Untitled Story

The girl turned down an alleyway between buildings, running down the narrow, unfamiliar passageway. She made her way as quickly as she could, hardly able to see where she was going, mostly because she kept trying to run forward while looking backwards with a horrified expression on her palid face. The young necromancer had no idea where she was or how she had gotten here.

A large dark shadow appeared at the entranceway of the alleyway and entered, chasing her down. The dark shape growled deeply as it bore down on her. Two glinting red eyes in the shadow reminded her of the vampires, but this creature was far worse than any vampire she had encountered anywhere on Innistrad.

Not seeing the garbage littering the alleyway in front of her, the girl tripped on something in her way and tumbled to the ground. She caught herself with her hands, scraping her palms on the rough stone ground. She looked back at her pursuer just in time to see the dark shape close upon her. It jumped up over her and nearly came down upon her as she let loose a blood curdling scream.

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Iyena’s eyes popped open and she sat bolt upright in bed, a cold sweat dripping from her neck down over her smooth, pale skin. She looked around, recognizing the familiar surroundings of her bedroom, the softness of her fine silk sheets against her bare skin. A cool, refreshing breeze wafted in from the night through an open doorway leading out onto her balcony. Above the balcony hung a cross and a fresh strand of garlic, keeping the dangerous vampires from disturbing the lady’s slumber.

The breeze revitalized Iyena and her breathing slowed, her heaving breasts slowly returning to a modicum of a normal breathing pattern. “Twas just a dream,” she said to herself. “Or a nightmare, as it were….” Reaching up to her bedpost she took down her thin black silk robe and wrapped it around her form as she slid out of the bed, crossing the room to her basin. She took up the pitcher by the basin and poured out some of the cool water, then gently dipped her hands in and stooped over the ornate bowl, splashing just a little of the liquid onto her face.

After drying the little bit of moisture from her face with a towel, she crossed to the window and looked out over the countryside. The full moon was still high in the night sky, and only a slight glint of light was visible on the eastern horizon, indicating that dawn was nearing, but still a little ways off. It was a rare clear night and the moonlight shown brightly over all the fields below the city. In the distance, a howling could be heard, sounding much like a wolf. But it wasn’t a wolf, Iyena knew. It had that distinction that she had heard so many times on the night of the full moon. There was a werewolf nearby this night. But that was of no concern to her.

As she turned back to the bed, she began thinking more about her curious dreams of late. She didn’t recognize the areas in her dreams. They were so foreign and alien to her she felt like they were completely different worlds, one where everything was covered in city as far as the eye could see, another with an unfamiliar architecture that used an odd type of paper for some of the walls, and had lots of strange painted symbols for writings. Iyena had an eerie feeling about the dreams, but was unsure if they were portents or just particularly rambunctious incarnations of her imagination.

Carelessly dropping the robe on the floor, knowing that a servant would be in to pick it up later, she slid her naked body back between the silken sheets. She carefully arranged her raven hair on the pillow as she lay down, laying on her side and staring at the window. She knew she wouldn’t get any more sleep this night, but at least she could spend the last few hours of the night relaxing.

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