Three Down, Two to Go
Jan. 2nd, 2013 10:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
breezeshadowWarning: Basically all of these stories are a trigger warning for violence, pain, suffering, etc. Please ask if you want specifics on individual stories.
Title: The Stove
Genre: Fantasy
The Troops: Meander and Rose May
Status: Complete but rough
Rating: PG-13 for disturbing imagery
Summary: Some things, you just cannot forget or get past. Some things come back to haunt you...
Prompt:![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
hc_bingo Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
Author's Notes: I haven't worked with Meander in ages; it was fun to get into his head again.
He smelled and saw and felt all fire and death, and could not find a way out of it. The floor beneath him was crumpling ash, the walls were alight, and the air was thick smoke, so black he could was not sure how he could see. He staggered through the room despite his feet burning, and heard the whistling of bombs and the eerie whoosh of fireballs raining down on the city... And Rose May was no where to be found.
But that did not make sense. She had been sleeping beside him, they had both gotten out of the bed in the same frantic motion, they both were going to get the children, she was just there, just there--
Meander's heart pounded in his chest as he moved out of the bedroom -- how he knew it was that, he did not know -- and into the hallway, muttering in a language he barely knew or remembered learning. His telepathy felt all wrong, and instead of being able to sense the life of his children and wife, he felt alone, eerie emptiness, a sense that he was the last one left. The bombs that hissed overhead did not ever seem to make contact, though he knew he should hear them hit something.
His plan was to go to his daughters' room, grab them, and flee -- but his feet were not following his commands, and instead he walked past their room, down the hallway of smoldering wood, and out into the kitchen. The stove seemed to be grinning at him, roaring with life in its fire, as if it had been waiting for ages for this moment. No, no that was stupid -- it was a fire, a bombing, and the gas had lit in the stove. Why would the stove grin?
Then he walked toward it. He struggled not to, trying to dig his feet into the ground, run away, go back and find his family, something, but whatever force that ensared him had chosen this fire demon as its primary interest, and he was powerless to resist.
There was a gap in the flames that formed the grin of the devil, and upon getting so close to the flames that he felt like he was melting, Meander could see inside. There should have just been ash and fire, but instead he saw faces. All of them. His wife and their twin daughters, that man whose skin had bubbled on his face, Gareth missing more than just his arm, even Andy, fur burnt to cinders. They all looked at him with smiling eyes on dead faces, and the flames roar seemed to dull down to a haunting whisper.
Join us... Join us... Join us...
And then the flames leapt out and dragged him with a slam into the into the stove. He screamed and struggled, feeling the fire slowly boil his skin and make its way through muscle. HIs feet picked that moment to finally give up and just fall off, all ash and smoke. The more he fought, the more his limbs burned apart and began to fall -- yet he couldn't help him, even through the pain and the madness of it all--
Then when only his torso and head were left, he was small enough to be dragged through the devil's open mouth, and all he saw was death.
~~~
Meander snapped awake with a frantic scream of pain, feeling flames all over body parts that he thought he had lost. And then, in that instant, he felt instead cool air chilling his sweat, blankets clinging stubbornly to his legs, and the eerie, cackling cry of a sea bird. He tried to calm his breathing, but his mind would have none of it, and really he supposed he couldn't blame himself for that.
The bed was empty beside him, and the fear came back strong, despite the irrationality of it all. He tried to leap out of bed but found that his sheets were tangled around him, and struggled as he had in the fires, desperate to break free and find his family and assure himself that they were there, they were, they--
"Shh."
The sound came as a soft whisper, and then he felt her carefully unraveling the sheets around his legs, hands stiff from old wounds but still competent. He stared at her just to make sure it was his wife, and not just some ghost.
Rose May had sustained bad enough burns during that bombing, to be sure -- her left hand had already been scarred and stiff from a knife wound, but then the burns she got from tearing down the door separating her from her children made it look like she had shoved the appendage into oil. She had gained back some movement, but most of it was gone, while her right hand at least could still form a fist. Vague scars were on her face from the cinders, and he knew that her feet did not look much better than her hands -- but what he found most tragic was the weight she had lost and had yet to put back on. His wife had been so plump and healthy before, and while she was not emaciated, he wished he could put the flesh back in her cheeks and hips.
"Sorry for leaving. I was in the kitchen getting some water." Her voice was hoarse even at a whisper as she finished freeing him. Another remnant of that night -- smoke was not kind to someone with asthma. "Was it the same?"
He drew his legs back and reached his arms out to her, and she came over immediately. Meander hugged her close, feeling the scratchy fibers of her nightgown, the muscle beneath her skin, and most of all her warmth -- not like the flames of a fire but that of life.
"Yes." His own voice had taken on a gruffer tone after so much smoke, but then, his ability to speak eloquently had never been impressive to begin with. "With the possessed stove."
"Great Dragon, not that stove." Rose May carefully rolled over him to the other side of the bed, cuddling close to him. "Was it all the same people?"
"New addition. Andy." He rested his face against Rose May's hair, faintly smelling lavender and oil.
"Andy? He was all but untouched. That's just cruel." She sighed softly. "I woke up coughing. You seemed okay so I went to take some water and tonic. I was just washing the glass when you screamed."
"Did the girls wake?" Whenever they woke from him screaming, they were always frightened and in tears. It always felt like a knife in his stomach.
"No, I checked before coming here." Rose May coughed, but it was dry and light, not the wet horror that was common in the past. "We are not there anymore."
Meander knew that, of course. Every morning he woke up to the sound of seagulls instead of cannons he breathed a sigh of relief and gave thanks to the powers that be who watched over them. And he knew it, too, every time he went into town and did not know the language, and had to wait ashamed until someone who knew Ubiquitous arrived. He was picking up the native tongue painfully slowly, and while Rose May recognized some words from a patient she had long ago, it did not give her any advantage in learning.
The twins at least did not seem to be having trouble, and often when they had friends over, Meander would hear them babbling in the foreign tongue, often translating for him or his wife when needed. Soon they would be fluent enough to help their parents out; it seemed backwards from how it should be.
All the same, he could feel his wife's relief, and with it the associated memories. It was almost vampiric, Nur had said of his telepathy -- most humans learned to pick up words and the emotions, but he had never been taught, and so his mind had just gone toward whatever seemed best. And so when he got a thought, he also got the memories and actions with it, revealed along endless strings in a person's mind, to the point that he could imitate the voices and actions without error.
He could not teleport, though, and that he still wished he had. Rose May stirred beside him, coughing softly, and with it came the sense of her waiting -- through his nightmares, as she did nights before, for him to speak, or to just fall back to sleep, or some sort of cue so she knew what to do.
"Do you still dream?" He pulled her close as he asked, but he did not feel any change in her mood.
"Sometimes. But I try to tell myself it's all over." Rose May sighed softly, eyes half-closed. "I just wish I could impart that peace onto you."
He kissed her on the forehead. "Having you and the twins, all alive and safe, is enough. It will always be enough."
"And the possible new one in my belly?" Her voice was full of amusement, and he couldn't help but laugh.
"Well they can fit in too, I guess." Neither of them knew if she was actually pregnant or not -- for the twins she had been plenty sick for the first few months, and she was showing a few of the symptoms again over the past few weeks. But neither of them wanted to say whether it was a new child, or just lingering affects of that night, three years ago. "The twins can teach them how to speak the language, and then all three of them can make even less sense than usual."
