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The Supernatural characters belong to Kripke Enterprises and the CW, not me. No money is being made from this story. It is for entertainment only.
The Dark Fae
Chapter 13
The Fae Ride Out
From Chapter 12
Sam and Dean said good bye to Marshall Rose right after breakfast the next morning and hit the road back to Sioux Falls, it was a clear, crisp day with just a hint in the air of fall arriving. Dean was humming music he had heard in the bar the night before.
Sam smiled. "You know that this machine can make music, right?" The tall Fae put out his hand and fooled with the radio until he found a station that Dean seemed to like. The car was full of sound, Dean was happy driving the car and Sam was happy watching the world flow by.
Chapter 13
The Impala pulled up the driveway, music thumping and Dean bobbing his head and singing along. Sam peered out under his fringe and saw that Bobby was standing on the porch with his arms crossed and a grim look on his face.
Sam poked an elbow into his lover's ribs.
"Hey, what's the idea?" Dean pushed back on Sam's arm.
Sam tilted his head up. "Take a look at Bobby Singer." He said out of the side of his mouth. "We might be in trouble."
Glancing at Bobby Dean quieted down, shut off the car and got out smiling up at the older man. "Hey, Bobby."
"Dean, Sam," Bobby responded. "We have to talk about this hunt."
"I thought it went well," Sam said as he stood up and rested his arms on the car roof.
Bobby didn't reply. He just turned on his heel and went in the house.
The two Fae looked at each other. Dean shrugged and they picked up the duffle bags from the back seat and made their way into Bobby's place.
They found the Hunter sitting at the all-important kitchen table drinking coffee. He had put out mugs for the two Fae. They dropped their duffels at the bottom of the stairs and sat down with their protector.
"Well boys," Bobby started. "I got a call from Marshall Rose. Ole' Marshall said that something weird happen on the hunt with you two. He said he sent you down by the river to trace the spirit back to its grave."
"He was expecting to have you two dig up the grave and burn the bones but you came back with the bones wrapped up in a shirt. That Marshal could handle. What he didn't understand though was that the spirit was nowhere around. That ghost should have been all over you guys, pissed at having its bones disturbed. He was even more concerned that when you all went off in the woods to burn the bones the spirit still didn't show up. That is just not normal. "
"Now Marshall thinks that I gave you two some kind of a spell to put the spirit down and he wants it if it exists." Bobby shook his head. "I can understand his thinking. A spell like that could save a lot of Hunters a lot of concussions but, unfortunately, there is no such spell."
"How am I supposed to tell the guy that I don't know what you did with the spirit either? There isn't a spell? I sure can't tell him that he was hunting with a couple of Supernatural creatures. What part of 'act human' did you guys not understand?"
By this time Bobby was turning a touch red in the face and the two Fae were becoming concerned themselves. Was the man going to start yelling? Was he going to throw them out of his house?
"Sorry Bobby." Sam said. "We might need a little more practice at staying human. It's harder than I thought. There are just so many things that we do naturally that gives us away."
"You're certainly right about that." Bobby huffed. "Now I want to know what happened to the spirit. How did you get rid of it?"
Dean looked up and smiled. "We ate it."
Bobby did a spit take with his coffee. "You ate it? You ate it? Did you think that was what humans would do, eat the damn ghost?"
Sam laid his hands on Dean's shoulders and Dean reached up to cover one of those hands with his own in comfort. "Look Bobby," Sam went on. "We said we're sorry. Please let us stay. We'll try to do better."
"I'm not throwing you out, boys. I even have a new hunt for you but I need to know about things like this. How in the hell do you eat a ghost? Hell, why would you eat a ghost?"
Dean was getting tense under Sam's hands. "We are spirit creatures. The ghost was a spirit. Just like you are a creature that eats meat; you are meat and so is a deer. You eat the deer, don't you? Why should we not eat sprits? He looked pretty tasty and was hurting humans and was threatening us. We ate him. End of story."
"Alright, alright, boy" Bobby tried to sooth Dean's rising temper. "Don't get your shorts in a bunch."
Dean looked up at Sam. "What?"
"I have no idea." Sam replied. "Bobby, what is this hunt that you have for us? Do we go with someone else like Marshall?"
"Not necessarily." Bobby responded and cast a worried eye over Dean. "Are you going to be OK, Dean?"
Dean stood and began to pace between the table and the kitchen window. "I need to go for a ride or perhaps just go visit my dragon." He turned to Sam. "Do you want to ride with me Volundr?"
"Give me a moment with Bobby, will you Dean? If you will wait for me I'll go to the dragons with you."
Dean left the kitchen and they heard him go up the stairs. Sam stuck his head out the kitchen door. "Dean, take the duffels up with you, OK?"
The tall Elf turned back to Bobby. "I'm sorry but I think that Dean is having a more difficult time leaving the Fae world behind than I am. His moods have become erratic. We may need to leave for a few days and live as Fae. Can you show me the hunt you wanted to send us on? It would be good to have a goal in mind. I'd rather not unleash Dean as Fae on an unsuspecting human world."
Bobby moved to his library and once at his work desk began to pull out maps for Sam to look at. The two Hunters stood side by side tracing out a route to Sica Hollow State Park in upper South Dakota. Bobby filled Sam in on the history of Sica Hollow and discussed the recent discovery of a coven of witches using the old power of the Trail of Spirits to enhance their own spells.
