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Once, long ago, in Ireland there was a small tribe that etched out a living near the roaring shoreline, braving Vikings and men from the North. Among that tribe an aging stallion took a young bride, Nailil knew that his rough patchy coat was not as clean as many a young colt nor was he strong, but he had a profitable little home near the shore where he fished day in and day out, bringing in many fish. The mare he had his eyes on was as dark as a moonless night, with kind sweet eyes and was well thought after. She was quite besotted with his kind and gentle ways and begged her father to be allowed to marry him, and so they were. They lived together for four long years, and at the end of the fifth year Nailil's wife became pregnant and they rejoiced. He had never imagined he would be blessed with a foal, colt or filly, he was blessed, but the blessing was broken thing, cold and hard as the night that his wife gave birth.

On the darkest night of the year, the stallion's wife went into labor, long and hard she fought into the wee hours of the dawn while the snow hammered their land. The drifts grew high, too high for the stallion to risk venturing out for help, and even if he did, he could not leave his wife alone. She gave birth with a sigh, the last sound to escape her lips as the foal slipped into the world from her dying dam's body. Not the lively dark color of her mother, nor the deep brown of her father, but as white and lifeless looking as the snow that gathered at the windows. Her ruby red eyes strange and frightening as she let out her first wailing cry while held in her sire's hands. Storm-born, winter-born, fae-born. So many words for the foal that he held, all of them laden with fear of the creatures that walked unseen through the country.

In those days the country was rife with creatures born from the Underhill, monsters and the Wild Hunt, gremlins and kelpies, they all preyed upon mortals and would play vicious tricks to those that crossed them. To be born on the Winter Solstice was an ill fated thing, but to be born without color, not even a darkening of the eyes, bespoke of a creature that had used his wife's body to carry itself to term. Some fae beast that would grow and leech all that was good from its family, unless it were stopped before it could become too powerful, too strong.

In those dark days, such a foal would have been cast outside into the snow to die. She was a changeling, a creature that had killed his wife and would bring nothing but ill fortune to his home. Nailil had known of those practices and traditions, but the aging stallion still held her within his hands, the vulnerable creature so pale and soft. The only part of his wife that he had left, his only chance at a daughter, how could he leave her to the cold and the fae creatures that battered at his doors. And so, he wrapped her in soft warm rags and brought in their goat to give her warm milk, hoping against hope that it would be enough to keep her alive. He named her Reothadh, meaning Frost. It was with his grace and compassion that she lived... and grew.

~ ~ * ~ ~

"Nay, lass, you will wait here for me or at the farm, but no further." Nailil frowned down at Reothadh, Reo as he affectionately called her, and she glared right back up at him, tilting her head all the way back.

"Why not? I am tired of waiting at the Pass! I would come with you." She lashed her snowy tail back and forth, ignoring her father's sigh. "I will keep my eyes down, I will dye my fur!"

Reo had lived her entire life in one small patch of land that her father called his own, tending the nets, working the shore. She helped him gather the fish for market, loading the heavy cart, and each time the argument was the same as she approached him to be allowed to come into town. She was refused. The people in the small town would not understand her, they would be frightened of her strange colors and ruby red eyes, they would do her harm if they saw her. No one even knew that the old stallion had a daughter, he had never kept that fact from her, from the time she had learned to walk he had raised her knowing that she must always be cautious, she must always be careful to never let anyone see her closely and if they did, to keep her eyes down and her coat dirty so that they didn't see the pure unblemished white.

Her father thought her beautiful, she knew that much, he had always told her that she looked like the new fallen snow on a perfect morning. When she was tiny he would swing her up when he returned, calling out her name in delight as she squealed and giggled. Now, she was thirteen, no longer a young filly that was content to stay at home. Even if she didn't feel the urge to see the large world, she watched her father move more slowly each time he went to town, hauling the cart behind him with painful steps and his head lowered. Each time he returned he did so more slowly, despite the lightened load. How could she remain here when she was young and strong? She could help him if only he would allow her too. That much she understood, but again she watched his dark bay head shake back and forth mournfully, his brows furrowed slightly.

"Nay, I would not risk you." He reached out and touched her chin with a gentle finger. "Promise me you will wait at the Phouka Pass."

"But..." She started and pinned her ears back, her nostrils flaring in rebellion as she was once again denied her chance to leave.

"Promise." He spoke firmly, sliding on the worn harness that had been patched more times than she could count. No matter how tired he was, or how grey his mane, his voice was still the firm unyielding voice that she had known all her life.

"I promise, Papa." She murmured softly, tipping back her soft white ears. "I'll wait for you at the Pass. Until dark."

"Keep well hidden." He gave her a long look. "I'm not the only one to take those roads and I do not wish to come home to find ya harmed."

"I will..." Reo gave a slight smile, her tail twitching merrily behind her as her father turned and strained forward, coaxing the cart of dried fish to start to move, the massive wheels turning.

She couldn't go to the village, she couldn't see any travellers, but they didn't mean that she had to live here alone. She stepped forward to help push the cart, heedless of the way her hooves sank into the dirt, listening to her father as he began the age old tune he always hummed on market days. No matter the weather he went, and when he did he always sang the softest little tune that he said kept the wee ones from causing him mischief along the roads. It was a pretty little tune, lilting and warm sounding as she helped him guide the cart towards the main road, just near the edge of the Phouka Pass where her boundaries had always been marked. It was there she had to leave him, staring after the wobbling cart with the enticing promise of adventure, but she couldn't stop the little lift in her heart as she turned towards the narrow finicky little path that wound its way up towards the craigs and the Pass itself.

When she was little her father had told her the story of the Pass, it used to be the gateway towards several large farms that had been quite prosperous when he was a colt. The Pass itself was the home of a fae creature that danced about in the darkness, playing harmless tricks and sneaking into crops in the middle of the night to nibble at the best it could find. The phouka was supposed to be one of the good fae, or rather, one of the ones that was mostly good. Her father had told her when she was younger that they could be wicked and cruel if they were mistreated, causing the crops to wither and die, or poisoning ones that were left too long in the field. There were no stories like that about the Phouka in the pass, no. Her father had even seen him, a ghostly dog leaping along the fields, chasing away the rabbits that came to nibble the best. Though, more commonly he appeared as a black colt that would sound alarms in the dark or leave surprises for his farmers.

Her father had been quite sad when he spoke about how the farms had dried up and moved away, telling her about how he would hear the phouka crying at night, alone and abandoned. She had once asked him why the shape changing creature hadn't left with his farmers, but he had only said that phouka's didn't behave that way. They stayed with their land, and mourned their people. Perhaps that's why Reo had been saw drawn to the Pass, perhaps that's why she preferred the old road where she could wait for her Papa's return in safety. And it was there she found her only friend in the world, the only creature as lonely as the albino filly.

"PHOUKA!" She cried out as she scrabbled up path, it had started to become claimed by the forest, hard and rippling vines twined over it. "He would not let me go."

"I told you he wouldn't." A whickering voice answered back, echoing around her with high pitched laughter. "But I don't care, you are here and you will sing for me!"

As she came to the massive rough rocks that marked the pass itself she heard the tell tail click of hooves around her, the flash of something dark in the shadows and the vague suggestion of a long leggy form. The first time she had seen him she had run screaming, terrified as the shadows seemed to shift and move, giving form to a see through outline of a four legged colt with a pair of bright earthy brown eyes that seemed more solid than the rest. He hadn't followed her as she was terrified he would, but that night she had heard a mournful baying coming from the pass. Her father had heard it too, loud and long, echoing through the darkness. Perhaps it was the broken sound of that call that had brought her back, but she had climbed the rocks again, and had never run again. Not when she had come to see the outline of a large hound looking bereft and lost in the shadows. Never solid, never real, but there none the less.

She had stayed that day, watching him shift from hound to colt, his mournful eyes remaining as he apologized for scaring her. She'd always wondered what the fae looked like, she imagined them horrible creatures, like the kelpies that ate little fillies or the gremlins that snapped down unwary travelers. The fae she saw was small and lost looking, he struggled so hard just to maintain his form and possessed a soft innocence that brought a smile to her face. She didn't know how old he was, but at the time he had seemed nearly as young as she was. He hadn't shunned her strange white coat or her red eyes, he had thought them very pretty looking and had even asked that she look closely at him so he could see her eyes quite close. From that day on, she had had a friend, a strange one, but a friend none the less. Someone to love, someone to laugh with and play games with in the rocks.

"I would rather see the village." She replied as the colt's outline shifted and danced, his unseen hooves scuffing up dust beneath him. "Why? People will leave you if you let them, not like me."

"You never leave, but I don't even know your name." She dropped down on a worn rock, one that looked right over the main road so she could keep an eye on her father moving along the winding tracks.

"Phouka's are all Phouka. We don't have names." He laughed, his voice high pitched and young sounding. "Names are for mortals, Reothadh."

"I could give you a name." She offered, and not for the first time, watching as Phouka became more solid. A suggestion of a thick coat, of dark hooves that moved restlessly beneath him at the offer.

"I don't wish a name." He sounded unconcerned, ears twitching. "I do wish a song. My farmers used to sing so often, I miss it dreadfully."

Reo giggled at the plaintive note to his voice as he approached, stepping out of the shadows looking a bit more like a real colt. It always took him a long time to put himself together, she had asked him once about it and he only said that there weren't enough people in his care to keep himself as real as he should be. Phouka was her only friend in the world, as lonely and strange as she was, as lost, but he didn't shun her, he seemed fascinated by her. Entranced by her songs and the stories she told him, that her father had told her. Sometimes she wondered if she were making him up, if being alone with only her father had made her strange enough to imagine a friend where there was none. But if that were true, her father wouldn't be able to hear Phouka on the nights he bayed and howled in his hound-shape, he wouldn't have all the stories of the old farms that Phouka used to guard.

"You always hear me sing, don't you know any songs?" She shifted her pack from her back, dropping it down so that she could hunt for her little harp. "You must have heard so many."

"Of course I have." He snorted a little, becoming solid enough that she could see the small hairs along his muzzle. "I simply don't recall them. I have more important things to do."

"You never remember anything in detail." She sighed out a little bit and ran her fingers along the hard wood harp that her Papa had made for her. "I wish you could tell me about what it was like when there were people here."

Phouka only snorted in amusement, his eyes bright and merry as he sidled closer with a prancing of his long legs, he knew that his song was coming. Reo strummed her fingers over the harp, and the moment she did her friend let out a soft happy sigh and folded his long legs. The melody a simple one her father taught her, but he went still and content, his head nearly pressed along her legs as he listened. It almost made her forget the village... almost.

~ ~ * ~ ~

In the darkness of the Pass, Phouka watched as his companion scrambled down the path, his eyes carefully measuring every step to ensure she did not fall. He stood right in the shadows of a rock, where he could use the darkness to make himself even more real, but never real enough. Never right enough. Reo's white form flashed and darted towards her father, the old stallion that greeted her gladly, and that was when he turned his head away from them both. For as long as he could remember he had lived in this place, he couldn't recall when he had been born, but no Fae did. He had watched people come and go like the skittering of leaves, but they had always been replaced. Every farm had always had a farmer, every home had a family, and he had been known and loved by them all. He had guarded their farms and watched their crops grow, he had been given sweet treats every Samhain in honor of his tending. They had loved him once.