That got her to laugh, exactly what he had been hoping for. "I keep trying to get Mykie to teach me, but she just gets mad at me for being slow. I guess that's my fault for asking Mykie instead of Alene."
"Myk gets mad at tree branches for tripping her. You really thought she would make a good teacher?" They both shared snickers at that, trying to keep it down so they didn't wake the daughter in question. Mykhaila had always had a temper, and the trauma of the fire had done little to soothe it. Luckily, Alene seemed used to it, and instead tried antagonizing her twin for her own amusement.
Meander hoped that once they were thirty or so that they would calm down. He did not have much hope for them while they were still six, though. With a sigh he kissed his wife again. "We wll figure that out when the time comes. For now we have the twins, and I have you, and that is all I will ever need again."
She smiled up at him, then coughed and rested back against him. "You know, I had been hoping this would go away eventually."
Rose May was not one for admitting weakness -- and so to hear it, calm and casual as it was, wrenched at his heart, and he squeezed her close. He did not want to give her false hopes -- honestly, he had not thought that the doctors at the wereanimal camp would be able to save her life at all, after she had collapsed barely breathing. But three years later she was still alive, had not had any recurring infections, and even may be pregnant... It was beyond his greatest hopes and most desperate dreams.
"It can stay until you are seventy years old." He whispered the words into
her hair, mostly because he was falling asleep and wasn't entirely sure he could find her face. "As long as you are here with it."
"Love you too." Her own words were soft, heavy with sleep.
And as they curled together, the seagulls crying out outside, and if he listened hard enough, the ocean waves crashing against the sand, he could forget the fire and the pain. He could forget that damned possessed stove and its ficticious victims. And he could remember that they were all alive, and far away from that world, where one night could transform a perfect life into a nightmare.
Title: Surrogate Grove
Genre: Fantasy
The Troops: Dryads
Status: Complete but rough
Rating: PG-13 for disturbing imagery, violence, slavery, general awful
Summary: When you have no hope left, sometimes being alive is the last step forward.
Prompt:hc_bingo Slaves
Author's Notes: I couldn't figure out who would enslave what in my world, and then this happened.
After aeons, they had finally reached land. Even without her vision, she could feel it, as it called softly to her, tickling her fingers. The trees, too, reached out to her, trying to offer their comforts and replace the cold ache in her heart -- but they did not smell familiar, did not feel right, and it made her long even more for home.
Around her the others were stirring as well, no doubt feeling the same things that she did. A few began whispering to each other, but she stayed silent, wishing she could see what was happening. On the deck she could hear the shouting of their captors as they bumped this strange vessel onto the land with a sickening heave, and it took all of her willpower not to vomit. They did not clean up after them, and she had gotten sick of smelling fresh puke and having to kneal in it.
It seemed like another few years before finally she heard some of the men coming down, shouting in their unknown language. By that point, she had picked up a few words -- and the one they were shouting right now meant "stand up". Weakly, she dragged herself up to her feet, feeling how wobbly her legs were and hoping it was not obvious. Others apparently were not so strong or perhaps had some fight left, and she winced at the whistle of a whip and the frantic pleads of her companions.
"Please, please, just kill me, don't make me go, please--" His frantic begging was cut off with a scream of pain, and after that everyone else also became silent.
She felt the footsteps of one of the men as he walked over to her, and forced herself to be still and silent, resisting the urge to call upon the earth. It had not worked at home, where she had felt safest; it would certainly not work wherever she was, with its odd feelings and scents. With a sharp ring the captor undid the chain that kept her attached to the vessel's wall, and gave it a rough tug, shouting something at her.
And so she walked.
Though she could not see it, she felt the warmth of the sun when they got onto the main deck, and despite herself she tried to shied away from its direct, bright rays. She heard the shriek of the whip and tried to dodge, but being unable to see it, it lashed out right on her back, and there were a few moments when the captor was dragging her before she got to her feet again. From there on she lifted her wings as she best she could to give her a screen from the sun, but still she felt her delicate skin burn.
Like before, when they were loaded onto the ship, the ground beneath her was soft and yielding, and she stumbled a few times trying to walk after so long. A few lashes helped her remember, and she hustled as best she could, feeling the foreign trees whisper to her in some eerie way that only made her feel even more out of place.
There was the creak of an old door, and then they were all herded into a cool room that smelled of blood. She knew who balked from it by the screams, and she rushed in to avoid being punished too. Their chains were dropped once they were in and smacked against her back, making her bite down on a yelp until she tasted blood. After that, she bumped into the wall a few times, trying to figure out if there was any escape -- but without her sight it was useless, and tiredly she sunk to the ground and lay her head on her knees.
After a few moments the door slammed, and she heard everyone else shuffle around, no doubt discovering the same thing she did. Someone smacked into the wall right next to her, and she nudged their leg with her shoulder, causing them to drop beside her.
"Caley." It was Regan, his voice full of so much pain, she wondered how she did not smell blood on him. "Where are we? Where are the gods?"
She had thought long and hard about both of those questions, and had not found good answers for either. "I don't know."
"I have asked for my tree's guidance, but I feel it cannot hear me anymore. And these new trees seem to only speak nonsense." His voice cracked with tears, and she wished she could at least offer him a comforting hand. "I want only to hear its voice one last time..."
The door slammed open, sending many of them scuttering up against the wall, though Caley found she had too little energy to bother anymore. The people smelled new, but talked in the same strange language, and their footsteps echoed across the floor. They walked forever before suddenly, she heard the rattle of chains and the frantic cries of some of her companions. And then the door closed, and they were gone.
Havoc broke out after that. Even Regan beside her panicked, trying to fly away, though the chains were too heavy for their wings. She heard crashes and thuds, pained and desperate cries. The cacophony was unbearable, and she put her head between her knees, trying to block out the noises from her delicate ears. She did not even know the door had been opened until she heard captors shouting over the din, their whips lashing.
Then there was a crack, one that brought back haunting memories of when she could still see. She had been tending to her tree, collecting its precious sap, when that terrible noise had gone off, and Flynn had fallen from his perch, blood bubbling out of his mouth, a hole torn through his neck. She had turned around then, already spinning, wings spread to take off, when she caught her first glimpse of their captors -- pale-skinned creatures, taller and heavier than even the strongest of them, and armed with weapons that were faster and deadlier than their crossbows. One had aimed and fired at her, blowing a hole straight through one of her wings, and then she had tumbled down...
Perhaps they all remembered, for after that shot there was no noise except for the gurgled whimpers of whoever had been unfortunate enough to take the blow. The men shouted at them, but no more shots rang out, and they were able to drag off their captures without so much as a whisper. They all stayed still and terrified even after the door slammed shut, though she did hear one brave soul drag themselves across the floor and began to comfort the shot dryad.
Caley leaned back against the wall, closing her eyes, and tried to sleep. But with the door opening and closing, it was impossible... And then someone grabbed her. They gave her an angry shove and she hustled in whatever direction they wanted, pumping into others being led with her, and then she could feel the sun again. When she tried to lift her wings, the captor slashed right through one, splitting the membrane open, making her cry out. And with two damaged wings, she had no more protection against the burn.
