A young woman draped in a finely fitted, black cloth with scarlet and white trim trudged through the Misty Forest. Her black hair was up in a tight bun and her face was as tired as her pace. She clumsily ducked and weaved through the difficult terrain as the sun slowly set overhead. Though the sun could never be seen through the thick mist, beams of light bounced through the thick haze, creating an eerie grey glow. It would be dark soon, and Kyoto would be trapped in a pocket of darkness for hours.

She gradually slowed down and her rhythmic, deep breaths intensified as her feet finally stopped moving. Beads of perspiration ran down every inch of her body as she sat upon a moss-covered log. Her eyes darted and scanned the fading canopy; a slight grin stretched across her coarse features. The alien sound of sliding steel echoed through the dense wilderness; the young warrior’s weapon came alive in her delicate grip. Kyoto stood and grabbed hold of a thick vine that hung down from above with her empty hand, and deftly cut the plant in two. Crystal clear water poured from the opening and Kyoto drank. The cool liquid sent a steady, pulsing wave of calm through her. She then poured the water all over her body as the vine’s reserves were emptied.

Kyoto sat back down and slowly sheathed her sword with care. She dug through her pack and found a few brown roots wrapped in crisp green leaves. She slowly pulled apart each root and began consuming the bitter plants. Her surroundings grew darker as hints of pale moonlight tried to penetrate the fog. The sun was almost gone now. The air carried a damp odor and Kyoto cringed as she swallowed the dry roots. Her hand rested upon mushy moss that absorbed the moisture on her hand like a sponge. Now that Kyoto’s breathing had slowed, the sounds of little creatures crawling and toads hopping made her skin crawl.

Kyoto pulled a bedroll from her pack and got ready for her first night away from Eh’ra. I wonder how long it will be until I am back home. She thought about her master and knew he was making his students study before they slept. Her peers were probably being lectured further on the history of the orcs. Kyoto sat upon her damp bedroll, crossed her legs, and closed her eyes. So much was weighing on her journey. If she failed to find this Raiki soon enough, her entire clan could be slain and burned when she returned. An image of her teacher, tortured by bloodthirsty orcs, played in her mind over and over again.

Jhael sat at the cavern entrance, his small body lost in the curves and holds of fallen boulders, millennia old. The dusk light played its long fingers into the cave, stretching to touch him, and Jhael drew his legs into his chest and shut his eyes tightly. The heat of the slumbering sun was still intense, both the Drow and the vampire in his blood screamed out to flee. Yet it had taken him weeks to escape from his pit, and another three days to avoid the pursuit that relentlessly followed. Those Drow warriors that had encountered him in the twists and turns of the underdark were given little respite; their blood gave him strength, pushing him closer to the surface world. Beside him in his womb against the sun, Jhael had propped the body of one of his pursuers, two days of putrefaction had already begun to draw the Drow’s dark skin over dead features. The blood would be gritty and foul but it was ten times sweeter than the swill of the creatures under Arda’s unforgiving sun. This jaunt had a double meaning to him, besides the boredom that he was tortured with daily, Jhael was searching for someone. The last bit of news he had received was that she had left her house for the surface world; if he had to scour the world he would find her. The thought of the hunt made his tongue tingle and the memory of blood lust began to peak around the bend of his satiation. With his fangs pressing into the dead throat of his Drow wine bottle, Jhael’s attention was violently torn from his hunger with a shiver of motion in the trees just outside.

His curiosity crippled his fear and Jhael got to his feet, working his way past the cavern threshold to the surface, hand cupped over his eyes to shield the last dying rays of the setting sun. His mind sizzled uncomfortably behind lavender eyes, blinking to sharpen his double vision as he sweat profusely under his piwafi. The undead cave dweller was still careful, using the sound of this newcomers passing as his eyes, pressed against the wide body of an oak tree. Jhael’s vision cleared and he continued pacing the movement through the forest until it stopped, and he dropped to the ground. His arms and legs were spread out at either side of him; body held off the moist grass by his fingers and booted toes. A soft evening breeze had begun to blow, moving the grass with wistful swaying grace and bringing the scents of his quarry’s impromptu camp. The texture of the smells told him everything before his eyes tallied the details; an elvish woman, the memory of which made him long for those long ago days of surface hunting. The earthy patina of her heart beat was repeated a thousand fold in every recollection; he was treated to that elvin heartbeat so many years ago, before vampirism stole his place among his people. Yet as his eyes focused on her careful movements, he had to stop from gasping. She had to be the largest women he had ever seen.

