Title: Winter's Abyss
Author: robingal1
Pairing/characters: P/E/N
Spoilers: none
Warnings: cursing/blood/death/werewolves
Summary: AU where Neal is a man with a dark and tragic past, Peter is a Civil Enforcer, Elizabeth is a High Priestess, and Bugsy is a horse.
Author's note: Your choices define you. Therefore, in this AU, character choices will be different than those of the canon-verse, but the characteristics will remain. Constructive criticism highly welcomed.
Rating: M
Not mine. Property of USA Network.
Her Majesty's lands were trapped deep within the heavy winter. Neal could no longer feel his feet, yet he struggled still to place one foot in front of the other. His breath came quickly, steaming the air trapped in the scarf wrapped around his face. Each breath was harder to draw. His grip tight on the pack he carried.
The strap had broken in his haste to exit the home of his latest victim. The strap had caught on a nail, ripping, and almost losing his precious treasures, silver.
All the silver Neal could lay hands on. He raided the kitchens of peasant and noble alike. He took it all. He had to. Kate needed it. His lovely Kate.
A visiting noble, Kramer, had quietly stolen Kate away from the crowd gathered in the town center. At first Neal thought she was delayed by the new bookstore or the minstrels, but as the night grew on, he began to search for her. None in the town had seen her for hours. He asked for a search party to form. Panic threatening to rise.
Kramer, the noble bastard, held the town off. Saying he had seen her near the town fountain. Barely remembering to bow hastily before leaving, Neal raced from the bight warmth of the town square.
Neal found her there, where the noble lord has said, leaning over the water's surface, pale, crying, and grasping her neck. Blood covered her, but the wound was closed.
Neal searched her for other wounds, frantic.
"Kate! Love, what happened? Are you hurt?"
Kate looked up then, tears streaming down her pale face, blue eyes gone, and black instead. "I- I was bitten. He just... it hurt. It hurt. And now it doesn't." Kate turned her head then, as if hearing something. Her eyes huge with fear.
"Kate?" Neal looked around, seeking what she feared. A few of the townspeople could be seen milling farther away, nearer to the festival.
"My love, if you have any mercy in you, kill me."
"What? Kate, what happened? Who did this to you?"
Kate rose from the ground, unsteady, walking towards the woods. Her voice took on a dream-like quality. "Who, you ask? Lord Kramer. He liked the way I smell." Her steps became surer; Neal was quick to stay with her, step for step, breath for breath.
"Kate, stop! Where are you going? Stop!" Neal was running now, his panting was loud in this dark winter night. The moon, though full, providing only enough light to see little more than Kate's fast escaping form.
Her dress could be heard tearing. Kate's cries becoming harsher. She tripped and curled into herself.
Neal falling near her. His hand shaking, he reached out for his love. "Ka-"
A sound came from her then. A fierce roar of grief and anger filled the air. Her form was ripped from her and replaced with a massive beast. Her eyes bore into Neal, freezing him with fear and sorrow.
Kate lifted her head and roared again. The roar of a hunter proudly claiming her kill.
Neal couldn't speak; his love was bitten; his love was gone from him; his love was cursed; his love was a werewolf.
Kate opened her jaws, teeth catching the light from the moon.
"Oh, Kate..."
She stopped at the sound of his voice. Her ears flattening against her head.
"You'll be fine, love. You haven't spilled any blood. And the bastard sire is just there in the town. I'll kill him, Kate. I'll kill him! And you and I can be married." He smiled as he said it. Kate always said his smile could flirt the stars from the sky. Neal watched her, held his hand out to her, beckoning her to trust him. Smiling until it hurt.
They stayed like that, frozen in uncertainty. Kate's ears began to lift, her stance began to loosen...
When a terrifying roar raced though the valley. A claim on Kate's soul. A call she couldn't resist. Her new master must have escaped the town's attention and began his hunt.
Kate turned and escaped Neal's reach.
"No! Kate! No! You can't! If you go..."
Kate raced away faster than Neal could run. He ran anyway. He ran long after he lost her trail.
He was lost. Lost without his Kate. Lost away from the town. Lost in the deepest darkness of the night woods.
Before he collapsed, he heard a soft growl just behind him. The snow was deep here, higher than Neal's face as it cushioned his fall. His heart beating too harshly, his eyes too heavy, he fought to keep them open, and his skin cold against the melting snow.
A spot of night moved toward him. First a shape, then a form of black fur and teeth. The growl came again. Low and next to his ear, blowing hot and fetid breath against his neck.
A voice no human could make broke the silence. "Foolish little lover." The words barely discernible in the low growl. "She is mine now. I will have my fun. And she will enjoy it, mindless and hungry. She will never know guilt or shame, nor the next sunrise.
