Author's Note
Strongly recommend reading Dead by Sunset first, as this directly relates. No prior knowledge of the story is necessarily needed, however.
Memories
Adagio Dazzle
The winters of the north are no less bitter here than they ever were in Equestria, and perhaps that is one of the few things these two miserable worlds have in common. The low rumble of the carriage I’m riding in is barely tolerable, the roads here in the northern Tsardoms are bad, even in the ‘good’ areas, and this is not one of those places. The cushions hardly make up for it either.
I look to my side and sigh. Even now I half expect to see my sisters sitting there, Aria with her arms crossed, leaning back with a sullen scowl on her face; my most bellicose sister never did have a face or personality that suited a proper pout. With a quiver of my lip, I could have men and women alike as putty in my hands. If her lip was quivering it was only in rage and only as a herald to a truly legendary beating that was about to take place. Then there was Sonata. The idiot-child savant I had the displeasure of being distantly related to. Seduction wasn’t just not in her wheelhouse, it wasn’t even in her vocabulary. That being said, while my skills kept us flush in magical energy, hers kept us flush with more worldly goods.
Something I found myself thankful for when we split up.
I’m not even entirely sure why I wanted to go off on my own. I was so… tired of our routine. Go to a city, rile it up, start a riot, drain the magic, then move on and do it again.
We would never, ever have enough to get home, though. The hard fact we faced after centuries on this magic-null rock of a planet is quite clear. We need a waterfall’s worth of magic to escape our prison here and… well, we’re lucky if we find a tiny spring.
Glancing outside I watch the winter scenery pass. I came here because it would be easy to survive. The north is such a brutal place, there’s no shortage of resentment especially given the Northern Tsardom’s generally cruel treatment of its people. I’d have all the necessary magic I needed. Not as much as I wanted, of course, but needs must.
Plus, without three sirens feeding at the same time I figure I’ll be able to keep myself going for a long time without drawing attention. We were lucky last time, we barely scarpered quickly enough before an inquisition fired off on the peninsula we’d set up shop at before I decided to leave. We weren’t expecting that kind of response.
Here though?
I grin faintly, this place is easy. A little money went a long way in this impoverished shithole. Throw enough in the right direction and suddenly I’m the estranged daughter of a Privy Councillor, with all that station grants. Including this carriage, a couple of guards, and the servant driver.
“But now what?” I ask quietly and slump back in the seat. “There’s no shortage of villages here, I suppose I could take one over.”
A few rumors here, a bribe there. A touch of blackmail of course, and I’d have the local constabulary and governorship in my hands.
But for how long? Eventually, people would notice I didn’t age.
“Ugh, I hate this world.”
A loud, thundering report split the still winter air of the road, jolting me upright.
“That was a flintlock,” I mutter, feeling a slight pang of fear. I’d seen the ruin those weapons could deal to a body. No amount of magic in the world would help if I was killed immediately at range by that kind of weapon.
I glance out the window and grimace, my carriage is surrounded by humans, all carrying weapons of war that have seen far better years. Two of them have the aforementioned tools of death. Flintlock muskets, clearly much better cared for. Those two have the look of seasoned soldiers, probably disenfranchised veterans of some war or other. The people of this miserable rock are, almost literally, always killing each other. The rest have the look of mangy strays, though. It’s like seeing two wolves leading a pack of starving hounds.
“Out of the carriage!” One of the leaders shouted in a harsh voice. “Now!”
Well, at least my day got interesting. I open the door to the carriage and step out, carefully measuring every footstep as I lift my gown to step on the snow-caked road.
The leers and hoots from the bandits send a disgusting shiver up my back and I suppress a snarl of my own. They have no idea that they’re in the presence of an apex predator.
But they’re about to.
I flash my most winning smile. “Good evening, gentlemen, to what do I owe the pleasure of your company this day?”
One of the presumed ex-soldiers walks up to me, he stinks of alcohol and black powder and he’s filthy. His—thankfully gloved—hand comes up to grip my chin and he grins a smile full of rotting teeth at me. Good thing I’m not hungry or I’d have certainly lost my appetite.
“What a beauty…” the soldier sneers, licking his lips lecherously. “Here I was hoping for a merchant carriage, or maybe an aristo with more money than sense. This might be better…”
“If it’s money you want, I’d be happy to see your men paid,” I respond, meeting his leering eyes with marked disinterest.
He releases my chin and steps back, something for which my nose is immediately and immensely thankful for, and gives me a mocking, exaggerated bow.
“Well, what a generous offer, m’lady,” he crows, “did you hear that, lads? She’s going to see us paid!” All around me the men and mangy rats of their band laugh unpleasantly. “But how will you do that, I wonder? Even the nobles are empty of pocket these days.”
“Not all of us,” I retort, reaching into the pocket of my jacket I throw down a small purse. “There, proof, it’s pocket change for me ‘lads’.”
I can tell he’s surprised by how hard he tries not to show it, and for his sake, I keep the grin off of my face. I might as well permit him this small dignity considering what’s about to happen. The man snatches the purse from the ground and opens it, letting several thick gold pieces tumble out along with a small handful of fine gemstones. Where one might not serve in one market, the other inevitably does.
The naked greed in the eyes of his men is almost palpable. No, scratch that, for me it is palpable. I can taste it like blood in the water and my lips peel back to show my teeth.
“Ey, what’re you grinning at missy?!” the leader snaps, not reacting well to be wrong-footed. “You think this is enough to buy your way out of our beds tonight?”
Hilarious. He thinks I’m smiling. I’ll never understand how these bipeds can mistake a predator baring its fangs and getting ready to feast for a smile.
