Gryson stepped back and looked around his cave. The crystal lights reflected off every surface and radiated the place. At the bottom was a lake that shown like a thousand stars. He had a vine hammock that hang between two rocks. It was beautiful but lonely, all the mirror-like surfaces only served to remind him of his ugliness. His skin was pale-white but slowly getting his color back by living in the light. He had pointed ears and a slightly crooked nose scarred from a break, and his body nothing but skin and bones. All of a sudden he heard a scream and ran out of the cave

Her scream was high, shrill, and urgent. It rang in her ears as it bounced off of the rocks around the mountainside, and she desperately looked around as she clung to the tree, hugging the rough bark with all her might as she stood on the branch, wobbling with fear. Two wolves stood down below, continuously snarling and hitting at the trunk with their large paws. Her long, dark brown hair was a mess, tangled and knotted, bits of bushes and twigs knotted in it from while she had desperately been running through the forest on the edge of the mountain side. Her pale skin lost the only little bit of slight peachy color that she already had due to fear, and her whiskey brown eyes were wide with the fear the shook her to the core. How long have I been running, how far have I gone? Where am I, I swear this is going to be the last of me, she thought, and once more let out a shrill scream as one of the wolves lept up, nipping at the sole of her flat rose colored slippers. Her pale rose dress that came to just below her knees was torn, and ragged from getting caught on who knows what when she ran.
She glanced into the distance, praying that anyone around would have heard her. Who am I kidding? This is barren wilderness..., and just as she layed eyes on the cave, seeing but a figure in the distance, she found herself overwhelmed with fear and exhaustion, lost grip on the tree, and fainted, dropping down below.

He kept from his cave and bolted through the woods, the crunching of fallen tree limbs beneath his feet like that of a Calvary marching into battle. His worn and ragged sanders fell from his feet as he ran, after only a slight wince of pain his calloused feet quickly adjusted to the feeling. "That scream sounded human," he thought, "or at least an elf or another goblin perhap," as he ran he heard a howling and saw wolves snarling at a body lying on the ground. "NO THEY CAN'T KILL HER!" He screamed as he charged towards the wolves, not out of care for the girl, but the fact she was the first rational being he had seen in years. He got near the wolves and arched his back to howl at them. At first just the pack leader looked away from the tasty morsel of flesh in front of them, but then the rest followed suit and saw the goblin sitting there, not looking like them by any means, but somehow feeling like one of them. When the whole pack had focused their attention on him he leapt at the pack leader and ripped at the nape of his neck. As the sheer black wolf was stained crimson with his own blood the rest of the pack looked at this horrifying beast that had just murdered their leader. He snarled at them with his bloodstained teeth and they began to whimper and turned and ran. The goblin picked up the girl and cradled her in his arms. She was young, probably about the same age as him. She was definitely hurt, but alive. He smiled at the beautiful girl and carried her back to his cave, happy to finally have a friend.

She turned her head slightly as she was carried, her whiskey brown eyes just barely opening as she came for a moment to a brief bit of consciousness, and she could only briefly know that someone, a person, a being of some sort, had taken her away from the pack of snarling wolves from earlier. Just as quick as she had come to, her dark long eyelashes swept downward as she went out of consciousness again. She was much too spent to even care as to where she was going, she only had that surge of relief knowing that she was not being ripped apart by wild beasts.
When she came to, she had no idea how long it had been, and once more, she had no idea where she was. She didn't sit up right away, for she was still half out of it, so to say, still dizzy and confused. She noted the ceiling above her was not that of a house, castle, or anything that she had seen before. As her eyes came into a focus, she noted the ceiling had a rocky yet crystal appearance, lights reflecting and shimmering off of the jagged pieces of whatever the ceiling was. She let out a sigh of relief, grateful to still be alive. Her hand flew up to her head, touching at the back of her head tentatively. She knew she must have hit her head when she fell, and she knew somewhere on her legs there must be some sort of scrapes or something, since it felt like they burned or were raw in a few places. Her back was much to sore to sit up, so she simply turned her head to the side, to view her current surroundings.

He tugged on a vine, and fastened it to the rock glistening next to him. He stepped back and looked at his handiwork. A perfect hammock streched across the rocks parralel to where the other one was. What a day it had been. He went from just trying to entertain himself for the umpteenth day in a row and now he had someone he had to protect, a friend. He thought back to what it had been like to have friends back in the village, but the memories were bleak and distant now. It had been 7 years since he left, only a few details remained in his mind. Just seeing another person again felt like a new experience. He looked over and saw that the beautiful young girl had awoken. He slowly went over and knelt down next to her his eyes growing wider as the anticipation of finally having a friend grew and grew. "Hi," he said, "I'm gryson. Are you okay?"

