An ominous aura, filled with the ease of the men gathered around the elven prince, emanated from the startled guards as the bodiless screams soon fell silent. Eyes sharpened their gazes as a few of the men made ready to jump to their feet as everyone focused their attention towards the shadow-infested portal that led into the back of the worn-down hovel.

The sounds of heavy breathing came soon enough, followed by a stampede of hurried footsteps that echoed from deep within the pit of inky black shadows. The smack of waterlogged boots came next as those within the makeshift dining room looked towards their compatriots with expressions of unease and nerve wracked worry. A few of these wary men cautiously turned their gazes towards the piles of weapons that had only been recently stacked together from when they first entered the tattered and worn down abode. Yet the heart-pumping worries that pounded against their chests felt more like tightly taut lengths of chains that bound them where they remained instead of being the sense of urgency one would use to leap to their feet and rush towards the only means of defending themselves.

None of the men gathered around Aurelius dared to make the first move and send the rest of their allies into a chaotic flurry of activity.

A light, heartfelt smile spread itself across the Dark Elven prince’s lips as an exhilarating sense of joy crept over his harsh gaze and turned his expression into one that of a far more gentle and soothing tone. Excitement beamed out from Aurelius’ face as he stepped closer towards the ruined doorway, positioning himself in such a way that he would be able to react quickly to whatever would pop out of the shadows without having to worry about colliding with the frightened creature.

As the hurried breathing and pounding footsteps reached its apex within the elven prince’s hearing, Aurelius swung out his arms in an inviting manner and stepped forward. Catching a rain-soaked and half-frozen man within his chest as the ghostly pale guard stumbled out of the shadows with indecipherable murmurings.

“B-buh!” The frightened guard exclaimed between haggard breathing and swallowing back the fright-induced exhaustion after having ran with such leaden steps. “Buh-buh-“

“Calm yourself, my good man.” Aurelius whispered into the man’s ears as the frightened guard’s knees buckled and swayed, his feet kicking out in such a way that would suggest he was now trying to run back into the very shadows from which he was hoping to have escaped from.

A knowing smile spread itself across the elven prince’s gorgeous features as he looked down into the frightened gaze of the man caught within his warm embrace.

The man’s jaw opened and closed itself shut in wordless, rapid succession as his lips quivered with a tremendous fright. The guard jumped and pushed against the golden-maned prince’s embrace with what little strength he had left in his weary and frightened form, but his eternal struggling was naught but a moot point as the royal-born elf proved far too strong for the man during such a horrific moment.

All that the guard could do, was willing to do for that matter, was to slowly turn his pleading eyes towards the friends that he had spent years together with and remain frozen in place as his words struggled to form themselves into a decipherable manner as his tongue fumbled over itself in the twisted haze of despair that had taken hold of both his mind and body.

Of those who had managed to free themselves from the enchantment of the scene before them, they reached down towards their sides; grabbing at invisible, nonexistent weapons that had left their persons some moments prior.

Aurelius’ right hand reached out from behind the frightened guard and planted itself atop of his rain-soaked hair, lovingly patting the top of his head as he spoke with a soothing voice. “Take a deep breath, and steel yourself for what’s to come next.”

Only the elven prince and the man still held within his grasp could hear what Aurelius had whispered into his ear as the Dark Elven prince continued to pat at the man’s head, rummaging his fingers through the human’s dirtied locks of hair as a sinister gaze pierced the shadows that lay beyond from where the guard had arrived just a scant few seconds prior.

“Take your time and things will get better.” The elven prince spoke up so that all of those within the room could hear what was being said next as he pushed the man’s head closer to his chest, forcing the frightened guard’s ears to listen closely to the calm and calculative beating of Aurelius’ heart.

After a few moments of forcing the man to listen to the beating of his heart, Aurelius separated the two of them with a small and gentle push of his arms.

The two of them were no more than half and arm’s length away from one another when Aurelius next spoke up. “Do you feel better now?”

Fully aware of just who exactly the golden maned elf truly was, the frightened man swallowed back his fears and took a deep breath to calm his nerves. The guard blinked once as he slowly nodded his head in response to the elven prince’s inquiry, rapidly tapping his right foot the ground as the look of unfathomable terror was still present within the back of his eyes.

