The morning is sweet, with a breeze that’s thick with the
smell of pollen. The green leaves on the trees shield the dark and cool
mountainside from the sweltering sun. Susie is ten years old, and she’s holding
a rifle that’s much too heavy for her, trailing after her grandfather as he
slices his way through the thick foliage. The dirt is moist, but not swampy, and they
have to watch where they step, not to trample the carpet of fragile vegetation
beneath their feet. They’ve wandered off the path.
The
cutlass in her grandfather's hand gleams like it’s carved from the glittering snow on the
distant mountaintop. He is an
old man, almost seventy. Tall and proud, but also very, very wrinkled- like the
gnarled boreal trees that grow all around them. His skin is warm and brown yet
blotted with old scars from his time battling the elves. Her grandfather is a
hero.
He
sheathes his blade and turns to Susie, crooked finger pressed to his lips, then
beckons her forward.
They
come to a clearing, and crouch low behind a fallen tree. Once, it must have
sliced the sky into two. Now, bugs and pixies were busy gnawing all its
grandeur away. She watches a little critter, with small iridescent wings, as it
clambers up and over the back of her hand. She’d been bitten a pixie, when she
was real little. They scared her terribly for a very long time, and she
wouldn’t go anywhere near the forest, not even with her grandfather or her
sister beside her.
But
Susie’s older now. Old enough not to let silly things like fairies frighten
her. She watches the pixie vanish back into the bark of the tree.
“Rifle
at the ready, Susie,” her grandfather says beneath his breath, “there’s
something moving there, straight ahead.” She squints. She doesn’t see anything,
but levels her gun all the same. “On my mark…”
The maw
of the forest opens, and out steps the most beautiful creature Susie has ever
seen; a long, pristine coat, untouched by the muck of the woods, and a silk
curtain mane. Gentle black eyes, like buttons glittering on a wealthy women’s
blouse. A long, elegant neck, like a crane. An ivory horn, sharp as a blade.
Susie
fires the gun.
It
happens quick. The unicorn drops to the forest floor with nary a sound, a
silver pool spooling from the bullet wound on its chest.
Her
grandfather claps her on her back, “Excellent shot, Susie!”
She
lowers her gun, a smile splitting across her face, “I know, huh?” she squeals,
“She stepped from the trees, and boom! I got her.”
He
ruffles her hair and swaggers from their hiding place towards the fallen
unicorn. Susie leans against the ancient tree, drinking in the image of her
quarry.
Andrew
Peterson at first gives the creature a wide berth. He sizes up the unicorn, who
looks perfect, even in death. His eyes take on a shimmering quality, not unlike
the pixies wings. Susie frowns.
Before
she can get too caught up in worry, he looks back up at her, grin bared.
“Wonderful job, kid. I’m real proud. The Logan’s won’t have to worry about
their goats going missing anymore, thanks to you.”
Susie
beams. Greedy eyes settle on the horn, and her empty stomach twists, “How much
will it go for?”
“Ah,” her
grandfather scowls as he shuffles closer to the unicorn, “not much, kid. Unicorn
meat is cursed. You can’t eat it.”
Susie
points, “What about the horn?”
He
laughs softly, then crouches down to the ground and places two fingers to the
unicorns neck. “Who in Monsbury would buy something so useless? I’d have to
leave town and try to sell it to the bourgeoisie over the mountains, and you know
that- “
Before
Susie can say a word, the unicorn’s eyes fly open, and it sinks it’s fangs into
her grandfather’s shoulder.
It’s
teeth are as sharp as it’s horn, and rows of them line all the way back into
the creatures throat. Her grandfather shouts, and gropes blindly for his blade-
which is sitting behind the log, next to Susie.
The
unicorn’s jaw clamps tighter, and it’s muzzle becomes red with blood. Susie’s
chest feels like it’s collapsing inward, all the air leaving her lungs in one,
noiseless scream.
She
raises the rifle once more; this time, she aims for the head.
If she
had more time, she might’ve worried about hitting her grandfather instead, who
was currently locked in a violent embrace with the monster. But then again,
maybe not; Mother always says Susie is too impulsive, as does Angelique, and
all twelve of their cousins. And maybe they’re right.
