Natanstrelle was unrecognisable to anyone who dwelled there before the darkness came. The streets were emptied. Tall, dark shadows lurked at all corners and family symbols were dimmed to blackness. Natanstrelleans didn't dare to leave their homes. Some even took the measure of remaining in only one room of their house, as they were too afraid to let their loved ones out of their sight; even if only a thin wall would be dividing them.

Vicora and Celeste had to go into hiding. Pugnum knowing their connection to Astrid meant they were high up on Noir-Astra's puppets' hit-list. They fled to a cave within the Aurora Valley beyond the outskirts of Natanstrelle. 

The three Slànacus sisters would camp out there with their grandmother when they were young. They stayed in a small cave, its entrance surrounded by twisting vines, green, soft leaves and beautiful orange and yellow blooms of the Aurora flower - that only grew upon that specific land. Nobody knew whether the valley was named after the flower or vice versa.

The two sisters protected that cave and a bit of land surrounding it. This was so that they could live off the various plants and the creatures in the river, during their time there. Vicora also managed to take her enchanted mirror, so that they could keep updated by others hiding in the city and also with Naomi at Strelle Forest.

Plucking white and pink daisies from the grass. Amber handed tiny flowers to her mother, who wove them together masterfully to create a daisy chain. Amber's eyes lit up at the skill that she witnessed and cheered and giggled as the chain was lifted over her red, bouncing curls and placed around her little neck. 

"Do you like it?" Astrid asked with a loving smile.

"I love it!" her three year old daughter answered her with a small voice that rang like a little bell.

Astrid laughed and held her arms out for a hug. Amber leapt into her embrace. She then saw her father leaving the cottage over her mother's shoulder.

"Daddy! Look! Look what Mum made me!" she squealed whilst tearing herself away from Astrid and galloping up to True. She posed with her hands behind her back and her chest pushed out. 

"Oh, that's a beautiful necklace, my love," he responded, crouching down to get a better look. He then scooped her into his arms and got back to his feet.

"Is Naomi still speaking to her sisters?" Astrid asked from her seat on the grass, in the small front garden of the cottage. 

"No, just finished. Things are still very much the same. Everyone is still in hiding, nobody new has been taken. Vicora and Celeste are still doing alright." 

Astrid nodded once and looked down at her bent knees that she brought slowly to her chest. 

"We're doing all we can, Astrid, there's nothing else we can do," True tried to reassure his wife as he became aware of her guilty demeanour.

"No. There has to be something. There has to be a way," Astrid mused sadly into the off white, summer dress that covered her knees. The wildflower pattern matching that of the dress that her daughter wore. 

True set Amber down and crouched beside his wife.

"Please, Astrid. Don't do this to yourself. This is not your fault and it is not your responsibility."

"Then whose is it? Somebody needs to do something True. People can't live like this. Natanstrelle can't stay like this." 

True put his arm around Astrid's shoulders and pulled her towards him.

"I know. My Astrid, I know," was all he could say in response. It, of course, did not settle his wife's thoughts, nor did he think it would - he simply didn't know what else he could say.

"Mummy?" Astrid heard her little girl's voice and hurriedly wiped tears away from her eyes. She then shook herself out of the net of depression that managed to bind around her slouched shoulders. 

"Come on, let's go and find Mimi," she said to little Amber, then clumsily got to her feet, making True follow her movement. Then held out her hand for Amber to hold. All three of them then made their way to the cottage's front door.

Gentle chirping was the only sound that could be heard within Strelle Forest that night. The air was still and the atmosphere was peaceful. 

A subtle orange glow pressed against the calm shadows from the living room window. All conversation, between the three Strelle dwellers, faded like the flames of the fire they ritually congregated around. Amber was now tucked up cosily in her bed that her father built and placed lovingly in his and Astrid's bedroom.

Once the last ember within the fire died out the three decided to retire to their rooms also. True went straight to his room, that he now shared with both his wife and his daughter. Astrid picked up the cocoa mugs to take to the kitchen and insisted that she didn't need help to wash them. So Naomi made her way to her room.

The light orb, built within the walls of the cottage sensed Astrid's presence in the kitchen and lit up the room so that she could see what she was doing. She filled the sink and scrubbed the three mugs. She took in the peaceful calm of the quiet night that Strelle Forest provided for them. 

"Astrid…"

A strange whispering voice sounded in the still air. It was so quiet that Astrid thought that she was just hearing things, and so, ignored it. But it whispered again.

"Astrid…"

"Naomi?" she called through to the empty living room. However, she knew this voice didn't belong to Naomi or True. It sounded familiar, but she couldn't put her finger on it.

"Astrid…"

That sound gripped her focus and drew her to the front door. She opened it and followed the sound. It guided her through the darkened trees. Each step the voice grew louder and louder. She stumbled amongst the tree roots until she reached the lake, where True proposed to her all those years ago. 

A glimmering light, twinkled on the surface of the water that lay just a few feet from her. 

"Astrid!" the voice called from the water.

"Yes? I'm here." she answered the mysterious sound. 

Then, a face, lit up by the light, appeared under the water's undulating surface.

"Luchinda?" 

"Astrid, I saw it. I saw. My dear niece, it is to happen. We're running out of time!"

