To Anger The Shadow

It was one of those slow days.

Small clouds rolled slowly and peacefully in the sky, framing the landscape in sparse, small shadows that danced along hills and mountains.

She *hated* slow days.

The warm sun shone on black, metallic scales, making her forgive the boredom for even just a moment.

A heavy sigh left her cavernous lungs, making the ground vibrate as if there was an enormous forge's bellows at work. She'd welcome any type of distraction. Anything to make the day more interesting than just lounging in her lair. She rolled over, letting her belly get its share of sun for the day. Her coat of scales reflected some of the light, making it look like as if she was glowing, some reflections even playing with the color of her scales, turning them a light silvery grey instead of their usual pitch black.

"Lady Darzarath, I hope I didn't disturb." The diminutive figure asked as it approached the lounging reptile.

"Oh, not quite." The reptile rumbled as she rolled over to sit on her haunches. "In fact, I was just about considering calling you in."

"Ah. Well then, I suppose you might be interested in hearing this." The human said as she opened a folder that she had brought and read it. "To the attention of Miss Darzarath. It has been recently discovered that around 3300 years ago, you or someone of your kind might have been involved in the destruction of local settlements in the Kail region. The Ministry of Education and Research would like to extend an offer to you for the study of the documents that provided with this preliminary result. Sample copies of the documents involved have been attached to this folder for your viewing."

"Is that so?" The reptile brought down her neck to peer at the much smaller sheet of printed paper.

She watched closely at the document that the human woman held up, not flinching in the slightest as the red glow of the reptile's eye quickly filled her entire front vision.

"Interesting. They might actually have something in their hands for once in a while." The reptile muttered as she kept reading the page.

"Do you want me to call the Ministry?" The woman asked.

"Yes, tell them I'll be there in the afternoon. I'll handle this, personally." The large reptile stated as she stood up. "I want to take full advantage of what they're offering. They think that they can use ancient historical records to undermine my figure. Too bad for them that two can play that game. I'm not the only one with dirty secrets, and I intend to remind them of this."

Darzarath. Her name had become associated with many things over the ages. She had become a symbol of the dark side of power in the local folklore of the land she inhabited and in more ancient times, her black form flying above the lands of the Kail region was often an omen to a shift in the balance of power, and in more recent ages, seeing her fly somewhere was often met with comments that something big was going to happen.

The evolution of the mortal races forced the dragons to adapt, and in most instances the results were less than impressive. Except Darzarath, who has had a fascination for the mortals' ingenuity and technical proficiency ever since her earliest adult years, while all the other dragons had mostly decided to stick to their preferred forms and schools of magic disciplines.

She was flying over the Seralian inland, her gaze fixed forward as hills and small mountains slowly passed beneath her. A mesmerizing stream of fields, villages, towns and roads streaked by. She could remember clearly when, how and who made and built many of these roads and towns, and to some she was almost an honorary citizen. Darzarath was lost in her thoughts, her wings easily carrying her on favorable winds, until the little earpiece-like device she had attached to one of her horns called for her attention.

"DRZ001, you're clear to access Eterna's air space. Proceed at low altitude. Landing space available at southern airport."

She had been reluctant to conform to the mortals' air traffic control, but after a couple of incidents with their aircraft she eventually gave up and accepted their conditions.

The dragon banked towards the city, her eyes already catching a glimpse of the people in the streets stopping to look up. She could see some even pointing towards her, mostly kids or foreigners, but she couldn't afford a detour. Darzarath was here to meet with representatives from the Ministry of Culture and Research, and she wasn't the kind of dragon to keep her hosts waiting too long for her.

As the buildings quickly passed beneath her, the airport came into view, and although small, she could spot the diminutive figures waiting for her at what she supposed was her intended landing space.

Precision landing was not her best skill. And this landing was going to be proof of that at the current rate.