Her
grandfather says she’s got a soldier’s instinct and a marksmen’s aim. The
bullet sails straight through the unicorn’s skull: and for the final time, it
slumps back to the ground.
“Grandpa!”
she cries, the rifle falling from her hands and into the dirt. She bolts out
from behind the tree and to his side.
He lays
there, rasping for air, clutching at his arm, now caked with blood and
punctured with holes.
“Let me
help you up. Come on, let’s get you home!”
He
doesn’t reply. His eyes close, and he gasps for oxygen like a beached carp. She
grabs his hand and squeezes it tight.
“What do
I do?” Susie begs, “How do I save you?”
A gentle
hand rests on her shoulder, and the edge of an ice-cold blade presses against
her neck. Susie notices, too late, the long shadow cast over her.
“I am so
sorry, dear,” says a soft, bemused voice, “I don’t think that you can.”
The blood drains from Susie’s face. The forest
is colder than it was before. She hates how her voice shakes as she asks, “Who
are you?”
“I am a
traveler,” the voice replies. “and you killed my steed.”
“I’m
sorry.” Says Susie, though the words taste bitter even as they pass her lips.
“I’m sorry,” she tries again, “She… she was eating all of the Logan’s goats.”
The
voice tsks. “What a petty reason, to kill a beautiful creature.”
Susie’s
face grows very hot, “It’s not,” she cries, two red coals burning where her eyes
were before, “They starve without those goats. And if the Logan’s starve, we
starve, too.”
The
blade slackens, and the attacker eases away. They say, peeved, “But without my
unicorn, I have to make the rest of my very long journey on foot. Did
you consider that one, kid? When you shot her dead?”
Susie
stumbles forward, and her hand flies to her neck. She wheels around to face the
attacker, then her heart seizes in pure shock.
The woman
is stunning as her unicorn, but that’s only about the tenth thing Susie takes
in; she’s decked, head-to-toe, in weaponry, like a walking-talking armory.
Enough gun’s decorate her hips to arm a militia, and as if that weren’t enough,
two long, silver blades are strapped to her legs as well. It’s to the point of
lunacy- who could ever need that many weapons?
Her skin
is snow-pale, white as the unicorn’s coat, and her hair is silver like it’s
blood. Her eyes are a dark, reddish brown, like a burning hearth, and they are
untouched by her half-quirked smile.
But what
makes Susie feel as though her soul has left her body is the sharp point of the
woman’s ears, tapered as the monster’s teeth.
She
pushes past the woman and makes for the fallen tree, for her dropped gun. The
elf catches her by the wrist.
“Oh,
come now, don’t try to shoot me.” Her face splits into a jagged smile, “I’ve
done nothing yet to deserve it.” She looks Susie in the eye and is startled by
the daggers she finds there. Her grip loosens. “What’s your name, child?”
Susie
remembers the stories her sister told her. “Cora.”
“Cora,” the
smile returns to the elf’s face, “I’m called Lydia.”
The name
is human. Ill suited to everything about the monster before her. Susie’s lips
move before she can stop them, “Is that your real name?”
Lydia grins,
“So distrustful! It’s almost like I killed your unicorn.” She
purses her lips, and taps her chin in mock-thoughtfulness, “Though, I do
suppose my negligence is indirectly responsible for your grandpa's injury. What say I heal
him for you, and we let bygones be bygones?”
“You can
do that?” Susie says, before catching herself. She schools her face, and folds
her hands in front of her, “What do you want in return?”
She
laughs. It’s more of a series of snorts, really, not at all matching her
ethereal demeanor. Her face screws up in mock offense, placing a delicate
hand on her heart, “Kid, I’m not the greedy sort, is that what you think of me?
You murder my horse, I offer to heal your pops, and you ask what I want from
you? The audacity, honestly. What, were you raised in a barn?”
“Yes, I
was.” Susie says. She jabs a finger at the elf lady, “Heal him, or don’t. But
try to play games with me, and I will shoot you.”
