I just want to say thank you to the people who reviewed me and favourited me, you wouldn't believe how ludicrously happy it makes me to read them!
Saoirse
"My name is Saoirse," she said slightly sardonically, "In case you were ever thinking of asking."
"Charmed I'm sure," Bryony panted. Saoirse could see the dark blood coursing down the back of her companion's neck, and heard her breathing became steadily more laboured.
"Where are we heading?" Bryony asked her, through a haze of pain.
"West. To Prince Gabriel's castle. I'm going pay to my stepsister a surprise visit." Saoirse had a manic gleam in her eye.
"Right." Bryony's eyes had begun to glaze over, and Saoirse was getting the distinct impression that Bryony was in too much pain to care about anything she said. "Can't you put your witchy powers to use and heal me or something? Or we'll never make it there."
Saoirse was just about to retort angrily that she couldn't do anything until the effect of the anti-magic drugs she had been forcefed wore off, when the other girl slumped to the ground. Saoirse swore, and managed to catch her before she hit the ground, the princess's blood streaming over her hands. The nausea induced by the drugs had begun to ebb, and Saoirse thought with a spark of hope that maybe her magic was coming back after all.
They were safely inside the forest by now, but she could still hear in the distance the prisoner escape bells, and the baying of the tracker dogs. Blotting out the noise, she gritted her teeth, and called up her meagre reserves of energy. Muttering incantations she placed her hands over the wound. It took her four attempts before, with a burst of magic that made her swoon, the skin and bone and muscle slowly began to knit together and the bleeding stopped. Shaking with fatigue, she learnt against a tree, and pulling her into her arms, cradled Bryony's head in her lap, and waited for her to regain consciousness.
3 hours later
They finally stumbled across a river after hours of walking. Saoirse's throat was parched, and she distracted herself by imagining inventive ways of despatching Lucinda, and picturing Lucinda's expression of horrified surprise at seeing her ugly stepsister alive.
Dusk was gathering, and mist had descended on the forest. The air smelt chilly and damp, and everything had taken on a silvery, slightly surreal quality, and every step they took sounded muffled.
They bent to fill their waterskins, and drank thirstily. As the albino girl splashed her face with cold water, a thread of seductive music slunk into her ears. She looked up to see figures slowly rising out of the water, dripping as they sang softly. About a dozen women stood shimmering in the pale light, their long hair barely concealing their naked forms. They were beautiful, in an eerie sort of way – black, slanting, pupiless eyes; sharply pointed translucent teeth; and skin slick with tiny scales.
Sirens.
Saoirse backed away warily, but she wasn't overly afraid. "It's alright. Only men are susceptible to them. They seduce hapless young lads with their singing and their beauty – if you can call it that -" she said with a derisive snort, "-and eat them." She gave the merwomen a defiant look, "No supper for you here today, sisters! But there's a manly hunting party not far behind us, tracking us, that you can snack on."
Another mermaid broke the surface of the water, and slid sinuously onto a rock. Unlike her fellow sirens, she had long serpentine tail which flared into two handsome fins at the end, and she tossed her copper hair over her slender shoulders. "Hello," she addressed Bryony in a musical voice, and a smile curved over her lips.
Bryony dropped her waterskin with a loud splash.
Saoirse turned and peered at Bryony's expression. She was gaping slack jawed at the mermaid, and with a sinking feeling, Saoirse realised she had been wrong to assume that men were solely affected by these creatures.
"I am Lorelei," murmured the siren, and slipped off the rock and swam towards the bank.
"You're so beautiful," Bryony whispered, in a trance like voice, advancing towards her. Saoirse grabbed her wrist and yanked her back; with inhuman strength Bryony threw her off against the ground, and the witch yelped in pain, hearing her own wrist crack with the force.
"You look so tired," Lorelei was crooning, "Come and rest with me. I can give you a bed of seaweed to rest your head, come and sleep." The sirens began to close in, and their song swelled louder and louder.
"Yes," Bryony said muzzily, "good idea." Lorelei wrapped her arms around the princess' neck and pulled her into the water. Saoirse struggled to her feet, but the song was beginning to take its toll on her. It seemed to smother her mind like a thick blanket of cobwebs, hissing through her ears, constricting any clear thoughts.
The mermaid pressed her coral lips against Bryony's, and Saoirse watched helplessly as the human girl shuddered with pleasure and slumped against the siren. Lorelei, evidently sensing victory, slowly submerged her prey in water and disappeared beneath the surface. At once the sirens' song cut off and the dived under the water hollering their success.
Immediately Saoirse snapped out of her trance. "Give her back you slimy bitch!" she shrieked, and drawing her knife, dived into the water. The sirens were keening and swimming round and round their victim. Bryony was kicking and struggling desperately in Lorelei's grasp as the mermaid dragged her down further, her arms squeezing the oxygen out of Bryony's chest.
Saoirse slashed wildly with her knife. Fairy creatures like the Mer hated iron, and as soon as the knife touched their scaly skin, they gave watery screams, their bodies welling up with sores or emitting plumes of metallic blood. She propelled herself through the crimson water until she collided with Lorelei.
She wrestled with the red headed mermaid, and managed to fasten her hands around her neck. She pushed harder and harder, and choking violently, Lorelei let go of her prey, who bobbed up to the surface. By now Saoirse's lungs were screaming for air, and black spots swam in front of her eyes. Lorelei thrashed her tail back and forth, buffering Saoirse, but she clung on determinedly. Just as she felt the siren's pulse slackening, and her fight waning, she could bear it no longer. Releasing the mermaid, she shot up to the surface, coughing up water, and clambered onto the other side of the river.
