Diving Deep - Solo

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This is a solo! Takes chronological place shortly after Why? and Into Sidhe.

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It was a small, lonely village at the cusp of a thick forest, with dirt roads and weathered houses. The midday sun shone over toiled fields and flower baskets. Flowers were everywhere, actually. One couldn’t go three feet without passing past pansies or traveling by tulips. The midtown streets were particularly gaudy this fresh spring; everything smelled faintly of fertilizer and nectar. But Fenn had no time to stop and enjoy the rustic rural landscape, nor smell the flowers. No; the little fae was busy ducking around the corners of cottages and quaint shops, hasting his way through every twist and turn he found.

His heart pounded fast against his ribs, his breath burned in his lungs, and his feet skimmed quickly over the sun-warmed earth. So quickly, in fact, that he didn’t leave a speck of frost behind in passing. He didn’t have even a second to linger in any spot. There was a pursuer hot on his trail!

Her name was Loreley.

Lately, Fenn had noticed himself being a little… dare he say swifter? More deft and dexterous? An hour into this long game of tag, he had already outran and winded all the other children in the village. All except Loreley. Her simple dress and blonde locks flapped in the wind, and the grin on her face was as eager as the prey she was in pursuit of. Merciless. Well, merciless in a good way, Fenn found, in the actually-a-challenge way. (Other?) children were easy enough to trust. At least, for now. Sure, they were usually dumber than him. Sure, some of them said mean things. But they were on a similar level of powerlessness as him. They got him a little better than the people who were technically closer to his age.

They…

Ha! Fenn glanced behind his shoulder and found himself gaining ground — then squeaked as something twined around his ankles with a snap and took him off-balance.

…could not…

A warm palm slapped him on the shoulder as he fell, accelerating his descent.

…betray him.

“Tag!”

Fenn spat out dirt and rubbed the bitter taste out of his mouth on the back of his hand. The pair of wiry ivy vines wrapped around his feet were slack now, and he slipped free of the bonds with ease — and a stubborn pout. They came off curled stiff with frost.

Loreley skittered on ahead a few feet before coming to a rest. She waited, triumphant and only so patient, as he took a moment to lay flat and catch his breath. “You okay there?”

The girl could almost pass for his older sister, were it not for Fenn’s obviously inhuman qualities — his greyish skin, his pointed ears. They could be siblings. Y’ know, if you squinted real hard and turned your head sideways. If. A thumbs-up flashed Loreley’s way. He pointed to the vines, and dashed a few skeptical words in the fine soil of the street. MAGIC ALLOWED IN GAME?

She laughed, hands behind her head. “Why not? With you it’s fair, ain’t it? You’re magic too!”

Psssh. A snort escaped the young fae. If that was her logic, then he could hide himself in a shroud of snow next game! That was, if they were going to start a next game. With everyone else having gone home, that left just him and Lore, and it wasn’t so much fun to start a game of tag with just two people. A disappointed sigh wheezed out of him as Loreley grabbed him by the hand and hauled him back to his feet.

Hoofbeats and the squeaking of wheels drew up behind them.

“Mmm? What’s this?”

Suddenly, Fenn found himself lifted off his feet and swung around to face the voice. Panic squeezed his chest, but only for the brief moment until he realized it was just Loreley’s arm curled around his chest, holding him as one might a friendly cat. She was tall for only twelve. Her touch prickled his skin with strong waves of golden-warm magic-brightness. “Hi Papa!” Loreley greeted cheerfully.

Loreley’s “papa” was a broad-shouldered man, brawny and brown-bearded. His donkey-drawn cart was piled high with mouth-watering honey. “Morning, buttercup,” he replied with a grin, tipping his hat at the two. “And who’s this here?”

She beamed back and hugged Fenn tighter, spreading frost along the long sleeves of her dress. “My new friend! Told you about him, ‘member? Isn’t he just the bittiest lil’ flower you’ve ever seen? Say hello Fenn!” Where on Althanas did that sugar in her voice come from? The puck almost went cross-eyed from confusion. Were it not for the tangles in her hair and the dirt on her clothes, it would've been hard to believe that Loreley had spent the last two hours winning the roughest game of tag Fenn had ever played.

The little fae squinted up at Loreley’s father and gave him a small, uneasy wave. Hi.

A grunt and a gentle nod was returned. “Hello. Buttercup’s said a word or two about you. Seen you hanging out this town a couple days too, boy. It’s a nice place. I take it that you aren't from anywhere ‘round these parts, are you?” He didn’t even wait for Fenn to shake his head before continuing on. “With those ears, I’d think you come from Raiaera. What brings you to these parts? Or your folks, I suppose.”

Fenn managed an awkward shrug. What reason was required for being anywhere? The world itself was his fucking playground, as far as he was concerned. No need for parents.

Loreley seemed to think differently. A sudden gasp squeezed out of the girl. Gently, she set Fenn down and spun him around to face her. At first, he was grateful to be on his own two feet again — his arms were going numb from being held up like a helpless kitty — but the worry scrunching up her face dampened that relief. “Fenn, didn't you tell me that you didn't know where your parents were?”

Did he? Fenn tapped his chin and thought. He might have. It was a technical truth — he never had the foggiest idea what had happened to his birth parents. Or if he had birth parents in the first place, come to think of it.

Loreley shook him by the shoulders, the distress in her warm brown eyes only becoming more pronounced in the face of his apathy. “No, c’mon Fenn, how long has it been since you last saw ‘em? Something must have happened for them to vanish on you. Right? Papa, you don’t think they…”

Papa cast Fenn a solemn look. “It’s possible. Boy, your folks weren’t last seen by the loch, were they?”

Loch? That lake-y place he had opted to go around on the way over here? Fenn shrugged and scuffed at the dirt, starting to feel a little grey-cheek’d fluster at the sudden attention on him. A nervous twist of frost laced its way up his sleeves. Was it better to keep playing along with the “lost parents” thing? It was far less complicated, he knew, than trying to explain that he was a parentless thirty-year old adventurer who just happened to resemble a dirty, wayward child.

“I won't lie to you, if that’s where they were last seen, I doubt they’re coming back,” Loreley’s father said quietly. He clutched his reigns in a tighter, white-knuckled grip and took a deep breath. “Buttercup and I used to fish there a lot, but I don’t dare step foot in them woods now. Past few months, folks’ve been straight-up vanishing by that loch in droves. Sheriff hasn’t been able to figure out why just yet. We’re considering calling someone in from Radasanth to handle it. Lots of tough, knowledgeable folk live ‘round the citadel. Can't imagine working in a place that crowded myself.”

Loreley kissed Fenn atop the head. Reflexively, he stuck out his tongue and squirmed in indignation — she had no sense of personal space! Which was probably rich of him to get in a huff about. “Maybe you can wait for them here with me,” his new friend said cheerfully. “I’ve always heard that it’s better to stay in place when you’re lost, and I can keep you company.”

“That’s mighty sweet of you, buttercup. ” He gave Fenn a concerned look from beneath the brim of his hat. “I don’t know where you’ve been sleeping the past few days, but you’re welcome to stay with us if you need. Well, I’d better get this to the market. I’ll see you two in a few hours.”

“Bye-bye Papa!” Loreley called. Fenn gave the man another reserved wave.

The donkey’s hoofsteps thumped against the dirt and the wheels squeaked, fading as the cart rounded the corner.

Soon as her father was out of earshot, Loreley went from flithering about like a flimsy little flower to her usual self. Fenn gasped as he was abruptly dropped back onto the dirt road. When he brush the dust off himself — again — and stood back up, Loreley was shooting him a wicked grin. Her arms crossed together confidently. “Alrighty, you and I both know that we ain't staying put, don't we? You thinking what I’m thinking? You should, really, because it’s a really great idea, and if you aren't, we should go with it anyway.”

The boy gave her a blank look, raising an eyebrow. A baffled shrug was given to the boasting blonde. Maybe Fenn was magic, but he wasn’t exactly a mind reader.

“Aww, come on! Thought it’d be easy for you to guess. I’m thinking we should go check out the loch,” she said, her eyes lit up with excitement.

Fenn stared at her. It was indeed an interesting suggestion, one that made his sense of adventure perk up and wag its tail. But… WHY FOR? he asked, sloppily writing in the dirt with his toe.

“Don’t you want to find your parents?” she asked, frowning at him. “We can figure out whatever's going on over there. Everyone’s getting pretty worried over it. If we could fix it, or find all the people that’ve vanished, that’d make us heroes. It’ll be an adventure! Between the two of us, we’d be strong enough to face off against any danger. I mean, you can do your frosty thing, and I have my plants. Are you with me?”