_And they still left me..._He sighed and let some of the shadows go, sliding from the form of a colt into that of a dog, leaping through the darkness so he could begin his weary path.

There were no gardens and crops any longer, but the urge to watch over his land was too great, not even Reo could call him from that duty. It was what he was, not simply who, and for so long there had been nothing here but empty cold houses and moldering stone fences. He knew it all, but his eyes were blurred between what was, and what had once been. There stood the house where the family of cattle had lived, the little calves had always given him honey in the summer so that he would appear in the night when everyone was sleeping. In that field, he had once spent the night and heard a banshee howling on the moor. There were so many empty places and memories as he traveled his normal route, they tugged at his mind and dragged at his soul. He was only as real as this place was, he was only as alive as those who he cared for.

The ghostly phouka padded down the half forgotten road and felt himself growing thinner as those memories nibbled at him as they always did. His paws barely brushing the ground as he grew less substantial, less real. Every time he followed his path, he lost a little more of himself as he listened to the wind through empty houses and felt the urge the slid back into his memories. He was no flesh eater to be kept alive on memories and blood, he was not even a brownie that could live in any home who welcomed him, he was only a phouka. One of a nameless fae that was only as real as the lands that he claimed. He should have been dispersed years ago, save for Reo. Save for his frost-touched filly that came to sing songs with him and played in his pass, where he could, briefly, remember that he was not so far gone as all of that.

Yet, every day she left him, and each time she did he felt the same urge he always did. To whisk her away from her father and her land, to call sweetly to her and lure her back to the ancient abandoned farms and lock her there forever. A dark urge that nibbled at his mind, almost an obsession, but each day he refused it. He cared for Reothadh more than he had cared for any mortal in his life, he would not steal her away from her father, he would not take away her mortal life so that she might live as a ghost in the memories of the years only he could recall. If he could lure her back to these farms, he could live, he knew that. It was a part of what he was, he could take her soul in his keeping and keep it in his memories so that she could live year in and year out, and her belief would keep him strong.

He loved her too much, but each day he faded a little more, slowly, yes, but she was not enough to keep him in this world a little longer. A slower death, but one that continued to creep up on him.

I will wait until she is older, and then she will come with me. I will give her a good home. _ He thought to himself, leaping onto a fence and staring at the night sky above him. _She will understand that she can save me when she is older and her father will not be so sad. He is old, anyway, and where else does she have to go, but to me?

_ _

The thought lightened his heart as he began to run beneath the stars, she was as lonely as he was, it was fitting that she one day give him new life and they would be happy forever!

~ ~ * ~ ~

Four Years Later

~ ~ * ~ ~

Year by year Phouka told himself he would wait until she was older and take her away, and year by year he faded. She came to visit him as she grew older, her songs and belief gave him life, the ability to hold onto the world instead of fading away as the fae are apt to do. He watched her grow in front his eyes, leaping up from an awkward filly into a young mare, and still he remained the same. As ageless as the land around him, youthful and mischievous as he listened to her sing, loving her more with every passing year as her voice grew more vibrant, her songs more intricate. He would lie at her hooves for hours, begging for just one more song, promising her a ride across the moors if she would or showing her the secret places that only the fae knew. Their lives were lived in a pocket of magic, love and peace, and though Reothadh often spoke of leaving to see the world, she was content with her father and her friend. And yet, all things come to an end.

Nailil grew older, his dark patchy bay coat grew greyer, along his muzzle and his ears especially. There lines in his muzzle where there had been none before and he grew thinner and slower. Phouka had seen mortals age before, he thought little of it, save that Reo came to visit him less and less. He watched from his Pass, ghosting down only when he could muster the strength so he could listen outside of their cottage. She cared for him through the winter, cutting the wood, tending the fire, fishing and hunting so that he was well fed. Phouka did as well, taking to dog shape so he could bring down rabbits to leave at the door, trying to help where he could, despite the fact that every time he left his Pass he grew weaker, more transparent, gaunter. For her voice he would fight the bonds that held him to his land, for the sake of her father who still believed in the fae, he would care for them both.

Sixteen days after her birthday, Nailil, her father, breathed his last in the midst of a winter storm. He was not mourned with many who came to pay their respects, nor priests that would give him up to the gods, only his strange daughter and a fading phouka mourned him. She took him to the spot that her mother had been buried, but it was Phouka's great paws in his dog shape that made his grave. The strength he had once used to till a field was turned to offering the stallion a final resting place, straining every resource he had to ensure the old stallion did not leave this world poorly. It was Reothadh song that sang him to the other world, sweet and clear above her parents graves, looking like a mare carved of snow and ice. Phouka had never loved her more than he had in that moment. He had never cared for any creature as he did his frost-touched mare and the precious tears that spilled down her cheeks.

I should take her now, she is alone. _ He thought, the weight of his exhaustion making his form flicker and fade, unable to hold more than the vaguest shape of a dog. _What else does she have?

He lifted his head slowly, opening his muzzle to ask, but closed it as he watched her look down at her father's grave. Every trace of softness was gone from her, she looked older, adult like. The cloak she wore was pulled tight around her body, showing the curves that she had grown in recent years. She looked as exhausted as he did, worn down by the death of the only parent she had ever known, he should take her now. He could imagine her freed of her body, there would be no grief, he could take her to a better place where his memories were rich and full enough for both of them. The words never left his mouth, he watched as she used one hand to wipe away her tears, scrubbing her cheek. If he took her, she would freeze in this moment, she would freeze in time. She would never grow older, never grow wiser, she would live through an eternity of the same days with him. An eternity of grief.

"Tomorrow I will go to town." She spoke through the snow storm while Phouka regarded the mounded dirt, but the words brought his head up, despite his weariness.

"You cannot!" He whined softly, pulling his ears back. "They will not-"

"Father always said they wouldn't, but I do not have him any longer." Reo's words were almost toneless as she rubbed her cheek again. "I need more supplies, I can hide my features and my eyes, but I won't see the winter without them."

"We have gotten by well so far!" He protested, folding his ears tight to his head. "Please, don't leave me. They might hurt you."

"I can't live in fear, Phouka." She turned her eyes towards him, her expression softening. "You can come with me. We can go together, you could keep me safe."

"I.. can't.." He drooped his head down. "I could not leave my land so far behind, even now I am so tired from being away from it and I'm not even that far. To go so far, I would fade away and... well it would be like death for a mortal I suppose."

"Then I will go alone." Reothadh spoke firmly, there was no leeway in her voice for anything but her resolve. Phouka shivered, for the first time feeling cold while he watched her. Willing the courage to take her as he had always planned, to save himself and save her soul in his land of yesterdays. Instead, he dropped his nose back down towards the cold grave. He couldn't take her, not like this, not with this grief.

"I will wait for you at the Pass, Reo." He whispered softly. "I will give you a token to take with you, so that I know you are safe. It is all I can do to protect you."

~ ~ * ~ ~

Reo pulled the cart through the snow banks, her head tucked down and her legs trembling with exhaustion as she fought the icy wind that was blasting her. Icy fingers slithered through the openings of her cloak and shirt, spilling down her spine and along her neck as she fought to keep her footing in the snow. She knew the village was ahead, she had seen the lights, and the hope that she would soon find warmth was what drove her one. Warmth, and for once, people. The thought made her stomach turn even as she prayed for warmth. She kept going, the creak of the wheels of the cart behind her turned, lumbering along and filled with dry fish and the goods her father had always brought with him when he came. She hoped that she could handle this, she hoped that she could deal with seeing people, new people, the thought sent another chill through her.

A small voice in her head, sounding like Phouka and her father combined, told her to turn back and leave. This was no place for her, they had both had stories of those who were different and what happened to them. The voice of her father sounded as stern as ever, but it was for that voice that she continued on. She couldn't stay in the little cottage by the shore, she couldn't abide it. The moment she had sang the last note of her goodbye, she had been filled with terror and sorrow both as she realized that she was well and truly alone in the world. The only living being that cared about her was gone, and all she was left with was a wisp of a fae creature that didn't understand all that she had lost. Phouka tried, she saw it in the way that he dug the grave and stood beside her, but what could an immortal creature know of real loss?

Once she had made the resolve to go to the village there had been no stopping it, the alternative was to go back to her lonely cottage by herself, surrounded by her father's scent, her father's memory, her childhood. She could have gone to the Pass with Phouka, but he had no answers, the fae creature had no ability to truly recall more than a hand span of days in either direction, any further and it became muddled and he seemed to forget what had happened. In general he knew, he wouldn't forget her for instance, but if she left him long enough he would forget her name and details about her, he would only recall that she had existed and not recall the emotions he had felt for her. How could she bear to be near him now? When he would swiftly forget the loss of her beloved father and wish to play and listen to her sing? No, better to move, better to do something, anything. Better to brave the village and perhaps see if she could make it work somehow, perhaps her father had been old and too willing to believe in the old ways.

"ALLLLLLLLOOOOO!!" A echoing voice broke through the snow. "NAILIL!!! OPEN THE GATES!!! GREETINGS NAILIL!!"

_They think I'm father..._She swallowed and lifted her head as the heavy dark gates of the village came into view and she saw torches flaring in the darkness.

She threw her weight into the harness, trying not to think about how large it felt around her, even with the buckles and straps tightened up. Her father had been such a large stallion once upon a time, he had been so powerful, this storm would have been nothing to him. She bit back the urge to tear up, instead she tucked her head down so that the cloak covered her head, spilling well forward along her pale white muzzle. A white muzzle was nothing, her father had said the important things to hide were her eyes, always her eyes. No horse had red eyes, no one but her. The eyes and pure white color marked her, so she kept her cloak bundled tight to hopefully hide any hint that she was bereft of any color at all.

"I AM REOTHADH! DAUGHTER OF NAILIL!" She called out as she heard the sound of heavy steps, pausing near the gate that swung open. "I come in my father's stead."

"Daughter?" A hot snort and she tilted her head towards the voice, her cloak loose so she could glance up to see a heavy haired bull looking at her. "Nailil has no daughter. Who are you? Where is Nailil?"

A hiss of steel being drawn, the scrape of it making her tense up, but she tried to relax. Perhaps he had never mentioned her, not willing to field questions as to why she was never seen? "He did.... He feared to let me out of our home alone, but he.." She swallowed and licked her lips. "Please, sir, my father has passed. I wish only to trade."

"Nailil is dead?" A hotter snort, and a low growl that made her entire body stiffen as someone else padded towards her, a torch in his paw.

Fear, terror, all of them rolled together at the creature that looked down at her. He was dark grey and black all over, a narrow muzzle showed a sharp hint of fangs along the underside of his lips as the hound let out a low growl. Phouka often looked like a hound, but he was always a large friendly sort of beast, this wire haired beast looked intimidating, bound in armor and leather, his eyes narrowed as she struggled to keep herself hidden. This was wrong, this was a bad idea, a very bad idea. A thin tremor of terror ran through her and she automatically reached up to touch the tarnished bronze clip that held her cloak closed. A gift from Phouka before she left, her companion staring at her with large mournful eyes that had pleaded for her to stay.

