to turn dreams into words

not to influence the results of that wip poll game but *will smith poses*

Genre: "Swashbuckler" fantasy

Themes: self-actualization, queer love and identity, cycles of abuse, imperialism, chaos vs order, cultural reclamation.

Status: outlining; I'm heavily in the "all vibes, no plot" zone rn.

“welcome to the real world.”

“life isn’t fair.”

“the universe doesn’t owe you any kindness.”

how arrogant,

to think that kindness comes from the universe.

and how foolish,

to think it is something owed,

or something that must be earned.

kindness,

fairness,

love,

dignity;

these things come not from the world,

but from people.

the universe feels no obligation

to be kind.

that’s why

it gifted

the responsibility

i see the records of people long dead

who carried my blood, my name.

what amazing luck it is

to have ancestors

trackable through time

and beyond borders.

but there are so many

we will never know the names of.

For M, M, U, and all soft hearts who dream about the future.

.

Soft grey

suit,

house,

clouds,

sweater.

Hands held

back to back,

fingers hooked together.

Far away, the highway sounds like waves,

and his voice is quiet, asking questions of the woman in the grey suit,

and the almost-silence lends well to subtler senses.

Final Chapter!! :D

read previous chapters at @redashtree or here on ao3.

In most towns out west…well, it doesn't really matter what most towns are like, does it? Someone could say a lot of things, ‘bout how Lily Lake’s different from its neighbors, out in the western desert. They could speak on how in most towns, a spider is just a spider, a handshake is nothin’ more. Or about the way, in most towns, power is held in wealth or weapons, not hidden under skin and behind glamours. They could mention how in most towns, a dust storm hides no monsters, an eyepatch hides no danger, and the faefolk are thought of as nothin’ more than stories. But none of that matters much at all.

‘Cause Lily Lake ain't one of those towns.

:::::

Lee “Lucky” Byrd ain’t fully fae, but he’s lived in Lily Lake the whole twenty years of his life so far, and he’s got enough faery blood in him to know how to make a Deal.

“What’ll you give me?” he asks, grinnin’ as the gaggle of children in front of him mutter and deliberate, talkin’ and reachin’ over each other to suggest things. Lucky adjusts the hat on his head, makin’ sure his curls and the eyepatch he wears are both held in place. He can't really wink anymore, with his right eye gone, but he grins his trickster’s grin jus’ the same.

“A riddle!” Kelly O’Connor offers.

“Gold!” Vincent Keller suggests, though he has none.

“These!” Ruben and Roseanne Cho chime in unison, holding between them at least seven live whiptails.

“How’d you catch those?” Glen Keller, the youngest of Mildred’s four, demands, standin’ up on tiptoe to see the lizards closer.

“An’ what am I supposed to do with ‘em?” Lucky asks, laughin’ good-naturedly, then turnin’ when there's a tug on his right sleeve.

“This,” offers little Arlene Bowman, the very youngest of the assembled lot, an’ most certainly a changeling, because she calmly uncurls her hands to reveal a live scorpion inside, still and small and white. The other children yell out in shock or fear or both, jumpin’ back from the girl an’ her deadly prize, and Lucky can't help laughing again outta surprise.

“Perfect,” he tells her, holdin’ out a hand for the bug. It crawls readily from the girl's hand to his, an’ he puts it carefully on the rim of his hat.

“Now will you show us?” Phillipa Solomon asks.

“You sure you wanna see?” Lucky asks, raising his visible eyebrow at them.

“Yeah!” a chorus of eager voices, some more sure than others. Lucky reaches for his eyepatch, and--

“Lucky Byrd, don't you dare!” Mildred Keller scolds from a little ways down the road, where she's just noticed them.

“Uh oh. Run!” Lucky says, and the kids do, scattering in all directions. “Afternoon, Mrs. Keller!”

Mildred gives him an exasperated look that he’s well used to, and Lucky-- well. He’d wink if he were able.

:::::

“You're not coming in with a scorpion on your head,” Marie says when she answers the door, one hand on her pregnant middle.

Lucky obediently takes his hat off, shakes it until he sees the creature fall an’ scurry away.

:::::

It's strange, Lucky thinks sometimes, how easily they've settled into knowing each other, into bein’ something nearly, nearly, akin to family. His step-mother, barely six years his senior, and his father, who Dealt him away, and Lucky, who’s heard more of his own past and nature in the last few months than the whole rest of his life combined.