The boy paused. Fenn fancied himself a lot of things, and an adventurer was definitely one of them. A rushed moment of thought was all that went through his mind before he nodded. He could use some relaxing, good ol’ fashioned investigation. It’d be a better adventure than his recent… mishaps… he figured. And if something went wrong, there was always the good ol’ time-tested technique of running-the-fuck-away. Both of them were good at that. No-one expects the FENNQUISITION! Or, at least, whatever danger lurked in the loch wouldn’t expect it.

Loch ho!

It was with a sense of purpose and speed that Loreley and Fenn set off on their little adventure. Their bare feet tramped through the shallow yellow-green fields stretching between the cozy little village and the thick forest surrounding the loch. Loreley made a great show of “leading the way”. Fenn simply shrugged and followed as she dragged him along through the tall grass and heather, watching as the flowers seemed to lean willingly toward his new friend as they passed by. A jolt of surprise wracked him with every bright locust disturbed along the way. Spring was bug season. Everything from fruit flies to inchworms greeted the two young interlopers; Fenn couldn’t help but wonder if he’d find a few dried bug husks in the bottom of his sifan satchel later. Anything that crawled into his hoard was not liable to crawl out again.

Just outside the field in the space between the trees and whispering grass was a stretch of chalky dirt and plant stubble. Fenn glanced down at it and shyly tugged on Loreley’s sleeve, bringing her swagger to a sudden stop. A huff of impatience escaped the girl. “You need something?”

Sheepishly, he etched his thoughts out into the rough dirt underfoot. HAVE STRONG FRIEND. USEFUL. CALL NOW. The boy bit his lip and added a little more. SHE NICE, NO BE SCARED.

“A friend?” Loreley backed up to lean against a nearby tree, considering his words with a continued frown of disbelief. “One I’d be scared of? All the way out here?”

Shrugging away the awkward question — a reply he was giving so often to Lore that it was starting to make his shoulders ache — the fae slipped a brass whistle out of his satchel’s front pocket. The metal grew cold and frosted over at his touch. Taking a deep breath, Fenn raised it to his lips and blew.

“Fweeeeeeeee!”

A deep howl answered in the distance. The boy sighed in relief at the response. It was closer than he had suspected.

Loreley gave a start and whirled about as a heavy presence shook the canopy of the forest before them. Snapping twigs and crunching leaves, something broad-pawed and powerful headed their way. Fenn squeaked as huge canid burst forth from the leaves and came to a stop but ten feet away from them. Its fur was as dark as the space between the stars, its teeth were stained pink from countless successful hunts, and its face was sunken. Skeletal, really. Skeletal in a way that defied the rest of its hale body. The creature fixed its one good eye, red as blood, on him.

Fenn beamed. “Hey Daugi,” he signed cheerfully at the direwolf with a few loose gestures. Seeing her here unharmed was an immense relief. She had been off romping around the loch woods for the few days her tiny friend had been relaxing in town. Small settlements didn’t typically react well to the company of Fenn’s fierce friend, so he gave her time to roam out in the wilds on her own when he visited them. He shuddered to realize that she had been galavanting around in the same place others seemed to vanish from.

“Auf,” the wolf barked back, eying the second blonde child standing paralyzed at his side, ears pricked up in an inquiring manner.

“Friend,” the boy explained in a single movement, glancing at Loreley. The wide-eyed girl hadn’t moved a muscle since the wolf’s arrival. “Very friend.”

Suddenly, the girl ascended from her statuesque state, clasping her hands over her mouth. “Oh. Oh Thaynes,” Loreley gasped, staring. Fenn held his breath, waiting for her to back away in worry. That moment never came. Instead, the girl took a breathless step toward the hulking wolf, a grin lighting up her face. “You have a puppy? Fenn, why didn’t you tell me?”

Puppy? Fenn wrinkled his nose at the term, emitting a new squeak of confusion. That was not the usual reaction to Daugi.

“Oh, let me say hello. Here, puppy puppy! Are you a sweet little doggy? Are you?” Loreley asked the hulking direwolf. She approached with open hands and a sweet tone, uttering a few quick kissy noises. Where before, the direwolf had been greeting the second blonde child with a passive one-eyed sense of suspicion, her ears now twitched excitedly. Fenn glanced between Loreley and Daugi with his own ears twitching. “Aw, that’s it!” the girl continued. “Come here! Who’s a good girl? Is it you? Is it yoooooou~?”

Daugi perked up, her tail thumping the ground. “Wuff?” she inquired right back, bowing down on her front paws.

“I think it is you! Come on, come to meeeee~!”

Uttering a short, excited bark, Daugi bounced up and seamlessly barreled across the woods towards them, tongue lolling out her mouth. Fenn could practically hear his mount’s thoughts as she trounced past him. ”Yesyesyes, I’m a good girl, I’m a good girl! It’s me!”

Loreley squealed in surprise as she was knocked to the root-tangled earth. Daugi, now stanchly stretched out ontop of the girl, licked the face of her new friend with unwarranted enthusiasm. “Your dog… really friendly! Also, really heavy,” Loreley groaned. “How do I ask her to move?”

Fenn’s shoulders bobbed up and down with wordless giggles and he shook his head in reply, watching with amusement as Loreley attempted (and failed) to nudge the big wolf off of herself. This whole display was enough to almost make him jealou- wait. Come to think of it, the last person Daugi had taken to so completely had been Amari. The very thought made Fenn flinch. Red hair and a sharp, unhappy grin danced in his mind before he swatted that thought away. But, this friend wasn't liable to stick a knife in him. Right? Fenn had pegged Loreley as the type more likely to accidentally hurt herself — as opposed to anyone else — if handed a pointy object.

He felt a bit disappointed in himself. Fenn was a brave adventurer, so what was he doing getting scared of his ally just because she shared a trait with... someone else?

As Daugi continued to smother Lore in sloppy kisses and nuzzles, Fenn stood by, holding his head in one hand as he tried not to think too hard about things he’d rather forget. Eventually, the direwolf relinquished her new friend. Gasping for air, Loreley grinned and rubbed her sore — well, everything. The little fae knew from experience how rough a direwolf’s affection could be. He flashed her a weak grin in return.

“You look a bit down,” she observed keenly, arms still draped over Daugi’s neck. “We not getting along with this adventure fast enough for you?”

Sure. That was as good a reason to look sad as any. Fenn nodded, summoning a bashful dip of his ears and a shy little smile to compliment the gesture, as if to confirm her assumption.

“Well, c’mon then! Let’s get going!”

Before the two — three if one counted Daugi — delved into the forest before them, they stopped to quickly discuss a few matters. Fenn properly introduced his wolf by name to Loreley, and in turn, Lore pointed out the rough direction the loch was in. With that done, Fenn hoisted himself onto Daugi’s back. Into the trees they set off.

The woods that surrounded much of the loch became odder and odder the further one went in. It seemed that the flat terrain flooded pretty regularly, and the only reason there wasn’t more erosion was because of the cypress trees. Salt crusted the roots of the trees in sparkling patches of white. Each step into the hairy patches of sopping grass was a bit of a struggle for Loreley, as a good few inches of her boots would get sucked into the muddy spots, only to be yanked out with a squelch for the next step. At the same time, Daugi padded through the muck as if it were nothing. One found no bog particularly troublesome after experiencing the deep snows of Salvar.

Fenn was glad that Daugi was carrying him. For him, wet feet meant frozen feet, and frozen feet meant getting stuck. Though, he heard that saltwater froze pretty slowly…

With a wave of his hand, he thought to offer Loreley a ride besides him. Despite her enamoration with the big wolf, he had been met with a narrowed gaze. “I can manage my own way, thank ya very much,” the girl replied stubbornly, jabbing her chest with one proud finger. “If anyone can keep up with your big beauty of a beast, it’s gotta be me.”

The dramatic refusal — and the floundering about in the mud that followed it — brought an unvoiced giggle bubbling up in Fenn’s chest. He recognized himself in that weird sense of independence she displayed. Recognized it, and wondered at it, nose crinkling at the oddity of the thought. Did other people find him funny when he was like that? No wonder it was so easy to mistake him for a child. Maybe he could — should? — try to catch himself when he was being stupid for pride’s sake. Of course, as soon as he had the thought, Fenn sighed at it. He was too much a creature of instinct and impulse for that, wasn't he?

