She has been made a traveler. She can't stay anywhere longer than a night. Can't risk the knowledge of what she's become.
She wasn't always a monster. Penny was a farm girl once, innocent as the budding flowers of spring. She'd been nothing but a child, a fool. She had been drawn to a stranger in a pub. Admired the muscles of his arms and the green of his eyes. She'd never noticed the fangs. He'd enticed her, seduced her. Slaughtered her town and claimed her as a trophy. Kept her enthralled, overcome with drink and pleasure. A constant state of revel in which she couldn't remember. Couldn't recall a thing about what he was, or what he'd done.
Until he'd slipped up.
He'd been working his magic on another girl, another child. Just as foolish as she had been. The haze he'd kept her in lifted slowly. First she'd seen the pointed ears, then the fangs. Realized what it meant. What he had done and what he was going to do yet again.
It had taken some doing to slip away. To find a man to seduce for a cast iron blade. To hide it in her skirts until he wanted her again. Until he held her close. Confident of his hold on her, of the strength of his embrace.
It had taken some doing, but she'd managed.
x
He is not a knight by choice.
His dreams, had he been allowed to follow them, had been of ancient tomes and numbers, testing his intellect with magic and equations. He had wanted nothing more than to become a scholar, perhaps even a magician. But his father dies. He is a man when it happens. Fourteen summers and the only man left in his home. His brother having long since fled their home to seek his own fortune.
His duty is to his family. He has to tuck his dreams away. Out of sight and out of mind, because the world they live in is a dangerous place, and the strength of his grandmothers magic wanes on every anniversary of his grandfather's death, they can't count on it to keep the family safe. Magic has always been tricky that way, she'd counselled, more about what you are than anything you can learn.
He comes to know himself. Tests himself against the magical creatures that surround his home. Like vultures, always circling, awaiting unwary prey. There is so much danger. There is always danger. Those that the magic drives mad are hard to tell apart from the regular sorcerers, but time always tells. Those creatures that can disguise themselves well enough to pass for human… His grandmother presents him with an enchanted sword.
His blade learns the taste of blood well.
He's quick to rise in the ranks.
x
There had been no warning. Legend, it seemed, never told the true stories of what happened to those humans that bested the fey. There were no stories of what happened after you killed one. There were plenty of stories about not taking food and drink from them though. Perhaps that's where she goes wrong. Or maybe he had set a trap for her, a way to make sure she would truly regret her ultimate betrayal.
Seconds after Penny plunges her knife into the fey that killed everyone she had ever known, she becomes one. The fey's body hisses, boiling into mist and she's shocked still. Feeling it, whatever magic had once made the being whose name she'd never known, slide inside of her.
There is no denying what she is. The knowledge burns inside her. Her very existence, once steady, mortal, shifts. Come the dawn, Penny can feel sunlight trapped under her skin. Everything she had ever been, warped. Turned on it's head and made strange, Fey. She hates it, she hates herself.
She doesn't understand how the others don't see it. Feels the way eyes follow her through a room and wonders at how they don't realize they are being ensnared in her new found magics web. Now she is the one doing the enticing. And she doesn't know how to stop. Doesn't know how she's doing it, can't control herself. The way the lust nourishes her is sickening, but she doesn't know what to do.
It's a slight chance, just the smallest sliver of hope, but she sets off in search of a magician who can help her. Everyone knows where the legends stem from, that they record and observe all the magic they can. They could probably find a way to fix her. A spell, or a curse. She can't live like this. Can't be the same kind of monster that ruined her.
It's easy to convince some noble to part with his finest steed. Easier still to get people to spill everything they know about magic and Magicians. Eventually she finds what she's looking for. Leonard, the whispers say. A Magician renowned for his study of the fey. If anyone can help her, he can. She sets off in search for him.
x
It's an observable phenomena. He doesn't know how they can miss it, how they turn their eyes away from the facts. The creatures have increased in number and strength. The madness takes more Magicians, more people stray into the forests and don't understand their own actions.
There is something coming. Or perhaps it is already there, some object or event. Already present and altering the conditions around the place they call home. Making it worse. He brings up his concerns with the leader of his garrison. They bring in more magicians. Widen their perimeter. Do their best to keep people safe.
It isn't enough. Not proactive enough. They are already on the defense. They need to find the cause of the shift. Find some way to eliminate it. He brings it up with as many of his fellow knights as he can, but they won't listen. Insist that he is paranoid. Some of the more ornery call him deranged, or even blood thirsty.
Sheldon doesn't understand. Can't they see things will only get worse?