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When Sam finally went up to their room he found Dean dressed as Ólafr in his Fae ribbons and thin, front-laced boots. The half Fae's hands were covered with the smooth, fingerless Fae riding gloves. This was no longer a Fae pretending to be human. He was not pretending to be Dean; he was fully Ólafr.
When Sam entered the room Ólafr stood. "Are you coming with me Volundr? I wish to ride these hills under the dark skies and claim my right as a Dark Fae to the hours of the night."
"I will come with you, my love." Volundr said softly. "I will never let you be alone again. Wait for me to change and we will go to the hills together to call our dragons."
As Volundr stripped and wrapped the Fae rider ribbons around his body he talked of the hunt that Bobby had provided.
"There is a place called Sica Hollow which the Dakota tribes claim as a sacred place. The legend says Sica was the place where evil came to the people and young men were taught to strike and kill. The Dakota Great Spirit, Wakantanka listened to the prayers of the Dakota Medicine Man, Wicasa Wakan and sent his winged messenger The Thunderer to flood the villages in Sica Hollow and drown the evil.
"To this day people hear the beating of drums deep in the hidden valleys of Sica Hollow. The streams there run red with the blood of heroes. There is a place called the Trail of Spirits where you can watch the parade of the lost. It is a place of great power."
"Bobby says that a coven of blasphemous witches have set up camp on the edge of Sica Hollow and are siphoning the power of the place for their own purposes. Those purposes are not good."
Ólafr turned to face his lover. "An interesting story but what does it mean to us?"
"it is far enough away from here that no one should associate two Fae Dragon riders with Bobby Singer's apprentices." Sam said. ""We can ride the dragons through the hills to Sica Hollow and once there can do as we will with these witches. Does that sound good to you Ólafr?"
The two Fae left Bobby's house in the dark. The older Hunter knew they were going and could only hope they had learned enough about the human world to stay safe. Bobby fully expected to hear from other Hunters out there stories of the Fae Riders passing over the hills and through the forests of South Dakota. He doubted anything could catch them, even those other Hunters. It would take a lot of preparation to bring down either the Fae or the Elf. Any encounters in the next hours would be accidental, Bobby was sure. No one would be prepared for these creatures to ride straight out of fable and into real life.
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Ólafr and Volundr passed quietly up the hill behind Bobby Singer's house. Their passing was seen only by the wide-eyed owls hunting in the dark. The night birds where not disturbed by the passing of shadows and even the trilling insects never missed a beat of their songs.
At the top of the hill, near the shelter Bobby had provided, Ólafr sent out his haunting cry over the hills, seeking his dragon. Both dragons responded quickly, flitting through the air, their bodies outlined against the moon for only the blink of an eye. Their shadows obscured the stars in their passing and they touched down in front of their riders, softly, silently and obediently.
The Fae and the Elf tacked up their dragons efficiently and mounted. They turned their mounts heads to the north and rode. The dragons flung themselves from hill top to hill top, their forms reflecting in the water as they passed over the small hidden lakes that ran though the multitude of valleys that made up the eastern side of South Dakota. The closer they came to Sisseton, South Dakota and Sica Hollow State Park, the more broken the land appeared.
These places had been the hunting grounds of the Dakota Sioux for centuries and still belonged to the tribe in the form of reservations. These steep hills, precipitous cliffs and hidden valleys were restricted, bounded, and mapped but still in traditional hands and governed by tribal laws.
It was a hundred and seventy five miles from Bobby's door to the edge of Sica Hollow but the dragons' split hooves touched very little of that ground. They moved through the night like large predatory birds and at great speeds. Just as Volundr felt the warmth of sunrise touch his right shoulder they arrived at their target. Fires still burning gave away the camps of park invaders. The two Fae were sure they could find the witches' coven before another night fell.
They stayed on the ground, no longer free to fly through the darkness. The dragons picked their way along, carefully placing their feet where it made the least noise. The Fae moved along the edges of the dark trees inspecting one camps site after another. Some camps were those of Dakota hunters, following their traditional ways, harvesting the bounty of the land. Some camps were those of illegal intruders, those looking to take furred animals without permission. The Fae marked those camps for their special attention.
Some men thought they saw mounted riders moving through the shadows of the forest. The more sensitive among the campers were overcome with the desire to flee. Some did so realizing there was something else hunting in Sica that day and they had no desire to meet up with the dark riders. Others, coarser in their feelings were only uneasy but still greedy for what they believed they could seize. They were the ones who would leave Sica in the morning, if they still lived, to spread new stories of the evil that lived in the park.
Late in the day, closest in to Sica's haunted places the two riders found their witches' camp grounds, near to caves overlooking a cold, clear, dark lake. The caves speckled a cliff on the western side of the lake, facing the sunrise but shadowed most of the day. The two Fae stopped and as still as the deep shadows of the trees kept watch on the witches. For the most part the witches were grey, boney, deformed humans wearing rough rags to hide the damage they had voluntarily inflicted upon those bodies to pay the blood price their demons demanded. They crept from their camp and the caves, coming to the edge of the lake to drink after the cleansing rays of the sun passed behind the cliff, throwing the shores of the small lake into shadow.
Ólafr and Volundr marked the hiding place of each witch, bidding their time, waiting for darkness to enhance their powers with the light of the moon. They watched their prey and marked the hours until sunset.