It's strained, sometimes, like strings pulled taut where they shouldn't be, like sharp knife edges and the harsh grate of wind blowin’ sand against skin, as Lucky tries to make a comfortable place for himself in his changin’ life.

Everything’s changed, now. All in Lily Lake know their sheriff ain't human. Most know that Lucky ain't, either. Most people don't seem to think much of these revelations; most of the townsfolk have known the Sheriff an’ Lucky both too long to be spooked. On occasion, though, Lucky notices small shifts. There are a few more iron horseshoes nailed over doorways, a few more suspicious glances, a few more overheard warnings from adults to children. Don't go angerin’ the Gentry.

:::::

Lucky thinks he should be angry, with Jaime, with Lucas, with someone… but he doesn't feel much of anythin’ about being the sheriff’s claim. It's already happened, and it ain't changin’, so Lucky doesn't see the point of bein’ resentful about it. He feels bitter, sometimes, but it ain't directed at anyone. It just...is.

He still doesn't talk to Lucas, much, but he knows now not to fear him.

:::::

When Lucky asks for the photograph of his mother, the Spider just hands it to him. It is the first an’ only freely offered gift that Lucky an’ his aunt will ever exchange.

:::::

Sheriff Zach Lucas has made a great many Deals, over his life. Most things he gains, he keeps in his home, hidden and safe. A few, though, he keeps at the sheriff’s station, locked and warded in a drawer in his desk. Among these treasures: a land deed, a heart, and a single eye.

:::::

Elizabeth “Doc” Watkins knows more than she cares to, now, about Sheriff Lucas, and Lucky Byrd, and a few other things besides. But Doc knows, more importantly than anythin’ else, that the Good People an’ their business ain't nothin’ she can speak on. So she ignores the whispered rumours, ‘round town, an’ holds her tongue. Livin’ in Lily Lake would teach anyone that much.

:::::

Jaime says he can sense something Other in Lucky. Hiding underneath, the way Jaime’s human shape hides mandibles and claws and multitudes of eyes. Marie doesn't see it.

Lucky’s joints don't bend the wrong ways, his nails and teeth are only as sharp as her own. His eyes hold the glint of a trickster, a mischief maker, but that isn't something purely fae. No one would ever know from lookin’ at him, exactly what he is. Maybe that makes him more dangerous, in a way, if he really is something inhuman on the inside.

:::::

“Can I see?” Grace asks, too curious for your own good, but her tone isn't that of a child lookin’ for a story. It's that of a friend, worried about him.

They're both sitting on the Harts’ porch, enjoyin’ a cool, cloudy day. Walter, tail wagging, lays his chin on Grace’s leg, and she scritches behind his ears, but doesn't take her eyes away from Lucky.

“It ain't pretty,” Lucky tells her.

“Didn't think it would be,” she replies, and Lucky quirks a smile.

He pulls his eyepatch up. The skin around where his eye should be is scarred, five jagged lines placed like-- claws, Grace realizes. The sheriff clawed the eye outta Lucky's head. In the socket is an eye of gemstone, shiny and black. Walter whines, but doesn't move from Grace’s side.

“Why d’you wear a patch over it if you've got that in there?” Grace asks.

“It’s new. Doc said I should put somethin’ in there, so the socket don't get all misshapen, and the Spider gave it to me for a song. Can't see through it, of course, but I’m still gettin’ used to the feel of it, I guess. ‘Sides, I don't wanna scare people,” Lucky shrugs. Grace sniffs, a curt, dismissive sound.

“Lucky Byrd, I think you're overestimatin’ how scary you are,” she tells him solemnly, and Lucky grins, winkin’ at her so that, for a lightnin’ quick moment, his black stone eye is all she sees, with her reflection lookin’ back at her from inside it. Grace’s breath catches.

Previous chapters on this blog ( @redashtree ), or read here on ao3.

“You son of a--” Eun-ji hisses, Lee cradled close in her arms, wrapped up in a blanket. Jaime reaches out, but Eun-ji retreats a step, keepin’ out of reach. “You gave up our daughter! You dealt away your own child!”

“I didn't think I would have a child!” Jaime shouts back, eyes opening over his body, teeth growin’ into defensive fangs. “I made my Deal with Lucas years ago, how could I have known?”