As she pointed towards the airport, she felt the wind starting to change both direction and intensity. For a moment, the wind was pulling her up, and just as she compensated the wind shifted to pushing her sideways. She was used to wind turbulence, but this time around it was stronger than she was expecting, and just when she though she could compensate, the wind would pick up in strength as well.

Suddenly, the wind shifted again, and this time became a strong current, which just so happened to be pointed towards the airport.

"Sir, isn't that dragon approaching too fast?" a young aide asked to her superior, who was standing beside her.

"I am sure she is aware of that." He commented as he intently watched the dragon making her approach.

He could clearly see how she was moving her wings, her eyes darting left and right. The man quickly turned and entered the limo that brought him there along with her aide.

Darzarath was approaching the airport fast. Too fast, in fact. The combination of unexpected winds and her expansive wingspan caused her to gain a lot more speed than she intended.

She had to be quick. The airport boundary closed in with every passing moment, and the landing space wasn't too far beyond it. Despite her efforts to compensate for the wind current, she had gained too much speed to slow down in time, and she couldn't afford to steer off-course. She'd have to make the best of the airport's surface, unless she wanted to destroy a considerable number of things, among which the passenger terminal. The hundreds of meters that stood between the dragon and the airport were crossed in an instant.

Darzarath did the only thing she could reasonably do, and tried to bank her wings to brake. Thankfully, the very same size that caused her wings to propel her to such speeds, was also able to brake and slow her down for landing, although such motions weren't without consequence.

As the dragon landed with a sharp banking of her wings, an enormous gust of wind, in addition to the already strong wind, swept some of the present people that didn't get to safety quickly enough off the ground. They didn't fly-off too far, but sure enough their landing on the rough asphalt and concrete wasn't as soft as the dragon's was.

"Lady Darzarath! That was reckless!" A man shouted.

She turned, folding her wings to her side. The man who called her was the minister, and although he looked unaffected, his tone suggested he was far from appeased.

"I'd suggest that you take better care of your landings, Lady Darzarath or-"

"Or what?" She interrupted him. The man froze in his steps as the dragon stomped towards him, leaving a small crater in the tarmac. "You gave me an open invitation, and I accepted it. It is not dependent on me that your infrastructure is incompatible with the needs of dragons such as me. Your government was the one to insist on dragons following the same air traffic regulations as your common aircraft."

"Lady Darzarath, the government-" He tried to intercede.

"The government?" Darzarath chuckled. "*You* are the government, Mr Hunig. Even though that was not a decision made with your ministry, it still part of your government's legacy."

The man craned his head back, exhaling in frustration.

Darzarath looked around, and noticed that besides the small crater under her paw there was no other damage, to people, objects or otherwise. Personally, she was glad, but she couldn't afford to show it. She was here for business, and it was the kind of personal business that could end her, both financially and socially.

Getting to the city was the easy part for her. The real hard part was getting around in the city.

Her size made transit through normal city roads impractical at best, and impossible at worst. This forced her into the inconvenient position of making use of an ability that she hated the most. Shape-shifting. She didn't necessarily hate shape shifting, but the fact that she was severely limited in what she could do with it made her despise it ever since she first learned it, despite having its utility.

She didn't use this ability often, and it showed as soon as she turned her gargantuan scale-clad form into a more human one. Or at least as close to human as she would get.

Everyone stared in a mixture of shock and awe to the figure before them as the dragon's form melted away into a thick black mist. The mist quickly flowed and condensed into one spot, taking a human shape in process. What previously was scales, wings and claws, now was skin, arms and legs. The black fog that cloaked Darzarath soon dissipated, revealing her mortal form. She would've been definable as a normal human if it weren't for her sheer size, setting her at a staggering 2 and a half meters tall (8 feet), clad in a heavy plate armor that did little to conceal her exaggerated musculature. Her head was decorated by dark, black hair. From her head sprouted two sharp but short horns identical to her original form's. Her eyes didn't change, as they were still reptilian, with a dark slit pupil, and a red glow barely making itself noticeable in the light of day.

