#mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Siobhan only remembered her name because she thought it was trite; someone studying mythologies named Diana? Imagine if Henri’s name had been Digupbones O’Oldpeople. What was next? Would she learn Diana had an affinity for the moon? It was idiotic and that was why it latched into her head. So, when Siobhan saw Diana lit up by the glow of a vending machine, staring into rows of processed snacks, she shocked herself with the knowledge that she knew the woman’s name at all. She must have only met her once or twice, here or there, thinking nothing of her because Diana—like any human—was not one to think anything of. 

And so, heels clicking on the tile, she walked on. Her coat, which was draped over her shoulders, brushed Diana’s back as she walked by her. Siobhan perfume—a desperate attempt to not smell like squonk—lifted into the air, washing over the brief meeting of nothing between the two women; a little honey, a little cinnamon (yes, she did loathe that it made her smell like a dessert). Siobhan thumbed through the papers in her arms; she hadn’t even spared a glance at Diana. 

And yet.

She felt it all at once, rushing across her like electricity; her blood stopping, pumping the wrong way; a chill crawling up her scarred spine; a stab through her head, directly into Diana’s body. She stopped. Siobhan knew what another fae felt like, Siobhan knew what Death felt like, this was neither. This was all backwards; a feeling in reverse. And so, heels tapping, she backtracked.

“Hello, darling,” she purred, leaning over Diana, her breath a tickle against the woman’s ear. “Diana, is it? My, you’ve got such wonderful taste. Who doesn’t love dusty crisps?” Siobhan couldn’t stop herself from grinning; in the glass of the vending machine, she looked so much like a hungry cat. 

—

The day Diana was having was probably going to go down in the record books for most minor inconveniences and frustrations in succession. 

First, Rathelin Hall had been fully locked when she’d arrived— it hadn’t been locked for anyone else, apparently, just for her. Worse, she didn’t have her key to get in. A slight conducted by the fates or some house spirits that had taken up residence in the building, no doubt. It had taken calling Dr. Kibby three times just to get someone to come and let her inside. The coke-bottle bespectacled old man proceeded to inform her that her office was being borrowed by a visiting scholar for the morning, and could she please use the conference room. Desperate for any sense of a good morning, Diana had tried the coffee machine… no luck there either, as someone had used the last of the coffee beans and simply left a sticky note reading ‘Sorry : (‘ taped to the side of it. So there she stood, 11:30 in the morning, no coffee, no office, and her hand up inside the vending machine trying to pull the bag of Dusty Cheezy Puffz out from the ledge it had gotten caught on. 

In all her frustrations, she didn’t hear the steady click..click..clicking of shoes coming from the other end of the hall. The wafting of honey and cinnamon covered over something unfortunately musky came to smother her, followed by a voice that purred right into her ear, breath tickling against her neck. Diana lurched forward, her arm banging up into the machine— at least it forced the chip bag to fall into the pickup slot. 

“JE–sus what the fff–” She hissed, fully sat on the floor with her back pressed up against the vending machine. There was a woman standing there, crouched over her like some cat that had found new prey. The grin that smugly stretched from ear to ear was unsettling to say the least. Who the fuck was this lady? Had they met before? Diana forced her thoughts to sift through the countless professors she’d encountered professionally or in passing. The face was familiar enough… It was something with an S, right? Saoirse? Isolde? She hated the way her heart felt like it was ready to lurch out of her chest. Hated the feeling of being stuck. 

 “Uh– hi… professor… can I– can I help you?” 

—

“Yes, I think you can help me very much, little mouse.” Siobhan lowered herself near Diana’s level, maintaining just enough height to get the right degree of looming (one must loom in these circumstances). She lifted her hand and opened her palm towards Diana. For a moment, she hovered there, poised as if to crush her fingers around the woman’s throat. Then, she drew in slowly and held Diana’s chin. She turned her face to the right, then the left. Diana was symmetrical; features in the right places; a sharpness in the jaw, in the eyes. She wasn’t unpleasant to look at. “I’ve never noticed how pretty you are,” Siobhan said. Diana might even be prettier crawling on the ground, covered in her own blood, wheezing for the threads of life. She made such delicious squeaks, after all. What more beautiful sounds could she make when sawed into with a dull blade, perhaps? Or crushed by this vending machine. 

