Chapter 1: Little Finger
Of course she left the window open.
“It’s a balmy night,” she said. “Too hot to leave it open during the day,” she said.
Her lodgings stood in an old “historic” building, with rats in the walls, and loud footsteps in the ceilings.
So when she was awoken in the middle of the night by a heavy thud, she thought maybe her neighbors were just having a quick round before they finally dozed off.
It must have been a very pleasurable round. She could hear their heavy breathing distinctly. Quite distinctly. As if one of them was in her bedroom instead.
The young elf sat up on her elbows, intending to roll over, head firmly tucked under the pillows.
But the moment she lifted up, an unknown and heavy weight on her shoulder slid down.
Only when it came to rest on her bosom did the elf get a good look at...it.
The “it” being a lump of curly white fur, with tufted brown fur for the head.
Two yellow eyes stared at her dumbly. She recognized them from her biology studies. A baby owl bear? She’d never seen an owl bear with dual feathering. Perhaps a hybrid of some sort? And such curled white downy feathering...
But why had it flown into her room? Had they abandoned the poor thing due to its unusual qualities. Or its strange inception? Or had the little one left the owlbear's den too soon? It had great strength, indeed, if it could climb to her lodgings on the second floor.
The little thing seemed quite taken with her. It’s yellow eyes never left her and two extremely rosy spots dotted its white feathery cheeks.
“Hello. Are you lost?” she murmured, petting the brown-tufted crown.
But when she touched it, the brown head shrank down. The listless yellow eyes folded back as though flat and stiff.
And one of the “rosy spots” opened, revealing a lazy red eye with dilated pupil.
Clutching the bedsheets, she fought down every urge to scream. But the gasp that wrangled free from her roused this disgusting creature further.
The other red eye peeped open now too. It’s mouth--much further down than it should be on an owl bearcub--cracked open. A long crimson tongue flicked out, curling completely over one of the two canine fangs.
She thought her hammering heart would burst from her chest, but the question fell from her lips in a whisper.
“What are you?”
The creature rolled onto its side, tongue lolling until it touched her shivering chest. At the taste of her skin, its mouth spread wide in a ravenous grin.
“I’m...hungry.”
Its voice, low, deep, undeniably masculine, and adult. A hatchling would be less frightening, more easily distracted. But an adult--gods--she had no hope of it leaving without injuring her. She didn’t even know what sort of creature stared at her from the valley of her bosom.
Tav forced her hammering heart to calm. “W-what are you hungry for?”
His eyes, they gazed deep into her soul as if he’d gently opened her mind and slipped inside to warm himself.
“Mmmmm, something...something...*sweet*.”
Oh gods, was this creature in heat? or just going to leave her mauled by morning?
“I have biscuits in the pantry,” she offered slowly, afraid to breathe lest this creature be stirred.
Two small ears perked out from beneath the brown fur of the listless owl bear head. Was this creature wearing...a cap knitted to appear as an owl bear?
Confusion bubbled in her mind. Accessories were not things worn by common beasts. This creature must have a touch of vanity...but what was this creature?
"What kind...of biscuits?" he drawled, acting like a drunk thing forced out of hibernation too soon.
She recited them mechanically--ginger, raisin, oat--her mind still wrapt in wonder at her intruder.
"But, I could go and fetch them for you," she said at last when he didn't seem very taken with her selection.
"Mmmm, take me with you.."
"You wouldn't be more comfortable on the bed?"
If she could just leave him here, perhaps she could escape. Wait out the night and pray he left once more through the window.
The white lump expanded as two wings fluttered and stretched from either side. Tiny claws caught the fringe of her nightgown’s plunging neckline. But where they didn’t sink into the satin material, she felt them prick her skin. Very easily.
“Alright, alright, you’re comfortable here,” she said, but her forced nonchalance couldn’t curb the sigh in her chest.
She heard the chittering complaints he voiced in his native tongue. Part of her thanked the gods she needn’t hear them in the common language. Cradling the tiny, hideous thing to her bosom, Tav gingerly got to her feet.
As she crossed to the rooms beyond her bedroom, his low breathing painted her skin with invisible colors. She could think of nothing else. Though small enough to fit in her hands, he held an aura about him that left her unnerved. As if he were a taut bowstring ready to snap if provoked.
She must work with him for now, until an opening came for her to slip out the front door.
