It had started the day the egg hatched. He knew now that it had been day. On the whole, it might have been less painful if it hadn't been.

How do you describe light to someone who had never seen it before? How do you explain trees, clouds and the color green? To some, it might sound romantic and wonderful - a blessing brought by a sole act of kindness, salvation for one damned soul...

It was nothing like salvation. It was merely painful, and confusing. One moment you hear the crack of splitting egg-shell, the next your mind is flooded by impressions; sounds, scents, and worst of all.

Sight.

It had been pain beyond anything he ever experienced before. Worse than having his eyes gouged out of their sockets. That had been a passing torment - this one persisted. The brightness, the flashing light, the boundless shapes, forms, colors. It came and went, moved independently from himself, made him disoriented and confused.

For several long days he had considered just squishing the feeble, helpless existence that caused him such agony. Many times he had been close to doing it purely by accident. Such a blind, minuscule thing, featherless and weak... what good could ever come by keeping it alive?

Well. Call it weakness or softness or the inner kindness of his heart. The same flaw that caused him to salvage an abandoned egg kept him from extinguishing the life of the raven that hatched from it, and from that day onward Morir hadn't had a quiet moment. It had amused him to watch the critter grow, find its wings and become independent. He had even named it, in a moment of sudden inspiration. But the enjoyment it gave him just barely weighed up for the greedy, demanding nature of the soul that so haphazardly had tangled with his. Instead of growing up and leaving like birds usually did, this one stuck around and seemed to find a savage pleasure in getting in the way. It was underfoot, pecking and prodding, cawing and it demanded to sit on him.

It even tried to help him.

But to someone who lived in darkness his whole life, who never needed the help of another before to get by, light and sight and helpful nudges was only insulting. Morir needed no help, nor any helpful suggestions. For five years he had been able to take care of himself, had survived harsh winters and fought off starving predators and emerged each spring alive and well. Somewhat thin perhaps, and more scarred than a sighted creature might... but alive none the less.

What more could you ask for?

A lot, apparently. Company, a purposeful existence, a mare to bed and opponents to beat. Arwydd had, if his mere presence wasn't annoying enough in itself, a knack for digging up his innermost desires and flaunting them before him, as though they were his ideas and Morir was nothing more than a brain-dead chunk of walking meat.

It was in a desperate effort to silence the pesky bird that the ghoul made his way west - yes, west, and he knew this without the aid of mental visions of burning orbs sinking beneath a glistening flat surface - towards a dark, haunting forest he once had planned to rule. Nothing had come of those dreams in the end. The empress-to-be had abandoned her cause and disappeared, the loyal warriors had scattered with the four winds and now here he was, a mere outcast - blind, harassed, jerking the heavy head violently to shake a black bird off the borrowed bone crown - begging for entry.

Like a demon sprung from some nightmarish tale he halted in the gathering darkness with the tip of his longest horn nearly touching the surface of a crumbling wall. If he persisted, the black diamond would make short work of the fragile substance, but kicking down the door was not the best way to introduce yourself to the master of the house. Instead the beast withdrew slightly and settled down to wait with a patience that suggested he would remain until dying days lest he be addressed, prepared to wait quietly however long it took for them to notice him.

With a smug look to it the raven landed on a prong of the white-washed elk skull's antler, settling down like a king upon his throne. The demon tolerated it for a moment - then jerked his head again and sent the bird back into the air with a sharp, piercing caw that echoed throughout the forest.