Isla thrived in darkness, but with only the skin on her bones protecting her and no way to defend herself, a fear she hadn't felt in years bled into the core of her being. She hid inside the trunk of a gigantic oak tree, thinking, alone and hungry. People feared her kind, their magic and what they did, but what would they do when they found out she was powerless? That she was just a little girl hiding in the night and no longer the monster they feared her to be.
The cold bit at her skin, and a metallic taste still lingered on her tongue from when she'd bitten at Feena's nose. Blood, something she'd become all too accustomed to over the years. Without the wild spirit alive inside her, however, that taste was all except satisfying. Spitting off to the side, she'd started to detest it. Fruit. She wanted fruit. And she knew with certainty that there was some in this forest. If only it weren't so bloody dark, then she might be able to find something to eat.
Now, though, was a matter of survival. Isla knew the dark forests of Westerland better than most, and she knew that as uncommon as they were, other creatures lurked about besides herself. She was merely one of the fae folk, part of the gentry fae that made their courts and kingdoms outside of human realms. Kelpie, sure, one might consider her that, and perhaps she was in a way...but it would be a grave misinterpretation of what she actually was.
If a wild, independent spirit like the one inside her had made its home in that lake instead, it would have eaten both Charles and Feena without so much as a rational thought. And its ensorcellment would have been all the more potent as well as its savagery. As to whether lust would have been its chosen tool or not, she could only speculate. It just seemed convenient, Isla thought, thinking back on what she'd done to Charles. Human men seem so...easy.
Isla let out a breathy chuckle. She liked the little tree-trunk home she'd made for herself. She closed her eyes, drawing in the dirt like she'd done back in her little basement in Ettinsburgh. A small choir of crickets chirped through the night, and the wind picked up outside, Isla happy she wasn't caught out in it to feel its tender assault.
She thought about the boy, and how he'd looked at her not with contempt, but with a true admiration for her beauty. I'd barely ensorcelled him. The other immortal folk back at her home of the Unseelie Court treated her as though she were some prize to be won. Over and over to the point where she thought that somehow, she'd begun to accidentally ensorcell her own peers. "Isla, take me!" She cringed. Sex was nothing to her folk, even at a very young age. To have a fae child was nothing short of a miracle, it sometimes taking hundreds of years for fae women to even have their first child.
The result of her own birth, father had told her, was a court-wide celebration, the Seelie Court of the faes even going as far as to give their own congratulations in the form of a dead crow with the congratulatory note tied to it. It'd been a jab, but Isla's mother, Morrigan, took it in good humor, sending a dove with its head chopped off back in return with a note of her own.
Isla smiled. She wanted to go back to the chaos that was her home. Minus mother, however. And a few other reprobates she didn't particularly like.
"Lads! This way!"
And then suddenly, there came MacGregor, and Isla stopped breathing.
A horse clopped along the forest floor, and a thousand angry footsteps followed. Had he roused the whole town to go looking for her? The burns across her body still stung. If she'd looked beautiful to that boy before, she'd most likely give the impression of an overcooked piece of meat at this point...or at least a string of dried beef. She wasn't quite sure which. Either way, doom fast approached, and Isla wanted nothing to do with it.
"Halt!" MacGregor had stopped outside—a good way off, however. Peeking out of her trunk, torchlights ran in straight line behind MacGregor. Twenty men trailed behind him, shuffling about the forest floor with their feet. He dismounted, giving the line a good pass before he started speaking.
"Lads!" he began. "I asked for you to come on this hunt, and now I tell you why."
His men murmured amongst themselves, passing whispers.
MacGregor finally continued. "Long have we lived in the shadow of a realm yet unknown to the Westerland man. My people: One of the foul queen's beasts has come out of its lair!"
Murmurs circulated once more, the men stirring as their heads turned and their feet shuffled up against the ground.
"We are here not as the King's men, not as faebreakers, but as just ourselves." He paused, finding his breath. "My inexperience—and I admit this truly—has led to the death of one of our town's most beloved, Feena."
He moved back and forth down the line, brandishing his torch as its flames shifted angrily through the air. "I come here to redeem myself. To hunt the demon that dared bore its teeth against our people."
He lifted his torch high into the air.
"I ask that you raise your torches with me. And fear not the dark forest!" he screamed, his voice echoing through the trees. "And when you see the beast—a naked girl in the dark—do not be fooled. Strike her down with what weapons you have brought, and show no mercy!"
