"Where are they?!"
Erichean threw his hands up in anger and kicked a fallen tree. It wasn't wise to make so much noise in the forest teeming with danger. But he couldn't help it.
Both his sister and his…trusted valet. They were nowhere to be found. All he had with him was an unconscious kelpie that was getting heavier every second. He dropped her onto the ground unceremoniously and she woke with a start.
Coughing, she pushed herself onto her hands and knees. What?
She wearily got back up and noticed a dull pain in the back of her neck. Oh. Oh...She turned around with golden eyes blazing with fury. "You."
Erichean gave her an unimpressed look. "Me?" His eyebags hung low on his face and his smile was becoming increasingly cold. The warm sunny boy that usually wore his skin had gotten lost in the forest and in its place...
"What did you do? Where is she? Where are we?"
He shot back. "What do you think? I don't know and oh. I don't know!"
She fumed and threw dirt at his face before tackling the golden boy to the ground. Erichean easily met her punch even with his eyes closed and pushed her back with that fist. But she did surprise him with that dirt.
That was surprising. Underhanded but surprising. Still...now is not the time to appreciate anything.
He held her down by sitting on her abdomen while she struggled relentlessly, clearly more energetic after a good night's rest than him. The one wearing black circles underneath his red eyes from a night of scouring the forest hopelessly, getting mud in his shoes, dust on his clothes, and an increasingly empty stomach.
It's not like he hadn't tried to have a drink, but every time he did a badger or some other vicious forest creature leapt out of its hiding spot to attack him. Which meant putting Kissae down, defeating the creature, using up his energy, and eventually leading him to drink even more blood to replenish it. Resuming the cycle.
He yelped after getting hit in the nose by the heel of her palm. "Alright! I get it. I messed up. I admit it. You need better skills if you want to protect her, by the way. Stop fighting dirty with me so we can work together to find them."
Kissae glared at him but halted her thrashing. "This is your fault. All you had to do was let me—"
He cut her off. "Ignorantly charge headfirst into being my little sister's imprint? Not a chance. You don't even know what you're doing. What you could have done to her. What you could have done to yourself."
"So tell me! Stop being so goddamn stubborn and spit it out you spoiled brat!"
Both their chests heaved as they shared a moment of tense silence. He leaned back, still sitting on her abdomen.
He interrogated her coldly."Who are you?"
Kissae gave him a startled answer. Scripted. Full of holes. "My name is—"
He had no patience for it."I could not care less what your name is, but you are not a regular run of the mill mermaid. Whatever you are…those eyes." Even in the dark they sparkled like jewels. Rare fucking oceanic jewels. A gnawing feeling clawed at his chest and he vowed to get rid of her when he had the chance. Because if he was right... "Your nonexistent need to run towards water after being on land for more than six months. It's rare. It's fucking rare. Which means it's hard to replace if you die! When we imprint, we only have one chance to do it again, but the taste has to be similar to our first. Otherwise we get despondent, we stop eating, and we die!"
There are alsocountless hidden toxicities in certain species' blood, but you don't need to know that.
Birds chirped and flew away into the dense leafage above them. Small bluejays with razor sharp teeth that were anticipating a bloody fight between the visitors. A bloody fight that hopefully they could pilfer a few scraps of meat from.
Erichean ignored the hungry gazes from the birds and instead directed his attention at the lying mermaid.
She's definitely some kind of merfolk. Those scales aren't indicative of a dragon. What could she be...In this world. What you are determines who you are.
Vampires are leeches. They can't live without the other races, but they also persistently make it harder to live with them.
Werewolves are social pack animals that can't be alone. Otherwise their physical and psychological health suffers.
Witches are elusive figures who cannot be trusted or disobeyed.
And you...You're either one of the Kelpies or you're something else entirely. And I have every intention of finding out who's standing by my sister's side. Especially if you're this resistant to it.
Kissae averted her eyes then opened and closed her mouth before exclaiming. "Okay…Well you should've told me that! Instead of just knocking me out and stranding us in the middle of nowhere!"
Erichean grunted in agreement and rolled off of her. "Yes. I see that now in hindsight. But that's not important. I have no idea how long we've been walking but…I can't smell her."
Kissae massaged her wrists and grimaced."What do you mean?"
"Her scent. She has a very unique scent so it's usually easy to track but I can't smell her. There's too many interfering smells here that are masking it."