“Of course not,” I respond easily, casually running my hands through my hair. “You gentlemen are above such paltry amounts, I’m sure.” The only thing I’m sure of is that they haven’t seen that kind of wealth in months. Maybe years. I swing the door open and reach under the seat to pull out a small lockbox. “Here, there’s more.”
I toss it to the ground and I can tell it’s only by the barest margin that he and his partner don’t fall on it like starving dogs after a fresh cut from the butcher’s. Their men have no such control and immediately rush it, scrabbling at the lid only to find it locked, as per its name.
Chuckling, I shrug. “Oh, my apologies, of course you’ll be wanting the key,” I say, my expression never changing. “Here you go, boys,” I reach under my hairband and draw out a bright silver key. Real silver too, a fact that I can tell isn’t lost on them. “Have it as a gift from me.”
I toss the key to the small mob before their leaders can protest. They’re losing control and I love it. I can taste the distrust, the greed, the naked desperation and hunger in each of them. It’s practically boiling. The two soldiers are shouting at their men as one of them finally wrests control of the key and shoves it in the lock.
Too forcefully, though. The key snaps loudly. Of course it does, I made it that way. An unbroken and solid key was in my pocket. That was just to get them mad at each other. They’re shouting now, drowning the snowy landscape in anger and rage. Accusing each other, snapping at, and threatening, one another. The leaders trying to shout over them to regain order.
And I’m not even singing yet.
I take a breath, savoring the delicious bouquet of desperate fury that’s bubbling over. My mind wheels through a library of music and I select something local. Licking my lips, I open my mouth and very, very softly… sing.
Bayu bayushki bayu... ne lozhisya na krayu...
Magic drains from them, leaving the by-products of my feeding in its place. Anger and resentment that adds to a barely contained cauldron of negative emotions. All it takes is one… more… push.
One of the leaders does it. He grabs one of the men by the arm and pulls him, and in a blind rage, the man swings at the old soldier, driving their fist into his face. With a roar of indignation, the leader levels his musket and fires. At that range there was no chance of missing, and the mangy rat of a man takes the shot to the gut, splattering viscera and blood as he drops to the ground, twitching and gasping in a slow and brutal death.
That was the match struck and the barrel lit. The fight starts in earnest, the men turning on their ‘leader’ pulling cudgels and knives. The other soldier tries to defend his co-leader, firing into the group and killing one more. The two fight… well. Well enough, anyway. They clearly have some skill but it was close to eight against two, even after the two deaths. That and a musket takes far too long to reload. Both muskets fall to the ground and they draw their sabres. Military issue, I note casually, so it seems my guess was at least partially correct.
The fight is short and brutal. I watch with wry amusement, softly singing my lullaby to their sanity. Glancing to the side, I note that one of my guards is dead. That would’ve been the first shot I heard, and the other guard is nowhere to be found. Coward, I’ll have to kill him once I track him down. Nothing personal to the man, but shoddy work ethic like that is unforgivable. My driver is likewise missing, although that I expected. He was a serf or all but. This would make my arrival less dignified, but at least I found some amusement on the way.
That and a quick snack.
I turn my attention back to the fight. The mangy curs are mostly dead, as is one of the soldiers. The other is bleeding badly from several stab wounds and is gripping his sabre in his left hand, rather than his right which is hanging limply, the result of a well-placed cudgel-blow I presume. Honestly, I’m not really paying attention. The last cur dives in and, to his credit, strikes a solid blow; driving his knife into his former leader’s side just before the old soldier brings the heavy blade down to nearly severing the traitorous bastard’s head, spraying gore as he does so.
Grinning, I reach into my pocket. “Silly me, I forgot that key was damaged,” I say smugly, my lullaby fading. “Here, this one should be fine.”
I hold out the key with one hand as my other loops around the back of my dress to grip the bone handle of my favorite weapon. A long, thin stiletto with a jeweled hilt concealed in the spine of my dress. A slight tug loosens it and I start to draw it free, my back to the carriage and out of the fury-and-blood stained warrior's sight.
“You… witch…” he gasps, blood flecking his lips. “You’re a damned witch, a monster!” He staggers towards me, maybe to take the key, maybe to kill me.
I never find out for sure because he doesn’t make it more than two steps before I hear a strange whistling noise and a bone-cracking thud as a wood-cutter's hatchet impacts the bandit leader, driving deep into his skull and sending him heaving back and down to sleep on the red snow beneath him.
My mouth falls open in surprise, and I barely have time to snap my blade back in place before a voice calls out to me.
“Are you alright, Miss?!” The voice is young, male, and… oddly kind. I turn to scan the edge of the road and see a figure emerge from the brush. He’s wearing a leather jerkin and trousers, belted with a notched strap, and a fur mantle over his shoulders.
Carefully, I shake my hair down to cover the blade on my back and put on my best ‘distressed waif’ look. “Oh thank goodness,” I gasp dropping dramatically to the ground. “I’ve never seen such a horrible… I thought I was about to die! Thank the heavens you were here!”
The young man eats it up and rushes to my side. What a gentleman, how perfect, I muse as he lowers himself slightly.
From here I have a chance to admire him fully. Young, as I thought, but with the build of a man. Broad-shouldered from cutting wood for fire in this cold land, likely, with rough hands. His skin is the faintly dusky color of the trees around us and his hair is a messy nest of viridian curls.
“Here,” he offers his hand, and I take it, letting him pull me up. I ‘stumble’ as I rise, falling dramatically into his arms. “O-oh, are you okay? I’m sorry!”
To my surprise, he steps back, righting me and blushing marvelously. Oh he is too pure. I don’t remember when my birthday actually is, but I’m starting to think it might be today as he starts guiding me away from the scene of carnage to the forest’s edge.
