Short story written in October 2015 for Legendary Sidekick's Jerk MC Challenge.
1800 words
She was born into a deep green pool, born with the hunger of the Kin and the knowledge of the Riverdaughter. The world below the water-veil was silent and dim, and the world above glittered and seared her mouth and throat. In the depths, the old ones swam above a carpet of black silt and bones. They were so thin that they were like ripples in the water, with pale eyes and palest teeth. They were her shadows, and what she would become.
Up, they hissed at her. Feed us.
But now she glowed, newborn, light filling up her skin and illuminating the soft details of her fingers and long legs. She slid through the pool, basking in the sunbeams, brushing the stems of silkbloom and water lilies. The fish drew close and hid in the mantle of her hair.
When night came, and the world above grew as dark and still as the world below, an unwary creature stumbled by the pool. A man-creature. His shadow passed over the water, and she knew hunger.
From the depths she rose, slipping up through the skin of the pool. Without breathing she sang, a piercing note uncurling from the empty river-shell of her heart. The man-creature stared, rooted to the ground. Then he shambled towards her, grasping. Alarmed, she whirled away, deeper into the water. It splashed about his knees as he followed. Then his head fell level with hers, and he was weighted by the water as she was weightless.
The hunger told her what to do.
Sweet flesh, parting under her teeth. The choking and gurgling that eased as she wrapped her body 'round him, until he was calm. His inner sea spilled out dark into her world, salty and rich. She drank life from his flesh and let him fall to rest upon the bottom.
So sweet, the old ones whispered, sibilant. Soon he was only bones, and they were quiet.
In the drowsy contentment of the days that followed, she watched the shapes and shadows that appeared by the bank of the pool. There was a great, bearded man-creature and his bearded goats, rough and belligerent as he was. Then a girl-creature came with the goats, and she was small and brown and nimble. Her hair was thick with dark curls. She wore a tattered hide, but beneath it her skin was soft. She would be tender.
The nixie in the pool watched her with lambent eyes, peering above the waterline. And the girl looked her way and seemed to stare back, as though she could see her. But the nixie was hidden to careless mortal eyes, in the way of the Kin, living between the worlds.
Still, the girl's eyes flashed straight to her, clove-brown and curious.
The next day the girl-creature brought a bone with holes in it, and held it to her mouth, and song flitted out into the air above. Cascading echoes reached through the water and the nixie swam to the surface, entranced. She did not think these creatures had a voice. They called to each other with harsh dull sounds, like the goats did. But the girl sang through the flute, and something strange stirred in the nixie's empty heart.
The girl stood at the edge of the pool, peering at the pale shape that floated beneath the surface. "Can you hear me?" she asked.
And the nixie understood her bleating, as though she were Kin, as though she were the voice of the Riverdaughter in her head. She bobbed to the surface like a stunned fish, staring.
The girl's face split into a grin, all white flat teeth, freckles and happiness. "I play for the beasts and they understand me a little, see? I thought it might work for you. Ain't saying that elves and nixies are beasts, though, just that none have spoke to me. And nobody believes me when I see them," she said last, in a whisper.
The nixie narrowed her eyes and tried to speak to her with her soul, but the girl-creature was not Kin. So she lifted her head from the water and sang. The girl's eyes went wide and lifeless as prey and she stumbled forward, one step. The nixie swallowed her song and shot back down into the water. Not yet. Not now. The ache of hunger stirred, but her curiosity was sharper.
The girl sat down, shaking her head like a goat caught by the horns. "Ach," she said, her brows upturned in confusion. Silence hung over the pool. The nixie swam forward, and did not lift her head but hummed a little beneath the water. A curious hum. The girl giggled, one strange sound for another.
"I'm Cate," she said. "This place is called Llynellul, you know. I'll call you Llynellul girl."
The Kin were not born with names, but given them. The nixie felt a flutter deep within her chest, for the second time, and crept up to touch the rocks by the water's edge, listening to Cate's voice trickle through the pool.
