She didn't have a laptop or a tablet with her, but she had seen a library the other day. If her suspicions were right, the creature she'd met yesterday had been a Kelpie. The Fae were out publically, and she'd never really spent much time with one but she knew Kelpie were far and few between. She'd heard rumors that when they decided to out themselves the leaders of them all, the Grey Lords, had killed all of the "beast minded" ones, those fae who indiscriminately killed or preyed after humans. She didn't know if Kelpie were like that.

She would find out, that's what she would do. She did her morning routine, shower, brushing and all that, and decided to walk to the library. It was another overcast day but the sun was shining brightly. She was suddenly filled with an overwhelming sense of euphoria. She was all the way in Ireland, where the sounds of the sea and the smell of grass and brine never really went away. The sun was bright, and the air was clear, her worries were all MILES away and she just couldn't help but feel alive. Even the sour looks on the faces of some of the people she could see couldn't get her down. She didn't care what the locals thought of the pentagram around her throat or the obvious look of "tourist" covering her person.

The section of town the library sat in looked old. The streets were partially cobbled, the sidewalks were made of some sort of brick and every building looked as if it had been there awhile. The library was no exception. It was made of brick and limestone, with celtic-looking statued beasties out front. Yes, being here had her in an infectiously happy mood.

The librarian didn't seem pleased when she said she was looking for information on Kelpies, but she directed her to a section full of Irish Folklore and legends. She happily dragged down volume after volume and carried them all to an antique-looking rounded wooden table. Oak, she thought.

She had five of them just to start with and unlike some of the newer reprints in the Americas, these ones looked older, and original. Awesome.

The first one she looked in was a collection of different tales, but they read as if being spoken directly from the mouths of the midwives who passed them on from family to family. Every word was printed phonetically. The Irish accent was hard enough to understand when listening to it being spoken, never mind trying to read it.

The second was far easier to read. It had some interesting background information on folklore in general, and it did mention kelpies.

"Kelpies were said to resemble magnificent horses of desirable breed, to lure riders in. Once the creature had the hapless riders upon its back its skin would become adhesive, and with its prey unable to leave, it would take them for one final swim, diving down to the river bottom and devouring them completely. Only the internal organs would be found, floating to the shore"

Well that was cheerful, she thought. But it told her one thing, she probably should've been more afraid yesterday. However human the man's glamour might have appeared, there was no doubt now he was a Kelpie. She decided to look in one of the other books for anything extra.

"Kelpies are dangerous water faeries who take the forms of handsome men, or ghoulish horses. They lure children or naïve swimmers onto their backs and drag them to the bottom and devour them."

Well that wasn't much different from the other book. But in the third one it told a story of a sad lonely woman who met a handsome kelpie and bore him seven children. And one stormy night the beast betrayed her, and stole all seven children down to the bottom of the nearest river and she stopped reading there. A lot of these tales were designed to warn future generations of the dangers of fairies, and since the Fae had come to light publically she bet there had been a lot of "updates" on books like these, but she had a general idea. Kelpies were predators, ambush ones by the sound of it. Well that was easy. All she had to do was avoid touching him as a horse and don't bear him any kids.

Should be easy.

She put her books back and was just getting ready to start browsing for a book on horses when someone tapped her on the shoulder.

She turned to see a pretty woman a little taller than her with seal-brown hair and soft brown eyes. Something about her felt… off. She looked like a stunningly pretty Irish girl, but some deeper alarm, perhaps the horse in her, said she was more than she seemed.

"Interestin' study topic, Kelpies. You into Fae then?" she asked. She sounded Scottish.

"Just doing a little remedial research is all. This library is pretty impressive," she said back quietly. No use in being rude, this was just a conversation so far.

The woman didn't comment on her American accent or tourists or anything, but her eyes did something odd. For just a split second they shimmered, from velvety brown to bright, inhuman silver. It was just a flicker, like the way a bad tv station will cut to static for half a second and then back again.

She tried not to let on that she'd noticed anything, just in case it hadn't been intentional..

The woman smiled, but it didn't quite reach those eyes. "Interestin'. You know some folk wouldn't be too happy knowin' an outsider's lookin' in on'em," she said, tilting her head.

She frowned then. "Some folk wouldn't be the fae, would it? Look, it's completely curiosity-driven. I'm not planning on doing anything. I'm just a tourist," she offered the woman a smile.

The woman frowned at her.

"Fine. But we like to keep eyes on people lookin' in," she told her, and she walked away with a flurry of bouncing curls and clicking heels. Zoe, for that was her name, stood there looking a little puzzled. Had that been a threat or just a randomly stated fact? She didn't think the fae would say anything that didn't have SOME meaning.

At any rate her visit had been informative in more ways than one. She left the library was a spring in her step, though now she couldn't help feeling that she was being watched. That was ridiculous, who acted THAT fast?

She cracked her neck. She needed to run again. She didn't know that she wanted to run anywhere near that lake again but perhaps somewhere close enough that she could catch just a glimpse of it-?

She didn't bother with a car this time, but rented a bicycle. It was on a whim; she happened to pass a place that offered it on her way towards a gas station for a drink and a snack. It seemed like a refreshing idea.

She mostly remembered the way. The tire tracks from the rental car were even still there. It hadn't rained just yet, though the sky looked like it really wanted to. The air had a heavy, thundery scent to it, something so powerful she could feel it arcing across her very skin. It was a nice sensation.