"Speak the truth, girl." The hound growled out softly, stepping closer so the light flared around her through the snow. "Nailil lived alone, were you a neighbor? Push down your cloak."

"I am his daughter." She asserted, feeling suddenly foolish, scared, stupid. "I will leave, I won't cause any trouble, sir. I had only hoped to trade the fish and herbs for things that I needed. I need not bother-"

"He said draw the cloak down." The bull rumbled, his massive form moving closer to her. "Let us see who you are."

"Yes, child, there is no need to be afraid. One must be careful in the dark of winter, there are terrors outside of our walls." The hound moved closer, his paw reaching towards her. "Nailil was a brave stallion, perhaps if he had a dau-"

Reo tried to jerk away, but he caught the edge of her cloak, a rough twist of his paw dragged the loose hood down past her muzzle so that her entire head was bared to the light and she tried to keep her eyes down. Keep them hidden, don't let them see, her father had told her if she was ever confronted to simply act blind, anything at all so that they didn't see the red of her eyes. Too slow, too slow to react, too slow to escape the hounds sights.

"Winter born." He growled out, a low terrifying sound. "A winter born has slain Nailil!"

"NO!" Reo cried back, her eyes snapping open wide. "He was my father!!"

~ ~ * ~ ~

FEAR FEAR FEAR FEAR PAIN PAIN PAIN FEAR FEAR FEAR!!

Phouka tore along the Pass, his hooves stretching beneath him as he tried to bugle out a challenge. Reo was a red pain in his mind, her fear and pain tearing through him as he blindly ran towards the source of it. He had gifted her a buckle, but not just any buckle, he had poured his magic into it, poured until he had been terrified that he would fade away entirely, but it linked him to her. He could feel her, and he didn't care about the tugs of the land behind him, he would save her! He would save his Reo! He leapt and tumbled, his form flickering from dog to goat to horse, running from one to another with his agitation as he burst from the Pass and towards the winding road that had led towards the town. Invisible threads dragged taut, as they always did, trying to drag him back, but he ignored him. Reo was in pain, Reo was hurt!

He tumbled onto the road, nearly falling as he leapt towards the village, feeling his body straining and thinning down as he did so. He tried to reach out to her, to touch her mind with his own, tried to tell her he was coming. He would save her. Step by step he began to slow, struggling and kicking, squealing out in wordless rage as it felt as if he were unable to brush against the ground with his hooves or paws. Every time he kicked off it became weaker, his body thinning down to the barest hint of shadows as he tried to leave his land. Phouka's nostrils flared and he felt another spike of pain, the terror racing through him as keenly as his own. He couldn't leave her! They would kill her! They had her and were hurting her! Step by step he pushed forward, reaching the crossroads and continuing on as he clung to her emotions.

Please... Please just hold on... He lowered his head and took another step, and another, he had to reach her.

His paws became ghosts, barely brushing the ground, only his will kept him moving forward as his eyes began to dull and grow distant. He couldn't think, couldn't breathe, couldn't concentrate on anything but her as his grasp on his existence began to unravel. He left the memories of his land behind, his farmers, he left everything as with each step the foreign ground leached away his existence. It denied him a place to live, rejected him, but it did not matter. He had to reach his frost-born mare, he had to save her. If he died, it didn't matter, as long as she lived. Without her he would die anyway, fading away, but now he had a choice. The next step didn't touch anything, it dropped down and Phouka let out a loud cry as he dropped to the foreign earth, his eyes glazing over as he tried to twitch his legs enough to move forward.

No please... please no. _ He felt his mind turning inwards, he couldn't concentrate on what was around him, the flame of his existence wavered. _PLEASE! PLEASE!! NO NOT LIKE THIS! MY GOD! MY GODDESS PLEASE!!!

_ _

The trembling creature lifted his head, his entire being yearning towards Reo as he felt another spike of pain and despair following on its heels. His lovely mare, his friend, his only friend. He would die here, miles away from her, unable to even be at her side. Unable to do anything. Weak foolish fae, he was nothing but mist and memory, he wasn't a blood drinker or flesh eater to walk in mortal lands. He sucked in a breath and cried out, not a ragged animalistic squeal, but a single word. He cried out in the ancient tongue for a name that no mortal could form, for no mortal would dare even speak it. Not the name of a god or goddess, the name of a creation that sent the snow stilling around him. Not even the fae wished to say that horrible dreadful name, only a creature willing to die, willing to join would ever speak it. And it came.

Terrible and beautiful it came. From the snow the Wild Hunt erupted with great dogs with bleak red eyes and sulfurous maws, yapping and howling they twisted around each other. Creatures with fangs and more limbs than any mortal ever had twisted and shrieked out around him. Blades and blood, copper scented beings that flashed yellowed teeth and tore around him, circling and snuffling at his spent form. He didn't care, they could have him, they could tear him apart and swallow him down, it only they would give him a boon. The horses were beasts of horn and scales, tails that whipped and green-yellow eyes that glared down at him while they pranced. He rolled his eyes up and struggled, trembling and whimpering as he did so, to get onto his own weak hooves. He would die on his feet if he must, but the Wild Hunt was a creation meant to hunt mortal blood, they had no barrier to stop them, no insubstantial bodies.

"I ask a boon." His voice was a trembling whisper, weak sounding as one of the horses stopped and turned to look at him. A great beast, colored like the grey clouds above, but with a blood red muzzle and a long reptilian tongue.

"A boon?" The horse hissed out, showing large hooked fangs. "A phouka wishes a boon?"

Laughter, they barked it and bayed it, hissed and snarled it, and still Phouka lifted his head. He tried to be proud and strong, his youthful form ready to collapse again. "I wish to avenge and save one I love. I give my life if you will only rescue her."

"Vengeance?" The horse hissed out, lowering his head so that Phouka smelled only blood and flesh. "What are you being, Phouka? Your vengeance requires no hunt, go and rot their crops. Vengeance! I am the Huntsman, I will not lower the Hunt to running over fields of barley."

"NO! She is taken by villagers, they are hurting her, please! She has my token, and she is hurt and afraid." He trembled, they smelled like raw violence and death. "Please, save her, avenge her, make her safe and I will gladly give you my life!"

"Your life!" The Huntsman lifted his equine head, his eyes flashing in the light. "Phouka, your life is worth little to me, a snap of my jaws and a brief memory of earth. Not worth this boon you ask of us."

"What do you wish?!" He cried out, trying to stand strong in the face of such monsters. He would save her, he would do what it took.

"We could take the girl? Make her one of us!" A hound bayed out darkly. "Yes! Let's make the girl one of the Hunt!"

"NO!" Phouka bared his teeth. "NO NO!! Save her! Let her live her life, do not hurt her!!"

"No?" The Huntsman looked at him again, the long horse neck was scaled and strange as it flashed in the moonlight. "And what of you, Phouka, we have no need for your life, so what will you give??"

"All that I am! Anything you want of mien that I can give! ANYTHING! I only wish her happiness." Phouka stammered, his heart sinking.

"Even if you stop being a phouka? If you never again know your lands and earth?" The Huntsmen lifted his head and bared his horrible fangs.

"Yes." Phouka trembled, he didn't care, if only he would save her. He would wander the earth less than the meanest ghost if she would only live.

"So be it," The Huntsmen opened his jaws and shrieked out, a horrible cry that made Phouka jerk backwards and bare his teeth. "I will grant you a boon and price both, the boon will be mortal years so that the girl might be safe. The price is that, when those mortal years come to an end, you will return to us. You will become one of the Wild Hunt. As soon as your last breath escapes, you will become ours. Forever."

Phouka felt sick. To join the Hunt, to become one of the creatures that fed on blood and fear and pain. The Wild Hunt knew no peace, they only knew the sound of the horn and the rise to arms as they were summoned up. There would be no peaceful ending, no warm embrace of god or goddess, no hope, only hunger. He would never again walk his lands and know them through the touch of his hooves or paws, he would never feel the turning of the seasons as he intimately knew where every crop and seed fell.

"Yes." He almost whispered the word.

And like that, a pressure and pain that wrapped around him as the great Huntsman lowered his head, jaws wrapped around Phouka and heaved him upwards, tearing him away from the last bonds of his earth with a vicious shake of the head. It didn't matter, nothing mattered except that he save her. His lovely snow colored mare, who he had watched grow. His last, and only friend.

Take all of me, I am at peace. He thought, going limp in the Wild Hunt's hold.

_We do not want all of you, not yet. _ The Huntsman's thoughts were cold and predatory.

~ ~ * ~ ~

Everything hurt, it hurt to move, it hurt to breathe, it hurt to continue living and still Reo's heart beat and her lungs drew air. The last shrieks rang in her ears as she tried to push herself up, trembling in the snow as the only warmth on her entire body was the blood that spilled along her sides. The lash had come, over and over again it had struck, tearing into the white of her coat and lacing it with red blood as the guards surrounded her. They had called her such vile names, accusing her of being some fae creature that had killed her father. She didn't care any longer, it didn't even hurt her heart as she pushed herself up onto all fours and let out a broken sob as her back twitched and spasmed with pain. It hurt, it hurt so badly, she could barely think past the pain. She couldn't even pay attention to the eruption of movement around her. It took an effort to

They had been beating her, it had hurt so badly, she couldn't even think past the next lash of the whip against her hide. And then the world had erupted in darkness and the baying of hounds. For one instant she had thought it was Phouka, hearing her cries and coming to her rescue, but there had been so many. The snow had turned red as fangs had been everywhere, beasts she had no names for had torn into midst of the guards and then she'd been untied. Now all she heard was wet crunching noises, snarls and hisses. They were feasting on the dead, whatever these beings were they were feasting on them and she would soon be next. She moved through the snow, trying to stifle her sobs as she inched step by step forward, the blood spilling along her chest and what remained of her cloak.

"Please... Oh please do not move!" A familiar voice came to her ears, frantic before a touch came to her neck and made her flinch away.

"Phouka?" She whimpered out and the hands moved, she cried out as they slipped around her body, it hurt so badly. Hands? He had never had hands before.

"It's alright, I have you. Please stop moving, Reo." He sounded frantic as he pulled her up, gathering her against a warm firm chest, far more firm and alive than she had ever felt. "Please! You promised to save her!!"

"And so we have." A voice hissed out in the midst of the wet crunching noises. "She is no longer being harmed."

"She is bleeding, to death!! You have to help her!" Phouka held her so close, she was so tired, so cold, her back was throbbing as he rested her over his shoulder, struggling to keep her up.

"You grow bold." The voice hissed out with laughter and she felt Phouka tense up, a soft noise, like a growl, vibrated his throat while she clung to him.

"Phouka?" She murmured, her eyes felt so heavy, she was so cold. So terribly cold. She started to shake, her teeth chattering.