Though, becoming aware of his own nature made room for him to try and change it…

Unlike himself, if Loreley had one talent, it was definitely talking. Nary a moment went by without her pointing out a funny looking stump or speculating as to what they’d find out here. “Maybe everyone just got lost in these samey-same trees,” she mused to no-one in particular. “Seems unlikely though. Too easy an explanation. My Gran’s told me a few stories of wicked fae coming along and stealing people away, and it's said that a one of ‘em cursed the loch a long time ago.” Her algae green eyes lifted to meet Fenn’s own. A grin stretched across her cheeks. “Maybe we’ll have to bargain with the fair folk for them back! That’s sure be an adventure, wouldn’t it? What do you think?”

The little fae felt cold blood rush to his cheeks, tinting them grey. His ears, similarly flushed with embarrassment, pressed flat against his curls.

Loreley watched his more-speechless-than-typical reaction with sly-smiled calm, but didn’t comment on it. Not directly. “It’s okay if ya don’t like that possibility. Maybe that’s not what's going on. Though, I’m not sure I could really guess why else anybody’d just be vanishing from the face of the earth.”

Well… Fenn sighed, and drew his hand across his throat as if slitting it.

Wince. Lore acknowledged his suggestion with a slow nod, peeling a sweaty blonde lock of hair away from her forehead. “Yeah, that worries me too. But if they died, then what killed them, and why? I don’t think people are dumb enough to just wander into to loch and get drowned. Wouldn’t there be, ya know, bodies for the sheriff to find? Wouldn’t there be a sign it happened? It’s all so suspicious.”

Daugi’s ears flicked up in concern at the words “killed” and “died”. Nodding to Loreley, Fenn reassured his beast with a couple gentle scratches behind the ear.

“I guess I’m just glad it ain’t none of my family who’s gone and vanished. I mean, it’s just me and Pa and Gran running things these days,” Lore continued, her voice lowered in an almost furtive way. “Glad they’ve stuck around. Had an older sister, but she off and married some handsome bard a few years ago. Travels the countryside now, I hear. Poor Ma died when I was a wee baby. Right after having me, in fact.” Suddenly, the girl shot him a wide-eyed look, rigid with sudden self-awareness. “I ain’t talking too much or too personal for you, am I?”

Fenn shook his head. He didn’t mind her rambling on. Actually, he kind of liked it. Listening to stories was certainly something to pass the time.

Relief lit up the girl’s face. She twirled about, yanking her foot out of a mudsink, and beamed back at him. Daugi was given a gentle pat on the side. “I’d ask you more about you, but you can’t talk much up from all the way there, right? Nowhere to write!”

That was very true. Fenn nodded and glanced at his bag. Maybe later he could show her some of the things he had collected — that was about the easiest way to tell her about himself. His things were more of less an accumulation of himself, of his adventures. He thought that, probably, he trusted her enough not to make off with any of his shinies. It was another thing to add to his list of things-to-do before he had to leave behind this sleepy town for greener pastures. Loreley’s village was going to be one of those places he couldn’t help but drag his feet about leaving. That much was obvious.

And yet, he was going to leave anyway. He always did. The call of the road — and the requests of a certain someone — had to be heeded.

For a brief moment, the forest was silent. Loreley took a deep breath. Her dress was muddied at the trim and slightly thorn-torn by now. “You know, you haven’t told me all that much, being in town as long as you have. Are ya ever planning on telling me things like, how you got your puppy? Why do you got your magic? What are your parents like,” she asked, “if they’ve just up and left you all by yourself for days? And ya don’t seem all that torn up about it?”

Maybe he was imagining it, but there seemed to be something sly about the last question. Staring up at the hints of blue sky peeking through the dark canopy above, Fenn graced it with another of his evasive shrugs. They were feeling less clever an answer by the hour.

“Alright then, knife-ears. Be coy with me. You know, I should tell you about how I got my magic, but I haven’t the foggiest idea myself. I was just kind of born like…”

Fenn snorted, and rested his chin on Daugi’s head. The wolf twitched an ear at him. As he stared forward into the trees, Loreley’s blithe chatter blended into the background noises of the forest; croaking toads, chirping birds, the wind in the branches. If there was anything good to be said about this tedious trek, it was that his mount’s familiar trot was comforting. Too comforting maybe. As a certain sleepiness snuck up on him, he woozily wondered if taking a nap was such a bad idea. Awful things sometimes happened when he was unconscious near strangers. Yet, Daugi was soft, and Loreley was nice, and the forest air was misty and boggy and warm…

Absently scritching his wolf under the chin, he closed his eyes.

Just for a moment.

A haze of white clouds and green sky swirled around Fenn, with no ground in sight.

It wasn’t exactly falling, nor was it flying, nor floating. He was stuck at a fixed point in space. Wet winds rushed around him from different directions, tousling his hair and wrapping his cloak about him warmly. A grin came to his face. Content where he was, the little fae watched as a rather thick cloud drifted by, and a few thin-winged moths who didn’t seem to struggle in the winds at all. He squinted into the breeze. This wasn’t… normal for reality. Was it? Though, it felt… oh. With a little gasp of realization, Fenn put together the fact that he was in a dream. And that he could think clearly enough to know it, that meant that he had a visitor...

His suspension was quickly confirmed. “My pigwidgeon?” two matronly voices inquired off at the same time. A thick cloud, disturbed by the winds, drifted away to reveal Banrion floating in the air but a few meters away. As always, she was resplendent in a crimson dress and armor of silver wood, though her pristine feather mane was bedraggled by the breeze. Her two snakish heads turned toward him. “Ahh. There you are. What lovely weather we are having, isn’t it?”

Fenn snorted and waved back. <Does dream weather actually count as weather?> he mentally murmured at the stately fae he unofficially served under.

“As much as any other weather one might perceive,” she answered with double serene smiles.

Huh. With a thoughtful frown, Fenn stuck his hand into a nearby cloud, marveling at the lack of tangibility.

“When I glance back at your physical form, I notice that the weather in the mortal world is also warm and wet.” Her left head gave a dry sniff of disapproval, while the right closed her eyes peacefully. “I also notice that you seem to be traveling beside a girl babbling her brains out about ‘adventure’. And, for some reason, bees. Pray tell, my pigwidgeon, what manner of ‘adventure’ are you up to today?”

<There’s people vanishing out at the loch my new friend lives by. We’re going to find them,> he explained cheerfully.

“Oh? Vanishing? Is this all that unusual?”

<Don’t know! It’s all mysterious and stuff.> Fenn paused, gathering his cloak about himself in nervous habit. <Mortals,> he said, finding himself using Banri’s word for non-fae, <don’t take it well when people vanish, you know.>

She scoffed, the left head a bit more loudly than the right. “One would think they’d be used to it. They’re nosey, short-lived creatures, are they not? It likely happens to them all the time.”

All he could say to that was a sheepish shrug.

Banri sighed at his silence. “In some ways, you are just as bad as them. It has been a bare few months of watching, but already I get the sense that danger runs into you on a near-daily basis.” Both of Banrion’s heads bared their teeth and glanced at each other, slitted red eyes squinting worriedly. “Do promise that you will avoid getting killed on this mysterious endeavor of yours.”

<I’ll be careful!>

She gave him two looks; one of stern, unconvinced disbelief, and one that was gentle. He couldn’t pin down the emotion of the softer look. “You had better. Once you are done running around, I ask that you remember to go fetch those books I told you about — the sooner I know the bureaucratic workings of Salvar, the better. You certainly take your time carrying out my will, don’t you?”

<Maybe I’d be faster if you told me why you want to know things like that,> he admitted, unable to keep the blunt bite of petulance out of his words.

“Pigwidgeon… no. Not yet.”

Their conversation ground to an unplanned halt as the green atmosphere flickered with traces of blue and black. The winds turned dry and listless. Fenn sulked just slightly as the breeze stopped its friendly play, leaving him with the unnerving feeling of not touching anything at all. Dark cracks crept through the sky. He instinctively understood what was happening; what always happened at the end of dreams Banri visited. The dream was breaking apart.

“You are being woken up now. Go run along and solve your mystery,” the elder fae whispered with a chuckle. A wash of mist drifted in front of her, and when it passed, she was nowhere to be seen.

The clouds rushed upwards, cracking at their edges.

Suddenly, he was falling, falling, falling...

Fenn landed back in his physical body with a sudden jolt, the ground rushing into view as he snapped back to alertness. He hit the mud with a splash and a soft whump! “Boils!” a squeaky voice exclaimed. There was a thin hand shaking him by the shoulder. He resisted his first instinct of inflicting the unasked-for touch with a grumpy bout of frostbite.

Which was good, for the hand belonged to one sour-lipped Loreley.

