There is nothing but this: the pale horse beneath me, running full tilt. The trail ahead - freedom, if you run far enough and fast enough. The wind, ripping away my tears before they begin to fall. The branches from the trees leaning oppressively overhead, whipping and stinging everything exposed by my sleeveless white dress. The bitter night air, stinging almost as hard as the branches. And the bone deep knowledge that I am being hunted.
It is all consuming - there is no room for anything else. Not memory, rational thought, or a plan for escape beyond run, run as fast as you can, as hard as you can. I don’t even know what is behind me - my mind shies from the thought, as skittish as the horse. My heart pounds, sounding louder in my ears than the juddering of horse’s hooves against the dirt path. Dark birds, barely glimpsed, cackle at me from the trees, mocking my desperation.
The moonlight makes monsters of the shadows. My eyes interpret every flickering shape as some new danger, searching for the threat and inventing horrors to fill the blankness. A hand, reaching to tear my clothes and skin. A beast, teeth glinting in the night. A serpent, striking from the tangled roots. Things with too many arms, too many eyes, branches and darkness and claws and worse things swirling in my peripheral vision.
The world quiets, focusing in around me - the birds stop laughing, the wind dies, even the heaving of the horse fades into dull ringing in my ears.
And then - the shadows become monsters. I see them dart across the path, flicker-quick. They dance through the trees, easily keeping pace. I glance behind. Mistake, mistake, their near human forms twitch and bend and shudder barely a stride behind. The horse shies, skids to a halt, and its eerie scream cuts through the ringing silence. The shadows surround us. Like zoetrope horrors they dance, teasing and swiping with claws that leave smoking trails in the air. I can barely keep my seat on the staggering horse, the tinnitus reaches a fever pitch.
Impact explodes on my right side, and in a sickening tumble I’m tackled to the ground. I lie there frozen and disoriented while the thing on top of me leans in close close close, breathing frigid air into my ear, until it suddenly stutters back to its fellows. I don’t see which shadow struck me; in my swimming vision and in their terrible dance they seem like one malevolent entity. The horse sprints through a break in their circle - it’s me they want, my fear, my blood. I jump up, head protesting, nearly twisting my ankle. I turn and turn, looking for an opening that isn’t there. Between one blink and the next they stalk closer. The circle tightens. Their grasping hands are close enough to touch, and they do: snagging my dress, tangling in my hair, scraping my skin like dull serrated knives. I swing in front of me with my fists, and meet only air. A sting on my cheek, arm, leg, shoulder, something warm trickling down my skin. The blood sends them into even more of a frenzy, and I’m shoved and spun this way and that. I feel like something is going to burst out of me. How can someone be this full of terror for so long and not die from it? Some mangled shriek crawls up my throat and dies there.
And then - they freeze, twitching away, melting into the trees, watching. Insensible, I stumble down the path, hiking the stained and torn dress away from my feet. The shadows follow at a distance, waiting - for what? No, I can’t know it, can’t think it, and then I hear it. Cutting through the tinnitus, a singsong voice, pure and high, but unclear as someone humming in another room.
I look behind me once, twice, and then she’s in front of me, stepping out of the moonlight. Flawless and tall, her head is covered by a white lace veil that stops just above blood red lips. She’s wearing a dress like mine, and her arms are too long, and her fingers are too sharp, and do they have too many joints? The longer I stare the worse she gets, horrific details blurring together to make a picture of an awful almost woman. I blink, and her mouth is open wide, wider than it should be, and too full of teeth and shadow, and the song resolves into one discernable word.
Run.
A sob chokes its way out of my chest as I run to the side, off the path and into the forest. I’m instantly hopelessly lost, crashing through foliage, tripping on roots, tearing my dress on grabbing thorns. The adrenaline has been burning in me for so long that I’m being run ragged. I can’t feel my hands or feet through the tingling numbness it brings. The world feels sharp, like I’m running through knives. Somehow, marrow deep again, I know that if she catches me she’ll rip my soul from my body.
The song swells, and I get a glimpse of her taking calm steps through the trees to my left. I veer away, slam into a tree, and run on heedless of the blood now pouring from my nose. I can’t feel it. I’m going downhill, so fast that I’m in a barely controlled fall. I hear the song again behind me, and have to look. She’s still walking, somehow closer. I can’t tear my eyes away from her cruel smile, until my next step meets nothing but air and I’m falling. Tumbling off a short ledge with nothing to catch before I hit the icy water. There’s a horrible silent confusion of bubbles and darkness before I break the surface. I can’t get a full breath, the cold is a vice crushing my lungs and burning my skin.
