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Stalactites and stalagmites delineated the entrance to cavernous tunnels, gradually replacing the fractured mountain face with shades of grey, silver, and purples oscillating from nacre to profound violet. Moonlight, daring but feeble, reflected off walls that glistened with moisture, exuding a damp shimmer. The walls bore the scars of countless ages, the passage of time etched by gentle but ever relentless streams of water. Distinctive scents of earth and minerals coalesced with stagnant humidity, all underscored by subtle traces of decay. Beyond lay only impenetrable darkness.

For two days, Midnight navigated tunnels that offered no respite, narrow serpentine passages wound with unpredictability. They twisted and turned with erratic logic, falling into fathomless depths and rising abruptly. Often, the rocks pressed in, forcing Midnight to contort her lithe form. She squeezed through crevices so constricting that her fur scraped against the rock, some passages demanding she retract her shoulders and belly to slide through. Always, she followed the breath of the cave.

In the profound stillness of the subterranean expanse, Midnight’s heightened senses attuned to every ominous nuance — the echoes of distant sounds, the scent of unseen creatures, and the subtle vibrations beneath her paws. Traces of diverse beings lingered in the air; insects, small creatures that had traversed the tunnels before her, and the scent of larger, unseen beasts concealed by the unyielding darkness. Some emanated hostility, others fear, many the indifference prominent for lesser beings.

Deeper into the heart of the mountain, where the walls shed their clammy exterior, Midnight found remnants of a webbed structure. Broken strands of silk clung to the cave walls, evidence of an arachnid species that once wove traps or nests in concealed recesses. Devoting five harrowing hours to this singular passageway, Midnight found the initial traces faint and frail, signs of long abandonment. As she delved deeper, new constructions emerged. Her path ended in an intersection that branched into three tunnels, two of which were adorned with fresh webs. Each tunnel bore meticulously anchored webbing, threads bridging the walls but not entirely sealing the way. In the middle tunnel, the net hung overhead with just enough space for Midnight to crouch beneath. The right tunnel featured an elongated structure that shrouded only the right half, leaving a gap for Midnight to pass on the left.

This was dangerous terrain. There was strategy behind this design. The webs beckoned with the illusion of navigable passages, tempting Midnight to believe she could traverse them unhindered. However, in both tunnels, subsequent nets lurked behind the first.

In the middle tunnel, where the first net spanned overhead, the second and third were cunningly placed to the right and lower down, creating a layered trap. In the right tunnel, the complex structure extended along the right flank before converging with a distant structure on the left, completing the treacherous design. These nearly imperceptible constructions wove a multi-layered trap. It was a trapper’s challenge — any prey unable to perceive the nets unwittingly ran into them. If the prey discerned only the foremost structures or fell for the illusion of navigable paths, the layered trap lured it deeper. It would advance until it was rendered immobile, incapable of retreat or resistance without succumbing to further entanglement.

Midnight strained against the oppressive stillness of the cavern, searching for predatory presences that eluded her. The air clung to the space like a deathly shroud, devoid even of the faintest skittering or scuttling of insects. No stealthy breath added to the sparse, morbid flow of air. The breath of the mountain still lingered, a feeble current weaving through the middle and left tunnels. The latter, nearly obscured and barricaded by a massive rock, bore no visible threads of webbing. Despite the absence of audible or visible threats, Midnight suppressed any surges of confidence or impatience. Frozen in place, she invested several minutes, waiting for time to unveil what her senses could not — a breath, a shift in temperature, a mere suggestion of warmth. Nothing manifested.

Her predatory instincts beckoned her to discard caution, urging immediate action. She took a few silent steps towards the left tunnel. Her gaze scrutinised the entrance, the rock, and the ceiling. The rock had fallen from right above, and she sought to discern whether it was a natural occurrence or a deliberate act of disruption. The absence of obvious signs of aggressive force left her uncertain. Respectively, she questioned the rock’s purpose — a barrier to ward something off or a containment for something within the tunnel?

