Growing up, she'd believed in creatures of the supernatural and mystical sort. While she had always been told by her dear mother that there were no such things as monsters or fairytale creatures, when she was so young and so full of wonder and a wild imagination, they had allowed for her to pretend. As per the typical childhood upbringing (or at least typical for her generation, she couldn't speak for what things were like before, how could she?), as a little girl Beylani's mother would often read her bedtime stories of faraway kingdoms beset by dragons, of knights in shining armor that would ride in on proud and noble steeds to save those woeful princesses and together they would ride off into the sunset and towards their happily ever after that waited somewhere beyond the horizon. When she had been little, she had believed in unicorns and fairies as most children did in their attempts to make sense of the world around that they still didn't quite fit together in that youthful logic. After all, how could a mind so naïve understand that rainbows came from rain and sunlight, not some sort of magic kept secret by unknown forces? And then, of course with Halloween there were ghosts and ghouls, witches and vampires, but she had always been assured that it was all simply for spirit of the holidays and that such beings were not of the real world, only existing in children's' imaginations. At first, she hadn't believed her parents, often playing in a world of imaginary friends and make believe and as a child this had been perfectly normal (right?). She'd always been told she had a very active imagination that could rival that of great storywriters, but as the years came and went she began to learn the truth about how life â€" the life she had known before tonight â€" really worked. As she became older, those monsters she hunted in the closest became more and more jacket-like. As time passed, those horses in the pasture on her way to the school bus began looking less and less like they could be unicorns in disguise. Eventually, as with most when they reached a certain age, magic eventually became the myth her parents had told her it was.

Well, they were very much wrong as it turns out. She was caught somewhere between disbelief and fascination at the winged man that sat there upon that thick limb of the old oak tree, hardly being able to bring herself to believe that what she had imagined in her childhood might not have been as farfetched and impossible as the blue eyed blonde had been convinced to be sure of with every year she gained in wisdom. Looking at him now, heart racing in her chest, everything she'd known upon moving to the bit city of Sacrosanct was shaken to the ground and reduced to shattered pieces like glass hitting the concrete. Were there others like him? Where did he come from? What exactly was he? There were so many questions that she could feel rising within her thoughts. Then, the darker thoughts began to surface... He certainly didn't look like some sort of fallen angel. Those large, leathery wings that currently hung in a seemingly relaxed manner very much having an almost wicked appearance like something out for a horror movie. Yet what perhaps kept the fear just beneath the surface when it should have already overwhelmed her was the way he seemed. There was something about him, the way that his body seemed at ease propped up against the sturdy truck of his current resting place, something in the way he seemed to be almost enjoying The very first light of morning that just didn't seem dangerous... yet. However, the question that eluded her that likely would have crossed any other person's mind when seeing such a sight did not find her: Was he kind or cruel? And if he were cruel, what would he do to her? There was no way in this world or the next that she would be able to defend herself from an attack, and she would truly be at the mercy of this winged man - if even he were capable of such a thing. She knew she should run, run like she never had before in her life back to the safety of her car. She knew now that she'd been foolish to have thought coming out here in the dark hours of the morning and she wouldn't have anything to fear, and yet there she was, frozen in place. Like a deer in headlights, and he was the black Mercedes.

All these thoughts that flickered so fleetingly through her mind as she tried her best to free herself of the increasing fear that kept her there just like in the scary movies she'd seen in the past are brought to a sudden and screeching halt as he jolts upright from his lounging place and immediately begins searching the area, a clear indication that this sudden change was the result of just how frighteningly loud the sound of her camera was in such dead quiet. In seconds, he finds her. Even in this darkness, she can feel his eyes upon her skin and blood turns to ice in the moment she realizes that there was no point in running now. Her heart begins to hammer wildly in her breast and yet in the same moment she feels as though she can hardly breathe. Mere moments later, he leaps down from his place in the tree and wings snap open to break the fall and in one powerful stroke of those bat-like appendages he is rushing towards her, everything seeming to move in slow motion now. This was what it felt like, to be so stricken in fear that even if she were to try and call for help her voice would surely fail her. She can feel her slender frame beginning to shake beyond her wished to remain strong in the face of what could only be thought of as her final moments in this world. His wings expand quickly to their full size as he drops now the forest floor only inches before the young woman and she realizes just how small she really is. He towers over her as it was, but with large leathery wings behind him and reaching over his head and just barely brushing the greenery at his feet, he makes her feel even smaller. Now she is no longer the doe and him the black sports car, but rather she is the mouse and he the cat. He wears a calm about him as he seems to brush a speck of dirt from his shirt and she is able to see just how... handsome he was. Sure, the last thing that should dance across her thoughts is how, despite the darkness that hung just beneath those hazel eyes, he was the farthest thing from a grotesque monster borne of the shadows and nightmares. His gaze falls to her camera and a brow raises as she brings her passion to her chest to rest against her rapidly beating heart. He gives her a devilish smile and when he speaks through a voice like silk tainted with venom, all she can do is look up at him with those baby blues wide in silent terror. She wanted to be brave, but how could she be when he clearly had her easily overpowered and feeling so very vulnerable?