At 5’8”, Jhael was considered quite tall, and with Drow women barely breaking five feet on average, the young woman’s svelte frame was shocking to him. His time on the surface world was limited to midnight raids on the homes of sleeping elves. He had never seen a human, or any of the other many races within Arda; this woman was a curious being indeed. He memorized her lineless face, the way exhaustion gave a penitent hue to her eyes. She had the severe movements of the Drow priestess, proud and deadly, yet she was dressed in the way of a warrior. That assumption was confirmed when she drew her blade to quench her thirst, using some sort of nature magic to make the trees give up their life giving water. She would be a challenge, and that challenge sparked a hunger not even blood could satisfy.

Jhael crept closer, always hidden in the thickest patches of grass, stopping suddenly when the sheathed scimitar at his side snagged in a root. He could not deny the very perceptible sound of steel striking wood and he paused. His eyes moved to her, knowing she must have heard, and without giving his position away any more than he had, Jhael growled his words, hoping for an echo to hide him further.

“The trees have lied to you, good woman,” Jhael pandered, “this place is not safe for you.” Jhael set his right knee against the ground as his right arm crept toward the hilt of his scimitar. “Here there be monsters.”

Kyoto’s eyes snapped open and darkness enveloped her senses. She heard a rustling or a bit of shuffling; perhaps even a mutter. Her ears perked like an elf and her arms grew tense. She was still sitting in quite a vulnerable manner, but her companion was near—her sheathed sword called to her from its imprisoned state. Further rustling sounded in the night—this time more loud and clumsy.

With as much stealth as she had confidence among the trees (not very much), Kyoto crept up against a wide tree. One hand cradled her blade as the other hand—as still as the settled mist about her—gripped the weapon’s handle. Kyoto was no expert of the woods, but she was almost certain that footsteps approached. She squinted tightly as she concluded that something was creeping closer; sort of a fiendish gallop this thing possessed.

As suddenly as the sun had abandoned her, the footsteps halted. And Kyoto closed her eyes and diligently—ever so slowly—pulled her sword from its resting place. As her blade welcomed the cool air, thoughts of her training buzzed alive for a brief moment.

--------------------
“Kyoto!” her instructor taunted from behind her, “Foolish girl! You have to use your mind, and set your senses free!”

The little girl cringed as she was struck to the ground once again by her teacher’s staff. Her eyes were covered with a black blindfold and she held a wooden sword fearfully.

“Now get up! And this time don’t try to see me!”

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Kyoto leapt from her hiding place and faced her stalker; blade drawn and held at an unnatural angle.

A brown fluffy rabbit sniffed the air and stared at Kyoto. Her fear jumped from her body and she grinned widely. How cute! The warrior wished she possessed the talents of her elders with animals of all sorts. She longed for company tonight, and she loved bunnies more than anything! Had Kyoto not been so afraid or had been in the company of others, she would have felt much embarrassment. But for now, pure relief was all she felt.

Kyoto frowned as her newfound friend hopped away into the night. Had she been a woodland hunter, or had ever considered eating meat in her life, she would have likely taken her chances at pursuit of the tiny creature. But the thought never once crossed her mind; for she had been raised by elves, and was thoroughly accustomed to eating only plant life.

With a small tilt of her head Kyoto returned her sword to her side. This time, with the respect she had been taught as a youngster. As if imaginary foes danced before her, she ritualistically sliced the air all around her. The steel briefly hummed and swooshed before disappearing in Kyoto’s sheath.

A strange calm had settled about her surroundings. The animals and crawlies had gradually hidden themselves from something terrible. Had Kyoto been more adept and less flustered, she may (or may not) have sensed it; but alas, she did not. And she went about her nighttime routine for the second time that evening.

Jhael chastised himself for his tactical mistake and lay, once the camp settled back to stillness, pondering how much damage he had caused in his current situation. The encapsulated personality of the Underdark seemed to shroud over the thoughts of their citizens, and Jhael was surprised that his words did not reach her ears. He could not escape the dulcet tones of his lineage, even with the gravel added with his blood lust; yet he could not imagine it escaping such a formidable female warrior. His arrogance did not allow him to believe her to be anything but what he had perceived: a threat and a challenge. If that was so, and she was so cunning to hide the very knowledge of his presence, Jhael might have come along to a female at caliber with the Drow matrons so torturing his existence. He walked himself along a trial of errors that was substantiated with happenstance, enticing him further.