I return the blush and favor him with a shy smile. “No, it’s… it’s alright, I just didn’t have my feet under me, I’m a little clumsy.”
He laughs and, to my utter surprise, I laugh along with him. It was such a sudden, warm sound. “I understand,” he responds, smiling back. “My name is Timber Heartwood, I’m a huntsman and woodcutter, may I ask your name Lady…?”
For a moment my tongue actually ties up but I rally and give another winning smile.
“Dazzle. Adagio Dazzle,” I curtsy in perfect form despite my sodden dress. “A pleasure to meet you, Master Heartwood.”
Timber’s face reddens again and he laughs. “Oh, I’m no one’s master, just a simple woodsman. Are you… lost? Or just traveling?”
I nod, putting on a look of pure fear. “I am! Traveling, I mean, I was meant to be in town by now, but I’ve lost my guards, and my driver, and…”
Timber takes my hand, giving me a calming smile that I find I actually like. “It’s okay, we’ll get you there, I promise. I was just checking my traps when I spotted you, but I’d be happy to take you as far as town.”
I’m about to agree, to open my mouth and accept his help. Maybe even hire him on as my new driver. He’s not hard on the eyes and I’m certain he’d take the offer. It’s a better life than anyone else has in this country.
Except… why?
Why should I keep going into town?
I don’t have a plan. I don’t have my sisters. I’m just… wandering. There’s nothing waiting for me in the town but more of what I’ve been doing for literal centuries. Why should I keep doing it? Why not do something… new?
New… I like the sound of that. My mind works like an engine, ages of fabricating identities and stories running out what I would need, all in the space of moments. Thankfully, he doesn’t question my hesitation. He’ll question it even less in a moment.
“I… don’t know if I want you too, actually,” I say, letting my face fall and tears start to brim in my eyes. “I’m not sure I want to make it to town at all.”
A look of confusion passes over his face. “But what about your family? Surely you have people waiting for you?”
“Maybe it’s different for you,” I respond, my voice letting my ‘sadness’ leak into it. “But my father doesn’t care for me. He’s having me married off to an old brute of a man. Someone he owes money to and wants to keep connections with.”
Timber's face contorts with a rage that stuns me for a moment. “What?! That’s vile! Trading you away like cattle? Your father doesn’t deserve the word! Treating a beautiful woman like you like nothing more than a fine fur to be traded?”
Got him.
“Y-you… think I’m beautiful?” I ask, smiling softly at him.
Timber’s face loses its fury and he blushes again. “Uhm, I mean… of course! You’re… you’re very beautiful. The most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen actually.”
Damn right, I am, I think smugly. He’s mine… hook, line, and… what?
I reach out with my magic, fishing for his lust. All it would take would be a small tug and he’s mine except… I find nothing. There’s nothing there. No, that’s not right. There’s plenty there. It’s just nothing I can use. He’s angry, yes, but it’s righteous, pure, just like him. It’s not negative. I can’t amplify it. I can’t even feed on it. What he feels for me? It’s… infatuation, yes… but not lust.
I recover quickly, so I can’t ensorcell him, no problem. I’ve never needed my magic to do my dirty work, it just greased the wheels. I have all the time in the world and this idiot is putty in the first place.
“You’re very kind,” I respond, taking a step closer. “I… I know it’s forward and I’m sure you have every reason to say no, but… maybe this attack was a blessing in disguise?”
A strange look comes over Timber’s features. “How do you mean?”
“W-well, father can’t exactly marry me off if I’m… dead,” I say, looking sideways at the carriage. “Say… if I was robbed and killed by bandits? He would never know if I was… perchance, to actually be staying with a kind woodsman who took pity on me? To spare me a loveless marriage to an unloving husband?”
I give Timber my most pleading look. A look that has put kings and queens alike in my pocket. He smiles at me. “That’s very daring of you, Lady Dazzle, to try and free yourself like this, I… don’t have very much but I’d be happy to give you a bed and a roof, though.”
Nodding, I give him another smile. “Wonderful! And I can’t expect you simply take a burden into your home! My father sent a gift along with me, a fraction of what he owed the man, but it’s no small sum. It’s yours if you’d like! I wouldn’t feel right eating your food and taking up your home otherwise!”
Timber nods, pragmatic as well as genuinely good-hearted. I’ve found a diamond in the rough, it seems. I direct him to the lockbox the men had been fighting over and he retrieves it. As he brings it around I’m mildly surprised to see he even wiped it off so as not to disturb me with the sight of a blood box. Oh, if he only knew how much ruin I’d seen in my life.
“This way, through the Red Forest,” Timber points, “I’m afraid I can’t speak for how your dress will fare, but my cabin isn’t too far.”
“I have other dresses,” I respond, going around to the side of my carriage not covered in human remains and pull a small bag out. “But in truth, I need nothing more than my freedom, Master Heartwood.”
He shakes his head and smiles at me. “I’m master of nothing but a cabin in the woods, Lady Dazzle, I hope you’re not too disappointed when you see it.”
“It can’t be worse than where I was going,” I respond as we trek into the Red Forest.
True enough words. After all, I wasn’t going anywhere at all.
Days turn to weeks, and weeks to months, and Timber and I fall into a routine. I play the role of the estranged noble’s daughter long enough to let it fade naturally, and as time passes I stop wearing the fineries I’d brought with me, tucking them away for another time. I discovered early on that he was alone. His mother had passed away from disease nigh on a decade ago while his father, another huntsman, had died in a hunting accident two years past.
He gave me some of his mother’s old things, which I suspect had also been his mother’s mother’s old things at one point from the age of them. Well, the poor passed down what they had, as would always be the case. No reason to throw out a perfectly serviceable dress and frock, after all.
