Part 1 – The Trap
La vengeance est un plat qui se mange froide.
Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord
Ya see a pair of laughing eyes,
And suddenly you're sighing sighs.
You're thinkin' nothin's wrong,
You string along, boy, then SNAP!
Those eyes, those sighs -
They're part of the tender trap.
Sammy Cahn
Love and hate have a magical transforming power. They are the great soul changers. We grow through their exercise into the likeness of what we contemplate.
George William Russell
Prologue -The Seeker
She first noticed the deer that was frequenting her home for at least a week before she decided that she had completely lost her mind. As she lived a rather rural and relatively unpopulated area in the southern region of the United States, seeing deer walk up close to her home was not an unusual sight in the least. Her large, rambling home sat on ten heavily wooded acres off of a mostly gravel road. In her world, it was more abnormal not to see large four legged animals occasionally sniffing around the porch, much to the chagrin of her tomcat.
No, the animal itself was not unusual.
But, the keen sense that it was purposefully watching her, was.
She first noticed this curious sensation when she went to work early one particularly hot and humid morning 7 days ago. On that morning, she walked to her car in the carport just as she normally would every other day of the week. The same tree root caused her to trip, almost sending her headfirst into the mud puddle from the previous night's rain. She sighed, and looked around as though she was making sure no one saw her ungainly manner – a learned action from many years of clumsy awkwardness. When she looked up, she saw the deer – a buck of at least 10 points with odd markings around its eyes – at the far end of the pond that sat to the north side of her property. The deer bowed its head as though it was acknowledging her.
This happened again the next day. Precisely the same way.
The day after that, she saw the buck in the wooded area by the parking lot behind her office building. The animal watched her trip this time, her feet catching in a plastic shopping bag that has previously been rolling on the concrete. She shook the feeling off, as she pulled the bag off her foot and thanked no one in particular that she always had a spare suit in her vehicle. She told herself there were surely more than one buck with that many points on its antlers ... with the same unusual white markings around its eyes that very peculiarly reminded her of eye glasses.
On the fourth day, she saw the buck walking by the road while she was driving home from work. When she glanced over at it, the dumb animal seemed to catch her eyes. It was the first time she noticed that its eyes looked remarkably intelligent. And were very green in color.
She was thankful for the holiday weekend that met her at home.
However, after a full week of feeling watched, three days of which she tried to stay indoors while watching reruns of "Charmed", she decided to take action. When she looked outside and saw the buck in what she now considered its 'usual' spot by the pond, she quickly made a decision. After tripping over her coffee table, she grabbed the rifle she kept next to the door and stalked out of her house, checked the bullets, and made sure the safety was off.
To the animal's credit, the buck looked surprised and started to back away as soon as she raised the gun to her shoulder and started to aim.
It was exactly at that moment that she decided she must have lost her mind. She watched the buck suddenly turn into a man with round glasses perched lopsidedly on his nose, head topped with the messiest black hair she had ever seen.
Not knowing what to do with a dilemma such as this, she did what she typically did when she was presented with too much of a shock. She backed away from the man and tripped over a rock, hit her head, and mercifully passed out.
The black haired man walked over to where the woman lay on the grass and kicked the gun away from her hands before stooping down before her. He pulled the plain cotton shirt she was wearing down slightly over her left shoulder and looked at the skin there, rubbing a finger over her shoulder blade as though he were trying to find something. After pulling a stick out of his pocket, he murmured "Finite Incantatum" while pointing it at her shoulder. The skin on her shoulder shimmered in the sunlight. An old scar, misshapen and smooth from stretching out over a previously rapidly growing body appeared. He sighed and cursed rather coarsely, before picking up his stick again and murmuring "Celaverimus" over the exposed skin. The scar shimmered and vanished as though it had never been there.
He picked up the still unconscious woman and carried her back to her home. Almost as an afterthought, he looked back at the gun as he reached her back door. He stared at it for a long minute and murmured "Reducto". The rifle exploded. Snickering, he walked into the house, shutting the door behind him with his foot.
He sat her down on the large sofa that dominated her living room and whispered "Ennervate". It only took a few seconds before she opened her eyes, looked straight into his impossibly green ones, and began to scream at the top of her lungs.
A/N: First off, the only thing that's mine is the OFC, and she isn't really mine because she's part of the universe.
***sighs heavily*** An OFC. Heaven help me, but when she first formulated in my mind I started screaming. I'll grant you that I write what I know, but this lady is surely not me on a page. Although, I wish I could meet her one day.
Alright, either put up or shut up. I'll be shutting up now.