#((sorry fot the long post im on mobile!!!))

[trail-of-harts]

I think....maybe I need to tell a story I rarely have the stomach for.

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There was once a girl who was not a girl who had a father who loved her very very much.

The father was friends with a king and worked hard for him in his castle, every honour he earned he passed on to the not-girl, for he was content with how he was but wanted his child to have every opportunity.

The father was given a title to bestow and so hence the not-girl had a title.

The father had land to give and so now the not-girl owned land.

The father knew powerful people and so now the not-girl had powerful friends.

And so on this went until she lived exactly how she pleased...there was only one problem. The land the not-girl has been given was fruitful but vast, her claws could not stretch to encompass all of it and so she asked her father for help.

Now the father told her he couldn’t just split the precious gifts he’d given his daughter with just anyone of course, such a privilege could only go to his son, and the king and the daughter agreed, but the problem was he had never had a son.

This didn’t phase the not-girl though, as soon as she had heard the thought, she was set on the idea of a little brother.

With a flash of her pretty, not quite human eyes she gazed pleadingly at the king and begged for permission to go see if they could find someone worthy of their lineage and if they did, for him to make it true in the eyes of the court.

The king, wanting his land to be governed properly, saw great merit in this plan and allowed the pair time to go find someone worthy.

They met many men on the kings land, both high and low in class, but none quite fit the bill.

So, they traveled to many places both local and far, including the not-girls place of birth. There they met a warrior sailor, famed among the crews of the merchant ships for his prowess in hand to hand combat. They had seen many like him but this one spoke the not girls mother tongue, and in that she felt a kinship.

So in the night they confronted this warrior and asked him three questions.

“Are you content with the hand you have been dealt here?” The pair said in chorus, voices sweet and practiced like a blackbirds morning song.

“No” replied the warrior washing his cut knuckles in a stream of ice water.

“Do you have something that holds you in this life?” They droned and leaner in closer

“Yes” replied the warrior, wiping the water off on his tattered trousers “my family and the cast I was born into”

“Would anyone of consequence look hard for you if you were to vanish?” Their voices were still sweet as the dew on heather but the warrior was no fool. He was a man of the sea, he knew a siren song when it kissed his ears.

“Yes” he replied, standing up from the river’s edge, but alas, just as he knew the sea the pair knew a lie when they heard one.

With a flash the predators descended on prey, and the warrior was brought back to the land of the king. In this new world he was a stranger, he knew nothing or no one, not even himself.

For one turn of the moon they left him completely alone and let him take in the lay of the land, watching from the shadows, assessing whether the choice they had made was adequate.

Finally, when the moon waned to Half its size, just like it had been at the time of his first meeting with the two, they emerged from the trees to greet him again.

“You have proven yourself! As I knew you could my dearest brother!” Cried the not-girl.

“Now is time to introduce you to your king” added the father, his enthusiasm a shadow of what eminented from his daughter.

And so the king approved of their choice and the warrior, now the son, desperate for help in this strange new land accepted his fate and new family.

While the father was busy for the king the not-girl taught him the ways of the land; how to hunt the deer that ran the streams, to speak the tongues of the people there, and how to fight in this new world they had thrust upon him.

Over time they grew close. The not-girl protected her brother like a wild thing always protects its kin, and the son was eager to repay her by running the land she had split with him as best he could.

However the not-girl didn’t like to share.

The great schism between them started as simple arguments over who owned or was responsible for what.

Was that tree on her border or his? That field? That glen?

The not-girl missed the power she had, though it had overwhelmed her, and struggled to remove her claws from her old land fully. The son did the best he could but if it was not her way she was never happy.

It was not just land however as the son's sister was possessive by nature. He would compliment the Beauty of a flower instead of her and the next night find the whole patch picked. He would pet a mouser cat of a local farm and the next day find its bones. Every love he had that was not for his sister was cut up and shred in her jealous maw. Still he did love her and could never find it in him to complain.

Then, he did the unthinkable and took interest in a person down in the town. Like the not-girl, he enjoyed the idea of adding more kin to their family. A little brother? As son of his own? he had little care, but he knew he had found someone worthy.

Once they had locked eyes he spent all of his free time on the beach testing and teaching and even sparing a little like the warrior he used to be with his new student. He was happy and enamoured and sure the king would see the potential in the treasure he had found too.

The not-girl however did not like it one bit, and so she did what she always did.

One night the son went down to the beach as he always did and found his protégée where they always were…..except tonight they lay face down, gurgling from their cut throat as their life blood sunk into the sand, and the tooth marks of his sister in their skin.

The not-girl had wanted to make him upset of course, but she had not realised how little control she really had ever had over her little brother.

The son, remembering the warrior he was, confronted her, high on the moors that night in the old ruin where she lived, his clothing stained red from where he had held the body as they died.

The not-girl met him square on, sure she was more loved by him than anything left in this world. She opened her arms to the younger boy, to comfort and console, confident that his affection for her would quench his grief.

And she was right, he loved her more than the starts in the sky, but being right did not stop him tearing her throat out with his bare teeth in a rush of blood breaking sinew and her ashes floated into the air like smoke on the wind.

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I hate the structure of this one but I don’t tell it often...it’s...likely to get my teeth kicked in in certain circles so I haven’t had the chance for unbiased critique and polishing.....