reena enough trouble. She's gonna be really pissed if you mess with me! You better just back off or I'm telling on you! Ciara moaned, dropping her head onto the table. Oh that was priceless. Let's just sound like a five year old telling mommy the big kids took my candy. There was a soft noise, sounding almost like a gentle laugh, dancing through Ciara's mind Little one, a voice whispered, she is mine, and you belong to her through the bonds of love. Did you really think you would be able to stand at a distance? There was another peal of that gentle laughter, and then Ciara's mind was her once again her own. Gentle? She thought. How in hell can the thing that gives Reena the ability to kill 24 trained mercenaries come off as gentle to me? She looked once again at her one friend. Oh shit. Reena, I think we both just entered a world that's royally fucked. * Last lil author's note...case ya all missed it...Bane just blew in through those wretched Tavern doors. And that wench Ciara somehow managed to worm herself a bit more of a place in the story then I meant for her. Starting to wonder who's writing this story! When Night Comes In... Ch. 03 Reena was still staring fiercely at the band of Warriors that had swarmed into the Tavern. Why the hell had they picked Marcus' tavern to descend upon? His was one of the meanest. The whores were few, and old and tired, a year or two at the most from being tossed out on the streets. The dancers were awkward and unlovely. Ciara was the single exception. The only reason she danced there was because Markus did not demand that she sell her body as well as dance. He was an idiot, but he understood that the young flame haired beauty drew customers. He'd have liked her to whore as well. Reena was the only reason he didn't whine longer and harder. And because he was a coward who loved his pathetic life, his tavern was basically the single one that actually kept brawls and brutality against the dancers and the whores down to almost non existent. But his ale was pure swill, and he couldn't even get the pigs he owned to eat the remains of the food he served the unknowing. His tavern was a dark, smoky, stinking shit hole. So why the hell had this band of Warriors chosen to stop here? It was obvious they had been off warmongering for which ever little lord they'd sworn casual fealty to. She could smell the blood and the stink of old adrenaline, long since discharged with sword and arrow and simple brute force. She knew this group of some dozen had been long away from any town, how ever small and rude. She could smell it and see it and sense it. It coated her body with thrumming, nervous energy. It tried to choke her, sliding insidious and deadly into her nose and down her throat. All she could think was, maybe it's just that this is the first tavern they crossed. If they had come from the north, Markus' tavern WAS the first. Perhaps all they wanted was to gulp down a few tankards of strong ale, regain a little humanity, before they moved on to a better place. If that was the case, then she and Ciara simply needed to sit quiet. And if Markus called for Ciara dance, he would be the very first one that Reena would give to her darkness! If he called attention to Ciara! "We have to get out of here!" Reena hissed softly to her trembling friend. "Before Markus regains consciousness! He'll call for you to dance! You know he will." "Reena I can't leave!" Ciara whimpered softly. "He'll put me out on the streets if I do, especially tonight, with this band of Warriors leaving him pissing terrified. Any other tavern...I won't whore Reena. I won't! I can't leave!" Reena wanted to scream. She wanted to let the darkness take her; give her the strength to fling the heavy oak table they sat at whirling and flipping, a diversion to distract while she darted and dashed and ripped and rent, dancing her body between and around the bodies that would bleed and tear and fall dead. She didn't need her knife. When the darkness came together they melded into a weapon that could not be stopped. Kill them! Kill them all. Every one, any one. Take them all! Then grab Ciara, and run away... Run away? To what? Run away where? If she did this thing, even if she killed every living creature, the town would know. They would know she had done it. And then where would they go? Suddenly she wanted to cry. But she hadn't cried since the day she'd found her mother's brutalized, dead body smoldering in cinders. "Ciara..." "Maybe he'll stay fainted. I'm off in two hours, maybe..." "Ciara!" It was Markus, conscious again. Innocent wide blue eyes met wildly glittering green-gold feral eyes, and Ciara voiced what Geneve had never dared. "Don't kill them. It will be all right. Just sit here and be quiet. It will be ok. Markus won't let..." Reena snarled, deep and savage, her throat hurting with the unaccustomed sound. "Markus will do NOTHING but hide behind his bar and watch you die!" And suddenly, for all that she was so afraid that she expected to feel at any moment the hot nastiness of piss running down her legs, Ciara smiled. She had felt that "other" slither dance through her mind. It wasn't speaking so gently this time, but it didn't feel Berserker either. It was awake and it was avidly, savagely aware. But it wasn't in a rage. It was just there; waiting, and so, so hungry and needing, that Ciara almost felt pity. "We're gonna be just fine, Reena." She promised, and stroked her friend's face. "I know Markus is a coward. I know he'd stand by and let me die. But you won't. And your darkness won't either. Because it told me. I belong to you. And you belong to the darkness." She grinned, cock sure and strangely exuberant, a look that Reena had never seen on her shy friend's face before, and then Ciara swung a leg over the bench in answer to Markus' second bellow. "He's here to. The one your darkness has been waiting for. It's gonna be amazing Reena, so very wonderfully amazing!" Reena tried to lunge to her feet and grab Ciara, but the long cloak she wore, and the damned bench itself, that refused to push back, even though her earlier bellow had emptied it, defeated her. She stood for a second, arms windmilling, then her ass crashed back down onto the hard bench and she ended up smacking her face on the table as well. Not good, not good! This is NOT good. What the hell is going on here? Almost always, her darkness, when it came, it exploded into life. It blew into her and took over everything; her mind, her body. It simply filled her until she was nothing BUT her darkness. She wasn't Reena any more, not one tiny lick or shred. She was just killing, Berserker, wildlands filled darkness. She was judge, jury, executioner-just a vassal