Darkness Tamed

It’s not a trick. I have a treat of an extra story this week.

“Edgard.” His name. “Edgard, it is time.” She called. He moved a shifting of darkness waking from nothingness. Form coalesced as he flicked from his rest. Only a strand of trailed behind him as he landed on the branch, ink twisting through the air. Cocking his head to the side he looked at her and cawed.

She was light and should have glowed. Instead she was pale. He turned at looked at the moon behind him, murky in a dusk sky. He turned back cawing again.

She raised a hand pointing. He lighted from his tree and landed on her hand. She drew his close and running fingers over his back. The faintest smile appeared but her glow strengthened. He nipped at her hair. A strand coming lose in his beak.

Twisting he let air slip between his feathers as he reveled in the increased light. Clasping the hair, he launched himself into the air and circled her before heading into the darkness. He moved through the air and trees, his form fading in and out.

The moon shone above, following his flight through the night. Her eye. Though above all, he knew she watched him, and not just from the connection of the strand he carried.

The hair continued to glow as he flew, rollicking in the freedom. How long had it been since he last flight? He couldn’t recall. The air was chill, but it always was. At least since…

The thought slipped away as he sped through the side of a cliff and coalesced again within confines of a small glen. A cave appeared beneath him. From within the depth light glimmered faintly drawing Edgard closer.

A bare tree stood without the cave. He knew the tree. Edgard landed on a twisted limb. He cried his presences, the cavern catching the sound and repeating it within. He flapped his wings barely keeping his grip on the limb.

A form appeared form within the cavern. Lumbering, the dark form appeared and looked up at Edgard. He stretched his neck, the hair dangling from his beak. Fingers stretched. Ink twisted out from the form as it reached for the hair.

Tainted.

No, he couldn’t let this thing touch the light. Edgard jerked back, his wings spreading to launch him away. His eyes caught on the moon above and stilled his movement. He’d been sent. The thing grabbed the hair and it slipped from between his beaks, a strand of black flowing away with it.

Exhaustion washed over Edgard as the creature raised the strand. Silence. Edgard wanted to flee but he knew he was still more. He needed to hear. “Still pure,” the creature said as it turned retreating into the cavern. “One more year has been paid for.”

Edgard screamed as he bolted into the air, fleeing back the way he’d come. Back to his rest, a cage which held him for the year. Held him until she called him when the night came again. A night when barriers were low enough to pay for his freedom. And give him moments we he recalled.

His love who paid for his arrogance with a strand a year. She’d been right when he’d boasted he’d tame the dark for her to always shine. The darkness would not be tamed, but he had been. Hitting his rest his form dissolved around him, and he cried to the moon a last time before dissolving into an shadow untouchable by her light.

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