"It's alright, I promise, it's alright." He whispered to her and moved, shifting as she heard a creak in the snow and felt him starting to shiver.

"Don't..." She lifted her head, turning her muzzleto see a great reptilian head looming above her, fangs, horrible terrifying fangs were bared and she whimpered out.

She didn't know what it was, but Phouka moved her, and suddenly she was lifted up into the air. Dimly she realized that she was draped over his lap, his arms holding her as something moved beneath them. She remembered the creature and she twisted her head, but his hand moved to guide her head away and she looked up. His dark young face peered down at her, the same, but different somehow. There was something older, changed, somehow as he stroked his hand along the curve of her cheek. His feather light touch made her lean into it.

"Trust me, don't look. I'll take care of you. I promise." He murmured softly as she realized the forest was flashing around behind him. He was riding something, some beast, some creature. "Please hold on, Reo.."

"Hold on.." She repeated and shivered, her teeth chattering together with the cold. She was so tired, exhausted, it was so easy to close her eyes. It was alright, she was alright, Phouka would keep her safe, he would protect her.

~ ~ * ~ ~

Reo faded in and out so many times, she wasn't sure how much time passed, only that every time she stirred a hand touched her, a voice soothed her and slipped her back into dreams. Sometimes she awoke feverish from nightmares of horses with fangs and scales, and when she did she found herself being held, warm dark hands surrounded her and Phouka's voice murmured softly in her ear, trying to coax her back into peaceful dreams. Sometimes it worked, but other times she remained awake trembling, knowing something was so wrong, so different that she could barely put her finger on it before exhaustion took over. She could only trust that she was safe, the familiar voice told her was safe, it was alright, he was there, he wouldn't let anything happen to her. He promised. Wholly and completely that she was going to be safe as long as he was there.

It felt like an eternity of nightmares before she became awake entirely, her body sore and aching as she lifted her head and felt the wounds on her back barely throbbing as she pushed herself up on her arms. Her mind felt clear, the fever that had been haunting her lifted as she blinked about the familiar inside of her home. Her brows furrowed in confusion as she saw... changes to what she had always known. A new chair was settled near the fire, carved and rounded along the edges. There were blankets over her that she did not own and a thick soft rug spread across the front of the floor. Herbs were hanging from the ceiling, giving the soft perfume to the air as they dried. This was her home, bit wasn't, small things were changed so that she slowly sat up, the warm heavy blankets slid along her back and she winced, expecting pain. There wasn't any.

The young mare carefully reached back and ran a hand up along the curve of her side and back, ready to feel a spike of pain, but instead there was only a dull ache. There were patches of hair missing, welt lifted up beneath her fingers in a criss cross pattern where the whip had struck, but they didn't hurt any longer. She relaxed slightly, pushing away the immediate shame of feeling the scars, she was alive and that was all that mattered. With a wriggle she pushed the covers down further, heat rushing to her cheeks as she stared down at her pale nude body and she scrabbled for the covers again. Someone had been here, someone was still here, they had been taking care of her. Her dreams told her it was Phouka, but it hadn't been him, it had been different.

"Phouka?" She croaked out, half afraid that only silence would meet her call. It cost him too much to be down here, he had said it before, he couldn't leave her land.

"NNF?!" An eruption of movement made her yelp out as the rug by the hearth jerked up and rolled back, not a rug, a thick fleece blanket. A dark form rose up and looked around wide eyed, almost terrified.

"WHO ARE YOU?!" She yelped out, dragging the covers up higher to cover herself as a young stallion kneeled up and blinked his eyes owlishly, dark brown and warm looking, like the earth itself before they slid over to her.

"Reo? Y-you're awake." His ears went up, the voice tremulous, and familiar. So familiar. She knew that voice.

"Phouka.." She breathed out his name as he stood, balancing on two solid hooves, as real as life, without even a hint of being able to see past him.

"I.. guess.." His ears splayed awkwardly. "I'm not a phouka anymore."

"How?" She shrank back as he approached, strange and familiar all in one. Before his horse form had been so coltish and small, now he was still coltish, but no longer child like. He had build to him, definition, his limbs still being grown into, but not the ethereal child-fae she had known.

"I made a deal." He moved forward, crouching down so that he was on level with her bed. "It's alright, it really is me. I had to save you, I couldn't let... I wasn't going to let you die."

"That thing!" She shrank back as he reached out, gently touching her cheek before letting his hand fall, his head tilting to one side. "Why didn't you come-"

"They can walk in mortal realms. I can't.. couldn't." He amended. "I would have done anything to save you."

"What happened? Why did they make you..." She waved her hand towards him and he tilted his head down, shaking down back and forth.

"It was an exchange. I don't regret it." He said stubbornly, giving no hint as to what it was the deal had been exactly. She could only remember the last chilling words that made a shiver run down her spine.

"Oh Phouka..." She sighed out and reached out to touch his arm, wincing as her aching back pulled slightly. The young stallion rolled his eyes up at her, mournful looking.

"I am no longer a phouka." He spoke softly and tipped his ears back. "I am only a mortal."

"Would you like me to give you a name?" She asked softly, as she had a hundred times before, it had used to be a joke, but now she saw a flash of hurt in his eyes. "I'm sorr-"

"No... I just." He shivered and reached out to touch her cheek with one gentle finger. "I would very much like a name. I can think of no one better to offer me one than you. That is what mortals do, do they not? Name one another?"

She stared at him, the strange creature that had been her only friend for so long, the only person in her life beside her father. A strange fae creature that had only the land beneath him to call his own, nothing else, and he had given it all up, his immortality, his land, his very being just to save her from her own stupidity. He looked at her, with eyes as brown as freshly turned earth, his face tilted towards her as she reached a hand up to cup his fingers to her cheek. He had hands, warm mortal hands, not the ghostly chill of his ethereal body, but real and very much alive. She spoke without thinking, she spoke with a simple breath as the name seemed to rise to her tongue without any hesitation. He had a name, he had always had a name, Phouka had simply hidden it, but she knew exactly what his name was.

"Doyle." She whispered softly, caressing his fingers with her own. "My Doyle."

~ ~ * ~ ~

"Are you sure you're alright?" Doyle furrowed his brows as he watched Reo walking in front of him, resisting the urge to take her arm. "I don't know if you are ready to walk."

"I'm fine.. I had to get up." She spoke softly, but he could see the faint shiver along her legs as she continued to walk. "It's alright, Doyle."

He pulled his ears flat back, nervously watching as he followed behind her. Doyle. His name. He had a name. Not for the first time he felt a confused sense of pride and shame both. When he had called up the Wild Hunt he had thought it would end him, his slow decline would be swept down into their maws into the great darkness that made up their hunt. He hadn't been, he had been shaken and flung, twisted and pulled into mortal form. Every bit of magic he possessed was stripped from him and he had come standing and trembling in the midst of their Hunt. They had come to his hand, snarling and killing, the terror of it all had nearly made him sick, but he had cast it all aside when he saw Reo tied to the tree, her back a red ruin of blood. She had been shaking, trembling, near to death when he had saved her and for the first time used his hands. Hands that felt so foreign to him, even now as he watched the red eyed mare make her way to the graves of her parents.

He had always known to call the Wild Hunt was to be destroyed by it, no one could call it and not pay the price, but their price had been a brutal trick. He could have died willingly for her, faded back to the earth that he loved, but they had denied him that. They had stripped him of magic and thrown him into a body that was dying around him, aging, changing even as he walked. He could feel the slow fleshy beat of his heart, the blood coursing through his veins, he could feel his solid hooves on the ground beneath him. The Huntsman had given him a mortal lifetime, to spend as he wished, to age and die, but there would be no peaceful end for him. At the end of his life the Hunt would come for him, he had sold himself to them and when this body came to the last he would join them in their wild hunt and blood thirst. There was no other ending for him, no possibility that he would find peace, he had bartered all that he was and they had taken it just as the legends said they would. Except...

_Does he mean this as a kindness? That I might become what I could not be to Reo? Or is this only to make me dread the end more than any mortal ever could. _ He wondered silently.

Reo had asked him, several times, what he had done and what deal he had made and with what. Her memories of her rescue seemed to be fallen all apart, unsure about what he had done or what he had called. It was better she never know, not really. The Wild Hunt knew of her, and that alone was dangerous, their bargain kept her safe, but one could never tell with the fae creatures. There was always a danger they might find a way past their deal and take her. And better that she never know the details of the cost of his mortality. One day he would be called to join them, that wild and violent pack, killing beast that survived on the blood and flesh of the mortals. A monster. A bit of the darkness given flesh. How could he ever tell her that? No, better she only know of his mortal life, what else awaited him, he gladly accepted that price if it meant that she lived.

And he was given life, real life, living breathing life as strange as it was. He would have faded to the earth, disappeared forever as soon as Reo was gone, but now he was able to be something to her that he never could have been before. He wasn't stuck as an eternal child, innocent of the ways of the world, he was growing. In the few weeks that had lived as a mortal, he had already learned so much more. His mind retained the memories with far more clarity than he had ever had as a phouka. The memories of a phouka were softer, more generalized, but not any longer. It was only the ending of his mortal life he feared, not the life itself. He was grateful for it, more grateful than Reo could ever know. His thoughts were dismissed as he watched the pure white mare slowly sink down on a carved bench near the shore. She hadn't even made it over the rocky outcroppings to her parents' graves.

"Are you alright?" He asked worriedly, watching her hands shaking slightly as they dropped down to the bench, bracing herself.

"I'm fine.." She looked up at him, her ruby red eyes almost pink in the bright daylight. "Just tired. It will take time."

Her eyes flickered, a haunted look crossing them as she huddled down on her bench and turned her eyes to the waves that were lapping lazily towards the shore. His chest tightened in sympathy and a strange warm filled his chest. It wasn't love, it was anger, guilt, a foreign feeling for him, but he nearly choked on it as he saw her expression. How could they have hurt her so? How could they have damaged someone so lovely? He moved to her, he did not know what he could say that might make her feel better, or how to fix what was so wrong when she had that look in her eyes. It was beyond him, he could not fix her, he could not fix it.

"I am sorry." He whispered softly, tilting his muzzle down as he sat on the bench beside her. "I should have come sooner."

"What?" Reo lifted her head and blinked her eyes several times, almost as if clearing tears. "This was never your fault! You saved me... You gave up everything, just to save me from my own stupidity, Doyle."

Every time she said his name he felt a strange thrill. It was so strange to have it, sometimes he felt uncomfortable, but when he heard her speak his name he couldn't stop a smile from appearing on his muzzle. When she spoke his name, he felt himself becoming... more. He felt more mortal than his body could attest for, as if her defining him by a name wrapped it around him, solidified him, created him.

"I saved you from their hatred, their stupidity. You were never stupid." He sighed out softly. "If they could see you like I see you, they would have never touched you."

"No one sees me like you do." It was barely a whisper, but it brought his ears up and then... then she leaned forward and her lips pressed against his own.

