All around her was darkness. 

Eyes closed. Nothing.
Eyes opened. Nothing.

Her hands reached out, grasping and clawing. There--something familiar pricked under her palm. She clutched the rough bark and drew her wandering body towards it. 

Hands fluttered along the surface and she listened. The leaves were silent, no songs, no warnings. 

She breathed deep to center her mind, but cried out as her honey eyes and honeyed side were pierced with light.

White hot pain loosened her grip on the shrouded tree and she was slipping, falling.

Wind whistled through her braids, tugging out the marigolds so delicately tucked there. Her soul throbbed with gravity and longing.

She didn't remember hitting the ground, but she could feel something spreading beneath her. It was warm and coarse. It was moving. It was breathing. She dug her hands in deeper, desperate to feel the dirt and its power. There was only fur, endless fur.

Eyes closed. Nothing.
Eyes opened. Nothing.

She pressed on deeper still. The fur reached past her wandering waist, enveloping her senses in an atmosphere of sage and musk. The soft fibers of an undercoat tickled her face and mottled her mind.

Fingertips met flesh and hunger bloomed.

Her hands reached out, grasping and clawing. There--something warm trickled under her palm. She didn't have to see to feel its redness, its rawness.

Then her body shifted; she was now the creature of endless fur. Her yellow eyes and yellowed side were pricked with slight pain. An inconvenience. A mere flea. She raised her leg up to scratch it off.

She felt her small body breaking as it was torn from the wound.

All around her was darkness.

Nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing.

Ruth's eyes flashed open. There was something outside. 

She pushed herself up against the wall, resisting the urge to wrap her gram's salmon quilt over her head. The room was dim and blurry, only moonlight leaked in through the low window on the opposite wall.

Ruth scrambled for her clunky glasses on the night stand. Her pulse was getting away from her; why was she so afraid? 

She blinked. The dream, it was just adrenaline from the dream. Already the rough fur and its soft sage scent were fading from her mind. What she needed was clarity--no. What she needed was water. 

Ruth rose, groggy, and slid her bare feet into a pair of crocheted slippers. She kept her footsteps quiet, even though Gram's door was shut. The doctor had said over the phone that Gram needed rest, and plenty of it. He also said that her mind couldn't be trusted at night. 

Ruth wasn't taking any chances.

The old cottage was different after dark. Gone was the warm light of her childhood memories. At night, there was only moon beams and the sterile glow of an open refrigerator. Ruth poured herself a slow glass of water from the pitcher, then sipped and let the cool liquid slip down her throat and dampen her senses. 

As she crossed from the kitchen to the hallway, Ruth happened to glance right. Her eye caught something past the glass door, out in the field beyond. A man standing alone--watching, waiting--with yellow eyes.

She blinked. There was no man. It was just a tree, just a dream. 

Ruth climbed back in her bed and sunk into sleep. A small voice rang sweet in her mind as she drifted off.
                        hard as the north wind, 
                                stolen for ten nights...

---

Out in the woods, a man walked. His body was lithe and taut with energy as he wove through trees and over roots. The moon was waxing; it was making him restless. 

His hair was dark and hung tired around his face. His smile was curved, sharp, absent. And his mind? Well, his mind was stuck in that pan-forsaken cottage. It lingered on that girl in the window. It got tangled in her curls and barbed in those dark-rimmed eyes. 

He was supposed to take her, lure her into the fae-woods like every other maiden he'd been sent to collect. This one was different. He knew she wouldn't be swayed so easily. No, this one would take time.

He was okay with that.

The man tried to put her out of mind. He focused on the dirt path, on the leaves, on the stars that blinked in and out from behind branches, but his thoughts kept spinning back to her. The man tilted his head, listening for creatures, for witnesses. There was no one. His feet slowed. His heart raced.

Delicately, he tasted her name. "Ruth." 

The word felt explicit on his tongue, strangely intimate. It worried him how much he wanted to whisper it again.

Up ahead the trees parted, revealing a slinky river cool with ripples of moonlight. The man advanced toward it, skimming the reeds with his yellow gaze. There it was, where he'd left it. A wooden boat built for two, woven tightly with curling roots and branches. The man hauled the small watercraft to shore and stepped in gingerly, careful to avoid contact with the river. The merfolk didn't take fondly to his kind. 

The man rowed across silently, his mind now settled on memories of this journey. Most of the maidens he'd led to the fae-woods didn't make it past the river. His eyes swam with visions of bodies snatched under the rippling surface. Of the last moments when their eyes met his, desperate. As he watched and waited until the water took them. 

