#thedark

   Deep within the heart of the world, off in an untended corner that no one dares acknowledge by word or thought, is a palace. There the sky is always the black of night without stars, and the land slopes downward. For the most part, it’s all battered rock with the occasional bare tree and scraggly patch of brown grasses that whisper to themselves in a wind that never stops.  

   Amidst all this, the palace seems out of place. The palace, you see, is absolutely beautiful.  

   Oh, it’s built out of black stone with sharp towers that stab the sky, but it is an extremely graceful building that seems to sing of secrets and knowledge and comfort and power.  

   Always remember that. The Dark has a beautiful covering.

   The inside of the palace is just as beautiful too, smooth floors and walls, libraries and sitting rooms, ballrooms and hidden nooks. Everything a person could want.  

   There is only one inhabitant of the Black Palace though. There are, of course, those who visit the palace, thinking that within they will find whatever it is they want, those who listen to the song of the palace and come seeking secrets and power.  

   That’s the funny thing about the palace though. If a person tries to read the books in the library, they will all be blank. The sitting rooms will be full of furniture that jabs and cuts, and the ballrooms will forever be empty and echoing. The hidden nooks will become places to hide from yourself, and the smooth floors and walls will lead you in circles until you waste away into nothingness.  

   No, the only living thing in the palace is the Dark.  

   He himself matches the palace. He is tall and made of nothing but darkness stretched over bones, like a monster wasted away by famine. His limbs are long.  His fingers and toes are the same, both tipped with claws sharper than regret, and from his back stretch great bat wings. From his head spiral thick horns, matched by silver shaggy hair, like the top of a lion’s mane. The Dark’s teeth are sharp, and his eyes are a solid black, with only a ring of silver to mark the difference between iris and pupil.

   All the day, or what passes for it in a land of constant night, he walks his halls like a tiger on the prowl. He stands and whispers to the wind, who carries his words out of the world’s heart into the ears of humans. The Dark sits in his chairs that jab and cut and creates dark designs that he sends into the world to wreak havoc.  

   He finds pleasure in his solitude, in this horrible, miserable life.  

   Then one day, everything changed.  

   The Dark was sitting in one of his chairs, carefully weaving a plan based on prejudice, quite pleased with how it was coming along. Then a light, curious voice asked,

   “What’s that you’re working on?” The Dark whipped his head up, for even in this place that he ruled absolutely he had not known of anyone’s approach.

   In the doorway stood a girl.

   She was as white as he was black, the color of clouds on a bright day, pearls from the sea, the full moon on a clear night. Her hair was a long wispy affair that drifted about her like mist in the mountain morning, and she appeared as delicate as that same mist. She was small, looking like nothing more than a young child. But what kind of child wound up in the Black Palace?

   “I do not see how it is any of your business,” he replied slowly, thrown off guard for a moment.  

   “Well that’s not very nice,” she laughed. She crinkled her nose, danced over to where he was working and snuck a look at the paper he had been writing on before he snatched it away with a snarl.  

   “And that really doesn’t look very nice,” she said. The Dark glared at her coldly.  

   “While you are here, little girl, it would be wise to leave me be.” He stood up and swept out of the room.

   It did not matter who this strange girl was. She would soon waste away like all the others.  

   The Dark smiled at the thought.

   But, much to his dismay, the girl did not waste away. In fact, she seemed to thrive.

   Soon, every moment the Dark was pestered by questions, and the little girl followed at his heels, talking incessantly.  

   “JUST LEAVE ME BE,” he roared at her one day. She started back and seemed to shrink into herself slightly.

   “I’m sorry,” she apologized, “Am I bothering you?”

   “Yes, very much,” he hissed at her.

   “Oh.” The girl hesitated for a second before darting away. The Dark sighed in relief, rubbing his head before walking into a sitting room. He had finished his plan of prejudice and was currently working on one with hate. It was not going as well as he would have liked, thanks to the girl bothering him non-stop.  

