Fable - Ask Wild Kelpies for a Prince

[Saang Lusce]

Saang grimaced, raising his hands before his face and curling them in exceptionally apparent unbelievable frustration. He growled, a sound that reverberated deep within his chest like a tiger moved to aggression, "You're not listening!"

The words were intense but never rose above a low snarl. Saang had promised he wouldn't yell at her, but she was making it very difficult right now. Heat began to openly radiate off his figure. Nearby icicles drip-dripped upon the heads of those in the area.

"That is poison. My control is gone once it begins to effect me. If it happens, it will happen fast but you-" Saang prodded Ianthe in the chest perhaps a little harder than he meant to, "you will feel it coming. When you do, get everyone into the water and tell them to dive. The Matriarch can still keep time under water can she not?"

 

[Ianthe]

Scales seemed to ripple beneath her skin and for a second, a split second, her eyes seemed to turn a deep shade of purple.

How. Dare. He.

Ianthe tried to ignore the other feelings his anger stirred; the fear of the flame and that other more ludicrous feeling that uncurled in her stomach like a cat before the hearth. If he had been another kelpie, or another fae, she would have lunged at him and ripped his throat out. But the runes etched into her skin that bound her to him begun to heat with warning as though it sensed her intentions. She gave him a smile that was all teeth and a little mocking bow.

"Anything else, My Lord wishes?"

 

[Saang Lusce]

He knew well enough that he'd stoked her ire. It didn't even take his own powers of empathy to see it, recognize it from all the long years they'd worked together on the battlefields of the Night Court Princes. Regret prickled at the back of his throat like a sour taste as he felt the static energy of her reins being tested. An apology now would be completely ignored, but frankly he was too fired up to even offer one.

The level of his anxiety was nearly palpable, and certainly one could feel it in the heat on the air.

Saang's lip curled at the spitting of his title for many reasons, but he straightened himself and donned a discontent frown. The sort he wore when he knew he was walking into an unpleasant situation, "Just keep everyone safe." Likely a foreign concept to her, Ianthe lived and breathed self-preservation, but now she had no choice.

Without another word he turned and made his way back to the gathering where many curious eyes followed him. Ignoring them all except for the Matriarch's, he paused before her, his full height quite dwarfing the smaller Kelpie.

"There is a good chance that my powers may flare while I am under," he told her, "if I have gained any respect from you at all by now, I bid you heed the words of Ianthe if she raises the alarm. She will sense it early enough to move everyone to safety. I do not wish for anyone to be harmed or effected." He hoped he didn't need to explain to Sorelia why Ianthe would sense it. That should have been perfectly clear given her status as a tamed kelpie.

 

[Ianthe]

Did he know what he did as he spoke those words? Did he see the looks? Read the sneers in those calm faces? It was often easy for her to make them forget the branding she wore upon her skin, the iron reins that kept her from forever leaving these shores. Yet in those few words, born out of care for innocent lives, he'd reminded them all she was less than. She suspected it was the reason none of the males here had approached her to warm their bed or share the marital wreath.

Any child she had would be just as bound as her.

She kept her face blank though her teeth ground together. The matron glanced across at her in bemusement, but turned back to Saang with an incline of the head.

"We shall heed the warning. If you show the control you need to pass this test, it should not matter though," and with that she once more offered him the goblet.

 

[Saang Lusce]

She just didn't understand. Show the control you need... kelpies had undeveloped notions and senses of magic in higher fae. Wild kelpies, in particular, lacked the experience of living and fighting among them. Even if Ianthe had been free now, her own life had provided her the necessary knowledge of when to hold her ground and when to fucking flee.

Saang said nothing more in response to the Matriarch and instead strode past her to the stone slab and the concoction awaiting him atop it. He eyed it in the same way he might eye the reflection of Tulok in a mirror - with a great deal of trepidation. Taking up the bowl, the duannan turned to face those in attendance and raised the rim to his lips.

One gulp. Two. A third and it was empty. A disgusting ichor, Saang grimaced at its taste and texture and how it slowly dribbled down his gullet like sludge. He could feel it pool in his gut where it began to fester and swill into sickness. Bile gurgled and threatened to surge upwards, but he clenched his jaw and middle against it and willed the poison to stay down.

