Two for the Wild Hunt (Zorolo)

When the howls sounded again, they were closer than previously - too close, Amaranth realized, to portend nothing. This was not a pack baying at the moonlight, passing through and harming none if none harmed them. No... this was a hunt. A wild hunt.

That first was an obvious truth, she thought, sarcastically. Of course they were being hunted; this was why the Jagets ran, was it not? But it came to her that this was not a mere hunt, but a wild hunt - a fairy hunt, to speak plainly; the Fair Folk in search of souls. It was the persistence of the dogs that brought her to this sudden suspicion; their persistence and their deathlessness and the fact the child Jaget had claimed them as her own - and she knew of glamours.

If her aunt Mesulaine had given her glamoured roses - or as it followed, fairy roses - and later gifted her with rabid dogs, was it too far a stretch to imagine that these dogs were not just dogs, but fairy dogs?

Or glamoured dogs?

Perhaps the dogs were not real, but glamours, mere glamours, glamours she could break with the right word and correct permissions?

Or perhaps she was just hyperventilating - if such a word could be applied to thought. Did it matter what the dogs might be? Whether they were born of magic or real as the floor beneath her feet? Did it help? Could it help?

Howling so close now that she felt its vibrations rattling the glass. The sound made up her mind.

She stuffed Monroe's recorder beneath the pillow, swung about. Her other hand still clasped the headphones, and she straightened the cord, pulling it too firmly in the heat of the moment, ruing the action when she remembered they weren't hers. "Ye who are fair and are lovely and good--" She began the words of invocation as she sprang toward the door. "Grant me cruthchad... eh, if ye'll be sae kind. I'm in a bit of a hurry - dogs, you see--"

Her humility slipped away like silk through the fingers, but her heart was beginning to race with her excitement. "It's the Hunt," she babbled, "I'm thinkin' it's the Wild Hunt as is after us, faer these mad dogs won't die. I need a dirk large and sharp enough to cut through glamour - or bone and skin as the case might be."

She didn't stop to see if the Fay would grant her request and turn the headphones into a dagger; she had already made up her mind not to be useless whatever their reaction, but to do well by her friend in arms - even if "doing well" meant she fought with a butter knife from the kitchen. The thought - not of the knife, but of fighting - made her laugh. No self-respecting bantling fought. A bantling ran.

"Monroe!" she cried, pushing open the door with a shoulder; she caught, from the corner of her eye, a vision of the Jaget women crowded in the doorway, mouths extended in terror. "The dogs - they're fairy dogs, I think, and that's why they won't die--"

Her hand was stinging suddenly, like salt upon an open wound; she opened her fist with a hiss of pain.

A dagger, large and sharp enough to cut through bone and skin, fell to the ground in place of the headphones she'd been carrying. It's edge was stained with her blood.

But of course that was like the Fay, to put the blade where her hand was.

The smell of blood moved through the air. Monroe smelled it, and he was sure that the dogs smelled it too. The bounty hunter looked back at Amy holding a knife and shivered a bit at the blood dripping from her hand. He hoped that she didn't elect to fight with these dogs. He would handle it, and didn't she trust him? Maybe she honestly wanted to fight this time? Maybe she knew something he didn't? Did it matter?

Not really. This was a battle. This was war. The only thing that mattered was he who survived or he who died. For those who died, that was too bad. For those who lived, it wasn't about who won, it was about the fact you lived. That was what Monroe had long told himself as the warrior he was... that was changing.

The bounty hunter was learning, mostly from his discussions with Zorlo, that life wasn't all about death and destruction. Life was meant more for training and combat for the sake of moving things forwards, not just for the sake of destruction. Still, battle was simply used in this day and age for the sake of killing and destruction. If someone didn't change the cycle, than no one would make it any further than they already had.

Was their purpose to war? Was their purpose to death? Was their purpose to suffering and loss? Zorlo had always asked these questions, and Monroe could never answer them. Now they came to the bounty hunter as something important to him. The modern fencer had to defend these people, no matter how much he disliked them, he'd protect them. Money, however, was the biggest one here. He had to defend Amy and get paid more than protecting those people. They were just a secondary thought that faded from his mind.

"Amy, if you're gonna help, be careful, okay?" he called back to her, looking at her and smiling as the fiendish dogs began their dash!

Careful, indeed. It was upon the tip of Amaranth's tongue to contest Monroe's charge - it was a bit late, she thought, ruefully, with a glance at her hand, to be concerned with such paltry things as "being careful" - but at that moment, chaos entered in the form of three dogs. One dog crashed through the window, and two others broke through the door. Caution was no longer paltry, but salvation.

