The Hunt

"Bind, kill, and bring it back." 

Those were the precise words of the Queen Safrine for the Prince and the Crown's Warrior. 

It was common knowledge that when the Queen declares an order it should never be contested but it would have seemed that the Crown Prince Kehlan would have a never-ceasing longing for a death wish. Worse, being dethroned. 

"I'm only saying we should find another way to do the Offering. Luring in mortals only brings more of their kind venturing into our world, in the name of investigation."

Wyrn, The Queen's Warrior and the rest of the council mermen and kelpie men squirmed at the unsettling tension in the council chamber. Some of them mildly anticipating bloodshed or a dethroning. 

The Queen certainly did not like her orders being countered, more so that it was coming from her heir. So she pinned her cyan eyes onto his. Waiting. For him to give her one more reason. 

The prince didn't need to say anything, but the way he examined his claws was enough of a gesture that he undermines the Queen's way of ruling.  

The ruthless Queen Saffrine only had to lift her finger to have the council adjourned.

No further discussion came and the council dispersed along with the prince in tow. 

With the councilmen scurrying out, it was just the Queen and her Warrior. 

"You have your orders. You're to be deployed at first tide. Any questions?" 

"No, Your Greatness." The commander bent his knee with his head bowed to the pearlescent ground. 

The Queen ran her hands under the complex braids and ornaments on her head and pluck a few strands of her glowing white hair. 

She gathered her hands and made a weaving motion. Water swirled around the shimmering magic and the smooth and luminous strands of white hair weaved itself into a braid. 

"Braid this to the chosen one." She handed the braid to her Commander which he reached out and kept it in a hidden pocket inside his scaled armor. 

Then, he leaned down to the Queen and kissed her cheek. 

"Wish me luck, mother" he whispered to which he earned a warm smile with so much love in her eyes. Very unlike the stone-cold queen, the people of the Under would recognize her to be. 

Queen Safrine grabbed his hand and squeezed it, "I have faith in you." 

Though it was only a yearly ritual, Wyrn better that this was a test of loyalty. And loyalty meant everything when you ascend to the throne.  

-

Three years after getting a job in Scotland and moving in here, there are possibly only three things people of the homeland would ask me about. 

The haggis. Whiskey. And more whiskey. 

It's as though the bagpipes and the Lochs were there for nothing.  

With the summer sun shining brightly and my skin sticky with sweat, it was a perfect day to finally execute the long-time plan. 

I could tell that from the groaning and moaning coming from my roommate, Frida, that she does not share the same excitement as me about this getaway. 

"I just think that you need to know that I don't know how to set up tents", a pointless excuse. 

"Lucky for us that I am an expert. But then, it is a pop-up tent. And we're going to be sleeping in our caravan." 

"Touche." That was the end of the argument. 

And we wasted no time in loading our things and pottery into her camper. 

A camper for someone who wouldn't go camping, what an irony. 

-

Setting up the tent took only two seconds at the most. 

Could anyone ever ask for a much dreamy scene than getting to camp by the banks of legendary Loch Ness? 

The still water of the lake was a rippling, enchanting mirror that was reflecting the setting sun. 

Setting up our things and settling in ate up the hours and dinner time came. 

We came prepared with canned soups, and whiskey to keep ourselves warm. 

Though it was summer, it was still Scotland, and that meant the weather dropped at night to a blanket-and-keep-warm degree Celsius.

Our dinner was done and dusted, as we gobbled up within minutes.  

"Hey, I'm going to the washroom. You coming?" Frida asked. 

Though there were lights around the campsite it was poorly lit. We were in the middle of a campsite, with nothing but grass and the lake, so there was no one we could have blamed. 

It was guesswork that we even made it to the washroom. 

"I'll be in the next stall. Just shout if anything and I'll run first."  

Frida giggled in both fear, and anxiety that her bladder was going to give away. 

Doing my business took much faster than her, so I waited outside. 

As much as the night was cold for summer, there was no wind before, but as I stand in the night, the crispy wind blew, making the hair on my arms rise. 

The place was indeed dark and I could have easily missed it, but the light coming from fifty feet away was hard to ignore. 

A black figure. An animal. 

The moonlight shone on it brightly, and I could be wrong but I wasn't.  

Some would say my imagination is wild, but it was unmistakably a horse. A very black and a very real horse standing at least fifty feet away from where I was standing. 

Not that horses are rare creatures like unicorns, but there was a tinge of wildness with the way the stallion was moving, and the unruliness of its mane. It was hard to dismiss its presence for a farm horse. 

Something about the creature's stillness was unnerving and every instinct in my body told me to pick a rock and throw at it. 

To scare it away, but to also march forward and feel its mane. 

"It is worrying to see a beautiful, young woman such yourself, to be wandering out here in the dark with no company."

