DEFINITELY AFTER I FOUGHT A KELPIE
It seared. Everything he touched burned.

Fenn shuddered and drew a pathetic squeak out of his throat. He was surrounded by iron bars and broken floorboards. His wrists and ankles were weighed down with clamped pieces of iron; if he didn’t know better, he would have sworn it was molten. His breath coming out in frightened gasps, Fenn stared at the cuffs around his wrist with watery eyes. The skin deep inside the shackles was so badly burned, he wasn’t sure it should be capable of feeling anymore. Yet it still braized. Was this how it felt to die?

Dulled by his mistreatment, the boy’s green gaze flicked up to meet his blood-soaked direwolf. Blood lightly drained from an empty eyesocket. Daugi’s other eye was closed tight against her own pain. Small spasms wracked her, but only minutely. She was unconscious, or asleep -- hopefully not dying. Not yet. He really did not want her to be dead. He really did not want to be alone.

“An eye for an eye,” the silence parroted in her voice. “An eye for an eye.”

But he didn’t remember what he’d done to deserve this.

~ § ~ § ~ § ~

“Enough.”

~ § ~ § ~ § ~

The scene shifted, skipping back a few paces in time. Daugi melted into the gaps in the floor.

Standing before him now was a crimson-haired woman with a fierce smile, cracks spreading out across her porcelain skin from every orifice. She stood as if she would topple over any moment in a fit of mad laughter. Fenn felt his heart jump up to clog his throat. Every loud click of her heels sent biting chills up his spine, his already too-large eyes widened in fear.

She was Amari, but she was not.

"Do you remember this place?" she asked him, lightly scraping a finger across one of the iron bars. The light screeching noise made his ears flick back in pain. "It's so nostalgic..." She trailed off dreamily, half-grinning as she gestured to the burnt, ruined kitchen around them. The roof had caved in, and where it had not snowed, it was thick with dust. "This place, Fennik… is the place where we met."

Thump. Thump. Fenn’s heart felt like it was about to give out. He tugged against his chains; shaking, curled hands couldn't quite form the gestures he wanted to speak. Why?

Amari reached into the cage, her clawed and blackened fingers gently grazed against the top of Fenn’s head, curling into his mop of sandy blonde hair. He wanted to scream at her touch. It burned worse than the iron, worse than anything else; it was the pain of his heart exploding in his chest. “Don’t you see Fennik? I am going to fix you,” she whispered gleefully, leaning so close he could almost feel her hot on his skin, and all he could do was freeze in terror. Her face flickered and wavered. Black cracks receded, and her eyes glowed a sudden green-gold.

The chains and cage melted away. The unbearable heat vanished.

There was Amari’s hand gently taking him by the chin to stare in his eyes, her mouth half-open in a mixture of bewilderment and concern. The gentle touch withdrew. They sat in a half-dark, somewhat rundown kitchen, on a comfortable pile of torn rags. Something smelled good -- oh. Fenn glanced down in his lap to find a plate of foot. Turkey, roast potatoes, carrots, and bread drizzled with copious amount of thick butter. Amari was a good cook.

Something had been wrong a few moments before, but for some reason, he couldn’t pinpoint what it had been.

“Fenn, right?" Amari asked him gently as she took a bite of her own withered piece of bread. "Do you have parents?”

The little fae’s thoughts flickered to Raster. Yes, he thought, Raster had more or less been his father. It made Fenn lose his appetite a little. He set his remaining food down with unsteady hands and began drawing again. This time, the picture was of a man with a pleasant face and far, far too many rings in his nose. Fenn grinned down at it nostalgically. He pointed to the picture and pointed at himself. Then, he drew a crude sword, his grin fading. Uneasily, he slashed at the picture of the man, straight through the stomach.


Amari probably got the point. Fenn wiped it away and renewed the frost with a dull look in his eyes.

~ § ~ § ~ § ~

“Pigwidgeon, pay me heed. You are caught in nightmare. Allow me to disperse this dream at once!”

Fenn was faintly aware of a flash of four livid crimson eyes and a scaled hand outstretched for him. He seemed to be falling, falling, falling into a dark void. Chained shackles still seared his wrists and ankles -- or was that just a lingering impression from the previous memories?

“Pigwidgeon!”

He almost reached for the hand.

Yet.

He hesitated.

The chains yanked him down into the dark.