The Pull of Eventide

Erin Nightingale

It comes. The words awoke it. They were inside it, around it, Darkness speaking with the

mouth of creation. Arise, Night.

Called into being, the Dark entity, Night, clambered to its feet and stood upon a surface.

What comes? it asked the voice. Even as it asked, it felt the approach. Something was burning its

way through existence, causing Darkness to recoil and flee. It left change wherever it went, and

nothing could be done to halt its progression. Night feared it.

The enemy, Darkness responded. It claims our kingdom; it tampers and distorts creation.

It must not have dominion over what is ours. End it. Kill it. Destroy it.

The entity believed Darkness; it could feel for itself the way the invader passed through

and transformed creation. It stepped forward on the hard, uneven surface, but stopped in the next

moment. Darkness was speaking again.

I have formed you to do what I myself cannot, it said. The very nature of your existence

shall prove this to be so. But know that you are nothing without me. Remain faithful, and all my

power and more may be yours.

A living heat churned within the entity, and it smiled. Pleasure. This was pleasure. In

flexing them, the entity discovered its arms, its hands, its fingers. Was it as powerful as Darkness

said?

I shall go, it said.

It moved through Darkness, following something inside it that told it where the invader

was. It could feel the attacks on Darkness growing stronger with every step it took.

It walked on until it could go no farther, but all was unchanged. It sensed the continued
approach of the brutal outsider but could come no closer to it. Where was it? How might the

entity reach it? It turned its face upward and clenched its fists.

Reveal yourself! it challenged the intruder. Come, face me!

Patience, Darkness whispered. It comes.

Existence thrummed with silent anticipation. Night felt what there was around it--this

immense, becoming space--charged with fear and impatience to match its own. It didn't know

what the newcomer would bring, but it knew it would not be pleasant. It could hear the far-off

screams of dying Darkness as the presence pushed closer, ever closer. Whatever could cause its

creator pain like this was something that required a swift end.

The screaming drew nearer as the invader ripped through the fabric of space. The entity

tensed itself in preparation for the coming battle. It opened its eyes. Saw its first sight of the

coming invader, still afar off. Saw the thing that did not make sense, the thing that should not be.

And braced itself for unstoppable pain.

The invader descended in a matter of seconds. Light flooded every corner of creation,

forced itself into the smallest crack and crevice. The entity was powerless against its might.

It dove behind a small rise in the land, watching in horror as it came. The overhead void filled

with white, burning hotter and hotter and hotter, bringing everything into stunning relief. What

was there was brown and grey and hard, but the entity couldn't care less.

Heat pressed it into the ground until it began to suffocate, until it felt it would be pressed

back into nonbeing, back to how it had been before Darkness had called it awake. It couldn't bear

the thought. Hurt, invaded, exposed, it pushed itself up on its hands, forced itself against the

agonizing light, and screamed.

Its resonating, animallike howl brought back the stillness of before--the blessed
opposition that had been its birthplace. It felt the strength that dwelt within itself and used every

reserve of it to counterattack its omnipresent enemy. In that one, wordless shriek, Darkness

roared back against its blinding assailant, heaved against its massless mass, dug claws of cold

fury into its all-encompassing existence, and began to flood outward from this organized place.

It was instantaneous. Finally on equal footing, Light and Darkness began to battle in earnest. The

void they occupied, which extended far beyond what the Dark entity could sense, swirled and

mixed until neither force was distinguishable, until every part of existence was suffused with a

strange, indigo merger: the eternal and all-pervading Eventide.

The Dark entity panted as it arose, blinking in the dimness. Even the indigo felt like

pebbles in its eyes, and it pressed its hands over its face to create a haven of Darkness.

Darkness. It could hear its progenitor's silent war efforts. Now so closely pressed together, both

forces continued to scream in pain and enmity within Night's mind. It knew that the only way to

put an end to this suffering was to do as Darkness had said. It must get rid of Light, force it back

to wherever it had come from. Only then could the entity be free.

Darkness, it said again in its mind.

You please me greatly, Night, its creator whispered. Now go. Do what you must.

Night knew it must make another attack on Light, but was unsure how to do so. Peering

between its fingers, it turned and surveyed its land for the first time. It was a rocky wasteland of

hills and ridges, interspersed by rushing, silvery liquid. Night turned to face downriver and

cringed. Its eyes seared with pain.

A column of white radiance swirled atop a nearby hillock, twinkling hypnotically in the

twilight. Night felt an immediate urge to seize it and extinguish it in a flood of Darkness, but the

Light pushed him back. It took everything the entity had just to take one step toward it. Even as
it watched, the pillar coalesced into a figure. A being. An entity of Light.

It was that moment, when the Dark entity beheld the Light one, that he knew he himself

was male. There was something about the Light entity, something soft and unspeakably pure,

behind her potent physical beauty, which bespoke her unadulterated femininity, and the Dark one

knew instinctively he had been born to oppose her.

She was a creature of colored Light. He was a vacuum of achromatic Darkness. She had

come to transform everything she met. He existed to reclaim his own. She looked at him, and her

rosy face became home to a dazzling smile. Her blue and gold eyes glistened with happiness. He

looked upon her coldly, this insipid canker that had ruined his world, and he knew at once his

destiny.

His hands fell from his face, and her naked light scorched his eyes and skin, causing him

to groan in anguish. Holding his fists before him, he stalked slowly towards her, every part of

him literally repulsed by the action.

"I am Day," she said. "Who are you?"

She did not move away as he approached her, but faced him evenly with her hand on her

hip.

"Go away," he growled.

She looked around, her sheet of silvery hair swishing about her hips. "I'm sure I would,"

she said. "If I had anywhere to go. Sadly, Light left me here, and now a world is forming around

us. I'm already too used to this atmosphere to leave."

The Dark entity snarled.

"I am Night, son of Darkness, and I command you to leave!"

He stomped forward, ready to shove her, to beat her, to do what he had to do to get her away,
when without a word she thrust her hand into the Light that surrounded her and withdrew a

gleaming sword that danced with fire. She swung it defensively in front of her. Night halted in

his tracks. He had never seen a sword, of course, but he could tell by the blade alone that it was

meant for destruction.

"I am Day," she proclaimed again, "daughter of Light, and I tell you that I cannot leave."

It was then that he became aware of his own aura for the first time. A thick outline of

uninterrupted Darkness. Enraged, he reached within it and pulled out a sword to oppose hers, a

heavy broadsword with an icy, pitch-black aura to match his own.

"Then may this blade return you to nonbeing," he rasped, and swung with all his might.

Day parried, defending herself from his attack. And so continued the eternal struggle of Light

and Darkness.