The creature that she had stirred from the woods with her flailing did not look formidable. As it frolicked towards him, he could see the flatness of its bite and the thin softness of its hide; it wouldn’t be much of a snack to the insects of his home world. Yet the seasoned warrior in him pointed out the haughtiness of the mighty, it could all be a show put on for him. Jhael shifted in his place, a ghost in the thick underbrush, and snatched the rabbit as it passed him by, locking it in the shadows. As he clutched it by the throat, he peered at it inquisitively, as if by defining the odd creature he would learn some secret about his midnight opponent. The animal panted with open mouthed terror, eyes bulging from its head and Jhael growled. It gave him no secrets, and when he squeezed one final time, he encountered no poisoned spines and heard the muted snap of a fragile neck. If it was a message, it enraged him: this surface woman sent him a pittance, her opinion of him as a challenger. Weak, frail and small; the hunger he had quenched on the dead of his people suddenly seemed paltry in comparison to the feast he would have on this one’s blood.

He could not be hasty and assume he could sneak up on the woman; Jhael was out of his element. The sounds around him made him wince despite his concentration, knees moving up to his chest, readying to spring. His only approach could be a frontal assault. Jhael watched her wave the blade about, her stance reflexive in the dark. He studied the contours of her face, not the lilting beauty appraised by the Drow but handsome features, strong in character. Jhael instigated his imagination, attributing her sternness to talent, the unique blade she slipped quietly into her scabbard more than just a curiosity. When nerves tensed in his body, Jhael quieted hesitation with the corpse of the forest creature. He pinned the animal’s body against the small of his dark throat, its head looped through the collar of his piwafi. The strands of white hair on his scarred skull mixed with the dapple fur of the animal he wore like a pendant. His hand tightened on the oiled leathers binding his hilt, mathematical eyes calculating his steps before he made them. When he was dedicated to move, Jhael pulled himself forward into a roll, running at a crouch into her camp, shouting in thick whoops in his native tongue.

With a dragging swoop of his sword arm, Jhael swept up soil and pebbles with the flat side of his blade. He whipped them at the warrior woman, a swarm of distraction in the dark, as short legs pumped and he circled around to her left side. There would be no glory in overwhelming her, if he could, and it would be foolish for him to simply stand and offer an even bout. Jhael gave her sufficient time in his looping approach for her to arm herself; he would accept that he was wrong about her abilities when she was dead. His heartbeat slowed to an echo and his booted feet sharply resounded against upturned stone, giving him a ramp for his strong leap forward. In the thick pitch of darkness, Jhael brought his blade down like a scythe upon the wheat, his fangs glimmering in the moonlight like errant stars.

A deathly hush fell over her surroundings, and Kyoto finally took notice. Her previous suspicions of a visitor much fouler than a rabbit now flooded her head: That was something else before! An icy breeze raised the hairs on her arms; a strong scent of death followed. Her blade was drawn once again. And then it came upon her. Had terror not been in her heart, she may have noticed the creature’s strange hollering, for she took no notice.

Dirt flew through the air and found its mark. Kyoto cringed as her eyes shut themselves in pain, bits of earth tasted bitter for a moment. In a wink of time, Kyoto’s sword danced under the hazed moonlight as she leapt forward and low, just beneath the sweeping blade above. She crashed on the ground and managed to make an agile roll afterward. She shot back up and leveled her gaze on Jhael’s dark figure; wiping dust from her eyes with her sleeves.

Crimson streams ran down from its fangs, and strange eyes hung in the darkness; they all reflected in the moonlight at once: violet globes, white teeth, and red blood. Kyoto would never forget what she saw at that moment. If things went her way, the image burned in her brain would be the only thing left of the monster. She hoped to kill it quickly and skip asking questions altogether!

Her grip tightened on the katana she held and she threw her blade up in front of her. It hung from her hands in the same angular fashion as before. She made her legs rigid and paced to the left side of the drow, keeping her distance, (around eight feet away) and wondered what stood before her. Its scimitar shined bright, Kyoto studied it briefly and decided she would wait for its attack. She wished to learn much more about her foe before attempting a killing blow (or so she most certainly hoped she could).