 The voice came from behind and startled me into letting out a yelp. 

Hand on heart, I turned to see the intruder.  

I gathered all the courage I could muster to face the voice, and I nearly gasped at the staggeringly sharp green and blue eyes that were staring right into mine. 

It was an unusual shade. A marble glass would come close to its resemblance. 

The panic-stricken in my face would have said so much that the man chuckled as though creeping up on someone was all a joke. 

"May I offer you company back to your campsite?" he asked, but the words were pronounced with emphasis on the syllables. Like one would talk to someone with mental instability. 

And when I still did not respond to his offer, he smiled kindly, or something close to kindness. 

"Babe, you okay?" 

Frida. 

I turned to look at her, with the shock pasted in my eyes, she mirrored my worry. 

"Hi . . ." she turned to the man standing before me. "Is everything okay?" 

His attention still intact on me, "that makes sense" he said under his breath, but loud enough for me to hear. "I nearly thought that your friend here was lost. Good to know she's with the company." 

If I hadn't noticed that he is a beautiful man, Frida's widening grin spelled it out for me. 

With a pale face and shoulder-length layered locks, and let's not even talk about the eyes. He was so unexceptionally beautiful. 

"Like a colourful, exotic toad", I had wanted to say. 

He reached out his hand, "Melvar" he announced his name. And when I didn't take his hands, he dropped it, slightly embarrassed. 

 "So you're on a camp out too?" Frida is beautiful, but she can also be a dumb flirt. 

"Nope. Just fishing. Gotta bring home some dinner." 

Frida paused for a moment and set off in booming laughter at the joke intended. 

"Yeah, I mean, it's obvious you must be camping out too." If the whiskey did not do its job, this man certainly made her face flush scarlet.  

"Your friend doesn't talk much, does she?" his attention now settling again on me. 

Frida only laughed nervously at that, "Hey we got some whiskey with us, you can come over to ours" she suggested hopefully. 

"Sure." A much faster reply than I would have expected. 

-

After one whole mug of warm alcohol, it was only natural that the giggling and loosening up kicked in. 

"Truth or dare o'clock." Frida declared with her mug raised high.

She picked up the emptied bottle from the floor and placed it in the middle. 

"I'll go first!" she took hold of the bottle and gave it a hard spin, which stopped between me and her. But mostly pointing towards me. 

"Truth."

"When was the last time you passed gas in public?"

I would have found pleasure in murdering her at that instant because the graceful Melvar was practically cackling. So my next best answer was obvious.

 "Dare."

"Show off the colour of your bra."  

"What? No." How insane can Frida be around a stranger? 

"Thought so. Here, empty this", and she poured some more alcohol. Though the alcohol burnt my throat halfway down it, it was most definitely far better than flashing my bra in front of a stranger. 

I bent forward to spin the bottle, but Melvar's hands reached there first, "My turn." 

He spun the bottle hard before I could talk him out of it and it was so unfair that this time the bottle decidedly stopped pointing straight at me one more time. 

The two of them laughed at the cruelty of the game. 

"Truth." Most definitely truth, I was not going to have this guy have his whim at me. 

"Tell me you wanted to kiss me just now." 

"No." There was no reason for me to hesitate on that. But then if I'm being honest, I wouldn't exactly deny it either. 

Humor played in his eyes as if he could read my mind. 

But what he did next, most definitely threw me off guard as he lifted himself with his arms ground onto the floor and kissed me. 

On my lips. 

"Melvar." I stared right into his cyan eyes, warning ringing in my head, but my body wanting more of it. 

He was on top of me before I even had a chance to stop him from lowering me to the floor. 

Everything was a blur of actions, his hands roaming under my t-shirt, and the other hand slithered by the sides of my body making its way to the back of my neck and quickly grabbing a handful of my hair. 

I knew I should stop him, but I couldn't. It was as if I lost control of my conscience and my body.

"I see you've fallen into your trap, Kehlan." 

I wasn't sure if I was relieved or my anxiety grew even worse, but another male voice echoed in the caravan and that threw Melvar off me. 

Now that his figure was cleared from my view, another male stood where Frida was seated. 

Kehlan?

"I thought you said you were Melvar. What's happening here?" Melvar, or looked like he was caught, and he was very furious. No longer the flirtatious lover he tried to be only a few minutes ago.  

The man standing before me was nearly identical as Kehlan, but where Kehlan had dark hair, this man had silver locks. 

Apart from the confusion arising, my mind started racing to know what happened to Frida?

 "You . . . you're not Fri . . . where's Frida?" each word came out in gasps, and breathing became the toughest thing to do at the moment. 

But the man did not respond to me as if I was not worthy of a reply. 

"Melvar?" he chuckled at Kehlan whose mouth was gaped open. "Interesting . . ." 

"Stay out of it, Wyrn" Kehlan growled a warning. 