Since the knights won't listen, he turns to the magicians. Some of them aren't a complete loss, it takes some intellect to handle magic. More than it takes to swing a sword at any rate. The only person he finds that supports his conclusions is a magician called Leonard. He insists that it is the fey causing it. That there are tales of similar incidents, that there is precedent. Entire towns have been taken when people don't heed the warning signs.
Sheldon makes him talk to the leaders of his garrison. Can't comprehend why he hasn't already when people are dying every day and there is only more misfortune to come. He's unprepared for people to laugh. Leonard the Magician is called Leonard the fey lover. Behind his back and to his face. Sheldon doesn't care. If it was serendipity or Leonard's delusions and obsession that brought the Magician to their town, the theory still fits.
They are denied. Sheldon finds himself sitting at a bar with an angry Magician who rails at him for getting them laughed at. Sheldon can only blink at him, unable to comprehend how Leonard can worry about his reputation when they are in so much danger. For all he knows they won't survive the night.
His hand finds his sword's hilt. He never goes anywhere without it if he can help it. He wears a thin chain mail under his tunic, since he can't wear the full armor when not on duty, but he keeps the chest plate close. His manacles in the saddle. The only piece of equipment he doesn't like is his helm. He appreciates the function it provides of course, but he often finds it more a hindrance than a help. It makes it hard to see. And Sheldon learned early on that if a creature was near enough to swipe past his neck, the helm wasn't much of a deterrent.
He looks around the tavern. Notes the magicians, always with their robes, and the usual crowd of people. Sheldon knows every face in his town. It has also become his practice to sit at the tavern and observe the strangers passing through. He's spotted quite a few creatures over the years. It's the enchantment on his sword. If he has killed the like, he can recognize a creature in any form.
There is a blonde woman making her way through the magicians. She is lovely, beautiful in a way Sheldon has never noticed before. She stops briefly by a couple of magicians sitting near them, and he watches, fascinated as she turns and heads towards them. He doesn't understand what's wrong with him, what's so different about her. He grips his sword under the table, waits for the familiar warmth that signals some preternatural creature. His sword stays cool to the touch, but Sheldon can't tear his eyes away from the blonde woman.
It only gets worse once she reaches their table.
x
Leonard is not as impressive as she had hoped he would be. If not for the Magician's robe, she would have thought the tall man with the sword and the intense blue eyes was the man she was looking for.
"Are you Leonard? The fey expert?" She asks, unwilling to make a mistake when her secret is of such a sensitive nature.
"Yes! Fey expert-Leonard, that's me!" The short bespectacled magician assures her eagerly. Penny gives him her best smile. Watches the way his eyes widen and his smile becomes dumber. She hates to do this, to enchant him. But if he can help her then he can stop her from doing it to anyone ever again. He's her best shot at becoming human again.
She looks at him from under her lashes, twirls a strand of her hair,"What can you tell me about the fey?"
"Everything!" Leonard trips over himself to assure her."We were just talking about how the fey are clearly taking over the forest. They need me to figure out the best way to defeat them of course. No one knows about the fey the way I do. I have all the books that mention them, the best way to work magic against them!"
"I find myself quite curious," Leonard's tall friend cut in, voice angry and hard, like flint."If you had all these resources at your disposal, why did if you not offer them when we made our proposal to the Leaders of the garrison?"
"Knights don't bother with books," Leonard said, waving a negligent hand in his friends, evidently a knight, direction."Everyone knows that."
"If you were so kind as to show me to your collection,"His friends blue eyes are narrowed, dark with fury,"I believe you'll find that I'm the exception."
"I'd like to see them too."Penny chimes in, for all she knows her cure is written in one of them, all it could take is asking the right questions and she might have her cure spilling forth from Leonard's lips without having to admit to what she's become. Besides, the faster she gets cured the better. She can't stay in any given place for longer than a day. And if this place is already on alert for fey magic then she needs to get out as fast she can.
"Yes-right."Leonard says, quick to do anything she asks, desperate to impress her. The strength of Fey magic is sickening. They walk towards the Inn where Leonard keeps his things in awkward silence. It's blessedly quick, only three blocks away, and when they get there he produces a thick trunk filled to the brim with thick, ancient looking books.
The knight wastes no time in diving right in, reaching into the trunk and skimming quickly through the titles. Penny never learned to read, but she found the speed with which he flipped through the pages was quite impressive.
"And you've read them all?"She asks, turning to Leonard.
Leonard blinks at her, before her question dawns and he beams. Starts on all sorts of tales, the classics, she thinks, since some are the common ones she already knows. They pass hours this way, the knight stays immersed in the books, and Leonard regales her with all sorts of stories. But none of it is what she needs to know. But the sheer variety of the creatures he mentions, how they all count as fey one way or another is staggering. She doesn't even know the kind of fey she killed, she needs more time. Time she doesn't have in a town that's actively preparing to hunt things like she's become.