Doyle had never been kissed, not ever, he had seen mortals kiss, but now he had a warm set of lips caressing his own and her body slipping close to him with her arms hesitantly lifting to rest on his sides. For the smallest heart beat he had no idea how to react or what to do, nothing prepared him for this, nothing could, but the scent of her, the warmth and feel of her hands resting against his sides. He instinctively tilted his head down to her, pressing his lips more firmly along her own and lifted his arms to wrap around her slender body. He didn't want to hurt her, he tried to keep his fingers away from where he knew that her back was scarred, but she pressed against him. She came in close enough that her chest pressed against his own and the softness of her tongue briefly flicked out, tracing his bottom lip and drew a shivering sound from his throat.

He pulled her to him, he knew he was touching her scars and pressing her shirt against them, but he wanted to touch her, he wanted her closer. He pulled her into his lap so that she sat sideways, the weight welcome as she moved her arms up to slip along his shoulders and the rough leather of the shirt he wore. She kissed him more deeply, coaxing him with the tip of her tongue to open his lips to her and the moment he did he felt her tongue tip brush his own. Soft and velvety, she ran her tongue against him, coaxing him to return the touch as he tilted his head to one side. His hands wrapped along her back, trying to hold her close as she teased her fingers through the dark soft spill of his mane. The delightful feel of the digits making his cheeks flush, his body shiver with new and strange sensations that made his breath come out faster. He was shaking when Reo pulled back, her eyes no longer haunted, but excited and nervous both.

"I love you, Doyle." She spoke softly, her lips touching his muzzle as she formed words that sent his heart leaping in his chest. It wasn't just his name on her lips, it was the meaning behind the words that made him pull her in closer.

"I love you." He rumbled back, his voice deepening with emotion, feeling her shake within his arms, a fine tremor that ran down her spine.

And when she leaned down to kiss him, he pressed his lips to her like air, swallowing that sweetness down. He didn't come up for air until she took his hand and led him from the beach and to their home, truly their home, their bed. It was there he lost the last touch of regret he had for his life as a phouka, as he found the heart of a stallion in her arms, against her lips, within her body.

~ ~ * ~ ~

15 Years later

~ ~ * ~ ~

The sound of leather, the creak of it, the familiar snort and rough rumble made Reo smile as she watched her stallion throw his weight against the harness. Doyle's body strained to pull the plow behind him, his hooves digging into the earth, his lower legs were already muddied from his earlier attempts. It was a sight that she could never tire of, his powerful form forcing the earth to spread in front of the blade. He knew the earth, no matter that he was mortal now, he had a way that could make it grow crops even when she was sure they were going to fail. Not even her father had been able to make the soil yield crops the way that her stallion did. He knew where to plant and when to plant, he knew when to irrigate and when to drain the fields in preparation of a storm. She had never mastered that, but then again... he also had no clue about how to fish or dry meat, how to properly bait lines or find mussels beneath the rocks.

It was hard to see the colt that had carried her from near death, the leggy young stallion that had been so slender and nervous. The years had taken that way, bulk had been added by the hard work of the farm and muscles more defined. His neck had thickened into a proud heavy arch, his mane long and braided along the back so that she could see the blue-black highlights that ran along his smooth fur. The leather vest he wore did nothing to take away from the spread of his shoulders, or the sweep of his chest. He was handsome, he had grown well into being a stallion, both in body and in mind. His childish questions had slowly stopped as he grew older and more experienced, but oh how she missed them sometimes. It was hard to recall what he had once been when she watched him work, hard to see the four legged colt that had been barely anything more than mist and shadows. He was all too real as he made a furrow in the soil, sweat gleaming along the darkness of his coat.

If he had regrets, he never shared them with her, never spoke about his life as a phouka except in passing, but that too hadn't happened in years. It was as if he had forgotten that part of his life, or refused to think about it. Yet, he didn't seem unhappy, and she could find no regrets. They had never had a child together, but they didn't need one to be happy, not when they had each other. They created a life, a world in one another. Between farming and fishing they lived well, ignoring the outside world that had shunned her. The only people they knew were the travelling folk that passed through, always willing to offer trade and stories, overlooking her strange appearance. Perhaps only because she had Doyle watching over her like a dark shadow, they would not risk his anger. Her lips curved up in a small smile, thoughts disturbed, when she noticed he was watching her as pulled, flaring his nostrils a touch and giving her an aloof look.

"Aren't you supposed to be checking the nets?" He drawled out, his voice a deep rumble that always made her want to shiver. "We can't live on grain alone."

"I thought we might change chores." She teased lightly, rewarded with a low purring laugh before he shook his head back and forth.

"I won't go near the water, never know what's lurking there. They see you, they think a bit of cloud has come to earth, not a tasty horse for eating." He retorted back, making laughter bubble up to her lips before she slipped from the front porch.

She could have watched him working all morning, but she knew better, there would be fish in the traps that needed to be hauled out and reset. She trotted down the path, her thick braided tail twitched behind her as she took in the warm salt air, drinking it down. Her father had taught her everything about the ocean and the fish and see. He had taught her how to ensure that her traps would work and what to do with the fish after. That was something Doyle had never learned, and never cared too, always snorting in distaste when she went to wade into the ocean. She didn't know what his aversion to water was, but it amused her. The one time he had come into the traps to check them he had nearly drowned after his leg had gotten tangled in the lines. Hauling the stallion out sputtering and coughing had been an experience.

The water was warm, and high, the narrow creek that led to the shore was overflowing from the recent rains so she had hope that she would find something more appealing than the normal fish she pulled from the traps. As she waded into the water, she let out a soft sigh, the warmth of it teased around her legs and pulled at her tail, making her feel like a young filly again when she had come here with her father. Would he proud of her now? She had a husband, she lived her life well and had turned their little home into a prosperous little farm. She hoped he would be, hoped that he watched her from wherever he had gone, watched and smiled down at her. She had never told him about her phouka, he had always been her secret, but she had always believed that he would have been happy to know the fae creature wasn't alone. Even if he was locked in mortal form.

"Ai!" A sharp bark brought her head up as she pulled one of the nets up, dragging the edges higher from the water to reveal the silver trapped fish that had wedged in the narrow holes.

She dropped it as she turned around her, a rider trotting along the beach at a sharp pace on a dark grey horse, his hands neatly guiding the beast about as he came to the edge of the surf. It wasn't a familiar form, not the jovial colors of one of the travellers or even the dower looking villagers that occasionally travelled too far off the road. The rider was dressed in scarlet and armor, broad plates that ran over his chest, larger and heavier than the guard she had once seen. He wore a helmet, plumed in stiff red that ran down along the back, catching the light as he turned his horse towards her and gave her a long look. A wolf, his features dark grey and black, slender and hungry looking as pale yellow eyes regarded her dispassionately before he spoke. A string of strange words that meant absolutely nothing to her, making Reo tip her ears back and flick her eyes back towards the shore and her mate.

"I don't understand." She tried to keep herself from staring, tried to keep him from looking too closely at her eyes.

"Bring in the fish, girl." A heavily accented voice spoke out. "They are being conscripted. Justus! Lucious! Found the farm!"

The last words made her jerk her head away from her home and the hope that Doyle would hear the stranger and back to the shore. They marched, ten deep they marched in neat rows led by two other wolves who were also mounted, though their horses looked rougher and smaller than the first one. She didn't know how many came, only that they came row after row of them, all bearing armor and helmets, spears and swords, the sort of things that she sometimes saw in her father's books when she was younger, but never like this. Those had been magical, stylized and beautiful looking, what these creatures wore were meant for one thing. Death. All of them were wolves, their colors varied, but all predators, all with sharp teeth and strange eyes. She took another step into the water, ears pinning flat back as one of the wolves on the horse came towards the water's edge.

Her entire body trembled, she'd never seen so many creatures in her life, never imagined they could even exist. The largest band that had ever come here were a family of nine cats that had needed shelter in the winter, but these wolves covered the shore. Their armor showed use, dents and scrapes, places where they had obviously been in battle, but managed to live. Her heart leapt into her throat as she felt frozen in place, she didn't reach for the net, her mind was blanking. She couldn't think, she could only feel the fear rising and screaming at her to run! To run far and fast, run away from these predators.

"Did you not hear General Marcus? Bring in the fish!" The wolf snarled at her, baring his teeth. "You live in the farm, do you not?"

"Th-they are my fish, I have caught them." She stammered automatically, her eyes flicking back in the direction of the farm. "Who are you? Are you hear to trade?"

There was a bark of laughter from the one who had spoken to her first. "We are one of the Imperial Legion and you are being conscripted to aid us. Give us the fish, and go to the farm, we will take what we need."

"Imperial.." She tried the word, but it made no sense. She moved to one side, trying to walk on the shifting sands beneath the water. "I do not know you."

"You will know us." The one nearest to her growled out, his eyes narrowing in a way that made her jerk her head back. He said something in another tongue and there was a rippling of laughter from his companions.

That was it. Reo didn't know what they wanted, but there was nothing right about this. This wasn't a band of travellers, this wasn't even a guard or two from the village, this was something wrong. They weren't from around here, she'd never seen more than two wolves with the travellers and they had been nothing like these ones. She bolted from the water, hearing a sharp bark from behind her as she erupted from the water and her hooves hit solid sand. The sounds of the horses running were behind her, but that didn't matter. She turned sharply, scrambling up along the hard rock face that they wouldn't be able to ride along, crying out, wordlessly as soon as she could see the starting edge of the fence line.

She knew they were coming, she heard the clatter of armor, the scrape of shields and blades as wolves began to climb up after her, but they would take time to find their way.

"Reothadh?" Doyle's rumble aimed her as she threw herself through the long grasses, her hooves hitting mud as he straightened up in the field, a dark shape looming against the sky. "What is wrong?"

"Fighters! They are on our beach!" She panted out breathlessly, nearly falling as she came to the field where he struggled out of the harness. "Wolves! So many I cannot count them!"

"Wolves?" Doyle rumbled the word, his voice painfully deep, almost a growl as he got the last bit of harness from him. "Did they hurt you?"

"No, they-" She started to answer, but the sound of the wolves made her stop and she stumbled back towards him, her lips curling back as she saw them coming across the grasses.

"YOU!" One of the mounted wolves came down the path, the horse splattered with mud as he road at a trot. "Hold there!"

Doyle stiffened and she watched him pull his ears back, his dark brown eyes locked on the wolf that approached them, the dark grey and black one, the General. She moved beside her husband and fought the moment of panic as the horse came close enough that she could see the tarnish on the buckles. The wolf reined the beast in as the foot soldiers came behind him, fearsome creatures that made her mind flash back to the night she had first met another stranger. The hound at the gates, the bull, the creatures that had left her back scarred from the strikes of their whips, nearly killing her. She couldn't stop the tremor that ran through her, she tried to fight it back as Doyle stepped forward, deliberately trying to keep himself in front of her.

"Who are you and what are you doing on our land?" He rumbled, his ears still angled back towards her, his shoulders tight with tension.