“I’m leavin’ town. Don't you even try to follow me, Jaime Byrd.”

“You can't leave, Eun-ji. Eun-ji!” Jaime moves forward again, catching her arm, making her hold Lee tighter. “Lucas has claim over Lee, if you take her out of town that’s you slightin’ him, stealin’ what by our Law is his.”

Eun-ji looks up at her faery husband with all the rage and hatred and disgust he is so used to, from other humans, but not from her. Never from her. Not before this very moment.

“Then I’m leavin’ this house,” Eun-ji says, pulling away from him. “And you are never gonna speak to me or my daughter, you understand me?”

Then she throws his true name at him like a knife, the precious thing he’d traded her now ringing in his ears, and Jaime bares his fangs in seething rage.

“Yes,” he growls, because what else can he do but obey?

“Good.”

And Eun-ji leaves, and takes her child with her.

:::::

The Spider and the Scorpion are twins, cunning and dangerous, all jagged edges and sharp silver tongues. They make Deals and tell half-truths with a wink and a grin.

They don't come from this land. They followed the humans that believed in them across the sea. Here, there are others inhuman as they are, and other humans; new peoples to be bargained with, unknown stories to hear and be told.

Here, though, the presence of their Court is small, and slowly waning, even as their humans from across the sea claim more and more and more.

:::::

It takes them hours to make the Deal. As humans rarely understand, bargains are delicate, and must be treated as such. Terms are set and reset, loopholes closed and addendums made, until all parties are, if not happy, then at least content with the trade.

Lily gives them safe haven, just at the edges of the town he’s established; under his protection, but only just. He claims them, and tells them they should think about actin’ a little more human.

The Spider does not accept this suggestion, and stays wild, in the desert, at the boundary of Lily’s Lake. The Scorpion becomes Jaime, and the surname will change a few times before he meets Eun-ji, and again before he meets Marie.

They make a Deal.

One twin promises a firstborn child he does not intend to have. The other promises a heart she doesn’t particularly care to keep. They both think themselves rather clever when Lily accepts.

:::::

Eun-ji doesn't know how to categorize the sound her husband is making. It's somethin’ between humming an’ singing, the sounds mimicking but never fully forming words. She smiles, soft and happy, looking away from the book she's readin’ and putting her hand in his own. He looks up at her, and smiles back, mirror-image, squeezing her fingers without any strength. She's sitting in the grass, Jaime laying with his head restin’ on her leg.

Her middle’s finally started to look like there might really be a baby growin’ inside it, and Jaime is fully enraptured, so curious to know what their child will look like, will be like. He's always looked at Eun-ji with the strange, possessive, intense kind of love that the Fair Folk come to feel the easiest, but with this, with their unborn firstborn, an entirely new, more gentle type of love starts to spark behind his eyes. It's almost unsettlingly strange to see, this nearly-human sort of love in her faery husband’s face.

Jaime keeps singin’ to the baby, and Eun-ji goes back to her book.

:::::

They are arrogant, and greedy, and like the humans from across the sea, the twins make a plan to claim more and more and more and more. They gain allies within their Court, and they try, and they fail, their numbers not enough to face the spirits who belonged here first. To avoid any more fighting than what will already be, their Queen exiles them, leavin’ the twins to the desert.

:::::

Lily’s Lake wasn't ever a lake, in the literal sense. It is desert, dry dust and rock and bone, and likely won't ever be much more.

But it’s a place of refuge, of home, of belonging, and to some, that makes it worth more than a lake, even in the desert. It’s worth enough that the faefolk among its residents are willing to Deal with Lily. And the human folk rarely stop to wonder who it is they're belonging to.

:::::

The Spider gets a camera, from a man passin’ through town, and takes to photographing all she can, birds and insects and lizards and occasionally people. Nothin’ ever sits still enough for the pictures to turn out, but she keeps tryin’. She photographs Eun-ji, twice, keeps one picture for herself and trades the other to Jaime for a swig of whiskey from a stash he rarely touches. The pictures develop blurry, but Eun-ji is grinning in both, bright and true, her hands folded in front of her stomach, where the very beginnings of a bump are starting to show.

:::::

Eun-ji leaves her Bible in the parlor when she goes, and she doesn't come back. She doesn't ever come back for it. Jaime tucks the photograph in between its pages, and leaves it on the shelf.

