Strange Eyes

The stars are beautiful tonight. The darkness is peaceful, calm, ever present. It doesn't tremble or shake. Somehow, it manages to be completely apart from the world below, even as it touches every aspect of life.

The moon casts dim light on everything, though the lamps beckoning from inside homes help to scare away the darkness.

There are multiple kinds of dark. The darkness that is peaceful, the one that heals, the one that terrifies.

I have seen each tonight.

I leap quietly off of the roof and onto my balcony, enter the slightly adjacent window and shut it gently behind me.

My room is small, barely enough to constitute as a closet, let alone fit a bed or any of the many weapons I keep within grabbing distance at all times. I squeeze past the small couch my back has become accustomed to sleeping on and begin to strip off my suit.

When it was first made for me, I protested. It was too flashy, too much. I didn't need something so elaborate to get the job done.

Ren had looked at me with those dark hazel eyes, dragged a hand gently along his beard, and spoke softly.

"The suit is not to aid you in your missions. It is to inspire fear in others. Presentation is everything." Ren had stood from his seat behind his massive oak desk. His movements were precise and detailed, his clothes immaculate and tailored to disguise the muscle that years of training gave to him. Everything about him, a persona to hide the fact that everything he did was extremely purposeful.

He stood a solid head taller than me, even with my considerable height. His auburn hair was pinned delicately back behind his neck.

The ever poised fox, ready to strike at any time.

I shake off the memory, peeling off the skintight black fabric and redressing in a comfortable black tunic and pants.

My muscles ache, my hands worn, my vision slightly blurry from lack of rest. And yet - something keeps me from sleep.

Certainly it is not the blood on my hands. I have bathed in a stream of it up to my neck and it rarely bothers me. It is not the man in the alleyway, begging for a life I cannot give to him.

When Ren wants something, it is rare that he will not get it.

No.

It has been too long since an attack from the Laers. While the deadly creatures usually stick to the Southern Continent, sometimes strays will cross the small ocean that separates the Northern and Southern Continent and attack humans.

The last mention of Laers that flurried around Valharran was the story of a small boy who went missing.

I can only assume that the boy is in the belly of some Laer. Before him, it was a fairly wealthy couple who travelled South despite warnings from myths and legend, and returned with stories of Laers so beautiful they would enchant you with a gaze, magic so deadly they could shatter your mind with half a thought.

Beasts so foul and twisted they could swallow a child whole.

It didn't stop people from travelling there, clearly, because the wonders of the Southern Continent were also widely reported.

Spices, rich and varied, flowers and trees, colourful and bright beyond imagination.Men and women so beautiful, pleasures so extravagant, wealth so beyond compare.

Not that the Northern Continent was so starved for natural resources - in lessons I had as a child, we were taught about large caves filled with precious metals and large stones.

Our forests were home to rare animals, important trees which could be used to fire or for arrows and swords, and herbs that were rumored to heal diseases.

The Southern Continent is just... more elusive. It has the attraction of the unknown, the mystery.

I climb into bed, trying to banish the images of humanoid creatures with pointed ears smiling at me, the Laers ever so inviting.

The Laer's strange eyes chase me into sleep, and I dream about a small town built into the side of a mountain.