(My first fic. Go easy on me, please? hopeful)
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Prologue
The winter outside Fowl Manor was harsh. Every inch of it lay covered by a blanket of dreary snow, so wet and white that it would be apt to describe it as a sea of the wintry precipitation.
The wind was a wolf. Howling, it tore through the streets, icy fangs bared to bite any exposed skin and driving all creatures to seek shelter whether it be tree, burrow or manor. Inside a fire was lit, the orange light flickering on the snow, forming a glow in the darkness of the night.
With nary a light around the cold, lonely reaches of the black that cloaked the horizon should by all means be splattered with stars. The moon should be hanging low in the sky, an October harvest moon. And the snow, while a wondrous sight, would have caused much less consternation if it had come two months later.
Something was amiss- no, that hardly did this justice. Something was terribly wrong. A little snow and a mysterious absence of stars is hardly something to worry about, of course, but there was much more than that. The very air seemed to feel out of place, tainted and cold so that all the light and warmth seemed to be sucked out of it and you instead inhaled icy death that stilled your lungs and stooped your heart. Of course, a sense of bad karma had never stopped the infamous Artemis Fowl before. Not even the satanically frozen Arctic had deterred him from what he wanted.
There were very few things that would.
And one of them was lurking on the grounds outside Fowl Manor as we speak.
Cold golden eyes calmly surveyed the gloomy landscape. Two supernatural orbs, a wolf's eyes with the cunning of a vixen. Gleaming reflectively in the night and entrancingly slanted by the slightest margin made you ache to search them, to see what secrets lay behind those eyes.
Outlined ever so slightly in black and framed by femininely ivory, they might be the eyes of a gothic adolescent who deigned to get rather unusual contact lenses. Albeit, extremely real contact lenses. Only, perhaps, the mind of one such as Artemis Fowl might guess as to the true nature of the eyes' bearer.
Of course, this silent shadow was not one to reveal her persona so quickly. Especially when still assessing the situation.
She prowled around the edge of the manor, searching with those lupine eyes for a way in. A slip-up, a mistake, a folly. Mortals, humans most of all, were apt to display those. One of the many reasons why this ruthless night-wolf disliked associating with them unless she had a good reason. And at present she had a very good reason.
No! She lowered her head to scent the air delicately, raven hair swirled by the night wind. Baring her teeth, the powerful if young ghostly girl snarled viciously. This certainly was an intelligent human fledgling she was dealing with. A mere pup, young for even his own kind with their fleeting lives. That was fine.
So was she.
Checking that there indeed was no way in, the golden-eyed phantom drew back to the shadows. Not out of fear, to admit to fear would be nothing short of sacrilege. Nor to hide from the cameras, for no technologies would detect this darkly apparition save the innate ones. No, she retreated, if you can call it that, because she would wait. And watch.
"I will have that Book."
"And when I do, my Fowl adversary, you will rue the day you caught the eyes of the Immortals."
"You always were so naive."