She took a few steps forward, heavy armored boots making it seem she was still every bit as big as she was in her dragon form. She looked around, and noticed the gazes that were being given to her. Especially by her supposed host, Mr Hunig.

"Are you going to stare at me all day like one of your precious collectibles, Mr Hunig?" She mused out loud, snapping the man back to reality.

"I beg your pardon, Lady Darzarath. It's just that we... we don't have many records of you ever taking a mortal form." He quickly explained. He turned to point to the limo, inviting her to follow him.

"Of course you don't." She commented as she began towards the car. "I make sure that I can trust who I meet before exposing myself so significantly. I believe that you're well aware that discretion is something I appreciate as much as ingenuity."

Entering into the car wasn't easy, but she was used at having to adjust herself around mortals' limited size, and managed to fit inside after only a small scratch of the roof with her horn.

The trip couldn't be over too soon for Darzarath. Apparently, Hunig's curiosity was genuine as he continued to ask her more questions than she was used to expect from a simple human, but unfortunately she knew that in the bigger scope of things, he was just being used. She didn't know yet for what or why, but the fact that some documents that she was quite sure she had hid a long time ago suddenly reappeared in the hands of the modern Seralian government was enough to keep her alert. It saddened her that such a young and genuine character was just another cog in an indistinguishable and unrecognizable machine of power that escaped even her notice until only recently.

She had to probe further.

"Mr Hunig, may I ask you something?" Darzarath suddenly asked, catching the man by surprise.

"I... Yes. Yes, you may, ma'am." He answered, shifting in his seat.

"How do you feel about your current charge as the Minister of Culture and Research. It's a very broad and encompassing office."

"I find it awarding." He said with a smile. She'd seen that smile before, and just like every time she saw it, it quickly turned into a slight frown. "Admittedly, I do find the schedule to be at times... constricting, restraining, and to a certain extent even exhausting."

"So you wish that something would change about it." She wondered, to which he replied with a simple nod. "I see."

"Our culture is important, and someone has to be at the top of the institutions responsible for its preservation." He began. "And I believe that for the world of today, for the Seralia of today, my contribution will be important. I love my country's culture, as do many of my fellow citizens, but I do believe that a single man having the power to actually what is necessary is a dangerous compromise."

Darzarath raised an eyebrow. She wondered who he was referring to when spoke up again.

"I originally sided with Kolman's candidature to run for president because I saw in him a man that wouldn't just be. But a man that could. I believed that he could do what the others simply promised."

"I guess that if the past months are anything to go by, then I take it that you became disenchanted by him." She suggested.

"In a way, yes." He said, looking out of the darkened window. "Thankfully, our constitution establishes a baseline budget for my ministry. So far, I did not succeed in being granted more funds, even for short term projects. Instead, I found myself fighting in the parliament to gather the barely sufficient support to prevent my ministry's needs from going unheard. Kolman promised that I would've had the means to save our culture and help it thrive again. And yet, here it is, barely surviving."

"Your vision of the world is dark, Mr Hunig. But understandable." She said, fidgeting in the seat slightly as she couldn't quite move. Car seats weren't meant for people of her size and heft. "I do appreciate that you can offer critique as well as take it, so heed my words. Kolman is a powerful, honest man. But when someone sits at the apex of power of a nation, no amount of friends, secretaries, ministries or advisers will be enough to protect them. Keep Kolman close. He is fighting his own battles, and the difficulties you've been having are nothing but ripples in a calm ocean."

Silence fell as Darzarath let Hunig ponder her words. She knew that she dropped a great weight on his shoulders, but she didn't have any other viable choice to test his wisdom and trustworthiness.

The trip was about to be over, until the car slowed down. Hunig and Darzarath tried to take a glance outside, and through the obscured windows they saw journalists crowding the sidewalks. A lot of journalists.

"Looks like discretion just flew out of the window, Lady Darzarath." Hunig commented as he turned to talk to the driver and his aide. "Don't stop. If they try to step ahead of the car, just keep going, I'll pay the damages."