And every day when the sun rose she listened, and trilled back sometimes from safely beneath the surface, and swam in patterns and caught pebbles before they sank and gave Cate things from the bottom of the pool--glinting baubles and agates, nothing of death- and she learned what laughter meant. And sometimes she felt so strange, like the world was gathering around her, crisp and vivid. That she was gathering, separating from the water, and she could feel everything on her skin like the Daughter's own touch.
Yet she hungered. Fish did not satisfy her long, though she stripped them to the frets of their bones. She ached with hollowness and her claws grew sharp and her eyes round and black, and she began to think of Cate's soft sweet skin and the pulse in her throat. And these thoughts hurt her more than the hunger.
So when Cate was away but the goats were near, the nixie rose from the water and sang to the largest he-goat, and he put his head down heavily and followed her into the depths.
The old ones grumbled, but her thirst was slaked, and she hoped it would be enough. With sheathed claws and bright eyes, she waited for Cate to return with the morning.
But when Cate came the great bearded man-creature was with her, and her face was unfamiliar with misery, dark and blotched and wet. She pointed towards the pond and cringed from the man, and he made loud sounds like the squealing and roaring of a wild boar. The nixie did not like him, and her claws uncurled and her eyes stared from the surface of the water.
Then he struck Cate in the face, and then he hit her again. The nixie reared from the pool and screamed at him. But he did not hear her, and he did not see her. His heart was cold and hard as iron, and magic broke upon it.
The nixie shrieked her fury and choked on the burning air, and the pool frothed around her. The man did not stop, and then he did, and staggered back. Cate had fallen, and when he shook her she did not move. He stared at her for a time, and then turned and left. Blank-eyed as the he-goat.
The nixie gulped water and leaped up again, keening. Cate was very still and very far away. Don't leave me here, she cried through her soul. Don't leave me here alone.
She lunged from the water and onto the bank, and struggled over the stones. The sunlight pierced her eyes, and the air seared her mouth. But the pain in her empty heart was worse. She screamed, and from below came an answering shriek.
The old ones' claws gouged into her legs. You cannot leave us! they gurgled. She kicked at them, and writhed farther up the sharp stones. She bled, and she could not breathe. She did not care to go on breathing. All she wanted to do was reach for the small dark shape in the grass, to reach for a glimpse of happiness, and when her water-pale body failed her she reached with her soul.
The light and the pain were fading. She was surrounded by a silvery darkness, and in the darkness glowed a gentle face. The endless blue-green waters of the Veil closed around her, and she remembered them.
My child, said the Riverdaughter. You are not alone. I will give you what you need and more, so that you may share it. Life flows between the mortal earth and the immortal veil. Pour your strength into the hearts of others, and it will return to me.
When she woke she did not remember this, yet, but she remembered Cate at once, and crawled over to where she lay in the grass. She felt made of stone, sinking to the earth again and again, but she could move and so she did. Cate was grey and motionless. She reached out and touched the dark and bleeding crack on her forehead, and knew what weeping felt like. Her fingers were strange to her, pink and warm and clawless, and now a faint light sparked up beneath them. It seemed to her, lying with her head pressed against Cate's shoulder, that the black bruise faded and a little color returned to Cate's sleeping face. There was no void within her now, but a pulsing fountain, and she could give from her heart instead of taking. So she gave, and touched Cate's brown cheek and the curl of her ear and kissed her shoulder, and felt the life go into her.
She was very tired when Cate stirred but she kept her eyes open, and smiled because she had done what she meant to do. Cate sat up slowly, sat with her hands in her lap. "Thank you, Llynellul," she whispered. It was quiet for a long time, and then she said: "I'm going to go live with the wildfolk and the druids, where my mum came from, where they don't hurt girls because they think they're witches. And they'll take you too, I think. But we'll go to the cot and get you warm first, because I dinna think you're meant to be out of the water, and you're shivering."
Llynellul tilted up her head. "I don't know how to be warm," she whispered back, in a fuzzy voice that was her own. "Will you show me how?"
Cate smiled, all freckles and happiness. "I will," she promised.
