Author's Note: Yep, I think I'm sticking to a bi-weekly update schedule. This chapter was "hard" but still fun to write in a way. And we got dramas starting up.

Chapter 51
Changeling

"This is bullshit."

Anna suspected her own sense of time was warped and escaping her perception. She couldn't tell how long she was walking (limping), much like that time she followed past-Jack to his village. Two weeks walking and she didn't even notice? That must have been creepy, the two of them walking together for two weeks without a word between them. She made a guess that she was in a trance and he was used to the solitude. An assumed explanation didn't make it less disturbing.

Anna tried her best to keep to the softer ground, to spare her tender feet. Would she even be able to find shoes? She was essentially a ghost here, wasn't she? Maybe a zombie? She wasn't sure how much she could interact with the world. Of course there were a few times she did but it was still inconsistent how "real" she was here.

Where was "here?" She concluded Jack was Irish, and if she was supposed to be following or meeting up with his stupid face for whatever fucked up reason, then Ireland was where she probably was if Jack hadn't went for a swim. What year it was probably didn't matter too much.

She didn't want to see Jack. This Jack or any other Jack. She was supposed to be deciding if she could stand seeing him for the rest of...

She couldn't even say or think that word. It was too heavy. Too much.

Eternity.

"Eternity" was a simple enough word, but only if she didn't think about it too long. She might not have a choice, unfortunately. There was a decision to be made. It seemed obvious that she should stay in Halloween Town but...

Maybe monotony would kill her if demons didn't.

The thought made her freeze. What about demons now? Was she safe? She halted a moment to observe the surrounding forest, expecting the branches to close in and the faint trail she was following to feel more menacing.

But it didn't. Maybe she was too angry to feel afraid. No, that wasn't accurate. She still felt that general fear of demons, but back in the future. It was hard to explain. She didn't feel safe. Far from it, with her burns and the pain that she couldn't be bothered to cry about dragging on.

Strangely, she felt like she was the scariest thing around at the moment. She wasn't sure how she knew that or why that was. The odd epiphany brought with it the notice of how the ferns seemed to bend away from her and how she hadn't heard a single bird since Chakis left. She shuddered. This hyper-awareness of fear within and around her was interesting, but she knew it was odd. Fear in its nature was just extremely noticeable to her with it's still novel state in her mind.

Wondering got her nowhere if she had nothing to go off for answers. All she could do was keep moving forward.

She heard people interrupting her thoughts. She paused to see if the Wind had something to say, but it wasn't his (their?) voice. The voices were too distant. Too varying. She heard the sounds enunciated by the faint striking of metal and the bleating of sheep.

After a fight through wooded brush that she couldn't phase through like a proper ghost or spirit or whatever the fuck she was, she ducked under a branch and caught sight of the thatched roofs. Jack's village. Or James and Mira's she supposed.

Her memory from last week was a little too mixed with trauma to be sure but it looked exactly the same. There was a very faint scent of smoke in the air. The bonfire? It must be long burned away and cleared, but the scent remained when she broke the edge of trees and slunk down the hill, hoping no one could see her out in the open.

It wasn't very hard to retrace her steps whilst staying in the shadows of the circular houses and away from the cooking fires that dotted the beaten dirt. Anna darted between the corner of villagers' eyes like Jack showed her. Sheep startled and bleated at her. Something drove her on. It was creepy she was even aware of the drive. She thought it felt like she was returning to some place very familiar to her even with the sparse few times she had seen Jack's family's house.

Home.

Anna shook her head. This wasn't home. Halloween Town was more "home" than this place was.

She did not want to be in this place. It was homey in a rustic, warm way, but that's not all it was and she knew why.

She did not want to see the kid. Even being here made her skin crawl and her soul protest just enough that she felt indefinably uneasy. She couldn't properly explain the feelings, so the predominant one was confusion while she tried to sort herself out.

If a spirit, monster, or fae had seen her, they might have noticed her aura warp and shift hues a little while she paced at the entrance to one of the cylindrical homes. She stared at the open doorway, listening for any sound that the owners were home. She didn't hear the clatter of pottery or the rustle of movement. Even the fire inside that shed light was dim.

Anna almost turned to leave right then. She'd wait on the overlooking hill for something interesting or important to happen. Or she'd just bitch and moan until Chakis showed up (not that she thought that would actually work). What use was haunting an empty hovel?

A cry, small and more a distant whimper, halted her steps.

She was so stiff it hurt to turn her neck to look over her shoulder.

Nothing for a moment, but then the cries started up again, growing to proper infant wails quickly.

Anna waited for someone to come running, crouching a bit against an outer wall and ready to jump out of sight. But there was no movement, even from the nearest house.