To my surprise, I found myself liking Timber. Not just as a host but as a person, which was strange given that I’d rarely viewed these bipedal brutes as people at all. They made Griffons look absolutely pacifistic, after all. I often found myself questioning if they were even really sapient, under all that rage.
Timber, though… his kindness and patience always managed to catch me by surprise.
Most memorably was a certain day when he returned from a hunt empty-handed, as even his traps had borne him no fruit. The disappointment hung all over him and before I could think about it I found myself encouraging him.
“It’ll be better tomorrow,” I say, patting him on the shoulder as he sits dejected at the table. “You reset the traps right?”
“Of course, but…” Timber starts and I tut-tut him silent.
“But nothing,” I say. “It’ll be better tomorrow.”
For a moment he just looks up at me, and then he grins. “You’re right, Adagio,” he says, putting one of his warm, broad hands on mine. “It’ll be better tomorrow.”
As it turns out, I’m both wrong and right. The traps are empty again, his hunt yields nothing, and for the second day he came back with naught but an armful of firewood… and a small bouquet of wildflowers that he gives me with a grin.
Taking the flowers, I forget for a moment how old I am. How powerful I am. I forget that I’m Adagio Dazzle, eldest of the Sirens and bringer of strife. No one has ever given me flowers like this before and maybe I’ve just been living as Adagio Dazzle, the runaway daughter, for too long but… I laugh. I cry a little too, and I kiss Timber.
We make love for the first time that night. The first of many times.
Two Years Later
I hold my hand over my swollen belly as I rest in bed. The day is getting close, I can feel it. Timber is out, he took a small amount of the wealth from when we’d met to buy some medicine to make the birth easier, and even for this short of a time his absence makes my heart ache.
I’ve never felt this way before, not even for my sisters. At least, I don’t think I ever did. His smile makes me smile, just as my smile does for him. He had been afraid I was barren when I hadn’t gotten pregnant after all of our… activities… not because he wanted something from me, just for my health.
Because of course that's why.
I couldn’t tell him I'd been using my magic to prevent conception. It’s barely even an expenditure if I'm being honest, and I have enough magic to keep me going for three of his lifetimes without going dry so long as I never use my magic for anything but the passive retention of my youth and beauty.
Of course, that’s the rub.
He’ll notice that I’m not aging, eventually. In a couple of years, maybe several if I’m lucky. Til then, maybe he’ll just think I’m aging gracefully, but he will notice in time. One day, maybe the day he notices his first gray hair, or maybe something else., he’ll notice that I look exactly the same as the day we met. Timber is many things, but stupid isn’t one of them. Not the way I took him for that day on the highway. He’ll realise I’m not aging, then he’ll realise I’ve been lying for years. I won’t lie to him, I don’t think I can anymore. I want him to love me like he does, like he promised he always would.
I glance down at the little silver ring on my finger and smile.
It was all he could afford. I told him he could’ve used some of the money I gave him. It was payment, after all, it was his by definition, but he just shook his head and said that he wanted to do the thing properly.
I love it more than any ring I’ve ever owned and I have owned many. Rings with rubies, sapphires, and emeralds. Rings with diamonds, and rings of jade. Rings of gold embossed with words declaring my beauty. Yet… this is the ring I choose to wear.
We were wed last year, a little over a year ago, and we spoke our vows in front of a local priest. Imagine my surprise to realise I meant every word of them. Now…
“Sisters…” I mutter softly, staring at my reflection in the ring as the firelight dances in the hearth. “I wish you were here… I wish I could see you again, just one more time.”
I close my eyes and reach for my magic, thinking of my sisters as I do. Aria, always battle-ready, always angry, but always protective and strong. Sonata—dear Sonata—I never did treat you right.
With a touch of will, I manually cut off the spell of youth.
My magic will sit untouched for the rest of my life. The rest of my very mortal life. The more I imagine living beyond Timber, and now my child, the more I can’t bear it. I never thought of what immortality meant before. I realise, now, that it means being alone. Perhaps if I had found an immortal lover, but… I’m not sure love was meant to be immortal. I should think even that would fade given enough time.
Having come to know and to love Timber, I have a different opinion; that it is better to live, and love, and, in time, fade than to see it turn to ash. My only regret is that I won’t be able to tell my sisters goodbye. To tell them I love them and that I miss them and that I’m sorry for how blind I always was.
Now I will age. I can recast the spell at any time, of course. Easily in fact. But I won’t. Why should I? I’ll go gray, maybe white if I’m lucky. I think I’d look good with white hair. Timber will tell me I’m beautiful no matter how I look, of course. He always does. He’ll go silver, I think. He has that look about him, and I’ve got a good eye for guessing how mortals will grow. I’ve seen countless generations of them after all. He’ll get very handsome with time, as if he weren't handsome enough.
I run my hand over my stomach again and smile. This is my choice. I choose to live, not simply exist. I choose be a part of this world, not just feed upon it. My sisters will exist as they may, if they choose my path or their own, it is their business.
Maybe this is what that old goat, Starswirl, wanted when he banished us. Maybe he wanted us to see why our magic was only a hindrance. Sirens weren’t meant to be immortal either after all. Only my sisters and I unlocked that magic, and now… we’re likely the last of our kind.
For the best, perhaps.
“Adagio?!” Timber’s voice comes softly from the entrance and I glance up, seeing him step into the cabin and shake the snow from his mantle. “I’m home, and I’ve got some things from the village.”
“I’m happy you made it back safely, my love,” I say, reaching out for him. He takes his glove off and takes my hand, lifting it to his lips. “All’s well?”