1800 words
Llynellul
She was born into a deep green pool, born with the hunger of the Kin and the knowledge of the Riverdaughter. The world below the water-veil was silent and dim, and the world above glittered and seared her mouth and throat. In the depths, the old ones swam above a carpet of black silt and bones. They were so thin that they were like ripples in the water, with pale eyes and palest teeth. They were her shadows, and what she would become.
Up, they hissed at her. Feed us.
But now she glowed, newborn, light filling up her skin and illuminating the soft details of her fingers and long legs. She slid through the pool, basking in the sunbeams, brushing the stems of silkbloom and water lilies. The fish drew close and hid in the mantle of her hair.
When night came, and the world above grew as dark and still as the world below, an unwary creature stumbled by the pool. A man-creature. His shadow passed over the water, and she knew hunger.
From the depths she rose, slipping up through the skin of the pool. Without breathing she sang, a piercing note uncurling from the empty river-shell of her heart. The man-creature stared, rooted to the ground. Then he shambled towards her, grasping. Alarmed, she whirled away, deeper into the water. It splashed about his knees as he followed. Then his head fell level with hers, and he was weighted by the water as she was weightless.
The hunger told her what to do.
Sweet flesh, parting under her teeth. The choking and gurgling that eased as she wrapped her body 'round him, until he was calm. His inner sea spilled out dark into her world, salty and rich. She drank life from his flesh and let him fall to rest upon the bottom.
So sweet, the old ones whispered, sibilant. Soon he was only bones, and they were quiet.
—
In the drowsy contentment of the days that followed, she watched the shapes and shadows that appeared by the bank of the pool. There was a great, bearded man-creature and his bearded goats, rough and belligerent as he was. Then a girl-creature came with the goats, and she was small and brown and nimble. Her hair was thick with dark curls. She wore a tattered hide, but beneath it her skin was soft. She would be tender.
The nixie in the pool watched her with lambent eyes, peering above the waterline. And the girl looked her way and seemed to stare back, as though she could see her. But the nixie was hidden to careless mortal eyes, in the way of the Kin, living between the worlds.
Still, the girl's eyes flashed straight to her, clove-brown and curious.
The next day the girl-creature brought a bone with holes in it, and held it to her mouth, and song flitted out into the air above. Cascading echoes reached through the water and the nixie swam to the surface, entranced. She did not think these creatures had a voice. They called to each other with harsh dull sounds, like the goats did. But the girl sang through the flute, and something strange stirred in the nixie's empty heart.
The girl stood at the edge of the pool, peering at the pale shape that floated beneath the surface. "Can you hear me?" she asked.
And the nixie understood her bleating, as though she were Kin, as though she were the voice of the Riverdaughter in her head. She bobbed to the surface like a stunned fish, staring.
The girl's face split into a grin, all white flat teeth, freckles and happiness. "I play for the beasts and they understand me a little, see? I thought it might work for you. Ain't saying that elves and nixies are beasts, though, just that none have spoke to me. And nobody believes me when I see them," she said last, in a whisper.
The nixie narrowed her eyes and tried to speak to her with her soul, but the girl-creature was not Kin. So she lifted her head from the water and sang. The girl's eyes went wide and lifeless as prey and she stumbled forward, one step. The nixie swallowed her song and shot back down into the water. Not yet. Not now. The ache of hunger stirred, but her curiosity was sharper.
The girl sat down, shaking her head like a goat caught by the horns. "Ach," she said, her brows upturned in confusion. Silence hung over the pool. The nixie swam forward, and did not lift her head but hummed a little beneath the water. A curious hum. The girl giggled, one strange sound for another.
"I'm Cate," she said. "This place is called Llynellul, you know. I'll call you Llynellul girl."
The Kin were not born with names, but given them. The nixie felt a flutter deep within her chest, for the second time, and crept up to touch the rocks by the water's edge, listening to Cate's voice trickle through the pool.