In a few long moments the sensation dissipated and seeped into his blood. It took the strength from his legs first, which buckled beneath him, then from his hands and arms. The bowl toppled from his grip and his body slumped back against the slab before crumpling to the ground at its base. Saang blinked a haze into his eyes before the spell took him into the deepest sleep of his life.


"I am dead," said Saang as he awoke into blackness.

"Not yet," answered a voice so familiar it drew a cold sting up his spine, "but everyone else is."

A faint orange glow illuminated within the distance. Saang sat up to find himself in his battle armor painted completely in the viscera of war. In his right hand his sword dripped with blood, in his left hand an iron key. He pushed himself to his feet and looked between the two then looked up as a pathway made itself known. With blackness all around save the glow that beckoned before him, Saang began to walk.

To his left, a barren tundra tree with items hanging from it. Though he squinted, he could not make them out and so approached. As he drew near, it became clear that what hung there were not the usual totems of tundra witches, but hands. Many hands. Severed from their owners. Some pale and delicate, others calloused and worn. He frowned and moved on.

Another tree, to his right, more vestiges hung there. This time severed feet.

Then another to his left. Bundles of hair. Golden. Earthen. Ebon.

Red.

His eyes widened and his steps carried him faster.

Another tree littered with organs. A set of lungs nailed to the trunk wheezed and sputtered as if still caught in the throes of terror. A heart further up pounded ceaselessly.

"Out of all the gifts you have given me over the years, Saang," said that voice again, "this is by far your best work."

Saang shook head head, jaw hanging slightly in disbelief, "I didn't do this. I would never."

"But you have," the voice drawled, "and you did. It's what you wanted all along."

The glow was brighter, Saang staggered away from the tree to press on. This was a dream, he only had so long to find its end, he had to keep going no matter what he thought he saw. As he crested a hill in the bleak, he recognized the silhouette of his cliffside family manor as it was devoured by flames. The pathway leading toward it was paved by bones and bodies of his court.

"No."

"Yes," replied the voice, "Your Masterpiece is inside."


In the clearing around Saang, it began to grow unusually warm. A sense of deep and foreboding dread began to permeate the area.

 

[Ianthe]

Maybe it had been a bad idea to let Saang agree to the trials. No, scratch that, a terrible idea.

Ianthe had been lounging in a sulk against one of the caverns rocky walls whilst the other kelpies spoke amongst themselves, all keeping an eye on the Duanann who had taken the challenge to become one of them. He had captured their minds. She wondered if he knew that, especially after the last... display. It still angered her. She knew who had been on his mind as those slashes had bit into his skin. Anyone who had been around the Court would have known but that still didn't make the anger any less and that other feeling any less. Ianthe knew, looking amongst the faces here, that at least some of them might take up his call to fight even if he failed.

Kelpies admired guts.

None of them approached her as usual and so she watched them watching Saang. It meant she was the first to notice the rise in temperature. Her jaw clenched but she dared not say anything. Not yet.

Keep it together, Saang.

 

[Saang Lusce]

The minutes dragged out like hours in the quiet clearing and the temperature around the man continued to rise. A slow climb at first, it quickly became something concerning. Terrible, dark things were playing across his slumbering mind. The horrors of war had nothing against what nightmares the poison conjured within him, but he'd never needed poison to have these dreams before.

Only that he'd never experienced them all as one.

Hot enough to scald those standing closer to the stone slab and the duannan, several kelpies began to flinch and back away. Saang twitched where he lay, the loose strands of red hair hanging about his face had started to dance in the way they did when his inner flame took over. There were but just a few minutes remaining.

Barely noticeable puffs of steam rose from around his eyes.

Then quite suddenly they opened. There was no startling alarm, no urgency or fear, just a suffocating sense of moroseness that filled the empty air around him as the heat finally abated. Saang lay where he was for a few moments beyond his waking, making no eye contact with anyone but staring with the detachment of someone deeply entrenched in complicated emotions. When he moved it was slow, but he regained his composure and barings as he moved to sit up and wipe a hand over his face.

His eyes sought out Sorelia and did not leave her as he willed the poison to dissipate from his body and forced himself to his feet. He stood in silence, awaiting her verdict.