"Wow,"Penny simpers,"You know so much."
"I've studied the fey for years,"Leonard says, puffing out his chest."There's nothing I don't know about them."
"You must be so strong."She croons,"I bet you could take the fey in the forests all by yourself."
"Yeah,"Leonard breathes, eyes going a little hazy."I bet I could do it tonight."
"Will you take me with you? I think it'd be amazing to see that!" Leonard, she was sure, would tell her everything she wanted to know. She just had to hold on to him long enough.
"Very well."The knight said, snapping his book shut, and startling them both. Penny didn't understand how she kept forgetting he was there."I would be remiss in my duties if I left you to do so on your own. It is best to eliminate the threat as quickly as possible. Let us be off then."
Penny smiles, she almost can't believe it's that simple. But even with the knight accompanying them, it seems to be. They take three horses into the forest. The knight finds them a place to rest. Penny dismounts her horse and prepares to resume her interrogation of Leonard.
She turns to find a sword at her throat. Penny goes still, instinct demanding that she preserve her own life and keep from accidentally severing her head. The blade is remarkably sharp, she's close enough to tell.
x
"You are fey." Sheldon states. Leonard's tomes had cleared up certain things. Whatever manner of fey she was was not one he had ever had the chance to slay, so of course his sword did not react. It also explained his fascination, the draw to her visage he couldn't explain. But that still leaves her intentions a mystery. He can understand why she would want to abscond with their fey expert, but he does not understand her genuine interest in his stories. If she is a fey, there is surely nothing he can teach her she doesn't already know. But he recognizes a genuine hunger for knowledge. One of the few expressions he's ever been able to recognize out of sheer sympathy. And the blonde fey looks at Leonard like a starving woman. Desperate to hear every word he has to say.
"What are you talking about! Sheldon are you crazy? Put your sword down!" Leonard blusters.
"How is it that you're an expert on the fey and yet you did not recognize her for what she is?"He muses aloud. He'd thought Leonard an inept wizard before, but proving useless in the one field he could be expected to at least be competent in is a little absurd."Can you not recognize her allure?"
"I wear a pendant that negates all fey allure."Leonard boasts."So stop it already, she's not fey!"
"Your pendant merely means that you are incapable of perceiving her allure, not that it doesn't exist." Sheldon corrects.
"I wasn't always!"The fey exclaims, suddenly. Sheldon almost decapitated her before he realized she wasn't attacking."I was just a farm girl, just Penny. But then I killed the bastard that took me and-and I turned into this…"
"But that's impossible!"Leonard exclaimed."People can't become fey!"
"Well. I. DID!"The fey, Penny, roars the last word and it knocks Leonard into the ground.
Sheldon presses his sword closer to her neck in warning,"Explain."
"It was harvest season, my brother was at the pub and my mom sent me to get him. I saw him there, I'd never seen anyone that beautiful before. I went right up to him, and then we started talking. We were having sex soon after, and not a week later he froze me, just, told me to stay and I couldn't move. He made me watch. He killed everyone. Just tore them apart, ripped out their throats, drank their blood. And then he kissed me, made me forget. Made me his again. I just thought we were lovers, that we were always moving because he liked men and women in bed with us. I think he was getting bored with me because he started working on someone else. And when I remembered what he did I had to kill him. Everyone knows cast iron kills fey, so I got a knife and stuck it in him, and it turned me into this. I thought you'd have a way to fix me. To turn me back. You're the fey expert Leonard!"
"But that's not how it works!" Leonard insists, before his face goes slack, dawning realization." Unless-unless of course, it all makes sense! You don't understand the gift you've been given. Do you?"
"You think this is a gift?"Penny snarls, incredulous. She is a fey, the very creature that ripped her world to shreds, a monster, he calls this a gift? It's the vilest of curses, and she is desperate for a cure.
"Yes!" Leonard insists, eyes fervent."There are stories, they say that there is no killing the faery lord. You can only conquer them. Don't you see? This is what all those confusing volumes meant! If you kill a faery lord you become one. Isn't perfect? All that power, everything that makes a fey a fey, and if you kill one it's all yours!"
"You sound rather excited by the prospect."Sheldon says, and they both turn to him, he'd put his sword down at some point, and fetched one of the books, Leonard had shoved into his satchel. Sheldon doesn't look up from where he has been steadily paging through the book."How fortunate for you that we have opportunity to slay another. This was the type of fey that you meant, was it not? The kind that gather other creatures to form a court. One has taken residence in this forest."
