Dear All,

here comes CH.4 of "Darkness Becomes You" and let us see what will happen to Conor and whether he will be able to meet the Lady of the Shadows:-)

Let me know what you think as you know how precious I find your comments and remarks! THANK YOU!

I would like to dedicate this chapter to WinaAlkerchief as an incredible thank you for your support and for your sweet messages and because I hope this will make you smile in this moment :-)

And now, enjoy it!

Lots of Love, Magic and Meows,
-TheWitchAndTheCat-

The Lady of the Shadows sat on the grand terrace of her palace that faced their inner sea. She avidly inhaled the smell of the water and heard the minor spirits and shades murmur around her in some clearly repressed excitement. Her long, black hair was gently combed by the breeze coming front the sea and the quiet whispers of the Dark Water faeries caressed her elongated ears. Suddenly she turned around after having perceived the air somehow changing behind her and a pair of shining yellow eyes smirked at her.

"You found him," she said in a monotone voice, raising on her feet and strolling to Kassius's direction. "Is he...intact?" she enquired studying his eyes with her one gleaming of acid-green light.

"He's very intact, my dear sister and Lady. I believe he will make it without any problem or else, why would you have agreed to admit a mere human being into your lands?" She said nothing to that and then tilted her head to one side, seeing someone else joining them in their conversation. Kassius spun on his heels and grinned in open haughtiness to the friend. "Azhelo, it looks like we both were right."

"I never gamble in such matters, differently than you," he said while he moved a long strand of hair that had fallen on his only eye that then stopped to observe the Lady. "How long has it passed since that day?" he asked her and she shook her head.

"I do not really care for time, Azhelo, and you should know it."

"What were staring at, sister?"

"I was enjoying the scent of the sea, listening to its fairies singing for me and I was also listening to my borders. Another patrol has been engaged and I decided to not interfere this time because it did not represent a real challenge." She paused and turned her eyes back to the distant sea and her other eye, the one broken in two halves, kept whirling around searching for the surrounding. "However, these small clashes are the one that mostly worry me. I can wipe out most of those useless sprites without the least effort, but the more that impudent creature challenges me, the stronger he grows. I cannot allow that and I really hope that human being will make it."

Kassius and Azhelo observed silently, still remembering the details of that day their Lady narrated them with peculiar precision and curiosity that rarely belonged to her. There was something else behind that, but it wasn't possible to penetrate the barrier she had around herself and her powerful mind. A fool wanting to test it would end up with their mind shattered and their soul lost in the dark void.

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When Conor came around, the room had altered and he was alone. Had he just dreamed of that rather ghostly and creepy face, of those long and thin nails that wrapped around his throat when he passed out and of those empty, bottomless eyes that stared at him with searching eagerness? He felt as if invisible fingers touched his mind with careful gentleness and once more he heard those whispers from the tunnel's breeze.

Conor stirred feeling he was resting on a cold and smooth surface and almost let out a wild scream as three twinkling and purple eyes gazed at him with evident curiosity. He sat up and slowly retreated back of a few steps, not wanting to enrage and offend that creature observing him as if attached to an invisible thread hanging from the ceiling upside-down, with long hair the colour of the sky when the sun-setting was deep and almost welcoming the evening floating around the thin and very pale shoulders, the body only covered by a very scanty gown that appeared made of sparkling spider-web. There were tendrils of shadows coming from the back of that rather bizarre yet not ugly being and Conor realised they resembled to very frail-looking wings.

What the heck was that creature and why was it staring at him with such unnatural and unnerving intensity? It was not human and then he remembered where in fact he had been taken. Wait a moment, Conor thought to himself, what was this place and how was it called? Was it really another world? The idea should have literally thrown him into some fit of fear or hysteria, but surprisingly he found himself accepting the idea willingly and easily. He had had so many weird and dreadful nightmares that all in all this seemed far more reassuring that what he had witnessed in those horrifying nights.

He took a deep breath and tried to summon some courage, but it was quite the task, given Conor never really possessed a respectable amount of it. He had always mostly ran away from his troubles until they caught him in such overwhelming and crushing way that he couldn't turn around and beat it any longer. But he had found the way out of that daylight and living nightmare and thus couldn't he find it once more? Another deep, long breath and he cautiously went to stand on his feet, finding himself face to face with that bizarre but rather stunning creature. The skin of her body seemed made of a very smooth alabaster coloured marble, almost kissed by the feeble yet beautiful light of the moon and her three eyes, two placed in the usual spots of the face and the third one observing from the centre of the forehead held no menace in that glowing and warm purple light.

"Who are you?" He carefully and gently asked, remembering the strange discussion he had with that overly grown cat named Kassius, who had definitely minded being referred as what.

She, as Conor decided that the creature looked like a female sort of dark fairy, simply kept observing him in complete and immovable silence and for a moment he feared he had asked the wrong question. But then she kind of smiled as her thin and bloodless lips stretched up to the corners and in a fluid movement she was floating in front of him, letting him realise that indeed those curls of shadow were her wings. All considered she was beautiful.