"These lands have been mine before you were a spark in your mother's eye; they will be mine long after your meaningless death." A noise like warped laughter moved away from Neal and back into the night.
"No." Neal's voice barely made it to his ears.
"Foolish little lover." And the voice was gone. Kate was gone. Neal was alone.
His eyes closed. Kate died that night.
Neal adjusted his grip on the bundle. The silver inside rattling. "Kate." Tears came unbidden to his eyes. He angrily wiped them away before they could fall.
"I robbed every house, Kate. All of them. The whole town. They didn't help us. I told them. What happened, when I made it back. But they just spat on me! Murders! Bastards!" Neal walked on, away from the town, toward the horse he'd left outside the town.
He leaned against a nearby tree, to catch his breath. He hadn't been eating, too sick to hold much down. But the thoughts of revenge fueled him forward. He shoved off the tree and made his way to the blacksmith's horse. "Many of these pieces must be inherited. I'll melt it down, Kate. I'll form them into beautiful blades. I'll shove them into his heart, Kate! I'll kill him, love."
The horse was just over the next rise. He could hear it whinnying. He would ride his stolen mount, he would make blades unlike any other, he'd kill Kram-
Why was the horse making so much noise? Neal hid the pack under a fallen tree and covered it with snow. His fingers raw and numb, the snow white against his red hands.
He crawled the rest of the way on his stomach, quietly looking over the slope to the horse. The local Civil Guards trying to calm the town's largest horse. A horse that would've carried Neal and his silver out of this damned town and through the falling snow.
The Guards thought that after refusing him justice, that they would then lay a trap for him? No. Those greedy, lazy, murders-by-association could wait until the Queen's Stag comes for their worthless souls. Neal had no interest in going anywhere with them. He crept back to his silver, buried himself quietly under the fallen tree, and waited until sundown. He would escape into the night, him and his cold silver.
Peter walked through his mountaintop village. It was huge, for a village. But what it lacked in grand balls and high walled gates, it made up for in higher learning and skilled healers. The village had been founded on the healing powers of the springs that came from deep within the mountain.
Peter was proud of his life, his village, his fellow villagers. People came from all over the Queen's land to learn at the university, or to be healed in one of the pools in the mountain. There were signs as far away as the Queendom itself showing direction to the York of Newness.
Unfortunately, some of these people saw his villagers as easy victims, choosing greed over righteousness. It was Peter's job, as Captain of the Civil Enforcers, to seek justice and maintain the peace. Most days, it was just throwing a drunkard into the sobering arms of the river, keeping peace with the visiting camp of orks, or keeping the small band of raiders from ascending the mountaintop.
In truth, his job was often defined as simple delegation to his team. His Sergeant, Diana, was a better hand at the cross bow than any he had ever seen. If asked, he would easily state his belief that the raiders feared Diana far more than any traps his Civil Enforcers had set.
His other closest team member was Clinton, soon to be a Sergeant as well. A man of quiet strength and friendly laughter, he had come to the village seeking a new start after servicing in Her Majesty's Navy. His addition had been unexpected, but Clinton had quickly proven himself and was welcome in many of the local taverns. And by many of the maidens who worked there.
Peter walked passed shoppes and clothiers. A smile hovering on his lips as he patrolled passed a small gallery. He had met his Elizabeth, his love, his wife, his greatest joy, at that small gallery. She was there to meet with her friends, when a robbery occurred. After Peter assured the patrons of their safety, El used a simple tracking spell and lead Peter right to the robber. He asked for her hand that night.
Her laughter set his heart to flight. Her calm strength stole the breath from his chest. And her cunning burst from her eyes, freezing his thoughts in his head.
She made him court her for a year. Even her parents visited. Peter hunted and prepared the largest boar he could find.
As the High Priestess of the Sacred Springs, the wedding was monstrous and the most daunting thing he'd ever endured. But her smile melted him into the summoning circle and they were wed.
Peter was torn from his reminiscing as Clinton came to fetch him. He had obviously ran. Something needed his attention. They both ran through the cobbled streets, then getting further from the village proper, the cobbles turned to a wide dirt road set with deep ruts from years of carts. Near the edge of the valley, at the base of the mountain, a small crowd gathered. Diana was at the center, calmly enforcing the crowd to back away from the center.
Peter followed Clinton into the throng of onlookers.
"Diana." Peter nodded to her in greeting and assumed command. Clinton went to the edges of the trees, watching and guarding. It was protocol and didn't need to be said. He had a damn good team.