Amaranth had forgotten what it was like to fear. She forgot unpleasant things far too quickly, and amid such pleasant and profound conversation as Monroe had provided, she had allowed her terror of that afternoon to dull into a twinge. The twinge had been without context, without relevance; she had heard the howls only minutes prior to this moment and those howls had been nothing but the catalyst for certain thoughts. The howls had awoken nothing but enthusiasm in her breast; she had forgotten the creatures to which they had belonged; in her forgetfulness, she thought, mistakenly, that she no longer feared them.

But a massive dog with glass in its fur was sprinting toward her, and she felt its paws thudding against the wooden floor. Her earlier terror returned with a force to nearly knock her off her feet. There was no forgetting, with the source of her horror so in evidence.

She dropped to the ground, just as the dog sprang forward. She felt its heat whistle over her, and her heart beat so hard and quick it seemed it would tear through her chest and stomach and spill out onto the floor. Her brain was empty of all but one phrase: A bantling runs, a bantling runs, a bantling runs. She scrambled to her feet, clawing at the floorboards. She managed to grab the dagger with her wounded hand, and hissed again at the pain.

Her vision was blurry, her ears filled with screaming and the wet snarling of the dogs, the scrape of claws on wood. The sound wrenched through her like a hand tearing paper, and it seemed the sound made a wall at her back, too vast and solid for her to break through in retreat. There was only one direction open to her, and that was the corridor into which the first dog had squeezed its massive frame. But there was her room, near to the corridor's entrance, and there was a window; she could break through that and get outside.

Her feet carried her while her mind was yet scheming, and she was suddenly at the mouth of her room, gaping at the two figures huddled inside.

The little Jaget girl was gasping, "Mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy," and the younger Jaget woman had her arms locked about the little girl's shoulders and her fingers twisted in the little girl's hair. Her face was ghoulish, twisted in horror.

The little girl stared at Amaranth, and Amaranth stared back at her. She was suddenly aware of a scraping sound - more claws on wood – echoing from further along the hall, and the long, drawn-out sob of a woman crunch suddenly into silence.

"It's in the room with Mommy, it's in the room with Mommy—" gasped the little girl.

"Shut the door!" the older woman hissed. "Shut the door shut it shut the door—"

Amaranth needed no further telling. She grasped the doorknob and whipped around so quickly that the knob jerked, cracking the wood in which it was set. Amaranth slammed the door shut, and saw to her dismay the knob hung awkward; she pressed her back to the panels and stared again at her two companions.

The scraping turned to scrabbling and grew louder and louder—

Wham!

Amaranth and the Jagets gave guttural shrieks as something slammed itself against the door from the other side and threw it open.

OoC: Don't fight the dog in the hallway yet, :3

It had been quickly. It had been painful. It had been over before he even knew what happened. It was over.

The dogs had moved faster than Monroe was ready for, all moving at once this time. One grabbing each of his arms and the third slamming into his chest, running the dark clad man through the window the had entered through before they split off. The mercenary stared at the shattered window and felt the few pieces of glass in his back and the teeth marks in his arms. It honestly hurt, and blood dripped from his opened wounds onto the ground, pooling slightly.

Consciousness faded in and out, and the modern fencer began to feel what little attached him to reality fading and meshing into what he felt united him with the realm of dreams. A realm, despite being illogical, Monroe knew existed. It was almost like a realm of abstract reality where desires could be fulfilled. Still, it existed.

STOP!

Monroe heard a voice call out to him and placed his hand against the wall, and, despite the pain, forced himself to stand, barely able to hold his body up. Whatever had called out to him knew clearly what was going on, and wished to be acknowledged. Before the bounty hunter knew it, he was standing up stumbling after the beasts that had entered into the building.

That's right, you can do it!

The voice sounded familiar. Sweet. Serene. Kind. It was in that moment of reality and fantasy merging that he saw her. The face of the woman and the first person he'd connected with logically. Tracey stood before him, trying to compel the bounty hunter to move onwards. Still, that didn't relieve his fatigue or pain, but it did give him a reason to move onwards.

I just... I just... I just need... to finish... one last fight... he told himself, carrying his body up the stairs, vision blurring and then returning to normal for moments. A trail of blood, although not life threatening, followed him as heavy footsteps moved up the stairs. He was nearly upon the dogs. He hoped to end this soon. "Don't worry, Amy! I'll protect you!" he called to to the Fae. He had sworn he'd defend her, and the bounty hunter was ready to make good on that promise.