The boulder did not obstruct the tunnel directly but sat at a slight angle. Scratches on the ground hinted that it had been pushed outward from the other side, creating a narrow gap of 30 to 40 centimeters on the left. It was too narrow for Midnight to pass through, and the boulder's weight deemed it improbable for her to shift alone. Contemplating the challenge, she envisioned climbing atop the rock, then crouching low to potentially slide through the narrow crevice between the rock and the tunnel ceiling.

Cautiously monitoring any changes in her surroundings, Midnight ascended the rock. She examined the ceiling, crouched down to peer through the gap into the tunnel’s obscured depths, and scrutinised the surrounding rock. She jumped back down abruptly —

This tunnel was part of the trap.

A beast attuned to the dangers lurking in the middle and right tunnels would inevitably be coerced into choosing the ostensibly safer left tunnel. Midnight, too, felt the compelling pull toward that deceptive safety. She was a predator, disposed to stalking, hunting, and fighting, not trapping. Her commitment to caution, her capacity to resist these primal instincts, and her ability to discern traps were skills honed through her wizard. By nature and disposition, he was a trapper, cultivating acute awareness of traps as an artefact hunter and weaving deceptive realities both to safeguard their hideouts and in the heat of battle. More often than Midnight would ever want to acknowledge, he even trapped himself with his own illusions. A crucial lesson from all he shared resonated in her mind — things should never, suddenly, feel too easy.

This paradoxical wisdom struck Midnight as she surveyed the rocky obstruction. It posed as an obstacle, yet, in its devious design, encouraged progression by not making it too easy to advance. A tunnel too readily accessible would arouse suspicion due to the lack of webs. The rock allowed her to reason against this suspicion. It provided a plausible barrier that could readily be misconstrued as a territorial boundary. In addition, the breath of the cave suggested the prospect of an exit. Midnight, too, felt the growing allure of the left tunnel as the best of her three choices. Fixating onto her trapper's acumen, she forcibly suppressed the instinctive pull. With a decisive turn, she retraced her steps, selecting the fourth choice: to go back the way she came.

The catalyst for this decision lay in the disturbing discovery she had made from atop the rock. While examining the side of the boulder facing the tunnel, Midnight had discerned a chaotic tapestry of claw marks — marks not of purpose or precision but of panic, etched with desperation rather than intention. In these frantic impressions, she had read the fate of countless creatures venturing into the tunnel but driven back by fear towards the intersection, where they had been trapped by rock. The scent of dread and death, however, was conspicuously absent, a void that should have lingered through the months.

Immediately, Midnight had wondered whether no beast had dared the tunnel for so long, or whether an adept predator had masked their every trace. Again, she had forced herself to strategise. Creatures dwelling in perpetual darkness were commonly blind, relying on senses beyond sight. The eyes of surface dwellers were of no use within the heart of the mountains. Midnight stalkers, who could see even in the absence of light, stood as an exception. For blind prey, the multitude of claw marks needed no cover; they could only be felt from within the tunnel, from within the trap. For Midnight, seeing them without descending, they served as a warning. Life here was likely not absent but regularly claimed. The absence of other sensations hinted at a predator confident in shrouding not only her presence but also any olfactory traces of former prey. Midnight, a being that could hide within darkness, recognized a superior predator, a beast that lived within darkness.

To evade an encounter with such a cunning trapper, Midnight retraced her steps, intending to backtrack to an earlier intersection. This earlier division into an alternative path lay hours away — this, too, might be part of this predator’s strategy. Placing traps in a manner that made retreating a laborious and dauntingly time-consuming task coerced prey to forge ahead, especially those struggling with hunger and fatigue. Midnight, sustained by energy, remained impervious to the demands of rest or sustenance.

After 30 minutes of traversing, her progress was abruptly halted. Her retreat was barred. Layers of fresh webbing sprawled across her path.

