Disciple

WARNING
 This page contains mature content, reader discretion recommended.
</div>
Can you resist me, little sister?
Can you resist the devil's might?
Whatever God may tell you
Every soul will have its price
One day you'll come to sell me yours, my dear
And the time has come tonight
There will be no escape, my friend
From the evil by your side
=Disciple:=
 Written/Edited by: Isis The Masked Dragon
Lyric Credits: Mr. Sinister- Powerwolf
There's something magical about the darkness, how easy it is to hide within it. How you can find it anywhere, like under a shelf or in a cave. That it grows with time. Inky black shadows moving and growing, creeping along floors and walls filling a space with darkness. It can also fill the heart and mind. Darkness grows inside, changing the way you think and feel. The shadows can be a weapon. A shield. A hiding place. Everyone always talks about the light. How it saves, how it inspires. How it helps and heals. How it banishes the darkness. But what happens when there is no light? What are you left with? You're left with the darkness. The light comes and goes, but the darkness is always there. That's the true magic. The darkness is always plotting, biding its time. Waiting for its turn to strike at the hearts and minds of an unprotected world. In one form or another the darkness is always there.
=I. Awakening=
Nightwish was running, running as fast as she could. Through dark twisting and turning halls carved from polished black stone. Her clawsteps and rapid breathing the only sound, her panicked face reflected back at her from every angle and every surface. Every now and then Nightwish glanced over her shoulder, at whatever she was running from. But she never saw anything. All she knew was that whatever or whoever was behind her, chasing her was infinitely worse than whatever unknowns might lay ahead. So, she kept running. Running forever.
Nightwish jerked awake, her heart pounding. Quickly she sat up and looked around. No longer was she trapped inside the dark reflective halls, but rather in her room. It had just been a dream. Nightwish was safe. Rising from her bed Nightwish went over to her small window, still feeling shaken from her nightmare. Parting the curtains Nightwish looked out at the sky, watching as the sun began its descent behind the mountains in a sea of orange and red. This wasn't the first time Nightwish had this nightmare, it was a constant occurrence, making her sleep schedule difficult if ever possible At least it was close enough to the night for her to begin work. Being so tired and on edge all the time was unpleasant, but bh now Nightwish was used to it. It how ever, never got any easier. Turning away from her window the coal black NightWing crossed her room and as quietly as she could opened her door. As expected it squeaked, but luckily it wasn't loud enough to wake her parents. Nightwish crept through the small cave home, doing her best to not make any noise or knock something over. Somehow, she managed to leave the house, and remember to bring her satchel without bothering anyone. Since it was still fairly light out there very few dragons out and about as Nightwish flew up from her home within the ravine. She headed towards the tall towers of the palace, flying high above the Great Diamond and the many other buildings nearby. Her destination was a large building to the left of the palace. Landing in front of the building Nightwish couldn't help but be impressed by the size and the ornateness of the building, though she had been there a hundred times at least. The giant dark stone columns and black iron work around the front entrance cast and imposing shadow over the gardens before it. Opening her satchel and pulling out a silver key, Nightwish unlocked and pulled open the large dark oak doors of the building, of the museum and stepped inside. The museum was Nightwish's home away from home. Run by an older NightWing named Legendteller, the museum contained the largest collection of historical artifacts ever. It drew scholars and tourists from all over the continent to the Night Kingdom. Nightwish's job within the museum was to check over the items in the collection and make sure that they were in good condition. She took her job very seriously. Locking the door behind her, Nightwish turned to face the large fountain in the center of the enormous entrance hall. The wonderous water feature a marvel of architecture and engineering. Past the fountain down the central hall were six branching hallways, all leading to other places within the museum. Nightwish made her way down the hall, quickly looking down each of the other branching halls to make sure everything was where it should have been, she'd get to them later. She stopped at the end of the hall before a door marked staff only. Nightwish unlocked this door too and went inside. She was in the back rooms now, mainly just a few offices and the rooms with the parts of the collection that weren't on display. Nothing too interesting. Nightwish began to go about her usual routine. Checking over the pieces for damage either from bugs or age and bringing any damaged pieces to one of the restoration rooms. The things inside the museum were often hundreds of years old and needed maintenance often. Nightwish was trying to be more helpful around the museum, so she was learning how to help repair any damaged artifacts. She was currently helping to extricate an intricate frieze from a chunk of rock. 