“You stupid sleepyhead!” she scolded him as she helped him back to his feet for the second time that day, crossing her arms crossly while he wiped the already-freezing mud from his face and hair. It tasted salty, and his face to puckered at the sensation. Daugi nuzzled his shoulder in concern. Her agitation seemed to rise with Loreley’s. “I was telling you all about the first time I was befriending Papa’s bees when I realized you’d gone and nodded off on me all rude-like. If you were bored, ya should’ve just said so!”

Oops. Fenn rubbed at his eyes and flashed her an apologetic grin, all pearly whites and jutting canines. Her pout softened. Relieved, he clambered back atop his wolf.

The girl gave a last huff and pointed out a dark and glittering expanse just outside the thinning trees. “We’re close to the actual loch now though, so, it’s all good and I can forgive you.” Something bashful came over her. Looking up at him, she clasped her hands behind her back, just below the fall of her blonde curls. “Can I… ride Daugi too now? I got a little tired while you were asleep.”

Beaming, Fenn helped her up.

Soon enough, the forest yielded to a stoney shore. Pebbles made up its banks, a myriad of dappled colors made dark by the wet wash of waves. The sun was a slowly-lowering flaming white disc amid silken mists, shining over still waters. Daugi padded carefully over the rocks, making sure not to jolt her extra rider as she lumbered along. She snuffed at the foamy water suspiciously. Along with the overpowering scent of salt, Fenn detected something else too. Something that made his nose wrinkle. It reminded him, for better or for worse, of what the molding and mushroom-blooming Clemont mansion had smelled like. Decay. Decay, and something… green.

He didn’t have a better word for the “green” aspect of the smell. Planty? But sea-planty.

Loreley seemed to notice too. “It don’t smell fishy here like it used to,” she whispered furtively into his ear.

After half an hour of shore-scouring with nothing unusual in sight, he was almost inclined to give up, to tug Daugi off back in the direction of Loreley’s flowery little village. This place was giving him spine tingles of dread despite the absolute nothing that was happening here.

But of course, shortly after the thought arrived, so did something unusual. “Over there!” Loreley whispered suddenly, starting him to full attention with a gasping jab of her hand.

At the edge of the shore, was a dun horse.

It was a very bedraggled and thick-furred horse half-lying in the shallows of the water, staring up at the trio with impossible melancholy. Seaweed hung from its matted mane and salt-crusted bridle like the most pathetic ribbons Fenn had ever seen. He squinted and tilted his head at what appeared to be limpets hanging onto its hooves. What on Althanas had it been through?

“Oh! That poor thing,” Loreley gasped, sliding herself off of Daugi’s back. “It looks hurt. Something must have happened to his rider. Come on!”

Daugi hesitated to follow her closer to the horse. A gentle nudge from Fenn’s heels only caused her to growl and sniff the air. The boy sighed and tapped her sides a little harder. She shot him a scathing look back. ”Why no go?” he signed. Yet another growl welled up in her throat. Something about this struck Fenn with a deep and trembling sense of anxiety. If anything, he should be holding her back from her natural instinct to hunt and eat the horse! Though he hadn’t the foggiest idea why she was being so stubborn, recent experience had taught him to trust her judgement.

“Well?” Loreley shouted back at the two. She was already standing on the rim of crusty algae lining the loch’s waters. The horse had lifted its head at her approach, liquid eyes wide and hopeful. “You coming or not?”

Fenn pointed to his quietly growling wolf. She still hadn't budged an inch.

“Maybe she don’t like seaweed? It’s okay — she can stay where she is,” Lore called back. He nodded.

As Fenn worked to pat and soothe his agitated mount — who began to whine as Loreley walked away from her — the girl inched her way toward the bedraggled steed, approaching it cautiously from the front. At first, the horse regarded her advance with a very sullen sort of shyness. It tossed its head and moped in a bit of a dramatic fashion. As she grew closer, the creature began to tense up, but at the same time its ears pricked up eagerly. Maybe all animals had a liking for Loreley, Fenn mused.

“Shh, shhh,” she murmured, the sound cutting above the wash of the waves, “it’s alright.

The horse gave a deep nicker and leaned toward her, bobbing its head and staring with those bright, bright amber eyes.

Lore continued to shush and inch closer, taking the reins in one hand. “Here. Let’s get that nasty-looking bridle off of you, ‘kay?” Fenn heard her coo, brushing stray mane back from its face. She reached for the first buckle. “Good boy! Now hold still…”

The horse’s face contorted as her hand neared the bridle. It opened its mouth, bearing mossy fangs.

A shriek rang through the air.

Daugi leaped out from under Fenn with a speed that shocked the breath from his body. One moment, he was sitting slack-jawed on her back. The next, he was sprawled out on the soggy stones in stark surprise, the wind knocked clean out of him and his eyes staring at the white skies. His back hurt a little from the impact, and his head spun.

Time blurred past while he shockedly contemplated the pain and the sliminess of the rock underneath him. A bath was going to be needed, far sooner than he’d hoped for this month. But he had a feeling that this was the least of his worries right now.

As soon as he began to get his bearings again, a fuzzy shape interrupted the sky above. Fenn blinked and focused on it.

One very pale and trembling Loreley hunched over him, wavering gaze him over for injuries. She sighed in relief at finding none worth her time. Which, Fenn noted with new alarm, was ironic. Blood welled up from a couple red gashes on her arm and ran down in thin trails, diluting where it mixed with droplets of lakewater. It seemed that Lore had taken a dunk in the lake while he was busy using the rocks as a bed. There was splashing in the distance.

He startled her by woozily grabbing the wrist of her injured arm, trying to point out the gashes. The girl shook her head and grabbed him by his upper arms. “I’m okay,” she half-shrieked in reply, hauling him upright for the third time today. “Just scraped! It tried to bite me and drag me under but- but your dog-”

A hair-curling scream rose from the lake, nearly horse-like, but not quite. Fenn’s breath caught in his throat as he turned to stare.

The little fae didn’t see his mount locked in combat very often. Usually, she dutifully followed his preferred way of dealing with problems — running the fuck away. Now was an exception. The horse was no longer a horse, but a roughly horse-shaped and terrifying visage of limp seaweed, algae, and glowing eyes. When it moved, slivers of bone and lifeless grey muscle peered out of the mass. A massive, eelish tail thumped the rocks where once it had appeared to have hair and bristles. Daugi lunged to lock her jaws around the creature’s neck, twisting it as if to snap it in the same way she dispatched so many deer in the past.

The not-horse bellowed out in anger, not having any of this. As Daugi struggled for a grip, the creature contorted to bludgeon her back with one slimy hoof, sweeping its tail toward her head menacingly. The wolf let go, but only to dodge the thick appendage. Only dive in for another bite.

Fenn’s hands trembled at his side, thoughts churning, wanting desperately to help, but having no idea how to intervene between the battling behemoths. If he whistled for her to flee, he risked distracting her. He risked allowing the not-horse a decisive blow. To throw ice from afar carried the same possibility. If he tried getting closer to help her fight, his risked himself and her concentration.

And if he did nothing…

But what could he do?

At his side, Loreley cried out with that same frustration.

Both beasts traded blows and bites. They were quick. They were vehement. They were rough equals in size and strength. The wolf, it was clear, was more experienced in this sort of struggle. She aimed for the vitals and gouged at its chest. She bit legs with the intention of hobbling the beast, of wrenching joints out of place. She blocked clumsy blows at her own neck with a snap of her powerful jaws. But it also became painfully clear that Daugi was made of true flesh and bone, while the slavering not-horse was something else entirely. When the wolf managed to dislocate ones of its knees, it sharply twisted the leg and popped the bone back into place. When her snapping pried a rib loose from its flesh, it only spared a second to stare at the ivory scythe as it hit the rocks, and then carried on.

The not-horse’s tail connected with Daugi’s face. The not-horse’s teeth clamped down on her side. A howl shattered the air.

Fenn wasn’t quite sure when he finally started moving. One moment he was watching with bated breath. The next, he felt a cold chunk of ice form in his hand, and watched it sail through the air. It clacked off the not-horse’s yellow skull in perfect futility. In the same instant, or perhaps a split second after, Loreley unfroze too, lifting up her hand suddenly. Ivy curled around one of its legs.

For but a moment, the not-horse froze to consider the meager magical intrusions, to stare at them; but that moment was long enough. Growling something fierce, Daugi’s dark figure ripped away from the not-horse, red blood showering the ground. She rushed away from the shore only to collapse in the mud of the forest a good few meters away. All the feverish momentum of the fight fled as she did.

