A/N: Oh look. I'm back. Finally. Thanks for all the lovely reviews from the last story. Sorry this one took so long. It was tough starting a new story...I've got a real plot this time. How grand is that? I thought briefly about writing this story from first person point of view, but realized that would limit what I could do with my other characters, so this is written just like my other story. Yay that.

Such a creative title don't you think?

Lady Ribyyn of Hadic II: Shadows

Prologue: A Silent, Unseen Shadow

Midnight. The perfect time for the job he had been sent out to do. It was dark and everyone was asleep. Not that anybody would care about him sneaking into the house of this man anyway. Nobody liked the crabby old man that lived above the common stables. That was part of the reason he'd been sent on this job. The Master didn't like the old grouch.

Shimmying up the drainpipe he clung to the stables lattice work. Though the stables was placed in the Lower City it was one of the more attractive buildings, with trellises covering the brown brick walls. Roses wove in-between the wooden webbing, giving the building a picturesque look. If he'd been a romantic he would have expected to find two star-crossed lovers spouting sonnets at each other on clear, starry, moonlit nights.

As it was, he wasn't a romantic of any sort. The very idea of it all made him sick to his stomach. He could remember his parents making dove eyes at each other when he was younger. He hadn't liked it then and he didn't like it now. Thank the gods for cloud cover.

Leaning towards the window he oiled its hinges and then slid his knife into the small space between it and the sill. A little fiddling and urging was all the window needed to swing silently open. Double checking to make sure there was no movement in the room he slipped in; a silent, unseen shadow.

His soft boots made no sound on the rug covering the old wooden floor. He bent down a slipped his knife into his boot. It traded places with a small bag of very fine black powder. He stepped closer to the old man and slipped a thick yet soft, black, leather glove over his right hand. Two more steps and he was standing next to the old grump.

He reached into the small bag, pulling out a pinch of powder and softly spreading it under the man's nose. A short break in the clouds allowed just enough light to seep through the window so that he could see the old man breath the powder in. He stepped back and watched silently.

The old man breathed. In and out. In and out. Over and over again. Soon, his breath began to slow. In and out. In and out. In and...

It stopped.

He grinned viciously. "Poor old bastard," he whispered to the old man. "Nobody will cry at your funeral." And with that he slipped out the window and into the night; a silent, unseen, shadow.

A/N: May I say, "Holy...(censored)." That was interesting. Don't ask where it came from. I was compelled to write a prologue for this story and this is what happened. :D Kinda morbid really. Tell me what you think.