It only took a few hours to go through the whole collection, and as the last rays of sunlight had left the sky Nightwish headed to the main restoration room to work on the frieze. She knew that with the onset of night that other workers would be arriving, and later the museum would be open for tourists to visit. She might as well get as much done as she possibly could before someone told her to do something else. The room that contained the frieze was a medium sized room with tables and tools around the walls. The frieze, and the rock that held it laid upon the massive central table. Removing a small brush from a box beside the table Nightwish set to work lightly sweeping away dust and dirt from the surface of the frieze. The carved slab was huge, 8ft tall, 10ft in length and over 3ft thick. It depicted the war between the IceWings and the NightWings from centuries ago. There were over 50 intricately carved dragons frozen in battle. At the center was a NightWing, larger than the others with wings spread wide and a look of determination upon his face. His elegantly twisting horns and neck unlike any Nightwish had ever seen. Besides the size of his larger size compared to the others, the central NightWing was the only one to have his eyes be jewels rather than just carved stone. Bright green emeralds. Nightwish wondered who the NightWing had been. The most likely scenario she could come up with was that he must have been a prince, or some other important dragon, likely a military leader. Whoever he had been, he was someone important seeing as the frieze that he was the center of was discovered while excavating the remains of the old NightWing palace. Nightwish noticed a sliver of dark rock, wedged between one of the central NightWing's emerald eyes and the lighter rock of the main frieze. "That shouldn't be there." She thought. Straightening, Nightwish crossed the room over to a tray of tools in various sizes. Selecting a pair of tweezers, she returned to the table. As carefully and delicately as she could Nightwish began pulling out the piece of dark rock. The piece was almost out when Nightwish's talons slipped and caused the rock to push against the emerald eye, causing it to pop out of its resting place and clatter down to the stone floor. Nightwish gasped and dove down to the floor to recover the emerald eye. She was terrified that she'd scratched or broken both the emerald or the floor. She was certain that if the emerald was damaged or couldn't be replaced that Nightwish would be in an incredible amount of trouble. As she picked up the jewel, cupping it in her talons. Her heart sank as she saw a large crack running down through the center of the emerald. "Oh no." she said. An edge of despair in her voice as she realized that damage was not only very noticeable but likely irreparable. 
"I wouldn't worry about it." Nightwish's head shot up as she heard the voice. "It wasn't terribly important." The speaker was male, and his voice was deep and had silky quality to it. The speaker also had a slight accent, but one Nightwish couldn't place. Nightwish slowly got back to her feet, emerald eye still in her talons. "I don't think it looks any worse without it to be honest." There was another NightWing in the room with Nightwish. He was leaning against the table and looking down at the frieze. "Actually, it might look better without the other one too." As she'd guessed the other NightWing was male, and rather tall. Even leaning against the table, he was far larger than Nightwish in both stature and musculature. His scales were a dark ebony black with lighter black underbelly scales.
"W-Who are you?" Nightwish asked, not recognizing the other NightWing at all. The ebony dragon turned his gaze from the frieze to Nightwish, his face was narrow and rather handsome. His eyes were the same dark green color as the emerald in Nightwish's talon and his horns were long and twisting. He grinned. 
"Me? Why, I'm the Prince of Darkness." Nightwish was confused. 
"You're wha-?" he cut her off.
"My name, in case it's been forgotten is Darkstalker." He held out a talon to Nightwish. "Pleasure to make your acquaintance! Who might you be?"
=II. A Brand-New World=
Nightwish was really confused now. "Darkstalker? How? Aren't you supposed to be dead? It's been like centuries, how are you here?" He waved away her question saying, 
"I'll tell you later, right now I must know who you are my dear. I can't properly thank you until I know your name." 
"Uh ok. My name is Nightwish." Darkstalker stopped leaning against the frieze and stood up straight. Nightwish again noted how tall he was. Far taller than average, but not by too much. Yet he still seemed oddly intimidating. The ebony NightWing bowed, his head almost touching the floor then sprang back to standing with a flourish. 
"Nightwish, you have my eternal gratitude for freeing me from my prison." He spoke. 
"Freeing you from your prison?" Nightwish asked. "What prison?" Darkstalker gestured at the frieze. 
"That prison. Now do tell, where are we?" Nightwish had a lot of questions, probably as many as this NightWing claiming to be Darkstalker had. She was still very skeptical about whether he was Darkstalker, but he had suddenly appeared in the restoration room without her notice. Nightwish thought it would probably be best to just answer his questions in the hope that he wouldn't do anything to her, seeing how he was much larger than her and could easily best her in a fight.
"Well, this is one of the main restoration rooms in the Museum of Dragon History in the NightWing Kingdom." Nightwish said. Darkstalker nodded. 
"What year is it? I'm afraid that I don't know. I had no sense of time in there." He again pointed at the frieze. Nightwish had to think about that one.