"Slow down, what's going to happen?" Astrid asked her aunt's reflection in the lake.

"Oh, my dear, I'm sorry, I'm so very sorry," Luchinda's words shook with emotion.

"What is it? You're not making sense."

"I saw, in the smoke, your eyes growing dark. My dear, Noir-Astra, he is coming, he will catch up with us and he'll take you!"

"When?" Astrid's voice began to reflect her aunt's panic.

"The prophecy, my dear, it's coming true!"

"Luchinda, when?" Astrid yelled in fear. But her aunt gave no answer. Her face faded and a thick black smoke covered the lake's surface. 

"No…" Astrid uttered taking a few steps back, not taking her eyes off the building shadows. She desperately searched for Naomi's land markings, ones that she knew stood by the lake. But they were gone. 

Before she could run, she felt many hands grab her from every direction and before she could scream she felt herself being pulled into a dark abyss.

Then, the lake was silent. There was no trace of the shadows or Astrid. 

They had taken her.

Astrid found herself in complete darkness. She could feel something tied tightly around her head, pressing into her eyes. She struggled against the bondage that trapped her hands and her feet, keeping her prisoner.

"You can struggle all you like, you won't be able to get free." A sinister voice tickled her ear. She snapped her head to the side, towards the direction it came from. She knew that voice. Despite a difference in pitch, she certainly knew that voice.

"Pugnum…" Astrid said under her breath.

A piercing laugh enveloped Astrid's ears.

"Well, it seems there is no need for introductions." 

"I prefer to look at people in the eye when greeting them," Astrid muttered as she pulled at her binds.

"Oh, I'm sorry, but I cannot grant that. We can't risk you pulling that trick you did a few years ago now can we?" he responded mockingly, prodding sharp fingers into each of her covered eyes. 

Astrid recoiled awkwardly into the back of the black swirling throne that she was trapped in. She took a couple of deep breaths to compose herself.

"What have you done, Pugnum?" The pity that attached itself to her whisper clawed at Pugnum's mind. His eyes burned holes into her, but he didn't say a word.

After he had failed to answer her for some time, she decided to change tact. The wicked smile that curled his lips began to falter as Astrid's pity turned into an air of indifference.

She straightened herself in her seat and boldly asked, "How does it feel?"

"What?" 

"How does it feel, now that you've become everything you have ever hated?"

"What are you talking about?" Pugnum spat out his question into her blind-fold covered face. He could feel Noir-Astra warning him against getting sucked in.

"You never let me forget about the prophecy, about what had been said about my connection with Noir-Astra. The girl who has Noir-Astra in her eyes. Oh, how things have changed!" Astrid accused with a smirk.

She then felt a hard object crash against her face. Her ears rang and a metallic taste seeped through her teeth. The pain she felt was beyond anything she had ever felt before. After being hit, by what felt like a club, she felt a rush of cold air. 

Pugnum was thrown back by Noir-Astra who then chastised him for losing his temper so quickly.

You are supposed to be getting into her head. Not trying to kill her! Noir-Astra's rumbling voice echoed around his mind. She is the key to our success!

I can't do this! She knows how to get to me! Pugnum defended himself, desperately.

Pathetic! She's just a girl! Noir-Astra hissed. Pugnum then witnessed his possessor step forward inside his darkened mind. 

Noir-Astra made Pugnum move menacingly back towards Astrid and bend down to her level. 

"My child. My daughter, conceived through trickery and hate. You are mine," Noir-Astra made Pugnum's mouth say. 

"No… I am not yours. I'll never be yours!" Astrid argued, Noir-Astra watched her stubbornly feign courage.

"I am all you truly have. I am the only one you can truly trust." Noir-Astra declared over her. "I would never lie to you, never trick you, never abandon you. I made you."

Astrid shook her head. The tightness of her lips showed her determination to stay strong.

"Can you really trust those around you? Natanstrelleans told to fear you, to hate you," Noir-Astra continued to use his silver tongue. "Those people are sheep. Clueless sheep, who blindly follow anything written and marked with a royal seal. That seal that they scorched your skin with the moment you were born!"

He noticed her wince in her restraints and carried on speaking, knowing his words were beginning to take effect.

"See? You can't trust any of those hypocrites! An aunt who led you into my very hands. A guardian who takes away her protection, so that I can get in. A husband who doesn't even come after you." Noir-Astra revelled in his words. 

Astrid's shoulders then began to slump in defeat, and so he moved quickly. He didn't want to waste this moment of vulnerability. He gripped the blindfold and ripped it off her head. 

Astrid looked into his eyes - those black chasms floating eerily towards her. She couldn't blink, she couldn't move at all. The darkness entered her eyes, slithering like a black snake made of smoke. It gripped onto her, piercing through into her mind. Astrid's screams of pain shattered the air within that dark, damp cave.

Then silence fell.

Astrid's head slumped down heavily with her ebony hair hanging down, cloaking her face.

Her bonds were removed, though she didn't move from that throne. Her fingers curled and clawed at the arms on which they rested. She swayed slowly from side to side as if in a trance.

"My child," Noir-Astra addressed her.

Slowly, her head then lifted and her long strands of dark hair parted like curtains on a stage to reveal the shadows that had now taken over her eyes.