Leaves chittered in the wind to answer the madman's laugh. Another human who has touched the Tap and allowed it to scour their senses. This boy's powers have minced his brains. Without a guide like Njal, Nora might have suffered much the same fate. She slid her wakizashi free and dropped the sack containing the tanto. The dark iron blade leaned against her shoulder as she peeked past the tree's shadow. Dew glistened in the moonlight all around the earth torn up by Blaze's pet, but she saw no sign of the ogre nor its master. Perhaps he is not so mad after all... Ellenora took a deep breath of dank forest air, restoring some calm to her vibrating nerves. Was Zack employing stealth of his own? If so, he would find himself entrenched alongside...

The vampyre never saw the sword point that burst from her chest in a mist of arterial spray. The magic blade snuffed her out like an iron thimble covering a candle.

~

Agony wracked Ellenora's being, but she had no body. Hot knives pierced the tenderest pieces of skin she could not perceive. Darkness and pain, only darkness and pain. Many of Njal's lessons began so.

Why have you failed? The imperious voice asked when she had no more sensation to scald. Njal did not demand, but Nora knew her answers would write the next passage of her life or else burn her from present and past.

I was too weak, the initial answer came easily, but silence and nothingness stretched until she found a proper answer. I underestimated my foe, again and again. I had no answer for his attacks. Nora wanted to weep but she had no cheeks to wear the tears, nor eyes to spill them. She had been foolish, fearing that a human such as Zack Blaze could replace her as leader of the Liberia Nocturna. Yet still she feared for her position.

What would you do differently? Njal asked.

I would never step into that clearing, Nora thought vehemently, I would draw the man to the shadows, and strike with all of my being.

You learn still, there was love amongst the voice's disappointment, it is for this alone that I keep you as leader of the Noctruna tribe. The world has changed as you slept. Many and more of those above draw upon the Tap like mewling kittens at their mother's teats. They are dangerous, but they grow fat with power and are ripe for the plucking... they will make the mightiest army we have ever known. There was a pause in which hope replaced pain, filling the void that had consumed Nora's world. You have tasted the wrath of the surface dwellers this night... when next you climb out of Haide, you will taste their blood.

Out of Character:
Fin