~Chapter 4~

Misfortune

Hazel hair, colorful tartan shawl and matching skirt trailing behind her, Bradán chased after Yellowman. Hands firmly clasped around the straps of her backpack in an effort to make it feel lighter, her baggy sleeves hung halfway down her pale, freckled and skinny forearms. Working her short and just as skinny legs as hard as she could to keep up, she could only just barely keep track of Yellowman’s pale blonde hair and the charred tatters of his black and orange - but now mostly black - uniform.

Under her breath, she cursed the treeline being too tall and the hills and valleys too steep. The trees even blocked her view when she was at the top of a hill!

It was only because Yellowman kept pausing at the top of each hill to catch his breath and get his bearings before running off again that she was able to keep up at all. Worse, the sky was starting to dim and as more and more shadows stretched across the volcanic hills of the orchard the threat of Yellowman’s escape seemed more and more likely to her.

“Coward!”

Bradán shouted, and Yellowman almost tripped from snapping his head around to glare over his shoulder. Keeping his feet under him and scoffing so loudly she could hear it from half a hill behind him, he shouted back.

“Moran!” A tree burst into flames halfway in Yellowman’s way and rather than skirt around it he snapped his good hand up and sent out a quick spray of yellow embers, the burning tree promptly exploding in a cloud of black smoke and a rain of twigs. “I am a Ginereál!” Another set of trees behind the first burst into flames in front of Bradán, the short girl hurriedly seizing the fire and pulling it away to snuff it out in a harmless scatter of orange sparkles. “This is a strategic retreat!”

Every time Bradán tried to put out one of the fires it would spring right back up, and Yellowman simply blowing up the fires in his path allowed him to get a longer and longer lead as the chase continued. Almost as if to taunt her, Yellowman took longer and longer breaks to catch his breath before running away again.

Then, as Bradán was dealing with another fire Yellowman stopped long enough to hop up and snag a not-quite-ripe apple from a tree and flung it downhill right at her head.

With a wet thunk the hard piece of fruit half-splattered against the left side of her forehead, bouncing off as the short girl stumbled in a daze and lost her focus. Orange fire in her hands dropped from her grasp, catching on her skirt and one sock. With a panicked cry of “Feck!” she glanced down and promptly smacked right into a tree so hard it knocked what little air she had in her lungs right out of them. A small shower of apples rained down around her, one bouncing off her head, and with a hideous cackle Yellowman spun back around to keep running.

“Yaw-haw-haw! You'd saunter off if you were smart, not that it would help!” The trees just behind Yellowman burst into flames, a small wall between Bradán and the injured man as he reached the top of another hill. “With a fresh unit behind me, you’ll be hunted down and executed as a pretender seeking to undermine Breac Dea-dharhach’s Enlightenment!”

With a shake of her head, Bradán frantically pulled the fire from her clothes and snuffed it out. Her shin had a burn on it and the sock in question was burned through in the middle, and while her skirt fared better the hemline along one side had been burned black and jagged. Wincing, she brought one hand down to the burn on her shin and gently pressed her fingertips against it. Orange sparkles pulled away from the wound, lingering heat drawn away and discarded. The burn on her freckled shin remained, an angry red that stuck out against her pale skin, but it wouldn’t get any worse for the time being.

Unfortunately she couldn’t do the same for the knot welling up above her left eyebrow, where the apple had struck her. Fingers brushing against it gingerly, she winced again and pulled her fingers away with a scowl - on top of being painful, now she had sticky apple juice on her head and fingers and it was making some of her hair cling awkwardly to her forehead.

Nose scrunched up and scowling harder, she brushed her hair behind her ear and pushed herself away from the tree she had smacked into. From the next hill over, Yellowman shouted at her with a wave of his good hand as he turned to run down the other side.

“Don’t worry though, I’ll make it sound like a battle for the ages! Thanks to you, I can pretend I never ran into that horned devil at all! Yaw-haw-ehhh?”