A high-pitched whistle made her wince, and then they were loaded onto a vessel made of wood. Instead of setting out into the water, though, it rolled along the land, sending them all tumbling off of their feet. She laid wherever she fell; at this point, it felt like hoping for balance was a pointless venture, and she'd be more comfortable collapsed on the cold, dirty, smelly floor.
Despite it all, she must have dozed, for the trip seemed so short when the door was opened and they were half-dragged, half-led back out. The air felt cooler than where they had boarded, and the sun was not so cruel; and furthermore, she could feel the trees. They were not so foreign as the other ones, and she could almost understand their whispers. It was enough familiarity to give her hope, but too different to be comfort.
They were hustled into a damp shed, where their chains were broken off and they were allowed to move their arms and hands for the first time in months. She barely had time to enjoy it and feel the damage on her wings before she was grabbed by the shoulders, forced up against one of the captors, who then snapped something cold and heavy around her neck. It rung softly when she walked around, and upon feeling it she realized it was a collar with a bell -- like a pet.
Then they were led out again, and she heard the bubbling of a creek, and smelled the sweet scent of leaves and bark, and furthermore, of other dryads. She did not recognize them as such at first, they smelled so weird and sickly -- but it could only be them.
One of their captors barked out commands to a dryad that responded obediently in his tongue. Then one came over and touched her shoulder gently, and she followed it down to the creek.
"Poor dear. You must be exhausted." The dryad felt her wings carefully, fingers light but still painful. "And your wings. We must get those sewn up before they scar."
"Who are you?" She whispered the words, just in case a man may hear and whip her.
"Best we not share names, child. One of us could be gone tomorrow." The woman helped Caley kneal down, and gently guided her hand to cool, bubbling waters. "Drink and wash. It is clean enough for both."
"Where am I?" The water felt so wonderful against her parched skin that for a while all she wanted to do was just feel it.
"You are at a grove, foreign though it may seem. I will lead you to your tree later, but first, you must get washed up and some food."
"I already have my tree." She knew the truth even as she spoke it -- but after meeting a dryad, and feeling the cool water as she splashed it against her face, and how pure it was when she drank it, she could almost believe this was a nightmare.
"I know. And I am so sorry." The pain in the older dryad's voice brought reality crashing down on her, and Caley choked back a wail. "They will make it a memorial and take care of it in your memory, child. I am so sorry."
Numb, she finished up washing quickly, and allowed the older woman to lead her into a warm hut with a crackling fire. There, her wounds, including the burned remains of her eyes, were cleaned, painful though it was. Deftly the dryad sewed up the holes in her wings, apologizing all the while that she could not give her anything for the pain -- and so Caley softly sang a durge, for her tree, her past life, and her people.
Then she was given warm broth, and the other dryad put an arm around her shoulder.
"I know you are scared and sad, child. We all are." Her voice was soft and soothing, despite everything she must have experienced. "But you will have a tree again. And though it may seem odd at first, these trees are lonely, child. No one here can hear us like we can. They want us just as much as we want them. They may not replace your home tree, but they will live in your heart all the same."
"Why are we here?" She gulped down broth in between sentences, not realizing how hungry she was until it had touched her lips.
"To provide sap and fruit to the humans. I know--" The woman squeezed her shoulder gently, cutting off her weak protest. "It is stealing the tree's labour. But we must do what they ask. When they ask you to steal, do it willingly. When they ask you to bow, do it quickly. Hesitate at nothing, or you will have more than tears in your wings."
Caley had no answer to that, and instead stuck with her meal. The older dryad refilled it when it was empty, and for that, Caley was grateful.
"It will get better. It won't become good or happy, but it will become better. You will befriend your tree, learn your way around the grove, and learn the ways of the humans. I will guide you."
"You will?" She frowned softly; so much had happened, that she was not sure what to believe anymore, but the woman's voice was so honest, so authentic...
"For as long as I can, child. The humans have yet to raise a protest over such partnering, perhaps because it saves them the trouble of replacing us." For the first time, bitterness tinged the dryad's voice, but it was gone as quickly as it had appeared. "I will be with you. In a while, I shall show you your tree, so you can know each other. But you must sleep first, and be ready."
So she was handed a drink that smelled of chamomile, bringing her back across the waters to her home. She bit back her sobs, however, and rested against the other woman as she sipped down the tonic. It would never be happy; that much she had already known. But she had thought it would just steadily get worse.
But for that brief, tired moment, she thought that with this woman, this guide, maybe she would at least survive.
Title: For One's Land (Title Pending)
Genre: Fantasy
The Troops: Demons and mountain faeries
Status: Complete but rough
Rating: PG-13 for graphic violence, general awful
Summary: In a land where prey is scarce and predators are fierce, sometimes all that comes in the night is tragedy
Prompt:hc_bingo Bites
Author's Notes: First time trying third-person omnipresent in a LONG time. Also you all haveraze to thank for this.
It was bad luck that brought them to such misfortune. They both had been hunting in the same area around the same time; both night hunters, but from different continents originally, so that they never would have met centuries ago. But mountain faeries had spread from their tundra home, and she found the Arebian mountains to be just like home.
The demon considered her to be anything but familiar, and at the scent curled her lip. Scouts had spread stories about the faeries -- they were worse than the humans, they said. Humans at least were weak, even if they were invasive. Faeries were invasive, and powerful as well; even the groundwalkers feared the flying people, and all demons everywhere had the same advice: use caution.
Yet she did not want to lose her hunting grounds to these foreign beast. Prey was scarce enough in the mountains as it was, and if they let the faerie have this land, how far would they spread? The demon rolled in the snow to cover herself, and then began to stalk forward, scenting out her prey.
Of course, the faerie knew she was there; her sense of smell was not nearly as excellent, but it was enough to catch the musk when the wind blew toward her. Demons were a normal sighting in these mountains, however, and she knew better than to approach them alone. Most of them were not mages, sure, but they did outweigh her, and she had heard enough rumours about the tragedy that befell the arrogant faerie who tried to go into their caves. From what she knew, the demons had the same understanding, and did not go after them unless pressed.
Unfortunately, it seemed that this demon was exactly that. The faerie was rooting through the snow, searching for anything that had died in the cold, when something exploded out from the banks with a snarl. Instinctively she snapped her wings open and jumped back, sending a chunk of rock at the creature. It made impact, and she heard a pained grunt; yet the beast landed on its feet regardless, and at that point, she was able to see it clearly.
Demons were large animals, around the size of the snow leopards also in the area, if not larger. This one had snow clinging to her that the faerie could barely even see what colour her dark fur was. The rock had left a gash just above the ridge of her small eyes, but she did not seem to notice the blood, baring her sharp fangs that glittered in the moonlight. And of course in general demons just looked strange -- Their body was vaguely like a cat's, but their legs were too short and stocky, and their nose was fleshy with odd whisker-like appendanges off of it. Tufts of fur were raised on the side of her head and on her shoulders, and her tufted tail pounded the snow.
To the faerie, the demon was bizarre; yet it also went the other way. The faerie was short, no taller than five feet, with a lithe frame. She had large wings, though, that were faintly irredescent in the moonlight, and reminded her of the bugs that would sometimes teem near stangant water underground. Though her frame was very humanoid, her face was anything but -- her snout too prominent, her nose too small, and her eyes too eerily bright. When she bared her teeth, they were all sharp, and there seemed to be far too many of them. Where humans had dull nails, she had claws. And her nose burned from her magic, which she had not realized could have such a smell.
