He hadn’t expected a visitor that morning. Or ever, for that matter. In fact, Adam
never got visitors at his humble abode; only wild familiars, birds and the occasional stray letter that he never sent on to its proper owner.
Yet there she was, crouched before his dinner. A rabbit struggled before her, scared of her. He couldn’t blame it.
Her fur was like Adam’s in many ways; crystallised from the ice that became their home thousands of years ago though shining like silk set out on a stall. Ribbons wrapped their way around her arms and a crescent moon hung from her neck, almost blending in with the shimmering of her fur crystals accompanied by the swinging of lotuses and the settling of butterflies. All of them were golden. A beautiful accent, one he hadn’t seen before in his travels. It stood stark against the strawberry red of the spikes that rose from her shoulders, her flank, in a disorganised fashion. Her wings had also been frozen by the ice, tiny crystals forming along the edges like a barrier. A dull brown brought to life, also through the attempted suffocation of the Southern Icefield.
What’s more, she was a Gaoler. He thought he was the only one for miles around.
She didn’t seem to notice his presence at first. He’d buried deep into the bushes that lined a small pond as she went on with her work, leaving little time to chance her spotting him. She looked slightly bigger than he did. Her wings were much larger, even in their relaxed state, and her claws looked like they were sharpened at least one every few hours, for the sharp points of them glinted in the sun, yet, somehow, she looked friendly as she hummed to herself, undoing the rope around his food’s neck.
Adam debated leaving her to her devices and moving to a new hunting ground when her eyes snapped onto his. They were a deadly blood red that glowed in the sunlight, ones that looked almost like rubies brought to light from a mine. They almost made him shiver. Almost.
Her mouth opened and sound came out, but he didn’t quite understand what she was doing. Was she speaking to him? Her lips formed words, and her head cocked to the side, but he didn’t speak the Common Tongue or whatever language she spoke in.
She got up with enough speed to send a field of corn flurrying and made her way towards his hiding spot. Adam froze. His ears flattened against his fluffy black mane the closer she got to him, until she was a mere few meters away from his crouched figure. He hoped that the darkness of his fur made him blend in, but then there were his ice-white eyes and his orange antlers and runes...
They didn’t help his situation.
With a shriek, he fell back against the ground as she tore the shrubs in half and stared down at him, head angled in questioning. He had to admit that she looked beautiful up close. Even though muscles poked out from under her fur, and her wings looked powerful enough to knock back an entire fleet of dragons, her face was feminine and soft. Her eyes had dimmed slightly upon finding him, and her claws—despite shredding through a few dozen leaves and branches—were light silver and dotted with messy glitter. It was a youngling’s doing, for sure.
They stared at each other awkwardly for a few seconds until she smiled down at him, flashing white teeth. “Hey there, you okay?”
Adam gaped at her. She spoke his language.
“Do you need a hand down there?”
He nodded, stunned.
Slowly, the other Gaoler offered him her paw. It looked soft in the sunlight that filtered between the woodland leaves, unscathed despite her appearance. He took it and stumbled forward into her, unaware of her strength until it was too late.
“I’m so sorry,” he stammered, backing away quickly. He didn’t know what this female was capable of. He didn’t want to know.
“Its fine,” she chuckled, grinning at him. “You know our Tongue then?”
“Of course I do! I’m a Gaoler after all.”
She dusted herself off, inspecting every little speck that flew from her fur. “Yes, but most back at my home don’t even know our alphabet, let alone how to form words or even
sentences.”
“You have a home?”
“Don’t you?” she asked him hesitantly whilst she made her way to the struggling rabbit, her brow puckering with confusion and pity.
Adam shrugged nonchalantly. “I have one; it’s just not very...
populated.”
It was true. He lived in a small cave just south of the woodland, with familiars and other wild animals. No one ever came to visit, as no one knew he lived there. He liked it that way. The cave was homely enough without visitors from dragons that he wanted nothing to do with; the familiars—often small ones like Death Seekers or Ambassadors for the Flights—gave him better company than any dragon ever could.
She frowned and wandered towards the struggling rabbit. “It must get pretty lonely.”
“Not really.”
“Where is it?”
He grinned. “I’m not telling you that.”
“A mysterious guy, are you?”
“Pretty much, yeah. I like my own company.”
She crouched down and fiddled with the knot around the rabbit’s throat. He spotted a fat red mark underneath its thin brown fur from the trap. “On that note, this must be your trap.”
“Who’s to say?”
“Only a few lairs share this desolate hunting ground,” she said simply, giving him a look that shut his confidence down in one fell swoop. “This is either yours, or one of my own lair’s, and I know that no one in mine uses traps.”
“What do they use, then?”
“Bows or magic; the non-cruel ways of catching prey.”
He started, and brushed it off with a grumble. “My trap isn’t cruel.”
“It was meant to kill the rabbit outright, wasn’t it?”
“Well, yeah, but—”
Gently, she scooped the rabbit—still loosely tangled in the rope—up into her arms and gave him a better look at the mark. The skin beneath was blistered with rope burn, spots of blood in the fur. Adam’s heart sank slightly. Maybe it was a
bit cruel.