If the stream hadn’t been shallow and narrow I’d have drowned. As it is I barely manage to claw my way to the other side. I have a fleeting thought that I’m dead - this soaked dress and frigid night air will take my breath even if the Lady and her shadows don’t. But then I see her walking up the riverbank and rational thought leaves me. I limp away into the trees, slower than before but still faster than her sedate pace. As if it mattered. I’m crying in earnest now, every other breath a sob, tears stinging the cuts on my face. It’s too much, I’m reduced to the same animal panic that bled from the horse as it ran.
The song is all around me, crooned into my ears like a sickening lullabye. I can only think where, where, where is - there! She steps from behind a tree not two paces in front of me, and I trip and fall flat on my face, sliding painfully. I flip over and pull myself along the ground backwards, but she’s gone. I bump into soft cloth and solid, real legs. I moan and try to crawl forward, but a grip like iron has my shoulder. She pulls me up, spins me around, and slams me back into a tree, knocking the breath out of me in a choking wheeze.
She’s on top of me, leaning in close close close to my vulnerable neck. I want to scream, but there’s not enough air left in my abused lungs left for anything other than a desperate whimper. I close my eyes. It’s done, I’m caught, it’s over.
I keep them closed. I can’t handle being this close to her awful burning presence - it’s as if she is more real than me, the ground beneath us, the tree pressing painfully into my back. My hands scratch mindlessly, uselessly against the arm holding me. I’m trembling too hard, breathing too unevenly. I feel her other hand on my neck, almost encircling it. She exerts a firm increasing pressure, claws digging into the back of my neck by my spine. My eyes open in panic, vision blurring, before falling closed again. I let my arms go limp. She takes her hand away, the song resolving for a moment into an approving hum. I take a deep, shuddering breath of the razor sharp air.
Something - something else replaces the hand. Soft, rough, hot, wet, a tongue drags its way up my throat and along my cheek, lavishing at the cuts and scraped skin. Her hot breath, her sharp teeth. A broken moan escapes my parted lips. She draws back, releases me to lean against the tree. I can’t - I can’t run anymore. Even if my rapidly slowing mind could settle on a path to escape, my body has checked out. The friction from the rough bark is the only thing holding me upright.
There’s a pause. The song settles into a low patient hum. There’s nothing for a heartbeat, then three, then ten. Still nothing. I open my eyes. She’s standing half a step back. It’s easier to look at her this time. Her mouth is - smiling, proud, gentle. She holds a finger to her lips in a hushing, calming gesture. I feel the barest glimmer of understanding. There’s something just out of reach, a forgotten memory I’m too exhausted to strain for. I take a small step toward her on some instinct or muscle memory - and my knees buckle.
She catches me easily with one large, warm hand, pulling me into a supportive embrace. She steadies me as I look up at her, searching for something that my mind just barely can’t grasp. She leans in cautiously, slowly, and presses a kiss (soft!) to my forehead.
A light blazes in my mind, moonlight cutting through the fog. A blissful warmth appears in my chest and floods out into my limbs, and I remember. In order to join the Lady's hunt, you must first be the subject of it. She’s still smiling, waiting. The next step is mine.
I reach up and carefully, reverently lift the veil from her face and gaze into her eyes. They are wondrous and dark, inky pools, with a flash of crescent silver mirroring the phase of the moon overhead. I lose myself in them. A soothing coolness, banishing the frozen pain, rolls down my face like tears and spreads slowly but surely through my entire body. I know that my eyes are darkening to reflect hers, and I wonder at it. There’s a dull thud from behind me, and I glance back to see my torn and damaged body splayed out on the ground. I step out of it as if I was kicking free of an impractical dress, and look down at myself - my real self.
I’m a shadowy reflection of my soul, form indistinct and shifting on my whim. It’s perfect. The world feels different, incredible: I see a rainbow of shadow and patterned anti-light, painting the night in richly detailed texture. The song resolves into perfect clarity, the chorus of the night responding to the Lady.
I spin in place, delighted. I flicker-leap from side to side, twirl around the Lady and let my curious fingers graze ever so lightly over her dress. In a flash I bounce up and tug her veil back into place. She’s smiling indulgently, pleased and proud and amused by my expression of joy. Somehow I stay in place long enough to bow to her gratefully. Then, I sprint off into the night. The hunt is done, and it’s time to find my siblings: one of them in particular I’m going to tackle on sight. It’s a beautiful, wonderful night.