"Haven't you seen us, horse? Rome marches, and you are to bow your heads to the Imperial Regime." The wolf drawled out, neatly sliding a leg over his saddle. "I am General Marcus, I will be in control of your region beneath Lord Aurilios and you are about to make your first offering to furthering the glorious Empire."

"Offering?" Doyle snorted hotly. "And what offering do you wish of us? We have nothing, we do not do much trade and only farm what we must to live."

"Half of your stored goods, feed for the horses and we will inspect the house for any worthy metals that might be used." Marcus sounded almost dismissive as he listed off what they would take, and Reo couldn't stop herself from stepping forward, only stopped by Doyle's arm.

"You will not! We have honestly worked our fields and struggled for what we have, you cannot just take it! We will sell you what you need if you wish it." Her voice trembled as she spoke, and Marcus only turned his head to look at her, curling his lips back in a smile that showed his sharp white teeth.

"You speak as if you are in a position to barter." He padded in close and she felt, more than heard, the low growl that came from Doyle's throat. She spoke without thinking, enraged as he let his eyes look over her, sliding over her body intimately as if he were imagining foul things.

"Get off of our land." She bit off each word as she spoke them. These wolves, these invaders, stood on her father's land, her land, and demanded that they allow them to simply steal what they wished.

"Justus, empty the barn with the men. Lucius, let us show them that they live here on our tolerance." Marcus bared his fangs and Doyle stepped forward, taller, larger, heavier than any wolf and he let out a low noise of his own.

"Touch her, and I will break your paw, wolf." His deep voice made the threat into a growl, vibrating the air, but it didn't make the General back away, only bark out laughter.

He was still laughing when the first torch was lit and the wolves broke in the door to their home, and laughing harder still when said torches were set to the roof. Only Doyle's arm and soft words kept her near him, shaking with rage, her eyes locked on the soldiers that ran over their neat lives and tore it apart, searching for anything worth having.

~ ~ * ~ ~

"You have everything you could want, leave us." Doyle stood in front of Reo, nostrils flaring as the strange wolves continued to ransack the barn, dragging out the grain he had purchased less than a fortnight ago.

He wanted to kill them, he thrummed with the need to fight them, every instinct screeching to drive them away, but there was nothing he could do. They were heavily armed and he knew them. Some horrible part of his mind recalled soldiers before, from a time when he was not mortal. A time when he had been mist and shadows and he had seen armies tearing through his beloved farms. He could recall he crops growing well that year, blood nourished them, but no one came to harvest. It had been three years before new families had come to take over the old, but he could recall the screams of those that had died there. Children and elderly, strong and weak, they had been slaughtered by men from the north. That was the only thing that kept him from fighting, not his even his own death, but for Reothadh's sake he stilled his hand. He stilled her, he could almost feel her fury the moment the fire was set to the house.

His mare, his frost-touched mare, trembled behind him, her eyes wide as she tried to stay hidden behind his strong bulk. These creatures, these Romans, they were tearing away everything that he had made, the flames of the house flared hot against him, beating along the darkness of his coat. He could rebuild their home, he would rebuild it, he would make it better, stronger, with his own hands he would create their life. They were just things that could be replaced and as long as these soldiers left he could replace them all. He told himself that, repeated the words in his mind. They were only things, small memories, perhaps, but he could rebuild it all and he would. The wind was hot with the fire, smoke made his nostrils flare while Marcus stepped forward, his long muzzle parted in a smile that bared sharp white teeth. His eyes weren't on Doyle, they were behind them, measuring the mare that he protected. The former phouka bristled and balled his hands up.

"You could have simply given us what we wished, girl, we would have left you in peace." The wolf drawled out, his accented voice mocking. "You believe you can stand before the Empire and defy us, little mare? Or you, stallion, would you break my paw still?"

He enjoys this. Doyle curled his lip back in distaste. He wants me to fight, wants us to fight to give him an excuse.

"She didn't know what you were. You have proven your point well." Doyle snapped out, trying to keep her hidden, keep her safe, his entire body stiffening as the soldier kept advancing, one hand caressing the short sword he had in his sheath. He forced his temper back, nearly choking on it as he turned his tone soft. "Take the fish as well, we will supply you."

"We can't let one peasant defy us, a price must be paid. Lord Aurilios was quite firm that we were to make our presence known and to quell any and all hints of rebellion." The wolf's yellow eyes narrowed to slit while Doyle's stomach turned. "Justus! Grab the girl, she will be taken as a slave, her husband as well if he does not stand down."

He wants her. _ He could almost smell lust on the wolf, the thought making him sick as he lashed his tail back and forth. _This is just an excuse.

_ _

"You can't!" Doyle snapped out, his ears pinning flat back against his head, he moved his hand back to push Reo away, lowering his head. "I won't let you!"

"Let me?" Marcus barked out laughter. "We are the Roman Elite, you may be a slave with her if you wish. With your build, you might just make a gladiator. JUSTUS! Take her!"

It was a blur of movement, a pale wolf advanced with a small group of others, and Doyle gave a push against his mare, snarling at her to run before turning towards the creatures. They came to his land and destroyed his home, they took his food, his possessions, threatened them at sword point, but they would not take his lovely mare. He saw her white form flashing behind him, bolting before he lunged forward with a challenging squeal. He had never fought in his life, he had always been a being a peace, but he rammed into the pale wolf advancing, using all of his weight to force him back against the men he led. The crash of armor against his chest rattled through his bones as the creatures began to snap out commands, rushing forward, but he would buy her time. He would protect her. He kicked out and used muscles he had earned tilling the fields to force them back. A blade hit against his arm, red hot pain erupted as the cold steel sliced through his muscles, and he only shrieked out another challenge. He might not be a phouka any longer, but he was still more than a simple mortal, he had seen men fight before, he had seen his farmers defend themselves once upon a time.

The wolves attacked as one, vicious brutes that struck him with chains as he tried to tear them down, his teeth bared in the light while the commander snarled out his own orders. He felt the chains lashing against him, twisting along his arms, dragging him down as he tried to ram through their ranks. The scent of smoke and blood filled his nostrils as their bodies brought him down, a chain snapped out around his throat, biting down hard as he tried to grab one of their swords. Sheer numbers sent him down, their armored weight dropping him to his knees, when a sound echoed through the small area. A high pitched female scream, Reothadh, he surged up wildly, his eyes rimmed with white before one of the wolves forced him back down with the weight of the chains, they dangled from him, they wrapped along his neck and shoulders, brought his head down while they kept him in the cold mud and the squeal of his mate came again.

His eyes turned wildly, blood drooling from his split lip as three wolves dragged her white form back, her arms bound behind her back as she struggled. One of the wolves limped badly, barely able to put weight on his paw as she tried to break free of them, her red eyes flashing in the light. He groaned out wordlessly, leaning towards her, trying to get back onto his hooves, but he was forced down again. The commander's blade brushed against his throat, the tip nearly pushing against his windpipe as he tried to go to her. His entire body shuddering in place as she was thrown down to the mud, her kick striking true again as another wolf cursed and cuffed her. He pushed forward, the blade tip nearly cutting the skin as he watched his lovely white mare man handled, her pure coat sullied in the muck.

"Move again, horse and I will kill you," Marcus growled down at him warningly. "You will be taken as a slave as well, consider yourself lucky that you are valuable enough to take alive. Or I would send you to your gods without mercy."

To my gods... The thought made Doyle still, his breathing coming out in short heaving bursts. He couldn't save her. There were too many for him, he couldn't fight them all, he was only mortal, but he was only mortal so long as he lived.

"As soon as your last breath escapes, you will become ours. Forever."

The Huntsman's words echoed in his mind and he closed his eyes against the tears, shivering in place while the blade remained against his neck. He couldn't save her as a mortal stallion, but he had always known that his mortal life would not last forever, and when it did he would pay his dues to the Wild Hunt. These strange foreigners would have no mercy with her, they would use her, abuse her, violate her, and they would do no less to him. He refused to have their tale to end this way, he would not tolerate his lovely mare dying in chains. He drew in a breath, sucking it down before opening his eyes and tried to look at Reo, tried to catch her beloved red eyes in his own, but they had her down, her beautiful muzzle in the filth and dirt. But not for long, not for long.

Doyle's eyes flashed up to the man holding the blade, and for the first time in his mortal and immortal life he knew hatred and rage. The wolf wasn't watching him, he was watching Reo, greedily, but the blade at his throat was all that the former phouka needed. With a wild shriek he lunged up and forward, feeling the razor sharp metal slicing through his throat, tearing into the life giving artery, so swiftly that he barely felt the stab of pain as blood spilled down the length of his dark neck. For her, it was always for her. His mare screamed out, the blade jerked back as he lunged up to his hooves, choking out a mouthful of dark oozing blood and thicker things, swaying while the glared at the wolf. That face, those eyes, he drank them in as the blood rushed from him, his breath coated in it, choking on it, drowning in it. He welcomed it, he welcomed the darkness and dizziness before he crashed towards the ground with a wordless groan.

"DOYLE!!!!!" Reothadh screamed his name, the name she had given him, and he took it with him into the darkness.

_For her, always for her. _ He thought as his eyes glazed over, and as the last breath spilled past his lips, the world darkened.

The fire that had roared and engulfed their home burned low and was drawn back into itself while long shadows stretched out from all corners. Hungry ghosts and creatures pulled from the darkness, howling voices, and they came for him. Let them come. He was ready.

~ ~ * ~ ~

"Doyle..." Reothadh choked out, struggling to get up as she watched the form in the mud go limp and still beneath the chains.

The scent of blood was on the air, his blood, her beloved phouka's chest didn't move again as the soldiers that had taken him down moved away from him. The world blurred with her tears as she choked out another sob, her chest tightening as she willed him to rise up again and save himself. He was too strong to die, he was fae, he had always been fae, even in a mortal body he shouldn't die. Her sobs came and were choked off as one of the soldiers heaved her up, the chains biting along her wrists as she was forced to her hooves. She could see the dark blood welling beneath the broken form of her stallion, his head was tilted strangely to one side with his lips parted and tongue lolling out. There was no life there, no warmth in the eyes that stared sightlessly into the sky. She had done this, it was her fault, all of her fault.

She hadn't seen how he had been killed, only had watched as he suddenly lunged up and stood there with wide shocked eyes. The wound on his throat gaping at her before he had fallen. He wouldn't have done anything to have that blade strike him, she knew him too well, he would have held silent and waited. The wolf had forced it somehow, the wolf had forced all of this, neatly maneuvering them to this point that she was left shaking on her hooves and trying to deny what had just happened.

"A damn shame, he would have made a fine gladiator." Marcus sheathed his sword, nudging Doyle's corpse with a paw before turning. "You, however, you will be worth your weight in gold."

"FILTH!" She snarled out and lunged forward, the chains drew taut as she struggled to get at the soldier that padded towards her.

He smiled at her, those fangs gleaming in the light as he reached out to touch her chin, making her jerk back as she saw a glimmer of blood there. With a wordless cry she launched forward again, snapping towards his hand to try and catch his fingers in her teeth. She didn't care if she died, let her die and join him if she must. The wolf jerked his paw back with laughter.