She blinked a few times, her eyes skimming over the face in front of her, taking in the pale skin, looking back at the eyes that continuously grew wider as they stared at hers. She kept a hand on the tender spot on her head, and let her other hand instinctively roam to touch at his pointed ears, and she blinked again. Pointed ears, ears from stories of elves and goblins from childhood! Am I dreaming..., she thought to herself. Her whiskey eyes went from his ears back to his own, taking in the sound of his voice. She ran through what she could remember once more, running for miles, climbing the tree, the wolves relentlessly pursuing her even when she had climber up onto the branch...falling, and only briefly knowing she wasn't dead when she had came to, and then here she was as she came to again.
"Gryson, Gryson of where? Gryson the what? I am Rosemary Thrice of the Thrice and Waverider family, from the town of Edgewater, on the eastern shores. Well, a town it was at one point, before the great darkness came across the water and took the town and every surrounding areas. It furled through the towns, there was so much...," she paused, panicking at the thoughts and closed her eyes briefly. She sighed, and resumed, "I am Rosemary, named to be the Dew of the Sea, but there is not much to live up to anymore. Where are we?" Her eyes didn't glance back at their surroundings, she just lay in the hammock, and kept her gaze locked onto his, refusing to let go of the first person she had seen in ....how long has it been now? How long have I been running? The thought made her blink, but yet she still did not look away from him.

Gryson blinked in astonishment, both of this girl and being touched. "What a long and fancy name," he thought, "could she be part of the 'royals' i heard about in stories as a kid." "Well," he said, "I'm gryson, the hungry, of...well...here," he said spreading his arms wide to gesture the radiant cave. "Come to think of it," he said, "I have no idea where 'here' is, but its home," and he meant it, it had been a long time since he had been forced out of his home. 'Here' really was home. "I don't really get visitors here though, what were you doing out there?"

She noted his slight flinch at being touched, and that his already wide eyes widened even more at physical contact. She giggled, and then lay back down fully on the hammock. "Gryson, the hungry, of this cave, or at least, that is what I am assuming this place is? The natural crystal's are so luminescent of one another, and it must be nice to have your own source of cool water in here," she said quietly. She closed her eyes again, and stretched her legs out on the hammock, pointing the points of her little slippered feet straight out, and then relaxing again. She sighed, but it was not a relaxed sigh, it was more of a heavy and burdened sigh.
"I am not sure what it was, I just know it came from the sea. For a while, I thought it was ships sending something our way, magic maybe, weapons, I wasn't sure, but then the ships were swallowed and over turned by it. We watched it way out in the distance fore a few months, it would swallow and overturn ships, and then one day it started to gradually move close. Our little fishing boats from the countryside started to disappear and overturn into the darkness like the foreign trading ships did before. Then one day, is furled through the water to the sands of the beach, and started to swallow up the towns. As it made it's way closer, my mother and father sent me out, and sent me to a run. They would have sent me on a horse but the stables had been swallowed already, and those that would dare go into the dark smoldering clouds that made up the dark wall didn't come back. Sometimes we could hear them start to scream, but it always ended in a choking silence. So I ran, and ran, sometimes walking, but mostly running. I stopped a few times to sleep, to rest, but in all honesty after the sun setting and rising the third time, I stopped counting how long I had been moving, because I had been out of rations for eating." She stopped then, turning her head to once more look at him.
Slowly, she started to sit up, but unused to a hammock, flipped out, landing on the hard surface of the cave on her back. She whined, and pushed herself up, mentally noting how clumsy she must seem to Gryson. "Are you here alone? I see there are two hammocks here," she observed. She once again let her eyes find their way right back to his, a content quiet gaze that she seemed to settle into often.

"Well, there used to only be one hammock, then you got here, just finished building it," he said. He surveye the room proudly looking at what he had built in the cave. "Wait," he said, "did you say, the darkness?" he asked, his eyes going wide at the thought of the darkness. At first no one had thought anything of it, it was always dark in the cave so noone noticed that it had gotten slightly darker. That is until, the children started vanishing, and the crack of light. A bright flash that enveloped the whole village. The light blinded the goblins and they all ran and hid. His mother looked at him as best she could through the light and told him to run, run and never look back. "Run," he whispered. "And never look back,"

She nodded, and stood up from where she had falled from the hammock to the ground earlier. She brushed herself off, smoothing the skirts of her dress that just barely reached past her knees. It was still a pretty soft pink rose color, but had smudges from dirt, and a few rips on the sleeves that came down to her elbows. She immediately reached out and grasped at his hand, her skin soft on his, and tugged him with him as she went towards the entrance of the cave. "Come on Gryson, I will show you the darkness. I bet if we climb up the mountain a bit more, we could see it in the distance." There was no hesitation in her grasp, it was just a cool, quick movement as if she had known him for years.

