Chapter 1:  Watho

There once was a witch with a wolf inside her head, one that made her cruel, and with a thirst for knowledge that drove to experiments. One of them involved capturing two women in her palace until they gave birth to a child each.

Chapter 2: Nycteris

In a tomb-like room where no sun shone and doors were hidden, where the only light came from a lamp, Nycteris was born. In that same room, she grew up, knowing not much more than the lamp on her wall and what the visits of Watho and her servant taught her - music, art, a handful of books...

Chapter 3: Out

On a fateful night of an earthquake, the lamp broke. In sudden and total darkness, Nycteris panicked and following Watho and her servant's ways, found a door that led outside. On that night, Nycteris saw the moon for the very first time; she felt the wind and heard the trees. From that point on, she knew she was a prisoner - but she had nowhere to escape to.

Chapter 4: Photogen

The other child in the palace had been raised completely opposite, being set out in the sun and not allowed to see the night. That boy was Photogen. He was a fearless hunter and a charming young man. And when he heard word of the night, he wanted to see it for himself.

Yet when night came, when shadows surrounded him with no shining sun beyond tree leaves, so fear engulfed his heart. In his cowering faintness, Nycteris found him. In her embrace, he found safety. In his eyes, she discovered a whole new world.

The sun arrived with graceful gleam and found them both dozing off. Photogen ran off in glee towards the warmth of the familiar star while Nycteris, afraid and blinded by incandescent light like her eyes had never seen, ran off to the safety of her cave.

Days passed. Photogen longed to conquer his fear of the night yet failed invariably.  His long nights and sleepless days worsened his health until he could not leave his bed.  Meanwhile, Nycteris recalled the deathly glare of the lethal light and of the condescending not-girl that had left her with no desire to leave again. 

Chapter 5: Watho's Wolf

On her tower in the palace, Watho grew ill. And with it so grew her contempt for the experiment that had failed: the children she had raised. Thus she threw Nycteris to the outside, to be burned by the day she had yet to experience. But day came and Nycteris was not hurt. 

Photogen, who had experienced Watho's malicious company, took the shadow of night to escape her claws. In the unnerving darkness, he found Nycteris, still where Watho had left her.  Once again, they found security in one another; she was his eyes, he defended them from wild animals.  They walked all night long, with nowhere to go but away.

As the sun rose, so did Watho, who in seeing what had happened unleashed her ginger hair and cast her magic spell. A red wolf stood where she had been, large and fast and following the children's trail. 

Ignorant of this danger's origin, Photogen shot an arrow at the incoming wolf. Only once it laid dead, did Watho's form return.

Chapter 6: The end?

So Nycteris and Photogen escaped to the next town, finding there his mother - Aurora, who had escaped Watho's palace after his birth. The witch had lied, told her the child was dead. Nycteris' mother never returned from Watho's dwelling. But in her eyes, Aurora saw her own and offered her a home as well.

Thus a new life stood before the children, yet to be discovered.

ABOUT NYCTERIS