"No, I'd very much like the throne, brother. It sucks you know when you're always sidelined." His eyes were hooded, and an amused expression flashed across his face, identical to the one Kehlan had worn when he had sneaked up on me earlier. 

The other man, Wyrn, fished into his pocket wearing the triumphant look on his face, but it quickly faded into shock and his brows contorted into fury. 

"It was here . . ." he roamed his hands across his body in panic, whispering to himself. "It was just here!" 

His face turned to Kehlan in suspicion, "you know the rules, brother. No stealing." 

"Yeah but the rules didn't apply to me," a third voice drawled, edged with sarcasm. 

It was Frida, she was standing at the doorway of the caravan, holding something long and luminous pinched between her fingers, dangling it at both brothers (If that's what they claim themselves to be.) 

"Frida! Are you alright?" I scrambled up, remembering that I was still seated in an off-guard position, and with much less dignity then I would have liked. 

I ran to hug my friend, and though she placed a protective hand around my shoulder, her attention was still pinned on the two males before us. 

"Kelpies," she said. An ambiguous declaration. One that was hard to digest but it weirdly made sense. 

"How are you still alive?" Wyrn was alarmed at Frida's presence, and his question suggests he had tried to kill her. 

My friend only fished out a nail from her pocket to respond to that question. An iron nail. 

The malevolent look on Wyrn's face was replaced with terror, and regret.  

"You are a shapeshifter?" Why the game? Why us? I wanted to ask, surprised even at my steady voice, despite the nonsensical question that came from me. My brain was flooding with so many questions. 

"My dear brother pushed me into my trap. That's why." Kehlan spoke this time, and gave me a look that said, "yes, I can read minds."

"Enough!" Wyrn screamed in what sounded like both a furious animalistic screech and a man's voice. "You . . . give me what's mine. The iron you hold may save you from my magic, but I can't promise you'd hold up that much if I had to use other methods." 

Before anyone could move, I lunged forward away from Frida's arms, and pluck a few strands of hair from Kehlan's locks. I certainly did not know what I was doing, but I was sure that it was far better than doing nothing and waiting for one of them to knock us out. 

And I nearly sighed when Kehlan's face turned alarmed. He had gotten up on his feet and his hands reaching for something within his clothes. 

No, not clothes. A scaled layer of skin. His armor. 

As soon as I passed the lock of hair to Frida she began doing quick work with the luminous braided hair and Kehlan's dark hair. She weaved it and circled it around her fingers.

I was surprised that she synchronized with what I was trying to do, but even more surprised at the fact that she knew what exactly to do. 

When the ring of black and white hair circled her finger, a ripple of magic echoed in the caravan and with that force, I was sure it must have reached beyond the caravan. 

To both our surprises, Melvar lowered his blades and bent his knees. 

It was obvious what Frida had done. She had bound him to her. 

"Commands, Master." 

"Kill your brother." Her voice carried a note of authority, one that made people want to pledge their obedience. 

Before Wyrn could comprehend the turn of events, Kehlan's blade pierced through his brother's scaled armor, and scarlet blood began to spill on the floor of the caravan. But Kehlan was not done, as he got up and crossed his dual blades on his brother's throat and sliced his head away. 

The head rolled and fell with a dull, wet thud on the floor. 

His blades gained composure into an on-guard position waiting for his next command. 

"Now, Prince Kehlan, bind the mortal." 

My brain buzzed at what Frida had just said, and when my eyes turned to Kehlan. He was grinning, his eyes hungry for violence. As if he waited for this moment all night. 

And when I turned to look at Frida, the woman beside me was no longer my friend. 

The aquamarine studded crown woven into her white, luminous hair, and the much more majestic scaled bodice dress suggested she was every part a queen. 

"Pleasure, Queen Saffrine." 

His violent, greedy eyes glowed with pools of green and despite my struggles I was forced on my knee without any physical force needed. 

The Queen walked towards the fallen body, "my son." And to my greater surprise, she whimpered. 

Kehlan walked towards me, his blades sheathed to invisibility. His strides were lazy like a predator would take its time glorying over its hunt. Then he reached out to a scaled pocket and revealed another strand of braided white luminous hair and he leaned down to braid it to my hair. 

I struggled with every inch of energy and resistance I could muster, but as soon as he finished braiding my hair to the one he had, my body stopped listening to my commands. 

"Rise." 

I stood up. 

He walked even closer and kissed me on my lips, but this time nothing like the lover's kiss. This one honeyed with a promise of death. 

Then he walked outside of the caravan, and quick light flashed in greens and blues, and a black figure appeared where he stood. 

"Mount." 

I heard his commands in my mind, and so my body obeyed. 

His hooves scraped the earth viciously, before setting off in motion. 

The wind tore through my hair with every stride taking me closer to my death. 

I was a sacrifice.