#I don't know too much about Jaimey so I had to wing it

[meerkatheart-blog]

One more Fantasy AU thing. Oh these are fun to write.

This time we are introduced to who will soon be our lovely Butterfly. She’s a wicked cool fire-starter (inspired by the book by Stephan King) and is basically a badass. I hope you all like her. She’s really going to piss off the Queen if she keeps this shit up though.

Oh boy she is a real bitch though. This is a while before she meets her ‘dads’ so she’s nasty. The ‘dads’ help her cool down a little.

(Warning: Spontaneous human combustion, foul language, death, all that good stuff. Just watch out, because it’s there)

Simple, ravage, burn, leave.

That was the plan.

That was how it always went.

That was not how it went.

Started out great, his men behind him, the new prince of Boreatis was on his way to yet another outpost. Jaimey, it didn’t sound like a strong name. But it struck fear in the hearts of those who dared revolt against his Queen. Good.

His mount was strong beneath him. His soldiers followed loyally, death awaited those who paused. His Queen was feared. Better feared than loved, that was always a good mantra to live by, when you weren’t that nice of a person to begin with.

Queen Juno loved no-one.

The outpost was coming up ahead. Spies had been sent earlier in the week to inspect the place. They had this planned relatively well. As much as their fearless leader loved senseless violence, they still had to be somewhat tactical about this.

After all, they could always go all out after they defeated everyone, while keeping the leaders for a good old fashion head-chopping for his Queen. That would please her. She might even give him a nice ‘reward’ for it. Oh that sounded nice.

When they came close to the entrance, something was wrong. It was quiet. It was too quiet. His mount sniffed the air; it gave no signal that life was nearby. That left ambush out of the question.

Jaimey turned, barking orders to his  men “Check the west and east ends, report back to me when you’ve found something. The rest of you, with me!” They followed on, a third went west, a third headed east, the rest trailed behind him. He had gone from 18 men to nine. He might not even need them.

As they came through the thicket, there was a strange stillness in the air. The place felt dead. Silence from miles around. The trails leading into the outpost were overgrown and up kept.

Something else was concerning. Not a bird in sight. If there was death, there would at least be vultures. The skies were empty. No crows, no ravens, not even a pigeon, no nothing. It was as if they feared this place. The commander kept his guard up. This did not look good.

It was a little while before they reached the outpost. It was as he figured from the trip, empty. The buildings were covered in moss and vines, the fire pits were cold, the guard towers empty. This shit hole was abandoned. Those bloody scouts were dead the minute he got back to the castle.

“Alright! This place is empty, let’s..” he paused, his mount growled.

“Commander…”

Jaimey silenced him with a hand. “Shut up!” he said harshly. “That stench…”

The smell was awful. It was something he had smelled many, many times before. A smell that was often a direct result of raids like this one, the smell of fire. The harsh, awful smell of burning hair and flesh. Something was burning.

Jaimey turned his wolf and headed off into the direction of the smell. His mount was fast approaching the eastern side of the abandoned settlement. Men trailed behind him in confused, but loyal procession.

They had reached lower eastern side of the outpost. Great god, the smell was overpowering. Jaimey pulled back on his mount, causing him to stop mid stride. His men stopped behind him, out of breath, weak bastards. They all paused a moment, the smell was awful and growing stronger as they progressed forward.

As they neared the next clearing. That’s when the voice spoke. A harsh, raspy voice that rattled through the trees like rattling pins.

“I’ll wrap you up in a linen sheet, and kiss you goodnight.”

Jaimey drew his knife, more out of indignant protest at the voice’s promises than fear. How dare some foul creature taunt him. They came through the clearing; this was apparently the residential part of the outpost. The smell of fire and death was intense and harsh.

There she was.

Standing in the center of the clearing. Looked like a girl, maybe in her early teens. She was no more than maybe 5’ high. She was a red shirt and brown trousers that only covered her to the lower part of her thighs, other than that, she was bare. Her arms were somewhat thinned out, but her body and legs looked strong, like a warrior.

Her hair haunted him though, red. Red like fire. It brought back memories, memories he almost wished he had forgotten. Thankfully, hers was straight and much more scarlet than the curly blaze in his thoughts.  It drifted to her mid back and seemed to wave without source of wind.  For now, it covered most of her face, except her lips and nose.

Jaimey looked at her and stated firmly “This is the royal army of Queen Juno, surrender or face death.” Normally he didn’t warn people, but it was just one girl, it would be a waste of energy just to slaughter one stupid kid

She ignored him, her hands twitched, but she ignored him

“Look, kid..”  he said harshly “Either put your face in the dirt or I’m going to…”

“Oh you’ll what?” that voice… “You going to sick your army on me…baby?”

Jaimey pulled back a little, his wolf growling loudly. His hair standing straight up on his back. This could be bad.

“What’s the matter, darling? You seem a little edgy.”