They stared at each other for a few moments, sizing up the situation. The demon's brow stung and leaked blood from the rock hit, and she had no doubts that the faerie could throw something even nastier at her -- the scouts spoke of great magical abilities from the beasts. The faerie, however, was no less cautious. If a rock to the face hadn't slowed the cat-like creature, it didn't seem like another one would. She bared her teeth again, hissing through them, and backed up, trying to get enough space to perhaps open a crevace--
But the demon took it as a retreat, and without warning she jumped. It seemed like something that lived in caves and dug underground should not be able to leap so high, even if the beasts massive front paws, complete with thick blunt claws, only just reached her head. She tried to jump out of the way, send a bigger rock -- but the demon had calculated that, and threw one arm in front of her face while the other lashed out to the side. Her paw smashed into the faerie's shoulder and send her tumbling, screaming.
The ground rumbled underneath the demon's feet, and she grunted, fur flaring; and then she began to dig at it frantically as it started to crumble beneath her feet. It drove her down more quickly, but it also led her more quickly to some of the rockier soil that rested very close to the surface in these mountains. The faerie sent the ground away in a sudden gap; but the demon took hold of the rocks, and scampered up the falling dirt.
Her opponent stared in complete disbelief when crumbling more ground just gave the demon an easier slope to scramble over. She tried to drop the earth entirely, building up what she had already tried as she did so -- but again the demon thought ahead, and jumped onto safe ground, and continued bounding through the snow-dirt-mess until she had closed in on the faerie.
No human could outrun or outclimb her magic -- vampires could just teleport away from it, sure, and a few wereanimals could jump high enough to escape. But she had never seen something just outpace it; filling in the earth so she wouldn't drop in it somehow had taken up too much energy to drop the demon, and she cursed herself for being so concerned with cleaning up her magic. By then, however, the demon had closed her jaws down on the faerie's arm, and gave a tug.
The faerie's arm crushed, the shoulder joint popping sickeningly; and blinded with pain the faerie clawed for the demon's eyes, biting at her head, beating her wings. She felt one eye weep as she scratched at its surface, and yet still the demon had enough stubbornness to give one final, ferocious jerk -- and she felt the muscles and skin tearing, and screamed, pain blinding her, and she called upon the earth.
There was not much the demon could do about the ground suddenly surging beneath her while the faerie battered at her, and it slammed against her stomach, smashing her legs painfully upward. She pulled her mouth free -- she had been hoping to remove the damn arm, but dislocation was good enough -- and tried to back away, but her legs were crushed under her own body, and the faerie's wings kept her partially blocked. And so the demon lashed out at them, tearing a huge chunk out of one, and then on a last-minute thought, headbutting the faerie.
She fell, her wings snapping out to catch it -- but with one of them ripped it was a half-hearted attempt, and her fall was dizzying and unstable. For a few seconds she panicked, unable to fly, unsure if calling up the earth to catch her would just injure her worse, but in the end, it seemed meeting the ground sooner was better than later. She pushed the earth upward slowly -- and thus plowed into the snow that did not fall off, sending pain, but at least not breaks, riveting down her spine.
The demon meanwhile watched from atop her pedestal, tail lashing. With one eye half-blind and her eyesight poor to begin with, it was difficult to say what condition the faerie was in; but she got to her sore bruised legs before she found out the hard way, and launched off of the earth. She landed paws-first on the faerie's landing, but the snow and body both made her land wrong, and the two of them both tumbled off of the ground.
And when they slammed into the snow, neither of them had the urge to really move anymore.
"Truce." The faerie could not believe she was saying it -- but then again, they had all been taught that faeries were the lords of the earth not because they could beat everything, but because they knew when they could not. "Truce. Please."
The demon looked weakly over at the faerie, seeing her upraised hands and hearing her pitiful tone. She did not understand the abovewalker's tongue very well, but the message was clear even from foreing words and gestures. She lowered her head into the snow, sinking her tufts of fur, and let out a low whine.
It was clear enough to the faerie, and she collapsed into the snow, breaths coming out in weak gasps. And the demon let out a haunting cry, echoing across the mountains, and she looked back up, eyes wide with horror. "I said truce--"
But the demon's look did not seem aggressive, instead just as battered; and indeed, her call was to her people for help and comfort, not to finish the job.
She sensed there was no job to finish.
~~~
"We apologize for the pain given to you." The demon spoke broken Ubiquitous, but it was enough for the faerie to understand as one of the beasts licked hopelessly at her mangled arm. "I have sent scout for your clan."
"Thank you." She could not find the energy to be indignant or self-righteous to the beasts anymore. They had come quickly at the cry, a group of them already cuddled around their companion and rumbling softly, licking at her wounds. She had her own, smaller group keeping her warm, and somehow, she had not died yet.
Nor had the demon, though she felt like she should. The ground had left horrifying bruising on her belly, and the pain made her fear it had ruptured organs. The bites from the faerie had mangled her head and neck considerably too, and she felt woozy and weak from the bloodloss. The warmth and comfort of her companions was enough to make it all almost bearable -- at least if she did die, she would not die alone in the cold, with only a fallen foe for company.
"She just... Attacked me without reason." The faerie wheezed as she spoke, and the demon growled lowly at her. Her Queen gave the faerie a pitying look.
"We have trouble with people taking prey. Perhaps she thought you do the same."
The faerie decided it best not to mention she wanted to do exactly that; then maybe her friends would come back to a still-warm corpse. She faded in and out of consciousness, noticing only the warmth of the large demons and the odd crooning -- it was soothing, somehow, even when she did not understand it. Perhaps even foreign noise was better than just the wind.
Then they all heard voices, and the demons around the faerie rose and moved forward, fangs bared warningly. The faerie lifted her head weakly, and there she saw them -- her three friends, showing their own teeth, brimming with magic, ready to die defending her from the clan--
"No." There was no way three of them could last against six demons; and it would be foolhardy to try. "Here. Don't attack."
"What happened here?" He sounded so enraged, as if he wanted to just combust the demons right then and there, and damn the consequences. "She said she was going for a hunt."
The air stilled at the comment, and she watched as all of the demons tensed, a few crouching down. She expected there to be a showdown then, and for all of her friends to die, and her as well, and more bloodshed across the snow. Yet instead, the faeries backed away, one of them sending a warning lick of fire to melt the snow in front of them.
"We will let you leave, this once." The Queen spoke, voice thick with anger and barely comprehensible. "Do not hunt here again. Or we kill and leave bodies for you."
"Like fucking hell you wi--" He barely got the words out before one of the demons leapt out and tore the sleeve and skin straight off of his hand and arm. He responded with a burst of fire, but the demon simply rolled it out in the snow, and got to her feet with nothing more than burned fur and a bit of singed skin. "Spirit help us."
The other two faeries had rushed over to her and hoisted her gently over one of their shoulders; the injured demon watched silently as they walked back to the demons, giving glares that were all look and no action. The male still looked shellshocked, as if never before had someone been able to just brush him off; the other two were clearly offended, but not going to press it. She sensed they would be back, though, even as they left, and her clan moved to lead her back to the cave, to warmth and medicine and sleep.
And as they each led their injured back to help and comfort, they both seethed with offense and perhaps someday, another meeting that would go differently...
Just need to finish the Gareth story and figure out a wild card story, now. Also sorry these are so rough and bad; I just want to get these in, and I'm very tired from insomnia.
