It all happened in an instant. Icasondra took a single step forward, and in the next instant, her body was falling to the ground.
Alta rushed toward her, ignoring the now alert humans.
“Just two fairies, nothing to worry about.” Announced the man who had shot the projectile.
“Yeah, and you just killed her.” Spoke a human Alta could no longer recognize as her eyes centered on Icasondra. The human’s voice lacked any sympathy, but even worse, he sounded amused.
The Blossomflame fairy crouched to the Moonlight, looking at her fearful eyes. They were rapidly losing color at the same rate Icasondra’s neck lost blood. Alta led her hands to the wound, but she immediately comprehended the lethality of the attack.
Icasondra opened her lips as if to talk, but out of them only came a rugged exhalation and a whisp of blood.
Time was against her.
Alta flared her wings, going from extinguished embers to a blaze in a matter of fractions of a second.
But that did nothing.
She guided her finger to her mouth and bit it viciously without a shed of hesitation, pulling it out in a brutal and hurried state. Flames spurted from the torn phalanx, just as it had done when she was a chimera in the prison.
“Fuck, what’s she doing?” Another man questioned. The chimera couldn’t even focus on the words being spoken, let alone look at who said it.
Alta put the burning finger on Icasondra’s neck, but it only healed her wound, not the one of the fairy.
Why? She questioned in exasperation. Aren’t Blossomflame supposed to heal with their flames? Why can’t I heal her? Alta thought of removing the projectile from the neck, but her instinctive understanding of organic creatures told her that would only accelerate Icasondra’s death.
Alta put her arms under Icasondra’s neck and looked at her straight in the eyes, they were... so dim... The fairy tried to speak once again, but this time not even air came out of her mouth, just heaps of blood.
“Stop,” Alta whispered. “Don’t talk.”
Icasondra looked at her, the fairy’s eyes wavering as if she could no longer see her. She raised her arm with great lethargy, and by a miracle alone, the feeble and cold hand landed on Alta’s cheek.
An instant later, Icasondra’s arm fell to the ground. The next one, no more light shone on her eyes.
Alta knew too much about how living organisms worked. The coldness, the lack of breath, the loss of blood, the dilatation of the pupils, the discoloration of the skin, the unmoving heart... there were unlimited ways to determine it, but she found herself unable to accept the death of the fairy.
It felt like an eternity ago since the last time the chimera had seen death.
She was born on blood and darkness and excelled in it, yet these last days in the peaceful fairy village, where not even animals were hurt for sustenance, had made something to her.
Not weaker, she refused to believe so. In a way, that knowledge and understanding made her stronger than before.
Icasondra had taught her the value of life.
Yet she now lay dead on the ground.
It all happened in an instant.
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“Fuck, what’s she doing?” The man screamed in repulsion as the fairy tore one of her fingers apart.
“Probably some witch doctor magic or something, I don’t know.” Another shrugged. “There’s nothing she can do though, that fairy is already dead, she hasn’t even noticed. By the way, thanks for that Bjorn.”
“What?” Bjorn, the man with the crossbow responded. “Was I supposed to let a fucking feral animal pounce on us? You should praise me that I managed to hit the bull’s eye in a fucking blink.”
“Yeah, yeah.” The man shrugged once more. “We can’t go back to the battlefield, but surely this fairy will sell well. I heard that the fairy dust you get from squeezing their wings is a powerful aphrodisiac.”
“Bah, bullshit.” A taller man told. “Fairy tales, literally. But some noble pervert will pay a hefty coin for the fairy. Maybe even a priest, those are crazy for children.”
The coarse humor of the man induced a wave of laughter around the campfire.
“Go and get her, Bjorn.” The tall man ordered after the laughs died out. “And don’t kill this one.”
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“Fuck you, Ivar.” The crossbowman replied with dissidence, but nonetheless, complied.
Bjorn approached the fairy of the flaming wings and was surprised by her stillness. No tears of sadness, no tantrums or wailing. Just perfect silence except for small crunching sounds. That made the crossbowman alert but continued. He would be drowned in insults if the rest saw that he feared a little fairy.
“Hey fairy, come here with us.” The man put a hand on her shoulders and turned her weak body to have a better look at her.
The fairy’s eyes weren’t bloodshot, as one may expect from the tearless eyes, but bloodthirsty and perfectly calm. Bjorn took a step but upon seeing the visceral expression. Those weren’t the eyes of a fairy who had lost a companion but of a predator stalking its prey.
If he hadn’t been so distracted, Bjorn would have noticed the raised arm of the fairy and the claw she inserted into his arm.
“What?” That was all he managed to say before his body was punctured by a thousand black needles, all coming from his inwards.
The surroundings exploded in gore.
Instant death.
He was not even able to feel pain before his consciousness vanished into nothingness.
Ivar looked at the sight in confusion as Bjorn was obliterated, his insides outside. And the fairy, no longer flames spurted from her back, but terrifying black protuberances like the legs of a spider.
