The Fae are not evil.

The texts have always been clear on that account. Fickle, perhaps. Incomprehensible and inhuman. They commit atrocities and bestow blessings like we draw breath and brush our beards. They orchestrate mayhem at their whimsey and entertain themselves at mortal's expense.

Evil though? Nay. But never have the Fae been accused of kindness.

— Quote: A commentary on a commentary of Merlin's (The Merlin) translated account of the Arthurian Tales

* * *

The tension left the Forerunner as she accepted the plate from him, and she instead adopted an aloof, indulgent air, like a cloud passing over a tree, but still deigning to brush the leaves with mist. She even went so far as to smile kindly at Leinan and inquire about her day.

This put no one at ease, least of all Leinan, who, after freezing a moment, her eyes darting quickly between The Forerunner, Barnibus himself, and then back and forth between Keimen and Aemon, answered curtly with a stream of words that Barnibus could not at all understand, but which made The Forerunner brighten considerably and flash grins to all present — including Barnibus — as she consumed her fish.

Consume was the right word. She did so in something almost like a slurp, like someone might pasta. He offered her a second steak without missing a beat and she obliged him daintily, still looking chuffed the way a sparrow might after having found a hidden pile of sesame.... No. That wasn't at all the right analogy, Barnibus thought. More like a....

"Wolverine who found another wolverine's buried deer haunch in the depths of winter?" Hat supplied helpfully.

Yes. Barnibus thought. Exactly like that.

After a moment, Hat spoke again very, very quietly. "When next you make it back to your robe," Hat said. "Delve around a bit under the left lapel. You have a Draught of Living Death there that you stupidly brewed thinking it might help you sleep and forgot about. If you combine it with some of the viper tooth shavings you have in your right pocket — robe pocket, you can probably get rid of the 'Living' part. Now —"

For his part Barnibus tried to smile back benignly and really really hoped that the correct type of twinkle was present in his eyes as he listened with one ear to his Hat. He also inquired after The Forerunner's day, to which she responded with a minor soliloquy about chasing rabbits through the underbrush on a winter night.

Barnibus gave a good "Bravo!" afterwards, and Leinan snorted bitterly, then realizing what she had done, hunched down over her plate of fish.

Barnibus saw her conceal the plate for a moment. When she moved again the slab of fish left on her plate was gone.

The tension could have been cut with a knife, and, as Barnibus reached into his robe, which was lying helpfully next to him by the fire, and Leinan fingered her belt knife worriedly when she thought no one was looking, and The Forerunner just smiled knowingly, mischievously, and with enough saccharine to level a roomful of three year olds into a sugar coma, Barnibus thought that maybe he'd miscalculated... if there had been any calculations going at all.

It happened as Barnibus offered The Forerunner her fourth helping. The second had gone much the same way as the first... and —

"Oh, thank you, dear Barnibus, but I think, just one more for myself, shall do for me quite splendidly."

"J-just the one more?" That drew Barnibus up short, and of course, like a tugged rope, did the same to everyone around the campfire. Barnibus's eyes darted to the plate and then back to the last two fish left waiting to be eaten.

Two left. Two he was passing to The Forerunner. Two. If she took only one, then that turned both numbers into three... and three...

Not knowing what to do he proffered the plate again with two steaks on it helplessly.

The Forerunner cocked her head at him and grinned slowly.

"Nay." The Forerunner said grinning toothily. They were sharper than human teeth, Barnibus noticed again and with an understandable amount of mortal anxiety. "I only desire the slices three. And then I must be off. The night grows late and the moon dim. By thine Hat's brim, the deeds of this night shall not please thee."

"B-But" — Barnibus tried again.

"Dost thou seek to keep me here against mine own desire?"

"N-no! O-of course not" Barnibus stumbled in his words and then shivered as a gust of wind wove hungrily across his back. The cold was back. He had not noticed that it had left. "I — I just — I am merely trying to be a good host."

"And a good host thy hath been. I say it true and thus it is so. For that which I brought and that which thy shared thee hast acquitted thyself unto me well. Once more I say and done. One fish I shall eat and then I bid thee farewell."

"Now the evil Fae is rhyming.... I'm pretty sure that the literature on all magical denizens period agree that rhyming is a bad sign no matter who's doing it." Barnibus found himself agreeing whole heartedly and his fist clenched around what he had taken from his robe just a moment ago. "No-no. I don't think that's a good idea." His Hat hissed. "She said she was going to go. I say we oblige her. Live to fight another day and all. 'One fish she shalt eat and then she bids us farewell.' I like the sound of that."