The whole crowd cheered, raising their torches, pitchforks, shovels, whatever they had brought. The man's aura seemed impenetrable, inconceivable, his spell of confidence about as strong as fae ensorcellment itself.
"And if you see its form, that of the demon's true self. Gather together as brothers in arms and march forward against her. Because tonight, is the night, Ettinsburgh takes back its pride!"
With that, MacGregor's party scattered into groups of threes and fours, scouring the night for what Isla figured could only be herself. True self... She curled up into a ball, tears rolling down her cheeks. He'd called her a demon.
"Girl."
A voice in the dark, but not that of a man. Something else...something in the language of the ancient forest.
"I know you're there. I can see you, hiding inside that little trunk. Stay put."
She blinked. "Who are you?"
"You'll see." It paused. "How are you?"
"You can't be serious."
"Very serious," the voice said. "How are you?"
"Fine." Isla scoffed. "I'm fine."
"Clearly not." The voice chuckled. "There's something else out here."
"You, right?" Isla figured.
"Oh no," it said, its tone raspy. "Something, very, very bad. And something very, very, unfortunate."
"What do you mean?" Isla sighed. "And who are you?"
"Something very unfortunate for the twenty something men that would go screaming around its ancient loch." The voice in the dark snickered. "You're not the only one that's been doing some killing around these parts. And tsk tsk, let's not spoil the surprise now. I want to see the look on your face when you meet me!"
"You'll make me want to eat you if you don't stop faffing about," Isla spat. She half meant it.
"Oh, you're so cute when you're angry!" The voice paused. "You're a very lucky girl to have not crossed its path yet. It's waking up now."
"Lucky? Waking up?" He might as well have been spouting nonsense at this point, but Isla was too bored not to listen. "What are you on about?"
"I won't utter its name here. Listen, and be completely silent...because it might hear us when we're the last ones left. When you see me, you'll know who I am, and I'll take you somewhere safe. Don't question it."
"Can I trust you?"
"I don't know," the voice said. "Can I trust you not to eat me? Because that would be very unfortunate."
Isla's stomach rumbled. "Yes." She couldn't tell a lie. No fae could. Though they could twist words.
"Good, well, focus on not getting eaten for the time being and stay put. Ta ta!"
The voice stopped speaking, and Isla sat, twiddling her fingers, waiting for something to happen. When nothing did, Isla peeked her head up, trying to catch any glimpses of what the voice in the dark was talking about. Perhaps she was asking for it, but when didn't she? She'd eaten...twenty men and women, and not just in Westerland. Her stomach grumbled again. I'll...I'll stick to fruit if I ever get the chance to. And maybe even cooked food. When was the last time she'd had any of that? Probably never. She rubbed her belly.
A heavy set of footsteps pounded against the forest floor near Isla's tree trunk. She ducked, hiding herself away. They weren't human.
Something breathed deep, excessively, and what Isla would consider hungrily as well.
You're not the only one that's been doing some killing around these parts.
Isla gaped.
It's waking up now.
Father had taught her to stay well clear of certain solitary fae—or fairies, if they were deemed wild enough. The redcaps kept to their abandoned ruins, castles, cathedrals, and what not. The kelpies liked their streams and rivers, sometimes lakes, moving on occasion. And the will-o-wisps were easily avoided by ignoring their antics completely. However, Isla wasn't sure as to whether she'd been told about something as big as this.
She poked her head out again, and she heard something. A different voice, though still in the language of the ancient forest.
"Interlopers. Interlopers...on my loch." Its weighty breaths still lingered outside, growing heavier by the second.
"Interlopers!" the creature screamed, aloud this time, and not in the Language. Isla shrank back, its footfalls thundering outside as the whole forest erupted into a cacophony of warcries. MacGregor's party had no doubt caught sight already of—whatever it was. However, the human screams that followed that indicated that they probably came ill-prepared for the occasion. While pitchforks and shovels might have been able to beat down a battered Isla, whatever that was would without a doubt shrug them off completely.
Was that thing inside the lake? Isla had been lucky indeed. Should have done the river instead. Maybe she could have avoided this whole situation.
"Kelpie!" said one of MacGregor's men, his death's shriek following.
A whole battle raged outside as the birds woke, fleeing their resting spots. Weapons clattered, the experience an auditory one as Isla curled up into a ball again. The thing in the dark moaned, shrieking in pain—but it never stopped. It never stopped killing as the screams of mortal men pierced the sky and reached for the heavens above.