 

[Ianthe]

Ianthe held her breath. Whatever deep, ancient magic connected her to him warned her of his rising conscious. Her eyes flicked between him and Sorelia who held in her wrinkled hands an hourglass where only a few more grains of sand remained. She had no deep, depthless power like the Duanann but even still she cast her mind out towards that iron bond and willed him to wake, to give that final push. Despite her reluctance to bring him here and watch him undertake these trials, she did not want him to fail. It was hard to tell if that was simply because the Bond meant she was duty-bound to protect him, or belonged to the part of her that was just hers.

She didn't release her breath when he opened his eyes. Rather she - like all the other gathered kelpies - turned expectantly to Sorelia. A pregnant, heavy pause hung over the gathering.

"From this day forward," the matriarch began. Such was the silence she did not need to raise her voice. "Saang Lusce is a Dark Waters Kelpie!"

A thunderous roar of celebration broke out. Kelpies stomped their feet and bashed their fists against their chest. Those closest rushed forward to embrace him as they would a brother, father or son. Only then did Ianthe finally let out her held breath and allowed herself to relax.

 

[Saang Lusce]

It was a moment of relief and celebration that he should have been overjoyed to reach. The trials had not been especially difficult, no, but they had all challenged him in ways he'd not expected. In ways that, thinking on them later, he would not be proud of. So while the kelpies all around him cheered and welcomed him with open arms and excitement, Saang stood beneath the dark cloud of misery that remained after the final challenge.

He could not shake the images he'd seen. They would haunt his dreams and his waking hours for decades, centuries, perhaps millennia to come.

His eyes slowly panned across the shorter heads of the kelpies, seeking out the only one that really meant anything to him, and finding her hanging back right where he'd left her. His lantern-like gaze held nothing but horrible sadness. Saang wanted to be away from this place and people, to be alone so he could collect himself and find the strength he needed to move forward.

There were so many things that needed doing, and so many more now that he had finally accepted the truth of his Court and his past.

"Th-thank you, Matriarch," Saang stuttered against the jostling of the kelpies, his gaze finally breaking from Ianthe with a blink to take in the writhing mass of what amounted to his new clan. He afforded himself a smile that faltered completely, lifting his hands to touch upon the shoulders of those near him, "what happens next?"

Could he leave? Was he expected to stay? To partake in gaiety and merriment and festivities?

 

[Ianthe]

Oh Seven Icy Depths of Hel, he was emotional.

Ianthe never knew how to deal with him when he was in a mood like this. She had seen what other fae with more empathetic capabilities would do in that situation: offer words of comfort or a warm embrace, but Ianthe couldn't think of anything less helpful. Going for a good hunt would help him. Nothing like killing a seal to make a kelpie feel alive.

But Saang wasn't a kelpie. Not really, despite what he'd earnt on this trip. Sometimes she even wondered if he was a Duanann; he certainly didn't act like those of the Night Court. She groaned as her head began to hurt from so much thinking. Thankfully nobody was paying her attention for the matriarch was speaking.

"Tonight we feast! And you tell us of the War we are to fight in," another clamour of woops and undulations followed in the wake of her words.

 

[Saang Lusce]

"Ah-" truly, Saang wasn't expecting the Matriach to speak of fighting. He'd only come to warn them of the outbreak of war and to move her clan to safety for the eventuality that either of the Princes began to hunt down wild kelpies to add to their numbers.

Yet despite how they reacted upon his arrival, he was surprised to see the lack of dissent against the idea of war. Was that all it really took? Would he actually accept them into his plans? He'd come to save lives, not risk more. His stomach began to churn audibly.

He pressed a fist against his chest at the burn of indigestion and the action was mistaken as the man pounding his chest in agreement. Another chorus of whoops and jarring chest-pounding followed. There were a lot of eyes on him right now and for the first time he could recall he didn't like it. Usually he reveled in being the center of attention.

"I look forward to it," Saang replied, trying to affect an expression that supported his words but finding it difficult so he just kept talking, "a feast would do us all some good I think. Thank you, Matriarch, for allowing me the honor of joining your clan. If you'll just excuse me, I'll need some time to ... prepare-" and he moved forward through the crowd, feeling the hands of the countless kelpies sliding over his figure and touching at him (some groping, much to his wide-eyed surprise) as he made way for Ianthe.