Tschuess.
Title: The Stove
Genre: Fantasy
The Troops: Meander and Rose May
Status: Complete but rough
Rating: PG-13 for disturbing imagery
Summary: Some things, you just cannot forget or get past. Some things come back to haunt you...
Prompt:
hc_bingo Post-Traumatic Stress DisorderAuthor's Notes: I haven't worked with Meander in ages; it was fun to get into his head again.
He smelled and saw and felt all fire and death, and could not find a way out of it. The floor beneath him was crumpling ash, the walls were alight, and the air was thick smoke, so black he could was not sure how he could see. He staggered through the room despite his feet burning, and heard the whistling of bombs and the eerie whoosh of fireballs raining down on the city... And Rose May was no where to be found.
But that did not make sense. She had been sleeping beside him, they had both gotten out of the bed in the same frantic motion, they both were going to get the children, she was just there, just there--
Meander's heart pounded in his chest as he moved out of the bedroom -- how he knew it was that, he did not know -- and into the hallway, muttering in a language he barely knew or remembered learning. His telepathy felt all wrong, and instead of being able to sense the life of his children and wife, he felt alone, eerie emptiness, a sense that he was the last one left. The bombs that hissed overhead did not ever seem to make contact, though he knew he should hear them hit something.
His plan was to go to his daughters' room, grab them, and flee -- but his feet were not following his commands, and instead he walked past their room, down the hallway of smoldering wood, and out into the kitchen. The stove seemed to be grinning at him, roaring with life in its fire, as if it had been waiting for ages for this moment. No, no that was stupid -- it was a fire, a bombing, and the gas had lit in the stove. Why would the stove grin?
Then he walked toward it. He struggled not to, trying to dig his feet into the ground, run away, go back and find his family, something, but whatever force that ensared him had chosen this fire demon as its primary interest, and he was powerless to resist.
There was a gap in the flames that formed the grin of the devil, and upon getting so close to the flames that he felt like he was melting, Meander could see inside. There should have just been ash and fire, but instead he saw faces. All of them. His wife and their twin daughters, that man whose skin had bubbled on his face, Gareth missing more than just his arm, even Andy, fur burnt to cinders. They all looked at him with smiling eyes on dead faces, and the flames roar seemed to dull down to a haunting whisper.
Join us... Join us... Join us...
And then the flames leapt out and dragged him with a slam into the into the stove. He screamed and struggled, feeling the fire slowly boil his skin and make its way through muscle. HIs feet picked that moment to finally give up and just fall off, all ash and smoke. The more he fought, the more his limbs burned apart and began to fall -- yet he couldn't help him, even through the pain and the madness of it all--
Then when only his torso and head were left, he was small enough to be dragged through the devil's open mouth, and all he saw was death.
~~~
Meander snapped awake with a frantic scream of pain, feeling flames all over body parts that he thought he had lost. And then, in that instant, he felt instead cool air chilling his sweat, blankets clinging stubbornly to his legs, and the eerie, cackling cry of a sea bird. He tried to calm his breathing, but his mind would have none of it, and really he supposed he couldn't blame himself for that.
The bed was empty beside him, and the fear came back strong, despite the irrationality of it all. He tried to leap out of bed but found that his sheets were tangled around him, and struggled as he had in the fires, desperate to break free and find his family and assure himself that they were there, they were, they--
"Shh."
The sound came as a soft whisper, and then he felt her carefully unraveling the sheets around his legs, hands stiff from old wounds but still competent. He stared at her just to make sure it was his wife, and not just some ghost.
Rose May had sustained bad enough burns during that bombing, to be sure -- her left hand had already been scarred and stiff from a knife wound, but then the burns she got from tearing down the door separating her from her children made it look like she had shoved the appendage into oil. She had gained back some movement, but most of it was gone, while her right hand at least could still form a fist. Vague scars were on her face from the cinders, and he knew that her feet did not look much better than her hands -- but what he found most tragic was the weight she had lost and had yet to put back on. His wife had been so plump and healthy before, and while she was not emaciated, he wished he could put the flesh back in her cheeks and hips.
"Sorry for leaving. I was in the kitchen getting some water." Her voice was hoarse even at a whisper as she finished freeing him. Another remnant of that night -- smoke was not kind to someone with asthma. "Was it the same?"
He drew his legs back and reached his arms out to her, and she came over immediately. Meander hugged her close, feeling the scratchy fibers of her nightgown, the muscle beneath her skin, and most of all her warmth -- not like the flames of a fire but that of life.
"Yes." His own voice had taken on a gruffer tone after so much smoke, but then, his ability to speak eloquently had never been impressive to begin with. "With the possessed stove."
"Great Dragon, not that stove." Rose May carefully rolled over him to the other side of the bed, cuddling close to him. "Was it all the same people?"
"New addition. Andy." He rested his face against Rose May's hair, faintly smelling lavender and oil.
"Andy? He was all but untouched. That's just cruel." She sighed softly. "I woke up coughing. You seemed okay so I went to take some water and tonic. I was just washing the glass when you screamed."
"Did the girls wake?" Whenever they woke from him screaming, they were always frightened and in tears. It always felt like a knife in his stomach.
"No, I checked before coming here." Rose May coughed, but it was dry and light, not the wet horror that was common in the past. "We are not there anymore."
Meander knew that, of course. Every morning he woke up to the sound of seagulls instead of cannons he breathed a sigh of relief and gave thanks to the powers that be who watched over them. And he knew it, too, every time he went into town and did not know the language, and had to wait ashamed until someone who knew Ubiquitous arrived. He was picking up the native tongue painfully slowly, and while Rose May recognized some words from a patient she had long ago, it did not give her any advantage in learning.
The twins at least did not seem to be having trouble, and often when they had friends over, Meander would hear them babbling in the foreign tongue, often translating for him or his wife when needed. Soon they would be fluent enough to help their parents out; it seemed backwards from how it should be.
All the same, he could feel his wife's relief, and with it the associated memories. It was almost vampiric, Nur had said of his telepathy -- most humans learned to pick up words and the emotions, but he had never been taught, and so his mind had just gone toward whatever seemed best. And so when he got a thought, he also got the memories and actions with it, revealed along endless strings in a person's mind, to the point that he could imitate the voices and actions without error.
He could not teleport, though, and that he still wished he had. Rose May stirred beside him, coughing softly, and with it came the sense of her waiting -- through his nightmares, as she did nights before, for him to speak, or to just fall back to sleep, or some sort of cue so she knew what to do.
"Do you still dream?" He pulled her close as he asked, but he did not feel any change in her mood.
"Sometimes. But I try to tell myself it's all over." Rose May sighed softly, eyes half-closed. "I just wish I could impart that peace onto you."
He kissed her on the forehead. "Having you and the twins, all alive and safe, is enough. It will always be enough."
"And the possible new one in my belly?" Her voice was full of amusement, and he couldn't help but laugh.
"Well they can fit in too, I guess." Neither of them knew if she was actually pregnant or not -- for the twins she had been plenty sick for the first few months, and she was showing a few of the symptoms again over the past few weeks. But neither of them wanted to say whether it was a new child, or just lingering affects of that night, three years ago. "The twins can teach them how to speak the language, and then all three of them can make even less sense than usual."
