The edge of a serrated claw ran along the weed’s stem, splitting it open and revealing the uncountable fibers within. One by one, each of them was tied into knots, each loop diligently planned.

An art lost to all but her, beautiful in its malice.

Ulcers, vertigo, blindness; the hexwork turned inert life into silent guardians of her domain.

Anything to attain the peace she had been promised.

The peace they have all been promised.

The thought was enough to break her composure; talons stabbing into the packed dirt lining her dwelling. The passage of time had hardly dulled her burning anger, fed into by their every loss.

Until only she remained.

The miserable memory of her kin at their prime quenched her fury into sorrow as she completed her wards. Sinew, fibers, blood, bones. What sheer terror of such a sight couldn’t accomplish, her seething hexes would ensure.

Once, she was the youngest and most cherished of the Frayfolk, a symbol of hope following a great famine.

Now, she remained as the only guardian of their promised land, the only upholder of their traditions.

With nobody but the wind to hear her wailing.

With nobody but the stars to mourn her once she rejoins her people.

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The thunderstorm was her only company as she ascended the nearest hill; weathered body long since dulled to cold. What once used to be diligently kept bushes of life-giving herbs had decayed to more than swaths of thorny vines.

Her kin watched as their offspring affixed her creations to the lowest hanging branches where they’d be noticed, their bones providing company even as the woods reclaimed them.

Company, and judgment.

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A human skull hung from underneath the largest of her cursed sentries. It stared towards the distant lights, shining callously through the battering rain.

Their presence was an affront that would’ve been unthinkable mere centuries ago.

Nowadays, it was just an appalling reality.

Humanity has always reviled them, no matter their nation or people. Little more than basal, short-lived pests, spreading through the land like vermin spread through crops.

In the past, though, they at least held to their word.

Ageless treaty, written in the old tongue of stone and birch. The lands of the Frayfolk and men were to never intersect; their borders were to never be crossed. Stragglers and fools aside, the néhinaw upheld their promise, and so did her kin.

Many centuries later, humanity had changed, turning even viler. Pale-faced savages, callous in their disrespect. They spat upon their pact, but her kin was bound to it; the mere idea of breaking it unthinkable.

Her kin defended their promised land, but the humans were endless, their armaments growing ever vicious. Tools of iron, rods that drove thunder.

The Frayfolk fought bravely, but were not to last.

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Her needle-like teeth rent the deer carcass with inhuman precision. Bones for tools, sinew for hexes, eyes for medicine to abate the sickness decaying her insides. Flesh for her kin, to nourish them in their endless journey beyond, as their ancient tradition instructed.

When she was a mere hatchling, the living and dead alike partook in grand feasts. And she, a beloved scion, was showered with the freshest of blood and fed the juiciest of flesh.

Now, alone and feeble, she satisfied herself with scraps. Too weak to hunt most days, too tired after giving the dead their fill.

Their dwelling used to befit gods.

Now, with almost all of it collapsed and decay eating what remained, she alone slept like an animal.

And, like an animal, patrolled what remained of the Frayfolk’s territory. Humanity had no end to their cruelty; a truth rediscovered by the day. Even with their tools, even when arriving in a flood of vermin, they did not simply slaughter her kin.

Instead, they starved them out, murdering whichever weak they found. Each time, an echoing thunder would fill the woods, followed by her kin’s wails. A heartbreaking loss, a promise of revenge.

A failure of the living.

Her failure.

A distant crunch of bone snapped her focus away from preparing a meal for her kin, her six eyes narrowing immediately.

Her wards whispered of four humans, two grown and two hatchlings. Too foolish to have heeded her warnings, now trespassing on their sacred burial ground.

Unfurling her wings, she slithered out of her den, the forest itself shuddering at her furious shrieks.

"FRAYFOLK, FEAR NOT. YOUR DEFILEMENT SHALL BE AVENGED!"

"TONIGHT, WE SHALL ALL FEAST ONE MORE!"