She set the bike in the grass, stripped, and changed. Running as a horse was a little like stretching after a good, hard night's sleep. She was free and could go as far and as fast as she wanted. There was nothing but the sensation of her hooves against earth and grass as old as the continents themselves, under a sky that was nothing like the one she'd left back home. She wondered if living here was like this all the time, for people here, or if they existed like folks back home; just a long hard miserable slog from work to back and pay the bills, no nevermind what their city looked like.

Thunder rolled across the sky and she felt a single raindrop on her flanks. If there was one thing to get her mood up it was rainstorms and a nice cool breeze. It lifted her main up and she turned into it, prancing about on two legs and rolling in the dewy grass like a foal of three weeks.

"Enjoying yourself are you?"

She sat up in the grass laying on her side like a mare giving birth and looked, startled slightly. She made a mental note in case she WAS being watched, that he had found her that time not the other way around. But it was the kelpie in human glamour again, like before. He wore the same loose shirt and the same worn tartan with the blanket part wrapped about his chest and his hair was dry now, but still curled. It was a reddish brown and waved in the wind. She would've guessed an age between thirty and thirty-five if she thought he were human.

She changed back just like that, stretched a little and said, "Quite, actually. I love the rain and I love this place".

He folded his arms, unperturbed by her nudity.

"Sorry. Can't do clothes when you change forms," she held her arms out a little.

Still he said nothing.

"Think I met one of your friends at the library earlier. Said they'd be keeping an eye on me. That mean you, or just the fae here in general?" she asked.

He approached her slowly, looking at the sky mostly, and stopped within a foot from her, and looked at the grass at his feet, as if one on the boundaries of saying something, but pausing to consider their words first. Finally he spoke.

"You're not the first to go lookin' fer us. You're not the first to find us. An' ye won't be the last. But it was a warnin'. We're best left alone, you hear?"

She frowned and plucked a piece of his hair off of her face because the wind was blowing at his back now. He sniffed at her.

"Way I see it, I was just doing curious research on Kelpies, and YOU found ME this time around," she smirked up at him.

"And what did you want to know about Kelpies exactly?" he demanded. His voice was a deadly sort of whisper and he was close enough now that he could grab her if he wanted to. The threat in his eyes didn't go unnoticed either.

"… Whatever I could find, really. I wanted to know what you were and what they were about. Been awhile since I read any old fairytales. I find the fae intriguing," she confessed.

"Bah! Fairytales…" he growled.

She decided to lay on her back in the damp grass, for it was sprinkling now, and lay with her hands laced behind her head. The post of course made her belly look sunken, making her hip bones and rubs stand out a little, and her breasts loll to the side and stand upright a bit. She wasn't worried so much about it.

"Well, since you sought me out, you must want something… so what is it?" she asked, not looking at him. Then he stood over her, looking down, and she got a good shot up his kilt that she could've honestly don without. It answered the age-old question of what did celtic men wear under the kilts. The answer was not much.

"Honestly, I wanted to know why you're here an' what a werehorse wants tauntin' a kelpie".

She laughed.

"I taunt EVERYONE, I didn't care that you were a kelpie. I can swim and when the occasion calls for it I can kick. And I can turn into a horse. Horses can run," she stipulated, holding a finger up.

He crouched down so they were more on a level and said "you should fear me".

She studied him seriously.

"The horse in me does, I think. But I'm not afraid of much," she said quietly. "I almost decided to go back to the lake and just watch for you, actually".

He frowned.

"After I warned you off? Why would you want to go back?"

She shrugged and returned her gaze to the sky.

"I like learning by observation and those books are all old and outdated. I've never met or hung out with most fae for any length of time. Maybe I wanted to know more about kelpies," she said mysteriously.

He made some sort of noise, half scoff and half growl. But then he seemed to reconsider.

"How about a deal," he offered slowly. The fae and deals were tricky business, Zoe knew. But it wouldn't hurt to hear him out.

"Go on…".

"I let ya hang around my loch, answer any questions, so long as they aren't TOO personal… what could you offer me in return?" he grinned.

She thought about that one seriously for a moment. The lake was kind of in the middle of nowhere. Any sheep that grazed there regularly had probably been moved on years ago. Then there was the road. It couldn't be too easy for him to find fresh meat, but where the hell would she find anything like that without suspicion, especially as an outsider?

"Don't suppose it'd be enough if I promised to leave you alone?" she offered.

His look said no.

"…. I can try and bring you food if you wanted. I know you'd rather hunt… probably….," she guessed.

"Live prey," he said at last.

"Pardon?" she asked, propping herself up on her elbows. Her breasts jiggled a little.

He looked at her with those silvery eyes and the pupils constricted like a cat's, giving him a decidedly inhuman look. "Live prey. You bring me one person anytime you want to visit, and I'll tell you whatever you want to know," he anted up the deal.

"… Isn't that accessory to murder?" she asked.

"Information comes with a price," he hissed.

She frowned again, deep in thought. Wiccan law stated 'harm none'. That included self harm, and intention to bring harm to anything living. She couldn't easily go against that, but what if the person deserved it? A murderer or … what was she even thinking?! Was her curiosity so great that she could consider something so horrible?

The answer, unfortunately, was yes. She tried to reason that it didn't make her a bad Wiccan, it just made her a terrible person.

"I'll think about it. You'll know by tomorrow if I decide to do it or not. If I don't show up, assume my answer's a no".

And she got to her feet, changed, and was off before she even gave him a chance to reply.