Already female kelpies were sliding off into the waters to find the necessary supplies for crafting fresh wreaths. There was some snarling and shoving at at the water's edge.

He eyed Ianthe, gesturing with an obvious nod and throw of his gaze to her that he wanted to talk in private while he extracted himself from the last of the pawing kelpies.

 

[Ianthe]

Ianthe peeled away from the cavern wall and slunk after Saang like a sullen shadow. She didn't like being with Saang when he was at the centre of people's attentions; her blue hair marked her breeding and put a legacy on her shoulders. In the Night Court that was a dangerous thing; fae had killed to own less. Yet as the woops and cheers chased them back onto the open ice shelf she found herself hating this attention even more. It got under her skin and made her feel... well Ianthe had never learnt the word for the emotion she was feeling. Kelpies in her position had never needed to know that word before.

"You must be pleased."

They'd gone almost to the other side of the pop-up camp. The ocean was a mere smudge on the horizon half blotted out by the erected patchwork tents. Finally Ianthe simply refused to walk anymore and drew up with her arms folded across her chest. She opened her mouth to make some other snide comment and then caught the look on his face and for once, made the empathetic decision not to.

"It's over," she said instead and in a far softer tone than normal.

 

[Saang Lusce]

He could not get himself away from the revelry fast enough, which was so very unlike him. In this moment, he wanted for nothing more than the quietude of the vast tundra beneath his feet. Even the gentle droning of the currents beneath the icy waters would have been preferred. He'd no mind for where they went, only that they went alone, and so he followed Ianthe's feet willingly.

Was he pleased? Saang couldn't be sure. In the back of his mind he was dreading that with Sorelia's bid for war, this had all been for naught. Only time would tell, he supposed. He wasn't an Omnia of the secretive Dusk Court.

"I'm not sure what I am, at the moment..." but he was grateful for that gentle tone. It caught him from his ponderous discontentment and elicited warmer thoughts.

"Yes. Yes it is. All thanks to you, Ianthe. Without your help, this would not have come to pass. So thank you, for everything." Saang studied her as his thoughts shifted from the challenges and his nightmarish visions and war to a notion much closer to home and his heart.

"You know how much I care about you, don't you?" he stepped closer, slowly and quietly in an effort to not raise her instinctive suspicions, "How much I will miss having you around."

 

[Ianthe]

Ianthe pulled a disgusted and disgruntled face.

"I just brought you here, don't down play your own skills," she kissed her teeth. It was an insult to them both. "If you remember correctly I think I told you not to do it," her memory was hazy but she was fairly convinced she'd called him several names for considering it too, though hopefully she'd managed to use the tiny voice in her head to say them rather than her actual mouth.

The sudden switch in conversation put her on the backfoot and as he took a step forward she took one back.

"You have a whole herd now. My herd," which meant if the Matriarch called she would fight regardless of whether she was free or not. "And I'm sure some of my siblings might still be alive in your ranks," she'd stopped paying attention really.

 

[Saang Lusce]

"Indeed I do," Saang continued with another step toward her as she moved back, this stride longer but no quicker, "but there is no other quite like you."

His hand reached forward toward her, at once emitting a strong sense of safety and calm unto her to banish her attempts to flee and her instinct to strike. He wished it wasn't necessary, but such things were bred into them and her bloodline especially was greatly mistrusting of contact.

"You are dear to me, Ianthe," and in a slow, fluid movement he caught her forearm and stepped up to her front, lifting his other hand to hover just before her face, "and I truly hope that you will remain in my life."

The incantation of freedom and release followed, calling to her magical bridle and tethers and setting them alight across her skin. In a few breaths, they dissipated like dew under the morning sunlight and the weight of her lifelong servitude lifted away. Saang released her physically and empathically, his hands lowering, his breath holding. He knew he should step away and give her space, but strangely enough could not convince his feet to move.