The elf
throws her hands in the air, mouth twisted into a false frown, as she obviously
bites back another burst of laughter. “You’re right. My apologies, ma’am.” With
a swish of her coat, she sinks down to the ground beside Andrew Peterson. Susie
hears her whisper beneath her breath, “something something… human children…
something something… could just eat them up.” and eases herself another
step toward her gun.
But the
elf doesn’t make any attempt to cannibalize Susie. Instead, she loses the
smile, and her eyes narrow in intense focus. She draws a handbound book from
her back pocket, and a charcoal pencil from her ear, and begins to trace a
series of looping patterns onto the paper.
Elvish
magic had wiped out whole armies during the war. Not far from Monsbury, the
town Susie called home, is a charred crater where a fortress once stood, proof
of the dangerous magic that the elves possessed. Strange humans in the
kingdom’s capital had been practicing the same sort of sorcery for years, and
as far as Susie knew, they still weren’t even half as capable of equal mass
destruction.
She
finds herself shuffling closer, peering over the elves shoulder. Her left ear
swivels back- freaky, Susie thinks- and the elf turns to smile at her.
“Would
you like to see how it works?” she asks.
A
powerful emotion floods Susie’s chest, one she can’t quite place. Her fingers
itch, and she nods yes, without quite meaning to.
The elf
pats the ground next to her. Susie sits slightly left of that. Her grandfather
lies unconscious a few feet away, his blood mingling with the silver of the
dead unicorns.
“He’s
still alive, right?” Susie whispers, her hands clenching. She can’t see if he’s
breathing or not.
“Sure
is,” says the elf, “couldn’t do a thing if he wasn’t.”
The elf
holds the book flat on her lap, so that Susie can see. She writes out three or
four runes, then stops to point out the most important ones.
“Vitalis,
that’s for lending strength,” she says, indicating a large, swoopy one,
“Here is antidotum, as you know, unicorn’s are venomous…”
“What
about these ones?” Susie asks about the smaller runes, in between the major
ones.
“Forgive
me,” says the elf, “these would take me an eon to explain to a human. If you
think of runes like words, then these here are the ones, and ands, and
punctuation. They’re a lot of things, really. They’re the grammar. Boring.
Blah.” She winks at Susie, “I’m sure you hear enough about it in school.”
Susie
can’t help but jeer, “School barely teaches me anything at all. Ms. Marie Anne
definitely doesn’t know jack about magic.”
“Oh, you
poor thing,” says Lydia. “Maybe try checking a book out from the library.”
“Monsbury
doesn’t have any libraries,” cries Susie, exasperated, but the elf has
become distracted. She stands to her feet and rips her page out of the book.
“Alright
then,” she grins lopsidedly at Susie- a real, genuine smile, that almost
reaches those dark eyes, “are you ready? Stand back a little bit, please, I
need my space now.”
Susie
looks down at her grandfather, whose face is entirely slack. She wonders, too
late, if he’d even want an elf to heal him. She considers the
ancient scar plastered across his face, one of many earned in fatal battle.
Lydia
begins to read.
Susie
doesn’t know what she expected. Something glow-y, maybe, like the sparkly
lights pixies emit at night. Maybe some gravitas to the elf’s voice- but no,
she sounded just the same. She may as well have been reading aloud a grocery
list.
But the
effect on her grandfather was immediate. His wounds sealed over, and the blood
evaporated. Unearthly, magical.
That
wasn’t all; his scars, too, began to fade. Susie rubs her eyes, making sure
they’re working right.
It’s
like when a wave crashes over the shore, and then recedes; and the sand is
reset, smooth and perfect, like nothing happened in the first place. The paper
in Lydia’s hand catches to flames, and then burns to cinders. She tilts her
palm, and lets the ash flutter to the ground like snow.
“There
now,” she says, “Isn’t that better? All is forgiven.”
Susie
musters her voice, “Thank you.” She manages, “For not being angry about…”
“Philomena?”
finishes the elf, “Oh, I am furious! My feet are going to hurt so bad... but
I like you, and I didn’t want to kill you.” Her eyes take on a strange shine,
and she smiles again. The hairs on the back of Susie’s neck rise. “Tell you
what, kid, if losing a couple of goats is enough to wipe your whole
township out, why don’t we strike a deal?”
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