Jhael’s scimitar tasted empty air, whistling in the semi dark as his heels dug into the ground, sliding to a halt. The woman was quick, her reflexes supple and ready; he would not be disappointed. She moved quickly to draw arms against him after his attack failed and Jhael paced the outside of the camp with a renewed swagger, matching her distance and speed. He smiled a predator’s grin, teeth like broken arrowheads jutting from behind dark lips, while nodding, acknowledging her evasion. His eyes worked to pick up the details of her posture, meeting her own inquisitive gaze from along the edge of her sword. Jhael noted the angle of the woman’s instep, the curve of her spine and her rooted balance, she posed a silent threat. Kyoto was a Mantis at prayer, ready to strike if the circle she had formed in her mind was broken, yet the Drow was preparing to do just that.

Her stance, as well as her unusual weapon, was unfamiliar to him; it made stale blood rush renewed in a black heart. The Drow concentrated on not giving away anything from his body language; he kept his sword out at his side and his legs wide apart when he chose his position. The Drow’s slight body rocked back in forth with serpentine hypnosis, a metronome of perpetual motion. Kyoto’s blade danced with freckled moonlight, passed along the face of his scimitar like threats through smoke signals. Jhael couldn’t script what was to come, as much as he wanted to rely on the millions of fighting sequences stacked in his memory. This fight would have to be drawn by hand, divining the next blow from the spark of stars as metal met metal. Jhael’s bent his knees, feigning his first step, scowling when she wouldn’t move. He sighed, letting his head drop for a moment, watching her shadow.

“I am Jhael’inidia,” the Drow said in his native language. He did not care if she understood; it was spoken for his benefit. In the darkness, he saw her in hues of opal and silver; with his hunger, he saw her in the outline of her blood flow. “Your blood will usher my introduction to the surface world.” This last he said in Common, the heavy handed pronunciation making the words nearly incomprehensible. Jhael growled and charged her.

It would be folly for him to attack believing one blow would end the fight, yet within the first two steps he could see that she meant to do just that. His mindless desire to fight her would give her advantages; Jhael would pursue any opening she allowed him, even those that led to a waiting blow. Despite the blood lust that addled his discipline, the Drow would attempt to maintain a plan. He would use the flat of his blade to open her stance, Kyoto’s thinner sword could handle the impact yet Jhael was concerned that his edge could not handle the quality of hers. Even in the midnight darkness, Jhael’s blacksmith eye could spot a well folded bit of steel. He intended death by a thousand cuts, to find the gaps in the milliseconds of impact and slice bits of her to drive her mad. So he approached her with his blade arm in front, giving her a narrow target if she managed to avoid his first attack, his charge a scuttling side step. He wanted to force her blade high and to her left; taking advantage of her two handed grip. If she allowed fear to cloud her judgment, it might force her to over commit, to wear her arms down and sap her energy. Jhael’s eyes drew wide and wild, his mouth pulled back in a howl loud enough to draw sleeping birds from their roosts miles around. He swung his scimitar hard towards her face, inviting her to parry. He would fight every parry with an identical swipe, and hope to numb Kyoto long enough to remove her comely head from her shoulders.

Kyoto remained silent as her aggressor shouted and hooted. It grinned and then spoke in some broken form of common. Her concentration did not falter; she only saw the outline of Jhael’s sinewy frame and the strange blade in his hand. Her mind filtered only what was necessary right now, and Kyoto concentrated on it more intently than anything she ever had before (for her life most definitely depended on it). She thought she heard the word “blood” escape between its jagged teeth. Waste your breath all you want, monster.

Had more of Kyoto’s senses been the least bit active, she would have taken notice of the forest’s flustered activity all around them. Squirrels dashed across branches and leapt into their neighbor’s homes. Insects, both magical and not, gathered in their tiny lairs to either watch or hide. A few fog badgers and mist-whiskers (magical ferrets with grey stripes of fur circling and short stubby tails) gathered in the dark and exchanged chirps and growls over the racket. Even the trees leaned away from the duel a bit; their tops and branches brushing up against one another, sending and receiving messages through groaning wood.

A couple burly old Oakenwood Owls perched high above, batted their great silver feathers and exchanged a few words in their ancient dialect; their meter-long feather brows bustling up and down as they spoke:

“Hroo! This is quite bothersome and Hroo! testing.”

“Hrooo! Indeed, these Hroo! two are odd. The drow is a strange one Hrooo!”

“Hroo! Yes, he stinks like thorn berries Hroo! And moves like a bear! Hroo Hroo! !”