“All’s well,” Timber answers warmly. “How was your day?”
I smile back at him. “Oh, uneventful, nothing happened at all.”
Ten Years Later
“Jackrabbit, get back here!” I shout from the back of the house as our daughter runs around near the edge of the woods. I sigh, giving my rambunctious child an even stare as I set the next log and heft the wood-axe. “Rabbit, I said—!”
“I know, mama!” Jackrabbit pops out from behind a tree and grins, the top half of her face obscured by a wood mask of a rabbit I’d carved for her.
She has Timber’s smile. Wide and utterly guileless. Her hair is a soft rich mahogany with stripes of gold and green, and her skin tone matches mine. Jackrabbit’s personality, however, is actually more like her Aunt Aria’s, fiery and passionate with a headstrong streak a mile wide. It’s almost like having my sister back again.
“If you know,” I say, drawing the word out with a grimace, “then get back here, little Hare.”
She laughs and dodges behind the tree again.
“Ugh,” I groan. “Timber!”
“Listen to your mother, Rabbit,” Timber calls from the roof, here he’s laying out sap to waterproof the logs again.
“Awww…” Jackrabbit groans from the treeline, dropping the mask away from her face to her side, “but I-”
Timber leans over the roof and fixes our daughter with a look. “Rabbit…”
“I know…” she comes out from behind the tree and trots back to my side. “I’ll stay here…”
I shake my head. Close to a millennium of getting people to do whatever I want, whenever I want, and I cannot for the life of me get my own daughter to listen to a word I say. Yet Timber has no such troubles. I laugh softly as Jackrabbit runs up to me and hugs my leg, I reach down and tousle her hair.
“What am I going to do with you, little Hare?” I ask with a laugh.
She grins toothily up at me. I give her a long-suffering smile back, and turn to bring the axe down on the log, splitting it with a single, deft strike before wrenching the tool free.
I’ve grown since I cut the spell all those years ago. I’m much taller now, I gained a good half-meter in height. Timber and I stand nearly eye to eye despite his own broad stature. My body filled out too, not just with curve but with muscle, of course. After all, no amount of money can change how much work is needed to keep a little place like this clean and livable. Wood needs to be cut, meals cooked, and the home cleaned.
Although those last two are mostly Timber’s doing. He likes staying home, it seems, spending time with our daughter and keeping the grounds tidy just as I’m perfectly happy to hunt. Bringing down hare, foxes, lynx, even wolves on occasion. Of course, I already knew how to hunt, but I let Timber teach me anyway; knowing how to hunt and knowing how to hunt here are beasts of a different stripe. I have a sharp eye and a good knack for it, I’m centuries old after all, but Timber knows the terrain.
Now, so do I.
“Teach me to hunt, mama!” Jackrabbit shouts after a moment, waving her hands excitedly.
I roll my eyes. “Why don’t you ask your father?”
Our daughter scowls. “Because you’re a lot better than papa at hunting.”
“Hey!”
My laughter carries on the wind. I love my daughter so much. I love my husband and I love my life. I’ve never been able to say that before but I truly do. Human life is not long, but if lived properly then it is good.
“Well, alright then,” I say, grinning. I set the wood-axe by the stump of wood I’ve been using as a splitting block and go to the cabin to retrieve some of my hatchets. “First, learn to use these,” I hand Jackrabbit one, “they’re unwieldy at first, but it’s the best way to bring down a wolf.”
“What about hare and foxes?” Jackrabbit asks, looking at me curiously.
I smile, running my hands through her hair. “Those are easy. Anyone can hunt a fox or a hare. They’re best caught with traps or a bow and arrow, I’ll teach you those later.”
“Why?”
“Because, little Hare,” I answer wryly, “best to learn the hard things first, then the easy things are all the easier, understand?”
“Mhm!” Jackrabbit nods, holding out her hand for the hatchet.
I pass it to her and take her around the side of the cabin where I set up a thick plank of bark peeled from an old tree and hung from the branch of a tree in the yard. I heft my own hatchet and line myself up, the motion fluid with years of practice. My arm rises and falls with a heavy, deft flick, sending the hatchet end-over-end into the back. It buries itself in the thick, knotted wood several inches deep.
“There, you see?” I say, gesturing to the hatchet.
Jackrabbit stares wide eye’d at my display, and I feel a small glow of pride. “Teach me, mama!” She holds up the hatchet and I kneel, carefully fitting her small hands around the haft.
“Alright, first, you have to feel the weight in your hand…” I instruct, gently making sure her hands are aligned with the center of the hatchet’s own weight. “Can you feel how it rests in your palms? It’s ready if you need it, but you have to hold it right, otherwise it won’t fly true…”
Rabbit nods as I explain, and as soon as I let go she tightens her grip, hikes her arm back, and lets the hatchet fly… about two feet directly into the ground. I chuckle a little as she stares dejectedly at the hatchet buried in the soft loam.
“It takes time and practice, little Hare,” I pat her on the head as I reach down and pull the hatchet free and hand it to her. “Here, try again.”
Five Years Later
My feet hit the ground with careful precision as I track the prints in the hard earth. A wolf has been harrying our chickens, just the one, meaning it’s probably a longtooth, too old and forced out by the pack. My bow is slung over my shoulder and my quiver at my belt with five freshly fletched arrows in case I spot a hare or grouse on the way home.
Right now, though, I’ve got other things on my mind.
“Jackrabbit…” I say as I come to a stop and scan the ground, picking up the trail again. She’d been to town the week before and her headstrong nature had nearly resulted in a fight.
With a noble’s son no less.