:::::

“Good kid you got,” the Spider winks with three of six eyes, and Eun-ji glares daggers from her bed.

“If I had the strength, I’d throw you out the window,” she says. Another of the Gentry might see this as a threat, an insult, but the Spider is amused.

“You ain't got enough strength to throw a horseshoe,” the faery shoots back, grinnin’ wide enough to show all her teeth.

“I’m not makin’ a deal with you,” Eun-ji closes her eyes, leans back into her pillow, ignoring the instinctual fear that tells her not to take her eyes off the creature by her bedside. “And I don't want you makin’ any Deals with my daughter.”

The Spider laughs. It's the kind of sound someone makes when they know more than anyone else in the room, and are pleased with themselves for it. Eun-ji doesn't think much of it; the Spider, an’ most fae, tend to sound like that more often than not. Eun-ji opens her eyes, though, looking at her former sister-in-law just in time to see the Spider’s eyes all turn from lilac back to gold.

“I won't make any Deals with your daughter,” the Spider replies, crossing one claw over her chest in a cross-my-heart gesture. Eun-ji scoffs.

“I know your heart isn't in there,” she points out, flat and unamused.

The Spider only laughs again.

:::::

The Spider waits, in her lightning-struck tree, for Lucky to realize who he is, an’ come to her. There are visions seen in purple, but they don't all match up; she isn't sure ‘til he arrives which questions and which truth he will be bringin’ with him.

“How’d you know I was a boy ‘fore I did?” he demands, ten years old and out in the desert alone, echoing half her visions an’ breaking the rest. The Spider grins, spinning down from her tree to crouch at her nephew’s eye level.

“I can see the futures,” she tells him. “What do you have for me, little Lucky?”

He offers three bloody teeth in a pouch, shed from his own skull, and the shimmering body of a dragonfly.

“I wanna make a Deal,” he says to her, for the first time and far from the last. They trade in stages, small things for small things over months, and then years, until Lucky Byrd is a young man. It's taken long enough-- the same length of time as any child growing into an adult-- that very few people in Lily Lake think to question it.

And every time she makes a Deal with the boy, Sheriff Lucas comes questionin’ after him, possessive and protective of his claim.

:::::

When Jaime meets Eun-ji, he is a Byrd, trying to make up for something lost, and his twin is willing to play human for the comfort of his bride. Eun-ji is a spark, bright and powerful and full of life in ways Jaime thinks of as fascinating, other, like a puzzle to be solved. She Deals and half-lies and spars in wits with him, and she is not a faery, but she is dangerously clever and silver-tongued.

She has his heart, and then his hand, and then his name, and then she has his secrets and she is gone because of them.

:::::

When Jaime meets Marie, he is a Hart, trying to make up for something lost, and his twin thinks him too human now, boring, emotional, ridiculous, beneath her. Marie is a sunbeam, bright and powerful and thoroughly, humanly, kind, in ways Jaime doesn't try or even pretend to understand. She Deals and trades truths and spars in jokes with him, and she is not a faery, but she is needle-sharp and deceptively unassuming.

Previous chapters on this blog ( @redashtree ), full work here on ao3.

(Warnings this chapter for more blood & injury, infection, and surgery, though still nothing graphically described.)

Zach grits his teeth, pressin’ his hands uselessly against Lucky’s bleeding chest, as more an’ more townsfolk wander outside into the dust. He hears whispers, gasps, Lucky’s name and his own, and he doesn't look for the sources of these.

He scoops Lucky into his arms, stands, and turns toward Doc’s place… and his gaze meets Grace Keller’s fearful one, for just a moment.

“Grace,” the sheriff orders, and the girl startles, “run to the Harts’ property, outside town. Tell Jaime that Lee’s hurt.”

Confused but determined, Grace nods, an’ sprints away, into the storm.

:::::

Doc hurries to clear things off her table, lettin’ the sheriff put Lucky Byrd down onto it. She gathers medicines and tools, needles and rags, and goes to the boy’s side. Lucky’s breathing is wrong, too fast and out of rhythm, an’ blood’s already soaked all through his shirt.

“I’ll do my best,” Doc tells the sheriff, who's got a hand on his chest, rubbin’ at it, lookin’ as pained as if he’d been the one shot. Outside, a gust of wind drives sand against the windowpanes.

“I’m stayin’ here,” Lucas replies. “I can help.”