Siobhan was unable to stop her grinning. A wonderful toy had fallen into her lap. She released Diana’s chin, but remained crouching in front of her. “Do you happen to feel this in the air? I can’t help but think you feel a little… out of place, darling.” Siobhan clicked her tongue. “No, not quite. You stir an animal sensibility in my mind; I am so curious about this inclination I have to eat you.” Siobhan tilted her head. “I suppose this is a one-way street then? You don’t appear very hungry right now, Diana.”

Siobhan reached for Diana again, her hand grazing the woman’s shoulder. She pushed into the pickup slot of the vending machine and drew out a dusty bag of Cheezy Puffz (horrendous choice, Diana). She set her papers down and pinched the bag between her fingers, opening it under Diana’s nose. A plume of orange cheese dust erupted in Diana’s face. Siobhan drew out a cheeze puff(z) and laid it slowly against her tongue. Slower still, she chewed.

—

Fae. 

She didn’t need her senses for the word to scream itself out in her mind. Even if she had not said a single word, Diana would have known. One: She was practically pinned against a vending machine (which, in any other situation, might’ve been hot but); two, the woman had one hand hovering uncomfortably close to her throat, as if to crush her windpipe like a piece of glass before deciding on holding her chin instead, and; three, the other woman could sense her. 

Diana was not breathing. Not moving. All the warden could do was hold her breath and stare for a moment, a deer unblinking in the moment before its untimely demise. The nickname little mouse was too close to rat. To francach. She needed to move; needed her mind to think rather than sit in white noise. She was still a warden, dammit. Wardens did not lose themselves to panic when they were caught. Though, a good warden was never caught… What more could she do, then, than pretend she was not caught unaware, that she was bothered but not in the way the woman thought. “I– Professor, while I appreciate… the compliment, and whatever this is, I…”

Her voice trailed off as Whats-Her-Face reached past her, took the Cheezy Puffz from the vending machine slot, and stole her snack. Ate one right in front of her and everything. That was enough to set Diana right. She pushed herself up, making a grab for her bag of Cheezy Puffz while Professor Fae Somethingorother stared at her and crunched away. “If you wanted access to the vending machine, all you would have had to say was excuse me.”

—

Her toy stood up, snatching the Cheezy Puffz from her hands. Siobhan frowned; such rudeness would need to be curbed. It was rather unbecoming for a plaything to be so bold. Then again, she supposed, it would be boring if Diana was anything else. Slowly, Siobhan stood, licking the cheese dust from her fingertips. Salt burst against her tongue—if one had a taste for human inventions, it was rather pleasant. “I can think of something better than overly processed dregs of—well, it would be too generous to call it food, now would it?” She tilted her head. “I prefer when my food runs. I like it when my food gets cute with me, don’t you? Humans these days… they’ve lost their hunting sense.” 

It was one of Siobhan’s greatest disappointments that she could not eat the way other fae could—as a banshee, her meals were pedestrian. Human. “But not you,” she said. “Isn’t that right? You’ve got that…” She smiled. “You’ve got a hunter’s mind in a field mouse’s body. Well, darling, I am the owl.” With her papers held closer to her chest, she observed the form of Diana. The legs she could do without—pleasant, but so much more beautiful if bent, broken and folded in on themselves, no? The arms she’d keep. Oh, but that jaw, and that rude mouth… it deserved a lesson, didn’t it? “We’ll be seeing a lot of each other, Diana. I’d like to see you improve your diet for next time. When you throw up, I don’t want it to be orange; the color is unnatural. And when I take your bones, I want them strong. Am I understood, darling?”

Not that she’d kill her—destroying a doll meant the doll was good for only one thing. Diana would be good for so many things. 