That got her to laugh, exactly what he had been hoping for. "I keep trying to get Mykie to teach me, but she just gets mad at me for being slow. I guess that's my fault for asking Mykie instead of Alene."
"Myk gets mad at tree branches for tripping her. You really thought she would make a good teacher?" They both shared snickers at that, trying to keep it down so they didn't wake the daughter in question. Mykhaila had always had a temper, and the trauma of the fire had done little to soothe it. Luckily, Alene seemed used to it, and instead tried antagonizing her twin for her own amusement.
Meander hoped that once they were thirty or so that they would calm down. He did not have much hope for them while they were still six, though. With a sigh he kissed his wife again. "We wll figure that out when the time comes. For now we have the twins, and I have you, and that is all I will ever need again."
She smiled up at him, then coughed and rested back against him. "You know, I had been hoping this would go away eventually."
Rose May was not one for admitting weakness -- and so to hear it, calm and casual as it was, wrenched at his heart, and he squeezed her close. He did not want to give her false hopes -- honestly, he had not thought that the doctors at the wereanimal camp would be able to save her life at all, after she had collapsed barely breathing. But three years later she was still alive, had not had any recurring infections, and even may be pregnant... It was beyond his greatest hopes and most desperate dreams.
"It can stay until you are seventy years old." He whispered the words into
her hair, mostly because he was falling asleep and wasn't entirely sure he could find her face. "As long as you are here with it."
"Love you too." Her own words were soft, heavy with sleep.
And as they curled together, the seagulls crying out outside, and if he listened hard enough, the ocean waves crashing against the sand, he could forget the fire and the pain. He could forget that damned possessed stove and its ficticious victims. And he could remember that they were all alive, and far away from that world, where one night could transform a perfect life into a nightmare.
Title: Surrogate Grove
Genre: Fantasy
The Troops: Dryads
Status: Complete but rough
Rating: PG-13 for disturbing imagery, violence, slavery, general awful
Summary: When you have no hope left, sometimes being alive is the last step forward.
Prompt:
hc_bingo SlavesAuthor's Notes: I couldn't figure out who would enslave what in my world, and then this happened.
After aeons, they had finally reached land. Even without her vision, she could feel it, as it called softly to her, tickling her fingers. The trees, too, reached out to her, trying to offer their comforts and replace the cold ache in her heart -- but they did not smell familiar, did not feel right, and it made her long even more for home.
Around her the others were stirring as well, no doubt feeling the same things that she did. A few began whispering to each other, but she stayed silent, wishing she could see what was happening. On the deck she could hear the shouting of their captors as they bumped this strange vessel onto the land with a sickening heave, and it took all of her willpower not to vomit. They did not clean up after them, and she had gotten sick of smelling fresh puke and having to kneal in it.
It seemed like another few years before finally she heard some of the men coming down, shouting in their unknown language. By that point, she had picked up a few words -- and the one they were shouting right now meant "stand up". Weakly, she dragged herself up to her feet, feeling how wobbly her legs were and hoping it was not obvious. Others apparently were not so strong or perhaps had some fight left, and she winced at the whistle of a whip and the frantic pleads of her companions.
"Please, please, just kill me, don't make me go, please--" His frantic begging was cut off with a scream of pain, and after that everyone else also became silent.
She felt the footsteps of one of the men as he walked over to her, and forced herself to be still and silent, resisting the urge to call upon the earth. It had not worked at home, where she had felt safest; it would certainly not work wherever she was, with its odd feelings and scents. With a sharp ring the captor undid the chain that kept her attached to the vessel's wall, and gave it a rough tug, shouting something at her.
And so she walked.
Though she could not see it, she felt the warmth of the sun when they got onto the main deck, and despite herself she tried to shied away from its direct, bright rays. She heard the shriek of the whip and tried to dodge, but being unable to see it, it lashed out right on her back, and there were a few moments when the captor was dragging her before she got to her feet again. From there on she lifted her wings as she best she could to give her a screen from the sun, but still she felt her delicate skin burn.
Like before, when they were loaded onto the ship, the ground beneath her was soft and yielding, and she stumbled a few times trying to walk after so long. A few lashes helped her remember, and she hustled as best she could, feeling the foreign trees whisper to her in some eerie way that only made her feel even more out of place.
There was the creak of an old door, and then they were all herded into a cool room that smelled of blood. She knew who balked from it by the screams, and she rushed in to avoid being punished too. Their chains were dropped once they were in and smacked against her back, making her bite down on a yelp until she tasted blood. After that, she bumped into the wall a few times, trying to figure out if there was any escape -- but without her sight it was useless, and tiredly she sunk to the ground and lay her head on her knees.
After a few moments the door slammed, and she heard everyone else shuffle around, no doubt discovering the same thing she did. Someone smacked into the wall right next to her, and she nudged their leg with her shoulder, causing them to drop beside her.
"Caley." It was Regan, his voice full of so much pain, she wondered how she did not smell blood on him. "Where are we? Where are the gods?"
She had thought long and hard about both of those questions, and had not found good answers for either. "I don't know."
"I have asked for my tree's guidance, but I feel it cannot hear me anymore. And these new trees seem to only speak nonsense." His voice cracked with tears, and she wished she could at least offer him a comforting hand. "I want only to hear its voice one last time..."
The door slammed open, sending many of them scuttering up against the wall, though Caley found she had too little energy to bother anymore. The people smelled new, but talked in the same strange language, and their footsteps echoed across the floor. They walked forever before suddenly, she heard the rattle of chains and the frantic cries of some of her companions. And then the door closed, and they were gone.
Havoc broke out after that. Even Regan beside her panicked, trying to fly away, though the chains were too heavy for their wings. She heard crashes and thuds, pained and desperate cries. The cacophony was unbearable, and she put her head between her knees, trying to block out the noises from her delicate ears. She did not even know the door had been opened until she heard captors shouting over the din, their whips lashing.
Then there was a crack, one that brought back haunting memories of when she could still see. She had been tending to her tree, collecting its precious sap, when that terrible noise had gone off, and Flynn had fallen from his perch, blood bubbling out of his mouth, a hole torn through his neck. She had turned around then, already spinning, wings spread to take off, when she caught her first glimpse of their captors -- pale-skinned creatures, taller and heavier than even the strongest of them, and armed with weapons that were faster and deadlier than their crossbows. One had aimed and fired at her, blowing a hole straight through one of her wings, and then she had tumbled down...
Perhaps they all remembered, for after that shot there was no noise except for the gurgled whimpers of whoever had been unfortunate enough to take the blow. The men shouted at them, but no more shots rang out, and they were able to drag off their captures without so much as a whisper. They all stayed still and terrified even after the door slammed shut, though she did hear one brave soul drag themselves across the floor and began to comfort the shot dryad.
Caley leaned back against the wall, closing her eyes, and tried to sleep. But with the door opening and closing, it was impossible... And then someone grabbed her. They gave her an angry shove and she hustled in whatever direction they wanted, pumping into others being led with her, and then she could feel the sun again. When she tried to lift her wings, the captor slashed right through one, splitting the membrane open, making her cry out. And with two damaged wings, she had no more protection against the burn.
A high-pitched whistle made her wince, and then they were loaded onto a vessel made of wood. Instead of setting out into the water, though, it rolled along the land, sending them all tumbling off of their feet. She laid wherever she fell; at this point, it felt like hoping for balance was a pointless venture, and she'd be more comfortable collapsed on the cold, dirty, smelly floor.