His second string of richly, quietly usher words hold a much more lethal note to them and she feels her grip tighten on her camera but quicker than she could ever hope to have time to react or counter, strong hands lunge forward and he tears it away from her with frightening ease."No! Please -", she goes to say as she wants to beg him to spare the one possession she that she loved with such a large part of her, suddenly freed from the clutches of terror as her heart drops in her chest when she reaches out in vain for it. Before she can say anymore, he takes the card in his hands and crushes it like nothing, without even a fleeting moment of hesitation in that single action and it falls into the grass beneath them. He speaks again, this time grasping the camera and she can feel the threat of tears trying to surface but she forces them down. She can hear the camera creak and crack and soon it is no more than a crushed soda can in his hand and that fear she should still very much feel (and surely still does yet perhaps in thus very moment she is numbed to it) changes to heartbreak."My camera...", she whispers softly, the devasation written clearly over the fright in her face as she almost whimpers. She is crushed completely and it covers all the fear she felt seconds ago. The one thing she cared so much more - though not as much as she loved her family and feline companion or course - and it was shattered right before her very eyes. And she was unable to do anything about it. He shoves it back into her hands and she looks away from him to the broken piece of equipment that she had captured so many wonderful moments with. She holds it to her chest and again she feels those tears desperately close to breaking free but she wouldn't let them. She was scared, she was crushed, and she was terribly meager as he towers over her with wings flaring to only dwarf her further, silken words slipping past those lips drawn into a dark grin and she can hear the clear threat in each and every syllable.

She says nothing more as baby blues continue to stare in pure and utter devastation at the crumbled camera and something shifts in her. If she couldn't run, if she couldn't cry out for help, then she would just have to stand her groud. She could be dead anyway, no matter what she chose to do. She remembers how her father had always told her to stand up for herself, to never let anyone walk over her like trash or something to be cast aside like worthless junk, but she hardly believed he would want her to be defiant when her life so clearly hung in the balance. With silent finalization that even though she was scared she would not run, she lifts her gaze up to those dangerous hazel eyes of the dark being before her, beating heart still racing in her chest."I won't tell anyone, I promise... I - I'm sorry...", she answers almost in a whisper, each word spoken in genuine regret mingled with her crushed feelings as she stampers slightly in quiet fear. She draws the camera even tighter to her, nearly cradling it despite knowing that it was broken beyond repair. In all reality and through the fear, while the braver part of Beylani very much wanted to be angry with this man before her, she also knew he was right. She'd crossed the line twice over and so she couldn't really blame him for the way he acted. She wanted to tell him that all he had to do was ask her not to tell anyone of him and she wouldn't have, that breaking her most cherished belonging was hardly necessary. Besides, if she even attempted to tell another soul - if she lived through this, of course - she hadn't the smallest doubt that she would be looked at like a mental case. No one would believe her. Hell, even she wouldn't have believed herself... She is silent beneath his shadow now, small and defenseless, terrified and completely shattered as looks up at him, the decider of her fate. Yet despite the fear she held for her life and even through the devastation of losing that which was precious to her, there is the whisper of a fire that flickered within those baby blues. It was the silent courage needed to stand and face what was to come rather than cower and fall to her knees as she pleaded meagerly to be spared from his wrath. It was the silent yet unwavering courage needed to realize what she'd done was wrong and apologize even in the overwhelmingly intimidation that fell openly from him, knowing well that the one most at fault was herself and that her brash and poorly thought out choices were what placed her here before the winged man from the very beginning.

Come what may.