Yellowman’s laughter cut off suddenly as the patch of trees in his path burst into flames. Boots skidding against the ashy dirt, he came to a stop at the very edge of the fire and tipped forward. Balancing on the tips of his toes and good arm flailing, the man very nearly fell face first into the fire entirely. Then he leaned back, heels touching down on solid ground, and scurried away from the fire. With a sigh of relief the man snapped his good hand out and blew that fire up too, sending ash and twigs and black smoke high into the evening sky.

Licking his thumb and index finger, Yellowman casually reached up to pinch the small orange fire burning away at the end of the wavy side-curl of his pale blonde hair. Peering at the abrupt, charred way his hair ended and making a ‘tsk’ sound with his tongue, the man stepped forward to continue on his way.

Only for a flaming, sizzling apple to bounce off the top of his head. Flinching and confused, Yellowman reached up to pat the spot with his good hand and glanced up into the sky - only to spot smoke and little else. Another apple, just as on fire as the last, hit him in the back of the neck and the man yelped as his good hand snapped around to grasp at the fresh burn mark on his tan skin.

“Will you, yeah?!” Bradán’s much delayed retort was accompanied by another lobbed, burning apple that Yellowman hastily ducked under. A fourth apple soon followed, and as he turned heel and ran the agitated girl shouted after him. “I couldn’t give two figs about any of that Enlightenment bollox!”

The apples she had thrown put themselves out in a shimmer of orange glitter shortly after they landed on the ground, thoroughly roasted but in no danger of being the cause of another fire. With no more apples to use as ammo and the fires put out behind them, Bradán resumed her pursuit of Yellowman… only to come jogging up next to him as she crested the top of the next hill, the Ginereál propped up with his back against a tree and his good hand up.

Immediately the short girl brought her own hands up to defend herself, only for Yellowman to hastily speak up with a slight stammer.

“S-stall the ball, for a moment.”

Blinking in surprise at the request, Bradán pursed her lips uncertainly. Left eyebrow half-raised - impeded by the bump above her eye - she cautiously asked.

“Why?”

Yellowman reached up to grasp a branch of the tree he was propped up against, and with a pull and a twist yanked off a sizable piece. Blowing softly on it, a single yellow ember floated over to lightly touch the tip of the branch in his hand. With a tiny pop, the end of the branch burst into yellow flames. Raising his makeshift torch above his head, small wisps of black smoke floating into the night sky, he cast his gaze across the dimly lit hilltop. Amber eyes narrowed, he answered in a quiet voice.

“We’re not far from a river. ”

A skeptical twist to her lips made it clear Bradán was unconvinced, not lowering her guard any.

“And?”

Yellowman shot her an incredulous look, a sneer forming on his narrow face after a moment. Scoffing and shaking his head, he replied.

“Even a culchie huair shou-” Bradán’s expression soured immediately, and she snapped a foot out to kick at Yellowman - but the man hopped away and her foot hit the tree instead. With a wince, she brought her leg back and balanced on the other as she massaged her sore toes through her shoe. “-ld know not to go near rivers at night.”

“Call me a huair one more time and I’m gonna kick your bollox so hard Breac Dea-dhathach won’t be able to find them again!”

Even with the yellow torchlight casting harsh shadows across her face, Yellowman didn’t seem particularly intimidated by the freckle-faced traveler’s threat. It didn’t help that her cheeks were puffed out in indignation, face was red from exhaustion, and the bump over her left eye all made her seem more like a pouting kid than an outraged young lady. Yellowman just turned his attention back to the shadows between the trees and waved his makeshift torch from side to side dismissively, not bothering to look at her as she stepped in to try and kick him again.

“If you try to fight me here and now, we’ll probably both die.”

Yellowman interrupted in a matter-of-fact sort of way, with a tone that made ‘we’ sound more like ‘you’. Under that, though, was a nervous edge to his voice that Bradán couldn’t help but recognize as genuine fear. Reluctantly, the poof went out of her freckled cheeks with a huff as a serious look took its place on her face and Bradán lowered her foot back down. Hands raised to defend herself from… whatever it was, she focused her hazel eyes on trying to make out anything at all in the shadows.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Sure look… What’s the danger?”