 

[Ianthe]

If she had been in one of her horse forms her ears might have lain flat at the advancing second step. The urge to bite or kick was a reflexive thing and as it ebbed away a part of her knew it was not of her own volition. Still, she did not balk as he touched her though she did become as stiff as a wooden broom - tensed for a physical or mental blow of some kind. She could still not bring herself to believe such pretty words. That she in particular mattered amongst the Royal herd or indeed now this one seemed more of a silver spun tale than hearts truth. She opened her mouth to no doubt say some other cutting words to protect herself and force him to admit all this was a lie, that her confusing feelings miscounted.

But then, he freed her.

Ianthe had dreamt of freedom from the day of the Split. When Saang had said she could wander and no longer needed to stay in the Stables. In a way that small freedom had been cruel, for then she had come to know that which she would never get. And worse, desire it painfully. She had expected therefore that when Saang finally did give it to her she would feel joy or excitement or... or anything.

Not loss.

Ianthe blinked as though rising from a dream as the last of the bridal burnt away. Her body felt disjointed and sick, as though she had been on a rough sea for days. For the first time in her life, her body was not being poisoned by the iron in her blood. Like an addict going cold seal to break a bad habit, her body began to react. Colour drained from her face, her skin grew clammy and her breathing erratic. She put a hand out as if to steady herself or ask for help, then abruptly she collapsed.

 

[Saang Lusce]

This was always the hardest part. For the kelpie, not for the handler. Though very, very few handlers beyond himself had ever granted freedom to their kelpies, and it had never happened before the King's death, Saang had pushed for the reform with the Prince after the split of the Night Court. Petitioned for a kinder retirement to grant those that had given so much their entire lives an opportunity to live as they wished before death inevitably took them. Kana'ti had relented on the condition that freed kelpies be banished from the court and their status marked on the record as dead.

It would keep the peace and it was a better fate than what awaited those within Tulok's court. Tulok fed his aged kelpies to the youth, used them as bait for promoting savagery among his ilk. No one under his rule knew of the side effects of setting one free because no one had bothered to do so.

He'd not exactly kept count, but Saang thought Ianthe might've been the 12th to go fully free under his command. So he'd seen enough of what happened to them once the bridle came off. His arms caught her before she hit the ground and lifted her into a bridal carry, "Easy now... you'll need a day or two to recover. Then you can have all the freedom your frozen heart desires."

Taking care of her would be a welcome distraction from everything else on his mind. Unfortunately, he would likely be forced to humiliate her one final time by taking her back to his tent at the camp. There was no way around it - she'd need looking after and soothing while her body adjusted. The others would have to see her like this as he brought her back in. It would wound her pride and she'd be furious, but he wasn't about to let her off into the wilderness in this state.

So with a deep breath and a kick of warmth from his body for her, he made his way back to the camp.

 

[Ianthe]

Ianthe had never felt helpless before.

She had been beaten, had suffered wounds a mortal wound have died from on the battlefield, and had been defeated by kelpies stronger than her. Yet even in those moments she hadn't felt helpless. She had had a violently stubborn determination to survive, to get better, and to come back and leave them lying in a pool of their own blood. There was nothing to fight now, though. No enemy to focus on to pull her through, only the promise of freedom - a concept she barely understood.

The kelpie willed her body to move but the most she managed to make it do was give another pathetic tremor. With a groan her head lolled against his chest and her eyes fluttered with the effort of focusing on anything. She felt as though she wanted to vomit.

"What's... happening..."

 

[Saang Lusce]

He glanced down at her as he walked, a frown settling deeply onto his face. The expression was going to create wrinkles soon enough if he couldn't find something to smile about, but this entire endeavor had not proven anything to celebrate. Yet.

"You are going through withdraw," Saang answered quietly as his feet crunched over snow and frozen earth. His waterskin armor was not made for this type of traversal and his burgeoning moral compass was not made for these sorts of regrets.

"You've spent your entire life poisoned by the iron in your blood that was used to control you. Now I've set you free and cleared the poison from you, your body is in shock."

He could see the campfires ahead, which struck him as curious. The kelpies feared fire, did not seem to have any particular need for warmth, and yet still they gathered there around the flames.

"It will pass," Saang added gently, "in a day or two you will feel right as rain."