The infernous gaze of the not-horse continue burn into Fenn and Loreley. A hunting intent still shone forth from it. He could see the green oozing from its breathless body, hear the girl beside him hiss an insult at it under her breath, felt Lore grab at his shoulders and pull him in the opposite direction.

The two reeled back from the shoreline as the creature crept out of the shallows, dead hooves cracking rock with each step.

Daugi lifted her head and summoned forth a booming warning bark. The not-horse shied away from the sound, skittering indecisively back to the water’s edge. Its yellow eyes darted between her, and the two small humanoids who dashed toward her. Another protective bark resounded. Fenn glanced helplessly back as the not-horse did what all predators did when faced with a particularly troublesome prey — it fled, seeking an easier meal elsewhere. In that moment, he felt an the dazed and angry urge to chase it spin through his head. Another shard of ice formed in his palm, only for him to startle and drop at yet another fierce — and pained — bark from his direwolf. She needed him.

Uttering a scream raw with disappointment, the not-horse turned tail and slipped smoothly into the dark waves it belonged to.

Without an enemy to vanquish, the wolf took refuge in a patch of marsh reeds and roots, curling up around the deep gash in her side. Ivory rib, just a sliver, peeped out of the wound. Her breaths were shallow.

— her lying broken on the floor of a ruinous kitchen, blood oozing from one empty eye socket —

His heart gave out. Instinctively, Fenn dashed over to the downed she-beast, tripping over snaking roots and mud and awkward shrubbery with no regard for his scraped feet. He barely noticed the swath of snow trailing in his wake.

— but what had he ever done to warrant this kind —

The air around him was icy and unwelcoming. Thick with blowing snow, suffocating. A pallor of winter. He wrapped his arms around Daugi’s neck, biting back tears as she weakly nuzzled him, she uttering an urgent whine. There were hands clasped around his chest, trying to get his attention. They wouldn’t take him from his wolf. Thoughtlessly, he shoved the touch back, fingers twitching with frost.

— should have acted sooner, he should have actually done something to help her, she was right, weak and cowardly to be frozen by indecision —

Words cut through the cry of the winds. Physical, audible, spoken words.

“Fenn, stop! I’m helping- my magic! I can heal her!”

At the squeaky cant of Loreley’s voice, the fae’s gaze shot up, heart racing. The girl shivered in her summer dress, looking very out-of-place in the swirl of snow that surrounded them. It faintly registered to him that she must have fought her way through his howling almost-blizzard to get to them. Fenn gave her a blank stare. His ears twitched. All that talking earlier, and she neglected to mention something this useful?

Actually, come to think of it, she probably had mentioned it. But he had been napping.

His frightened survival instincts murmured to him. Amari had been able to heal people too. You know, Lore’s magic-brightness feels a lot like her magic-brightness; before the corruption, that is.

But she isn’t Amari. Lore is nice, his inner thief insisted.

But they must be of the same kind then. What was it Amari called herself? Ar’Tuel?

It doesn’t matter.

As he forced himself to take deep breaths, face still buried in his wolf’s matted fur, the snowy gales building up around him began to peter out. Before his eyes, white speckles melted into the brown mud. A wash of muggy air replaced his stormings. Daugi licked his cheek gratefully. Anxious and antsy, and apologetic in the way he hung his head, Fenn sat on his still-frosty hands and allowed Loreley to step closer.

A crumpled sketch smile of relief lit up her face. “Good, you got it.”

Still shivering in the wake of his outburst, Loreley kneeled in the mud beside them. Magic-warmth overflowed from her. Fenn could feel it even from a few feet away. Slowly, almost painful so, she lowered her hand over the gaping wound. A pulse of light emanated from her hands. Under her touch, ligaments pulled together and raw flesh closed in on itself… but only for a small portion of the wound. And it was a rather large wound. The direwolf whined each time the girl moved to a new spot. Every burst of bright, soothing light made Loreley’s breath catch, as if she too could feel the pain of the great beast.

“I can only do a little bit at a time,” the girl admitted with a tired shudder. “And I can’t… I can’t do much. But I gotta try…”

That was reassuring, but only so much. Fenn stroked the top of Daugi’s head, listening to her raspy breathing and his own too-quick heart. He wasn't sure what he would do if she didn’t make it. A part of him worried that Lore wasn’t up to the task — was going to overextend and injure herself trying to fix this.

“But Fenn-“ the girl continued breathlessly while she focused on the direwolf, her eyes as wild as her flyaway hair, “I know what that monster was.”

The boy sat in silence and comforted his wolf as the girl feverishly, wearily, told him what she knew. This time, he made sure to pay attention.

Her hands were steady, and flickering warmly as a candle’s flame as she moved onto the next patch of raw wound. “Gran told me stories about a sea beast that used to appear in the loch. Y’know, in ‘the old days’. They got a taste for human flesh, you see, so they drag people under the waves and eat them. She knew ‘em as kelpies,” Loreley explained through gritted teeth. “They pop up after a horse… uh... drowns. That’s what Grannie said. Really sad. Like, a scary fae water-horse dead-thing…”

Kelpie. Fenn took a deep breath, committing the monster’s name to memory. He clenched his hands into fists and glared back at the loch, a few sharp hailstones plinking to the ground seemingly out of nowhere. At least they knew just what manner of beast they were facing now. If they didn't take care of this problem now, who knew how many more the kelpie would take before someone finally put it out of its misery? He tried — really tried — to summon some sort of feeling for the hypothetical people it had and would kill. Instead, his hands clenched tight with a far more vengeful feeling. Before the fight, they had just been wandering aimlessly and musing to themselves. They had just been playing at being heroes. But now? The kelpie’s days had been numbered the moment it had hurt Daugi. The wolf was given a reassuring scratch under the chin, which she responded to with a warbling wuff.

The murderous glint in his eyes must have been obvious, because Loreley immediately understood his intentions after one sidelong glance.

“You’re gonna go after it, ain’t you?”

He stared out toward the shining waters, and gave a slow nod after a moment of thought.

Loreley wiped a bead of sweat from her brow, hands starting to shake. She didn’t seem too thrilled about his reply. Either that, or using her magic was really draining the pep out of her. There were darkening circles under her eyes that he was certain had not been there before. “Alright. I’ll take care of Daugi for you. That monster won’t know what hit it if it comes back for her.” She paused, catching her breath. “Oh. ‘Nother thing. That bridle?”

Fenn tilted his head quizzically.

“That... it's like... it's self-ness. Now go!” she said woozily, pushing him away. “Go do it, if, if you gotta! Run if it gets real spooky. Don’t die.”

With a solemn (if perplexed) bob of his head, Fenn slipped out of his cloak and his satchel, laying them next to his downed mount. He trusted his wolf, if not Loreley, to keep them safe while he was gone. Bestowing a quick kiss to the top of his Daugi’s head, he started back into the marshy reeds. Back towards the loch’s waters, back towards the dreaded kelpie.

Slogging through muggy air and a pebbled shore frothy with foam, Fenn’s eyes wandered out across the lake. Even on dry land, he wasn’t breathing easy. Anticipation filled his lungs. A potent mixture of dread and eagerness, fear and perhaps even righteous (a rare word for him) anger.

He tried, as always, not to think too hard about the unpleasant feelings. It was easier to let them be. Maybe, just to let them fuel him forward. After all, there wasn’t anyone to cause collateral damage to right now.

It was just him and the heavy mist, the weary sun, the wash of waves over stone.

Tracking the beast wasn't too hard. Maybe didn't die from the wounds Daugi inflicted, but it sure left behind a lot of blood. For some reason, it had returned to the shore after its tussle, leaving streaks of ugly green sludge on the rocks behind. Likely, Fenn realized with a shiver, it was hoping to show off its injuries to some new sympathetic sucker. He stopped and inspected a viscous spatter of goo. The green-stench made him sneeze; in all honesty, he wasn't actually sure he could call this blood. It looked more like liquified pond scum.

Fenn knelt by a thick spot of the ooze and prodded it with one hand. It froze over slowly and shriveled up on touch of his frost, all crackly and snot-like. Gross. It… did seem to be mostly plant-matter and salt water. Yeah. Not blood by any conventional measure. This was not an earthly creature.

As he stood up again to trail after the gobs of guck, he tried not to think too hard about his distinct lack of a plan in facing this kelpie. He knew, without a glance at the frothy water to his left, that his ears were flattened again his head. Yet, he felt compelled to keep going. The anger hadn’t sputtered out yet, even if it confined itself to the faintest swirl of snowflakes. His magic pulsed out against the boggy weather in defiant snarls of cold. Something in him was crying out for revenge.

