Nosferatu

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Deep in darkness

Silence hovered as a bat, feeding on the tentative sounds till there was nothing in the quiet beneath the trees save the darkness, thick and absolute. There was nothing that broke the stillness and pervasiveness of the blackness save the bloody splashings of the lake that stood shadowed in the outcropping of a cliff long forgotten. Nos Dam, Lake of Blood, the myth that was gratefully forgotten by those who saw it's birth. The tragedy of death that haunted the one who sprung from the ruby depths to prey upon man, the one who fell from the stars and from a light, ruddy and sullen, that had glimmered long ago.

Fast in her sleeping

Footsteps broke the stillness almost imperceptibly, seeming soundless till they quickened as if pursued. From the foliage that grew so lush at the edge of the lake itself burst a figure, moonlight brushing across it's form, silvering every plane and curve. The figure stopped, dropping gracefully to it's knees as it drank from the ruby waters, lapping hungrily at the liquid. Long hair tumbled down to swirl in the depths as it drank.

Hell's sweet singer

Eyes lifted as it finished, gazing at the moon that hung like a overripe fruit in the sky. The curser who had forced it into this form had made but one mistake in his casting. One night, a single, solitary opening and closing of the moon a year, would the demon of the darkness long forgotten be let loose to claim destruction. This year it was All Hallows Eve on the full moon, a coincidence of timing that had not occurred in a millennium. The figure smiled as it stood and stepped onto the waters.

A harvest is reaping

A thousand souls it had supped upon from the first great destruction, when it had suffered a blow by the sword called light. Foolish curser. Yet light could not contain light, even though the light was that of blood, of another moon destroyed in the years long past. Blood Moon, Reaper's Sphere, forgotten second eye of night. It's death had birthed a hunter, one who wreaked death for endless eons till that one had trapped it in a form not it's own. The hair tumbled to the swirling waters as it regained it's true body on this one night.

Scythe without blade

Legends were created out of that one cursing. Who would believe that it was not Zanaffer that had died that day, trapped by the Holy Tree? That the one who perished, whose energies and powers, born of death and blood, forged in the darkness of the Reaper's Sphere's destruction, was the one who held the light that 'slew' the Beast. That that one, cursed by the Beast itself, was forced to remain mortal, now and forever, till the soul of the Destroyer, the one who would kill the Beast, was consumed by the one itself. Blue eyes curved and slanted into silver depths, like twin moons shining from a face no longer human.

Moon without shine

So it had waited, emerging but once a year to sustain it's flagging energies, till the day the Destroyer would appear to free it in it's entirety. Stalking and planning, living one life after the other in a single, unassuming form, it had accompanied one likely candidate after another, consuming each when they proved unworthy and moving on. Yet the legend of the bearer of light had lived on, growing and building, till the Goru Nova was forgotten and the false sword, the one that 'slew' Zanaffer was the only one believed to exist, stealing a name not it's own. A body that was male shifted again, elongating and filling out till it was no longer male, but vaguely feminine.

Last of the Dark

'She' smiled and stepped from the lake to the shore, melting into the woods once more. She had found the Destroyer quite by accident, by fate itself. Now she would feast again, endowing herself with the power the Destroyer had freed by the Beast's death. Her power. Now her own again. Soon the feasting would begin once more, plunging the world into it's own nightmare of blood. A nightmare it had forgotten when she had existed trapped for so long. There was a name for her, given by the humans, cursed by the Mazoku, screamed by the Ryuzoku. Nosferatu. The smile curved wider, slashing across a face that had never been human, splitting the skull till it was all teeth and mouth, eyes hovering in the expanse of dark above. A voice, familiar and pleasant, issued from the siren as she emerged from the darkness behind her prey, sword humming softly as it merged with her talons.

By sword to find

"Lina ... "

"Yes, Gourry?"

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