"Mr Hunig, apparently someone from the inside spread the word on social media about 2 hours ago and then deleted their account." The aide explained as she put down her phone after a brief call. "They're looking into it, but so far no clues on who did it and why."

Darzarath watched silently from her seat. Some journalists were actively trying to get a good look inside the car, but the obscured glass had made their efforts useless so far. Suddenly, a bright flash lit the interior of the car. It wasn't very bright, the glass made sure of that, but it was still enough for Darzarath to take notice, making her realize that a journalist had just managed to get a photo of the car's interior.

At first the thought didn't faze her, until it sunk in that now a journalist had a photo of her, in her mortal form. She had always been extremely careful in trying to keep pictures of herself in her current mortal form from being available to the public, and having had to deal with journalists before had taught her that once they got their hands on something big and new, they're unlikely to let go of it. Currently, however, she was not in a position to do anything. She didn't catch the face of the journalist that took the photo, and even then she couldn't move her strings without Hunig attempting to interfere with a moral objection. She'd have to wait, and she hated having to wait and not act with something that was so urgent, at least in her eyes.

The crowd of journalists continued for quite a fair distance, and the car almost had to run over a couple of them to get through and enter the ministry's gates.

Once inside, the car stopped, and its users got out. Or at least one of them tried. Darzarath kept getting stuck in the car's door, her horns and armor getting in the way by making her too big to properly fit through, just like when she tried to get in back at the airport, or by continuously catching in the seat or the door's frame. It didn't help that the issue of a journalist having managed to take a photo of her made her seethe with anger. She tried multiple times to get out of the car, even with Hunig's and his aide's and driver's help, and eventually she decided she had enough. With a most inhuman roar, she just plunged her fist into the car's roof, and pulled the thing open like a tin can, the metal creaking and groaning as it shredded under her gloved hands like paper.

Darzarath stomped on to the courtyard, finally free of the tight confines of the limo, and rolled her shoulders as she glared at Hunig.

"Not a single word about this." She said dismissively, adjusting her armor and gloves. "I'll pay the damages from my personal account under a false donation."

Hunig gulped, nodding quickly as he went after Darzarath, who started for the entrance.

The Seralian Ministry of Culture was hosted in an old palace, and over the centuries it received several renovations and modifications. Its halls and hallways now featured a mixture of traditional paintings and modern art, both in physical and digital form, with picture frames alternating with ultra-thin digital displays, the latter used for modern digital art or for temporarily replacing paintings that were currently being preserved in the Ministry's archives. Old marble sculptures shared showcase space with modern cast bronze and brass statues.

This wasn't Darzarath's first visit to the palace, as it had been the dynastic residence of a very influential family for centuries, and its acquisition by the Ministry of Culture was a relatively recent event. She still remembered the long evenings with other invited nobles, the extensive dinners and the fancy clothes. If it weren't for the company being so pleasant back then, she would've just opted to go with her armor, like she was now, or just not go altogether. Sure, she had her number of unpleasant encounters, like an overly enterpreneurish young aristocrat doing everything he could to take her to his bed chambers, or a jealous wife to a rich baron attempting to stab her with a stiletto, but those incidents didn't ruin her ties with the family that owned the estate.

But today she didn't have none of that. Today, she was here to see with her own eyes what did the ministry find. And how.

As she marched down the hall, Hunig and his aide was barely managing to keep the pace ahead of her. Finally, Hunig stopped in front one of the many large doors that were embedded in the hallway's walls.

"This is where the documents are kept, Lady Darzarath." Hunig said, as the aide opened the door for them. He was about to tell Darzarath more, when she just ignored him and quickly walked past him.

Darzarath stepped in, her excitement and anxiety keeping her alert to anything that could've been out of place. The room was one of the old palace's original studies, and still had most of its original furniture. Strewn on a large wooden central table were the documents that she wanted to see, and much to her surprise, it was a lot more stuff than she anticipated. Heaps of scrolls and ancient books bound in visibly worn leather laid on the table, with a couple of who she guessed were historians hired by the ministry.