"The village was right, she's rare enough." He looked down at her and ran his tongue along his muzzle. "Take her to the camp, I want her bathed as well. We're supplied enough that we can make straight the channel. I don't want to linger here-"

A howl broke through the gathering, high pitched and keening, rising up in the air so that the wolves froze and looked around, several of them drawing steel as the sound rose up higher and higher in the air, breaking through the darkness. It was joined by others, long piercing howls that tore through all of her darkest nightmares as the flames on the house suddenly turned dark and something low and close to the ground tore in the midst of the wolves. Someone cried out and then shrieked before the shape was gone and a wolf lay in the mud, his stomach ripped open as he curled forward, jaws working to gasp in each breath. The hound paused at the edge of the light, it had no fur, it was covered in sleek leathery hide with a large wrinkled head, meat and thicker things hung from its jaws before it snapped them down, licking its muzzle greedily.

The shadows erupted while Reo struggled in her chains. The darkness rippled and moved in a way she hadn't seen since she had known Doyle as a phouka. It was pulling itself into reality as great fearsome hounds bayed and began to spill into reality. Creatures with wings and beaks spilled into the sky, shrieking defiantly. Things that she had no name for that she had only seen in books or in her nightmares ripped through into reality as talons flashed in the dark. And then it came, a great creature, like a horse, but scaled, terrifying with a dark red muzzle and fangs that she had once seen looming above her own head. It tore from the darkness with a shriek that brought her to her knees, lifting her hands to her ears as the cloven hooves kicked up mud and the soldiers began to scream orders. Blades drawn they attacked, but they attacked nothing mortal, nothing living. Their blades could only strike shadows and darkness.

Reo's eyes were on the reptilian horse that did not join the herding hounds and horses and felines that drove the wolves back to the barn. It walked daintily, almost gracefully, across the mud with its eyes centered on her fallen Doyle. She let out a choked noise and struggled up, the chains weighing her down as she watched it lower the fang filled muzzle down towards the dark shape of her fallen mate. It would eat him, she wouldn't let her phouka be eaten by a monster. She stumbled forward, reaching to grab one of the hanging chains to lift like a weapon.

_He is ours, girl. He was always ours to take. He was only yours to borrow. _ A voice spilled through her mind, cold and hissing before the creature breathed over her still Doyle... And his dark form began to stir.

~ ~ * ~ ~

Come... come... this way, this way, brother! _ The belling voice of the Huntsman called Doyle back, dark and cold, the tendrils dragged him from light and back to the world. _Give yourself form, brother. Rise and join the Hunt!

He could no more ignore that call than he could fight death, and he answered it as the magic poured through him for the first time in so many years. It was wild magic, born from the earth below him and the sky above him, blood magic taken from the wolf gasping on the ground. He lunged upwards, his broken body twitching and responding, the wound knitting and healing as it shed away the need for mortality. The Huntsman called to him, sweetly and purring, luring him from death itself to pay back the bargain that he had once taken. Doyle did as he had always done with his magic, he dragged the shadows to him, trying to call himself into being, but he was no longer a creature of mist and twilight. He reared upwards and his eyes flashed open blindly, seeing the Huntsman standing before him, the eyes glittering.

_A form brother, choose the form and taste your first Hunt! _ Joyful, gleeful, welcoming the voice called him and the phouka could not deny it.

He melted and changed, his body looming larger and larger as he recalled what he had once been. His hands began to change, stiffening into powerful unshod hooves, his chest barreled out larger and larger as he reared backwards and felt his pants tearing away. His vest fell to the earth as his shoulders popped and aligned themselves to how he had once always walked. His tail lashed and he heard a mare cry out as he continued to grow, not into the shape of the sweet colt that had roamed the Pass, but a stallion. His pants tore as his haunches became large enough to bear his weight, he dropped to all fours, shuddering and snorting out as his heavy sheath fell free beneath him, slung low on his belly. His tail snapped in the air, flagging up high as he twitched and quivered through the rapid change. Muscles layered what had once been a lean tiny form, his hide dulled and darkened as he opened his lips and cried out.

His flat teeth began to change, the magic of the Hunt tearing through him and refusing so sweet a thing as flat teeth. They curved down into fangs, sharp and wicked looking as the Huntsman's himself. His tongue grew rougher and longer, lashing along the tip as he the world blurred and changed. The darkness and shadows left as his eyes flooded with the night sky, his pupils changing, flaring red so he could see in the deepest bit of the night. The eyes of a predator, where any movement could be located and found. He could smell blood on the air, hot and coppery, alive and pumping, it filled his senses as the Huntsman let out a ragged bugling cry of triumph. The phouka's stomach cramped with pain, hunger worse than he had ever known made his nostrils flare and suck down the scent of blood on the air. He couldn't think past the hunger, it hurt as he felt cold, so terribly cold.

His memories were pushed beneath that hunger, his head dropped towards the ground where blood was coating his legs and he flicked out a long rasping tongue. The first taste of the muddy blood sharpened his mind and he peeled his lips back to show his long teeth. The blood brought with it a hint of warmth, not much, but it chased away some of the cold that began to radiate from it. It was too old, too dead. He turned his head to where the Huntsman was, and beyond the creature they were gathered, swords drawn, chopping and hacking at hounds and shadows. They were living creatures, blood pumping, rich and full of memories and life, waiting for his teeth to slice into them. The phouka threw his head up and pinned his ears, baring his teeth eagerly. He needed it, the cold that wrapped around him was as consuming as his hunger.

"Welcome, brother." The Huntsman hissed out triumphantly. "Your prey awaits!"

"Doyle..." A soft voice called to him and he shuddered his skin, blinking his eyes rapidly before lifting his head.

A white mare stood behind him, coated in mud with chains hanging down from her wrists and neck, her eyes as red as his pupils as she watched him. One of her hands lifted up, reaching out to him, as if to try and call him, but the phouka snorted out. For a moment, he nearly turned towards her, drawn to her, like a bit of winter in the darkness. He held still, breathing out a frost tinged breath, yearning towards her, but one of the wolves bolted from the group. His movements towards a grey horse that was fighting his reins, and the phouka's eyes flashed to his prey. He opened his hellish mouth and shrieked out his hunting cry, not hound, not horse, not hawk, a scream that only drove the wolf faster as the phouka charged him and the Hunt followed after him.

Marcus tried to escape, his sword brought up to strike uselessly at the great black stallion that loomed over him, but the metal only scored the flesh and drew no blood. There was no blood to draw, not until he feasted. The phouka's hooves brought him down, breaking one of the wolves legs with a brutal stroke, sending him tumbling into the dirt. The Hunt erupted around him, he could hear the shrieks and cries of the dying dimly, but he concentrated on the begging cries of his own prey. The phouka's lips peeled back and he struck, tearing down against the armor, shaking it lose, twisting it away until his sharp hooked fangs caught the flesh of the chest and clamped down, twisting and jerking his head up into the air as he tore away a chunk of flesh from the screaming thing.

It was warm and salty, it melted upon his tongue and sent blood flowing down his throat, warmth and heat sparking through him as he gulped it down and pushed his hoof down on one of the writhing creature's shoulders to hold him in place. The wolf screamed again, a tormented cry as the stallion ripped off another strip of bleeding meat, not bothering to kill the beast. The blood coated his fangs and lips as he claimed warm chunk after warm chunk, the cries growing weaker with each mouthful that he swallowed down. Memories came with those chunks of meat, the salty-sweet taste of them as eventually the wolf trembled and eventually stopped struggling, only letting out the highest pitched pained noises whenever the teeth came for him again. Doyle, he was Doyle, his recognition of his name brought the phouka's mind clearer, but the hunger didn't allow him to stop, the warmth that filled his belly was delightful, filling and warming. It was addictive as every new chunk cleared his mind more, and he knew who he was eating. The General. The one who had wanted his frost touched mare.

The blood drooled into the mud as Doyle ripped the meat from the bone, tearing it away from the wolf who still wheezed in breaths, his body lost to shock. The eyes glazed, staring in terror and pain at the sky above while the phouka used his long tongue to rasp and scrape meat from the bone, tearing through the shoulder until he could find the start of the ribs. Yes, that was what he wanted, he wanted the fleshy beating heart, he could hear it. Weak and barely there, but it still beat, and he dropped his head and set his teeth to the bone. With a wet crack and a gargling noise his large muzzle pushed into the chest and found what he wanted. The slippery slick heart, his long tongue curled around it and his teeth shredded what held it in place. He ripped it free with a final twist of his head, drawing his muzzle out with a wet noise as blood drooled along the edges of his jaws.

The heart was thickly muscled, heavy and warm on his tongue as he worked it with his sharp teeth, tearing into it while suckling down the rich blood. Yes, this was life memories filled him as he did so, leaving him dizzy and edging the world with a glow of well being. He felt warm and solid, the coldness that had brushed him chased away by the life of the wolf. His throat worked, the muscles rippling to swallow down the last bit of meat into his filled stomach and he opened his eyes. The entire muddy area was filled with feasting monsters, beasts filling themselves on the lives of the wolves, their blood and flesh going to recalling their lives back to them. Blood soaked his dark muzzle all the way to his eyes, it dripped from his lips and he flicked out his long slender tongue to rasp over it greedily. His body was warm again, feverishly hot with stolen life as he worked his tongue to get the blood from the bridge of his muzzle. And a sob greeted the movement and Doyle froze and turned his head on his thick neck.

Reothadh stood with her back pressed against the plow he had pulled, her hands clutching her muzzle as tears rolled down her elegant white cheeks. There was no wound on her that he could see, save the raw hurt in her eyes as she watched him. He lifted a hoof to go to her and she jerked backwards, terror filling her red eyes as she did so and he froze. The blood still dripped along his jaws, the taste of meat rich and intoxicating in his mouth and his prey lay broken and half eaten in the mud. Monster. He was one of the monsters. One of the Wild Hunt. His ears flicked back on his head and he trembled as he watched her sob again, wanting to go to her, to take her in his arms again and tell her it would be alright. Except, it wouldn't. He was dead. He was no longer mortal.

A hunger he had never known still lurked beneath his being, coursing through him despite the fullness of his belly, a hunger that would never end. Creatures born of the Wild Hunt would never know satisfaction, never know fulfillment, they hunted, they ran, they fed eternally. Never at peace, never content. He could never go to her, never touch her, never be near her unless he wished to risk killing her. Even as he looked at her he felt the darkness stirring beneath his soul, a rippling of the Wild Hunt, to possess her, take her, that lovely white form fleeing before him as he claimed her. His vision blurred as he turned his head away from her, hiding his tears and blood soaked face from his beloved frost born mare.

He could only approach her if he was willing to kill her. No monster loved as a mortal loved, or even as the gentle fae loved. He could fight that hunger and need for brief moments, perhaps, but the end would always be the same. Her rich life called to him as all lives did, it called to a dark coiled part of his soul that had been swallowed in the darkness. The Wild Hunt had claimed him, and saved her. He could not regret the choice.