Not that I blame her, of course. She’s honest to a fault, if there were such a thing, and apparently he had gotten a bit handsy with her. Then she’d gotten handsy with him too if you count gut-checking the foul prig before punching him in the face. It worried me because the nobles were not known for being the forgiving sort. Especially not the kind of pompous, entitled brats that go around feeling up village girls like they think it’s their right. Rabbit had every right to lay the man out as she had, I just hope it doesn’t come back around because then I’ll have to deal with it.
I sigh, nostalgia filling me as I soften my tread through the forest. Guiding my daughter through her growth as a young woman reminds me so much of my sister. I wish Aria were around, the two would have so much in common. Of course, I’m certain Sonata would love Rabbit to bits too. They share that playful, impish nature. Jackrabbit certainly has more of a sense of humor than Aria ever developed, even if Rabbit shares my sister’s snap temper.
A familiar musk hits my nose and I come to a stop again, scanning around once more. The tracks are fresher and I spy a few broken shrub branches nearby. I’m not far off now, I crouch, moving carefully through the underbrush, staying downwind and sidling around a copse of trees. I strain my ears, listening for anything out of the normal life and breath of the forest.
There.
I pick up the sound of something heaving in lungfuls of air, the beast is tired. It knows it’s being hunted, not surprising. It’s an old, canny creature, but I’m far and away its elder. I draw a hatchet from my belt and grip it tight, listening for movement.
Five meters… no, four, it’s sniffing around, circling, trying to pinpoint me. I track it by the sound of its paws scratching at the ground. The moment I hear them start to move away, signaling to me that its circling patrol has put its back to me, I whip around from behind the tree, hatchet raised.
The wolf hears me, but too late. My hatchet is flying as it turns and the smile of the axe takes it in the neck and throws it to the ground. I follow up, even as the first hatchet leaves my hand, to draw a second and dive in to finish the job, bringing the blade down hard right next to where the first hatchet blade struck and cleave the head from its body.
It’s old, as I thought, and there was no need to prolong its suffering. It was likely dying of something too, from the smell of it. No good for meat then, either. Too bad, it’s an awful waste, but the pelt is still good. I can make something out of that. Maybe the bones too; they might make decent replacement handles for a couple of hatchets. I pull a loop of chain from my belt with a thick metal hook on the end and drive it into the ribcage of the carcass, fixing it fast I stand and heave the body up to carry it over my shoulders.
The walk home is not too far, but not too close either, and it’s getting into the evening, so I start walking and my thoughts turn back to Jackrabbit. She’s entirely unmanageable for me at her age. I think she sees me as something between a rival and an idol. Like she’s trying to reach me while believing it’s impossible.
She’s nearly my equal in hunting now, strong of arm and true of aim. I smile as I consider her growth, I can’t imagine being prouder of her, she’s strong and resilient. Independent and beautiful. She’s better than I could have ever imagined. Of course, Timber is wrapped around Rabbit’s little finger nearly as much as he is around mine, as well. That said he’s also the one she’ll actually listen to. Rabbit and I will bicker for hours but one word from him and she’s all smiles and nods.
Well, I can’t blame her. At least she has a good role model for how a man should act. Too bad for her I’m pretty sure I got the only good one in the whole lot for this region.
Maybe we’ll visit the western village soon, it’s a bit further but-
I drop the wolf carcass and sniff the air.
Smoke and fire.
I scan the skyline and I feel my gut wrench: there’s a pillar of smoke rising in the air and it’s coming from the same direction I’m heading.
Home.
I throw the chain aside, I can’t bother with the weight right now, maybe I’ll come get it later. Maybe not. It doesn’t matter. I sprint through the forest, vaulting gnarls of roots and crashing through the underbrush.
Please just be a burn pile, please just be a burn pile…
It’s a vain hope. It takes days to get one together and there was no such pile when I left, and we always do it together. Enjoying the warmth, watching the dead logs burn, and telling stories.
I burst out of the treeline into our backyard and to a scene from beyond my worst nightmares.
The cabin is burning, gouts of flame licking from the windows. I don’t hesitate, and sprint for the nearest window, scooping up a rock from the path and pitching it through the glass to shatter it before I dive through. I feel the ragged shards cut but I don’t care.
“Timber!” I scream, coughing around the smoke. “Jackrabbit where are you?!”
Our little dining room is burning, and I drop low to try and avoid the worst of the smoke. That’s when I see them.
They’re lying on the floor by the table in a pool of red. I feel my heart stop as my mind struggles to reject what I’m looking at. It can’t be them.
I can’t be looking at the bodies of my… my family.
My beloved Timber. My baby girl, my little Hare. The blood is still, the pool is heated only by the fire licking at it. They aren’t just dead, they’ve been dead. I look around, trying to find some proof that I’m just in some kind of terrible nightmare when I spot the other body.
A young man in fine clothes is laying near the wall, in his hand is a scrap of dress, a scrap of my daughter’s dress, and buried in his head is a hatchet.
Coughing and hacking, I crawl over to my loved ones, ignoring the searing pain of the heat. I get under the table and pull their bodies to me, cradling them. Timber’s chest has holes in it, bullet holes from a musket, and Jackrabbit is the same. My mind pieces the events together.
The noble’s son came for vengeance, a balm for his battered pride. He came with men, his father’s men surely, and they came with threats and weapons. He tried to take my daughter. Timber would have tried to stop him of course. He would have flown into a terrible rage to see his daughter laid hands on by such a man.
I could almost hear the gunshots take my dearest in his chest. It would have destroyed Rabbit to see her father brought down, but the man would’ve tried to take her anyway. She would get away, as always, she’s far stronger than most men.
And she always carries a hatchet. Her hatchet, the first one I taught her with. She plays with it idly.