And the leaving part? Once she left, could she come back? Not as a guest?

"She has to really leave, though." Hat said, after more contemplation than Barnibus had ever heard from the head covering. "I'm certain of it. She has to leave in good faith, not just kind of step away and come back. Otherwise I don't think it counts. That gives us time."

Time?

"Time!" Hissed Hat. Time to set up some protections. Now that you've eaten a bit you've built back up some of that Anima you wasted, and don't think I didn't notice you pilfering that Mana from Leinan and the children! It might be our best bet."

Barnibus grimaced. Somehow he didn't think Fright of the Night Terrors and Unpracticed Slight of Hand was going to be very effective...

"Of course not! She eats all of that for breakfast with her mourning children-fingers. But we could probably spin it into some concealment after she's Left in Good Faith, you numbskull!"

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

Could they? Barnibus struggled, and for once, he didn't think that stroking his beard was the correct response. Neither was adjusting his hat or....

He'd used Practiced Slight of Hand in some concealments before and in his Laboratory in the Barnwinkle library he had some Expert Slight of Hand he'd been saving away for a rainy day that he dearly wished he'd kept on his person, now... but Unpracticed? From Leinan? It felt about as solid as tissue paper.

He didn't think that The Forerunner had noticed, however, what with the soliloquying... and instinct told him that that might make it uncharacteristically potent in this particular circumstance. Still....

Barnibus's eyes traveled to the two fish that would become three, and thought about the three fish that The Forerunner would have eaten when she left. Three.

"Bar-nibus," his Hat asked in a weary drawl, "Why are you trying keep the obviously wicked creature of the winter cold in your campsite when she wants to leave? In the middle of a strange forest? In a strange land? With no working, potion or charm prepared and barely a thimble's worth of extra Anima up your sleeve? Barely any useable Anima of your own left? Are you trying to die? Because", the Hat breathed in his ear, "If you do, and you leave me here to whatever fell doom your grandfather was talking about, I will personally ensure that if you are remembered at all, it will be as nothing more than a footnote with as many associative multiples of three I can find! Are you seriously considering barring her from leaving over three fish?"

Of course it wasn't just that the number was three. There were a great many other reasons why... well. There were reasons why three was not a great number. It wasn't the worst... but....

"You're truly wanting to stake our lives on this?"

Three was odd. Three was a prime. Three was the first odd prime, and one was the first odd number. Three events had brought him to this point. He had fallen through a portal. He had stilled and escaped the river. He invited this strange, inhuman creature to dinner.

Three was not a bad number any more than two was. But strange things happened around odd numbers, and momentous things occurred around primes. Not always... not all the time. But they tended to enough. And there were a lot of threes stacking up this night.

Doing existential math in your head is a difficult, uncertain business even in the best of times, and Barnibus wouldn't have been able to do it without a lot of time to compose himself, his grandfather special blend of tea, reams of preparatory notes and his grandfather's library for reference, much less in his head while juggling social niceties with three — that number again — children who didn't speak his language and a beautiful woman with sharper than normal k-nines. But even with that uncertainty, Barnibus had a deep, unsettling sensation, that he was having a very hard time shaking.

The Forerunner was smiling at him and had very specifically not wanted four. How good was The Forerunner at existential math?

None of it made any difference.

In retrospect, Barnibus was certain that Leinan's slight of hand had not grown in quality from the stuff he had stolen earlier, and that now that he thought of it, she had been growing increasingly more weary of... well everything.

And if he had thought, he might have noticed that bump in confidence she had shown when speaking to The Forerunner earlier that he chalked up to losing the Fright of the Night Terrors to him....

And that if he had put himself into her shoes — or boots as it were — instead of pondering the possible implications the first odd prime might have on the fates of all present, he might have considered instead how his easy conversations with The Forerunner might look to the three frightened children.

And disregarding all of that, if he had not been lost in Wizardly Contemplation to begin with, he might have noticed the weary looks turn into hard determination and had some warning.

There wasn't any.

Leinan leapt at The Forerunner with a cry, her knife flashing into her hand in a fashion that did not at all look Unpracticed and slashed. Once. Twice.