used to kill the Monsters. The day she had stood in the rude shelter that housed her few animals, and watched that all important tool split gently in two, the darkness had been there. But just barely, way in the back of her mind. She tried not to think about that day, because it scared and confused her. But that magic, that power, that something that had filled her that horrible night in the wildlands-it had been there, and for one second, before she slammed down her mind gates, she'd known, it was giggling with all the joy of a carefree child! And how was she to take that? What was she supposed to think about that? The darkness that caused her to explode and kill, to murder evil, that was burden enough. To think that the "essence" that took her over and controlled and directed her, was childlike enough to giggle? She'd have lost her mind if she hadn't locked that knowledge far and away. "Who is this he?" She whispered softly to herself. "My darkness is speaking to Ciara?" Reena shuddered, terrified and sickened. Ciara should not have to be sullied by that. She was still an innocent, for all that she'd seen and lived. And why that smile, that joy that literally radiated from her. Leave Ciara be, Reena pleaded silently. You have me. I am your slave, your vassal, your puppet with no strings. You don't need her. I will stop trying to fight you. I will do anything you demand. I will kill at your command. Don't do this to her. Gods above and below, do not do this! And the darkness whispered back. "She is already mine. As you are mine. As this Warrior will be mine. Mine, and yours and hers. Together, the power of three as one. Two Berserker warriors, beings of blood and rage and retribution. An army you will raise up. A world you will set to rights. And there will be blood and screams and ripped and rendered flesh. There will be fury and there will be fire and the very bones and sinews of this corrupted land will be torn apart and put back together the way that was meant to be. This WILL be done!" the darkness that was in Reena finished on a sibilant hiss. Staring unseeing, Reena nodded hard. "I will. I will do this thing. I will join with this Warrior you speak of, in any way, what ever I need to do. I will do it. But not Ciara. She is not a warrior." "Think you your flame haired soul sister a worthless, weak coward?" Reena snarled. "Don't you dare call her worthless or weak! Could a coward keep living this miserable life she clings to? Don't you dare..." The darkness within Reena laughed, soft and sleek. "Nooooo, no warrior this soft little blue eyed one." It purred. "This one the balm, the sweet soothing solace, the medicine to coat and put out the throbbing ache of my two Warrior's wounds. This one the glue that will hold all things together. Answer me this, my feral little wolf child of a weapon, would you die for her?" "I would kill worlds and everything, anything living on them. I would die for her a thousand times." Reena panted. "This I know already, my child. Three as one-and tonight, it begins!" "NO!" Reena screamed, but the howl that should have brought the very walls down echoed only through her mind. But when she shoved back against the bench, fighting to be free, it slid smoothly away as if greased. "Ciara!" She roared, and threw herself up and onto the table. She dove off that table, intending when she landed sure footed as always to sweep up her friend and get the hell out of both the tavern and this town. With enough water and food, they could probably, maybe, make it on foot to the next closest down. And if she could steal a horse or two, then... But her cloak caught on a ragged splinter as she went over the rough table, and she stumbled when she landed. She saw Ciara gaping at her, frozen in mid dance, and then she was falling, cursing the darkness, screaming and swearing, until she slammed hard into a seated body. Her head slammed into what felt like a brick wall, sending her wits and her vision dancing and stuttering. Vaguely she realized, no, not a wall, a Warrior's chest, one of THEM, and why am I sitting in his lap, and then hands were skating up her bare arms, fingers fisting in her hair to yank her head back. And staring up, she saw...and the darkness exulted savagely. "Mine! And mine!" It roared in her mind, sending her thoughts and everything else reeling. "My Warriors, my two. MINE!" Reena would have screamed refusal, but the free hand not yanking her head back suddenly closed with rude male lust over a breast and her rage found a more immediate subject to vent upon. She flung herself free, yelping in pain, wondering how much of the waist length hair that had worked free of it's braid she'd just lost in that brutal grip. "Don't! Gods Reena don't kill! Don't!" She heard Cara's desperate shriek, and for some reason...had to obey. She didn't go for a weapon. And the darkness did not fill her to make her a weapon. Instead she dumped the steaming pot of stew, just set down in front of this Warrior, into his lap. And when the almost as hulking huge man beside him rose up, reaching for her, she swung the heavy, now emptied pot against his skull and cold cocked him. Then she grabbed up the rock hard stale loaf of bread that had been delivered along with the stinking stew and slammed it down on the first one's head. "Reena, run!" She vaguely heard Ciara yowling. "Run!" And Reena ran as if all the creatures of the wildlands trod on her heels. She ran, while her darkness laughed, amused and aroused. Reena ran, knowing she really had no place to run. She went back to her wasted little ruin of a farm. There was no other place to go. And the darkness had told her, that Ciara would come to her there, at the one place that had ever been home and happiness for either of them. She had to trust that voice. She did trust what the darkness promised. She simply did. It had only ever spoken to her that one time before, and that more an obnoxiously bratty giggle then a voice, but she believed. She had to. Because if the voice lied, then Ciara and every living thing in that wretched tavern had been cut down even as she ran. But she never thought to wonder, would Ciara come alone? Author note...forgive please. I realize this is a short offering. But I am still trying to wrest into clarity the whole three in one idea. Ciara was NOT supposed to be any thing more then a barely there side kick. Now suddenly I'm not sure which of the three I should be more worried about! But I have been dreaming about this story lately...and I think they'll hurt me if I don't get back to it! So this is just a little bit of something, to let those who liked this story know I'm back working on it. And Reena's darkness...it's wicked!