Her retreat sealed off, Midnight was caught on the edge between instinct and strategy. Her instincts were a frenetic pulse urging her to gain distance from the immediate threat, to rush back to the intersection, where the allure of multiple pathways echoed louder with every heartbeat. Yet, against this primeval call, Midnight resisted. Forcing herself into the mindset of a trapper, she reasoned that the intersection, with its myriad uncharted tunnels, presented a perilous disadvantage. Four paths, two inaccessible to her, would render her vulnerable to the yet unknown number and kinds of predators, while offering them various options to attack and retreat. Still, her primal instincts compelled her to go there. It was a disconcerting realisation.

She held her ground. The tunnel she occupied allowed attackers only two openings — the retreat to the intersection and the now web-sealed passage in the opposite direction. Furthermore, the three tunnels at the intersection featured meticulously prepared traps, adorned with webs that could stretch endlessly, structures potentially perfected for years with every prey that fought and fell victim before Midnight. In contrast, the webs around her were fresh, their extent constrained by the limited time the trappers had to erect them. Though Midnight was confined, her movement restricted, her position also limited the number of beasts that could attack simultaneously.

Midnight listened, smelt and felt. Was the web structure still expanding, shifting in movement, or has it settled into a static trap? Where were the trappers? Around her? Above, ready to drop down? Behind the foremost net structures, biding their time waiting for her breaking through? Midnight strained to discern the disturbances caused by foreign presences. She strained to delve deeper into the darkness that concealed these skilful predators.

In the recesses of her consciousness, as her senses spanned her surroundings, Midnight’s thoughts, like a web of their own, wove observations into a strategy. It contradicted her intrinsic nature, but her first conclusion was that she should remain motionless. Drawing sustenance from the energies that enveloped her, she could endure a vigil for however many hours it took for the trappers to unveil their presence — through a restive stir or an outright assault. However, the passage of time, a double-edged blade, would also serve as a breeding ground for more elaborate webs, extending their hold on Midnight from both ends of the tunnel.

Increasingly disturbed by sensory deprivation, Midnight realised she might as well make noise. She considered to run her claws across the wall, to tear out rocks and hurl them into the webs. The ground was unnaturally spotless and smooth, but the uneven surface of the walls was etched with promising cracks. If nothing else, she would clear a path. If the trappers wanted to contain her, they would eventually have to reveal themselves. If they interpreted her actions as disorientation or panic, they might see an opportunity to attack. Even if they chose not to react, Midnight could use the tumult to localise them.

Midnight knew that beasts who melted seamlessly into the shadows could still betray their existence through their Sayra, a phenomenon known as sound shadow. Her training at Emery Thurm had unveiled these sound shadows not as audible occurrences, but as the opposite — as areas of muted ambient noise. Sayra could only be spotted through sound. They were imperfections where incoming sound shifted in volume or, with inexperienced midnight stalkers, met an abrupt hush. Where disturbances reverberated, and echoes betrayed their own discordance, beasts hid within the shadows. Midnight was skilled in discerning these auditory subtleties in the same way that she had learned to reduce the anomalies caused by her own Sayra. Her plan unfolded — to clear a path while revealing distortions and deviations of sound.

However, sometimes the grand stages of strategy simply collapsed into the chaos of coincidence. As Midnight threw her claws into the wall, she touched upon a grand arachnomorph camouflaged as rock.

The Rockshade Weaver, an arachnomorph of formidable stature, possesses a flexible, elongated body that may grow to surpass the size of a pathera. With mandibles poised for lethality, legs nullifying vibrations, and a light-absorbing carapace, this subterranean terror has adapted to navigate darkness with unmatched prowess. It operates in absolute silence, exhibiting sinuous movements that coalesce with sensory acuity beyond even Midnight's keen instincts.

Mastery in stone mimicry renders the Rockshade Weaver indistinguishable from the surfaces it inhabits. Its exoskeleton replicates the colours and textures of adjacent rocks, thus crafting impeccable camouflage. Disguised, it remains motionless until the opportune moment to strike its unsuspecting prey. The weaver's predatory arsenal comprises intricate web structures and a venomous bite inducing paralysing torment.