Despite it all, she must have dozed, for the trip seemed so short when the door was opened and they were half-dragged, half-led back out. The air felt cooler than where they had boarded, and the sun was not so cruel; and furthermore, she could feel the trees. They were not so foreign as the other ones, and she could almost understand their whispers. It was enough familiarity to give her hope, but too different to be comfort.
They were hustled into a damp shed, where their chains were broken off and they were allowed to move their arms and hands for the first time in months. She barely had time to enjoy it and feel the damage on her wings before she was grabbed by the shoulders, forced up against one of the captors, who then snapped something cold and heavy around her neck. It rung softly when she walked around, and upon feeling it she realized it was a collar with a bell -- like a pet.
Then they were led out again, and she heard the bubbling of a creek, and smelled the sweet scent of leaves and bark, and furthermore, of other dryads. She did not recognize them as such at first, they smelled so weird and sickly -- but it could only be them.
One of their captors barked out commands to a dryad that responded obediently in his tongue. Then one came over and touched her shoulder gently, and she followed it down to the creek.
"Poor dear. You must be exhausted." The dryad felt her wings carefully, fingers light but still painful. "And your wings. We must get those sewn up before they scar."
"Who are you?" She whispered the words, just in case a man may hear and whip her.
"Best we not share names, child. One of us could be gone tomorrow." The woman helped Caley kneal down, and gently guided her hand to cool, bubbling waters. "Drink and wash. It is clean enough for both."
"Where am I?" The water felt so wonderful against her parched skin that for a while all she wanted to do was just feel it.
"You are at a grove, foreign though it may seem. I will lead you to your tree later, but first, you must get washed up and some food."
"I already have my tree." She knew the truth even as she spoke it -- but after meeting a dryad, and feeling the cool water as she splashed it against her face, and how pure it was when she drank it, she could almost believe this was a nightmare.
"I know. And I am so sorry." The pain in the older dryad's voice brought reality crashing down on her, and Caley choked back a wail. "They will make it a memorial and take care of it in your memory, child. I am so sorry."
Numb, she finished up washing quickly, and allowed the older woman to lead her into a warm hut with a crackling fire. There, her wounds, including the burned remains of her eyes, were cleaned, painful though it was. Deftly the dryad sewed up the holes in her wings, apologizing all the while that she could not give her anything for the pain -- and so Caley softly sang a durge, for her tree, her past life, and her people.
Then she was given warm broth, and the other dryad put an arm around her shoulder.
"I know you are scared and sad, child. We all are." Her voice was soft and soothing, despite everything she must have experienced. "But you will have a tree again. And though it may seem odd at first, these trees are lonely, child. No one here can hear us like we can. They want us just as much as we want them. They may not replace your home tree, but they will live in your heart all the same."
"Why are we here?" She gulped down broth in between sentences, not realizing how hungry she was until it had touched her lips.
"To provide sap and fruit to the humans. I know--" The woman squeezed her shoulder gently, cutting off her weak protest. "It is stealing the tree's labour. But we must do what they ask. When they ask you to steal, do it willingly. When they ask you to bow, do it quickly. Hesitate at nothing, or you will have more than tears in your wings."
Caley had no answer to that, and instead stuck with her meal. The older dryad refilled it when it was empty, and for that, Caley was grateful.
"It will get better. It won't become good or happy, but it will become better. You will befriend your tree, learn your way around the grove, and learn the ways of the humans. I will guide you."
"You will?" She frowned softly; so much had happened, that she was not sure what to believe anymore, but the woman's voice was so honest, so authentic...
"For as long as I can, child. The humans have yet to raise a protest over such partnering, perhaps because it saves them the trouble of replacing us." For the first time, bitterness tinged the dryad's voice, but it was gone as quickly as it had appeared. "I will be with you. In a while, I shall show you your tree, so you can know each other. But you must sleep first, and be ready."
So she was handed a drink that smelled of chamomile, bringing her back across the waters to her home. She bit back her sobs, however, and rested against the other woman as she sipped down the tonic. It would never be happy; that much she had already known. But she had thought it would just steadily get worse.
But for that brief, tired moment, she thought that with this woman, this guide, maybe she would at least survive.
Title: For One's Land (Title Pending)
Genre: Fantasy
The Troops: Demons and mountain faeries
Status: Complete but rough
Rating: PG-13 for graphic violence, general awful
Summary: In a land where prey is scarce and predators are fierce, sometimes all that comes in the night is tragedy
Prompt:
hc_bingo BitesAuthor's Notes: First time trying third-person omnipresent in a LONG time. Also you all have
raze to thank for this.It was bad luck that brought them to such misfortune. They both had been hunting in the same area around the same time; both night hunters, but from different continents originally, so that they never would have met centuries ago. But mountain faeries had spread from their tundra home, and she found the Arebian mountains to be just like home.
The demon considered her to be anything but familiar, and at the scent curled her lip. Scouts had spread stories about the faeries -- they were worse than the humans, they said. Humans at least were weak, even if they were invasive. Faeries were invasive, and powerful as well; even the groundwalkers feared the flying people, and all demons everywhere had the same advice: use caution.
Yet she did not want to lose her hunting grounds to these foreign beast. Prey was scarce enough in the mountains as it was, and if they let the faerie have this land, how far would they spread? The demon rolled in the snow to cover herself, and then began to stalk forward, scenting out her prey.
Of course, the faerie knew she was there; her sense of smell was not nearly as excellent, but it was enough to catch the musk when the wind blew toward her. Demons were a normal sighting in these mountains, however, and she knew better than to approach them alone. Most of them were not mages, sure, but they did outweigh her, and she had heard enough rumours about the tragedy that befell the arrogant faerie who tried to go into their caves. From what she knew, the demons had the same understanding, and did not go after them unless pressed.
Unfortunately, it seemed that this demon was exactly that. The faerie was rooting through the snow, searching for anything that had died in the cold, when something exploded out from the banks with a snarl. Instinctively she snapped her wings open and jumped back, sending a chunk of rock at the creature. It made impact, and she heard a pained grunt; yet the beast landed on its feet regardless, and at that point, she was able to see it clearly.
Demons were large animals, around the size of the snow leopards also in the area, if not larger. This one had snow clinging to her that the faerie could barely even see what colour her dark fur was. The rock had left a gash just above the ridge of her small eyes, but she did not seem to notice the blood, baring her sharp fangs that glittered in the moonlight. And of course in general demons just looked strange -- Their body was vaguely like a cat's, but their legs were too short and stocky, and their nose was fleshy with odd whisker-like appendanges off of it. Tufts of fur were raised on the side of her head and on her shoulders, and her tufted tail pounded the snow.
To the faerie, the demon was bizarre; yet it also went the other way. The faerie was short, no taller than five feet, with a lithe frame. She had large wings, though, that were faintly irredescent in the moonlight, and reminded her of the bugs that would sometimes teem near stangant water underground. Though her frame was very humanoid, her face was anything but -- her snout too prominent, her nose too small, and her eyes too eerily bright. When she bared her teeth, they were all sharp, and there seemed to be far too many of them. Where humans had dull nails, she had claws. And her nose burned from her magic, which she had not realized could have such a smell.