—
And every day when the sun rose she listened, and trilled back sometimes from safely beneath the surface, and swam in patterns and caught pebbles before they sank and gave Cate things from the bottom of the pool--glinting baubles and agates, nothing of death- and she learned what laughter meant. And sometimes she felt so strange, like the world was gathering around her, crisp and vivid. That she was gathering, separating from the water, and she could feel everything on her skin like the Daughter's own touch.
Yet she hungered. Fish did not satisfy her long, though she stripped them to the frets of their bones. She ached with hollowness and her claws grew sharp and her eyes round and black, and she began to think of Cate's soft sweet skin and the pulse in her throat. And these thoughts hurt her more than the hunger.
So when Cate was away but the goats were near, the nixie rose from the water and sang to the largest he-goat, and he put his head down heavily and followed her into the depths.
The old ones grumbled, but her thirst was slaked, and she hoped it would be enough. With sheathed claws and bright eyes, she waited for Cate to return with the morning.
—
But when Cate came the great bearded man-creature was with her, and her face was unfamiliar with misery, dark and blotched and wet. She pointed towards the pond and cringed from the man, and he made loud sounds like the squealing and roaring of a wild boar. The nixie did not like him, and her claws uncurled and her eyes stared from the surface of the water.
Then he struck Cate in the face, and then he hit her again. The nixie reared from the pool and screamed at him. But he did not hear her, and he did not see her. His heart was cold and hard as iron, and magic broke upon it.
The nixie shrieked her fury and choked on the burning air, and the pool frothed around her. The man did not stop, and then he did, and staggered back. Cate had fallen, and when he shook her she did not move. He stared at her for a time, and then turned and left. Blank-eyed as the he-goat.
The nixie gulped water and leaped up again, keening. Cate was very still and very far away. Don't leave me here, she cried through her soul. Don't leave me here alone.
She lunged from the water and onto the bank, and struggled over the stones. The sunlight pierced her eyes, and the air seared her mouth. But the pain in her empty heart was worse. She screamed, and from below came an answering shriek.
The old ones' claws gouged into her legs. You cannot leave us! they gurgled. She kicked at them, and writhed farther up the sharp stones. She bled, and she could not breathe. She did not care to go on breathing. All she wanted to do was reach for the small dark shape in the grass, to reach for a glimpse of happiness, and when her water-pale body failed her she reached with her soul.
—
The light and the pain were fading. She was surrounded by a silvery darkness, and in the darkness glowed a gentle face. The endless blue-green waters of the Veil closed around her, and she remembered them.
My child, said the Riverdaughter. You are not alone. I will give you what you need and more, so that you may share it. Life flows between the mortal earth and the immortal veil. Pour your strength into the hearts of others, and it will return to me.
—
When she woke she did not remember this, yet, but she remembered Cate at once, and crawled over to where she lay in the grass. She felt made of stone, sinking to the earth again and again, but she could move and so she did. Cate was grey and motionless. She reached out and touched the dark and bleeding crack on her forehead, and knew what weeping felt like. Her fingers were strange to her, pink and warm and clawless, and now a faint light sparked up beneath them. It seemed to her, lying with her head pressed against Cate's shoulder, that the black bruise faded and a little color returned to Cate's sleeping face. There was no void within her now, but a pulsing fountain, and she could give from her heart instead of taking. So she gave, and touched Cate's brown cheek and the curl of her ear and kissed her shoulder, and felt the life go into her.
She was very tired when Cate stirred but she kept her eyes open, and smiled because she had done what she meant to do. Cate sat up slowly, sat with her hands in her lap. "Thank you, Llynellul," she whispered. It was quiet for a long time, and then she said: "I'm going to go live with the wildfolk and the druids, where my mum came from, where they don't hurt girls because they think they're witches. And they'll take you too, I think. But we'll go to the cot and get you warm first, because I dinna think you're meant to be out of the water, and you're shivering."
Llynellul tilted up her head. "I don't know how to be warm," she whispered back, in a fuzzy voice that was her own. "Will you show me how?"
Cate smiled, all freckles and happiness. "I will," she promised.
—