Citrusy and sweet. Too sweet for his tastes but he enjoyed the smell nonetheless. Sometimes he imagined oranges and vanilla cake when he smelled her. That was one of the first things he noticed about her. Back when she really was just a baby. He used to visit her.
Her nursemaid was all too easy to bribe.
It started as curiosity. What kind of child was so undesirable that her own mother would neglect her to that point? Shunned. Barely spoken of.
Maybe there was something wrong with her. Maybe she had died like the last offspring and Niathe was just hiding her grief. Concealing the truth.
So late at night, behind a silver mask he had snuck in and found. The most beautiful child he had ever seen in his life. Twenty odd years of living and he had never seen anyone like her.
She was perfect. Soft and bathed in moonlight from the glass windows around her. Small pink lips. Pouty cheeks. Strands spun from snow and curled delicately around her face.
Then she opened her eyes momentarily to blink, yawn, and wiggle around in her sleep. Stunning soul shaking eyes. Mismatched and perfect.
She looked like a rabbit. A chubby soft rabbit. Like the ones that used to hop around in the back gardens beneath the undergrowth and below the ground in little burrows.
He poked her. Just to see what she would do.
And she bit me.
It didn't hurt. She had no teeth to bite him with yet...but it was odd. Endearing in a way. He poked her plump cheeks with another finger and she grabbed at it with more force than a babe should harbor. She babbled in her sleep and held him there before returning to peaceful slumber.
Completely unguarded. Not much of a survival instinct with this one.
He left after she finally let go. Returned to his room with a head full of confusing thoughts.
I avoided her after that. Probably because I didn't like how much I liked the soft rabbit's countenance bathing in moonlight. It was too...nice. Nice things are fragile, often stolen, and a weakness. Nice things are a voluntary crutch.
That lasted maybe a day. Before he crawled back to her room again with plenty of gold for her nursemaid. She distracted the guard outside while he slipped inside.
Just one last time.
She slept a lot. In her cradle. In his arms. She slept so much he sometimes found himself trying to bait her with a bottle of milk to wake her up so he could hopefully score a glimpse at those eyes.
Enchanting. A perfect example of asymmetrical beauty. His fingers often twitched with the need to immortalize her. Paint her into something that would be as timeless as possible.
He'd place his nose near her ears and inhale that sweet scent. She'd just continue snoring along like nothing in the lower realm was worth her time.
Untilshewasoldenoughtospeak. Sassy pointed words covered in barbs. That is not my fault I swear. She must have heard Niathe speaking like that.
Andread. Like a sponge she consumes details and spits them out of her always moving mouth.
Andeat. Gods, does she eat, but that's good. A healthy appetite for human food is always good for children that young in the long run. It took a bit of research. To find things that she would like. Soft, nice things, that no one else in the house ever approved of.
Storybooks with happy endings.Knowledge of the world around us. Shiny things. Sweet things. Hugs. Things that the fae discouraged often.
Time spent with Miseria oftentimes feels like a break.
Then it became clear that it wasn't only him that preferred her company to anyone else. Words didn't need to be said. Secrets didn't need to be kept. From the day she was born. My little rabbit had closed her eyes and nuzzled up to me instinctively. And I responded in kind.
Of all of my burdensome siblings. I appreciate her warmth and understanding the most. Her sweetness that comes without a catch even though she insists that it does.Little thief.
Harleen started it. She never had much of an interest in anything until that gold coin.
But that's good. If it's gold she wants then she'll get it. She deserves it. A sweet heart like that—doused in honey. She's too sweet for this world. So powerful yet so afraid. A sweet headache and she doesn't even realize it yet.
Niathe might really kill me once she finds out. That her precious daughter…is just like me.
She'll definitely kill me if she finds out I lost her.
I could kill for something sweet right now.
Yet all I have now is a salty mermaid.Perhaps the birds will do. Erichean set his sights on the birds with a similar color feather to the annoying girl next to him. Can't be picky.
His hand flashed and a bird was struck down with a knife. He sauntered over to it and snatched it off the ground before its associates could take advantage.
Without further ado he sunk his teeth into the belly of the bird and sucked it dry. Blergh. He shook his shoulders out and threw it away. Foul.
But good enough for now. The birds swarmed towards their friend and picked at the body until it was pestered into nothing but bones.
Kissae got up on her elbows and took in their circumstances. A different part of the forest for sure. It was slightly warmer here, the air was thick with humidity, and there was more wildlife in comparison to where they first met. Particularly birds, "So what do we do?"