They stared at each other for a few moments, sizing up the situation. The demon's brow stung and leaked blood from the rock hit, and she had no doubts that the faerie could throw something even nastier at her -- the scouts spoke of great magical abilities from the beasts. The faerie, however, was no less cautious. If a rock to the face hadn't slowed the cat-like creature, it didn't seem like another one would. She bared her teeth again, hissing through them, and backed up, trying to get enough space to perhaps open a crevace--
But the demon took it as a retreat, and without warning she jumped. It seemed like something that lived in caves and dug underground should not be able to leap so high, even if the beasts massive front paws, complete with thick blunt claws, only just reached her head. She tried to jump out of the way, send a bigger rock -- but the demon had calculated that, and threw one arm in front of her face while the other lashed out to the side. Her paw smashed into the faerie's shoulder and send her tumbling, screaming.
The ground rumbled underneath the demon's feet, and she grunted, fur flaring; and then she began to dig at it frantically as it started to crumble beneath her feet. It drove her down more quickly, but it also led her more quickly to some of the rockier soil that rested very close to the surface in these mountains. The faerie sent the ground away in a sudden gap; but the demon took hold of the rocks, and scampered up the falling dirt.
Her opponent stared in complete disbelief when crumbling more ground just gave the demon an easier slope to scramble over. She tried to drop the earth entirely, building up what she had already tried as she did so -- but again the demon thought ahead, and jumped onto safe ground, and continued bounding through the snow-dirt-mess until she had closed in on the faerie.
No human could outrun or outclimb her magic -- vampires could just teleport away from it, sure, and a few wereanimals could jump high enough to escape. But she had never seen something just outpace it; filling in the earth so she wouldn't drop in it somehow had taken up too much energy to drop the demon, and she cursed herself for being so concerned with cleaning up her magic. By then, however, the demon had closed her jaws down on the faerie's arm, and gave a tug.
The faerie's arm crushed, the shoulder joint popping sickeningly; and blinded with pain the faerie clawed for the demon's eyes, biting at her head, beating her wings. She felt one eye weep as she scratched at its surface, and yet still the demon had enough stubbornness to give one final, ferocious jerk -- and she felt the muscles and skin tearing, and screamed, pain blinding her, and she called upon the earth.
There was not much the demon could do about the ground suddenly surging beneath her while the faerie battered at her, and it slammed against her stomach, smashing her legs painfully upward. She pulled her mouth free -- she had been hoping to remove the damn arm, but dislocation was good enough -- and tried to back away, but her legs were crushed under her own body, and the faerie's wings kept her partially blocked. And so the demon lashed out at them, tearing a huge chunk out of one, and then on a last-minute thought, headbutting the faerie.
She fell, her wings snapping out to catch it -- but with one of them ripped it was a half-hearted attempt, and her fall was dizzying and unstable. For a few seconds she panicked, unable to fly, unsure if calling up the earth to catch her would just injure her worse, but in the end, it seemed meeting the ground sooner was better than later. She pushed the earth upward slowly -- and thus plowed into the snow that did not fall off, sending pain, but at least not breaks, riveting down her spine.
The demon meanwhile watched from atop her pedestal, tail lashing. With one eye half-blind and her eyesight poor to begin with, it was difficult to say what condition the faerie was in; but she got to her sore bruised legs before she found out the hard way, and launched off of the earth. She landed paws-first on the faerie's landing, but the snow and body both made her land wrong, and the two of them both tumbled off of the ground.
And when they slammed into the snow, neither of them had the urge to really move anymore.
"Truce." The faerie could not believe she was saying it -- but then again, they had all been taught that faeries were the lords of the earth not because they could beat everything, but because they knew when they could not. "Truce. Please."
The demon looked weakly over at the faerie, seeing her upraised hands and hearing her pitiful tone. She did not understand the abovewalker's tongue very well, but the message was clear even from foreing words and gestures. She lowered her head into the snow, sinking her tufts of fur, and let out a low whine.
It was clear enough to the faerie, and she collapsed into the snow, breaths coming out in weak gasps. And the demon let out a haunting cry, echoing across the mountains, and she looked back up, eyes wide with horror. "I said truce--"
But the demon's look did not seem aggressive, instead just as battered; and indeed, her call was to her people for help and comfort, not to finish the job.
She sensed there was no job to finish.
~~~
"We apologize for the pain given to you." The demon spoke broken Ubiquitous, but it was enough for the faerie to understand as one of the beasts licked hopelessly at her mangled arm. "I have sent scout for your clan."
"Thank you." She could not find the energy to be indignant or self-righteous to the beasts anymore. They had come quickly at the cry, a group of them already cuddled around their companion and rumbling softly, licking at her wounds. She had her own, smaller group keeping her warm, and somehow, she had not died yet.
Nor had the demon, though she felt like she should. The ground had left horrifying bruising on her belly, and the pain made her fear it had ruptured organs. The bites from the faerie had mangled her head and neck considerably too, and she felt woozy and weak from the bloodloss. The warmth and comfort of her companions was enough to make it all almost bearable -- at least if she did die, she would not die alone in the cold, with only a fallen foe for company.
"She just... Attacked me without reason." The faerie wheezed as she spoke, and the demon growled lowly at her. Her Queen gave the faerie a pitying look.
"We have trouble with people taking prey. Perhaps she thought you do the same."
The faerie decided it best not to mention she wanted to do exactly that; then maybe her friends would come back to a still-warm corpse. She faded in and out of consciousness, noticing only the warmth of the large demons and the odd crooning -- it was soothing, somehow, even when she did not understand it. Perhaps even foreign noise was better than just the wind.
Then they all heard voices, and the demons around the faerie rose and moved forward, fangs bared warningly. The faerie lifted her head weakly, and there she saw them -- her three friends, showing their own teeth, brimming with magic, ready to die defending her from the clan--
"No." There was no way three of them could last against six demons; and it would be foolhardy to try. "Here. Don't attack."
"What happened here?" He sounded so enraged, as if he wanted to just combust the demons right then and there, and damn the consequences. "She said she was going for a hunt."
The air stilled at the comment, and she watched as all of the demons tensed, a few crouching down. She expected there to be a showdown then, and for all of her friends to die, and her as well, and more bloodshed across the snow. Yet instead, the faeries backed away, one of them sending a warning lick of fire to melt the snow in front of them.
"We will let you leave, this once." The Queen spoke, voice thick with anger and barely comprehensible. "Do not hunt here again. Or we kill and leave bodies for you."
"Like fucking hell you wi--" He barely got the words out before one of the demons leapt out and tore the sleeve and skin straight off of his hand and arm. He responded with a burst of fire, but the demon simply rolled it out in the snow, and got to her feet with nothing more than burned fur and a bit of singed skin. "Spirit help us."
The other two faeries had rushed over to her and hoisted her gently over one of their shoulders; the injured demon watched silently as they walked back to the demons, giving glares that were all look and no action. The male still looked shellshocked, as if never before had someone been able to just brush him off; the other two were clearly offended, but not going to press it. She sensed they would be back, though, even as they left, and her clan moved to lead her back to the cave, to warmth and medicine and sleep.
And as they each led their injured back to help and comfort, they both seethed with offense and perhaps someday, another meeting that would go differently...
Just need to finish the Gareth story and figure out a wild card story, now. Also sorry these are so rough and bad; I just want to get these in, and I'm very tired from insomnia.
Tschuess.