What are you doing? Turn back, turn back. You are small and fragile, his self-preservative side mumbled, a soundless voice in the back of his mind. Even Daugi couldn’t stand up to it. You are going to get crushed.

Nothing gets to hurt her and get away with it, replied his inner thief, though not very confidently.

He wondered, as he heard a whinny in the distance, who had the misfortune of losing their horse to the waves. He wondered how upset they had felt about it. He wondered, with a sense of unease, if they’d found the kelpie in its place…

It didn’t much matter at this point. Whoever had once known this not-horse was long gone, and it was

just

down the shore.

Hooves clattered against rock, a sound dulled by the mist rolling off the lake. Fenn’s breath caught as he saw it. The kelpie looked as it had before Loreley had first neared it; a heavyset horse, dun and melancholy. This time though, its Glamour was marred by thick tears, and it was breathing heavily. Wounds. Seeping crimson, marking each blow Daugi had ripped into it. As the blood hit the rocks, it faded to brown, and then green. Raw strength hadn’t overcome it before; his meager might couldn’t possibly overcome it. He couldn’t walk in swinging ice chunks and expecting to emerge victorious. Countless citadel defeats had drilled that much into him. No, he needed a plan of some kind.

Fenn… still wasn’t sure what his plan was going to be. He felt compelled forward for some reason; maybe it was just leftover anger fueling his feet forward. Snow puffed in and out of existence around him. Frost spread outward from his every footstep. His magic was active. It was impossible for him to pinpoint why, but something in his blood told him to keep walking.

The kelpie pricked up at the slap of his bare feet against the rough shore, and it lifted its snout to look down at him. Doelike eyes widened as he approached.

Perhaps it knew him — recognized him from the tussle not half an hour earlier. Or perhaps all it saw was another free meal.

Perhaps it couldn’t believe its luck.

“That bridle? That... it's like... it's self-ness.“

He remembered how it had hesitated as Loreley neared. How it had waited, coy, for her to walk right up to it before striking. How it had only attacked after she was near enough to reach for its bridle. Fenn took a deep breath, staring determinedly forward, mulling over its actions. This was a predator. It was used to easy prey, wasn’t it? Used to people who didn’t know the teeth and bone rotting under its false surface. People who would be lured in by its own apparently vulnerability, to be pinned by one unexpected bite and dragged into the dark lake before them. The space between him and those hidden jaws narrowed. Now, if Fenn wanted to, he could reach out to touch the creature. Its breath, cool and lifeless, stank of rotting meat. It nickered shyly. Invitingly.

A shiver of anticipation shot through the boy. He held up one hand, as if to lay it on the creature’s snout.

Light blazed in the kelpie’s eyes. Its lips pulled back. Sharp teeth unfurled; as they did so, the false guise of the horse tore apart like wet paper, revealing the bone and seaweed and grey flesh underneath, tensed for its strike.

Fenn ducked.

A pickpocket’s hand is his swiftest asset.

Yellowed fangs snapped a bare inch above Fenn’s head, brushing against his hair. Aside from two words — oh fuck — the boy’s mind was blank. The hand that had previously reached out as if to touch the kelpie, his right hand, his lesser hand, he threw outward. The motion captured the creature’s gaze for a split second. Misdirection. His other closed around the bridle’s loose reins. Slimy leather cords wrapped around his hand, and under his icen touch, froze in a hard knot.

The split second of instinct flashed away.

A stiffness overcame the kelpie as it processed both the miss of its strike and the hand on his bridle. The light in its eyes flickered. Shrieking out in incoherent panic, it whipped its head around, jolting the boy out of his confident stance and nearly off of his feet entirely. Terror rushed back into Fenn, tearing out of him in one useless squeak. Shit! The next phase of his plan wasn’t ready— he hadn’t even thought out what to do after grabbing the reins— it could bite off his face—

A tearing pain shot through his shoulder as the kelpie took off. His hand was still frozen fast to the rein. With no more time to think, Fenn found himself dragged along the jagged shoreline, wincing as sharp rocks cut into his legs and feet.

Suddenly — it all happened so fast — he was knee-deep in murky water. Then chest-deep. Then he was holding his breath as the waves rushed overhead. Saltwater stung his eyes shut. He felt chunks of ice generate spontaneously in the water around him, brushing his body and floating away, his runaway magic rebelling against the sudden pressure in his chest.

Unholy screeching looped on and on. The kelpie thrashed violently through the water; Fenn could feel the movements of its powerful body through his tightly-bound hand and aching arm, the slap of the steering tail. Blinded, his free hand grasped for its weedy mane, yanking it downward to force its head up by way of suggestion. It still had some horseish instinct left — it was steered, if only briefly. Upwards they went.

For the briefest instant, they licked the top of the water. Fenn gasped into the warm air—

And down, down, down they dove into the black depths of the water again, snatching the breath from his lungs. The fae shut his eyes to the filth and muck once more, holding onto what little air was left in him as the kelpie dragged him through the silt. His tongue was soaked with saltwater. Pain shot through his fingers as the beast twisted and swerved, still vocalizing its fury as it tried to shake him off. The base of his pinky was wrenched out of place, searing white-hot under his skin. And yet! Against the rushing of the water, in spite of the slick slime that oozed off the fae beast, Fenn held on. Thick ice continued to build up around his hand. He felt it travel up the bridle, further securing his grip.

His free hand brushed against something uncomfortably metallic — a squarish shape clasped around the leather cording of the bridle. The buckle!

Even weak from the struggle, Fenn’s fingers were deft.

A final earsplitting shriek ghosted the waters as the bridle was torn from its owner. Even from behind closed eyes, Fenn saw the burst of light that followed. Magic-brightness pulsed outward from the kelpie. All of his senses dulled in the wake of it. For a moment, the fae was shocked into a state of perfect, blank numbness.

When he was next able to feel anything, really, he realized that he was no longer underwater; he had been blasted clear into the air. With the loose wings of his shoulders, he hit the ground and crumpled. All air rushed out of his chest along with a sputter of water. The gray sky taunted him from above, clouds whispering on bubbling breezes that sounded louder to him than the splashy aftermath of the explosion, the dappled plop of something else raining down into the water. Fenn took a gasping breath and pushed himself onto his knees. Somewhere in the distance, a weary voice called out his name.

Strands of seaweed and a gooey green mass not unlike a beached jelly-fish floated to shore alongside him. The ooze was flecked with slimy grey muscle tendons and shards of bone. He stared at it a moment, slowly realizing that it was the kelpie’s remains.

Still frozen to his hand was an algae-crusted, limpet-latched bridle.

Hacking out the rest of the saltwater that soaked his insides, Fenn pried away the clear crystals cementing the bridle to him. Everything smarted. Everything. His cuts stung, his fingers throbbed, his lungs burned, and his wrenched shoulder twinged as if someone had taken an iron knife to it. But that wasn’t all that unusual to him. As Banri said, danger ran into him in alarming constance.

Of course, something about this turn of turn of events was not typical to him. His eyes and his mind lingered on the mucky remains floating about him.

He supposed that this was the first time he had intentionally and successfully slain another creature. Was he supposed to be proud, or mournful? Mostly, he still felt numb. Distant. If he was a) a real badass, b) capable of speech, and c) in the presence of an audience, he could turn around and say something witty. “Revenge is a dish best served cold. Ice cold.”

But Fenn was not a badass. Instead, he sneezed out some saltwater he didn’t realize he still had in his nose and brushed off both the inky blood leaking out of his scratches and the ice solidifying about his person. Getting soaked was never fun.

Without his permission, the boy’s ears twitched in the direction of the high, hopeful voice still calling out to him. “Fenn? Fenn! You’d better be alive out there!” A plaintive “Wuff?” followed each time Lore bellowed out his name.

With a wheeze, the boy lifted himself back onto his own two feet.

Out of the marshy woods wandered one pale wisp of a girl, and one bedraggled direwolf. Both of them lit up upon spotting him. With a cry of delight, Loreley began sprinting toward him, mussed curls trailing behind her, the wolf following at her heels in much the same manner. Fenn absently noticed that the bags under her eyes had darkened from the no doubt strenuous effort she had put into healing Daugi. Speaking of the wolf, she seemed in much better condition than before. At least she was up on her feet. There was a pronounced hobble to her gait, but the patch of blood and bare bone on her chest was replaced with raw, red skin. Her fur would grow back quickly enough, he knew. She was a hardy beast.

“Wuff!” the wolf greeted him, nearly knocking him over as she nuzzled him, wrinkling her nose at the saltwater and probable kelpie-scent lingering on him. He threw his arms around her neck gratefully.