"I believe that it's 3527 years after The Scorching." Yeah, that was right. The new year's festival had been three months ago and Nightwish had turned 12 around then too. Darkstalker again nodded, but the smile on his face had faded slightly. 
"So, it's been 500 years." He mumbled.
"What?" Nightwish asked. She hadn't quite heard what he'd said. 
"500 hundred years!" Darkstalker shouted. He slammed a clenched fist against the stone of the frieze, hard enough to cause it to crack. "They locked me away for 500 hundred years! When I get my claws on them..." Taking a few steps backwards Darkstalker threw his head back and screamed "I'LL KILL THEM!!" Slowly he lowered his head and hunched over slightly, his chest heaving. "No... No, time got to them first." Nightwish was frozen, to afraid to move. The anger in Darkstalker's eyes was terrifying as he shook himself and turned to look at Nightwish. "I'm sorry you had to see that." He took a step towards Nightwish but stopped halfway uncertainty crossing his face. "I let my emotions get the better of me, I shouldn't have done that. I didn't mean to scare you." Nightwish nodded slowly. She was still afraid, but Darkstalker seemed like he didn't want to harm her, and she felt like he meant his apology. It didn't stop her from being weary of him, in case he had another outburst.
"Who did you want to kill?" Nightwish asked, praying to the moons that he wouldn't get angry again. Darkstalker smiled ruefully. 
"Ah, that. I suppose I ought to tell you, and I promise that I won't get angry again." Nightwish was again confused. How had he known that she'd been worrying about that? "How much do you know about me Nightwish? Since you didn't instantly recognize me and given that 500 years, I'm sure that I've become a legend. Right?" There was a slight hint of worry in his voice. 
"Well... You are a legend, but not in a way you believe that you are." She thought about the Darkstalker legend. About the bogyman dragon who creeped through the night, taking the lives of the naughty. "You're nothing more than an urban legend. A fairy tale. A name that mothers evoke to scare young dragonets before they get too old to believe." Darkstalker frowned. 
"What? A fairy tale, how?" He seemed so confused. Nightwish nodded.
"There's nothing. No scrolls, no stories beyond the fairy tale of an evil dragon named Darkstalker who killed his own father and now hunts the night waiting to punish misbehaving dragonets." She pointed at the frieze. "I spent weeks working on this without ever knowing that the NightWing in the center was you. As far as I can tell, this is the only physical representation of you at all." Darkstalker's frown deepened, and he looked down at the floor. 
"You did a good job of it, didn't you." He said, not talking to Nightwish but to himself. "Whitewash me out of history..." Darkstalker chuckled. A dry, sad laugh. "One can only wonder what you did to Shadowhunter." 
"Shadowhunter? Who's that?" Nightwish asked. Darkstalker laughed again.
"You really don't know do you?" He shook his head, looking back at Nightwish. His emerald eyes were shiny, like he was holding back tears. "How could you? Clearsight did exactly as she promised." "I can do worse things than killing you Darkstalker" he said mockingly. "You sure did Clearsight, you sure did." Nightwish didn't want to say anything as he was clearly upset, but he hadn't exactly given her an answer. "Shadowhunter's my daughter." Darkstalker said. "Was my daughter." Nightwish nodded. She knew who Clearsight was, the legendary NightWing seer from back when the tribe had powers. "You guys don't even have powers anymore?" Darkstalker said incredulously. 
"Wait, wait, wait." Nightwish said. "I didn't say anything about the NightWings not having powers anymore, how do you know about that?" 
"Because I heard your thoughts. I can read minds." He pointed at the side of his head at a teardrop shaped silver scale behind his eye. "Don't you know that NightWings with silver scales behind their eyes can read minds?" Nightwish shook her head. Darkstalker could read minds? Was he reading her mind right now? "Yes, I am." Darkstalker said. Nightwish frowned. 
"Don't do that, it's an invasion of privacy and it's creepy." Darkstalker shrugged. 
"Sorry, I'll stop if you don't like it. And it's not creepy, it's part of your tribal heritage. It's something that you should have known about..." He growled quietly. "Clearsight..." 
"Well, I know now I guess." Nightwish said. "What did you mean when you said that one can only wonder what you did to Shadowhunter?" Darkstalker sighed.
"Clearsight and I didn't often see eye to eye when it came to things. History was apparently one of them. I'm worried that if she was able to so completely remove me from history and mock and destroy my legacy, that she might have done something to our daughter, either to make her forget or hate me. Even though she's long dead now, it would be horrible to know that she spent her life hating and not knowing her father."
