Heart of Life

Freak and Reject

Your name is Timber Lakes, and you live in the forests of Vermont. Particularly those close to the border of Canada. You live in a mansion of a cabin, and you hate all human contact unless it's an unwitting neighbor that you can consume to feed the trees that are connected to your soul. You're a pretty weird nymph, since you're a guy, but you make do. In fact, your forest is one of the healthiest around, and you're proud to say that even though your string of dead bodies is longer, your trees are the happiest.

As a nymph, you're technically supposed to lure your victims off, put them to sleep, and suck the energy from their dreams to sustain your own soul, which in turn feeds the trees. Unfortunately, most campers aren't about to follow a strange man into the woods, so you have to stick to kidnapping and killing, and using those last moments of the whole 'life flashing before your eyes' to sustain yourself. Most humans assume that nymphs just tend the woods; that would be stupid, of course. Any creature that is supernatural was created to thin the human population, so to speak, although lately they seem to be quite hostile toward anything magical. They enjoy selling them on the black market, or cutting them open in a lab.

You're tall and handsome, in your opinion, and pretty classy for a murderer. You like to watch the ID channel in your free time and play Kingdom Rush, which you are very good at. You also enjoy going out on occasion with campers you don't have the heart to kill, but most of the time you just bring them home, exhaust them, and then use their dreams. After that, they usually don't come back, since the absence of dreams gives way to vivid nightmares of your choice. You like to mortify your victims, which could also explain why you can't just find a woman or man to sustain you until they die of sleep depravation.

Even though you can't stray far from your trees for long, you are very much up to speed with modern society, especially since Vermont is covered in trees. And they're all yours. You have a pool in your backyard that's respectfully clean of leaves and the like (the trees dump their dead leaves elsewhere because you feed them so often and so well), but you almost never go swimming. A baby kelpie lives in your pool, and until you figure out how to get rid of it, or at least get it to stop enchanting you with its natural allure (and form of a beautiful water nymph), you won't be swimming anytime soon.

The only camper you know that you haven't actually fed on or murdered is Angelica, whom you refer to as Angie. She is a citizen of Canada, but she's spent so much time with the Americans that she blends in better with them. She's not really your type, because she's always so boozed up that she doesn't dream, but you put up with her. She seems to think you two are friends, which is a laugh, since you're practically immortal (not really, but you live for a long time--about the span of other greater creatures, like sirens and local deities), yet you allow her to pester you with date after date, since it's a free meal.

At this moment, you've just welcomed that clueless fishie into your home. Summer solstice, you realized, and the sirens' day of glory. You recognize him from the trees' whispers of a hapless siren who can't sing, and he is clearly inept at acting human. You thank Angelica's beer-brain for being oblivious of him and bring him into your house, where you snarkily leave him to sit in front of the TV and then go upstairs. Before she had arrived, you'd just finished disposing of the evidence of a camper you kidnapped, and were running late. As you slip on your jeans and grey Avengers t-shirt, you hear a yelp as your house alarm erupts in displeasure at the kelpie trying to break in your house and find its kin, followed by horrendous screeching. If that's his siren's song, he needs to go jump off a very tall cliff, into some dirt.

You press a button on your phone and the system shuts down, allowing the Kelpie to burst your glass doors and come toddling in in human form. You know because you told it, no animal forms in the house. You tie back your hair neatly, ensure that your appearance is immaculately clean, and then leave your bathroom and trot down to stop at the bottom, where you have to fight to stop a genuine smile from appearing on your face. This Loren guy has picked up the kelpie, which has taken the form of a little girl of age 2, and is babbling at it in what you presume is baby fish whilst it giggles and babbles back. You wonder if it even has a gender, and for the moment, decide to call it a 'she'.

