(yeah, you get another fiction article. Once again the deadline snuck up on me XP I’ve been busy in rewrites and had no inspiration for nonfiction so… here we go! I promise next week will be a nonfiction again)
So this was going to be a Havok submission, however I could not cut it down enough before the deadlines. But the character they supplied was public domain, so I decided to post it here instead. Enjoy!
***
The bravest of hunters went for the murderous, blood-thirsty kelpie of the bogs and moors– the insane chased the elusive hydrequid of the sea.
And he, Dorian Gray, liked being a little insane.
Which was why he was wading through waters infested with kelpies and hydrequids after dark. A suicidal plan, but there was no way he was going to lure a hydrequid by land. Long years of hunting had taught him that the best way to make a beast come out of hiding was to invade its hole.
Lightning shredded the sky, and in the flash, something blue darted in and out of the corner of his vision. He whipped around, hopeful, but all that laid in the darkness was the splish of a jumping fish.
Blast.
He sloshed ahead, mind filling with glorious fantasies of marching back to town with the hydrequid behind him, everyone staring in fear and wonder at the terrible, luminescent creature from its horse head to its scaled, fish-like tail.
A creature with such beauty, he’d live for a thousand years.
The applause in his head grew louder, and in a breath he realized that it was not, in fact, his imagination. Nor was it applause– it was hoofsteps.
Had he been so lucky to have his prize come to him?
Dorian sank into the water until his eyes were just above the surface, waiting as the light cadence of hooves grew louder. All at once, not one, but two equids trotted out from the foliage in front of him.
Prancing in gossamer blue glory, the hydrequid led the way, her tangled mane bobbing gently with every step. She wasn’t nearly as stunning as she’d be in her water form, but the shock came from seeing the horse she strolled with.
Deep green like the fens, a kelpie stallion stayed close to her flank, almost blending into the shadows. He would have never saw him if it hadn’t been for the hydrequid’s glowing body.
A hydrequid? And a kelpie? The two never swam in the same waters— at least, not as companions. And yet the kelpie stallion hovered close to her like a guardian, his large ears flicking back and forth to catch every sound.
He swam as quiet as he could through the water to follow them… only for a young-sounding squeak to still his heart..
There, tucked between the glow of its mother and the protective shadow of its sire, pranced the smallest of foals. Her mane and tail were ink-black, but her body glowed a luminous teal, her haunches and legs shimmering with white scales like she’d been kissed by starlight. The way she moved, she could have been a fairy, hooves completely soundless against the reeds.
A hydrequid and a kelpie in one. A perfect mix of savagery and beauty.
Oh, Dorian…
Immortality was in his grasp. Who needed to catch a hydrequid and a kelpie, when he could quite literally kill two birds with one stone?
He just needed to capture the foal.
The stallion’s head whipped toward him and Dorian sank beneath the water, praying the beast wouldn’t smell him. As dangerous as a water fight would be, the estuary was his only way to sneak up on the creatures.
He felt for the weapon at his belt, gripped the harpoon gun. As inconvenient as the weapon was, iron harpoons were the only thing that could kill water horses.
He just had to make sure he shot true.
Then the mare dropped her head for grazing, while her filly shuffled up to nurse. The kelpie stood in front of them, watchful, cautiously yanking some moss from a tree.
Dorian sidled to the bank, squinted, and quietly raised the point of the harpoon out of the water.
The stallion’s nostrils flared.
Curses.
Dorian scrambled onto land seconds before the stallion surged toward him, creating a tidal wave from the force. The mare squealed, dancing closer to the water’s edge but hesitating.
Too much fresh water for her to swim. If he could herd the mare and filly upstream, they would be trapped.
And the foal would be his.
Unlatching his pistol from his belt and praying the water hadn’t jammed it, Dorian slunk around and fired a shot from the opposite side of the mare, close to her head. She bolted with an ethereal scream, her foal following close to her heels. The kelpie stallion still swam underwater, not knowing his foe was on land.
Fool.
Dorian sprinted after the mare and filly, leaping over logs and dodging tendrils of moss. The mare wove between the trees, but her glowing body gave away her every move. And the foal was too young for such a pursuit.