He felt her soft skin grab his arm and blushed just a little, "was this normal where she's from?" He thought. He followed her outside and they turned around and looked at the mountain above them. They began to scale its craggy face and with each agonizing step they crept closer to the darkness. When they finally reached the top they saw out in the distance a blanketing darkness that covered the shore. "Sit down, I-I need to tell you something about my past," he said sitting down

If my mother could see me now, she would have a fit. Touching a stranger, from some other bloodline that I doubt is royal.The thought made her giggle, because she didn't mind at all for some reason. Maybe it was because he came to save her from the pack of wolves, risking himself when he didn't even know her. Maybe it was because she hadn't seen another living person's face since she fled from her hometown by the shore. Every step higher, she just found herself more and more anxious, ready to see where the darkness was at, how much it had covered with it's furling dark mass. Upon reaching the top of the mountain the cave was part of, they both stood and took in the vast darkness that was once the shoreline on the other side of the thick forests by the mountains.
His voice broke her gaze, and she calmly sat down, releasing his hand so she could smooth her skirt of her dress once more, despite it's tattered and dirty condition.She stretched her legs out, pushing her back against one of the jagged pieces of rocks coming out of the mountain's surface. She turned to look at him, her hands placed on her skirts to keep them from moving in the breezes that were stronger at the peak of the mountain. "Well, I'm listening," she said calmly, once again setting her eyes into a content lock on his.

When her eyes locked onto his, he felt calmer somehow, like he had known her his whole life. He took a deep breath and began his story, "you see, I'm a cave goblin, from the village of dorgashon. It...it was a happy place, a good place. Good people, good food, just a good life, but dark, always dark in the caves, only torches to light our way. Noone thought that was bad, it was how we always lived, and it didn't cause any trouble, or at least, not until the darkness came. We didn't notice at first, the caves getting darker and darker each day till one day, when i was out with my watcher, the light came. It was a bright blinding light, every began being swallowed up by the darkness, unaware of what was happening due to the temporary blindness. My watcher looked at me and told me to run, run and never look back,"

As he spoke tears began rushing down his face. "Please Rosemary," he said, "don't go back there. Stay here with me, we can build our own town, and be safe, the darkness won't hurt us here."

She looked down at her lap, once more smoothing down her skirts out of habit. When she looked back up at him, she was quiet, her face thoughtful. Her gaze left him for a moment and she stared out over the tops of the trees, passed them to where at one point you could see a blue lining of the sea shore, but now, it was just a dark line, that was almost to the start of the forest. "You used to be able to see parts of the tops of the castle, where I stayed, from the mountains, or so I was told. You can't see it anymore, and it only leaves you to wonder if it is even there anymore, behind that dark mass," she said, speaking slowly, as if thinking out loud. She turned her gaze back to him, ever so slowly this time.
"Part of me wants to go, to see if there is anything on the other side, or inside for that matter, inside the darkness. Yet part of me reminds myself that we never saw anyone return or any of the ships come back from the darkness, and fact in itself frightens me enough to stay away from it. I will stay with you, for those reasons, and for the fact that I dislike the idea of you being alone out here," she said. She had never had a moment alone it seemed, only ever when she would ask for some time alone in the bath, and her water pourers and bathroom servants would leave her be., but even that was only for a few moments here and there. "I do believe we are safe, for now, and I don't know if the darkness can scale up the mountain. How would we build a town, on a mountain?" She asked him, giving the idea a good amount of thought.

His face flooded with relief that she would stay with him. His tears turning into those of passion now to start a new life for them. "Thank you, it means the world to finally have a friend," he said. The gears in his head began clicking away though, as he pondered just how they would make a town on a mountain. "I have an idea," he said, "what if it was a small town, just the two of us. Think about it, the cave could be our inn where we each have rooms. We can each find someway to work then trade with each other. We can make this work just the two of us I know we can. It won't be easy, us having to adjust to each other, but it will work." He said fully believing every word of it. "It's getting kinda late," he said, "we should probably head back," he stood up and offered to help her up and saw she was still covered in dirt and dry blood. "When we get back to the cave I'll show you where you can wash up,then we can get some rest, its been quite the day."

