![]() They close their eyes, wisp dancing behind shut lids. The kelpie is a dark, indininct shape, white eyes against the dark. The kelpie lets go, and they slowly sink, sodden fur pulling them down. The water is gray and green and red, and it doesn’t hurt anymore. Water fills their ears, their eyes, their mouth, their lungs, and it doesn’t hurt anymore. They are under the water, and image of the wisp is burned behind their eyes. ![]() A gleam of yellow light, dancing up in the trees, a tiny sun amongst the thundering, churning sky. They head rolls backwards, and they see it. ![]() They have no energy to fight, their energy, their will to survive draining out of them along with their blood. They are being dragged backwards, towards the deeper water, the kelpie struggling in the shallow, grassy waters of the tiny bog. The smell of their own blood fills their nose, over the wet scent of the rain and the silt of the bog and the rotten smell of the creature killing them. Fire burning through nerve endings, skin ripping under the long, sharp teeth. The cat doesn’t even have time to scream before the kelpie’s teeth are in their neck, dragging them deeper, deeper, deeper.Īt first there is pain. It is large and terrible, dead, white eyes glowing through the storm. Maybe if they had, it would have ended differently. Will-o-the-wisps lead you astray, away from your safe path, temping you into the waters just out of sight. They don’t notice how the bog connects to a bigger pond, doesn’t remember the lore that was told to them as a kit in their mother’s nest. They don’t notice the thing coming up behind them. It’s shallow enough to stand, and they turn, trying to figure out which way is solid ground, wildly scanning the sky for any sign of the will-o-the-wisp. Muddy water fills their mouth and they flounder, the solid grass turning to bog under their paws. They run.Īnd then, what they thought was solid ground goes out from underneath them, and they fall. The wisp zips ahead, blinking and bobbing, the rain blurring the tiny figure and filling their eyes and they blink it away. They are afraid, and the wisp brings hope, however slight. They do not want to die alone in the forest they call home. It would be so, so easy to lose track of the wisp, and so they force themselves faster, ignoring the ever-present gnaw of hunger in their belly, the burn of muscles pushed too far, the anxiety in the back of their brain that says what if it’s a trick what if it’s a trick over and over.īut they are afraid. They run, a loop hooked through their ribcage, pulling them after the tiny blinking light. The cat follows, forcing aching, freezing, tired limbs moving. The wisp blinks, a tiny sun, and then it’s moving, zipping up and over their shoulder and off into the trees. They know wisps trick and mislead, but it’s the only hope they have. “Please,” they repeat, a sob gathering in their throat. A will-o-the-wisp, a beacon in the cold, remorseless trees. Warm and yellow and blurred through the rain, but hope sparks in the cat’s chest. “Guide me home.” They do not want to die out here, alone in the rain, to be found the next morning as some cold ball of wet fur and malnourished bones.Īnd, in the distance, a light blinks on. “Please,” they whisper, to the fates or to the ancestors or to whoever is listening. Water drips into their ears and their eyes and their mouth, and somewhere just out of sight, more water churns, the dark creatures within awake and hungry. They can almost feel the death warrant being marked on their head, some long forgotten deity snipping their life away, a spiderweb breaking under the barest of touches. It had only taken one stumble, paws losing grip in mud, and the other three were gone. Forgetting the barely gone-sickness of the fourth. The patrol was torn apart by the first few drops of rain, the other three charging back to the camp. It feels as if they’ve been out here for hours. Do no enter the forest alone.Īnd yet, here they are, alone, drenched to the bone, a chill setting up in their chest and no idea which way is home. Formed in blood and the lives of those lost, the rule is simple. The storm rages overhead, the forest, as familiar as their own paws now a twisting labyrinth of rain and dark corners, the knowledge of breaking the Clan’s most sacred rule is an uncomfortable churning in their stomach, side by side with toxic fear. A patrol of four became that of three, safe in the camp of Clan Fearthainn, leaving the fourth out in the forest alone. The storm came in with a roar and a crash, tearing them away from each other.
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