An eerie chuckle escaped from the elven prince’s warm and inviting smile as he turned his attention towards the men that had remained at his back throughout such a strange and mesmerizing ordeal. “Go ahead,” Goaded the honey-voiced Aurelius as he loosened his grip upon the man’s shoulders and instead offered him a hearty and playful slap across his back. “Tell them what you saw back there.”

“T-there were-“ The guard cut himself off with a frightened gasp as he watched the elven prince’s silver and black eyes return to gaze into brown irises, forcing what little color remained in his face to drain itself outright from the sheer force of terror that he felt for the golden-maned elf before him.

With one last haggard breath, the guard turned his attention back towards the men whom he had spent the last few years making friends and spoke the words that spelled out their deaths. “There are bodies in the kitchen!”

Blood splattered across the ground as the frightened guard reached down towards his stomach and felt with trembling fingers that something had pierced his belly. As he hunched over in excruciating pain as the feeling of something slithering up into the insides of his chest shot white-hot flashes of pain to blind his senses, the guard could see and feel that the redden and blood soaked arm of the golden haired elf that had once so graciously offered to feed them the flesh of the hovel’s previous disheveled and malnourished denizen.

Bits of torn innards and bloodied ichor poured out of the man’s wound as Aurelius twisted his arm further into the upper portion of the guard’s chest, forcing bones to bulge and bend in unnatural degrees as voices rang out from behind the Dark Elven prince.

Boots clamored to and fro as Ranislavian voices called out to the guard whose life-force was now slowly draining itself out of his punctured belly and down onto the floor below.

Twisting his body around the stumbling, unconscious form of his latest victim similar to that of a hungering snake wrapping itself around its latest meal, Aurelius grabbed hold of the man’s still beating heart and planted his boot against the small of his back before delivering a fatal kick that sent the man spiraling towards a pair of guards that were now rushing to help free their entrapped companion.

The sound of crunching bones and tearing sinew struck the ears of those rushing to help their ensnared comrade as Aurelius’ bloodied arm erupted out of the frightened guards side, the blood of his victim coated the full length of his arm and large portions of his left leg as the now deceased man’s body crumpled atop of those closest to him.

With the still warm corpse of their fallen comrade thrown atop of their bodies, the two Ranislavian guards struggled to lift their deceased friend off of their prone forms as their closest allies rushed forward towards the golden haired adversary that held the bloodied heart of their fallen friend in the palm of his hand.

As Aurelius stood there with the chunk of bloodied mass of meat that was once a man’s heart, facing down the two closest of his adversaries that had rushed past their pinned and immobilized comrades, he couldn’t help it as a fit of cackling laughter flowed freely from his smirking lips. The two men who stood with their weapons at the ready took several steps back as they held themselves in a defensive manner, but when the elven prince’s maddened laughter continued for a moment longer they took their chance and charged towards their bloodied opponent.

The two guards rushed towards the opposing sides of their murderous opponent in a lightning quick pincer maneuver, closing the distance between themselves and their target with such a rapid speed that Aurelius had little time to react as they brought their swords to bear and slashed at his sides and chest.

As their blades pierced the body of the adversary, they soon found themselves in disarray as the sound of metallic clanging reverberated casually through their arms as the tips of their blades swished helplessly through the air and clattered against one another.

Their eyes went wide in shock as they twisted and turned their heads in disarray, desperately searching for where the blonde haired elf-man had disappeared to.

A murmur of surprised voices rang out throughout the dreary, shadowed room as the remainder of the Ranislavian guards turned their attention towards finding the whereabouts of their query. The men began pairing up with one another, turning their backs to each other as they moved to cover their partner’s blind spots as best as they could whilst on the lookout for the golden-maned elf.

“Well, I’ll have to give you some credit for that.” Spoke the soft and honey-lathered soothing tone of Aurelius’ words as a hazy mist of dark clouds slowly materialized in the furthest corner away from his human opponents. A calming and lyrical fit of laughter fluttered freely through the air as the elven prince’s body finished materializing itself from whichever unfathomable plane of existence he had plunged himself into its depths after having warped his entire being out of the memory of this world and shifted himself onto an entirely different point of origin from where he had stood before.

A smug grin crept over the Dark Elven prince’s gentle features as he used his only remaining clean hand to wipe away at the lingering cloud of arcane energy that had managed to cling itself upon his persona, desperate in their attempts to remain in the comparatively calm waters of mortal realm’s flowing rivers of ethereal arcane rivers. Yet their vampiric tendencies were all for naught as the elven prince swatted at the last of the slithering clouds of pure magical energy and banished them back to the crushing depths of the unseen oceans of arcane-chaos that lay beyond any living beings understanding.