The Huntsman sounded his call, a wild bugle that brought the hounds leaping and howling, and the birds taking to wing. Doyle didn't look back at his beloved Reothadh, he didn't pause as he launched himself into the darkness. She was safe now, and he would ensure that she would always be safe. If he would be a monster, than he would be the monster at her gate. No one would harm her, no one hurt her, not so long as he stood on guard. It was all he could do to show his love for her, the only way to love her and let her live.

~ ~ * ~ ~

The snow was falling thickly, falling and falling, heavy thick flakes that were rapidly building up on the ground and forming into drifts. It was so quiet, a hush falling over the world as it rushed up against the doors of the keep, the stone walls flecked with it. There were hardly any lights behind the solid door, only the barest glimpse of the people that had settled in for the winter. Snow's Keep was home to nearly seven hundred people, from the old and weak to the young and strong, all species, all kinds were welcome behind the carved door. The Keep was the only place on the Northern shore that the Roman's hadn't conquered, hadn't stormed over and raped, pillaged and destroyed like so many other homes. Here, families would not be taken as slaves, wouldn't be forced to give up their harvests and goods to support an invading army. They were safe.

Reothadh had seen to that. The mare stood outside of her keep, the snow falling in her white mane as she lifted her head up into it and drew in a deep breath. Wood smoke and the faint scent of salt tinged the air, the scents of home, but her home had never had so many. It had started with a small pony family that had come seeking shelter thirty years ago, not caring for her strange red eyes or white coat, they had been too beaten down by the invasion to care. And they had found shelter and safety, and the word had gone out. No Roman penetrated the Phouka's Pass. No one would dare. The lands of the Snow Mare were safe, untouched by the fires and horrors of war. And she had kept them safe, for so terribly long she had kept them safe.

The aging mare smiled to herself, looking down at hands that had gone thin and showed her age, her entire body showed her age. She was bent with it, her bones and joints ached in the winter, hurting with every cold snap so that she could no longer sleep through the night. She walked slowly through the snow, away from the walls of her haven and through the drifts, her dark blue cloak hugged around her so that the trimmed fur kept her warm enough. Though, warmth was not what was on her mind as she walked towards the familiar path that she had known all her life. It had grown, necessity and the steady flow of refugees had made it grow, but she knew it well. Her thick brittle mane fell in her eyes, still as white as the day she had been born, only the lines of her muzzle, the clouding of her eyes, the bentness of her form showed her years.

It had been so long since she had ventured alone from the Keep, those that loved her always joined her, eager to please her, to be her companions. And she was loved. Her red eyes, her strange color, the day of her birth, none of it mattered to them as she gave them safety, a home, security. She cared for the families behind her walls as dearly as any family, but they didn't mend the hole in her heart. They didn't replace what had been taken from her. She walked along the path so slowly, her head lowered as her nostrils flared with short puffing breathes. The only reason she had any of this was Doyle, her beloved phouka, her stallion. It was as if he were trying desperately to give her something to live for, if not himself. From the day he left, his muzzle stained with the blood of the fallen General, the legends had started.

A monster lived in the Pass and on the trail, a monster that killed without mercy and remorse. Reo had heard it from the pony family, of the Romans who had come looking for the slaughtered troops and how only a handful had returned. They spoke of a horse that haunted them in the woods, a great black stallion that had appeared one night. He had appeared like one of their horses, his mane shaved down, his tail cut, he looked like a Roman Imperial mount. He had even borne a saddle and bridle exactly as an officer would have had on his horse, it had fooled them all until someone had gone to catch him. Until the docile black stallion had lifted his muzzle and shown red pupils and fearsome fangs. A thousand stories filled her land of the beast, a creature that hunted the Roman's mercilessly, killing and eating them. Sometimes alone, sometimes in the path of a great terrible host of creatures.

And never her or those she cared for. Those who came for safety always came without incident. If they saw a horse at all it was briefly, a flash of black in the forest, a shadow in the night, but he never approached them. Never let himself be approached even when a few had gone to find him. The Romans no longer tried to get through the Pass, they feared this place and called it damned. The only ones that tried were the young and bold, the ones too silly and stupid with youth to know better. And he killed them, stupid or young, wise or old, if they came armed and filled with ill purpose his fangs ended them. Her dark stallion, her strange phouka, who had changed the legend of his very people through his guardianship.

She had only seen him once, just once, after he had left her. He had watched her as she toiled on the farm, trying to rebuild past her grief, he had stood at the pass and simply regarded her. She didn't know how long he had been watching, but when she noticed him he disappeared. A flicker of shadows and magic before he was gone, not even staying to speak with her. What could he say? The priests had been wise when she told them of Doyle, nodding their head as if they had any conception over what he was. No creature of the Wild Hunt could love a mortal, they were driven by hunger and the need for warmth and flesh. Any mortal they loved would be killed by their love. It was better she forget him, better she find love anew. Better she move with her life and embrace the Keep that she had helped create. She never had. She had never forgotten him, never replaced him, there was no replacement.

She came to a stop, her joints and hips aching, her eyes blurred with exhaustion as she leaned against a rough rock just to one side of the path. She was so tired, worn, in pain, she had lived for so long that every day blurred into the next. She was dying, slowly, painfully, inching towards her last days as her healers mixed new more potent herbs to dull the pain just so she could get up in the evenings. She would not die that way, she would not end her life knowing nothing but agony, nothing but a blurred mind from the herbs. She lifted her head and looked around, she should have been able to hear the ocean at this height, but there was only the sound of the wind. Her hearing had begun to fade in the last year, not gone, not deaf, but she had lost the ability to hear the finer things. Just as her eyes had started to become filmed over and the world looked foggy to her. She didn't need to hear the ocean, or see the detail on the trees below. Not tonight, it didn't matter tonight of all nights.

"Phouka... I'm here." She spoke softly, her voice richer than it had been in her youth, but the words were still the same as she spoke them.

"Reothadh." Her name came from the air, a voice so loved that tears rose to her eyes to hear it. The deep vibrant tone before the shadows began to thicken in front of her, drawing together as she remembered they had in her youth. "My frost born mare..."

"Doyle." Reo watched as he drew himself together, greedily drinking in the sight that had once been a form in her nightmares.

His midnight hide was as dark as a night without moon or stars, velvet looking as he solidified into a large heavy stallion. His mane was shaved, only a few inches stood stiffly along his neck, but there was no mistaking the spread of his head, the sweep of his muzzle, the curve of his ears. This was no leggy colt that she had once known, he was large, filling the area as his nostrils spread and scent icy breath spilling onto the air. A bridle was wrapped over his head, gleaming black leather and silver buckles that stood out against his cheeks and the edges of his lips, and a matching saddle rested on his back, the stirrups bumping his sides lightly as he moved and took a step forward. His lips were held closed as he looked at her, his eyes solid drowning black save for the glowing red pupils that seemed to be drinking down the sight of her. He didn't bring the smell of fresh turned earth and grass with him as he once did, but the scent of copper blood and leather filled her senses.

"You have changed." She reached out, her hand shaking as his muzzle lowered towards her, his eyes brought on a level with her own. "Oh Doyle..."

Her hand touched his muzzle, he was so cold to the touch, the fur had once been so warm and now it was like another part of the snow done in the form of a horse. As she touched him he groaned out and pushed his nose into her fingers, his breath tickling her fingers. She didn't care that she knew what lay beneath her hand, that sound alone brought her arms up to wrap around him, sliding over the thickness of his ebony neck so that his head slipped over her shoulder and she held him. She held him as if she would never release him again, held him as the last solid thing in the world.

"Reo.." He sighed her name out, his voice so rich and warm. "I have missed you, my love. I have missed you more than warmth or life."

"I would have come sooner." She felt tears rolling down her cheeks as she pressed her head against his cold neck. "I would have followed you the day you left if I had only-"

"No. No, I would never have wanted you to follow me." He rumbled softly, tightening his head over her shoulder and pulled her against his frosty chest. "I wished you to live, and live well, that is all I ever wished for you."

"I would have come while I was still young and beautiful." She closed her eyes, trying to remember the feel of him when he had been alive and warm, the strength of his arms when he held her. The way he had once swept her up to the sky or curled his dark obsidian form around her as they slept. He had been so warm once.

"You are beautiful still." Doyle purred, she could feel the vibration of his words against her chest and she let out a choking laugh before moving back, but she kept her hands against his neck. She wanted to touch him, feel him, no matter what his form.

"I am old, I have been old for some time." She smiled, as he lifted his head and nearly touched her nose with his larger one. Oh how she wished she had arms to hold her, just one last time. "Beauty belongs with the young. You are beautiful still."

Doyle let out another breath, a chilly sting that spilled out against her lips as he seemed to regard her, his eyes flickering back and forth. Finally, he spoke, his voice dark and thick, like sun darkened honey.

"I see every laugh on your lips, every smile on a warm sunny day. I see the tracks of a thousand tears that have made their way down your cheeks. I see the worry you have been weighed under, the fear, I see in your face every sunrise and sundown." He paused and brushed his nose along her cheek, a feather light touch, before his tongue rasped out to lick away her tear. "I see every day of your life, my beautiful one, from the day you opened your eyes to this day. I see them and they are beautiful, mortal, wonderful. They are all I wished for and more. A beauty that radiates from you, outshining the soft ripeness of youth."

"We should have had so much more." Her voice came in a soft cry, more tears rolling down her face, while her stallion's tongue flicked out again, catching them as if they were something precious to be savored forever.

"Sing for me, my frost touched filly, please sing for me." Doyle begged softly, the words an echo of the colt she had once known. "I have not heard you sing in for so long. Just one last song, that I will never forget."

How could she refuse him? She settled down on the familiar stone she had known in her youth, it seemed so much smaller and settled her cloak around her. The cold didn't bother her so much now, it was a small thing, a little thing. What mattered was the darkness that stood above her, immovable, immortal, and watching her with soft tender eyes. As the snow fell down faster and harder, she opened her lips to sing for him as she had when they had both been young and new in the world. At the first note Doyle let out a sigh and his great legs folded beneath him, he dropped to his belly at her feet, just as he always had. Her voice was no longer pure and clear, age had turned it deeper and richer with time, but the songs of her youth came to her tongue easily.

Doyle turned his head, the great black muzzle rested on her lap so she could stroke her fingers through his mane and neck as she sang. The snow falling and the wind carried the melody away from them and spun it through the Phouka's Pass, she sang of the sea, she sang the songs her father had sang to her when she had been barely a foal and his love was all she knew. She sang while feeling the steady breath against her arm, her phouka, her beautiful, perfect phouka, who had given all that he was up for her, listened with his entire being. He didn't think of his hunger or her warmth, he thought only of long ago when he had been young and small, a lost soul that had found his way in her. With no regrets, never any regrets. His beautiful frost-born mare.

As the last notes rang through the Pass he lifted his head and Reothadh felt the brush of her lips against her throat. There was no pain, she felt only a brush of pressure before she lowered her arms to wrap around him, caressing the length of his neck. As the snow fell thicker and heavier, her last thought was how warm he felt against her chilled fingers. Her darkness had come to take her at last.