As if the enchanted woods wished to end the commotion a bit quicker, dozens and dozens of bog beetles, fireflies, twinkle-gnats, and anything else that could fly and make light, gathered and circled about the combatants. Perhaps, they wished for Kyoto and the drow to kill each other faster with the light, or maybe they just wanted a better view. Suddenly, the whole place was a great big dazzle of pink, orange, and teal lights buzzing and buzzing about.

At this, even Kyoto—in her nearly unbreakable concentration—took notice. And she hoped something much worse than the creature she fought now hadn’t taken notice, and decided to maul them to death. Luckily, for both of them, the worst things of the forest were far away at the moment, and scoured the grass for other prey in the distance.

Now, in the brief moments before the thing’s next assault, and with the added light provided by the insects, Kyoto studied her attacker. Its hair was long and silver and its skin was dirty. It wore a strange cloak that swayed unnaturally in the dusk. She took notice of a missing finger as she studied its grip upon the odd blade.

The drow charged and swung furiously. Kyoto slashed, sliced, and diced her blade through the air in front of her as she side-stepped and back-stepped all the while. Her sword swept horizontally, vertically, and everywhere in between; sometimes to parry and other times to attack. Though she swung her arms furiously, most of the energy she used was from the core of her body. She twisted and tightened her stomach and shouted along as power escaped out her mouth, but most of it was expelled through the shining steel in her hands.

“Ha! Yah! Heyah! Ha! Ya Ha! ! !”

Her weapon never tumbled and never bounced off its opponent’s steel; its motion hardly faltered as Kyoto’s strong grip and whipping wrists guided her blade true. After a dozen powerful clashes of metal, Kyoto used her whole body for a sudden, powerful blow. She crouched low and turned her knees, following through with a swipe that could cut through stone as she rolled off to the side of her opponent.

Jhael was an imp of the lowest crusts of life, drawn from the violent womb of the Underdark and castigated by fate to be the best of the unwanted. The opulence of his masters was contrasted by the deviousness of his imprisonment; he was treated as a misjudgment of nature and nothing more. While they had appeased the Matron in pursuing him, they knew he would return, and the doors would open once again, his pits would wait. Jhael did not insult his breeding with pining for the surface, as his father before him, he believed a Drow’s boots should only touch Arda’s surface when death follows in their wake. Because of his vampirism, the Matron of his ‘borrowed’ house would not allow him access to surface raids; the female commanders thought him a commodity, difficult to control even if he was a male. They were afraid of him, the omnipotent matriarchal systems that made the Drow world ebb and flow; their fear shattered his subservience. Heart beat dead blood and Jhael began to feel another hunger call to him from behind miles of stone. Every subterranean cavern was painted with his blood and that of his victims; the memory of echoes in the deep knew well his name. It was time for the stars, the mountains and the sky to curdle with his actions. Yet with only a moment upon Arda’s lush landscape, he was threatened with a confusing hesitance at the end of a woman’s blade.

Through clenched teeth, Jhael categorized every one of Kyoto’s movements, watching her shoulders as she batted away his tentative attacks. His sword arm tingled from the contact, his spine contracted and curved as his body moved around the edges of her defense. With almost insurmountable exuberance, the warrior picked what seemed to be vast holes in Kyoto’s defense only to have her dedicate her blade to his, swatting away his attack. He would roll with a counterattack that she would not make, darting forward to gather some half hearted assault in the absence of action. Kyoto absorbed his attacks like a sea sponge, her feet rooted with each movement, fluid in between the whisper of their weapons. He could not place her training and, like her unusual weapon, he could not goad her into investing an attack with any of his baited movements. Jhael was fury, Kyoto a sentinel, and he watched his aggression smash against an impassive shore. His plan was not working and despite his best effort (and to his surprise) she seemed to be getting closer and closer to awarding his wailing attempts with his own blood. It was time to switch tactics.