“But your footwork was mediocre at best, and at its worst; lazy and derivative. So I must implore you to atone for having borne the sin of sullying my royal sight with such low-born obscenities.”

An air of immense pressure washed over the bodies of the Ranislavian men as Aurelius’ gaze twisted itself to stare upon their dumbfounded expressions, forcing them to struggle to remain upright as they knees began to quiver and buckle beneath the absurd sensation that slowly drove them down onto their knees.

The men clung desperately to whatever sources of internal strength that they held within the depths of their hearts as the sound of clattering weapons slowly began to fill the air around them. They clutched at their chests as their lungs began to fill themselves with an otherworldly sense of dread.

Their breathing became labored and hotly contested as their faces became drenched with sweat whilst their necks lowered themselves towards the ground.

Veins popped out of their flesh as their bodies struggled to retain the wills of their masters, slowly straining themselves to the point of breaking down beneath the unfathomable sensation that now burdened their bodies to the point of crushing themselves beneath such an immense weight.

Whilst the intense pressure increased in its ferocity, drowning the men in waves of the tyrannical sensations of dread and despair, Aurelius remained where he was; crossing his arms across his chest as he stood comfortably on his own two feet, unburdened by the unheard sing-song Songs of Creation that were being woven into existence by the unseen courts of the Fae.

It was as if Aurelius was standing by his lonesome, waiting for someone beneath a gentle, cooling shade during a sunny midsummer afternoon.

With a soft, calming hum Aurelius slowly turned his head and looked upon the prone forms of the men that had been entrapped by his snare. Yet the little joy that he had found during such a exhilarating occasion was cut short and the humming ceased almost immediately as his eyes locked themselves upon the battered doorframe that led to the outside world.

An annoyed click of the elven prince’s tongue caused the closest man to explode in a cloud of bloodied mist.

“It seems that your lord, Baron Pavel, has escaped.” Aurelius exclaimed to those of his adversaries that still drew breath as he took the first step towards the portal which lead to the stormy outdoors. “It doesn’t matter, though. I’ll quickly reel him back in and deal with him then.”

As he stepped closer towards the battered doorway, the elven prince casted his gaze down towards the gasping and trembling forms of two of those closest towards him.

Blood poured down from their eyes with such ferocity that even the blonde haired prince questioned whether or not their bodies were truly human and not ornamental fountains meant for the amusement of whichever rich, haughty patron had commissioned for its creation.

An amused chuckle escaped Aurelius’ smiling lips as he turned his eyes away from the paltry sight, snapping his fingers into the air just in time for the pair of men to disappear behind his shoulders as the earth underneath their bloodied visages opened up and swallowed them whole.

The ground closed just as quickly as it had opened up, crushing the pair of men between its rocky maw with a sickening and earthly crunch.

The remnants of the surviving Ranislavian guards turned pale as the gut-wrenching fate of their compatriots forced many to begin praying to the patron gods of Aurelius’ human wife’s homeland. As they did so, some of the men struggled with all of their might to rise onto their feet. Fighting against the very will of the Unseen Courts and the Songs of Creation.

Yet none of these men managed to do so. Finding only that their strength had long left them and that their bodies were now slowly sinking beneath the earth as their flesh slowly melted away into a bloody pool of their own liquefied corpses.

Aurelius gave these brave men a singular, bored clap of his hands.

“It would seem that the time that I had spent hunting down and killing my brother has left me in a peculiar state.”

Closing his eyes, the blonde haired prince took in a deep breath as he reached out towards his sleeves and tugged at the finely woven fabric that made up their sleeves.

Exhaling the breath that he had built up, the Dark Elven prince opened his eyes and revealed two gleaming orbs of silvery moons swimming in an ocean of stars trapped within a captivating sea of darkness.

“Baron Pavel,” Aurelius’ tender and honey-suckled voice carried itself through the storm, weaving its way through the outpouring of freezing droplets of rain as the name of his final victim upon this very night danced upon the bolts of lightning that arced across the night sky.

With one last deafening crack of thunder Aurelius turned and faced the vacant doorway before him, blinking only once as a flash of lightning brought the trembling form of the very man whose name had been spoken just a scant second prior.