Spiders creeping, not a sound
Forest darkening, all around
Day will fade and night will come
Shadows for those chosen sons
Stars shine while darkness devours
Night battles for many hours
Until Sun asserts his powers
Fear not ye, lest light will win
His power fades; darkness to begin...

“Joseth!” I hear a clal from the distance, beckoning me to return home as
dawn begins to plague the land. Light can be good for some, but I, along with
the rest of my family much prefer the cool, silky touch of Night’s embrace.

“Coming!” I call out in response, flapping my wings slightly as Ijump to
my feet, a motion so well practiced by now as to be effortless. Taking in one
last glance at the play of shadows on the meshwork of ravenwood branches twining
amongst one another, I breathe a sigh and start back towards my mother, just off
in the distance. Half running and half gliding, I make my way back to the tree
top house I have called my home for the last eighteen or so years, a chorus of
crows harking my return as I skip the ladder once again and fly straight up into
the settled boughs, just as I have done so many times before.

“Welcome back,” my mother says. “I’m so glad you managed to find time
from your busy schedule to return home for a meal before sleeping off the
day.” She apparenrtly still finds it hard, after nearly two years of this sort
of banter to hide the venom behind her words.

“You know I always have time for you and all of...”

“Yes, I am well aware of the time you have available thank you very much,”
she cuts in, stingingly.

“You know I’m not ready to make a decision...it has such long lasting
consequences! Some of the older boys didn’t even pick their professions until
they were twenty-five!” We have had this argument so many times over the last
two years, and to think that I had thought she’d left me in peace, not
hassling me over the last three weeks!

“You’re not like the other boys, Joseth, the Mother has marked you out
specially, you’re destined for great things! Why, your own grandfather led the
cult of the Shadowdancers when he was only twenty-three years old, and retained
that position for nearly thirty years!”

“Yeah, and look what happened to him...” I mumbled darkly.

“We do not speak of that in this house!” she added, slapping me across the
face to add to the stinging words she shrieked. I knew I was in the wrong
though, and shouldn’t have brought it up. It was true after all...I had been
marked by Night. Anyone could see that! The moment they looked at me, let alone
the fact that I had eyes as black as pure darkness, hair coloured as the raven,
dark skin, so dark for a faeling, most people simply couldn’t get look past
the small black circle of a birthmark on my cheek, totally black, that marked me
a hers, now, forever, my life decidedly not my own... but the signs had stopped.

Always, if I was unsure about something, a sign would avail itself to me, and I
would know what I was to do. When I was lost in the forest, a deeply black
rabbit would appear and lead me home. Even when I was picking classes in the
Shadowmaze, darkness would cloud my vision, except where the classes I was to
take were...Drama, Mysticism, Botany, Fitness, Claw-fighting...such a strange
mix of classes, but I persevered, even though learning the nekai nearly killed
me...and for what? So my mother could harass me about not taking on an
apprenticeship with one of the guilds of the forest? Well not anymore!

“Fine! You want me out of this house? Your jibes have worked and you will not
see me again until I have completed an apprenticeship. Maybe never again!”

“Joseth...” I heard her call from behind me as I storm out, and strangely
enough, I do not feel a tinge of regret. It feels like this is exactly what I am
supposed to do, maybe it’s a sign, the one I’ve been waiting for all this
time...the beginning of the rest of my life. Strangely uncomfortable in the
increasing daylight, I make my way through the forest heading for the centre,
the first few delicate steps along my new path.

Night’s embrace has come again,
Darkness all around and then,
Shadows stretch and spiders skitter,
Raindrops falling... patter, pitter,
A lone crow caws in the dead of night,
Dark has fallen without a fight.