Horror Challenge, Halfblood Chronicles, PG-13
Written for obscurefandom!
Title: On Dark And Stormy Nights.... Author: (theladyfeylene Fandom: Halfblood Chronicles Characters/Pairing: Valyn/Shadow Word Count: 2,002 Rating: PG-13 Challenge: October Horror Challenge XXXX: Prompts: Frankenstein's Monster, Drag, House. Warnings and Notes: Some gruesome imagery.
“Ancestors and progenitors, where did this storm come from?”
V’kass Valyn el-Lord Hernalth held his oilcloth hat tightly against his head, eyes narrowing against the sudden, driving rain. It had been a clear day, perfect for hunting, right up until evening. Then the clouds had rolled in, accompanied by a wind that shook the trees and sent dead, brown leaves swirling across the hunting paths. The sky was pitch black.
It was, the young elven lord thought to himself, the sort of storm that promised ill omens in books and stories.
Valyn’s hair whipped around his face and his cloak blew open, rain soaking his suede hunting clothes. Slaves ran back and forth, pitching tents and attempting to offer some protection from the storm. It was a mad frenzy of activity. Voices screamed above the wind, fires refused to light and even magic couldn’t completely stabilize the tents that had been thrown up.
Had the weather in the Hernalth hunting lands always been this unpredictable?
“Val! Come on!”
Shadow, soaked and looking miserable, was waving him urgently into a tent. There was nothing more he could do - shelter was erected and as stable as it could be made. Even the slaves were retreating into the shelter of the tents. They could do nothing but wait out the storm.
Even inside the magically-reinforced tents, the storm was deafeningly loud. Valyn waved a hand, muting it as best as he could. At least Shadow had a fire going, and sleeping furs already laid out.
“Gods, you’re a mess.” Shadow grinned even as he spoke. “Come on, lets get you out of these wet clothes.”
“I think they’re stuck to my skin.” Valyn chuckled some and pulled off his sodden coat. Shadow helped him with the rest, pulling at stiff ties and buttons that had become sealed in their holes.
“There.” Shadow had stripped him down to his smallclothes and wrapped him in alicorn fur, to keep out the chill. “Now come on, get close to the fire. I’ll roast one of those pheasants. Once you‘ve thawed out and we‘ve got some food cooking, we‘ll feel pretty cozy.”
“If I ever thaw out.” But Valyn leaned back against the pillows and pulled his furred blankets more tightly around him. Shadow had already plucked the pheasant and was spearing it to roast. There was a flask of wine by the fire, and Valyn reached for it.
“At least the storm waited until evening.”
“I’d rather it hadn’t come at all,” Valyn pointed out. “I’m going to catch hell from my father. He rides me enough over my methods of hunting as it is.”
“Don’t worry about it. It’s just some bad weather. I remember we used to get storms like this when I was little, out where the barracks are.”
“Oh?”
Shadow grinned. “Yeah. The other kids used to gather around the old grannies after the lights went out. They’d tell stories, old ones. My mother didn’t like me going far from her, though. I’d sit with her, and she’d pet my hair and tell me her stories. They scared me so bad I wouldn‘t want to go to sleep.”
“What sort of stories were these?” Valyn cocked his head, curious. His nursemaid had told him stories, but they were mostly the glorified history of his own people. But sometimes she’d tell him other stories, old human stories handed down from the early days of the elven rule. But none of them had been particularly frightening.
“Oh, you know. Stories about ghosts and demons and all those bad things that lurk in the dark waiting to snatch up stray children.”
“No, I don’t know.” The smell of roasting pheasant was filling the tent. Outside, the wind was still howling and the rain beat against the tent, but inside it was warm and intimate. Shadow had been right - it was cozy.
“You’ve never heard a ghost story?” Shadow laughed as he rummaged around in a bag and pulled out bread and cheese.
“No, I haven’t.” Valyn leaned forward, letting the furred blankets loosen some. It was nice and warm in the tent. And now there was food and wine and Valyn knew that they wouldn’t be bothered. The rest of his small household of slaves weren’t stupid or blind. They knew to give him and Shadow their privacy.
“You’ve lived a very sheltered life, Val. Here.” Shadow cut a hunk of pheasant and wrapped it in bread. “There’s more to the world than we know. You elves, you don’t believe in those sorts of things. Or you won’t. And I’m pretty sure I know why - anything you can’t control, you pretend doesn’t exist.”
“Or hunt it down,” Valyn pointed out. He settled back against his pillows, wine in one hand and dinner in the other. Shadow remained on the other side of the fire, cross legged and grinning.
“Or hunt it down,” he agreed. “But there are things that can’t be hunted. There are things that don‘t have flesh or blood or bones. Things that magic and bows can‘t hurt.”
Shadow’s voice had dropped to a strange sort of whisper. The fire cast strange shadows on the side of the tent, and the young halfblood almost seemed to melt into the background. Only his eyes and teeth stood out, vibrant in the light of the flames. Valyn found himself clearing his throat. Shadow only grinned.
“There are things that only come out on nights like these,” the halfblood went on, stoking the fire with a long stick. “The Aeoliga, that rides the wind. It’s skin is gray as death, pulled tight over its bones. It’s so thin you can almost see through it. Its eyes are hollow pits, its lips are torn and bloody. It smells like the grave and it comes on the wind and hungers for human flesh. You can hear it, sometimes, moaning and screaming through the trees. It comes down on travelers caught out in the storms. When it‘s done, nothing is left but bones.”