"They wouldn't seriously leave it alone, would they?" Anna muttered. She rocked back on her bloody heels for a moment, fighting whatever vestige of human instincts couldn't stand the sound of a crying baby.

"Fuck," Anna hissed.

Her eyes (what was left of them) adjusted much faster than should be normal to the low light inside the house. However, she still realized a moment too late that it wasn't just her and the baby inside.

An old woman sat on a stool off to the side. The fire crackled in front of her...

The baby was in a small crib.

"You keep crying like that and you'll wake the dead," Anna joked. She cautiously leaned a little farther over the crib.

As if in response to her voice, the baby wailed louder.

Anna stiffened. She quickly glanced at the old woman who didn't even stir from her sleep. She stared at her for a while, frozen.

The woman must be deaf. The woman looked so old it seemed like she had one foot in the grave already.

Anna held in a snort at the cruel thought. Luckily, the baby was distracting enough to her and let out another fussy scream. The walking corpse groaned. "What do you expect me to do?" she murmured, crouching close to the crib. A moment later she was on her knees leaning elbows over the edge of the crib and fully expecting the baby to scream louder at her sight, even if the thought made her decayed guts twist a little in shame. Children were going to scream at her from now on whatever century she was in. She didn't think she'd ever care; her cringing at the cries said otherwise.

"Hey hey..." Anna said, pleadingly while the baby wailed and kicked, clenching his...her? little fists. "I'm not going to hurt you. I promise. I'm pissed. And I really don't want to be...around you right now." Anna trailed off awkwardly a little. "But you're...innocent. You're just a kid." Anna frowned. "Like me, I guess." She sighed. "You've got my years." The words were more bitter than she meant. "Hopefully you'll use them better than I did." She took a deep breath and was about to keep her distracted comments coming when the noise abruptly lessened. She froze as the baby's eyes open.

The baby locked eyes with Anna and she opened her mouth.

Anna was much more startled by the cooing laugh and the tiny arms reaching for her than she was at the fact the baby could clearly see her.

Uncannily familiar green eyes blinked, but Anna couldn't place them for the moment.

"You're not scared of me?" Anna absently brushed her own face with her fingers, feeling blood and puss slick the charred bits of her cheek and lips, wincing at the dull sensation of not-quite-completely burned-away nerves. Not surprisingly, she didn't get much of an answer from the little human besides another babble.

Hesitantly, Anna leaned a little closer, stretching a near-skeletal finger.

The baby eagerly latched on to it and Anna gasped at the realization she left blood on the fragile skin, ripping her hand away, afraid the human would burn her even more. Or if she would burn them.

The baby didn't like the loss of contact. She started crying again, though not as desperate as before.

She. Some fuzzy memory of Chakis saying "granddaughters"—plural—came to mind. So this was a little girl?

"Shhh shhh, hey now hold on," Anna stammered, but the baby just got louder. "Come on. Be quiet, sweetie. I don't want anyone to see me."

The baby didn't care, the fussing growing louder.

Anna almost wasn't even aware of what she did, or why. After one particular screech, she was suddenly holding the baby and straightening up. Her blood stained the swaddle, no matter how careful she was.

Bad decision. Bad decision. Put her down before someone sees you!

The girl's crying reduced to fussing almost immediately, and she even seemed to be falling asleep.

Anna awkwardly bounced her. "How is this fair?" she complained. "I'm supposed to be..." Angry didn't feel like the right word and left a pit of guilt. "...not happy with you. And you're over here wanting some freaking cuddles from something that looks like I lost a fight with a sandpaper machine. I'm pretty sure I don't have eyes either. How are you not freaking out?" A tiny smirk broke her irritated gaze. She thought of the strange interests that followed her around in life and the absence of fears that contributed to her not being the most shining example of humanity.

"Freak," Annalise whispered, her voice dripping sweetness and the reclamation of the whispered word that followed her in life, muttered behind her back by cruel peers and even her siblings sometimes—when they didn't know she could hear them.

It wasn't an insult to the baby girl, of course. She listened to Anna's tone of voice and she liked what she heard. This person wasn't Mamaí of course. Maybe she was another not-Mamaí, like Dadaí. No, this person was different. But she was known and felt safe somehow, and that was enough. She babbled sleepily, and the strange-looking person pushed the warm blanket away from her face a bit. Don't do that. It's cold. She was more upset when her already freed arm was fiddled with and roughly wiped.

The baby fussed and Anna shushed her, carefully trying to wipe the blood off the tiny hand. There were already stains on the blanket, but Anna still didn't like the look of her blood directly on the baby's skin.

She wondered what James and Mira would think about the blood. Hopefully, they wouldn't even be able to see it. It wasn't "real" right?