The weaver had lain in wait on the upper left wall, prepared to ensnare Midnight once she advanced past the first net, rested, or succumbed to panic. Two more of its kin had remained on this side of the nets, perfectly merged with the rock wall, while others waited within the fresh web structures. If she had retreated to the intersection, the weavers would have followed and sealed the tunnel behind her.

Midnight had not sensed it. And the arachnomorph had not anticipated that she would get on two legs and throw herself against the wall. In the moment her claws made contact, chaos erupted — The confined space became a maelstrom of violence. They tore at each other on the ground, ramming into the walls and webs, clawing, ripping, trampling, and biting, devoid of strategy, driven by primal instinct and brutal aggression. A second arachnid dropped down from the ceiling and a third jumped at her from behind the web, intensifying the battle in the darkness of the subterranean tunnel, now bursting with the feral war cries of merciless deathbringers.

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In the brutal fight, Midnight, seasoned in arachnid combat, avoided biting into the acidic bodies. Amidst the whirlwind of claws and bites, she tore off the first arachnid's head and shredded the second. By the time she had killed the third, her body had suffered brutal trampling, and she bore multiple bites. Her fur was marred with her own blood, acid, and webs. They had been formidable fighters.

Rising amid the twitching corpses, Midnight realised her predicament — she found herself confined by nets on both ends of the tunnel. Some were remnants of the fray, torn in the chaotic struggle, while others were freshly spun. More weavers lurked. She had won the battle, but the pack had won the hunt.

Wounded but defiant, Midnight twisted and turned, attempting to discern any approaching arachnids. Growling and provoking, she sought to draw them out. She took the severed arachnid head, clamping its elongated mandibles between her teeth and thrashing it wildly against the nets, tearing through the silk with ferocity fueled by rage, overriding the pain that coursed through her body.

Her rage subsided too fast. As she moved, her breaths grew shallow, her body heavy. The arachnid's head slipped from her grasp as she lost control over her movements. Midnight recognised the insidious sickness coursing through her, a paralytic venom meant to cripple, delivered by the arachnid bites. Yet, while her body faltered, her senses did not wane; they shifted. In the aftermath of the brutal fight, the tunnel lay silent but no longer muted. It held a different kind of stillness that distinguished true darkness from that which had been disturbed. A subtle change at one end of the tunnel caught Midnight's eerily heightened awareness — the faint displacement of air, the slightest vibrations. Something daunting approached from the intersection, a predator so dangerous that all remaining arachnomorphs scuttered for retreat. Midnight sensed lethal intent.

This newfound sensory awareness was unsettling. Midnight’s body and senses had always been the same; two inseparable facets of the whole that was her. If one faltered, so did the other. But now, as paralysis tightened its grip, her awareness surged. Her body succumbed to the venom, and her thoughts, instead of equally withering from within, began to observe her demise from the outside. They swelled in mass and complexity, spanning more time, drawing in a multitude of memories.

Expelling poison, secluding it, separating it — her wizard had imparted this wisdom upon returning from the mirror in the lighthouse. He spoke of splitting essence, distinguishing what was him and what was not, tearing the foreign from the self. He had described this ability as manipulating smoke or poison, a metaphor that surfaced now in the midst of her affliction.

When the energy torrent had rushed through him, he had internalised it. When the mirror world energies had threatened to shatter his body, he had not succumbed but integrated them. He had made them his own and then, when it had been necessary to return through the mirror, again separated from them. At the brink of death, he transcended the boundaries of his existence, manipulating his essence, weaving and unweaving the threads of poison energy to suit his will.

Midnight’s body was on the edge of breaking. As venom and memories surged through her, a sinister vision emerged — the need to absorb, adapt, and emerge stronger, mirroring the path her wizard had tread before her.