Jhael saw her lunge a moment before it came, it’s tells in the texture of her shoulder muscles, tensing before the strike. In an instant of clarity, Jhael let his weapon arm go sloppy as her sword thrust forward. Kyoto cried out her kiay, the force of her strength focused in one blow; the Drow needed to be careful the killing blow wouldn’t do just that. The warrior woman was wild when she decided to act; Jhael let her blade run along the flat surface of his scimitar, feeling the honed tip find his ribs with terrible hunger. Instantly his side bloomed with blood, staining through his piwafi, and before vital innards met unyielding steel, Jhael threw himself to the thick leaf cover. He had made certain to separate his body by at least ten feet, rolling dramatically closer to the tree cover. Jhael tried to get to his feet, his left side numb, letting his left leg buckle under his weight. The Drow fell to his knees, his scimitar in front of him like a fallen branch, his thin white locks hiding his face. It was a lull in the fight, long enough for him to see the multitude of life that had surrounded them. The quiet audience only convinced him more that his opponent was admirable, a surprise that he felt obligated to act out to the very end. They were strange to his eyes, creatures of quiet obligation to the forest, that made the hairs on his arms and legs stand on end. The night scintillated with ambiguous joy, its neutral cheers only asked for blood to feed their crops. As Jhael tightened his grip on his blade, he would attempt to give them what they pleaded for. He would act on her aggression, pushing his fingers into his wound to staunch the flow and to give his skin the shiver of pain. Kyoto would have to attack or retreat, and either way, he would be waiting, hoping the shadows hid the hungry smile on his dark lips.

The trees and the eerie night applauded at the first draw of blood; leaves rustled noisily as the moon's light sliced though the dense frosty mist. The creatures of the forest were silent at once. Rolling fog closed in about Kyoto.

From the corner of her eye she saw (or she thought she did) her attacker disappear. She glanced at her weapon with a slight grin as blood ran down her blade. Now he knows to be more careful, Kyoto thought to herself as she knew her risky maneuver had landed well—most likely somewhere between its waist and its chest.

Among all the confusion and straining, Kyoto had noticed that her assailant had ears like an elf, and in the light she concluded the thing had rather dark skin. She had heard many stories of the drow when she was a girl. But this thing was certainly not (or so she thought), for it had big fangs and unnatural eyes and something about the creature was so far from elvish that Kyoto was sure it could not possibly be a drow. It smelled like rotted flesh so badly her eyes watered a little, and the warrior found herself looking all around her in a panic.

The shimmering insects buzzed all around her, illuminating her position and blinding her to anything beyond the dancing lights. Kyoto considered chasing after the monster while it was still shaken by her successful strike. But she did not, for if she had, her eyes would need much time to adjust to the total darkness, and if Kyoto's mind was in a more clear state, she may have concluded this, but she was, to say the very least, terrified. She did not run off into the darkness and the mist because she felt deep within herself that she would meet her end very quickly if she did.

A deep chill rested in her bones and stirred her senses. She struck a pathetic stance with her sword far in front of her as if it would protect her by itself. Her knees, though they were slightly bent, began to tighten and stick as if frozen; there was a cool breeze that spun leaves up all around her. To Kyoto, it sounded as if there were dozens of vile creatures with fangs and pale hair surrounding her. She tasted cold sweat on her lip. She began to try and ease her imagination and focus on what her enemy's footsteps sounded like, for she had heard them before and would not mistake them for something else ever again; they were burned deeper in her mind than the very fondest of her memories, and Kyoto thought to herself: If I do survive this, I wonder if this thing will be all that I see in my sleep until I die. . .

Kyoto spoke, though she did not know why, “What do you want from me?”

The forest had grown brackish; the animal life that had happened their way into this clashing of steel seemed to pause in venomous anticipation. Even in nature, the kill was a thing of great fascination; the Drow especially respected the art of taking someone’s life. Before his turning, Jhael had loved the play of the blade; he was not especially gifted, his only talent was his meticulous obstinacy. If, in class, a parry caught him off guard or a thrust too eager earned him a slashing reply, above all other punishments received, Jhael would torture himself rigorously with practice. The function of ones and twos and threes, circles of defense and the hard angels of triangle offence, he practiced above sleep and food, above class or expectation. It gave the Drow his thicker stature, the muscles of his chest and back so distinguished against his frail elven form. When he would fight, he would crouch, to meet his shorter opponent’s eyes; it gave him a monstrous hunch. It earned fear before his time, and that was his crime: the attention earned him the role of offering to his Matron’s new vampire allies. Allies that required a blood sacrifice as proof of loyalty; Jhael began his shunning aware of the shame that came with this decision. Yet, as always, he knew he had no right to judge; after all, he was only a male.