The Forerunner bowed back — back — back until her snow-pale hair brushed the leaves of the forest floor, and then the rest of her followed, flowing like liquid instead of muscle and bone. Her entire form flowed under the knife and off of her rock like a waterfall and Leinan's knife cut nothing but air.

"Aemon! Keimen!" The children were already dashing toward her making to run and —

The wind howled, bursting through the forest canopy above and spraying frigid frost, dirt and leaves everywhere. The fire banked almost to nothing and —"Beautiful treachery" — the surrounding world went black.

It was like the world fell away. As if there was nothing beyond but the barely burning campfire, the Wizard paralyzed in fear and cold. The children staring in horror at the blackness where trees had been. And The Forerunner.

She rose up from where she had rolled, her eyes glowing with trapped moonlight, and hair the color of star-dappled ice whipping about her like a gleaming, spinning halo. Her back arched and her lips parted just barely as if in ecstasy. "Betrayal most foul." She giggled, a fluidly tinkling sound like a brook a hairs breath from fully icing over.

"Oh, dear children fine, how did thee enjoy the last song of mine? Hmm? Pray lend ear to another."

She laughed merrily and took a single skipping step towards the children huddled behind Leinan, their backs to the black wall, and Leinan brandishing her belt knife in a frozen, horrified grip.

The Forerunner opened her lips and —

The winds doth blow, the snow doth fall

An' all the world be cold and pale

The ice doth grip, the frost doth bite

An' all the land be lost to night

The Forerunner foot fell with the crunch of frost where there should have been the crackling of leaves and a curtain of snow began to fall solemnly from between the leaves. Slowly at first, just a flake or two at a time, but it thickened and the white from the falling snow hid the sky above.

The trees doth shake, the branches crack

An' all the creatures flee their track

The wolves doth howl, the deer do flee

An' all the land be lost to thee

He could hear it, Barnibus thought, the fear that swept through the forest he could not see. He heard wolf howls, hungry and near and the children suddenly gasped and backed away from the wall they could not see through as yellow eyes flicked open in its depths.

There was another crunch as The Forerunner stepped closer. Softer now that the ice had been covered in fresh snow. Her voice rang out clear and cold in the night somehow unmuffled by the quickly falling snow.

In winter's grasp, thee huddle close

An' pray for spring to thaw thine woes

But winter's hold is strong and deep

An' all thine hopes shall slowly seep

Cold horror. The oppressive fear of a lonely winter world. The cold glimmer of the stars. Timeless. Untouchable by mortal kind.

Cold. Unkind. Grim....

Step.

And now she was standing over them. Looming as she should not have been able to before. Her beautiful, etherial face up turned to the snowy sky as she sang. Her arms stretched to either side like an embrace. Wreathed in shadow and frigid glory like chill moonlight given form.

The Forerunners mouth wasn't even moving anymore. Just open in merriment and delight.

The wind sang, as if it had picked up from where she had left off sometime ago so seamlessly that it hadn't been noticed. So cold. So inhumanly beautiful. So...

Into the ground, into the snow

Until the spring doth come, and go

An' winter reigns once more supreme

Forever dark and cold and....

"Oh! Out! Out! Scat, foul thoughts! Away I say! Away! Come thee back another day! But such masterful music! Wondrous!"

And a nearly naked and very cold wizard barreled through, flapping his hat back and forth as if shooing away flies, and the spell....

The darkness dimmed and wafted away from the hat like smoke.

The wind faltered and the fire, dimmed almost to the point of embers, roared back larger than before.

The horrifying, timeless, oppressive aura of despair and fear, like a cloying miasma in the air, weakened, and wavered...

....The spell — because, of course, there is no better way to dilute fear, than to add a dash of levity to the cauldron — vanished.

* * *

The children stood there, gasping, and staring between the freezing form of the wizard, his beard carpeted in frost, and skin turning a very unhealthy shade of blue, and The Forerunner, standing there across from them looking for the first time that night absolutely flummoxed beyond all recognition.

Her eyes were wide and her mouth open in a silent, elongated 'oh'.

She stood there for exactly three thundering heartbeats. Three.... Then the children, the wizard and all the wolves — who had for some reason gathered outside the firelight and didn't know why — witnessed a new emotion flash across The Forerunner's face.

RAGE.

And then the stink draughts really did hit the cooling spell.