This is what her wizards did; he gave her knowledge that surpassed instincts. And if Midnight trusted this knowledge over her instincts, she would become more like him forsaking beast intuition for wizard insight. This marked the essence of the bond between familiar and wizard; through repeated trust, they transferred and cultivated each other’s abilities.

At Emery Thurm, familiars delved into their own capabilities. Midnight had been thrust into the awareness of how she would grow in size and strength, just like her wizard. The masters spoke of dormant magical abilities, a potential coiled within every familiar's existence, though only Midnight would feel it stir. Alongside the familiars of Yves’ commilita, she had endured arduous training with master wizards and their familiars. Beyond that, she had autonomously sought out other pathera and midnight stalkers, with whom she had delved into the shadows. Each quest beyond the academy's walls had provided an exploration of her innate abilities tethered to the shadows. Observing familiars from other wizards during their artefact hunts, Midnight had gleaned as much as she could about who she might become. Still, she had never before witnessed the arcane potential that lay beyond her innate midnight stalker abilities.

From the cryptic knowledge she gathered, these abilities might birth at random, be triggered in moments of great peril, or emerge through her wizard's actions. His growth and prowess affected her. It was understood that wizards excelling in their craft shared bonds with more potent familiars, whose abilities were unravelled earlier than the average of their race.

In the desolate entrails of the Albweiss Mountains, caught within the weaver’s trap and marked for the hunt by the impending predator, Midnight was overtaken by existential dread. The passage of time, once a steady stream, now rippled with a disquiet that clawed at the adequacy of her being; the distortion between her body and thoughts that became a reflection of her insufficiency.

Midnight had wondered when that time would come for her and how she would know. She needed it to be now. Her truth, the belief that she was always herself and her whole, shifting over time yet anchored in the present, was grievously disturbed. Now, her body died because she had not been enough. As time had festered, she grew too little. While her wizard had changed, she evolved too slowly. She needed to be more, even though she had never been less than her all.

“Can you?” Yves’ words had asked her when facing the Vicha.

“I understand that you want to do something,” his voice had acknowledged.

“I know you can’t do anything,” his body had solemnly stated.

Midnight had wrestled with the weight of his words. In the face of an overwhelming foe, the battlefield was, for her, a physical space shrouded by the uncertainty of time. She lived and fought in the present, perpetually and intuitively re-evaluating her course of action as her present morphed from second to second, ever again shifting into a new present with new circumstances and new insights about her opponent. For Midnight, it was the aftermath of the fight, not the initial throes, that revealed the impact of her actions, whether she could do something.

However, she acknowledged that wizards thought differently. Her wizard had repeatedly displayed a foresight that she did not possess. He had the ability to transcend the immediacy of battle, to envision the end before the first strike. She had last witnessed this prescience when they had crossed the bridge from the lighthouse to the mainland. As winged beasts descended upon them, Midnight had sought refuge within the bridge. She had felt the beasts’ strength and fixation on each other, sensing the crustaceans' hostility towards the magic yield to primal survival instincts. She had strained to impart these instincts and insights onto Yves, knowing he did not possess them, and she had felt that he understood. Still, he had rushed off the bridge. And Midnight had followed because, in the same way his humanoid senses recognised only a fraction of what the present unfolded for Midnight, she needed to trust in what her wizard envisioned about the future.

It had thrilled her to witness the evolution of his instincts over the years, forged in shared torments and conflicts. Indeed, in the crucible of battle, there were instances when he mirrored precisely the primal tempest raging within her. These were the most intense moments between them. Moments where Midnight did not need to transfer her feral intuition, where what emanated from him reflected and amplified the unrestrained storm within her. These were ecstatic, exalting experiences, where Yves felt less like a wizard and more like a beast. Where he felt like her.

However, these moments were grotesquely scarce. The first unfolded at Emery Thurm. Midnight had been a youngling and a neophyte in battle, utterly overwhelmed. As she abruptly sensed, from Yves, the exact resonance of the internal tempest surging within her, the sheer ferocity of their shared emotions engulfed her. He had felt like a beast, like herself. In the heat of that moment, she had felt herself beside herself, consumed within him. In that intense sensation, Midnight had lost herself.