“At your own price,” Doc narrows her eyes, but the sheriff doesn't flinch from her stare. “Fine. If you wanna help, start a fire, an’ boil some water.”

They get to work.

:::::

Grace pounds on the Harts’ door for what seems like much too long a time, before Marie opens the door.

“Grace?”

“Missus Hart, where’s your husband?” Grace asks, still out of breath. “I’ve got a message for ‘im, from the sheriff.”

:::::

Everything is fuzzy. There's nothing keepin’ his thoughts inside his head. He doesn't really know if that’s an effect of bein’ shot, or if it’s the medicine Doc gave him.

“I’m sorry I know your name,” he says, and the sheriff looks up, and doesn’t respond. “I know I shouldn't have said anythin’ about it. I won't tell, you know. I wouldn't ever use it.”

:::::

“I know,” Lily replies, because he does. Lee Byrd is half human, and half fae, but he ain't one of either kind that’d use someone's name against them. If Zechariah Lily was the sheriff’s true name, he might feel differently about lettin’ Lucky know it, but it ain't, so he doesn't.

“Hold his arms still,” Doc orders, and the sheriff does.

“You should know my name, too,” Lucky continues.

“Hush, boy,” Doc interrupts him. “Don't say nothin’ stupid.”

:::::

Jaime enters Doc’s home without knocking, Marie and the Keller girl close behind him. And there is Lee, on the table, bleeding, mumbling indistinctly around the leather belt the doctor’s stuck in his mouth. Jaime starts forward, but Zechariah is there, pushing him back.

“You ain’t got rights to this claim. I sent Grace to tell you out of courtesy,” the sheriff says lowly. Jaime looks at the sheriff with surprise, and something almost like gratitude. Courtesy. What a strange, human, reason to do anything. (Stars above and dark below, Jaime wonders, has spendin’ these last years in human skins really changed them both so drastically?)

“Courtesy,” Jaime echoes. Lily narrows his eyes.

“You weren't there when Eun-ji was sick,” he explains. “I thought you might wanna be here for her son.”

Her son. Somethin’ unpleasant sits in the back of Jaime’s throat, but he doesn’t disagree with Lily. He knows better than that. So he just nods. The sheriff steps back, lettin’ Jaime go to Lucky's side.

He’s kept his distance so long, has barely seen Lee at all since Eun-ji’s funeral. The boy shares his curls, his dark complexion, Jaime notes now, but the kid’s features are all Eun-ji. Human eyes and human ears and human teeth, nothin’ but the kid’s aura to even suggest he’s got anythin’ of the faefolk in him. Jaime senses the potential for something Other, but it's hidden under Lee’s skin, not by a glamour but by solid flesh and blood and bone. Jaime wonders absently if it'll ever find its way out.

“Grace, get on home now,” Doc orders, bringin’ Jaime’s eyes off of Lucky and to herself with the words. The Keller girl, wide-eyed and pale-faced, also tears her gaze away from Lucky-- from his wounds, and obeys the doctor. Marie shuts the door behind her, moves forward into the room, intertwines arms with Jaime. A show of loyalty, or comfort, or solidarity. Jaime doesn't know.

“What can we do?” Marie asks Doc.

“I’ve done most of what I can,” the doctor admits, gesturing to her bloodied tools, the misshapen bullets she’s pulled from the wounds, the clearly alcohol-soaked rag in her hand. “All that's really left is to get him fully stitched an’ bandaged up, an’ hope for the best.”

:::::

Lucky drifts in and out of sleep. Every time he wakes, the pain’s a little less sharp, an’ the world’s a bit more hazy, out of focus. He hears voices, sees people leanin’ over him, sometimes, but has trouble understandin’ what they say. He just hears pieces of conversations.

“...infection’s gettin’ worse…”

“I don't think he can hear us.”

“If I give him more medicine… end up dependent...”

“...nothing left… keeps gettin’ worse.”

“...can’t die! He can't! Doc--”

“...absolutely forbid you to make a Deal… deranged from fever...”

“Lucky.”

Lucky opens his eyes, blinking past the brightness of the sunlight streamin’ through the window. The sheriff is standin’ there.

“Sheriff,” Lucky greets. Everything in his head is…muffled, like his thoughts are tryin’ to reach him through a storm. Something’s wrong.

