Night had fallen. Through the trees a nightingale gave pursuit to a particularly swift dragonfly. Between branches and over bushes they danced, the bird ever keen on it's next meal. This continued until the dragonfly had unknowingly flown past the treeline and into the Dead Peaks. Just a short stretch before the foot of the North Crown there was a swath that reached from the mountains barring the shore from the west all the way to the mountains barring the shore from the east where nothing lived. The tree line was a true halt for everything as Oao had destroyed everything that might hide intruders into her caverns. There were no trees past that point, not a single blade of grass nor any creatures who dared stray too close to these lands. Any creatures of course aside from the desperate dragonfly and the unwary nightingale.

The little winged pest buzzed it's way up towards the mountains, ducking into a cave well up upon a cliff side with the avian hunter hot on it's tale. The bird suddenly lost sight of it's prey as it vanished into the pitch black entrance. Not one to be dissuaded the plucky bird landed and took a few short hops inside, confident in it's ability to fly away should anything present danger. Listening it heard no sound aside from the empty whistling of wind into the reaches of the cavern. All of a sudden, much faster than it could react to let alone fly from, a pitch black hand reached out from the darkness and caught it fast in it's grip. The hold was secure but not too tight as to crush the thing.

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What it had failed to understand was that the hand didn't just come from the darkness, it [b]was[/b] the darkness. With panicked chirping it struggled against the long flat fingers that held it snug within the darkness's grasp but to no avail. Slowly the darkness formed into a shape. It was a roughly humanoid form with a slender hourglass body, long smooth arms and numerous dark tendrils which extruded out from a single stalk like roots fanning out from the trunk of a tree. Her face was smooth and featureless like staring into the depths of a deep well and her hair flowed around her head in hundreds of thousands of small dark tendrils which seemed to gently blow in an unfelt wind. This was the avatar of Oao, a body shaped from the darkness itself which she has cast her senses into so she can operate beyond her caves without ever having to leave them.

"Shhhhh! Sh sh sh, Caaalm... Caaalm." She urged the panicked beast which listened to her soft wispy shushes but felt no calm nor understanding of the meaning. Gently she stroked a long flat shadow finger across the soft feathers upon it's head to try and coax it into a state of calm but it had no effect. It's feathered were all ruffled now due to all the struggling it was putting up. Gently she lowered her hand over it's head, her index finger and thumb holding the head secure so it couldn't move while a second thumb formed. The second thumb and her middle finger became sharp at the tips like long obsidian swords.

"Don't be scared. This will only hurt... A tiny, little... Bit." The panicked chirping crescendoed into full out screeching as the very tips of her second thumb and middle finger pierced slowly into it's eyes. Taking it nice and easy, not making any sudden movements or pressing to hard, Oao took to this task with every ounce of delicacy to ensure it went cleaner than certain earlier attempts. She gouged the eyes only deep enough so that it could no longer see, taking her painstaking time gently removing her claws so as to not cause undue hemorrhaging in the eye tissue. It issued pitiable cries of pain, still struggling to escape though more lackluster as it was suffering.

_
"Please cry not. Unchained from the light you will fly with more majesty than any." She ushered words of reassurance to the poor bird, words falling on deaf ears. With the long thick tentacles of purest darkness she pulled herself up to the entrance of the cave on her stalk, bird in hand.

"Now fly! Fly with pride into the night!" She pushed her voice to what would largely be described as a somewhat louder whisper. She held her palms up and out to the wind, releasing the bird into the world as it left her grasp and started to fly.

[i]Perhaps this one[/i] She hoped deep within her heart. [i]This one will succeed and awaken all other beasts to the true potential of the darkness[/i]. Just as her hopes were about to soar alongside this nightingale of hers it lost it's way a took a fast nose dive into the dirt beyond. Her hands fell to her side and her head bowed in defeat.

"No... Just like the rest." She watched as the tiny bird flailed upon the ground, surrounded by a wide field of bones, all of them once belonging to birds not unlike itself. Some of them were killed in the procedure, some of them simply flopped down and crashed against the stones down the mountain. The rest, like this bird, had flown only to blindly crash at the foot of the mountain with all the rest.

She was crestfallen. Time after time she believes that she can break the light walkers dependency on light only to be met with such results. [i]Why?[/i] She often wonders. [i]How can it be that so many beings can be so dependent on light that by the simple act of taking it away they are rendered so helpless?[/i]

The large willowy figure shrank back into the cave. The edges of it's form stretched into tendrils which joined with the darkness which clung onto the walls of the cave, pulling the form apart until the individual pieces were reabsorbed into the darkness to conserve her energy.

So she sat, alone in her many tunnels
which were masked from all who'd pry.
She'd mourn the death of such a delicate animal,
she would wonder why she should even try.