Hunig proceeded to enter the room and called for the historians' attention.

"Gentlemen, may I have your attention? Lady Darzarath is here, and I think it would be appropriate to be introduced before getting down to work, don't you agree?"

The first to be introduced was the older of the two historians, Filbert Gort, a man in his late 40s, average height, black hair and unusually thick glasses. When they entered the room, Gort was almost literally nose-deep in one of large volumes, which seemed to be a sort of almanac.

The second historian was definitely younger, and went by the name of Alexandar Fulmis. The young man, probably in his 30s, had been apparently translating one of the scrolls, or at least attempting to, if the pile of dictionaries was any clue.

When Hunig introduced them, the historians had already turned and were gawking in a mix of admiration and shock at Darzarath.

"Well?" Darzarath quipped as she walked towards the table "It is rude to stare at a lady."

"Yes, excuse us ma'am." Gort said as turned around to gesture the other man to come over, who switfly went around the table to go to his colleague's side. "We... we are actually surprised to see you. I mean, these documents only got here a couple days ago..."

"Indeed, and as soon as I was informed I came here as fast as possible." She said, waving a dismissive hand to the historian. She was here for the documents, not for chatting.

She picked up one of the volumes from the table, and quickly read through its old and yet suspiciously preserved pages. The paper felt weird in her hands, almost vibrating with energy, not to mention it felt a lot more intact and consistent than what she expected of something that old. Indeed, with her eyes she could see a very faint trace of mana, something that should would've completely missed if she hadn't gotten close enough to pick the book up in her own hands. The book turned out to be a guild's journal, and something seemed off to her. She read a page, and then another, and as she quickly skimmed through pages she realized what she reading. It took her a moment to search through her memories to remember when she last saw this journal, and she still couldn't quite piece together how it got here, now, perfectly intact after centuries she was sure it had been destroyed.

"Mister Hunig, you still have to clarify on the source of these... documents." She asked, without taking her eyes off the journal.

"A donor." Hunig simply said, turning to his aide asking for a confirmation.

"Yes, these documents were a generous donation brought here personally by someone who went by the name of 'Listroz'. We tried to verify his identity, but..."

"You can't." Darzarath interjected as she felt a familiar presence approach the room. "I know who Listroz is."

Hunig and his aide looked at each for a moment in confusion, but it didn't last long as the door was suddenly flung open.

"HOW WONDERFUL THAT YOU STILL REMEMBER ME!"

Darzarath turned, and standing at the door was what seemed a young man, dressed in an atrocious bright blue suit, red hair and a cane. To a common mortal, he looked like nothing short of an eccentric billionaire with too much liking for flaire, but to Darzarath he was much worse. He was one of her sworn rivals. Another dragon, powerful, but young and blinded by a misdirected thirst for power, and revenge.

"Listroz, you haven't lost your touch in the slightest." Darzarath commented with a forced grin as she put down the book.

"And you, murderer, are still as uptight as always." He replied in similar fashion. "Tell me, how's your tail? Still hurting?"

"Oh, my tail is fine." Darzarath said as she slowly approached him. "How are your wings?"

It only took a couple of steps for Darzarath to get close to Listroz. Very close.

"Oh, they're fine too. After you almost tore them off." Listroz hissed.

The situation was tense, and there was no telling what was going to happen. The two disguised dragons stood one in front of the other, in what was only defineable as a standoff, the calm before the storm.

"You've got guts to show up after all these centuries, Listroz." She growled. "I thought I had been very clear last time we met."

"Yes, you were." Listroz replied. "I remember well our last encounter. How you murdered my mate and those that I considered loyal friends."

"Spare me your morals, whelp. Killing your mate was the most merciful thing I could've done to her for what she did. And your 'friends' were nothing more than collateral damage from them not minding their own business."

