Alira POV

...

A perfect darkness had spread around me, and yet, i could still see everything. My vision was not hindered at all, if anything, it had gotten sharper and more detailed. With my new-found visual acuity, i looked around.

The deer, fallen before me, its blue flames extinguished, together with its life.

The houses and barricades of the place that had been my home since birth. The only place on the vast earth i knew.

The villagers, my neighbours, my parents, the shaman, laying around unconscious, where they fell when they succumbed to the living night, that swallowed the village, and part of the world beyond, from one instance to the next.

That living night, i realised now, that was me, or at least part of me.

"Master, isn't this enough? The lesson has been taught, this one thinks." Galdir deferentially voiced.

Ah. Yes. And the crow, the only thing remaining awake, besides me.

I turned around, the fiery glow of the runic symbols, still covering his body, visible to me, their light conveyed by the strange physics that ruled supreme right now, right here. Orange lines of molten gold, flowing in the dark, chasing each other. Almost hypnotic.

It was then i noticed, that his feathers stood on edge, his breath ragged.

"Yes, it is." I responded, my mind still processing the events that had just unfolded. Events i had played a central role in.

Absentmindedly, i willed the shadows back inside the human mask i wore, where they had escaped, through the cracks resulting from that deer's attack. Controlling the shadows felt as natural to me, as moving a limb, but i didn't spare it a thought at the moment.

Rather, i thought about the deer. That damn deer. While my new self was satisfied, even eager for more bloodshed to come, my former self cringed hard. I couldn't actually feel the matching emotion, but the principles, i had been taught from my parents, still stood tall in my mind. Myself disagreeing with myself led to a deadlock, a standstill, i had trouble to break free from. Killing the deer was wrong. Killing the deer was right. That is what i had to decide.

Objectivity shouted something about self-defence and other rationalising ideas, which might factually be true, but were mere justifications in the end. When i had unleashed the dark, i wanted to harm, i wanted to kill, and it had nothing to do with objectivity, but with a searing hatred towards my prey, a hatred i couldn't control. I didn’t even know why i hated that deer so much, i just did, even now.

On the other side of things, two principles that were educated into my mind stood out the most. First, killing another sentient being was mostly wrong, because society depended and thrived on not killing each other needlessly. There were exceptions, of course, like the aforementioned self-defence, but the lines were blurry. I didn’t even try to talk it out, rather than resorting to deadly violence, for example. Second, equal exchange, or whatever you call reasonable quid-pro-quo. Well, here the quo was the deer attacking the crow, scratching me by accident probably, while the quid was death. That didn’t sit right with the image i had of the world.

If that was all, the conclusion would be killing the deer was wrong, but somehow the hatred towards the deer felt righteous. Like my subconscious knew something obvious, something that logically and emotionally explained, why it was NOT wrong to kill it. Also, i knew i should feel remorse, but i was incapable of actually feeling anything anymore, except anger, and annoyance maybe.

I pondered the matter for a few more minutes.

To keep my sanity in check, i decided to write it down as the correct choice in the end. I had defended my familiar, something important to me, right? This would be my official explanation for others and myself, from now on.

Geez, i had a foreboding that my new character would make me enter a lot of those standstills, in the future.

By now, i had soaked up the whole artificial night dominating this place minutes ago, and the sun's rays arrived again, like they used to, on a day in Spring. The day was warm and nice, except the mess i had caused, of course.