"I don't understand,"Penny says,"I'm a faery lord? What does that mean?"
"It means you have valuable experience in slaying your own kind. I imagine it will be useful. Something tells me that killing it will go easier now that we have one of our own. I do not fancy becoming a fey either, Penny. I sympathize with your plight, but research into how to return your humanity to you will have to wait until we have dealt with the active threat to our safety."
"So you'll help me?"Penny asks,"Really?"
"Of course Penny!"Leonard promises fervently." Think of all the things we can learn about fey magic."
Sheldon shrugs,"I don't see why not."
x
Penny beams at them. Relieved from somewhere deep inside her soul. She has help now, a chance. Of course that's when everything goes to shit.
She can feel them coming, like storm clouds gathering over her head.
"They're coming!"She hisses, afraid, she's had nothing but terrible experiences with these monsters that wear the faces of men."What do we do?"
Sheldon draws his sword, turns towards Leonard, orders,"Cast your spells!"
Looks his gaze with her own and asks,"Can you help us?"
Penny shakes her head in denial,"What? No! I just became a-I don't know anything!"
"Magic is more than what you know."Sheldon says,"It's what you are. And as a woman who managed to kill a faery Lord on her own, I highly doubt you are powerless Penny."
"That was with an Iron blade!"Penny protests, but already her spine is straighter. Sheldon has a point. She may hate what she is, but there is no denying she has power. She has no reason to feel as helpless as she does. In the stories fey slay each other for sport. And she's apparently become one of their strongest. But-"I have no idea how to attack."
"Leonard?" Sheldon questions their magician.
He squawks,"How am I supposed to know? We can only observe the fey!"
For a so called expert Leonard is remarkably useless. But, observing...She doesn't know how long she'd been enthralled by the faery lord. Time held no meaning when she walked at his side. Surely there were times when he had used his power. The very night he had slaughtered those of her home town. He'd torn people apart with out touching them. Tossed them about with the very air, with his intent, she realized. The way she had knocked Leonard over before.
"I can do it." Penny whispered, mostly to herself. Then repeated it again, sure and loud,"I can do it. I can fight."
"Good."Sheldon said, and she felt the warmth of pride at his trust in her words, he turned to Leonard."We will need protection from their magic."
"I'm-I'm on it!" Leonard says,"I just need you to buy me some time! It takes longer to set up magical protection."
"Very well." Sheldon affirms,"Stay back." Turns back to her,"Where are they coming from?"
"There."Penny said, motioning to her left. She closed her eyes. Drawing on the new parts of herself she usually did her best to ignore. There was so much power there, it was almost overwhelming. Sheldon came to stand beside her.
"Oh yes, Penny?"He hands her a blade, it's small, barely the length of her fore arm."Just in case."
Submerged as she is in her faery magic, Penny can almost taste the truth in his words. She turns to the side. To the tight concentration of magic-not-her-own, she can sense. Whispers with barely a breath,"They're here."
She reaches over, motioning with her hand the way she wants the magic to move. She slams the first fey that walk into the clearing against some trees. Hears something snap. She mimes tearing the head off a straw doll and hears more accompanying cracks. The fey don't leave corpses behind. Merely impressions of the elements.
Sheldon surges forward, moves like a supernatural creature himself. He tears through the ranks of fey like a skilled butcher. Movements practiced and forcefully efficient. There would be carnage littering the field if the fey's he killed didn't melt into the ground. Some became dust, or water. She spied clumps of dead leaves and foam on the ground as well.
"You DARE!"A voice roars. Seemingly from everywhere and nowhere at once. Penny feels the surge of magic at her back. Barely twists away in time to avoid a black surge of magic, it reeks of death to her senses. Penny walks further back on instinct. This is a true Fey Lord. A creature that knows and rejoices in what it is. She's vaguely aware of Leonard calling her name and then he's beside her, holding her hand, telling Penny to lend him her strength.
Immediately after Leonard drops her hand Penny feels a sucking sensation. Like something is actively zapping her energy. She watches in shock as Leonard sends a jet of the same black energy back to the creature. It goes wide and the fay lord doges. Leonard drains more of her power, send a shockwave forth to meet one of the fey lords attacks. She can't focus on the battle, too busy trying to stay upright.
She feels kitten weak as Leonard somehow uses her magic to bash the fey into the ground. But she remembers Sheldon's blade, and the creature lands just close enough. She manages to find the strength to hit it's heart through it's back. This time the power takes a moment before it barrels into her, no not into her, it's going into Leonard. Running through her like a river. It hurts.