“Shut up! I am going to kill you if you say that again.” He said, spitting at her

The female laughed, taunting and unafraid. Her body was slowly tensing. The heat was building up in the area around her. It was starting to sting Jaimey’s eyes and cause his mount to shake his head. Everyone was slowly backing up.

“Oh darling, I don’t think you understand what you’re up against…the rest of your men certainly didn’t.” Her head was slowly rising. The scarlet curtain parted before their eyes. The eyes that sat in the face of this creature were a brilliant shade of orange with pure black pupils. Lips were a shade of red that rivaled her hair. Tiny red spots that resembled freckles dotted her face.

She raised her arms out to the side, nails extending into claws on her hands and feet, lips spreading to reveal a set of canine-like teeth “I’m a real bad girl…”

“Oh my god…” One of the soldiers said

“FIRE-STARTER!!” The warning shot through the air like a bullet.

The creature flexed her whole body fore-ward and the whole area around them burst into flames. A blaze tens of feet high and hotter than any man-made flame. There was no way out of it.

Jaimey looked back at the grinning face of the monster that now had them all trapped in this furnace of hell. “Get her!” he yelled, pulling his sworde “You’ll die for this!”

“Ooohhh, I love a tough guy.” The fire-starter said, clearly both amused and even slightly aroused by his tone “But, baby, I’m afraid you and I are going to be the only ones getting out of this one alive.”

“What are you talking abo…” he was about to ask…the rest of his men. A sudden scream ripped through the air as one of his soldiers burst into flames before his eyes. Before crumbling to ash where he stood.

One by one, the fire-starter spontaneously combusted soldier after soldier who dared approached her. They wouldn’t get much better mercy from him anyway. That was the cost of the rule of their Queen. Death was an obligation, not a consequence.

Before he even had a chance to draw his sword, it was just him and her. “Got you all to myself now, baby.”

Her body had completed it’s transition by now. Her limbs from the elbow and knee down were now dark and more closely resembled a dragons rather than a human, with dew-claws sprouting from her heels. A long skeletal tail with a scorpion end grew from her tail-bone. Scales trailed from her hips upward to her rib-cage. Two ram-like horns sprouted from the top of her head and curled upwards behind her, each one about two feet long, three smaller, spike-like horns grew just above her forehead. Her whole body radiated heat.

His father used to tell horror stories about the fire-starters that once rampaged Olya. They laid waste hundreds of villages.  They used to frighten him into behaving. Now, he realized why.  He was not afraid of much, but these were old-world creatures, they lived by different rules. Killing her was not an option with what he had on hand.

But he was certainly not going to die like this. He held fast to his sword “You stay back!”

“Whats wrong, my love? Are you afraid of me?” She swayed her hips and whipped her tail at him, bowing low to show her admirable set of breasts. Female fire-starters were infamous for seducing men and leading them in the middle of the woods, all just to set them on fire for the hell of it. The sad part was, it might have worked, had he not had other things in mind.

He looked around, searching for a chance to escape. Making sure to keep one eye on her. A firm grip on his mount. “I’m afraid of no one!”

The fire-starter purred “Oh but darling….” She crouched low “..you should be.”

To be fair, he didn’t think she would lunge at him. He figured she would just light him ablaze and forget about it. Her claws dug into him and flung him off his mount, the fire parted for them. Then closed, sealing him in a section of forest with her.

He reached for his sword. But she was fast, she latched onto him, claws piercing his wrists and the talons on her feet pinning him by the ankles. Her tail poised to strike. Damnit!

He snarled at her, she grinned at him.

“I could kill you, you know. I could be a hero…the slayer of the wolf rider. They would throw parades in my honor. They would praise me like a god.” She taunted, her teeth inches from his face “Then I would go to your castle and I would your precious Queen…burn to a crisp before she even had a chance to mourn your death. I could burn her whole bloody castle to ground…and not a thing she could do about it.”

He would have spit at her if his mouth wasn’t dry as a bone, he struggled, but her magic was over-powering. Runes glowed where her claws dug in, keeping him bound. She was from the old world.

“But I won’t. I want you to think of me, I want her to think of me. My people will never fear you, or your Queen. We are from a world you cannot comprehend. When the time is right, I will come find you again…I will catch you…” Then she growled “…and I will drag you into the depths of hell.” She pressed one thumb under his jaw-line.

There was a searing, unspeakable pain. Then she took to the sky and she was gone in a burst of flames.

The flames died and his mount quickly rushed over to him. He sat down loyally beside his rider. Jaimey groaned and sat up. Rubbing his wrists where her claws had dug in. Then he looked around at the carnage, all this destruction and it hadn’t even been him that caused it. Little bitch, he’d find her again.

He picked up his sword, and paused. In it’s glint, he saw the reflection of his jaw where she had put her thumb. There, just under the left side of his jaw, a small butterfly shaped burn now adorned his collection of scars. That rotten little bitch.