This is a series of somewhat one-shots that are all interconnected. I've just decided. At least I think that is what they are... I also stole some sentences from the first one for this. They kind of build on one another. Thanks for the reviews!

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There were not many in this strange land of faraway who still remembered the light. Black had become darkness, and other colors fell away to reveal shifting patterns of gray. It was with need that the creatures moved about; dreams floating around flame.

The fire cast no color on the world around them, one so harsh that not even the light caressed the leaf strewn floor. The light refused to comprehend a place such as this.

A place that danced even as it burned.

Sheathed in moonlight (for they were not truly lost, not even then), the figures, they moved, whirling howls of pain and want, arms forced away from the warmth of flesh towards the elemental heat of flame.

The sound that burst forth from their bitten lips severed the shaggy silence that previously draped the forest like a mantle. The noise was deep, resting in the belly of their guts, poor mockery of the original resounding in their hearts, but the smell was so dark… and cut so deep… it was more than want… this was need…

Flashes of unremembered light spurned across their closed eyelids in the form of broken imaginings. Still the feet moved faster, surely poised to trip, but in and out they weaved, sliding up tired dust that no longer screamed at movement.

Surely they had to stop, trapped soul deep in ever climbing not-light, from the delicious friction of skin on earth. But soon the eyes of the enraptured opened, awareness moving from earth to sky. The feet stilled as the beat grew to a low hum.

A man, one with no face, just a smudge of white framed by lengths of hair that pulled back the skin like strings of a marionette, scrambled forth over the stones. Approaching solid ground, he stood. Black boots pushed down hard against the mineral, hands held tight in fists behind a slouched frame. Unlike the unblemished surface on his travesty of a face, the hands were gnarled, rough, the finish of which must surely have been stolen from the bark of a grandfather tree.

Muscles which should have been hidden under eyebrows furrowed beneath the milky skin as a jagged overhang of membrane lifted to reveal a mouth. The voice was callous, spliced with grating tones that spewed forth spittle in the form of a hiss. “Have you found it?” Even the fire grew more feral at the resonance of such supposedly nonexistence; gone where the flickering slopes.

For was not this man supposed to be dead? Was not he cast out, cast away into what was believed to be oblivion?

This man had burned…

Yet it was the oblivion that shifted and grew, this not-substance that formed into something that should never have been.

The twitching under that pale visage told more about the man than a pair of expressive eyes ever could. He paused.

A tall beauty of a woman stepped forth from the circle of dancers, the fire throwing her features in sharp relief. “Yes, my lord. It was found exactly where you said it would be.” The terror apparent in her eyes was not lost on the faceless man.

“And Dalua?” Spit traced its way down the right side of his chin.

“Well, sir, he has… We tried but he…” Her eyes were wide and rolling, even her feet stamped like that of a frightened colt. The others stood ‘round the fire in trained silence, trying not to inch closer to its warmth. Oh, how they wished they could just remember. Still the light was wasted.

One jaggedly curved tooth snagged on the bottom of his speaking hole. “Enough. Mayhap you need encouragement to render the task complete?” His words stung.

“No. No my lord.” Her voice was a trembling drawl. She knew he could taste the fear rolling off her flesh in droves. Dropping down to slightly scabbed knees, she was calmed by the fact that it was not far from the ground should he decide to let her fall.

“Good.” He licked the uneven skin about his mouth. “Perfect.”

Using all the strength she possessed, the woman stood and fled into the dark forest. Those who had been there long knew she would not return.

One did not make a mistake here. Such things never changed. No matter how hard one wished, they never changed.