She hauled Bryony out, and lay back on the grass, gasping. Only a few heartbeats had elapsed, and something sprung out of the waves, launching itself at Saoirse.
Lorelei's damp copper hair covered the witch's eyes as she tried to choke the life out of her mortal opponent, just as Saoirse had tried to do to her. Saoirse flailed blindly, and lashed out randomly with her knife. With a horrible gurgling sound, Lorelei unhanded her, and slid backwards into the river, the weapon protruding grotesquely from her throat.
Saoirse sank backwards limply into the grass, utterly spent. "Never has crossing a river been so eventful." She said flippantly to Bryony, after a few minutes of catching her breath.
The red haired girl didn't respond. "Bryony?"
Bryony was lying waxy and unconsciousness on her back, her lips faintly blue.
Fear made Saoirse act fast, even though her whole body protested at the sudden movement. She banged hard on the other girl's chest, giving short, hard compressions. "Come ON!" She yelled franticly. Pinching her noise and roughly pulling open her mouth, Saoirse pressed her mouth to Bryony's and tried to breathe air into her drowning lungs.
Bryony's chest heaved and spluttering she pushed Saoirse off her and vomited up brackish water. "Thanks," she muttered bashfully, after she had finished her coughing fit.
"It was nothing," Saoirse shrugged, turning away. She could still feel the imprint of Saoirse's mouth lingering on hers. "You rescued me, so it was only fair I return the favour. 'Sides, I couldn't let fish-face drown you when I need your sword skills to fight off the good guys now that we're the villains."
Saoirse could see out of the corner of her eye Bryony trying to gauge her emotion. After a while, Bryony said, "Let's make a fire," and hobbled off to get some wood.
Bryony
Bryony chewed her roast trout hungrily. It was handy having someone around who could light a fire with the click of their fingers. She could sense Saoirse regarding her with a strange expression in those odd pink eyes from the other side of the fire. Bryony didn't understand what had changed in this elusive stranger, or why the hell Saoirse had gone to such lengths to rescue her. Saoirse seemed so utterly consumed by her lust for vengeance that Bryony was surprised she had any room in her left to care about other people.
"So," said Saoirse in a silky voice, pushing back her stark white hair, breaking the silence, "You're susceptible to the charms of women?"
"Well, if a beautiful woman places herself in my way I'll hardly turn her down," Bryony smirked. "But so far I've not found my happy ending with any of them." Her smile wavered. She thought of Elsinore, cursing her, she remembered Ninette, frothing at the mouth with poison. "It seems I'm destined to ruin any chance of true love," her voice suddenly hoarse.
"Oh, I see." The pale girl's voice had taken a sly tone, "Princess Ninette."
Bryony flinched.
"Oh I wouldn't feel so guilty if I were you," Saoirse's narrow face was illuminated with rapturous cruelty in the firelight, and Bryony felt a growing feeling of anger and disgust to see how the witch was enjoying aggravating Bryony's weakness. "That little whore deserved everything she got!" she spat venomously.
Bryony gave a snarl of rage. "How can you be so cold? What sort of a freak has no pity or remorse for the accidental murder of an innocent woman? My own cousin! Your own half-cousin!"
It was Saoirse's turn to wince, but she quickly recovered. "Love!" she sneered, "How do you expect me to feel love or pity? I watched the mother I loved burn to death, because of Ninette's own brother, his sentence from his lips! These feelings you speak about only serve to make people weak!" She gave the fire a vicious poke and the flames whirled.
They glared at each other for several seconds, and Bryony for a fleeting moment considered hitting the other girl until she cried for mercy. Then she took a deep steadying breath and her temper began to cool.
They ate their supper in tense silence for ten minutes. Finally, Saoirse looking penitent, said with a tentative grin, trying to keep the peace, "Now that I know what a womaniser you are I'll have to be careful you don't try to seduce me or steal away my virtue."
Bryony, relieved the animosity was over, gave her a teasing smile, "You won't be able to resist me. They all succumb to my charms in the end."
Saoirse laughed, and Bryony realised that that was the first time she had heard Saoirse do that. "I think you'll find me a hard one to break."
"Good. I like a challenge," Bryony said warmly.
Her companion smiled ruefully. "I think I'll be quite safe from you and your charms. As the ugly stepsister I'm hardly an appealing prospect."
Bryony's smile died on her lips. "I don't think you're ugly," her voice sincere, fixing Saoirse's feverish pink eyes with her own hazel ones, "I don't think you're ugly at all."
The albino dropped her gaze. Although it was hard to tell in the scarlet firelight, which made Saoirse's corpse pale complexion glow rosily, Bryony could swear she could see a blush colouring the other girl's cheeks.
"Let's get some shut eye." Bryony said brusquely, to avoid an awkward silence. "I suspect we've got a long day of trekking and soldier-bashing tomorrow, and stepsister poisoning, if you have your way. And no doubt we'll meet a certain vengeful fairy on the way too." She added. She shuffled round to sit next to Saoirse, and wrapped her large, thick cloak around them both. After a moment's hesitation, Saoirse leant against her, and rested her head onto her shoulder.
Bryony was painfully aware of the other girl's proximity, and of Saoirse's every heartbeat. She closed her eyes, and tried not to think about how the current tranquillity she was feeling right now would no doubt be soon ripped away by her livid fairy godmother. All she had to do was give back her pendant, and Elsinore would leave her in peace, and Bryony wouldn't have to traipse around the kingdom, killing off royals that had offended this crazy witch in exchange for her protection. So why was the thought of returning the pendant so hard? And why did the notion of leaving this neurotic witch wrench at her heart more than it should?