The man shook his head. Why did this matter to him now? He used to laugh at those women and their cries, at how early they failed, at how helpless they looked. He glanced down at the water and for a moment he saw her. Ruth. Her face slipping, her arms reaching, her honey eyes in his. 

It wasn't so funny anymore.

The man dragged his boat up the bank, depositing it behind a nearby cluster of elms. His feet fell into the easy rhythm of the dirt path, winding him deeper into the woods and closer to the Arbor. The king was waiting. 

Twenty feet ahead, a shadow emerged from the trees. It glided to the center of the path and stood there, foot tapping, waiting for the man to come closer. He deliberately slowed his walk, ambling up to the figure until it looked ready to burst from nervous fidgeting. 

Moonlight washed over the creature's face and the man had to hold in a shudder. In all the years he'd lived in the fae-wood, he still squirmed at the sight of a birdfellow. 

This one was Jacque, a common blackbird with aristocratic tendencies. He was tall, taller than the man, with thin lines and edged eyes. His hair, half full of soft feathers, was slicked back, for the most part. A few primary shafts stuck out at odd angles, impervious to hair gel. His court outfit was rouge and dull black with far too many frills. 

The man's eyes caught on Jacque's hands. His fingers that tapered into talon-like points tapped incessantly on a leather-bound planner, threatening to puncture the cover. 

Worst of all was his mouth. His nose and chin morphed together into a beak-like protrusion covered with flesh. Only the tips of his maw gleamed the same black as the tips of his fingers. When he smiled, which was rare for Jacque, the skin pulled taut around the pseudo-beak in painful creases. 

Jacque's face, at least, was rather tame for a birdfellow. The man once ran into a pelican-fellow a few years back. That was a sight he would not soon forget. 

Jacque waited until the man stopped several feet away. His little feathery eyebrow quirked up.

"Well, Abaddon? Where is she?"

"I need more time for this one; she's different."

The bird's eyes narrowed. "How much time?"

"Could be a long time. We have to get this one right."

"Don't you think I know that?" Jacque squawked, "The Cresting draws near, that's why the king sent you. You're supposed to be the best."

Abaddon let a growl crash into his voice. "I'm the damn best."

Jacque ruffled his wrist feathers and hopped a step back. "I'll be sure to add that to my report."

"Listen," Abaddon scratched behind his ear, "I'll have her here by the Cresting. You have my word."

Jacque huffed and glanced him up and down. "Right. The word of a pack-less werewolf." He threw up his hands in mock surrender.  "You've convinced me."

Abaddon clenched his jaw then sighed. "Just...just tell the king I'm trying. Okay?"

"Of course." Jacque's gaze was unsympathetic. "I tell the king everything, you know that." The bird-creature scribbled a note in his planner then looked up. "Go home, Abaddon. Tomorrow is waiting."

Abaddon watched his tall body titter away into the trees. Pompous twit. Mutton-headed eyesore. Bird...thing. 

He picked his way through the brush, navigating more by smell than sight. Nothing he did would ever be enough for those fools in the Court. No matter how many souls he brought to the fae, it would never make up for what he'd done--not in their eyes. 

Sharply, he felt the wolf rise in him, hot like bile. Abaddon staggered into the nearest tree; his skin pulsed with white fire, threatening to spill over. He gasped deep gulps of cool night air, pleading, not now. 

The wolf relented, slinking back down to the pit of his stomach. Abaddon took a few shaky breaths and pushed off the tree; the wolf wouldn't stay appeased forever. 

Up ahead, the dim outline of his cabin revealed itself. The building was small but warm in the chilled night air. Abaddon wrested open the wood door and slumped into his chair, running a hand through his dark hair.

His mind was even more twisted up than when the night began. Ignoring the half-made bed and cramped-but-functional kitchenette in the other corners of the cabin, Abaddon scooped up the sketchpad and charcoal he'd left scattered on the table. His hands moved of their own accord, sweeping, dashing, curving, swirling along the creamy paper. He let his thoughts drift across the day, loose and fluid. 

When he focused back on the sketch, there she was. Ruth. Staring back with the same eyes that caught him watching from the backyard. With his thumb, he briefly grazed the spot between her eyebrows that scrunched up, her expression curious--no, apprehensive.

Abaddon sighed and closed the sketchbook. Through the window, he could see the moon sinking lower in the sky. Sleep called and he answered, climbing into bed and pulling the blanket up to his nose. As slumber started to overtake him, he whispered the same promise he whispered every night: the day is gone, the night is swift, the sun will rise--tomorrow's gift.

He chuckled as his eyes slid closed, remembering Jacque's proper voice on the path.

The birdbrain was right, tomorrow is waiting.