Her stomach growled soon after and she groaned in pain.
Erichean rocked back on his heels and massaged his forehead. "I have a bad idea." He turned back to see her already standing up. Covered in grass stains and with a missing pant leg. He had torn it off to make a bandage for her head.
Accidentally. He had banged it against a tree while she was sleeping. Feeling bad and rightfully wary of leaving any traces for an animal to pick up. He had ripped half of it off and tied it around her forehead.
She doesn't seem to have noticed the bandana yet. Well. I'm not gonna tell her. Really she deserves it for being so lengthy.
"Don't have bad ideas. Have good ideas."
He replied without any of his usual warmth."I've exhausted all my good ideas and I can't wait any longer."
It had taken him all night to come up with this idea. All night. Because it's so bad he'd call himself silly if he had any other options.
"So what is it?"
Erichean raised a finger and maneuvered his bag to rest on his stomach. Kissae jumped up on her feet and stretched out her limbs. Are we hunting?
Erichean pulled out a…space bag?
Kissae asked confused. "I thought those were useless here?"
Erichean bit his lip and drew blood. "They are. Unless you directly activate them in the forest." He smeared a pattern using his blood on the bag with his thumb.
A deep sense of foreboding came over Kissae. "And why doesn't anyone else do that?"
"Because it violates the laws of the forest."
Kissae's eyes widened and she shrieked. "Then why are you doing it?!"
Erichean took a magic stone out of his pocket and placed it in the center of the formation. "Who enforces the laws of the forest?"
Kissae gasped and tried to turn tail. She only got a few yards away. He's trying to get us killed!
Only to come face to face with a veil.
She reared back and stepped back in the direction of Erichean who was mumbling under his breath as bright golden light enshrouded the bag he was chanting over.
"..."
Silently, two other veiled figures stepped out of the tree line to back up the one Kissae was staring at. Together they surveyed the scene from behind gauze meant to conceal their features.
That was quick. Erichean threw away the space bag back into his body and raised his hands. "Madam. We have come in peace."
A shrill and high-pitched voice asked sternly. "To break laws?"
Erichean lowered his gaze and spoke as civilly as possible, "To seek guidance for my sister. Who I was separated from in this forest. She's barely two and just awakened. With a truly fearsome ability." He fidgeted and tried not to look at them in the eyes. It's disrespectful.
Another woman demanded solemnly. "Name, boy?"
He gave it but with some reluctance. "Erichean Marcus Duccanes."
They hissed at his last name and he winced. Although he was expecting it, he didn't anticipate how deeply the resentment flowed even to this day. Nothing I can do about that. I won fair and square. I won't apologize.
He began. "I know how you feel."
"Careful," Kissae warned. Don't provoke the most powerful race in the lower realm on their land.
"But my sister is innocent and she's the daughter of your Queen."
The shrill sounding one expressed with a harsh tone."We don't acknowledge that harpy!"
Erichean tilted his head and frowned. "Are you referring to Her Majesty Queen Illyria or…" How discourteous. They really don't put them in their eyes.
The witches shared a look. "If not her?"
"Her daughter. The Princess Niathe. Queen of this forest. It's her only daughter that awakened."
The shrill sounding woman immediately requested one of her colleagues to send a search party. "Send Bianca to look for her along with some of the young ones. Bring out the lanterns. Ask the pixies. I want her before it's too late."
She turned to Erichean again. "Boy. Do you have anything to help the process? A token?"
Erichean's hands dropped and he thought carefully. Oh. He brought out a box of tea leaves he had stolen from her precious bag of goodies. "Will this do?"
The box lifted out of his hand and floated in the air until it found its place in the silent woman's hand. Her hands lingered on it until she nodded.
"Boy. Fish Girl. Come with me to the compound. No tricks." The loudest one beckoned them.
Fish girl? Kissae tried to protest. "But I want to look for her. She's not safe. She's craving. Tell them Erichean!"
The witches shook their heads and pointed in the direction of a trail that had magically appeared in front of them. "Follow or stay."
The three of them in their long black gowns and veils stepped onto the path without another word. Kissae looked back at Erichean and he shook his head no. Give up and give in.
"You don't argue with a witch. They'll find her. Trust me."
He walked up to her and lightly pushed her with his shoulder to go. Kissae bit her lip and looked back at the dark, eerie trees. She eventually gritted her teeth and nodded.
Together they walked the path into a den of witches.