Swan on the Moor

Chapter 18

After the feast, the hall emptied. Avalbane remained, as he always did; he rather thought the times he liked best were after the last group of fae had left him, backing away and bowing as was their etiquette, and the trees closed their branches behind them, and there was just he, in the seat of his power.

In this case, however, he wanted silence, and every soul to be far from him. As he sipped the honeyed wine of the fae brewers from his own golden goblet, his other hand idly reached into his robe and pulled out the hank of hair he had cut from Weylin's body. He had no doubt that this would work, but first trials should always be conducted alone, before the masses could hear of them.

The wine finished, satisfied that the fae had spread far away through the Sithen as not to trouble him – although in honesty few would dare interrupt the King at private contemplation – he lifted his ringed hand high, admiring the simple glitter of the runes in gold. There was little ceremony about what he was going to do; traditionally the ring was used in battle to sap strength and power in which case all one had to do was sink one's hand into a wound to draw the power from their life's blood into your own. He hoped it would work with just the hair; it was the symbol of his wolf self; logically it would work, but a little part of him cursed this rare stupidity in not taking a phial of blood from the Sidhe. Well. No harm in trying. If it failed, he had learned a vital lesson. After all, as well he knew, blood mattered. It was blood that fed the land and defined the magic.

Slowly, he brought the hair and the ring together.

There was a strange moment where the world seemed to blur, and a flood of feeling rushed through Avalbane's mind: running, cold, the feral scent of raw meat, musky fur, pack-mind, strong paws, muscle, animal hunger and the joy of howls tearing from one's throat like song. He recoiled from the strength of the images, slightly sickened by their intensity and immediacy. There was no duplicity in the heart of the wolf; no political thought. He understood, with mild disgust, why Weylin was how he was, and the wolf side had always been stronger than the fae. He forced the images and feelings away and the hair in his hand ignited with a faint hollow pop, flared for a moment and was gone. Biothantach on his hand was glowing and throbbing against his skin, and the gold looked somehow more substantial, thicker, heavier on his finger.

Well. Now, then, to test. It was not a thought he relished, having been in the wolf's mind for a moment, but it was important for whatever greater powers might await, and besides, his mind was not Weylin's. He was an...Alpha. It would not be the same, surely. He allowed a little of the memory of animal scent, fur, blood, noise, to seep into his brain, forcing himself not to shrink away from the unpleasant feelings and instead try to merge into them, as much as he dared...

He stood, let the robe slide from his smooth golden skin and pool into the light on the floor. The horrible surfacing feelings were beating in his blood now, taking over his thought processes and trying to claw away his personality. His immediate urge was to fight this invasion, but no, no, this was for a greater cause...and there was a solid part of him that would never flow, would always be safe from such invasion. His body was screaming now as the nerves and bones were telling his brain to reform, to change...

He had expected pain, or something; the look on Weylin's face had always been somewhere between pain and ecstasy. There was little; just a flowing feeling as his flesh reshaped, melted, changed, and then it was over, and it was foul. The sights of the Sithen were deafening, the scents of the leafmould, the singing; what was merely a background hum was now a shrieking chorus. Most bizarre – if expected - of all was how little Avalbane's mind, even now, conformed to the new shape; it rebelled, hating the faint contact with the other, suddenly very confused, wolf-minds in the Sithen. Unable to bear it a moment longer, he willed his flesh to return to his own fair form and the hideous wolf-shape receded, leaving him panting and curled on the floor, revelling in the joy of his own mind and flesh again, untainted. Slowly, unsteadily, he stood, pulled the silk robe back over his flawless marble-sunlight flesh and sat, shuddering, sickened. He had always known the shifters were strange, bestial beings, hardly Sidhe, more Upperworld creatures, even, but to be in the mind of something so vile...never, never again.

But there was joy to be had, to cover and erase the awful experience: Biothantach worked. The power had melded to his own; reluctantly and uncomfortably, but something so alien to his own mind would of course be wrong. Perhaps the Sithen had only sung so loudly and painfully at the wrongness of such low power connecting to that of its King. That had to be it. The Sithen was his and he was its. Of course anything alien would harm it. The fact that it tolerated the shifters at all was a sort of miracle of its all-encompassing nature for all things fae. But now, he began to understand how that swan-bitch could contemplate something so unnatural as to run away for a human...

He snarled, his good humour fading at the reminder of her. She had been sweet and pretty enough and he had consented at the time to an engagement. She was noble and quiet enough. She rarely spoke out of turn and was always gentle and dignified; she seemed above the things of the earth, disinterested. Her shifted form was not unpleasant. Upon her he could have fathered heirs and she would have been a queen. But she, stupid thing, some bauble caught her eye and she left...proved her unworthiness. Yet even now what really caught in his maw was that she had dared to return...

No. No. He would never think of such an abomination again. Surely she was dead now anyway, and her whelp, out in the Upperworld. She had made her choice; let her pay by it. He didn't bother to curse her longer. Why would he? He was the one to whom everyone had expressed their baffled shock; that surely she had to be mad, sick, something, to turn him down for a mere human. Every word had been a grate on his soul even as he had agreed her stupidity and worthless, mindless nature. He hated her, truly. She was a liar, just like all such beings...just like...he cut that thought off, for it was one that could not even be true. It was the falsehood he would never face. Had he not proven that wrong, anyway? Mistake. Lie. False. He forced the face in his mind down; even to replace it with the swan woman's was better.

And once again, he had won, he was the one who was right, victorious. She was dead, or worse, and he was king, and that was all that mattered now. No one would even remember her name in time, whereas his would never be forgotten.