"A friend," she said, rolling the word around in her mouth and mind at the same time. A friend before meant someone in a good position financially, or good standing favor, or a designated lady in waiting. This gave the word a whole new meaning. She nodded, and stood up, once again smoothing her skirt to her dress. "I dropped a bag a little ways back by the tree I fell from when I was running. Do you think we could go try and see if it is still there, try to find it? The skies look as if they might bring us rain soon. Will you help me find it?" she asked.
She waited for his response, but while waiting her eyes looked down towards the bottom of the mountain. They had climbed a great deal to get to this high, and she hoped it would be easier going down. "It has some clothes, and a few other things in it that I managed to get into my travel satchel before leaving. It would mean a great deal to me," she added. A strong breeze picked up, blowing her loose hair from behind her to where it was on either side of her face, up in the wind, as if she had walls on either side of her cheeks. She didn't bother to hold her hair down, just quietly stood there in the wind, her hands just pressed on the front sides of her skirt of her dress lightly so it didn't fly up, but only flutter to and fro in the wind.

He looked at the beautiful girl that had literally fallen from the skies to him, her hair flowing in the wind framing her magnificent face. "Of course I'll help you, come on let's go get it," and with that the pair began their march down the mountain. They were able to slide down in some parts as it was much smoother. After a few minutes they reached the bottom and began the hike to the tree. When the pair areived they saw the pack leader lying on the ground, dead from earlier, the bite marks still visible from their fight. "Let's keep going," he said shuffling her around the wolf carcass. As they kept walking Gryson suddenly tripped. He looked back at what he had tripped on and saw a satchel lying there. "Ow," he said, "would that happen to be your bag,"

She made a small sound of exclamation, and whisked up her bag and held it to her chest. The bag was a pale leather, a creamy white color, with some dirt from being on the ground. "Yes, yes it is," she said as she dusted off the dirt from the bag. "Thank you, but I am sorry you nearly fell over it," she added. She turned around, and walked over to the carcass of the dead wolf, the leader of the beasts that were so intent upon making her their supper. She nudged a less bloody part with her toe of her slipper, enough so that the whole body of the beast rolled over. "Isn't it a waste to just leave it here? Could it not be used for a night's meal?"
She glanced back at him, taking the sight of him in again, her eyes fixated on his pointed ears. She let her eyes go up some, and noted he was a good three inches taller than she was. She had always been smaller, and more petite than most people her age. She went back down to his facial features, and noticed the scar on his nose. She didn't stare at it, but more so let her eyes roll back to look into his as always.

He looked at the bloody beast and instead of seeing a ferocious monster trying to kill his only friend he saw what she saw in the beast, food. After salivating for a moment over the tantalizing meal he picked up the carcass and threw it up onto his shoulder and began lugging the beast back to the cave. "I can't wait to cook this up, I haven't had a meal this good in weeks," he said as they finally entered the cave. He took the former pack leader over to a small fire pit and set it down next to some stones. He grabbed two sticks and began to light the kindling. As a slow flame began to build he took the carcass and began to skin it over a a large basin. When he began to skewer the flesh he looked over to Rosemary and shouted out, "there is a tub a couple chambers to the left, there should be a bucket next to it, you can fill it up from the spring in there and wash off if you want," and then continued roasting the wolf.

She watched Gryson look at the corpse, and could genuinely see the want for meat in his eyes. She watched him also as he hawled the carcass of the dead animal over his shoulders as if it were nothing, and so she followed him back towards the cave. When he mentioned not eating a good meal in weeks, she felt slightly guilty for missing the foods at court when it had only been about a week for her. When they got into the cave, she watched him make the fire by his own self, with only the two sticks over the fire pit. She herself had never had to do anything like what he had just done. Her food was already cooked and on a plate by time it reached her, and she had only ever seen something being cooked in the stove or over the big brick fire pit with the pots on the stone table above it, whether it was buns baking or meat roasting in hot stews. Her changed her expression, for her eyes had grown wide with astonishment, to a cool and calm one by time he had started to speak again, hoping he had not noticed her being amazed at what was so natural to him.
"A tub, oh thank the heavens, I have missed a bath so very much," she admitted. She turned and went down two chambers in the cave, and walked into the second one to find a wooden tub, and a bucket right next to it. She noted the small wooden table that must be hand-made. She picked up the bucket, and headed back out to where Gryson was. "I'll be back, I am going to go out to the stream. That isn't too far from the base of the mountain, so will be back," she said casually. She could have gotten water from the part of the stream on the rocks, but she always liked where the rocks met the grass with streams, because sometimes there would be a waterfall. She walked out the cave, and headed down to the stream.