"You can take her if you want her," you decide, folding your arms and leaning on the wall. Loren looks up at you with that silent puzzlement that seems to be permanently glued to his face. But this time, it's not confusion at human stuff, but actual puzzlement with your statement. You don't understand why; you think the thing would love to go live in a big lake with a water-kin instead of in a pool owned by a wood nymph. You don't even speak her language.

Loren tilts his head at you and then sets the kelpie on the floor, where he toddles out of your house and jumps into the pool with a splash. He stares at you some more, making you uncomfortable, before he says, "That is a male, first of all, and he says his name is Abhainn. Also, he considers you his father and refuses to leave. You're stuck with him unless you want him to die." He glares at you expectantly, and you sigh. You'll keep erm...him, but only as long as you have to. "I take it you're ready to go?" His tone is back to neutral now, and his expression is a curious one.

"Of course. Come on, fishboy." You gesture for the siren to follow you, smirking when he protests your choice of terms. You've always known sirens to be touchy about the fish insults, and this one's no different, despite being a lake siren. It seems he must've spent some time with other sirens before this solitary confinement. You wonder if his crap song has something to do with it, completely ignoring whatever he's going on about. "Can you shut up? It was a joke. And you need to put shoes on," you finally cut in irritably, pulling open the door of your black F-250. Only Ford for you, because that's the only brand that your trees like. It's made of metal, not...well, flimsy crap. From the backseat, you pull out a pair of flip flops from a recent victim, and you hold them out to Loren.

The siren doesn't quite know what to do with himself, you can see. He's staring at the shoes in your hand like they're going to bite him, and he has his seatbelt on incorrectly--the strap behind him. With a sigh, and the thought that he reminds you of that stupid kelpie in your backyard with his cluelessness, you reach over and first fix his seatbelt, then hand him the shoes. "They go on your feet. The things with the toes. That strap," you point to the bit connecting the straps to the rubber bottom, whilst he touches and pulls at his toes curiously, goes between your big toe and second toe." Loren frowns, but he takes the left shoe and tries to slip it onto his right foot.

When you correct him and sigh impatiently, he pushes your hands away and stares at the window, arms folded indignantly. "Take me back to my lake. This was a mistake," he says, and you can see that this poor siren is actually tearing up with his frustration. You raise an eyebrow because he's a big, buff dude and it's a little bit odd to see his type about to cry, but nonetheless, you're not about to sacrifice a date because he's pathetic. So you reach down and manhandle the shoes onto his feet before turning the key in the ignition and pulling onto the dirt path. "Home," he repeats again, indignant. You've always been as stubborn as the trees you cherish, so you just keep driving.

Your heart bleeds. Really. He looks terrified over there, and you wonder if he's heard of the black market trade like you have. Does he honestly think you'd take him and sell him? That's awful. "Look, I'm not going to do anything terrible, okay? But human really does taste gross unless your kind is really meant to eat them, and you're not a bad catch even though you're pretty helpless. Besides, how often do you get the chance to leave the lake? Interact with someone besides Angie the drunk?"

"I am happy in my lake!" he snaps back, and you're taken aback. "Angelica wished for me to leave, and out of kindness, I did, but this is not a comfortable experience. You're...you're so..."

"Sexy? Stunning?"

"Egocentric and commanding!" Your eyes widen and you slam on the brakes, making him clutch the door and close his eyes in terror.

You stick your finger out and poke him in the forehead. "Alright, you ignorant fishtail, I'm the biggest being besides Pan around here, and I have the right to be a tool sometimes. If you can't accept that, then get out of the truck and shuffle back home. Good luck getting there before your turn back into a fish!"

"I am not a fish!" he screams angrily, and you cover your ears. His dastardly song is coming out at this fevered anger, and it would honestly kill you because of its absolutely disgusting sound. But immediately, he stops, and he glared at you furiously. "I'll go with you to satisfy Angelica. But after this, leave me alone."

You scowl. "Yeah, I'll have no problem with that." And with that, you begin to drive, a bit more angrily than is probably safe.