The monster gorged on Bjorn’s corpse, and before the body touched the ground, only the bones remained. They were pristine as ivory, with not a trace of muscle or blood. All of those had been consumed already.
It didn’t even take a blink for the whole squadron to withdraw their weapons, yet in that single blink, the monstrosity had rushed to the nearest person, that being Hakon. The pikeman had been mutilated. Ivar couldn’t even see what happened to him as the blood lingered in the air, more gas than liquid.
He looked at the other men. Two had fallen, but eight remained, including him.
The eyes of the soldier knew it. Escaping wasn’t an option, the creature was too fast, far faster than them. If they wanted to survive, they would need to slay the monstrosity.
The next one to fall was Gunvor.
In the split-second Ivar had taken to think, Gunvor had already died. The man’s shield had been splintered instantly and his head flew through the forest.
Ivar charged, alongside the six other men.
By the time he took seven steps and blinked once, the monstrosity had changed. It no longer had the beige color of the fairy’s skin, but a red chitin armor resembling that of a ladybug. But instead of innocent, this one was far more menacing-looking.
He saw a bolt flying through the air. It was shot by Einar, the other crossbowman.
Ivar should have learned from his mistakes, as that distraction ended up with the death of another of his men. In this case, Olaf the berserker.
The moment he finally swung his sword at the monstrosity, two other men had died. He didn’t even recognize them, their bodies and clothes torn apart as needles came out of their bodies, like how it had happened with Bjorn.
His sword finally collided with the chitin plate of the monstrosity, and after such a display of overwhelming violence, he expected his sword to bounce away. Instead, the sword penetrated easily as if it were flesh.
He couldn’t afford any more distractions, so he hacked his weapon once more, not pondering on the strange phenomena.
On his third swing, Ivar saw the flames coming. Fire spurted out of the first wound, flesh mending together, undoing the damage in a matter of fractions of a second.
The next instant, he felt the monstrosity’s gaze on his neck.
He didn’t have a second instant to react.
Death.
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The dryad ran through the forest as fast as her long legs allowed her to. As she celebrated the Midsommar in the village, the Evergreen began to cry for her help.
Her hasty departure evoked some concern in the villagers, but she couldn’t care less about it. The forest seldom demanded anything, yet now it was pledging for help in a visceral scream.
She wasn’t surprised when she heard that the screams were coming from the watchtower where Alta was situated. But what truly stole her breath wasn’t the mad dash, but the sight.
On a random forest clearing in the middle of the night, the only source of light was an almost extinguished campfire.
There was only one word to describe the sight: Gore.
Flesh and bones littered the ground, blood was sprayed everywhere and with such violence that it lingered in the air as if it had forgotten that it had been once a liquid. Flrynwydl wouldn’t have believed this scene was of real death if it weren’t for the tainted weapons and clothes on the ground. There were not any discernable individuals that could have worn them nearby.
Instead, a figure stood in the middle of the clearing.
It was nauseating and unnatural. It stood only a couple of meters high, yet it expanded widely. Flesh, muscles, blood, bones, chitin, fur, hair, hide, leather... every single component a living organism could have was present on the abomination.
Yet Flrynwydl’s fears came true as she saw what was below the abomination, a white body in blue clothing.
“Ica..” She quickly covered her mouth, alas it was too late. The abomination saw her.
As she readied for battle, ready to unleash the Evergreen’s wrath... nothing came. The dryad inspected the abomination once more and saw the embers spurting out of her legs and the long blood-red mane on the front.
“Alta?” Flrynwydl said, but the chimera didn’t respond, she kept moving her extremities doing something to Icasondra’s corpse.
The dryad took careful and slow steps with great condolence, the lifeless body of her daughter becoming more visible to her. She gritted her teeth hard, they sounded like wood being splintered.
It was only once she was a step away that she noticed what the chimera was doing. Fire cradled Alta’s hands alongside bags of blood and flesh. The fire didn’t sear the Moonlight fairy’s flesh, but it also didn’t heal her. Not even the transfusions of blood from the bags helped her recover the color.
It was obvious what the chimera was doing. And even more so how she had utterly failed.
“It won’t do anything, Alta.” The dryad explained, the words coming from her mouth pained her. She wanted to look away, but she couldn’t. Her lime and soulless eyes were focused on the deceased fairy.
“What?” A cacophony of voices asked as multiple mouths opened. Most were soaked in blood.
“Her soul has passed away.” Flrynwydl bit her lips, sap flowing out of them. “It doesn’t matter how many times you heal her body, without her soul you won’t be able to revive her.”
“I see.” The myriad of voices responded with a grim understanding.
The frail hands of the abomination stopped glowing in flames and they picked up Icasondra’s cold body.
“What are you doing?” The fear was obvious in the dryad’s voice, and the chimera knew that as a thousand eyes looked at her. But even then, she couldn’t allow the remains of her daughter to go away as her life did. “Alta! What are you doing?”
The chimera’s response was short but powerful. A statement.
“Kill Death.”