Played.
She… Rabbit…
I choke around my tears. Her rage is more than a match for her father’s. That hatchet would’ve been out of her hand and into the man’s head in seconds. Seconds later the boy's men whose muskets were still loaded would’ve fired in a vain attempt to protect their liege’s offspring.
Too late, of course.
Her arm was strong. Her aim was true.
I wail in grief, gripping their corpses to me as the cabin burns. I’ll burn with it. I don’t care. I have nothing left in this world now.
Something clatters to the ground. I look down at the mask that had been gripped in my daughter’s hands in her last moment. The mask I’d made for her so long ago.
I reach out and take in my hand, coughing around the growing smoke and heat. She’d fitted it with leather straps to keep it on and dashed around the yard as a child. It was one of our games; Huntress and Hare. She would run, I would chase. We haven’t played it in years…
A new feeling rips into my chest. Rage.
I reach up and to my neckline and pull out the old necklace I’d kept for these long years. My heritage and true identity. I’d always told Timber it was just a keepsake, something to remember my old life by, as it wasn’t all bad. My gleaming, crimson heartstone.
For the first time in almost two decades, I reach for my magic. I drink deeply of my reserves, purging the smoke from my lungs, healing the burns, and I rise from where I’m crouched, throwing the table free with a thundering crash. I gather up the bodies of my beloved daughter and husband and walk through the fire and out the back door to lay them on the grass.
I kneel down, brushing their hair, feeling tears of unimaginable loss roll down my face as I close their eyes for the last time.
“Hey!” I hear a gruff male voice from the other side of the house. “What in the hells was that?”
“Just a log falling, probably,” another answers, “the damn place is on fire.”
They’re still here.
My family’s murderers are just… watching my home burn.
The rage in my heart redoubles and I turn to march back into the house, fixing my hatchets to my belt and grabbing the wood-axe from the splitting block as I pass, and as I walk past the dead bastard child I rip my daughter’s hatchet from his skull too.
Finally, I fix my daughter’s mask over my face. I’ll give them something to watch. They can watch me cleave their worthless, witless, abominable heads from their bodies!
Now tied to my sorcerous heritage again I reach out with my time-dulled senses. I taste their fear. They’re afraid of what will happen now that their liegelord’s son is dead. They were supposed to protect the stupid wretch and now he’s got himself killed. By the hand of a farmgirl no less.
They’re afraid they’ll be killed for their failure.
Well, they won’t have to worry about that for much longer. They’re about to be killed for a wholly different reason altogether.
As I move through the smoke and fire, I release a pulse of magic to bend them away from me as I stride out of the burning building and start to sing. I sing the song that I sang when all of this started. It’s fitting then that it’s how it will end.
I sing them my husband and daughter’s final lullaby, and my final lament.
Bayu~ bayushki bayu~... ne lozhisya na krayu~...
“What the blessed hell is that?!” A man is dyed leather armor cries out as I emerge, the wood-axe resting on my shoulder. “Shit, kill it!”
One of them raises his musket.
He topples to the ground first, a hatchet buried twixt his eyes. Terror shoots through them and I breathe it in. Except I don’t consume it, not this time. I don’t want to replace their terror with strife. I want them to feel it. Take it in like a breath and then expel it back at them, amplified over and over.
They break almost immediately, screaming in horror as my magic warps their minds. Another hatchet flies free from my hand and slams into the back of a running man’s skull. I sprint forward, ripping the hatchet free of my first kill and sending it to seek the brainpan of another as I pursue the furthest ones.
A dull crunch tells me it struck true.
Good.
Tonight is a night of blood, a night where the Hare chases the Hunters.
No one is leaving my forest alive.
Eight Years Later
The forest is dark, but that means nothing to me. My eyes are sharp in the dark as I watch the movement near the little forest path. It’s overgrown, it hasn’t been used in months. Once, years ago… I can’t remember exactly… a hunter and his family kept the little path clean and clear. Then they died and the path died with them.
This is the witch’s woods now. That’s what they call me, the beast-woman. The monster of the Red Forest. Travelers do not pass through the old road that cuts through the woods. Especially not at night. Nor do they venture further than the nearest verge to hunt or cut wood.
I have my territory marked with wide, ragged cuts in the trees. The locals know the marks, they know enough to know that to venture past them is to court a horrible death.
That never stops the Tsar’s men, though. They come every month or so, usually in number. It never matters. They enter, they scream, I feed, and they die.
But they never come alone.
So who is this? This slender thing with hair like the late evening sky and an almost-familiar face. She’s hunter-clad in loose leathers and a mantle of fur, her hands grip a fine bow with an excellent arrow nocked and ready. Her eyes are sharp and bright as they read the dark boughs of the forest. Not as sharp as mine, of course. None can match the Hare’s eyes.
With slow, measured steps, I stalk her. My bare feet feeling the curve of the earth as I silently edge around her. She does not know the stories, maybe, or she is a fool. Maybe a huntress hired by the Tsar to hunt me.
The Huntress and the Hare.
I clench my eyes shut as pain splits through my skull. Memories of laughter and smiling faces tinged with unutterable pain. I deny it. I defy it. I drown it in my rage as I open my mouth and begin to sing the little idiot huntress her last lullaby, which once had words that I can no longer recall.
La-la~, la-la~, la-la-la~, la-la la-la, la-la-la~...
She looks up sharply, scanning for me. I reach out for her mind, ready to rip the fear from it, amplify it, and put it back. To chase her and harvest her until there is naught left but madness.
Except…
The huntress opens her own mouth and sings back at me. Her voice pummels into my own, writing over the magic of my lullaby with a countersong.
