A/N This is another of those finds from an old backed up CD. At the time I was reading some of Byron's poetry and this one caught my eye. This fic was where my head went.
With care I tend my weary guest,
His little fingers chill my breast;
His glossy curls, his azure wing,
Which droop with nightly showers, I wring;
His shivering limbs the embers warm;
And now reviving from the storm,
Scarce had he felt his wonted glow,
Than swift he seized his slender bow:—
"I fain would know, my gentle host,"
He cried, "if this its strength has lost;
I fear, relax'd with midnight dews,
The strings their former aid refuse."
With poison tipt, his arrow flies,
Deep in my tortur'd heart it lies:
Then loud the joyous Urchin laugh'd:—
"My bow can still impel the shaft:
'Tis firmly fix'd, thy sighs reveal it;
Say, courteous host, canst thou not feel it?"
- 'Anacreon' Ode 3 by Lord Byron
Canst thou not feel it?
Kaye placed her hand carefully on the pale, damp neck and felt for a pulse. There was one, slow and faint but still there. The child's skin was deathly cold. Kaye swept her saturated hair back from her face and swiped rain water from her eyelashes. The rain trickled down her scalp and dripped incessantly off her nose, mingling with the large drops falling from the trees.
Kaye removed her coat and laid it over the unconscious infant, wrapping it up tightly, and then in one fluid motion lifted it into her arms. She didn't really have a choice after all.
The little boy could not be more than five years old so why he was in the woods alone Kaye couldn't guess. Got lost maybe?
Well he was dressed properly, smart top and trousers but not enough to withstand the torrential downpour of rain and that sharp north wind.
Kaye shifted the lad's weight as she trod off down the beaten path, boots slipping in the mud and ground in autumn leaves. The rain had swiftly soaked her clothes through without the protection of her coat but she ignored the sharp chill.
Fortunately it wasn't far to the house. Kaye deposited her weary guest inside and set about reviving him. The whole while she was mentally justifying the rescue to herself and successfully ignoring the whispering voice asking her precisely what she planned to do with him.
"I'll worry about that later," she said to herself as she raced over the house collecting the necessary items. "I couldn't just leave him there!"
The child opened his eyes blearily and started to shiver. Tossing several blankets on him and giving him something to drink she made sure he got himself as dry as possible before leaving him some over large clothes and telling him to change. The clothes were various old items that she'd dug up from around the house. While the boy got into the dry clothes Kaye wandered off to get herself changed. In her rush to get the him safe she'd forgotten her own state of saturation and so she retreated to her room.
Kaye caught her reflection in the mirror and grinned ferociously. She looked like a truly wild thing with all manner of grass and leaves in her hair. Twigs had caught in her drenched clothes and there was a smear of mud on one cheek.
Checking her glamour was still satisfactory she pulled on some dry clothes and returned to the main room.
The child sat on the sofa with a blanket over his shoulders in the clean clothes. He was staring at something in his hands.
Kaye leaned over and frowned at the small item. It looked like a corkscrew of solid metal, twice as long and thick as a normal one.
"What is that?" Kaye asked curiously.
"Just my toy," the child replied in a dreamlike voice. "I do hope the rain hasn't spoilt it."
Kaye shrugged her slender shoulders. Funny sort of toy for a five year old. The child suddenly tilted his head to look at her and grinned.
"Thank you," he chirped.
Kaye couldn't help but smile back.
"No problem. When you're warm I'll help you find your mummy okay?"
The little boy nodded sadly. "I miss my mummy. I don't know where she went."
He started to cry.
Kaye's reaction was automatic and maternal; she went straight to him to give him a hug. She caught the child's reflection in the glass from the corner of her eye as she wrapped her arms around him. A sharp toothed visage leered back.
Shock coursed through her. Kaye tried to pull away but the pain had already entered her chest.
It was sharp at first then dull and burning. Kaye fell to the floor, vision darkening.
The child stood to his feet as his glamour flaked away to reveal a lean fae with murderer's eyes.
Dispassionately he watched Kaye writhe on the floor as the iron ate through her and her blood pooled on the carpet.
"It does still work," he told the pixie quietly and tugged the corkscrew out of her body, swiftly sheathing the iron tip. He leaned in closer and his face twisted in a mocking leer, "Say, courteous host, canst thou not feel it?"
The assassin waited until the last sigh of breath left Kaye's lungs before he turned and strode back out into the dark wet night.