Loreley laughed. “You’re alive after all!” Her gaze skipped between the bridle in his hand, the water and ice sloughing off his person, and the oozing detritus washing ashore around him. She clapped a hand over her mouth. “Oh Thaynes. You actually did it, didn’t you.”

He nodded.

The girl grinned and let out a breath of relief, leaning against Daugi (trying) to hide her exhaustion. “I was worried we were gonna have to rescue you. That bridle belongs to you now then, don’t it? You think Daugi’d wanna wear it?”

Fenn’s chest quivered with an unheard laughter, and he shook his head. It didn’t seem like a good idea. Daugi would absolutely revolt if he tried to put something so restrictive over her face… and forgetting that, the bridle felt a little dangerous somehow. A little off. Now that it was in his hands, and he wasn't being tossed madly around by a deranged sea monster, there was a noticeable warmth to the bridle. Magic-brightness, to be specific, but not a pleasant radiance of it. It left his skin crawling and tingly all over, much akin to a peeling sunburn. Ew. Maybe he could do research on it later, while he did Banri’s. As Loreley ogled his cuts and bruised fingers with a worried eye, the boy wiped excess slime off of the leather and simply shoved the bridle into his satchel. He’d deal with it later.

“Do you… need me to heal you?” Lore asked him.

After a hesitance, Fenn shook his head again. On some level, he acknowledged that she was more literally a child than he was, and that she had gone through enough today — had helped out more than enough for today just healing Daugi. He’d gone through worse injuries than an achy shoulder. He’d go through worse in the future. He would tough it out just fine for a little bit.

Her grin faltering, Lore glanced at Daugi. Her gaze lingered on the wolf’s limp, and the raw red showing through her coat. “Sorry. I couldn't fix all of her hurts.”

Without thinking, Fenn leaned over and wrapped his arms around her; the motion surprised him more than it seemed to surprise the other two. A genuine hug. Daugi wuffed in approval. Loreley sighed and returned the gesture. Her grip was stronger than his. And yet, the embrace lasted only for a brief few seconds. Fenn drew away from it almost as soon as he began it, but the painful twinge in his shoulder aside, it was about all he felt alright with doing. Daugi was about the only creature who received love from him. He wasn’t exactly practiced in physically displaying friendship to others. Others did that to him.

His new friend shivered briefly from his chill, and flashed one of her bold grins, still strong behind tired eyes. “I guess… we need to head home now. It’s late, and Pa might be worried, and the sheriff’s gotta know what happened with the kelpie and all. Right?”

Fenn gave a thumbs-up.

In reflective silence, the three started their trek back to the village — back into the salty sea of trees.

Fenn knew the way back by now — he was very good at figuring out where he stood in the world — but quietly allowed Lore to take the lead in guiding them home. The way back was much more tiring and much longer than their initial journey into the woods. Neither of them rode Daugi this time. Fenn found it better to simply to suck it up and slog through the mud alongside her, periodically brushing off any mud that froze to his feet. Daugi deserved a break.

Over tree roots, under hanging moss, and out through the thrumming field of flowers and insects they went.

By the time they reached a dirt road leading back to town, the sun had begun to set. Dark purples, reds, and oranges swirled in the sky. Wayward clouds drifted over a sparkling of stars. The little fae hesitated at the shore of the tall grass, peering down the road. Carting their way through the middle of the path was a faintly familiar figure. Fenn blinked and squinted at the broad, bearded man before them.

“Papa!”

“Loreley!” the man cried, an oof eeking out of him as Lore dashed right into him for a hug. Face creased with concern, he stopped to consider the circles under her eyes, the gashes on her arm, and the state of her dress and hair. Fenn realized that he probably looked just as bad, if not worse. “I wondered if I’d find you out here, buttercup — should’ve been home by now. You’re looking rough around the edges. What’d you go getting yourself into?”

After pulling out of her hug, the girl bashfully rocked on her heels. “I know you ain’t gonna like it, but we ended up out at, well, the loch. And we got so much to tell you! Fenn! Show him the bridle.”

Shyly, he fished it out of his satchel and held it up in all it’s scummy, crusty glory for Pa to see.

The man's eyes widened from under his bushy eyebrows. “That’s ain’t — that ain’t a kelpie’s bridle — is it?”

With a nervous smile of affirmation, the little fae shoved it back into his bag. He could stand its itchy magic-bright only for a little bit.

Pa’s mouth clamped shut as he processed this. Slowly, he looked to Loreley. She beamed innocently. Whatever previous shenanigans the girl had been up to in her young life, they’d obviously done something to dampen the man’s shock. “Well then. I’d be lying if I said that wasn’t something for the both of ya to be proud of. But next time, let me know when you got it in your fool head to do something reckless and heroic… again. And you!”

Fenn squeaked and stood at attention as Pa’s finger jabbed squarely at him.

“Thanks for looking out for my buttercup. Foolheaded to follow along with her like that, but I can’t look at that bridle and say you don’t have a brave streak on you. Maybe now people will stop vanishing ‘round the loch; at least now that we know that kelpies still can pop up ‘round here. They were a right hazard back in the day. Sherif’s gotta be told about this.” The man sighed. “Come along. You’re having dinner with us tonight, and there ain’t a plea that could convince me otherwise. Both of ya are explaining everything you did today over bread and potato stew. Alright?”

Dinner? Fenn brightened and nodded shamelessly. Looked like he wouldn’t have to steal a meal today. Stolen meals were good, but he was coming to the slow conclusion that meals with friends were usually better. When he had friends to share them with, at least. A resigned rumbling had started up in his stomach again, now that there wasn’t any lingering adrenaline to distract him from his hunger and his wounds. He could use some food and a nice place to nap right about now... Napping. Fuck, he needed that. The fae wandered over to lean against the side of the wagon, finally able to just sit still and catch his breath.

Pa paled and glanced over at the dark canid limping out of the grass after Fenn. The donkey attached to his cart shuffled in place nervously. “Oh. That uh… wolf. That yours?”

“Boof,” Daugi greeted Pa quietly, yawning.

“Yep! Daugi’s sitting with us,” Loreley declared with finality as she coaxed the exhausted direwolf into the back of the cart. The girl leaned over to ruffle the donkey's mane. Somehow, it relaxed. “She’s had a rough day, fighting kelpies and carrying us places.”

The wolf agreed. “Auf.”

“Sure thing, buttercup. She... seems tame enough.”

In a haze, Fenn found Loreley’s magic-bright hands pulling him up into the cart alongside her and his pet. There was a crack of the reigns, the bray of Pa’s donkey, and then movement. The creak of the wagon’s wheels and the slight sway of the cart comforted the boy somehow. He stared up at the sky, the sunset-lit clouds, only distantly aware of the burning ache in his shoulder and hand. Coarse black fur pressed up against him. His wolf was a mountainous and relieving presence; she rumbled with warmth, and with snoring.

“This adventure did not turn out how I expected. Did ya actually think we were gonna turn up anything for real? I wasn’t sure we were gonna,” Loreley whispered over to him.

A shrug was given, then a slight wince from the pain.

“I’m really sorry about your parents though. It’s just all too likely that they… well, you know. The kelpie,” she continued, though there was something foxlike about the shy grin on her face. She twiddled her hands together in thought. “Pa wouldn’t mind an extra hand around the house if you don’t have anywhere else to go. And, honestly, I’d love to have a cute little sibling around. So you’re free to stay with us, at least for a bit!”

Fenn sat up, sighed, and rubbed the back of his neck, blushing grey from eartip to eartip. It was about time he clear some misconceptions up. He tapped the wagon’s planks underneath them. His magic was weak as he too felt, but a fluttering of frost still emanated from his touch. HAVE TO KEEP MOVING. SORRY, he scrawled in the delicate lace. And to his surprise, he really meant the apology. ABOUT THE “PARENTS” THING…

The girl grabbed his hand in her own, effectively shushing him. “Alrighty. Don’t say a word more,” she instructed him, beaming. “I already got it figured out, back in the forest. You don’t got any. You ain’t any Raiaera-elf either. I wondered if ya happened to be one of those solitary faerie folk — but you ain’t so spooky for one of them, are you? Not the abducting-naughty-children kind. So, your secret’s safe with me.”

Fenn rubbed the back of his neck, and glanced out over the cart’s side with a sheepish turn of his ears.

Lore sighed, following his gaze. “I get it if you got some wanderlust beating in ya too. If you gotta leave, you gotta leave. But come visit me again someday, alright? Promise?”

He nodded.

