Olivver

Olivver was never lucky. He was born in the valley of the dead and the wicked, where dragons fought for no cause and died for no reason. A tiny sliver of hope came in the form of a job offer, the City of Light needed expendable dragons to mine for coal and his slim frame allowed him access to the smallest crevices in the dark caverns. He soon moved into the city, found a mate and worked tirelessly, he had little treasure but a wealth of hope.

And then the cave-in happened.

There was no warning, Olivver had been chipping away at the cavern's sides when the whole world exploded. The sky rained down and the ground beneath him shook, dust smothering his senses. When it came to a halt he was surrounded by walls of stone. His lamp would soon burn through the oxygen faster than his lungs could, so he blew the flame out. The darkness enveloped him immediately. He was trapped in the pitch dark with rocks crushing him and no space to even turn around. He waited for what seemed like an eternity. Panicked, he screamed but only the darkness heard him. Soon he could hear whispers in the ringing quiet, he could see movement in the black. Something was down there with him. He held his breath and hoped to die.

The rescuers tunneled for the lost workers for days. But to Olivver it felt like forever down there, with no concept of time, counting every agonizing second. When he emerged, eyes wide, to the cheers of rescuers and standbys he couldn't speak. There was no language for the things he'd seen. The darkness had been so black it had seeped through to his skull and the walls so close that now everything seemed to loom threateningly towards him. The trapped workers were paraded through the streets and to the queen who blessed them in turn, and were then expected to return to ordinary life.

Haunted by what he heard he found it hard to adjust back to regular life. Every action accompanied by the knowledge that there was something dark out there; something other. What could be seen by the blind and heard by the deaf? Olivver was no scholar, had he been he would have known there was a name for the darkest of dark that he'd experienced. He couldn't return to the mines because of his fear and there were no other jobs available, he grew distant towards his mate and friends and his fear consumed him until he could take it no more.

He left his mate, his friends and the city behind. He ran away from it's narrow streets and tall buildings, he ran for open land where he could breath. Eventually, he found wide plains and he stopped to rest. But when it grew dark he found The Shade waiting for him; though it lived in the dark, it hadn't be born there. Olivver saw their home, the giant empty expanse that was space. Thousands of bright eyes stared down from the sky and he screamed. Running as if for his life, he escaped to a nearby wood. Here the canopy blocked out the sky and the stars but the darkness remained. Olivver then discovered the true power behind the queens blessing. His shoulder glowed with light, a bright imprint of a paw left behind. Later, he would shift his miner's lamp so it reflected the light and shone brighter.

Not many know of his existent now, few enter the forest. If they did though, they might hear the voice of Olivver singing to himself in a oddly wistful monotone. A shadow of his former optimistic self he is devoid of all hope and so so tired of being afraid. The woods protect him, but they also cage him - The Shade is waiting outside. Nobody knows fear like Olivver does, but he is no longer scared of the mortal world and that is usually enough to keep intruders out of the woods - a quiet confidence that doesn't need size nor magic to back it up. Despite this, he welcomes anyone brave enough to enter the dark woods for a time, where they can both sit and discuss their deepest fears and the existence of unfathomable darkness, though few believe his tale.

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Credits for art: SheepShape