:::::

Lucky looks confused, when Zach wakes him. His eyes aren't focusin’ right, and his voice is soft an’ half-asleep. Drenched in sweat, his bandages soaked through with blood an’ pus, his skin a shade grayer… he looks close to death.

“Lucky, you need to make a Deal with me,” Lucas says. “You're sick, y’hear me? You need to make a Deal, so I can help.”

“A deal?” Lucky says, not understandin’. “A deal. I-- what was I gonna tell you, when we talked before?”

“Lucky, focus.” the sheriff orders.

“Lily’s not a good name for you, sheriff. Y’don’t look like someone who ought to be named after a flower.”

“And right now, you don't look very Lucky,” Lucas shoots back, irritated now. “Focus, Byrd. You've been dyin’ slowly for nearly a week. What'll you give me for helpin’ heal you? Make a Deal.”

“A deal…” Lucky repeats. His words are starting to slur, now, as he slips further back toward sleep. “I can give you-- I should tell you my name. I know yours. It seem fair that I should know your name when you dunno mine? Eye for an eye, an’ all that, right?”

“Focus, Lucky,” Sheriff Lucas snaps. A part of him regrets it, croons to let the boy speak, let him tell, let him bind himself, bind him, bind him-- “Focus.”

“Eye for an eye,” Lucky murmurs.

“Byrd! What will you give me for this?”

“Eye...for…” Lucky trails off.

Sheriff Lucas exhales, the air leavin’ his lungs in a frustrated sigh. He grabs Lucky’s hand in his own, an imitation of a handshake.

(previous chapters on this blog, @redashtree. Full work on ao3.)

warnings for injury, blood, described body horror bc fae, and minor character death.

It’s storm season. The wind blows up the desert sand, and brings it, stingin’, blindin’, into town. The streets are empty more often than not, but the people continue their lives, keep workin’, keep goin’ about their business.

Empty streets and an open bank make storm season perfect for a robbery.

:::::

Sam touches a hand to the bracelets ‘round their wrist. Through Will’s eyes, they see themself, which means Will is watchin’ them, waitin’ for something.

“What?” Sam asks, signing the word as they speak it aloud. Will looks down at their own hands to sign their reply.

“Nothing.”

“Then why you lookin’ at me?” Sam demands. Will hesitates. Sam hears Angel come into the room, but Will doesn’t look up, so Sam doesn’t see them.

“Are you sure we won’t be crossing anything we shouldn’t, here?” Will signs, still looking at their hands so Sam can see.

“Like what?” Sam asks. “You think some faerie’s gonna care about a human bank? They don’t generally involve themselves with–”

“No. This town is different, and you know it,” Will interrupts. “There are faefolk walking around like they belong.”

Angel claps for the others’ attention, an’ Will looks up.

“It’ll be fine,” Angel signs. “Not a one of the fae will try and stop us, with these.” They pull lightly at the pouch ‘round their neck, full of salt and iron flecks and rowan ash. “Needles promised these would ward them off.”

“Needles also said powerful enough faeries could overcome these,” Will points out.

“Maybe, but there ain’t nothin’ that powerful in a human bank,” Sam replies. “Stop whinin’. We’re about to be rich.”

:::::

Mrs. Irma Solomon has worked at Lily Lake’s only bank for years. Irma moved into town with her wife, before their children were born, ‘cause Lily Lake seemed to be the kinda place where there were plenty stranger things for folk to worry about than two women livin’ together. She’s seen her fair share of that strangeness.

Odd as the Gentry can be, though, Irma has to say, they’d never be quite so uncivil as to rob the bank at gunpoint.

:::::

Preparation is a necessary evil. Wait for the street to be dusty enough for people to stay inside, tie their horses up ‘cross the road from the bank, map a course out of town that won’t leave their backs open to any sharp-shooters. That’s all important, but it ain’t no fun.

This is Sam’s favorite part. The chaos that breaks out when they shoot at the sky, the screams of the few people in the bank.

“Everyone, please accept my deepest apologies,” they drawl, “but this is a robbery. We’ll be takin’ your money now.”

:::::

Angel can’t hear the shots they put through the roof. But then they borrow Will’s ears, and oh, are those startled and frightened screams satisfying.

“Keep watch,” Sam says and signs, and Angel nods, guardin’ the door while their siblings move further into the room, headin’ for the teller and the vault.