"That so sad, I'm sorry." Nightwish said. Darkstalker shrugged. 
"It's history now. It's all history now. Everything I've done, and everything done to me."
"Like you, being imprisoned in that frieze." Nightwish said. "How did that even happen in the first place?" 
"Remember how I said that Clearsight and I didn't always see eye to eye on certain things?" Nightwish nodded. "She didn't like my ambition, likely feared it. Afraid of what I might do." 
"What might you have done?" Nightwish asked. A slightly annoyed look flashed across Darkstalker's face but disappeared so quickly that Nightwish wasn't certain he had made a face at all. 
"Clearsight was always so close minded, she never saw the big picture things like I did. The things I would have done would have changed the world, in a good way. I would have changed lives and made others happy. I had only noble intentions."
"If that were true, then why would she feel the need to lock you away in the frieze?"
"Because she was lied to and manipulated by a SeaWing animus named Fathom. He convinced her that I was evil and that I should be imprisoned, and he helped to create the prison that held me." Darkstalker said, a dark look in his eyes. Whoever Fathom was, he had been someone Darkstalker must have truly hated. "I didn't always hate him." Darkstalker said. Nightwish frowned
"I thought you said you wouldn't read my mind anymore..."
"Uh, heh... Sorry, force of habit. It isn't really something I can just turn off."
"Hmmm." Nightwish was skeptical but decided not to peruse the issue. "What made you hate Fathom then?"
"He was like Clearsight; too narrow minded. Too afraid of new and wonderful things. I tried to help him and Clearsight see things my way, but I could never get either of them to even give me a chance."
"I see." Nightwish said. She couldn't help but feel bad for Darkstalker. She couldn't imagine what it would feel like to be ignored and feared by her friends for nothing. She couldn't imagine going through anything Darkstalker had. He must hurt terribly. "What was it like being trapped in the frieze?" She asked. Darkstalker opened his mouth to speak when a voice came from the doorway behind him.
"Hello? Nightwish, are you in here?" Nightwish's boss, the curator of the museum Legendteller poked his head into the restoration room. "Ah Nightwish there you are. I was looking for... Oh, hello there." He paused when he caught sight of Darkstalker. 
"Good evening." Darkstalker said dipping his head towards Legendteller. "I'm Darkstalker, a good friend of Nightwish's."
"I see." Legendteller said. Darkstalker gestured towards the frieze.
"Nightwish was just telling me about this piece and it's fascinating history." 
"Ah yes, The Great Battle as I've dubbed it. A wonderful and well-preserved artifact. You have good taste." Legendteller said coming over to stand beside Darkstalker. "Did she tell you that we found in the remains of the old palace?" Darkstalker nodded. 
"Yeah. Say, would you happen to have any other artifacts found in the old palace?" Darkstalker asked. Legendteller nodded. 
"Of course. There's quite a few on display and a few others in the back rooms. I'd be more than happy to show you if you'd like." 
"That would be wonderful." He held out a talon to Nightwish. "You'll join us, right?" Nightwish shook her head.
"No sorry, I have a bit more work to complete but I'll be around." Darkstalker nodded. 
"Ok, see you soon." He winked at her before leaving the room with Legendteller.
=III. Fresh Start=
Nightwish spent the rest of the night carrying out her duties around the museum. She would see Darkstalker now and then, trailing behind Legendteller as the elderly NightWing spoke animatedly about different parts of their tribal history. He looked like he was regretting his choice in asking Legendteller to explain NightWing history to him. It was likely useful for him to catch up on the past 500 years but having anything explained to you by someone like Legendteller was more of a chore than anything else. He never said anything to stop the old NightWing and always asked questions any time there was an opportunity so it must not have been all bad. Eventually the two returned to the front entrance where Nightwish was waiting. "Dear moons. Morning already, I'm terribly sorry to have distracted you for so long my good fellow. I tend to get carried away with my speech." Legendteller said. Darkstalker shook his head. 
"It's no problem at all. I really do think I learned something." He said, his words genuine. "You certainly explained quite a few things." Nightwish liked to hear Darkstalker talk, each word he spoke with purpose and in his exotic accent. Legendteller smiled.
"Well, I'm quite glad that I was able to help you!" He turned to Nightwish. "Nightwish you should bring more friends to work, most certainly if they're like Darkstalker here."
Category:Content (Isis The Masked Dragon)
Category:Fanfictions
Category:Fanfictions (Incomplete)
Category:Mature Content
Category:Genre (Tragedy)
Category:Inspired by Fiction
Category:Fanfictions (Fanon)