The sound of shuffling feet reached Isla's ears and finally, the commotion stopped. "Lads! This way! It took MacGregor!" said someone in the distance. Peeking out her tree, a gargantuan figured lumbered in the distance, dragging a human body behind it with a single hand. Its height—over seven feet tall with hooves for feet. Its head—that of a horse's.
Kelpie? No, not quite. Close, maybe, but not quite that.
The creature ran, thumping across the dark woods at a sprint. Stopping, it chucked the man it held ahead of itself, sending him flying against Isla's tree with a sharp crack.
Isla jumped, shaking. She'd been savage, cruel, sadistic, and she knew it. But this was pure anger of the likes she'd never seen. This creature encapsulated the essence of territorial dominance, and unlike what she'd been told of the kelpies, attacked on sight. It walked forward, confident, and in great strides.
"You broke your people's promise," the creature said. "One they made to me long ago."
MacGregor, who sat right outside Isla's tree, gasped for breath. "Beast..."
"No respect?" the creature muttered. "Even when I have been so patient as to let all your people's past transgressions go?"
The faebreaker, scrambling to his feet, tried to run. But the creature pinned him down in less than a second.
"I made your waters clean!" the beast spat. "Ten generations back. And all I asked for in return was for a quiet place to live. Last week, a man and a woman came traipsing here, yelping, shrieking, beating each other. But no, I didn't eat them. I went back to finding my food elsewhere in the forest that day."
MacGregor said nothing. All that courage he'd displayed before seemed to had disappeared entirely, his voice quaking as he sobbed quietly.
"I let the little things go, as that's what they are—just little things," the creature explained. "But this? Have you come hunting me?"
"Kelpie...?" Wheezing, MacGregor coughed violently before saying, "What are you?"
"What?" Isla heard a bone snap, and MacGregor shrieked. "Have you people unpersoned me to such an extent that you would mistake me for that scum?" The creature pounded the ground once, and Isla felt the forest shake. "I've not lifted a hoof to you people!"
The creature pounded the ground again. "I've killed the likes of kelpies for your folk! Made your waters safe from bandits that might have made their camps around it. Made your town prosper!" The sound of parting flesh slithered through the air. Isla cringed back, and MacGregor moaned in pain. "I take back my boon," the creature said. "And I bestow in its place a curse."
MacGregor's breaths turned desperate, his body clamoring as he rustled the leaves on the forest floor.
"This loch—poison. Your people—food. And your life—mine."
"No," MacGregor said, pleading. "Whatever we've done, great spirit, please. We will make it up somehow."
"Too late," the creature said simply. "I will not forgive these forgettances."
Something like a twig snapped, MacGregor's whimpers ceasing entirely. Only the sound of eating remained, like a predator tearing into a fresh carcass. Bones crunched, flesh tearing as Isla assumed MacGregor to be no more.
She sat petrified, twiddling her fingers, still unsure as to how something could be more frightening than her own self. When the beast finished, it walked off, dragging something behind it. Maybe leftovers, if some solitary folk were into that type of thing. She'd been at the loch for several weeks. Truly, it was a wonder she'd never crossed this beast's path before. I guess I'd just not made enough noise. That seemed to be its pet peeve, if anything.
MacGregor's remaining party, scattered around the forest, shouted rallying calls as their voices faded away into nothing. They'd been broken. Just like that.
"Girl?"
Isla perked up. "You." It was the voice from earlier. "You're back."
"I'm coming around," it said. "When I get there, don't question a thing."
Isla waited, and soon, something approached at an ambling gait.
"Look."
Peeking out, Isla's eyes widened. The boy's horse stood before her, looking healthy as ever. Her lips parted a bit. She couldn't believe it, couldn't believe that this was even possible. "You?" she said aloud, testing the horse for verbal speech.
"Me," it said through its teeth. Not just a horse, apparently. "Get on, and hold tight. I like to go very fast."
"Very fast..." Whatever that meant.
"Get on," the horse repeated. "Before it comes back."
Isla climbed out of her tree trunk. Sad. She might have considered it a permanent abode, but what with the flesh eating man-horse lurking around, it simply wasn't possible. Jumping on, Isla gripped the horse's mane.
"Don't fall off," it said with a whisper.
And in an instant, Isla sped through the forest at a speed that shouldn't have been possible.
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