She kept Yellowman in the corner of her eye, just in case this was some manner of trick, but then the leaves on the trees just beyond the torchlight ruffled and a creak of wood sounded and Bradán’s attention was firmly in front of her. At first it sounded like the trees were just swaying in the wind, as far as Bradán could tell - but she felt no wind herself and the light cast by Yellowman’s torch wasn’t flickering or unsteady. Squinting, straining to see into the darkness, she thought she caught sight of a black tuft of fur as something large brushed by another set of trees.

Bradán and Yellowman both turned to keep the rustled trees in front of them as whatever lurked beyond the torchlight paced a wide circle around them. As they did, Yellowman took a deep breath and started to answer her question.

“Dobhar-chú, it’s-”

Loud, shrieking roars rang out across the night sky and Yellowman cut himself off to spin around and snap his head up towards the sky. Bradán did so as well, and far off in the distance the sound of many, many roars rose and fell like a monsterous and out of sync warcry. Bright against the dark sky, ghastly white shapes twisted and circled around far above the ground. Disembodied torsos with long, clawed arms and stout, snouted heads - and so large that even at a distance and as high up from the ground as the apparitions were, Bradán could make out mouths stretched open in twisted permanent snarls.

“Bánánach!?”

Bradán and Yellowman murmured in recognition at the same time, one in alarm and the other in confusion. Yellowman’s brow furrowed, glancing down to try and make out whatever the Bánánach were circling over - but the orchard was too dense and the hills too uneven and the night too dark to tell. With a glance back at the rustled movements in the trees, thin eyebrows narrowed and lips set into a hard line, the man cursed under his breath as he brought his torch hand down in front of his face. Inhaling deep, he exhaled hard and sent a long spray of yellow embers into the trees.

Explosion after explosion scattered yellow fire, black smoke and the charred remains of trees all about. Even as the force of the blasts ruffled her hair and shawl, and twigs bounced off her head and shoulders, Bradán kept staring wide eyed at the screaming spirits in the distant sky. The thing stalking them let out a strange yelp, and made a hasty retreat into a different part of the orchard and all signs of it vanishing for the time being.

The Gineréal cursed under his breath, wheezing and coughing slightly. Standing straight and a hard, determined look settling onto his narrow face, Yellowman spun on his heel and broke into a mad dash in the direction of the Bánánach. Torchlight going with him, and quickly vanishing behind trees and hills, Bradán was left in the dark orchard alone and frozen in place.

Then all at once she went from stunned to outraged. Hazel eyes wide and voice raised, cracking in the middle of her words, she launched into a rambling rant - Demanding to know what Orange Orchard Company was doing. When she received only silence, she finally forced herself to look away from the Bánánach to find Yellowman was long since gone.

Frantically glancing this way and that for any sign of the missing man, she caught sight of a flash of yellow between the trees not far away, and with a shout of “Fecker!” she threw herself into a sprint after it.

The flash of yellow turned, and suddenly Bradán realized it was a pair of bright and shiny eyes peering at her from between the trees right in front of her. Leaves rustling and wood creaking, tree trunks were forced to bend aside as the eyes suddenly bolted off out of sight. Bradán came to such a hasty stop she nearly fell on her face, only not thanks to a tree she was able to grab ahold of.

The short girl stood straight as a board, back pressed into the tree. Searching all around her for where the yellow eyes had gone, her heart was pounding painfully loud in her chest. The shrieking roars of the Bánánach echoing in her skull didn’t help. She was breathing hard, and sore and exhausted, and felt like she could hardly think strai-

The yellow eyes lunged towards her from the left, trees forced aside in its wake. Under the light of the stars and moon she could barely make out pitch-black fur, the shiny eyes set in a wide and flat-topped head with a massive mouth stretching open to reveal sharp needle-like teeth.

Bradán flung herself out of the way, the tree behind her cracking as the creature slammed into it… and bounced off awkwardly onto the ashy ground.

The Dobhar-chú flopped and writhed about, its entire body long and noodle-like. Four stubby legs capped by sharp claws scrambled to try and find purchase on the ground and its long tail slapped wildly around itself - Bradán safely outside its reach as it bashed against trees and ash-covered dirt. The violent fit was short lived and a few seconds later it had righted itself. Belly barely raised above the ash covered dirt, bright yellow eyes focused on Bradán again.