   Hours later he walked into one of his libraries, looking for a book.  

   The Dark stopped dead and stared in amazement.  

   The girl had taken the books, which were all blank to her, and, lacking any sort of pen or pencil, begun to tear out pages and fold them into all sorts of fantastic creatures.

   “Oh, hello!” The girl said cheerfully, looking up and seeing the Dark standing there.  

   “What.” He said with all the cold, crystal clarity of clear winter ice.

   “The animals? Well, all your books were blank, there was nothing to write with, and I had annoyed you, so I thought I’d make you a present.” The Dark stared at her for a long, silent moment before turning on his heel and walking out, wings rustling behind him.

   So the time passed. Not the days, for the sun never rose on the Black Palace and the sky never grew any lighter, but time did pass. The girl kept aggravating the Dark, distracting him to no end.  

   His plans remained unfinished.

   The wind no longer carried his whispers into the world.

   His plotting ground to a halt.

   The darkness grew a little less dark.

   The Dark finally moved almost exclusively into the tallest tower of the palace. There he lived in relative peace and quiet for a while, because the girl had never thought to climb the steps that led to it. He spoke with the winds and wrote plans of destruction.

   “Thank goodness she doesn’t come here,” he muttered to himself.

   Until one day, she did.

   “What are you doing now?” she asked curiously of the Dark where he stood talking to the wind, his back to her. He stiffened and so, so slowly turned to face her, fury in his eyes, wings spread wide.

   “Why,” he asked with a very deliberate tone, “are you here.” The girl blinked at him, baffled.

   “Well, there’s no one else to talk to in the palace.”

   “No,” the Dark said in that same tone, “Why are you here in the Black Palace as a whole.”

   “Oh!” the girl said, her confusion vanishing, “it was such a dark place here, I thought I’d come and see if I could brighten it up.”

   The Dark stared at her. That stare had reduced the strongest of people into shivering balls, made mountains tremble.  

   The girl just smiled cheerfully.

   “I like this place just as it is,” he said through teeth that were ground together.  “If your intent is to introduce some...light,” he said the word as others would say death, poison, or murder, “then get out of here and never come back.” The girl looked at him thoughtfully.

   “No,” she said softly, “I won’t.”

   The Dark stared at her.  

   In all the immeasurable years that he had been, no one had said no to him.

   “I am Rage,” he told her, “I am Misery.” With each name he stepped forward and behind him the dark grew until it blanketed the walls and seethed like the sea in a storm and his voice grew until it was the clap of thunder directly overhead. “I am Torment! I am Regret! I am Grief! I am Murder and Envy and Pride! I am the Bitterness that drives you to madness, and then I am the Insanity that chokes your thoughts like a noose! I am Gluttony. I am the Prejudice that drives humanity apart, and the Hate that festers in the gap! I am War and Violence! I am the apathy of the Ignorant. I am Fear. I am the Temptation that leads you down thorn-covered paths until you can no longer see the way out! I am the Unknown that makes men tremble at night! I am the Darkness of Every Soul! WHO are YOU to say no to ME!”

   And that little girl,

   made of pearls and clouds and moonbeams and mist,

   as delicate as a lullaby hummed in the night,  

   stood before the Dark-of-the-Soul with all his power raging behind him,

   and did not flinch.

   She did not back down, did not cower.

   She looked the dark straight in the eyes and gave a little smile.

   “I am Hope.”

   And the mass of the Dark’s power vanished away, broken against that little girl like a wave against a rock.

   And for the first time since the Beginning of it all, the Black Palace stood witness to a dawn.

   The Dark bowed to Hope, for he had no power over her.

   He never has.

   He never will.

  To this day, Hope resides in the Black Palace. The Dark still sends out his whispers and plots and lures people to the palace, but now anyone who stumbles there only has to ask for help and Hope will guide them out. And even in the utter darkness of the Black Palace’s nights, she provides light in the Dark.

   So the stars whisper,

   on winter’s nights when the moon is gone,