Yet this female that he had challenged did not see him an unworthy proxy to her words, it surprised him. In his world, a woman would not bother to speak directly to a male that had disobeyed the nature order; Jhael knew nothing else but. She seemed curious, and it made his waiting smile vanish. Jhael dropped his ruse, standing from his possum crouch and smiling at her with milky violet eyes. There was the vague shade of recognition in Kyoto’s stare, but he sympathized with her confusion. A hard trip up from the depths made him filthy, extending the foulness of the death that seemed to follow him; he could have assumed worse. It was, instead, the smell of his growing hunger that had given her pause; he could not defend it. As much as he had withheld his innate vampiric gifts during their combat, he could not push aside the hunger that grew with every blow struck. Kyoto was of the surface, this he was sure, but he saw much of the strength of the Drowish women far beneath. Jhael spun his scimitar in his palm, licking a fang as he muddled through his thoughts. She did not wish to die; he had no real need to kill her. But his fascination had led him to the encounter; he felt he had to be appeased…

Jhael stuck two fingers in the wound between his first and second rib, the flesh already mending, and removed them from his body with a wet pop. He sucked his fingers and tasted nothing foreign in his blood; she did not fight with a poisoned blade. So the women retains a level of honor, it convinced him further.

“I want only what you are willing to give me.” His accent was thick, words hidden with a woolen patois. “You are a good fighter, much like I was when I was young: steadfast and purposeful.”

He slid the sword into the loop beneath his blood stained piwafi, lowering his body again, this time in a deep squat. It made him look like a gory vulture in the moonlight. “I have business on the surface but my supply of…” he paused, careful to make the next word clear, “blood is unacceptable. Apparently the Drow seem to rot fast on this cursed surface.”

Jhael smiled once again, this time opened mouthed and cruel. “I assure you I will not curse you as I am, you may spill it yourself. But I will not feed on these forest vermin,” he accentuated his point by flicking the head of the dead rabbit still dangling from his collar. “And although your blood is just as foul…” he spoke tactfully soft now, “it is honorable blood. And I need to feed.”

Jhael’s hand gave a small tickle of movement toward the hilt of his blade. “Or we may simply continue, and offer these foul beasts more of the show.”

Kyoto had a start when she heard the pale voice. She turned her head in the direction of the noise and blinked into twilight; darkness that was deeper than any she had ever known before, for the creature seemed to snatch light out of the air with its grim presence. Its tone was ominous and it stung her deeply. Kyoto's blade was shaking in her hands as she tried to discern what the thing was saying:

“I want. . .give me. You are good—fighter. . .I. . .young,” she strained her ears and cringed slightly, “. . .blood. . .Drow seem to rot. . .” Kyoto could not make sense out of the broken Common, and she lost her concentration on deciphering it, for she could just now make out the figure of her attacker in the distance.

It flicked something hanging from its neck, and toyed with the weapon at its side. Kyoto wished she could have understood more of what was said, but it seemed to her it was content to fight further. Kyoto looked into the dark being—eyes shone strangely to her now. She felt its stare now more than ever before. Time stood still and Kyoto began to feel very tired. Her body could fail her soon; her body was so rigid it now seemed as if she was in a shallow pool, working against inevitable yet surprising resistance. She suddenly realized that she was losing the battle mentally.

Kyoto flicked her sword into its resting place, whirring the blade twice for good measure. Her knees were strained and nearly altogether locked. She briefly closed her eyes and breathed in so deeply she nearly feinted. Currents and pulses of change ran through her body like clear water dancing down the falls of Alulanta. “Do not forget your training,” her Master's last words to her sounded suddenly among her thoughts. Kyoto peeled her eyes open, wiggled her knees, and bobbed her head around in smooth circles.

She was now ready, once again.

Her hands gently rested upon her protector; the sword's hilt seemed to hum between her fingertips. The feeling invigorated her as her face was beset in the confidence she had learned long ago. Her left palm grasped the scabbard while her right lay upon the handle of her thirsty katana. Cold blood slowly oozed down her weapon within the sheath, and the steel within welcomed the offering; it yearned for more though, and Kyoto was near anticipation of the monster's next move.

“I do not wish to fight!” she lied, for some of her yearned to kill the wicked thing and some of her acknowledged her peril. “If you think I am afraid, then you best look in my eyes once more monster! Though I do not want to, for I am tired, I will paint the trees with every piece of you this night! My reason for being here has nothing to do with you and I never intended to fight you.

“It would be wise for you to leave me be, for I do not wish to hurt you, and I will not follow you!”