"You killed her in cold blood!" Listroz raised his voice, his previously smug attitude being replaced with bitter anger. "Even the Council called you out after having heard of what you had done."

"SHE KILLED MY CHILDREN!" Darzarath roared, a sudden outburst causing everyone but Listroz to recoil and almost jump two feet in the air from the sheer intensity of it. "DID YOU SERIOUSLY EXPECT ME TO NOT MAKE HER PAY?"

A moment of unsustainable silence followed. Listroz's tense face slowly relaxed into its previous smug grin as Darzarath still seethed with barely restrained rage. It took her a moment to realize what happened. He broke her guard, and now he was going to exploit this. He lowered a hand into a pocket of his suit, from which he picked up something that she immediately recognized.

"It's wonderful how the modern technology you admire so much can be so discreet, isn't it?" He said as he brought up the little device and pressed the 'Stop' button. It was a digital recorder. But not a simple digital recorder, it was one of the recorder models that Darzarath's company started selling not too long ago.

Around the room, Hunig, his aide and the historians were all watching in rapt shock and awe at the situation unfolding before them. None of them had anticipated such an abrupt turn of events that day, and even then they didn't expect to witness a dragon's seething rage, even if just in humanoid disguise.

Slowly, Darzarath rose her hand, making a sort of swirling gesture. At the same time, her already glowing eyes began to shine brighter, stronger.

Listroz stared at her hand, attempting to understand just what she was doing.

"Foolish whelp." She muttered as she began raising her other hand, with a similar swirling motion.

Listroz and everyone else in the room began feeling cold. Not cold in the physical sense, but something that sucked the heat from the very core of their being. As the cold intensified, the lights in the room, even the sunlight from the large glass windows, began to dim ever so slightly.

Listroz was about to react, having realized what she was doing, but something struck him in the chest and sent him tumbling backwards on the floor.

"You did well to hide in the shadows, Listroz." Darzarath said as she continued her motions. "But the shadows are my domain."

Everyone in the room was still like a statue. Not even the security guards knew how to act in a situation like this.

"Shadows or not, you can still bleed!!" Listroz said, getting off the floor and preparing his own magic as ice and lighting accumulated around his hands.

With incredible speed, Listroz began flicking his hands towards Darzarath, shards of ice and small lighting being thrown in her direction, harmlessly pelting against her armor.

"HOW?" Listroz cried as he began flinging even more ice and lighting at her.

"Aww, the poor whelp doesn't understand?" She laughed. "The years you spent scheming, and the years before you were even born, were naught but a constant struggle against those like you and your mate that saw in me nothing but an obstacle."

He began circling around her as she began moving with her feet as well, starting what could be described as a form of exotic dance. She moved with shocking grace despite her sheer size, not to mention her bulky heavy armor.

"There was not a single century that I wouldn't spend trying to survive. Be it slayers, be it rivals, be it simple natural phenomena." She continued. "Someone as young as you, Listroz, was born and grown in an already tamed world."

She moved her hand with a sweeping motion, and the shadow from one of the guards seemed to detach from the ground. It flew towards Listroz, who barely dodged it as it collided with a wall behind him, cracking the centuries-old stonework.

"I endured. I adapted." She kept talking as her tone turned sour. She swept her other hand and a shadow from a statue was flung towards Listroz again. "As I outlasted many others that dared challenge me,so I shall endure you."

Listroz this time countered the shadow with a sweep of his own, freezing the shadow and the ground near and behind it.

"You are a madwoman!" He shouted at her, already short on his breath despite having done little to nothing. "Killing my mate wasn't enough for you, wasn't it?"

"Kirsta was just one in a series of many others." She spat back at him, frowning at the look of shock on his face as she called out the name of his mate. "You lack wisdom, just like her. Likewise, you intrude upon my life and puppeteer your way around blindly, without any scope or plan, but with only a single objective. Power."