"I am called Aletheiya and you are the human being named Conor summoned by our Lady of the Shadows," she spoke with emotionless voice, yet the timbre of it slightly cracked and softened as she said "our Lady", making him wonder how this Lady really was and if he had to fear her as he thought in that moment or not. Kassius also spoke in reverential and almost affectionate tones whenever he mentioned this lady and Conor suspected that also this creature in front of him felt undoubted and respectful admiration for her. "You are not afraid of me." It wasn't a question and he only nodded, as if he had been ordered to do so.

He kept observing the creature named Aletheiya and he gasped as for a short moment he felt a deep sense of nostalgia stirring into his deep inner self while he looked at her; there was something of familiar in that pale skin and in those eyes, and there was something even more familiar in the scar she had on her very slender neck that he only then noticed. Who was she?

"Who do you really are?" He heard himself asking and he wasn't sure what made him pronounce such daring request, but he had to know. There was a feeling of familiarity in his heart while looking at her and he had to understand why he sensed it.

Without realising what was happening, his hand slowly lifted from his side and went to touch Aletheiya's scar on the neck. She didn't retreat nor look offended. She let him delicately touch the scar and then he dropped on his knees, gasping for air and fighting the sudden sensation of complete and overwhelming melancholy. Conor felt tears in his eyes and he fought them back with all he had in himself and she gracefully sat on her heels in front of him, taking his hands in hers. In that moment, he felt as if those gentle yet probing fingers had slipped inside of his mind and heart, touching his most private and least wanted thoughts and memories, searching inside of his soul, inside of his head...tasting his emotions and almost vibrating as he shivered in strong convulsions and as he tried to breathe.

It wasn't painful, yet Conor wanted her to stop because it was like reviewing the many things that happened to him, feeling the emotions and bad experiences bitter on his tongue and his restraints on his feelings broke as he began to sob as the gentle search kept going. Aletheiya had closed her eyes and her head had fallen back as if in some trance; also his eyes were close, but he could still see everything that happened. He felt soft tendrils of a substance resembling smoke and mist caressing his throat and then invading his mouth, so he went to scream as he feared that inquisitive touch, feeling his heart beating faster and faster, feeling too naked and exposed in front of that rather striking creature. Conor wanted to scream with all the air he had in his lungs, but he did not.

His lips kept wide open in a mute shriek as he realised that those strands tightening around his throat and invading his inner self were not hurting him in any way. He felt naked yes, however he felt now relieved and then that gentle breeze, now smelling of faint sea-water stroked his skin and he collapsed on the floor. Was this the trial Kassius had told him about?

"You have met her already, I see it in you."

"Who do you really are, Aletheiya?" He found himself asking once more with more firm and demanding voice.

"I am whom you want to see and I am whom your heart whispers you to see." She smiled at him and a dark, soft light glowed from her body and he felt in peace as the ringlets of it reached for his skin and caressed his face, almost caressing his soul. "You are not an evil being, Conor. Yet you need to face your deepest nightmare and destroy it with your own hands, for no one else will be able to assist you. You will need the courage you seem to lack and that you seem to desperately crave." She pulled back and stood on her long, thin legs, letting her wings vibrate as she raised her arms to the ceiling.

The room began to swirl and suddenly large mirrors made with murky glass that seemed to absorb Conor's soul into their inner centre paved the walls and as his eyes fell on those reflecting surfaces, a scream of undiluted fear left his lips. The mirror had really reminded the real reflection of Conor? He couldn't believe it, because he couldn't believe he had changed this much and in such way.

Unless...

"Unless what you believe is correct, human named Conor," a cold, hard voice spoke in the air sliding down his back in spidery shivers. "Indeed what you believe is correct: after having crossed the borders of this realm, your true self has emerged."

The mirrors cracked and the splinters showered Conor hitting his face, his exposed neck and skin...he saw blood oozing from his abrasions but he almost felt no pain and this left him even more scared than he already was. The mirrors had all shattered and the room was covered with their fragments and his eyes widened as he saw that each fragment that had hit him before represented a different image of him.

"Which one do you think really belongs to you?" The same voice asked peremptory and a cloaked, majestic figure followed the sound of it by appearing in front of Conor. He couldn't see the face and anything else, for it was entirely covered in a long robe made of a material that swirled from deep black to deep violet. "I am not as gentle and understanding as Aletheiya, thus prepare yourself for the real trial."

The figure pushed the cloak down his head and empty, entirely black eyes pierced Conor in an almost painful way. He faltered under that stare and fell on one knee as they widened and violent gushes of power completely hit him. That face was meant to make him fear it far worse than his most dreadful nightmare, but surprisingly Conor pushed himself straight and challenged those empty, black eyes. He saw something in there and he wanted to know if he was right.

But then another powerful wave of unknown power crushed him, throwing his body against a wall that collapsed into dust, hurling Conor into what seemed another dimension.