“I knew it was you!” The huntress cries out, taking aim in my general direction with her bow. “Adagio it’s me! It’s Aria!”
Aria? The name fills me with nostalgia and for once it doesn’t hurt. I know the name… yes… but how?
“Come out!” Aria says as she advances slightly, still wary that she might be wrong, I imagine, as she keeps her bow up and her arrow ready. “It is you? Right? What kind of feeding tactic is this? We’ve never done this kind of thing before!”
What kind of thing, I wonder. Feeding tactic?
“The girls, Adagio! Where are they?!” Aria demands, still aiming into the dark. “Adagio?”
I lower my hatchet, belt it, and step out of the darkness.
Aria lowers her bow and sighs in relief for a moment. “Adagio, it is you, I thought- WHAT IN THE BLACK HELL!?”
Aria’s bow clatters to the ground and she staggers back, staring open-mouthed up at me. I stare down at her through the eyes of my mask. My grip tightens on my axe, I should probably kill her. She is trespassing after all. But she’s not wrong, I do know her, and we seem to be… something other than enemies, right? It would be rude to just kill her, I think.
“Adagio?” Aria’s voice is a whisper. “What… what happened to you? What happened to my sister?”
I open my mouth, and for the first time in as long as I can remember it’s not to sing. “A...ri...a?”
My voice is cracked and raw with disuse. Rather, disuse with words. I haven’t properly spoken since… since…
I grimace, the pain comes again. I push it away and stop thinking.
Aria rushes to my side and for a moment I considering meeting her with the smile of my wood-axe. I don’t. It would be rude.
She looks up at me, she’s so small. Was Aria always so small? She reaches up, and as she does, she sings softly. It’s a sharp piercing note and I flinch. I’m not prepared for it, I’ve refined the terror of my own magic but neglected everything else. Her memory-song splits through my mind like an axe through a log. She reaches out for my mind and it’s been so long since I defended myself that I’ve forgotten how.
She delves my memories in a moment and in that moment I relive it all. A flash strikes me like a bolt of lightning and drop my axe as I scream, clutching my head as the memories of my family, both of them, flood back into my mind past the barriers I’d built. I lash out, catching Aria on the side of her face and sending her flying.
I flail and crash through the woods, blind with grief and fury.
Jackrabbit. Timber. Where are you?
“Adagio, come back!”
I can’t… I have to get home. I have to get back to them before they… before they…
I burst out of the woods to stand in front of the cabin. Still scorched by old flames. Still standing after all this time. The center of my hunting grounds, though I never acknowledged it.
A sound behind me startles me. and I wheel round and send a hatchet flying to bury itself in the bark of a tree next to Aria’s head. She stares to the side, looking at the deadly reflection of her face in the polished blade of my hatchet. For a moment she just breathes before turning back to me.
“Adagio… what happened?” Aria asks, slowly coming close to me. “How did this…?”
“You… saw…” I croak out as I stare at the cabin. “You saw… it all…”
Aria nods. “A daughter? A husband?”
“I was… happy…” I say softly.
“They’re human,” Aria says, almost angrily. “They would have died eventually.”
A part of my wants to be furious with her for saying such a thing, but I can’t find it in me. Instead I just turn to her. “So… would… I.”
Grimacing, Aria shakes her head. “We’re immortal, remember? So unless you cut off the-” her words die in her mouth as she examines me again. “No… Adagio you didn’t.”
I cock my head, not answering, then turn back to stare at the cabin. Years of suppressing the memories had shattered my mind. Everything hurt. My body hurt. My mind heart. My heart… it was bleeding. I felt like I was dying. I wanted to die.
“Will you… kill me?” I rasp, not looking at her.
Aria walks around to stand between me and the cabin. “Adagio, several girls have gone missing over the years, always near the forest,” she says instead of answering. “Where are they?”
“Dead…” I reply hollowly. I vaguely recall it, my broken mind had seen them, the little girls, but not really. I hadn’t seen the girls. No, I’d seen my little Jackrabbit. “I took them… and kept them…”
“You… killed them?” Aria asked, horrified.
I shake my head. “No… tied them… kept them… but… winter is cold. Food is scarce… and sometimes…”
Aria sags. “I… I see…”
“Will you… kill me?” I ask again, feeling a faint vestige of hope.
“No,” Aria responds, and I close my eyes, feeling the tears fall again. “You’re my big sister, I won’t let you die. Not now, not like this. I still have to get to Sonata and I need your help.”
“Sona… ta…” I taste the word and remember my youngest sister. “In… trouble?”
“The worst kind,” Aria answers. “Like only Sonata could manage.”
I see, so my sisters need me. I couldn’t die, then. Not yet, maybe another time. Another place. “Make me… forget… then…”
Aria stares me at me pensively for a moment before nodding. “Yeah,” she says finally, “yeah, maybe we could both do with a little forgetting.”
I kneel and let my mind fall into a dull, dreaming state. I delve into my dwindling magical reserves as Aria begins to sing, and I let all my defenses fall. Carefully, gently, Aria peels the memories away. They can’t be destroyed, but they can be… filtered. Distorted. Weakened and then stored in the gems. They have such powerful negative emotions tied to them that they refill my reserves quickly, even if the process is a little… cannibalistic.
I drift off to sleep, a lullaby that I don’t quite remember drifting through my mind. I feel my magic rebuild itself, my body heals, the spell of youth and beauty reignites and body dwindles back to my smaller frame worn in my days of carefree excess. This is where and how I will remain for now.
Yes, for now.
Adagio Heartwood is dead, and one day her spirit will be free to join her loved ones.
Not yet though.
Adagio Dazzle still has work to do.