"Peter." Diana moved aside to reveal El leaning over a hooded figure. His boots were stained with mud, his coat was dirt-stained and torn. Wherever this man was from, he had come on foot in the bitter and dangerous winter.
El's basket of herbs and sundries lay beside her. She must have been called away from her work, as well.
"Peter, he's dying." El said with the calm brought on my too many losses. Not all who came to be healed lived. Queen's Tit, most of them died on the way. El knew the dying when she saw them.
"Good! The fool tried to rob me!" A voice in the crowd called.
"Ma'am? What happened here?" A woman in riding leathers, tall and beautiful, with hair like fire, strode forward carrying a riding crop. There was blood on it. "That man tried to steal my Van Gogh. He's a prize horse, worth three bars of gold. This man tried to steal him!"
Diana began dispersing the crowd. They knew better than to stay and risk her ire.
A weak cough and a groan came from the man on the ground. "El?"
"He's dying, but he can be saved. As a Priestess, I have to try." El knew she was only saving him to release him into the mercy of the village Judges. But she had sworn to the Goddess to be brave and to care for others as long as she lived.
"Diana, find a cart and horse-"
The fire woman's shoulders became tense at this.
"Not Sara's three bars horse. You are Sara, yes? You're always welcomed here as one of Her Majesty's best Bounty Hunters."
The woman raised an elegant brow. "The stories I heard said that York of Newness was home to the best Civil Enforcers – after those in the Queendom, of course- they seem to be well founded." Sara smirked. "Perhaps I'll finish my business and winter here after all.
"And you must be Elizabeth, the High Priestess? A pleasure." A true small smile this time. "I'll be staying at the Plaza Inn." With that, she leapt atop her three bar horse and rode off.
Diana and Clinton returned with a cart, but no horse. "I'm sorry, Peter." Clinton looked around at the few retreating villagers. "I couldn't find anyone willing to part with their horse."
"It's fine." Peter sighed. Walking over to his wife and the stranger. El had moved him unto his back. A scarf had been wrapped poorly around his hands, trying to stave off frostbite. His face had an unkempt beard and was gaunt with starvation. He stank. His breathing was hitching. Tears were streaming from the corners of his eyes into the ground beneath him. He had a death grip on an overstuffed and heavy pack.
"He doesn't seem to have any broken bones or internal wounds that I can immediately sense. It should be safe to move him."
Peter moved closer to the mountain, placing a hand on one of the nearby boulders. He drew a quick well-practiced sigil into the dirt, cut his finger against his tooth, using the blood to activate the sigil. "Satchmo!" Peter summoned the mountain spirit with such ease, like a master calling a dog to heel.
Within seconds, the ground shook and a demon spirit appeared in a flash of light. Over the years he had taken on the form of a large yellow dog. Even after all these years, the sight still caused gasps from his friends.
Satchmo, the mountain spirit, had existed here far longer than any human. When Peter had first seen him, the spirit was following El home, like a towering dog following its master home. He had asked El how she called such a beast. She shrugged, as if it had never occurred to her that such power would have been denied her. "I saw him, I gave him a name, he followed me home. He is the mountain spirit. He protects all of us. But his home is deep in the mountain. My sacred springs are in the mountains. We decided to protect them together." El smiled. "He likes to play and run. He likes when I sing. I named him Satchmo."
Satchmo came only when he chose to, only to those he chose to hear. Peter made sure that Satchmo had a large space for the beastly figure near the large hearth in his and El's home. Satchmo often came when he and El summoned. Especially when they had bacon to offer.
It was humbling to be able to call forth such a creature of old and vast power.
"Satchmo, we need help to carry this man to the springs. We have a cart, but no way to carry it." Satchmo, smarter than any reckoning, opened his maw to a friendly doggie grin, tongue hanging from the side. "Please, spirit. This man will die without your help."
Satchmo went to the man, Clinton and El having placed him in the cart. He sniffed the man from head to foot. The spirit lingered on the man's chest. The spirit's head tilted as a dog's would, as though confused and waiting. Finally, Satchmo took another more lingering search of the dying man.
A short unearthly bark from the demon and the man groaned again.
Diana and Clinton bowed their heads to the spirit, the demon hound of their mountaintop home, and saluted both El and Peter as they left back to their jobs.
Satchmo moved to the front of the cart; without any hitching, the spirit pulled the cart forward, toward Peter and El's home. One of the deepest and strongest springs was directly center in their home. Just near to their kitchen hearth, in fact.
No one but the most gravely injured or El and himself ever went into that most private of springs. The spirit's path went true and fast. His paws dug into the gravel gaining more speed.
Peter looked to El, but she didn't seem to know any more than him.
