#equuscarnivorus

The riverbeds were quiet, the sunshine covering them in a warm glow. Ciaran was off on his own, doing "kelpie things" (as Niamh affectionately called him), leaving the selkie to her own devices. It was a day where she was feeling lazy. She had she'd her skin and it was in the grass as she stretched out on a large rock that outcropped over the river. It was the perfect place for a nap in the sun.

Unfortunately, it wasn't a spot where she was well hidden. Her sleep was so deep that she didn't notice that a hunter had crept upon her until he picked up her sealskin -- the physical sensation of him touching it waking her with a startled gasp.

She leapt down from her rock and made an attempt to snatch it back from him. He was taller, though, holding it aloft easily. Before she could sink her teeth into his throat he roughly shoved her back. Niamh stumbled, foot slipping on the wet stones of the riverbed, and she fell.

It seems that I'm dying, not the most pleasant thoughts that may appear in someone who has just started living, who was still too young and had a catching fire in her eyes. Ivakir, who constantly managed to escape from death, this time couldn't escape from its claws. For a completely silly reason. It was the end, the real end, because Iv stopped struggling.

I'm dying, and no one knows about this. The thought seemed so simple, taken from nowhere, which until then had only caused panic and fear, and now it was just the truth that had to be accepted. The fear of death was now unimportant.

I will die, and no one will find out about it. And I never imagined that I would die like that. I imagined myself a heroic death or surrounded by family, me, in a large bed, in the most beautiful dress, which the noble old ladies from the movies usually wear, tender pink rose petals are scattered everywhere. My wives, husbands, our foster children will bemoaning me, because they will be greatly saddened. And now hardly anyone will guess that I drowned, that my beautiful body will rot at the bottom of this stinking pond and become a food for the fish.

The witch moved her whole body, trying to swim to the surface, but did it clumsily, languidly, because she had never tried to learn how to swim. Nobody will find out. What a terrible thought - to die alone. Grandma will be very grieved, and Vatslav, probably, too, although, perhaps, he will forget about her soon. And her friends, will they remember her? And Siren? And Mid? Will they miss Ivakir? She never says where she is going, so most likely they'll just think that she left them. A week later, her  mutilated body filled with gases will rise to the surface, and journalists will print in the smallest type: "Found the body of a young girl, the identity is not established" next to the advertisement of dog food.

“That’s on you then. Been livin’ ‘round here since I was a wee cabbage and let me tell you, next town’s a few whiles away, and it’s gettin’ dark. You sure? My place’s just ‘round the bent. Walkin’ in these parts is not the smartest idea at night.”

Trusting strangers isn’t either, George thought.

Wil didn’t like talking about his past. He had filed it away as a different life already gone by, yet so much of it influenced the sixteen-year-old he was today. Wil shrugged. “Depends. Do you mean the fact that I was abandoned as a baby first by my own birth family, and then numerous others throughout the foster system? Or do you mean more an actual traumatic incidence like when I accidentally mangled three boy scouts into trees after they bullied me? I blocked that one out for a whole year.

I didn’t know what I was then. I was only twelve and just wanted to be human. I was terrified.

Or do you mean the slowly dying away of my brother, the one true friend and brother I had after he knew of all my abandonment issues I had. Do you mean how when I found an actual home that I thought for once was the real thing and I had it ripped out of my life, again? But this time in the most slow painful way ever, where I felt slowly more unwanted and abandoned every single day until it had been years and they were just gone. 

Or maybe you mean the day that my connection to my hunting partner and friend who I was just starting to love, got severed, and I knew in that instance he had died.

Singing and dancing!

Niamh, bless her, tries so very hard to listen to her intuition, but sometimes it leads her astray. Her emotions are wild and volatile like the sea, and so sometimes they sway her choices. Sometimes her curiosity is so strong that, even if something gives her an uneasy feeling, she may pursue it anyways.

pastel ciaran for u

“I was, ‘til just a moment ago.” Cheeks dimpled as she smiled. She lay back down on the soft moss, hair a golden pool beneath her. She stretched out languidly. “I was lonely,” she said, “And you look so enticing in the sunset.”