Slowly, Dorian gained.
The mare made an impressive jump over a collection of boulders, and the filly attempted the same, only for her slender legs to snag on vines. She flailed, her shriek eerily human and drawing wide crimson stripes on her sides as sharp rocks cut her skin.
You’re mine.
Dorian leaped forward with the harpoon, crouched to take the shot.
Fire spiraled down his spine as teeth seized his shoulder and the kelpie threw him aside. His ribs crackled as he slammed into a tree. Groaning, he barely managed to drag himself to his feet before the kelpie spun, preparing for a second charge.
He fired the gun at the steed’s front knee. As expected, the bullet passed through the lucid leg, since he’d only just transformed from his aqueous form, but it was enough of a disruption that the stallion staggered, slamming his head into a boulder.
Now! Before the mare returns!
Dodging the stallion’s disoriented attacks, Dorian skidded toward the foal, a clear shot in front of him. The filly had exhausted herself, now only standing there, shaking. He yanked the harpoon gun out, began to aim—
A flash of blue overtook his vision just as he fired the trigger.
A deep siren’s scream shook him to the core and Dorian found himself struggling to stay standing as he realized that it was the hydrequid mare, not the foal, on the other end of his weapon. The iron buried deep in her neck, the mare reared and flailed, bloody foam flying from her mouth. Dorian twisted the rope around her neck seconds before the poison of the iron took hold and the mare came to a shuddering collapse. She breathed, but weakly, the blood staining her dimming body.
The stallion and foal were nowhere to be found.
“Sacrificed yourself for the filly?” he sputtered. “How unlike your kind.”
All he’d heard about the hydrequids said they ran, or fought for themselves until death. But self-sacrifice? Inconceivable.
The hydrequid convulsed, her turquoise eyes staring at the river with something like love— if an animal could display love. Dorian pulled the harpoon and the animal squealed in pain, her voice fading off into a choked gurgle. The light in her body was almost gone.
How could she be more beautiful in death than in life? The perfect tragedy of the scene, a creature known for its violence in battle, dying by a small harpoon only because she’d sacrificed herself for her baby.
It was unsettling to say the least. Deeply unsettling.
He shook off the feeling, preparing to drag the steed home before it actually died. The longer it was dead when he presented it to the painting, the less beauty he would claim from it.
He needed the beauty.
But as he reached forward to bind the mare’s legs, he stopped, stared at the blood seeping from the mare’s wounds and the light dying in her eyes.
No hate in her eyes for the man who killed her.
Just deep, motherly love.
All she and the kelpie wanted was to protect their baby.
And you slaughtered her.
Deep guilt struck Dorian, as he stumbled back from the body.
What sort of monster am I, to steal a child from her mother?
And in the end it was the mother who’d gone anyway.
She was beautiful for the simple fact that she’d died in selfless love.
And he was stealing it for his own selfish gain.
The mare wheezed, like she was finally giving up her spirit, and rain petered down from the heavens, mixing with the blood until all he could see was blue and red, blue and red, blue and so, so much red.
Are you happy now, Monster?
“No!” he choked, dropping to his knees and shedding his cloak in a feeble attempt to staunch the bleeding. “No… please…!”
He had to undo it.
He couldn’t let her die.
Couldn’t live with being the monster.
The storm twisted into a freezing tempest, bitter rain lashing at his hands as he pressed his coat into the wound with all his strength..
“Please,” he whispered. “Please don’t die.”
***
Dorian Gray’s body was found in the glade two days later. Cause of death? Hypothermia. Despite the fact his coat was soaked through with blood, he seemed to have no injuries.
There were no other clues as to how Mr. Gray came to his demise, besides an immense amount of hoofprints left around his body. However, the fisherman who had discovered the body claimed it had been “Carefully buried in sea weed, so delicately placed it was like someone went through the trouble to lay the strands over him one by one.”
Strangest of all was the crimson sea-lily draped over the pile, as Dorian Gray had no relatives or friends to mourn his death…
Applause!