Until then, she had only known hunger and hunt and fear. As she lost herself, these feelings had merged into an oppressive force so unbearable that Midnight felt nothing but an overwhelming compulsion to obliterate, to destroy it. She had lunged at Yves with unrestrained force, hurling him to the ground, pressing her weight onto him, and sinking her fangs into his flesh.

She had bit into the throat of her wizard. She had torn at his flesh. She had tasted his warm blood. It should have repulsed her, should have stemmed her assault, but in that moment, nothing had ever tasted more intoxicating. It was her darkest shame.

As Midnight’s body writhed on the tunnel floor, the thoughts surged uncontrollably. She could not stem the flood of all these words. Amidst them, an even more sinister memory emerged from the deep recesses of her mind.

He had wanted it as much as she had.

At that time, she had known only the gnawing of hunger, the horror brought forth by the most instinctive of fears, and the ecstasy of the hunt. As she lost herself, she had acted upon an confluence of those primal urges. But what she had felt was more. It was something that drove her ever since. Something she needed to feel again and more.

It had driven her to the brink of madness not knowing how. Consumed by an insatiable craving, she had sought to etch her instincts onto him, to share and share and share incessantly until he could once again be like her. Yves trusted Midnight’s senses where his own faltered to understand the present in its fullness, and in return she relied on his wizard ability to envision the future. Because as she shared, so did he. And as he learned, so did she. Over the years of symbiotic exchange, her thinking had expanded beyond her instincts. Glimpses of the future seeped into her consciousness. Merging her innate abilities with those learned from her wizard, she developed the competence to re-evaluate her actions based on a myriad of potential futures yet to unfold. She had learned to reflect and to envision and, from both, to strategise.

However, when faced with the Vicha and confronted with the words of her wizard, foresight deserted her. Now, suffering from the venom, the looming helplessness persisted. Her all was insufficient; she, the primal beast, was at the precipice of succumbing to the venom. There was nothing she could do, unless she could be more.

This comprehension of the future, the urgent need to be more, and the relentless drive to fortify the bond with her wizard carved a new path. The echoes of her wizard’s knowledge reverberated, pulling her to an intersection of her own making — a crossroads where primal instincts clashed with the capricious threads of wizardry. One assured demise; the other demanded transformation. Midnight sensed the energies within herself shift, distinguishing the absorbed light in her fur, her innate darkness, which emerged when she merged into the shadows, and the venom causing agonising pain. Trusting knowledge over instinct, she discerned the insidious foreign element within her. To become more, to be more like her wizard, she was determined to sacrifice her entirety.

But what was their path? Within her surged light and shadows, the raw energy bestowed by the moon and the pull of the darkness. Amidst the shifting and changing currents of her mind, she comprehended that both these powers lay dormant, awaiting her conscious command to rouse one over the other. What stirred within her wizard?

He was a Lightshifter, but struggled to discern the elusive fragments of light, lost in the shadow of his growing blindness. This struggle had woven the fabric of their shared path. For him, Midnight could be the light, wielding the radiance he lacked and sought. She envisioned herself, fur aglow in radiant silver, like the moon but never wavering. A perfect complement to his deficiencies.

No. Midnight refused to be a mere reflection of his desires, she would be what he needed. She would not compensate for his losses. She would not be a regression to what he had been, a reminder of his past. Because then her presence would only revert him into what he tried so hard not to lose, and not into what he could take and be instead. Midnight would be the catalyst for his potential. She would never tread alongside his path as an illuminating crutch. Their paths would converge. To be what he needed, she must not be a giver, but a taker. In the shroud of his blindness, she would embody the darkness. If others disturbed his mind, Midnight would not be a voice amongst them to offer soothing words, but the pervasive silence that drowned them. In the realm of his illusions that he so often conjured for companionship, she would stretch infinitely, a presence that brooked no intrusion. Where he felt nothing, she would be all.

