⚠️ : severe mutilation and trauma

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KYNES WONDERED FOR what exactly it was they were looking as she and the spared human peered between the ancient trees of an old forest.

She wondered what she was still doing with him, against her better judgement. It was a bad idea —a doomed idea. Had she really thought that letting him go free was the best course of action?

It was not too late. There was no one else in the woods; the slitting his throat and disposing of his body would be more than easy. It was a pity, though —she would have at least liked to bed him first.

Yet a promise was a promise. All Wytches, Wyzards and Warlockes alike knew that; no matter how twisted the details could become, the premise had to remain. It was one absolute law.

She would not sleep with him, and she would not kill him. She did wonder though, if given the chance, which one would outweigh the other. Her eyes strayed to the human's torso...and she found her answer.

So Kynes' dagger stayed sheathed, the blade out of sight.

The skin on her arms prickled, making her tense and follow her nose as her head snapped to the right.

She could smell something —the tang of shrouding and defensive magic. If there was something there, it definitely did not want to be seen.

"Does your friend...live here?" asked the Wytch.

"They did, when we first met," explained the human. "I believe that there's some sort of shield."

Kynes swallowed. She did not know how to tell him.

There had been magic there, yes. But now it is faded.

Then, a flicker of movement drew her attention. Her eyes focused on it, analysing the speed and colour. It blended quite well —any other being would have dismissed it as a waking tree or Shifter. But Kynes knew that scent. Her skin crawled at the stench.

Sickly sweet, with undertones of rot.

"...You are friends with a...a Faerie?" she forced herself to spit out the sentence, her eyes slitting.

"Yes," the human actually admitted. "Is that a problem?"

Kynes sucked in a breath as her fingers curled into fists. She remembered the bruises on her body; the burns and the aches from broken bones. She remembered it all —her screams drowned out by the wicked laughter, and the blood. Her onyx blood flowing, sliding down her thighs and pooling at her feet.

She remembered what they had taken.

And what she had had to bargain for afterwards, in order to still have her body function somewhat normally. She had not wanted to change so drastically, but in order to save her life, it had been the fastest option.

'You would make a pretty little whore,' they had crooned. 'All of that beauty is wasted on a male.'

Kynes breathed through her nose.

Sometimes she still wondered how they had managed to engrain that word into her so much so that she had become it. Whore. Was that all she knew anymore?

She found herself flinching as her memories dragged her ever deeper. There was that overwhelming rich pungency, suffocating her lungs.

It was different when she had been out there, gathering customers for Purple's Cotton Candy. She could stand the stink; tolerate the fumes of Fae and fairy, so long as she kept her distance. She had always been so good at staying away. No matter how kind and meek a Faerie was —she could not stand them. What they had done to her during the war had been enough to avoid all of the Fae Folk for the rest of her days.

"...Are you okay?" the human's voice pierced the darkness that was threatening to swallow her whole.

Kynes shook her head. "No," she rasped. She wrapped her arms around herself, so tightly that she might have been blocking the air coming to her lungs, and took several paces backwards. "I am sorry. You...you do not understand. I can not go...any further."

"What?"

He was confused, and she could not blame him for it.

But what could she say that would not sway his opinion of his so-called friend? What could she say that would not break and undo her completely?

"Is there malignant magic?" the human asked, his dark brown eyes narrowing at the gaps between the mighty trunks. "Did you smell something off?"

The words got caught in Kynes' throat. She tried —she heaved and gasped, until it was sick that her body gave up, and her knees buckled. That purge did nothing to settle her though. Her body still shivered feverishly.

"Shit," hissed the human, recoiling. Perhaps he had realised how serious it really was.

"I can not," the Wytch wheezed, clutching her midsection. "There...up ahead, is a...Faerie."

She almost retched again at the word.

"What did Faeries ever do to you?" the man sighed.

It was the wrong question to ask. Kynes bared her teeth, a growl festering in her throat, and glared at him with unholy fury. She would tell him now; she cared nothing for his opinion nor his friend's. "They...mutilated me," she ground out. "During the war. Wytches and Warlockes had been taken as prisoners for the Fae who still sat fattening on their stick thrones. Apparently they thought...that I made a better bitch than a bastard."

Nothing outright —she would leave him to piece it together and come to his own conclusion. She wondered if she could even voice it plainly, anyway. But the Wytch felt a bit better; less weak.

There was a small relief in telling a stranger her truth.