Anna heard voices. No more time for weird "what ifs."

She quickly tucked the baby up without touching her skin and set her down in the crib, the gentleness at odds with the fact she was trying to hurry. There was immediately crying when Anna booked it for the door and ran around the house as fast as she could. Her steps were stiff with hesitation. The feelings were confusing, but she didn't want to leave. But she couldn't be seen. Luckily, it seemed the owners of the voices didn't see her.

The spirit leaned gingerly against the curved outside wall of the wooden house and strained to listen for Mira's clucks and coos at her daughter's cries.

But the crying didn't stop. The hushed talking didn't either.

It was an agonizing three minutes of loud crying before Anna admitted she was pissed.

"What the fuck are they doing?" she asked under her breath. She understood the idea of not spoiling a baby and letting them cry themselves out, even if she didn't understand if that was true or not, but the little girl was only a week or two old. They needed to be spoiled for a while, right? Contact with mom and dad was healthy, right?

What the fuck would she know about babies? It just seemed common sense to try comforting that kind of screaming. The baby sounded genuinely distressed.

Anna risked being seen to creep back around to the entrance, and the first thing she heard made her hackles raise.

"Noisy thing. Do ye think we can train it out of it?"

"Strong-willed babe. She'll make a fine singer for the court with that breath, Fiadh. She'll lose the mortal belligerence with time easily."

"Tis true."

"As is." The reply had a weird tone to it, like something recited and not a real response.

The voices almost didn't seem like voices. Too lyrical. But they spoke the words with a strange casual reverence that the first syllable Anna could make out put her off. There was something disturbing and she wanted nothing more but to rush in and move the baby far away from these people.

"Will you grant me a final trade for mercy?" a third voice said, subdued. The voice was far more androgynous, somehow, but seemed old and weary. It echoed slightly too.

"What do you have to trade?" the first voice said with a sickly sweet patronizing tone. "Do you have any possessions?"

"No."

"Do you have any power?"

"...No."

"Do you have a name?"

"No. Not anymore..."

"Tell me, what do you have?"

"Servitude..."

"Worthless. Your fate at the hands of muddy barbaric humans is all that the sidhe want. Give them their due."

The entire conversation was over the frightened screaming of the baby.

Anna listened to the untranslated word "sidhe."

"She-e," she sounded out the word to herself. She had made the assumption the word she was thinking of was pronounced "sid-hee" but she knew what had been knitted together and corrected in her spinning mind.

Fae. Fairies. Welp, those were real now. She couldn't really be surprised. But what did they...?

Anna stiffened at the unmistakable rustle and jostling cry of the baby being picked up.

"Have hope," the second voice said, grunting a little at the new weight, "Maybe the humans will be stupid and not notice a changeling. You might have a long life yet. Sleep, little one."

The baby's cries faded fitfully, like they drugged her.

"Put the baby the fuck down!" Anna snarled from the doorway, crouched slightly and tensed. What was she going to do? Lunge at them? She didn't exactly plan this out. She just wanted the baby out of the...the largest one's hands.

She took a distinctly notable pleasure from the looks of utter surprise and even fear that blossomed on the three unfamiliar faces.

The situation and her own shock at the creatures' appearance lost the rush of pride for her. They didn't look like humans. Maybe she should have expected that. The only thing that resembled a human close enough was the tiny figure in the crib that looked a lot like James and Mira's baby if not for the too-large and too-self-aware eyes and the slightly too-long fingers that suddenly gripped the edge of the crib.

It was also really disturbing seeing a "baby" that young standing up in a little bed. Its legs didn't look developed enough to support any weight, and the large head made it more unbalanced looking.

She barely got a glance at the flying little fairy and the crouching lizard-skinned tree looking thing holding the baby before they panicked and rushed her.

The tree thing seemed surprised when instead of passing through, it ended up shoving her to the ground.

Anna hit the back of her head on the support beam for the door and cursed. She wildly tried to grab for a foot but missed. Things were a bit of a blur after that. She vaguely suspected that she scrambled—kinda on all fours—to the crib, grabbed the changeling and ran out the door, holding it by the arm and ignoring its shouts of pain and shock.

However, she definitely heard a villager scream and frantically keep screaming while they saw her disappear into the woods dragging a "baby" like a sack of potatoes by a clearly dislocated arm.

Where the fuck were those humans a few minutes ago? Why on earth did that old woman in that house not wake up at the commotion?

"Beast! What are you?! You are not Sidhe!"

If she didn't know better, the changeling actually sounded terrified. Weren't these fairies as old as Earth? Haven't they literally seen everything? Why did it sound like it had no clue what she was?