With its two tuckered-out passengers in tow and a slumbering direwolf to boot, the wagon bounced into town. A wind carried the nectar of the local flowers… and the promises of more far-off places and adventures to be had.

~ § ~ § ~ § ~

”Tsk. Pigwidgeon, I knew you attracted trouble, but even I did not expect you to wander willingly into its open maws. When, exactly, did you grow such a spine?”

<I haven’t. Chalk it up to impulse and spite.>

Thread Title: Diving Deep (Solo Quest)
Judgment Type: Full Rubric
Participants: FennWenn

Current Music: You Don't Just Want to Break Me by Hawksley Workman

First of all Miss Wenn, thank you for choosing to submit your thread for a rubric judgment. I've had the pleasure of reading your writing through the workshop and on my own time before, but this is (I think) the first time I've had the task of sitting down and seriously critiquing a thread of yours, and a solo no less. I really hope that you'll find the judgment beneficial, and that you'll choose this option again in the future. If you have questions about anything you read here, you know how to reach me.

Diving Deep went headlong into pulling at my heartstrings. If I had to choose a genre for it I might call it a fantasy-adventure-mystery, but it had the charm of an adult (due to language) Disney type story, with a theme of friendship that overcomes differences, powerful child (and child sized) characters, and the dutiful direwolf companion. I don't want to end up repeating myself, so I'll save the rest of my commentary for the categories, but let me just say I truly enjoyed this read.

Plot: 23/30

Story- 7/10

I waffled around on what to score this category - a lot. This story contained a well-composed introduction, some nice rising action, and a clear climax and conclusion. It also featured a number of creative takes on classic fantasy storyline elements, such as the call to adventure, the magical dream sequence, and the monster battle (sorry Daugi, you're not really a monster). However, there are some ways in which I felt the use of your plotting tools could have been even stronger.

The first post placed Fenn in a precarious position (or at least, what seemed like one), and that helped to initially hook my attention. However, this ended fairly quickly with him being tagged, at which point the narrative slowed down. If the "danger" had been a bit more compelling, or lasted a bit longer, or been more difficult to escape from, I would have had a bit more opportunity to get connected with the character in peril. You also did a good job of introducing the magic of the world immediately with Loreley's vines and Fenn's ice, but I found that was a fairly meager promise of what was to come.

Just as an example, imagine if the kids had been playing not tag, but a similar game. It could have been named after one of the local fable-monsters. It could have even been called Kelpie, if that wouldn't be too on the nose. In this example, the story would have immediately introduced a broader context of the magical world it takes place in, and also would have, in subtext, promised the reader some good monster action to come.

I also felt that the rising action could have been more compelling. While Fenn and Loreley did face a difficult journey to the loch in slogging through the mud, there weren't exactly a series of challenges for them to attempt to overcome. The travel time was mostly used to provide backstory and build character, which is fine, but a little less likely to keep the reader glued to the page/screen.

Setting- 9/10

Your descriptions of and interactions with the setting were both beautifully composed and distributed. I never felt like you didn't pay enough attention to the setting, but I also never felt like you were over-describing or focusing on it more than necessary. This is a difficult balance for most writers to find, and a massive boon to your overall prose. I really liked the intimacy Fenn had with his surroundings, which lent itself so well to those vivid descriptions. I also loved the incorporation and expansion of Althanas lore in the form of the kelpie. Why isn't this a perfect score? Because you still have room to grow, and because the scope of this thread was very small within the context of the world of Althanas. If you write a continent-crossing adventure with the same level of intricacy and detail, I'll likely give you a ten here.

Pacing- 7/10

The overall flow of events in this story was smooth and easy, and I laughed out loud in several places from your use of wit and language. You did a good job of transitioning in and out of the dream sequence, and of speeding the action up when things would have been boring to drag out. Points off here are mostly due to the underwhelming rising action in the first 5-6 posts, mechanical errors, and a slight lack of ambition. After all, it's much easier to keep the pacing consistent in a story that spans a handful of hours as opposed to one that encompasses days, weeks, or months.

Character: 21/30

Communication- 7/10

There were some small inconsistencies with speech; I think Loreley and Pa (or at least Pa) alternated between saying 'ya' and 'you'. This is a small thing, but it was enough to give me pause on at least one occasion. Other than that, I enjoyed your use of communication. Fenn is clever and necessarily succinct with his words, Loreley was exuberant and filled most of the story with her chatter, and Daugi was entertaining as ever with the different sounds she makes. As with some of the other categories, your path to a higher score here lies through greater ambition. In future threads, I encourage you to work further outside your comfort zone, with a larger variety of characters.

Action- 8/10

For me personally, there are some instances where you could have improved your action by avoiding "telling" the reader with 'was' and 'were' statements. The best example of this, I think, is at the end of post #8. I'll quote a chunk in here.

Quote:

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Both beasts traded blows and bites. They were quick. They were vehement. They were rough equals in size and strength. The wolf, it was clear, was more experienced in this sort of struggle. She aimed for the vitals and gouged at its chest. She bit legs with the intention of hobbling the beast, of wrenching joints out of place. She blocked clumsy blows at her own neck with a snap of her powerful jaws.

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This little paragraph starts out telling, almost delivering a list of facts. It then changes to showing, providing an action sequence I can envision in my mind. I think the whole thing would have been stronger and flowed better if you had found ways to show that they were quick and vehement, to show that they were rough equals in size. Preferably without 'was' and 'were'. That said, overall the action was very well written and representative of the characters. You have a gift for bringing your characters to life with little consistencies that I really enjoy.

Persona- 6/10

First of all, I love Loreley's name because it starts with the word Lore, and you are pretty much our loremaster. I am tapping my chin as I wonder whether this was intentional. Anyways, the truth is, Fenn was great, and the supporting cast was also fairly well rounded and consistent. I took points off here because they felt a little convenient. Both Loreley and Pa felt a little like plot pushers, and Loreley had so much handy knowledge that I started to wonder if she was some evil fae in disguise, there to torment Fenn by leading him on ill-advised adventures. When that (or something else interesting) failed to happen, I was a little disappointed. While the supporting cast definitely had their own wants and needs, those wants and needs tended to line up with Fenn's own pretty consistently. The story might have been even more interesting if the only character-driven conflict hadn't come from the kelpie's need to hunt.

Prose: 22/30

Mechanics- 6/10

Considering the amount of effort I know you put into editing, I was surprised by the amount of mechanical errors. I found numerous instances of typos and missing words, and a few tense changes that may have been the result of typos as well. The only one I noticed that I think might require education is the use of reins/reigns. You used "reigns" (which means to rule) at least twice, and "reins" (which is the horse-riding thingie) the rest of the time. If there was any question in your mind as to which one was correct, now you know! The rest of the errors were things that I know you know how to fix, but that can easily be missed. The good news is, you can get better at catching these by practicing. The bad news is, the only way to practice is to read your work back to yourself, preferably out loud. Your work is lovely though, so that shouldn't be too much of a chore. If you have any questions about these errors let me know, I have most of them saved in my rough notes.

Clarity- 8/10

Quite clear and easy to follow overall, but the mechanical errors did bog you down a bit in places, and the lack of ambition left me wondering what would happen if you really pushed yourself.

Technique- 8/10

You have a great grasp of literary technique and employed metaphors and other devices well throughout this story. There weren't any that really jumped out and grabbed me, but they did help to build my overall mental image and kept things interesting. You can improve here by trying new things and being even more creative, and also by getting even deeper into the fundamentals of plot structure, character, and phrasing. I cannot wait to see what happens when your beautiful vocabulary combines with your grasp of technique on more frequent occasion.

Wildcard: 8/10 - I always expect the Fennquisition. And I expect that you will remember me fondly when you're a famous author :)

Final Score: 74/100

FennWenn's rewards for this thread will be assigned pending its Judge's Choice Nomination!

FennWenn receives the following spoil:

Quote:

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Quest Reward Request: Kelpie’s Bridle.

This sturdy, ancient leather bridle once held together a kelpie, a shape-shifting sea monster with a taste for human flesh and a habit of drowning people to get it. Even after the death of its owner, the bridle still has a bit of magic in it. If placed over the head of another creature or humanoid, it will transform them temporarily into a horse, baleful-polymorph style. The enchantment fades when it is removed.

“And if ya go about putting it on a horse, well, you’ve gone and wasted a mother-kelping enchantment, fool!”

Three uses only; three currently left. Spell applicable to all beings cat-sized and larger. Permission needed before using on PCs or other player’s NPCs.

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Congratulations!

FennWenn receives 2700 EXP and the above listed spoil.

Rewards added!