“The rabbit isn’t even half dead,” she muttered, sympathy for the poor creature in her eyes, “just scared out of its mind.” She looked directly at him then, and her eyes seemed to blaze brighter than before, glistens of humour dotting the red surface. It looked like snow before an intense sunset. “You really need to make better traps.”
“I don’t need to learn anything,” Adam pouted, crossing his arms. His ears flattened once more against his mane. “I’m
real smart.”
“Sure, and I’m the best huntress there is in my entire lair.”
“Are you?”
She grinned at him, cruelty lining her lips. “No, my dear. I’m not. At least not when I act like a beacon, which is most of the time.”
He huffed at her as she set the rabbit down, the last bit of frayed rope in her clenched paw. It scampered away immediately. No point in trying to get it back, anyway, for it’d blend in with the world around it and tell its family of its endeavour.
Maybe he should just eat plants. No one misses plants.
“Why don’t I teach you?” She angled her head at him once again, eyebrow raised. A small buttercup tumbled from her mane with the movement.
As much as he wanted to agree, he shook his head. “I prefer to learn by my own means.”
“Someone must’ve hurt you badly if you don’t even trust your own kind.”
Adam lowered his head and stared into the shrubs that surrounded them. Toxicity wasn’t present in her tone. It sounded almost like a joke, even, but he wasn’t laughing like she was to herself. Was it wrong to hate the kind that wronged you, even if it was your own?
“I’ve made up my mind.”
She waited a while before she spoke, sighing. She didn’t think he was being serious. “Alright, I won’t.”
He turned to give her a sad smile, to hope that she wouldn’t take it personally, but she already had her back turned to him, bag on shoulders and making her way towards the path back to her lair.
His heart seized for a reason unknown to him. He wanted her to stay for a while, but why? He didn’t like visitors, and she’d trespassed into his territory, but… Adam shook his head, looking away. All Gaolers were the same. Even this female would betray him, which he knew. Or thought he knew, anyway.
Adam gave her a sidelong glance, hoping she’d left. She wasn’t. Instead, she faced him, looking pained.
“It was nice meeting you,” she told him, smiling sadly. “Maybe we’ll see each other again sometime.”
Adam bit his tongue. He kept telling himself to turn and walk away with no more being said, but the trill of her voice, the smile, the gorgeous fur made him reconsider. She was definitely gorgeous, especially for a Gaoler. Perhaps she had a personality to match it. If he let her walk away, he might never find out.
If he didn’t speak soon, in amongst the sounds of woodland breaking around her from the path she’d chosen to take, he’d never get the chance.
“Wait!”
The breaking of twigs and the slapping of leaves stopped abruptly, accompanied by a loud, “Yes?”
He was going to hate himself for this. “I… I want to come with you.”
A few seconds passed, and nothing. Just when he was about to give up, the female’s head popped into view beside a bulky oak tree, one eyebrow raised and a small smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. “You want to come back to my lair?”
“Sure,” he muttered, toeing the dirt, “it’d be fun.”
“What about your own lair?”
Adam shrugged and said no more. The familiars would be fine.
She made a show of thinking about his request, and each second sent slight irritation barrelling through his blood. He shouldn’t have asked. She’s going to say n—
“Sure,” she cried, her eyes lighting up, “come on then!”
…no.
She gave him a full-blown grin at his request, and he couldn’t help but smile back at her. Her metallic-coated fur seemed to light up with her face.
Damn, was that smile contagious or what?
Leaning against the tree, he drew his attention back to the woodland. “Are you coming or not?”
He shook his head and spoke before she got the wrong idea. “Y-yes, of course.”
Just as Adam reached her, her smile grew. So did his. “So, what’s your name, handsome?”
“Adam,” he murmured. Handsome? He’d never been called that before. “What’s yours?”
She hummed and skipped deeper into the woodland, Adam following at her heels. More twigs broke underfoot, more leaves slapped their faces and wings with each movement. Their claws took care of most of them, but there was the odd one that would make it into his mouth or his eye.
He’d never ventured past his little home and his self-proclaimed area for hunting, and yet he never understood why. This part of the woodland—where the birds sang, where familiars pranced through the trees, where hatchlings giggled from a few miles away—was almost as beautiful as the female before him, whose soft humming accompanied the song of the woods. He’d have to go back at some point.
She stopped abruptly at the edge of the woodland and he halted, staring at her. The sun danced along the edges of her crystallised fur, lighting them up in sparks of grey and gold as if it were some kind of metallic fire. Her wings were flexed now in a stretch that reached up from her tail to her arms. They, too, glowed and appeared much more beautiful in the full presence of the sun.
Off in the distance, past her head, he could make out the workings of a lair made out of white-grey rubble from broken Shadow pillars and priest houses. Vines of purple bulged and spiralled around what remained of the marble building that still half-stood. Whether it was leeching it of its life or helping it stay put, he didn’t know. It fascinated him. It obviously wasn’t dangerous, as dragons played beside the dead-looking plants, waving branches at each other as if they were swords. No doubt the onlookers were parents or carers.
After a few seconds, she pulled his attention away from the lair with a soft cough. A wide grin spread across her lips under his questioning gaze. “My name is Willow,” she said, “and I welcome you to my home.”
