Dawn The snowstorm had reached it's peak, but in a relatively good time - the citadel gate was in sight and the guards were coming to our aid. I had almost passed out several times by this point, and upon breathing my sigh of relief that our journey was over, I had fallen to the ground and into unconsciousness. I woke much later in a dark, emptying room. At first I was lost in confusion at the new surroundings. I twitched my body and rolled to my side to stand, but didn't get far as my body stung from the rapid and unusual movement. I noticed a large rip along my side, and remembered the events that occurred in the sewer tunnels as we fled. We were chased ravenously by them. I held onto my sister and blocked out the screams of my friends and fellow victims of this war back in the fortress as they poured in. The barricade we had set up was utterly destroyed... and we had believed it would hold them. The steel woven so strongly and the materials that took days and days to build into our one sole shield and hope. It had taken so long to perfect... Though it doesn't really matter now I guess. I sat in the dark, unfamiliar room, my side stung slowly less and i went over the memory of our pitiful escape. And now, years into the future, I realise it was the first of too many times others sacrificed themselves for us. For me. I hope their last thoughts were good ones, about their family and their home. Back then, I really couldn't think about much. I had too much to think about which meant no one thing could be the subject, so my mind was more of a blur. I painfully slipped down from the bed and checked my body, which I discovered to have many cuts and bandages and bruises about it. I sat down again, not knowing if I was even supposed to leave my bed yet. For some reason I cared. Perhaps I just wanted to know because then I'd know someone was looking after me and caring, and that I wasn't alone. If there was, I wouldn't want to disobey something so simple. I lent against the bed, wondering if any one else was even there, it was so quiet. I sighed and dug my head into the thin blanket that hung down from my bed and attempted to rest a second to banish a headache that had been bugging me since I woke. After a few minutes of leaning into the sheets with a blanked mind, I made my way to the door and pulled it ajar, giving up on trying to calm the headache. I peered out of the small opening. There was a long hall, paved with huge dark marble blue slabs with white streaks like frozen lighting texturing it's shimmering skin. I could see my reflection in It as I stepped onto the cold, smooth slabs and slipped out of the room. The walls were tall and bare. Way high up, wooden beams held together the ancient, yet still stable and grand, citadel. I slowly padded along, noticing how the only doors that led off this rather long hall were the door to the room I had come from and the one I was heading to. Dull off-white lights shone through the dusty, cut and cracked window glass, illuminating the hall slightly. I figured it was either night time or still storming, as this light was a harsh, merciless and cold light. My situation may have affected my opinion of this, though. I slowly approached the door and strained to hear if any voices were outside it. I heard none, and so grasped onto the handle and pulled the door open. Immediately, a figure rose its head in the centre of this warmly lit, much more comforting room.

" Why do people say "grow some balls"? Balls are weak and sensitive. If you really want to get tough, grow a vagina! Those things take a pounding! " - Betty White

Shadowlands Shadowland I hated this time. Everything was dead and empty. The ground was dry and cracked; an attempt to starve us into submission. The waters all ran dry too, and the crops were plagued with death and we with infection. My half deformed, poisoned hound almost fit in here. I don't remember much - only hopelessness, and longing and sadness. Deprivation, and failure. I would look up and see blue ribbons streaking across the sky and i would hear thunder calling out as ice and hail broke the fortress's walls down, smashing it apart with such force. Ballistic screams would screech overhead, passing through the moonless sky, ripping apart the foundations of our home. Earthquakes rumbled by and water flooded the rooms. Shadow bathed the area for miles around. The only light came from the weapons of destruction tearing apart our sanctuary. The corpses of the servants and civilians that once served here lay scattered about half-soaked in mud. Some of my friends bodies lay among them. I witnessed it all, yet I never understood why. I still don't see why. What motive could have justified this? What belief? ... But somehow i think I'm beginning to understand. I would walk slowly down the halls left still standing, or stand leaning against a wall or pillar, eyes closed, just listening to the prayers of the people, and fall deep into their hopeful songs of pleading. A blossoming light rippling outwards in a pool of darkness, almost. Hundreds of them, coming together for one final time. It warmed me in the frozen, siege-full nights to know we weren't alone, and that at least some one would hear their final words. I listened, I heard their prayers, their thoughts, their hopes, though I never really understood. But I think I'm beginning to. I remember one night, in the very climax of the fight, I walked straight out and stood upon one of the balconies still hanging precariously onto the walls and sat watching the the bountiful conflicts, whilst hidden in a small hole made by a large marble slab that had been broken from the heights of the fortress. Not caring wether a flaming canon ball crushed my bones or if a bolt of lightning would come flying in and fry my body and break away farther at my home. There are few feelings like it - watching your home destroyed and friends killed, and knowing this is the end, and yet being totally at peace. Complete acceptance. It had an eerie beauty to it. You think so differently during times like these. Watching the dry grounds and dead atmosphere be lit up by the deadly weapons that were flying towards us in crescendos of light was calming to witness. Though, I was interrupted after awhile. A figure to my left stepped lightly, and lowly, into view, and made its way to the balcony edge. She, like me, had accepted everything. I could tell. Or maybe... Most things.