"Shut the fuck up," Anna spat as she ran, painfully tripping over roots and thick moss. She scratched off bits of flesh with the passing branches. She could hear the baby, who started crying again at all the fast and traumatic movement. But the sounds were fading fast and getting far away much faster than a human realistically could.

Anna Faded and the changeling amusingly screamed when it dissolved into an inky shadow along with her.

It couldn't feel her wet and boney grip on its forearm in detail, and yet the shadow kept a crushing pressure. The world spun by faster than they could have flown in a past life.

What was this creature? It couldn't possibly be a fellow sidhe; the injury in the changeling's arm proved that. Its aura was strange too. Mortal. Human. But at the same time, far from it. She—for the human voice was female—stank like a human soul. But there was something entirely different engrained in the purple and faintly silver haze. Slightly sidhe, almost. But that was impossible. There were other creatures that were "somewhat" Fae, just in terms of being "not human" or "other." Nosferatu from the mouths of men farther east. Aps from farther still. And other night crawlers. The closest sensation was perhaps the Puka and his courts of Samhain. But they were their own kind and no connections besides a vague kinship to the courts below the mounds and the Sidhe rule of the sacred green lands of this island. And they were all known already. This was not. This was new. Completely unrecognized.

For creatures as old as them, something unknown was infinitely more terrifying than any rotted visage.

Even knowing it would do no good, the changeling threw a few enchantments at its captor, but of course their power was still drained. It was part of their curse. The tiny sting of the compellations to let go would barely even affect the weakest minded human. Still, it might get them to lessen the grip slightly.

The bloody thing seemed to notice, giving the impression of curiosity amidst its anger. Still, it ignored the changeling and followed the cries of the babe, the vice hold never wavering.

"Keep your mouth shut," the angry echoes of a young woman's voice vibrated from the shadow that encompassed the two of them. The accent was strange, but it was still the language of Man.

The speed picked up when the creature seemed to pinpoint the crying and they switched direction, darting through the thick greenery. It was clear the forest wasn't familiar to them, their progress slowed by the stumble over rocks and nearly running into trees a few times. But she was fast.

The other fae was long gone, but the second Anna caught sight of the tree fae holding the baby, she swiped a rock from the ground in passing. Perhaps it didn't risk speeding away with the child in hand like Anna was willing to do with the changeling.

In hindsight, throwing the rock was stupid and reckless and yes she realized she could have hit the baby; but it was hard to argue with results and her impeccable aim.

The rock solidly, and satisfyingly, connected and the tree creature's head clonked to the side.

Anna whooped as it stumbled, cutting off with a panicked shout when the baby fell too.

The fae, shocked as it was that something had actually hit it, did well at keeping the small child from hitting the ground like them.

The baby was fine, if a little startled.

The scrambled moment settled with Anna a few feet away, grabbing at a few stray vines from the tree creature.

"Give. Her. Back," Anna demanded the second she saw the kid was okay.

Tree-thing shifted until it was standing again, looking at Anna in confusion and curiosity. It indignantly yanked the vines away.

"Who are your tuatha?" it asked, keeping a distance and holding the child close with little care for the fussing.

"My 'people' or what I am is none of your business," Anna said viciously. "She is not yours to take."

"There are no blessings on her head and a fair exchange has been made. She is of the sidhes now." The creature lifted a hand to touch the side of its head and brought it away to look as if expecting blood.

"You harmed me," it said in disbelief.

Anna bristled at the fact it was ignoring her demands. "And I'll do it again. Set the baby down, right now."

"Or what?" The tree said, eyes snapping to look at Annalise.

She bared her teeth. "I just said."

The tree continued through the middle of her response. "If you, strange...taibhse, wish to claim your ownership—"

Anna nearly spat out that she didn't "own" anyone but wisely didn't take the bait.

"—Perhaps another exchange can be made."

Anna squinted, already sick of the talk of "exchanges." It was too familiar for her liking.

She dropped the changeling and pushed it forward. "Take your kind back."

"We don't want it." The response was immediate and harsh.

Anna could have sworn she saw a flinch, but the changeling kept its gaze to the forest floor.

"Then what do you want?" Anna asked, the foul mood worsening. She wasn't just angry. She was worried.

The fae made a show of looking her up and down, the curiosity clear. It took a long time to answer, but Anna forced herself to be patient, though she couldn't avoid shifting on her feet.

"Whatever you are, you are intriguing and powerful."

The last part made something in her chest clench in fear. What was it talking about?

The Sidhe frowned a little and eyed her, still looking appraising. It made her bits of skin crawl.

"A favor will suffice."

Fun. It's a little shorter than I wanted as a could have technically put this whole thing into one chapter but I'm trying to go for short chapter so it's going to continue a bit. See you in two weeks February 24 and Happy Valentines Day!