She sent another shadow, this time Hunig's own shadow. Listroz, already winded, was struck right in the chest, crashing him against the wall, spitting blood from his mouth as the faint cracking of breaking bones briefly echoed in the room.

Darzarath began walking towards Listroz, maintaining the tempo of her dance-like motions. Her form was now shrouded with tendrils of smoke-like shadow, making her look completely blended in with the darkness that by now befell the room, as if it was the midnight of a moonless and starless night.

"I should end you." She said, her motions causing the darkness in the room seemingly coalesce in a sort of liquid that flowed towards the wounded man. "I should spare you the shame, the dishonor of failure. However, I want to believe that you're still worth the air you breathe."

"What..." He tried to say, but was interrupted by coughing fit that had him spit out more blood.

"I'm willing to afford you the luxury of choosing your fate, whelp." She spat at him as she got closer.

Once she was close, any onlooker could tell the disparity in power. Darzarath was standing, donning armor that would perhaps be found only in the more fantastic legends and myths, carrying the pose and body that amplified her already awe-inspiring presence. Listroz was on the ground, barely sitting against the wall, the once fancy and arguably stylish clothes reduced to large tatters by a fight of mere minutes, his body clearly wounded by more broken bones than cuts.

"Unlike the monster that you and many others of our kind want to picture me as, Listroz, I know what _mercy_is. I know how _suffering defeat_truly requires the best of one's character." She said as she poked at his legs with her boot. "I despise you. I pity you. But I want to give you one last chance. Take it, and I'll make you into something that you could have never dreamed of for all these centuries. Leave it, and your chronicles will be written here where I stand."

He weakly looked up at her, his mouth and chin streaked with blood.

A brief moment passed, few seconds that seemed to stretch into eternity.

"Yes..." Was all he said as another, stronger, fit made him spew even more blood.

"Very well." She said, kneeling down next to him.

She placed an armored hand on his chest and with the other she held his head up.

"Rajenis" She whispered, and her hands began glowing with a faint but noticeable green light.

Listroz took in a sharp breath, coughing out some more blood, before his worn eyes and wounds began healing.

Hunig simply stared. In the span of a scarce couple of minutes he witnessed something that he thought would've been only described in the more fantastic mythos and legends and tales of old. He didn't even realize just how dark the room had gotten until his eyes began burning with the sunlight coming through the windows again.

He looked around. Everyone was in a corner or another of the room, as far away from Darzarath and the unexpected guest as possible. His aide especially was cowering in a corner with her hands over her head.

Before he could turn his head again, he could already hear the sound of her heavy boots approaching him.

Something within him clicked. A sudden sense of dread, fear. A fight-or-flight instinct that he never knew he had screamed at the back of his mind.

"Mr. Hunig." Darzarath called to him.

Hunig didn't turn. He was frozen in place as his hands began to shake.

"Mr. Hunig." She called again. "I highly suggest to not follow through on whatever it is that your instincts propose."

He clenched his fist. He focused. Slowly he regained his former calm, only then realizing how quick his pulse and breathing had become.

"I... Yes. Good suggestion." He muttered as he stumbled back to find something to lay on. "That... that was..."

"That was nothing." She shot, causing him to quickly glare back at her.

"Beg your pardon?" He hissed.

"That was nothing." She repeated, crossing her arms. "This visit never happened. This fight never occurred. Listroz was never here."

"I don't believe that you're in a position to say that, _Lady_Darzarath." He growled at her, trying to stand straight in front of her despite the height difference putting him barely at height with the top of her stern.

"Neither are you in a position to argue against my request, Minister." She replied in tone.

Before Hunig could answer, however, she turned and quickly left the room from the hallway they came from in the first place.

Looking around, he noticed that the man called Listroz was no longer there either, nor was there any visible trace of the fight left except for a slight cracking of stone where the man impacted.

Hunig sighed. Now that Darzarath was gone, the earlier feel of danger he had was gone as well. He'd have to talk to Kolman. His boss had much to tell him.