Midnight's commitment was resolute. She would be darkness and she would be silence, an omnipresence consuming and expanding. If Yves recognised her whenever he saw and felt nothing, she would even kill the something.

This was the path she embraced, a covenant for the entirety of their existence. Deep within, an intuition grew and whispered ever louder that both Midnight and her wizard craved this enveloping darkness. She was not the companion to a wizard who lost and longed and lived for light. Midnight was the companion to a wizard who could take like only the shadows could. He delved into forbidden realms and exploited secret knowledge. He harnessed forces like the other one and the poison mirror energies to become more. Like shadows, he shifted out of this world to gain many forms. Her wizard traversed the unseen, the same as her.

Midnight realised she had made this choice days ago, descending into the stygian depths of the mountain instead of ascending its sunlit peaks. The darkness had beckoned, and in that call, she found her purpose. Light, she could only give, but through darkness, she could take. And from what she took, right here and now, she would become more.

The creatures of utter darkness had imparted their venom to her, and from that, she seized their essence. She did not expel it, despite instincts compelling her to vomit, her body long reduced to a frantic, cramping mass. Instead, she embraced and wielded it with intention. Her actions were not framed in the arcane language of wizards; it was visceral understanding — she fractured, split, and assimilated the venom with her energy. She cleaved the fragments that so much heightened her awareness from the parts that sought to destroy her body. The former transmuted into an eldritch energy that surged through her being, leaving her body to fight through the broken venom remains.

Midnight did not acquire this ability from instinct or reason, nor were the explanations from her wizard sufficient to instigate her transformation. She could not articulate parallels between her changes and his experiences with raw energy, light fragments, and shards. Yet, she knew this ability came from Yves. This was the essence of sharing a bond with a wizard. He had learned to alter his essence, to split poison energy, and through their bond, he had passed the potential for this arcane transformation onto her.

With her transformation came an unsettling awareness for her altered self. As Midnight saturated her Rothar with the venomous essence that had so profoundly brought her senses and thoughts into disarray, she felt herself fracture, an eternity unfurling in the chasm that opened with the venom and brought forward the darkness. She merged and emerged as more than the sum of these fractured parts; she was more. And yet, a lingering schism remained etched within her, a split marking the first time she felt herself as two entities. The body, the past and primal; and the words, the awareness that came from within but existed outside of her physical form. Midnight knew that these two parts would now forever differ, but they would also, both, be darkness. And as soon as she felt this duality, she believed that she had always been these two things but just never acknowledged it, because once you were, you could not imagine that you had never been.

Acknowledging the split meant shedding the pure essence of a beast to become more. It was the conscious decision to not merely follow the path of her wizard, but to embody it. To live it with everything she was and would be. Midnight took in the darkness and the knowledge, and elevated them over her nature and her instincts. She offered the whole that had been her, and acquired in exchange the arcane path that defined her magic. The darkness resonated within her; it was hers. As Midnight merged with the enveloping shadows, she no longer diminished her presence and hid her body; she fed her energy to the essence of darkness within. And as all light within her faded and her senses ever expanded, she became the darkness. And as the darkness, she had no limits.

Shifting through the shadowy veils toward the intersection, she encountered the ominous presence that had drawn close. It was a stygian serpent, almost as wide as the tunnel itself. He had awaited her in the left passage and then, enticed by the tremors of her struggle with the weavers, hunted her. As they met, his initial hostility dissipated. A superior being of darkness, he still sensed her presence, but no longer considered Midnight prey. When she asked for a fragment of his essence, he gave his venom willingly.

Midnight continued through the middle tunnel, paying deference to the territory of the serpent. In the hours that followed, she traversed past other beasts of the mountain heart, creatures deeply intertwined with the darkness. Some sensed her, but none pursued. No longer an intruder from the surface, Midnight treaded the darkness to where the breath of the mountain led her.

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