Longer than Bradán was tall by at least three times over, and more than four times as wide, the only reason she hadn’t been able to see it sooner - the dark of the night aside - was because it failed to clear the treetops with how stubby and low-set to the ground its legs were. In fact, as it took a few wary steps in a side-circle sort of way with its eyes locked on her, it was lower to the ground than Bradán herself was.

Even so, she was uncomfortably aware that it could probably swallow her without even chewing if it wanted to.

The creature lowered its head and took a few quick steps towards her and Bradán’s hands clapped together with fingers splayed. Massive mouth open and needle-like teeth on full display, it tried to snap at her. Hands pulling away, orange sparkles burst into flames and lit up the night air around them. The Dobhar-chú panicked at the flash of bright light and heat, its long body twisting and rolling off to the side as it tucked its head down and brought clawed paws up and over its eyes. Bradán clapped her hands together again with a deep breath, forcing herself to stay focused and ready to send another flash of fire towards the creature.

“No hot-thing, no hot-thing!”

The creature whined, and Bradán blinked slowly. Once, then twice, and then her eyes lit up in realization. Pulling her hands away, orange embers clinging to her hands and casting light across the creature’s pitch-black, shaggy fur, Bradán jabbed an accusing finger at it - the creature flinching and recoiling from the heat and light of the embers on her hands.

“You’re a Púca!”

Claws raising up off its head slightly, a moment of silence passed. Then in a hasty scramble the thing stood straight and barred sharp teeth at her in a growl.

“Am Dobhar-chú! Gonna eat-chu!”

Bradán, flat and entirely unamused look on her face, simply thrust her hands close to the creature’s face and it immediately recoiled once again with another cry of “No hot-thing!”. Without a blink or so much as a twitch in her expression, Bradán pulled away. The creature relaxed again and settled down to sit on the ground with legs tucked up underneath it. Yellow eyes locked on her hands, the creature admitted.

“Am Púca.”

Bradán’s expression twisted into a frustrated scowl - though it was not really directed at the Púca. The Bánánach still roared high in the sky off in the distance, she had no idea where Yellowman had run off to, and her head and legs ached. Especially that burn on her shin. One hand up to massage the front and side of her forehead, Bradán half-murmured.

“Scared me to bits.”

“Thanks!”

The Púca beamed as if it had just been praised, a strange smile stretching across the mimicry of a Dobhar-chú’s muzzle. Bradán pulled her hand away from her head to gesture at the white spirits with a hesitantly hopeful look on her face.

“Are those also Púca?”

The Púca broke out into laughter at that, shaking its head from side to side like she had just asked it the most ridiculous thing it had ever heard. Cheeks puffing out, Bradán thrust her hands back down towards the yellow-eyed creature. Laughter cut out as the Púca suddenly scrunched backwards on itself, noodly neck and body all bundled up close to hind legs in an effort to lean backwards and away from the fire with cries of “No hot-thing, no hot-thing!” once more. Bradán didn’t push closer, but she kept her arms held in place with a firm and serious look on her face.

Long neck twisting off to one side and head turned away from the fire, the Púca let out a high pitched whine when protesting didn’t work. When that didn’t get any sympathy from the short girl either, the creature finally answered.

“Shriek-things are shriek-things!” Bradán pulled her hands away and the Púca relaxed with a slump of its long head and a sigh. Brow furrowed and a concerned purse to her lips, the short girl turned her attention to where the Bánánach continued to circle and shriek at whatever was going on down below them. “Short-thing not like shriek-things?” The Púca questioned, and Bradán nodded quietly. Then she paused and scowled, attention pulled to the Púca as she grumpily snapped.

“I’m not a ‘short-thing’, you dosser.”

The Púca tipped its head to one side, quizzically. Neck and body stretching back out to full length, the creature paced halfway around her and gave her a once-over before it gave a skeptical reply.

“Short for a tall-thing.”