:::::

Sheriff Lucas doesn’t generally have to do much, to keep the peace in Lily Lake. Disputes get handled, disagreements get resolved. The faefolk, and the human folk who’ve learned to live with ‘em, mostly figure things out on their own.

But the sound of gunshots in the middle of town is somethin’ he thinks he may have to check on.

:::::

Lucky is too curious not to run toward the shots, even through the dust startin’ to hit town. He’s a quick draw and nimble, so he figures he’ll be quick enough to keep safe should there be trouble. He’s almost to the bank already when he sees the Sheriff runnin’ from the other way.

“You stay back,” Sheriff Lucas orders Lucky.

:::::

Will ignores the panic, ignores the noise, focuses on getting at the money in the vault. The man with the keys blubbers the whole time, bargainin’ with skill. Will ignores him, too.

:::::

People here ain’t reckless, which is good. They get their money without havin’ to shoot any of the people cowerin’ around the room.

“Someone’s outside,” Sam’s voice says, but it’s Angel’s inflection, Angel’s message from the door.

“Let’s give them a welcome,” Will says, also usin’ Sam’s voice, an’ signing at the same time for Angel, who gives them a nod.

The man with the keys looks confused. Will ignores him once again.

:::::

“You stay back,” Sheriff Lucas orders, and Lucky opens his mouth to respond, to argue.

Then a bullet comes through the bank’s open door, invisible through the sandy air. Lucky curses, scramblin’ down the street a ways, toward safety. The sheriff is close behind him.

Lucky counts eight more shots, one after the other, before it goes quiet.

“They out already?” he asks, wary. Lucas shakes his head, says nothin’.

The bank door swings open, an’ the three strangers exit at a run, headin’ for where their horses are tied up across the street. It’s hard to see ‘em clearly through the building storm, but one’s got a full knapsack slung over one shoulder. The sheriff aims, shoots, and one goes down silently, clutchin’ at their bleedin’ leg.

“By bein’ in this town you agree to follow its laws,” Lucas calls, carefully controlled rage underlyin’ every word. “I’ll give you one chance to put that money down an’ leave peacefully.”

Lucky knows what Lucas is. He knows that this is a Deal, and the only one these outlaws will receive.

“Y’all might wanna listen to him,” he says over the wind, and Lucas sends him an irritated glance.

“We ain’t scared of you,” one of the strangers replies. They drop the money, only to put a hand on the second pistol in their belt.

“Reconsider,” Lucas says, his voice enraged and Other in a way Lucky ain’t ever heard in his life, not from the sheriff or from anybody. Lucas raises his gun again, slowly, givin’ the three time to accept. The one without an ear touches a hand to a bracelet ‘round their wrist, then yanks their arm aside, and the sheriff’s gun goes flyin’ from his hand.

Lucky curses in surprise.

“Last chance,” Lucas growls.

The bandits don’t accept the Deal. The uninjured two raise their guns, and the shot one shakily matches their aim from the ground.

They shoot.

Lucky hits the ground. Through the rush of wind and the rush of blood in his ears he hears the sickening pops and shifts of a body becoming something new. Hears a deep, rattlin’ hiss, hears the terror of the strangers, only now understandin’ what kinda nest they’ve disturbed, what kind of man and what kind of thing the sheriff of Lily Lake truly is.

There are gunshots, but the other noise doesn’t stop. He hears a scream, cut short, and more awful sounds that bring bile into his throat: the cracks of bones, gurgling breaths, the heart-shaking vibration of a low growl. Lucky’s never seen Sheriff Lucas look anythin’ less than perfectly human. Now he’s got the chance, he doesn’t dare look.

There is the same shifting again of Lucas’ body, turnin’ back into what the town knows him to be.

Then, besides the storm still growin’ worse, there is silence.

:::::

Zach twists his shoulder, forcing it back into place. His chest hurts, bad, but he figures that’s just what he gets for changin’ so quick, after so many long years contained fully in a human skin.

He hears, through the wind, footsteps, the creak of opening shutters, the low whispers of rumours starting. He doesn’t know who saw him… no. That’s not entirely true. He knows Lucky Byrd saw him.

Lucas turns, expectin’ to see Lucky already up on his feet. Instead, the boy’s still on the ground, breathin’ heavily out of panic. Even with all the dust in the air, now, Lucas doesn’t need to get closer to see why.