Orlando felt like he'd been buried for years. It might have been twenty days, or twenty millenniums, but he only knew his judgement of time had been obliterated. Likewise, his initial rebellion was quelled by the absence of light and life, leaving him cold and empty. Darkness spread like contagion, filling his lungs with plague and phlegm of bitterness.

Melora couldn't be worth this. Orlando rolled onto his side and closed his eyes, but everything was dark. The light of the sun seemed as ridiculous as the love of a princess, and as unreachable. Orlando breathed in, breathed out, and prayed in hopelessness until sleep took him.

Orlando dreamt of a rippling golden field, and in his dream, he could see the colors and feel the sunlight. The gilded grass swelled around him, swishing like the sea, and across the field, a horseman pursued a serpentine course. Orlando swept in with dreamers' freedom, circling like an eagle, then swirling like an autumn leaf.

In Orlando's bird's eye view, the horseman's head drooped and his shoulders slumped. He was barely hanging onto the horse's back. 

Orlando drew closer, and the rider raised his helmed face. Orlando's own glazed eyes stared back at him from a pinched and pallid face.

Orlando watched his second-self ride for miles across strange changing landscapes. Dust, arid desert, brush, and verdant fields all glimmered through his mind's eyes. He felt the cool breeze, inhaled the dusty dryness, and heard bird's song. It was all so clear, so real.

She can take my voice, but she can't break me...She can take everything but my soul, and I will not let her destroy me...

Orlando on the horse jerked, as from a blow, and the sun went black. Lights blazed and the din of battle waged around. Orlando found a sword in his hand, glimmering cruel and sharp. He wheeled it like a band of starlight, his enemies parting before him in waves.

And then, a cry.

"Orlando!"

He knew her voice and he saw her face, pale as the moon with hair the color of blood. Melora. Her eyes closed and she shook her head; she couldn't hear him. He felt her cry on the air like a pain in his chest. She was alone, or was this some trick of the Destroyer's?

Melora! He called with all his might, "What strength I have, let it be yours. What life I have, I would you could take it. What love I had...this is meaningless."

Despair overcame Orlando's mind and the dream faded to a pit of blackness, silence all around.

Orlando awakened, alone in the infinite dark.

It was some time later that the Destroyer returned.

"Rise, boy." Her voice cracked like a whip, dry and brittle. "Have you learned fear?"

Orlando replied in his thoughts, Only the fool must learn fear.

She laughed. "Well put, fair youth. Too bad your pretty voice is gone." She chuckled. "No matter, for I can see the words in your mind. Even now you hate me; but I see you still fear me but a little."

Orlando sat straight as he could in his chains. Why have you come?

"For you, sweet prince. Surely you are lonely and sad here alone."

Naturally. Orlando smirked, then wince as his lips cracked from the dryness. Man was not meant to be alone.

"All the more terrible for you." The hissy crackling voice slipped nearer. Orlando saw a flicker of light, a haze, and he made out the crone's misshapen figure. She hobbled even closer, until he could smell her rancid breath over the dank rot of his prison.

If you mean to torment me more, know I will not give way. He could not be weak, even in his thoughts.

The hag's croon blew a new gust of bad air into Orlando's face. "Still so defiant, but you've spent little enough time here. Know you what time has passed since last you gazed on the outside world?"

Orlando shook his head. A millennium?

Her laughter crowed triumphant. "Nay, my child, but a small space, a mere week. And you are forbidden by enchantment to die, but must live alone in this darkness forever."

Orlando sighed. So be it.

The crone shook her head. "My poor chick. I could ease your pain, I think." She slipped and swam before his eyes, like a crumpled painting. Her shape smoothed and changed. Her angles became curves, her stoop gone, her skin ivory satin, her hair waving silver, and her eyes—such eyes as had ruined Troy. Velvet blue, violet or starry grey, they held Orlando with mesmerizing softness.

"So you see, my child, I can take any shape I will." Her voice was silken as her new skin, as soft as her limpid gaze. She crept closer, her moonlit locks brushing Orlando's face and filling his mouth with the scent of earth and flowers.

Orlando gagged and shook his head. Witch. He felt his revulsion as through deep water, murky and distant. Leave me be.

The Destroyer laughed, a bell-like peal, and changed once more. Her silver hair reddened to a sunset's dying blaze and her eyes flashed a saucy green. "Orlando, I'm here as well." Melora's voice, down to the peculiar way she clipped her words, all in a rush, as if she had to get them out before she thought better of them.

Orlando flinched and closed his eyes. Stop this!

"I am Melora," said the Destroyer, tapping her foot in annoyance. "Orlando, why don't you recognize me? You're the stupidest man I've ever met." 

A perfect copy of the princess. Down to her impatience with him.

Orlando glowered at her and shook his head. You can't fool me.

The Destroyer shrugged. "Do I have to? I'm as much Melora as– " Her lips curved in a sly smile, "– -as she is now." With that enigmatic remark, she faded from sight and left him in the darkness.

Please, he pressed his head to the slime-covered walls, please, God, what did I do? More of this and I'll go mad.