Cheeks puffed out, and a frustrated look on her face, for a moment Bradán looked like she was about to flip her lid. But then she just gave a tired sigh, shoulders slumping slightly and nodding.

“I know.”

The Púca laughed again as it prance-skipped away from her until it was out of arm's reach. Which, for Bradán, was hardly very far at all. When Bradán didn’t attempt to threaten it again, it turned about to present one side to her and asked.

“Worried about shriek-things? Am fast, can go see quickly.”

“No tricks?”

The Púca raised its head up and to the side, as if offended, and huffed. One eyebrow raised skeptically, Bradán glanced about. It was dark and cold, and while the embers on her hands kept both of those at bay to some degree she wasn’t particularly fond of the idea of hoofing it on foot up and down more hills as quickly as she could. There was no chance she would get there soon, and Yellowman had run off to who knew where. Lips pursed, quietly debating the matter, the short girl’s brow furrowed and nose scrunched up in visible distaste as she came to her conclusion.

“Okay, let’s be quick th-”

Only to be cut off as the Púca brought one of its stubby front legs up in a warding gesture, halting Bradán’s approach.

“No hot-thing!”

Bradán paused, an annoyed grimace on her face. Reluctantly, she closed her hands and snuffed out the embers along her palms and fingers in a shimmer of harmless sparkles. Dark and cold immediately settled in around them, and with a grumble of “Fine.” the short girl hastily climbed up onto the Púca’s noodly, black-furred back. She could hardly lock her legs around its sides, and no matter where she looked she couldn’t seem to find an ideal place to hold on with her hands.

While she was getting situated, the Púca hunched even lower down to the ground. Squat legs out to the sides and head and tail straight out forward and back, it gave a little wiggle that wobbled Bradán atop its back. After another wiggle and then one more for good measure, the creature started to count to three.

“One, tw-”

The Púca shot forward before it had even finished ‘two’, Bradán gave a startled yell of “Feck!” as she nearly tumbled backwards clear off the things back. Luckily her backpack helped weigh her down, and her skinny legs quickly locked against its sides in so strong a deathgrip it made her legs ache even more. Arms flailing this way and that, the inexperienced rider frantically fumbled for anything solid to hold on to - settling for tufts of long fur on its neck.

Icy cold wind stung against her face, and Bradán had to squint just to see where they were going as the noodly creature dashed across the hills and valleys. As low to the ground as it hugged, every rise and fall of a hill sent her bouncing up and down violently on its back. Then the Pùca started weaving between the trees, rocking her from side to side so hard she could feel the grip she had with her legs start to slip.

Jaw clenched, Bradán managed to wrap her fingers around tufts of the Púca’s long fur and pull herself against it. Chest pressing down along its long body and face half-buried in its neck, she could feel her nails digging sharply into her palms. As the trees zipped by, small twigs shattering off as they glanced across the side of her head or the Púca she was riding on, Bradán felt her stomach flip in protest. Struggling to keep calm she tried to shut her eyes to block it out.

She immediately regretted it and her eyes shot right back open.

Disoriented even more without sight to help ground her, her stomach had practically folded in on itself. Cheeks puffing out, lips tightly pressed together, it took all the control Bradán had to force herself to choke back a deep breath. As fast as the Púca ran, the wind itself made it hard to breathe and she had to tilt her head down and to the side just to manage a proper breath of air.

A wave of heat and a flash of light washed over them, trees bursting into flames as the Púca sprinted right through the fire. Bradán flinched, eyes shutting reflexively and immediately regretting it again. Forcing her eyes back open, the nightmarish ride took them through a second fire. Keeping her eyes open during the sudden shift from dark to bright hurt, eyes watering and squinting to the point of being just shy of fully closed. It was worse if she closed them, though.

At least the sheer speed the Púca was running at prevented either of them from catching on fire. Even though it still stung against her pale skin when the flames were close enough to practically brush across her freckled cheeks. Her breath caught in her chest, torn between trying to keep herself together and screaming as they barreled through a third and then a fourth patch of burning trees. Then, all of a sudden, Bradán came to a horrifying realization.

The Púca wasn’t afraid of fire.