The impact of dog against door sent Amaranth staggering into the room. Her feet slipped as she stumbled forward; she slammed chin-first into the wood, gasped with pain as splinters tore the skin of her face, ripped into the palms she had pushed into the floorboards, in an attempt to catch herself. She felt her wound splitting even wider; her hand skidded through blood, caught on splinters.

The dog was upon her before she could draw another breath.

It's claws caught in a sleeve, hauling her even further into the room. She lost hold of her dagger, and suddenly the dog had twisted around on her, snarling, sank it's teeth was in her arm, wrenched her about as though it meant to untangle her from itself, as though it meant to shake her until she was dead. It's wrenching helped her find her feet, and she fought its hold, lifted a fist and beat it about the face, clawed at its eyes, screamed with fury, with pain.

There was the sound of glass breaking. Amaranth's frenzied glance caught sight of the Jagets - the older woman beating at the glass with what remained of a lamp, throwing this suddenly aside, gathering the child in her arms, and pitching the little girl out the window. The little girl shrieked as she vanished, and the elder Jaget took up the lamp again. She ran at the dog with its teeth in Amaranth's arm; she lifted her lamp and smashed it onto the skull of the hound. The dog opened its jaws, spinning on her; Amaranth was flung aside by the force of that revolution.

In the moment before she crashed, she saw the dog lunge at the Jaget, and the Jaget lunge at the dog, her face was a mask of wrath, her mouth wide and shrieking. Her fingers were curled into the semblance of claws, and as she leaped, she flung her arms straight out. The dog's teeth caught the front of her dress and the braced heels of her palms caught it full in the eyes.

Amaranth hit the ground and was momentarily blinded by her pain. It took her too long to roll over her good arm onto her stomach, snatch at her dagger, clamber to her feet. There were more dogs in the room, leaping toward the window - her vision was filled with dogs, so many, many dogs--

"Riochdal!" she screeched. "Riochdal riochdal riochdal--!"

Three dogs came flying through the window and walls and fell upon the triad of attackers.

Glamoured dogs. Illusory dogs. Her riochdal dogs.

The three new dogs were glimmering, too insubstatial to pass for anything real. They tore at the attackers as any rival dogs might, but their teeth and claws passed through the real dogs like a stone through fog. But the glamour caught the real dogs by surprise; for the moment, the glamour had their attention.

Amaranth caught sight of the Jaget woman, tossed to the side like a rag doll, struggling to rise. She caught sight of the three new dogs and opened her mouth to howl; Amaranth staggered over to her side, grasped her arm.

"They aren't real!" she gasped. "Not the dogs as has just come, they're not real!"

The woman gaped at her, and Amaranth hauled her toward the doorway.

"We'll get outside and find yaer - that - that little girl," she gasped, to appease, to direct, to give her own self some guidance. "Come, we must get out!"

A torrent of questions pulsed through her brain: where was Monroe? How would they distance themselves from the inn? By horse? Would the carriage be ready? Had the driver been caught by the dogs? Where were the rest of the Jagets?

Well, as to where Monroe was... that question answered itself as a wall shattered into splinters and the mongrel flew out the window and skidded into the ground. The bounty hunter walked out of the newly formed hole and listened to the sound of glass shattering as a small girl flew towards the dark clad man as he caught her. The mercenary blinked as he looked at the girl and patted her on the head as she clung to him.

This made things slightly more complicated. Actually, much more complicated, but the bounty hunter didn't think about it that way as he placed the girl down. "Now then, dear, go hide while I deal with that slobbery mongrel, oh, and that dog too," Monroe stated with a laugh at who he was actually calling a lesser person. The dog had already risen and blood still dripped from the enhanced human's wounds as he stood his ground. Adrenaline had replaced pain and ardent fervor had replaced rational thought.

The dog began to dash quickly towards the mercenary, who balled up his hand into a fist, and bared its fangs. The fangs were still soaked with a small bit of blood from the bounty hunter's arm that it had sunk its teeth into earlier. The creature leapt upwards and the fighter moved quickly, driving his fist into the side of the monster's face and sending it skidding head first into the sands with a bounce that followed after initial impact on the ground.

Blood dripped from the modern fencer's hand as he looked at his left fist. He had no weapons, so his fists would have to suffice. Monroe began to walk towards the dog, but the little girl stepped in. "Little girl, please don't get in the way. I need to make sure this thing doesn't follow us," he told her sternly, looking at his still bloody fists. Who's blood it was, the dog's or his own, didn't matter at that moment. Monroe was on something of an adrenaline high.

"No, don't hurt my doggy!" she yelled, holding her arms out in the form of a cross before him. This would make things annoying.

"Amy!" he yelled as he waited, "we have a slightly problem," he yelled once more, trying to figure out what to be done about the girl.