—

Diana should have worried. Logically, she knew this— one should be, at a minimum, mildly fucking concerned when there was a stranger implying she was food, acknowledging she was a hunter, and flat out threatening (promising?) to torture her. The correct rules of engagement would have been to politely excuse herself, pretend she had never had this encounter, and then go work out what kind of fae she was dealing with (the interest in the hunter’s bones made her assume the answer was banshee, but there was always a chance she was dealing with something else…). If she were more like her aunt, maybe she would have started fighting the fae woman right there in the middle of the hallway. She might have grabbed the pendant from around her throat and pressed the iron into the woman’s skin, then run. 

The words rang in her ears: When you throw up, I don’t want it to be orange; the color is unnatural. And when I take your bones, I want them strong. As if Diana belonged to her. As if she was a caged pet to play with, a toy to torment for the fae’s enjoyment. To break. Yes, she should have been scared. Maybe would have, if the feeling had been scolded and punished out of her. 

Instead of fear, instead of meaningful action to protect herself… there was laughter.

Sharp, incredulous laughter that escaped the warden as she stared back at the fae. Oh, she was so, incredibly, absolutely fucked, wasn’t she? “Professor, I say this with all due respect,” Diana sidestepped around the woman, trying to create distance between the pair of them. “My bones are not for taking. My meal and snacks are mine to choose. And we will not be seeing a lot of each other. You will keep away from me, I will keep away from you. Simple as that.” She reached into the bag of cheese puffs, popped one into her mouth, and crunched down on it. Stupid. This was stupid. This was declaring war, knowing your enemy had a fully loaded arsenal and you had maybe some rocks at best. The professor would sense Diana; Diana would not sense her. And, as a result of that tragic fact, there would be one more name carved into the bar of The 3 Daggers by May. Perhaps the fear that she had been shoving down for months had finally given way to delirium. It would explain the incredibly bad idea of talking back to the woman— god, what the fuck was her name? Sarait? Siobhan? She was really going to have to do some googling later…

“Do you understand?”

__

The laughter was unexpected, and Siobhan smiled as the sound rang out between them. Predictability was no fun; if one knew what their toy was going to do, why have the toy at all? The joy was in seeing what would follow. If thrown around, if chewed on, what would become of Diana? It was good that she was laughing now. Very soon, she wouldn’t be able to. But now she thought, between plucking Diana’s nails from her fingers, she might force her to laugh instead—might bind her so that the only sounds ripped from her throat were the ones Siobhan commanded her to make. It was hard to deny a fae their desires when tied up, after all. Siobhan’s smile grew; of all the hunters to receive this—What was it? A curse?—a warden was the best choice. A werewolf might tear a ranger, might toss one around; a vampire might drain a slayer, or a zombie might scrape out the brains; but those were rudimentary and momentary delights. 

Fae were known for many things but it would be foolish to ignore the cruelty that underlined the stories told about them. The shifters and the undead had largely touched humanity at some point in their lives; the fae never had. They were not human. They had never been human. Their concerns and delights were beyond the minuscule scope of human intellect. It was this, Siobhan thought, that made Diana interesting. Nothing else could play the way a fae did. 

“I do,” she said slowly. “I do understand that you seem to have a foolishly optimistic view of the situation. An unearned one, if you were asking me, darling. My…” She clicked her tongue against her teeth. “My people are very good at finding each other, and if we talk, would they not tell me that they feel for you what I am feeling now? Why, they might have a lot to say—they might want the same things I want. Or worse.” Siobhan rolled her shoulders, stretching her neck one way and then the other. “Darling, I enjoy your people—I harbour them no ill-will.” Siobhan sighed. “The same cannot be said for the rest and I am not so inclined to stop them.”  

She regarded Diana again. She wasn’t much of a warden, was she? She seemed the unassuming sort—perhaps she’d done little hunting to begin with. There was a distinct lack of threats. Even Eve would be more terrifying than paltry Diana. “I suppose we’ll discover together how loud your bark, and how strong your bite, hm?” Siobhan smiled. “Are you going to scurry off now, little mouse?” 

