Title: Night In The Country
Author: Hannah 'Rainwoman' Orlove
Fandom: Sleepy Hollow
Rating: R
Disclaimer: I don't own them. I have no money, just a few back issues of Green Lantern and X-Men. Please don't sue.

Jenny had followed Isaac out into the woods under the light of the waning moon. She swayed while she walked, the wine in her limbs causing them to shiver and lose their coordination.

The wine had been flowing liberally, along with whiskey and gin and all sorts of drinks designed to give you a headache the next morning.

The woods seemed like any other she'd been to, until she realized there were no sounds of any animals: no owls, no deer, no crickets. The wind wasn't blowing and the mist was swirling around them, not touching them. She froze, realizing where she was.

Isaac noticed his companion wasn't following him and turned to look back at her. "What is it?"

"We're in the Western Woods. You're not supposed to come here after dark, I should have been paying attention" she wrung her hands. She saw his eyes were devoid of understanding and clarified, "The Hessian Horseman rides through the woods at night, and if he catches you, it's all over."

Isaac laughed. "Don't tell me you believe that fairly tale."

She'd lived in the Hollow all her life; he'd only been here two years. "It's not a tale. The Horseman's real," she pleaded with him. "We've got to go back."

"Oh, come on." He slipped a hand around Jenny's waist. "We've been out here before, there's no reason to fret…"

"No, there is." She twisted out of his grasp. "I told you, at night the Horseman…"

He stepped forward, and though the light was dim, she could see a hint of madness in his eyes. "He's not real, I told you that." He was drunk, and though she hadn't been keeping track of how much he'd had, she knew it was a lot, and she also knew he had trouble keeping a steady head. "Now, me, I'm here, I'm real…" He stepped forward again, and she backed up.

"Come on, now, come on…" He dove for her, and she jumped away. She looked at his face again, and saw lust, and anger, in it.

"I said come here." He lunged faster than she could have imagined such a drunk man could. He latched onto her shirt. She twisted and writhed, trying to escape. Her terror finally gave her the strength to rip free, leaving him with a shred of cloth clutched in his fist. She ran from the drunken madman, deep into the Woods. He chased after her, screaming out obscenities.

Jenny knew what he would do to her if she caught him and wanted no part in it, wanted no part in this now, wanted to be out of these woods…

She wasn't as strong as he, nor as fast, and her head start would only provide a small margin of safety.

Which way had they come? She hadn't been paying much attention. If she could get to the town, she would be all right…

She heard him running from behind, he was coming too fast for her to stay away…

In her panic, she thought she heard hoof beats, but only for a moment.

Not paying much attention to where she had come from, nor to where she was going, Jenny crashed over a fallen branch and sprawled out on the trial. Before she could scramble to her feet, Isaac had jumped onto her, pinning her down with his body.

She could feel him on her back, hard and hot, and she heard in her ear, "Now, you know you want this, so why run away? You're such a tease, you know that?"

She felt him push up her skirt, and she tried to struggle, but he held her fast. She let out a scream and he clamped a hand over her mouth.

"Don't scream just yet, dearie. Who'd hear you, anyway?" He pressed his hips onto hers, and she could feel him against her. She whimpered into his hand and heard him laugh.

He wasn't pressing onto her as much now, had pulled back to sit on his keens, when she heard another voice.

"Me."

The voice had come from in front of them, and the surprise of it was enough to get Isaac to freeze. Jenny couldn't see the speaker but could see horse's hooves.

Isaac laughed again. "Must've had too much wine if I'm seeing ghosts."

"I am no ghost."

Isaac stopped moving completely, startled by the weight of the voice, the reality of it. He stood up and began to back away, not certain what to do.

Jenny looked up at the face of the man on the horse and the demon turned in the saddle to look at her.

Right at her.

He smiled.

Oh god it's all true all of it oh mother I want to go home save me oh my god…

Teeth sharpened into points, each as sharp as a razor. Hair sticking out any way it could, as black as the skin was corpse-white. Eyes - even in the dim light she could clearly see the eyes - that held her like a snake, with blue spilling into the white, more fearsome than the teeth. Rearing dragons of leather on his armor, mirroring the hilt of his sword. Those eyes, those terrible unwavering eyes -

Mercifully, he slid his eyes off her and onto the man who had been chasing her.

He spoke again. "You will leave these woods now." Not a request. A command, as inviolable as 'Thou Shall Not Murder.'

Isaac turned and ran.

The demon turned to look at Jenny again. She tried to scuttle away like a crab, but froze when he spoke again. This voice wasn't the same one he had just used, not one of thunder and wind; this one was kind, the voice a parent would use to comfort a child. "It's all right. You'll come to no harm. Follow that trail over there," he tilted his head to the left, "and you'll find your way back to the Hollow."

Jenny didn't need to be told twice. She scrambled to her feet and ran to the village as soon as he had finished his last word.

The Horseman waited a moment as he watched her run off, and spurred his mount after the man who had been chasing her, letting out a war-cry as he did so.

Isaac ran down the forest path, one worn by time and use, trying to remember the stories he had scoffed at. The church was holy ground, that would work against it…How to get to the church?

How to get out of the Woods?

He had only a moment to think of that when he heard the hoof beats, followed by a sound that could only be the drawing of a sword.

He had less than a moment before the sword flew through the air to sever his head from his body.

The next day, the headless corpse was found in the woods where it had fallen. The head was on the windowsill of the man's residence.

The local paper of Sleepy Hollow wrote how this was the first time in almost twenty years that the Hessian had been clearly seen by anyone. A full account had been provided.

No one believed the story, outside of the people of the village. Not that they cared.

They knew cardinals were signs of luck; that strange hoof prints meant that the guardian sprit of their home was about; that the Western Woods were haunted, true, but by a spirit that would not allow them to come to harm.

The legend of the Hessian Horseman was just that, a legend, to everyone outside the Hollow.

But its people knew better than that.