 

[Ianthe]

"Day or two?!" Ianthe rasped, struggling to get out of his arms though her movements were as weak as a kittens. She was rewarded for her attempt by the world spinning drastically and her morning meal attempting to make a reappearance. In the end she slumped back against him having barely done more than flail like a new born lamb. She couldn't be out for a day let alone two. Kelpies sensed weakness and they didn't tolerate it. The trials proved that. She certainly didn't want them thinking Saang was taking care of her.

Didn't she?

She shut down that train of thought even as she allowed herself to nuzzle into the warmth radiating off him. If he ever brought it up she'd blame this... this poisoning.

"Freedom feels pretty shitty so far," she huffed.

 

[Saang Lusce]

A grim smile persisted over her struggles. Yeah, she was definitely leaving him and never looking back when she recovered. He couldn't imagine her wanting to keep his company after this. As his feet crunched over the bank of a snowdune, he squinted his eyes into the daylight reflecting off the heaps of white. The wind had picked up a bit and it carried the crisp scent of promised snow. There was always a storm brewing on one horizon or another in the north - but perhaps that would work in Ianthe's favor.

A bad enough storm would see them all hunkered down.

"Yeah," Saang replied quietly with another glance down at her and gave her a gentle squeeze in his arms, "I bet it does."

It would be the longest two days of her life, but surely it wouldn't be the worst. Ah, there was his tent. Rather, the tent she'd secured for him for the trials. The area seemed pretty sparse for kelpies at the moment. Maybe if he was lucky they were all still running off the excitement of his success. Funny, they were more enthused about it than he was.

"Nearly there," he ducked his head down against a fresh gust of wind and pressed his feet more quickly, trouncing down through the snow to a footpath that lead along the shoreline, "try not to belly ache too loudly, hm? You'll draw more attention to yourself."

 

[Ianthe]

"I'm not belly aching!" Ianthe snarled, or at least attempted to, for another wave of nausea rolled through her making her body shudder. How could she feel both so hot she wanted to climb out of her own skin, and so cold that she contemplated crawling into the very heart of the fires growing closer? Her teeth began to chatter as fresh waves of tormenting tremors rolled through her. She tried to remember the last time she had been sick and came up short; usually at the first sign of any illness the healers would deal with it. The cavalry couldn't be weak after all, not when they might be needed at any moment.

Every step Saang took came with another complaint.

"Is this what being sick is?"

"Why do people put up with this?"

"Dark mother I am dying aren't I?"

The kelpie groaned dramatically.

 

[Saang Lusce]

Saang's brows rose in muted shock at the strong rebuttal. Of course she wasn't belly-aching, but he wouldn't know what else to call it. And the not-belly-aching continued the closer he brought them to the clans camp. What few kelpies there were around had smelled his arrival long before he'd ever come into sight, but now they were fully capable of hearing Ianthe herald them from 100 yards away.

Well, so much for slipping the sick kelpie in quietly. She really knew how to nail her own coffin shut, didn't she?

"No, you are not dying," he said quietly, sighing with a roll of his eyes, "now would you rather they think you were plagued by weakness..." a smirk slowly slunk its way onto his face as he glanced down at her smugly, "or that I have claimed you as my mate?"

Well, Ianthe wasn't the only one that knew how to nail their own coffin shut.

 

[Ianthe]

Well, that was certainly enough to halt whatever putrid retort she had been about to spit out. Her mouth hung slightly agape as she stared at him, attempting to decipher if what he had said was a true jest or if that was really what he was going to claim should anyone ask. Ianthe wasn't sure which was worse.

"You... I... we..." the kelpie spluttered when she could finally get air back down her lungs enough to form words, even if they weren't strung together in any cohesive manner. What she wanted to say would not come for it was a lie, no matter what way she tried to rearrange it. In the end she settled on a hiss and her eyes narrowed in that dangerous way that if she had not been sick would have told him to run and run fast.

"That's not funny."

 

[Saang Lusce]

Mmg. But he did love that look on her.

"No?" Saang could not help the smile that remained or the slightly desperate hiccup of a laugh that followed the word. Ouch, here he thought they'd make a lovely couple! Who knew being mated to him would be such a horrible thing in the eyes of the kelpies. He'd never have guessed it going by the amount of fresh wreathes he could see presently piled outside the tipi.

"Well I'm not trying to harm your reputation any further than I already have. If you've a better idea for why I'm carrying you to my tent... I'm all ears."