A/N: Just to let you know, I have no idea where I'm going with this. I didn't even think I'd continue it because I was out of ideas and at a dead end, which is how I feel after writing this continuation too. If I can mentally wrestle out the rest of the details of this universe though (Mythos, as always, is giving me a hard time...and you know, the plot...), I'd like to be able to make it into a long fic.

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Once upon a time, there was a monstrous tyrant; only his curiosity made him human. Each night the princess told him an unfinished tale and so continued to live to see the dawn, for a thousand and one nights.

The redsilk of her skirt crushed beneath her knees as she collapsed beside his body. He was so still—why was he so still?

"No," she whispered, tracing a blood red nail down his throat, feeling the barest quiver of a pulse, the shallowest of breath. It wasn't supposed to be this way! She didn't think—

"Foolish daughter," her father crowed, "You're as mindless as a flame. What did you think would happen when you lured him to me?"

"What's happened to him?" she asked, her voice whisper-soft and full of fear for questioning him was always a dubious enterprise.

And time stopped. One shadow stepped out of another, smiled at her, opened a portable writing desk, withdrew a sheaf of papers, and said, "His blood slowly turned to ink, he wrote himself into a story." He looked at the fallen boy, "Inexperienced" he sniffed. "But now comes the interesting part, What will you do little duck—oops! I mean raven—, to save him?"

"Can I save him?" she asked, the blue of her jewel-hard eyes softening almost imperceptibly before hardening again with a glint of fear at the thought of her father hearing her words.

"Give me your heart," the shadow-man laughed, "Is that what you thought I'd say? No, only that silly raven you think is your father wants those. Don't worry he can't hear us. No," he continued, smiling and showing her all his teeth,"I don't want hearts, I just want a story. It gets so boring where I am. Each night, you must find me a story, new and untold if you want him to live to the morning."