The human's brows furrowed, processing her words. "What? Do you mean that you were once —"

He was suddenly cut off by a shriek and a mighty beat of wings. The two Gamma-Dwellers looked up to the treetops to see a Faerie; its branch-like limbs spreadeagled and its bat wings stretched, the thin black membrane filtering the sunlight. It screamed again —and that was when Kynes noticed the red blood dripping from its teeth.

She was fast enough to push the human aside as the Faerie swooped downwards, its fingernails curled like claws. She rolled along the grass, before slamming into a tree trunk. As she scrambled to her feet the Faerie let out a cry towards the sky; every muscle strained in anguish.

"Luci!" the human shouted.

Kynes looked on in disbelief. Just what was he hoping to accomplish by calling its name?

"It has gone feral!" she cried.

"That's my friend," hissed the man, eyes still on the writhing Faerie. "I have to help."

"There is nothing that you can do!" Kynes insisted —before hurriedly ducking and narrowly avoiding decapitation by a thrown tree branch.

"I don't believe that!" he countered, staggering to his unsteady feet.

The Wytch watched, bewildered, as the human waved his arms comically and screamed the Faerie's name over and over again —while trying not to get killed. Nothing seemed to happen at first, but as the relentless pleas continued, the tree Faerie became less ruffled —its bark and leafy skin smoothened slightly and its wings trembled, fighting to close themselves.

Not even that lessened the terror. The jarring movements mirrored her own back then. The longer she looked at it, the more vividly she saw herself back at that wretched manor, naked and cockless —

Magic simmered within her veins. Her fingers curled into fists as she fought the urge. Though the human would not mind terribly if she helped him slightly, would he? She flexed her hands.

Light and ice slithered from her, on the grass, up along the tree trunks, before reaching for the Faerie's feet. And when it took hold, it did not show mercy —a coating like frost tinged the bark-skin light blue and white. The bat wings seemed to snap closed very abruptly, and the Faerie nosedived into the canopy. Branches and leaves clattered to the forest floor in its wake.

The human shot her a look.

Kynes was still stunned.

He was at the Faerie's side instantly, concerned about the ice and magic. It was not moving.

"What have you done?" the man demanded.

"Is it dead?" was the Wytch's instinctive response.

"You wish," he snarled, taking hold of the Faerie's slim wrist in search of a pulse. It was to Kynes' despair that a flash of relief unknitted his brow. His eyes then locked on hers. "...Did you mean to kill it?"

She could lie. Wytches and Warlockes were very good at that. She could lie and tell him that no part of her had yearned in that moment to see the Faerie's blood spilled, to hear its bones crack.

"I am...not sure," she settled for. Maybe there was a slither of something she had learned of kindness. "It felt as though my body was reacting on its own."

"It wasn't going to hurt me," he growled. "Luci...wouldn't have done that."

"You do not know that," Kynes said firmly.

"Oh, and you know better?"

The taunt was a slap to the face. The Wytch hissed.

"You're lucky that it's still alive," the human informed her, glaring with equal malice. "Otherwise death would have returned to the table."

The Wytch lacked the energy needed to continue an argument. She rose to her feet with the aid of a tree and dusted herself off. She saw the human hover uncertainly over the affected areas of the Faerie's body.

Kynes felt nothing close to remorse. No guilt —but no sense of accomplishment either. In her head she was indifferent, but elsewhere had not yet caught up.

She took about two steps towards the body —then turned to retch by the tree next to them. "...Fuck," she groaned lowly, shuddering.

Having her body react this way —like it was out of an incomprehensible fear of those damned creatures, and that they still somehow had power over her —was becoming an inconvenience.

"You weren't joking," remarked the human. "They thoroughly messed you up."

"You do not know the half of it," Kynes responded darkly, her eyes narrowing.

He paused thoughtfully. The Wytch hoped desperately that nothing unintelligent would come from his mouth. "You know...not all Faeries —"

She had dangerously overestimated him.

"—I do not want to talk about it," she swiftly clipped. "I am surprised that I managed to tell you as much as I did. That tale rips something of me every time it surfaces from the depths of Hell."

He then nodded slowly like he understood.

Perhaps he did —she could not be the judge of that. All she cared about was that he kept his mouth shut.

The human then frowned at the trees, tilting his head from side to the other as though he were having trouble with sight. She asked him what was the matter.

"There," he murmured. "There's the cottage."

"The magic still holds?" Kynes questioned.

"I...don't think so," admitted the human. "There isn't much of it left standing."

author's note |
kynes is my most precious child and there is nothing that you can do about it.

and she uses she/her pronouns, thank you.