—

She smiled. The fae woman smiled— her mouth too sharp, the look in her eyes almost gleeful— as though Diana were some strange little pet, barking and nipping, that she would have the utmost pleasure in breaking. If she was honest, she did not believe a word of what she had just uttered. She did not think that… Siobhan, yes, she was pretty sure that was it, Siobhan would listen to her. And why would she? The wurgen, in his infinite wisdom, had gifted his brethren the ability to hunt down one of the people who were born, raised, and died hunting the fae. It must have been intoxicating… 

She still had the means to protect herself. Diana’s fingers reached for a necklace of leather cord, palmed at the iron pendant she kept just beneath her shirt. There was an iron blade tucked in her boot, too. If things got very real, very fast, she could reach it. But… iron was the weapon of a warden that knew when there was potential danger. Would it serve her as well? Now that she did not know whether she was looking at friend or foe? There was an option— not a good one. A horrible one, actually. Cold iron existed. A brutal tool, for someone who either overenjoyed the hunt, or for the weak who could not properly defend themselves… No. No, she was not there yet. And she would not get there. Despite Siobhan’s promises that the fae would come. Despite the promise that her violent hands might be the kindest she’d fall into. 

She studied the woman; tried to commit to memory every inch of her being so that Diana could prepare for a fight. If one came. When. Later, in the safety of her apartment, she would dig through every notebook, every scrawl of information she had saved on banshees, until the information was carved into her mind so exactly that it would never vanish. She would line her home with iron. Maybe her office, too. It would be alright… it had to be. 

“Ill will or no, I am not your pet,” She murmured. Her mother harbored no ill will. Diana had too, in her own way. And look what had happened to them… Her fingers hooked up the cord necklace, bringing the iron to rest against her sternum. Try me… I dare you, try me. The idea of fighting on university grounds was horrible… but if it kept herself alive, Diana wouldn’t hesitate. Thankfully, the banshee didn’t give any indication she might attack. She just watched her, that amused smile making the warden’s stomach churn. 

She did not answer Siobhan’s question. There was, after all, no little mouse to answer her. Instead, she turned in her heels, and marched back down the hallway without so much as a glance behind her. Munching on her Cheezy Puffz all the way.

__

When Siobhan was little (She didn’t remember the exact amount of little. Was she ten? Twelve? It seemed most of her life was spent being little) she’d found the carcass of a hare, the sinew peeled to reveal tiny ribs like pale fingers curling for the sky. Buzzing with fat flies, its innards a red sludge inside the paste that remained on its body, it had the quality all dead animals subject to the sun did: that dissolving property of Death. The sight was not new to Siobhan. At that age, she’d likely seen hundreds of animals decay. This time, like all the others, should not have stuck in her mind. Yet, when she thought of Death, it was the image of that hare that first jumped to mind. There was no significance to it that she could remember. The day was not special. She had no attachment to hares, and especially not to that particular one. 

The only feeling she could remember—perscribed to that moment and not to each time she pulled it from her memory afterwards—was a sinking, inexplicable sadness. When Jane died, perhaps she was sad—she must’ve been, to have screamed for the girl, but what she remembered of that day was the pain of her wings ripping out of her back. She didn’t remember Jane. She remembered the hare and still, it settled inside of her chest with a rolling weight like the lazy tumble of a beheading. Still, she was sad to think about it. 

Siobhan watched the bounce of Diana’s hair, resting against the curve of her spine, surrounded by the fingers of her ribs. She’d seen hundreds of hares in her life; beautiful bounding creatures hoping between tufts of untamed grass, their long bodies stretching and contracting across the hills of Ireland. There were many stories about hares, just as there were for any common animal. Prey had their own mythology. Hare, mouse, deer, leporidae, muridae, cervidae—the name didn’t matter if the result was the same. Of course, the result was the same for every creature that had the foolish capacity for life. 

“I’ll be seeing you again,” Siobhan said, though Diana had vanished in the halls of the school. “It’s within our natures; it can’t be helped.” What was to be done about the inevitable remained to be seen.