Valyn swallowed hard. Outside, the wind was indeed moaning through the trees. It shook the tent and the young elven lord found himself retreating deeper into the furred blanket he’d wrapped around himself. These were the sorts of things Shadow’s mother had told him when he was young?
“There’s the adubest, too. It lives in the trees in the empty forests. It’s eight feet tall and covered in black, bristly hair like a goat. It has red eyes and a mouthful of teeth and claws as long as your arm. It hunts at night, coming close to the edges of manors and towns, looking for stray children. It drags them off to its lair eats them. Sometimes, if you listen closely, you can hear the sounds of bare feet scraping along dirt as the adubest drags of its stolen dinner. It especially likes intestines and brains. It uses rocks to crack open its catch’s heads, feasting on what‘s inside before the poor victims are even dead.
“And then there’s the unnamed beast. The old women say it was human once, a gladiator or a bodyguard that had been killed in duty. His lord had been so fond of his services that he turned to the old human religions.” Shadow leaned forward, his white teeth gleaming in a way that sent shivers along Valyn’s spine.
“He built a house, deep in the woods on his land. He used dark human magics, the sort of magic that comes from words and symbols. They covered the walls and the floors, drawn in the blood of a virgin boy. He ate the still beating heart of a maiden and prayed to ancient human gods and returned the slave to life. Stronger and more powerful than even before. But it wasn’t a man any longer. It was some strange creature that looked like a man, powerfully built and massive and possessed with the strength of ten men. And it went mad, killing its Lord and fleeing the manor and disappearing into the night. It was never captured. It’s still out there, they say. Somewhere out there, still looking for revenge for being trapped in eternal living death, dragging its feet and crunching the bones of the living in its fists….”
There was a noise outside, a great snapping sound. Valyn jumped in his seat, spilling his wine. A branch had fallen, somewhere near the tent. Shadow laughed, loudly, falling back on his own furs.
“Gods and demons, Val! You’d think something was coming through the wall of the tent the way you jumped! And those are just the flesh and blood creatures. I haven’t even told you about the things you can’t fight off….”
“And I don’t need to hear about them.” Valyn cleared his throat once more. It wasn’t that he was scared. Just…unnerved. And rather bothered that this was what humans were telling their children. If it unnerved a full grown Elven Lord, it certainly had to frighten small children!
“I told you I wouldn’t sleep all night after my mother told me her stories.” Shadow didn’t look quite so frightening now. He was closer to the fire, not so bathed in darkness. His skin had lost that eerie red cast the flames had lent it, and he wasn’t showing his teeth. Ancestors, now Valyn doubted he was going to sleep! Not with the wind making those noises outside….
“Oh, relax.” Shadow laughed. “They’re just stories. They aren’t real. They’re just used to keep kids in line, that’s all.”
“Still.” Valyn set down his flask of wine. “They’re rather gruesome, aren’t they?”
“That’s the point!” Shadow shifted, wrapping his blanket around him and edging closer to his cousin. “They aren’t scary if they aren’t bloody and gruesome.”
“I think I’ll stay away from those sorts of stories, thank you.” Valyn found himself creeping closer to Shadow, as well.
“Are you sure? I’ve got plenty more. Angry spirits lingering, seeking bodies to take so they can be flesh once more. Demons that come up from the underworld to slip into your dreams and kill you with nightmares. Their victims are found with their throats torn out or their guts slipped onto their sheets, but not a mark on them…”
“Alright, enough!” Valyn held up a hand. He was glad he hadn‘t started to eat, he feared he‘d lose his lunch at this point. “Ancestors, Shadow, what happened to ‘cozy’ and ‘warm’?”
“You’d never heard a ghost story before. Besides, it‘s even cozier now, isn‘t it?” Shadow was right next to him now, and Valyn rearranged his blankets to cover them both. Shadow was warm up against him, comforting in the storm. It still raged outside, not even magic keeping it out completely.
“And I rather wish I still hadn’t. And it was perfectly cozy before.” Valyn leaned into his cousin, wanting the familiar comfort of his lean body.
“You’re scared, aren’t you?” There was humor in Shadow’s voice. Valyn huffed, somewhat indignantly.
“I am not.”
“Yes you are.” Shadow leaned his head on Valyn’s shoulder, the halfblood’s arms going around his bare waist. “I never knew you scared so easy.”
“I’m not scared,” he repeated. “Just put off my dinner.”
“Mmhmm. It was the stories.” Shadow kissed his neck and curled up close, his smile evident in his voice. “Maybe I should take your mind off of them, then?”
“Are you sure there isn’t some horrific monster that comes out to eat young people being intimate in tents?”
Shadow paused, his chin on Valyn’s shoulder. The young elven lord didn’t like that thoughtful pause. He wasn’t sure if Shadow was up to something or simply teasing him.
Most likely teasing.
“Actually…” the halfblood began, his tone one that Valyn didn‘t like at all. The elf narrowed his eyes and shut his cousin up with a forceful kiss, ending once and for all the talk of ghosts and monsters and demons and other things that came out in the storm.