"Leonard no!"Penny screams,"Stop it. It's over, it's dead!"
"You gave me your name, that's power over you." Leonard laughs, it's a frightening sound."So much power! You wanted me to have it! Think about it Penny. We can have it all, we can become King and Queen. Conquer all of this world, together."
Leonard is sucking her dry. Penny hadn't understood how he's managing it, can't understand why he won't stop. Can't he see that he's killing her? Can't he feel it? There's barely anything left inside.
x
Sheldon knows something goes wrong when he runs out of fey to fight and the sound of battle doesn't cease. He looks over and watches Leonard send a stream of something horrid and black at the Faery lord. He should not have that kind of power. From what Sheldon had observed he'd been a mediocre magician at best. He makes it over in time to see Penny stab her second fey lord. He doesn't understand why she stays on the ground. Not until he hears her screams and draws the logical conclusion.
"It seems the magic has taken his sanity."Sheldon says, and separates Leonard's head from his body.
He knows what will happen now. He'd understood enough of the tomes in Leonard's trunk to understand that he's removing the one point of stability to Penny's magic. It spills forth immediately, clouds gathering, ominous rumbling ringing in the sky, wind whipping about like a gale. The lack of stability might kill them both, since he's close, but it's a preferable option to someone the madness has taken having so much power.
"Sheldon."Penny whimpers, and it's admirable that she's still alive. That's she's strong enough to hold it together long enough to ask. Penny would have made a remarkable knight, perhaps even a magician."Help me."
He remembers his grandmothers words. There was a thing such as too much magic. That's why the Magicians were so prone to loosing their minds. They never grounded themselves properly. Never found even footing, never stabilize. He recalls the passages from the Leonard's books. About how fey magic could be shared. Could be bound.
It is not his best idea, it is not sane in the least. But Penny is not the only one who wants to live.
He tears off his gauntlet, slides his palm over his blade to draw blood and offers Penny the sharp edge of his sword. If he binds them, makes their essence singular, then perhaps he can ground them both. It's worth a try. He will make the offer, but it is not his choice to make."If you cut your palm and take my hand it should calm the magical storm raging inside you. My family is of these lands. Our bones a part of this very ground. Our blood has been spilled and kin birthed as generations pass. I am bound to it as surely as my blood will bind you to me. This is the magic in my veins. Do you accept my offer Penny, Queen of the fey."
Penny cuts her palm open on his sword. Grips his hand.
"I do."
The magical maelstrom calms.
x
She almost can't believe how steady she feels, how whole, how human. Penny feels like herself again, like the person that teased her siblings and bickered with her parents. The girl that used to sneak away to slack off in the corn fields with her friends. She feels like Penny, utterly and completely, even knowing she so much more. She can feel Sheldon's mortality, like a soothing balm against her soul, it grounds them both. She is tied to the land, bound to the knight, her knight now. The brave man who will protect her, help her learn how to protect him, protect them. And make sure they both come to know everything being a Faery Queen entails. She knows this, knows him, down to the smallest, most fragile parts.
His strengths, his weaknesses, his cunning. He belongs to her in a way that she could have never fathomed existed. So wholly and completely that it will never occur to her to doubt him, to resist him. Why would she want to? They are each others.
She walks past Leonard's corpse, the only evidence left of the battle, if not the only casualty. There is a small twinge of regret at his death, but it was stemmed by the memory of his betrayal. This is a man that would have enslaved her. The one who stands before her now, the one she will one day come to love, he has set her free.
It feels like the most natural thing in the world to claim his lips.
x
"I don't know enough about magic." Sheldon whispers against her lips. He's never felt the extent of his ignorance so keenly. Not even when he couldn't convince the town of the danger they faced. There is so much that only she can make him feel so strongly. Penny. A faerie Queen, how could she be anything less, with the power of two fey lords? Bound in blood and steel and flesh. To the land. To him.
She smiles. The sight of it takes his breath away. Like the sunset or the dawn, it's devastatingly lovely. He doesn't understand. They are bound together, her magic, their magic now, can't work on him. And yet, she is still the most lovely creature he has ever seen.
"We can learn."
xXx
Moment of truth? I literally only wrote Leonard into this in order to kill him. Petty? Yes, I admit. Satisfying? Oh, yes. Very much so in fact.
That aside, meet Medieval Au number five. Someone take my laptop away from me, I can't seem to stop. I don't understand why I can't stop... I'll have the next chapter for release the dragon up soon. This one just kind of snowballed until it had an ending. That said, your comments would be greatly appreciated. I'm kind of just blinking at my screen because I don't know where these stories are coming from...Help.