Her lodgings were ordinary, their labyrinth she knew well. But she found herself counting the steps to the kitchen door, letting the copper doorknob’s cold seep into her palm before she forced down the latch; anything to break hold of the spell this tiny being seemed to have lured her into.
Perhaps he really had crawled into her mind.
"Will you wait here while I find them?" she asked, pausing at the kitchen counter, just before the pantry.
His tiny claws tightened further on her nightgown’s lace. "It's cold without you here," he sighed, fussy and discontent.
Cold? How could it be cold on a midsummer's night?
"I won't be for long," she promised, "And I can't carry as many of the biscuits if I must carry you, too."
A glimmer of offense crossed his gaze, as if he thought she intended to ridicule his weight.
"Hmph, fine. But don't take long, would you?" his red eyes blinked at her, almost with a bashful hunger.
Mumbling some half-hearted promise, she gingerly set the mound of curls onto the wooden counter top. He flopped down, tiny wings spread out. The beanie hat with owl eyes sat lopsided on his small head, kept on barely by his thick curls.
She hurried into the pantry before he changed his mind--or began to fly.
She hated winged things with a passion. They always were a portend of bad fortune in her family. And now that she had come to a foreign land, she forgave herself for a touch of paranoia.
Gathering the biscuits--and her courage--she returned to the waiting creature.
She spread them all out before him, perhaps a dozen or more.
"Don't be shy," she coaxed, "They will grow stale in a day or so. I can't eat them all."
Internally, she hoped they would fill him up enough to put him to sleep.
The small body crept along the counter, sniffing each biscuit. He lapped up a crumb or two and rolled them around on his tongue. His wrinkled his nose at all the oat ones.
Gods, just eat one! she thought impatiently.
Perhaps their size daunted him.
“Would you like me to cut one up for you?” she asked, taking out her small paring knife. In the back of her mind, she hoped her knife would remind him she wasn't one to be trifled with.
He chirped a laugh, "Oh, no, sweet thing, I'm capable enough."
Before she could move, he leaned forward, took her blade between his teeth and flung it up into the air. He stretched out his wings to their full spread. The blade came down cleanly between his curly head and his left wing.
Shaking off a chuckle, he drifted away from the now embedded knife. Her hand drifted towards the handle but he chittered lightly, fangs barring for a moment. She left the knife be.
Finally, he decided upon a cinnamon biscuit. The tiny fangs bit into the dry crumbing, his mouth barely covering a third of the dry good. But his attempts succeeded at last and the biscuit crumbled easily.
He seemed to have found his appetite once he got one biscuit down for he devoured another two quickly.
As she dared to step away, he jerked his head up suddenly, "Oh won't you join me? I'm certain it must be rude for a guest to eat without the host."
"Oh, I'm--I just wish to find my shawl," she rubs her bared shoulders, "It has gotten cold in here, after all."
Before the white lump of curls could remark, Tav slipped out the kitchen door. She didn't close it, lest he catch on too soon.
Walk slowly, walk slowly, she chanted in her mind as she reached her bedroom door. She opened it loudly, taking her time so that he would hear. But she didn't step inside the room.
Instead, she tread lightly to the front door of her lodgings. If she could just open it enough to slip through the crack--
She crept around the usual corner. And her heart stopped.
A blank wall stood opposite her, wood smooth and unbroken. Why was this a dead end? She knew the door was here. It was always here!
Tav fell back a step, searching around her.
The doors...the doors had vanished. Only her bedroom and the kitchen door remained.
Tav lurched for the windows, straining to find the latches. But they had gone. The panes of glass molded to the sills as if created as one.
Was she dreaming? No, no, she had felt the claws on her skin, the floor beneath her feet, tasted the stale air on her tongue.
“N-no,” Tav choked, sinking back against the wall, “No, no, what is happening? Oh Gods, help me.”
She heard a low chittering, then a flutter of wings. “Sweet thing,” the creature’s lilting voice pitched from the bowels of the kitchen. Its echo caught in her throat. “Might you join me, again?...please?”
His voice had changed. Cold, calm, cutting through her mind like a sharp blade. Not sorcery, but perhaps something worse.
Something alive.
She clutched the hall table, steadying herself lest she fall. This beast--this fiend had trapped her within her own lodgings? Why? How? After everything she'd done, this ungrateful little furball dared to abuse her hospitality?
Fear fermented into anger. Bursting into the kitchen, she reached for a wrought iron skillet.
"Where is your shawl--oh, gods--!" the bat sped away as her skillet came down on the counter, crushing the biscuits.
“What have you done to this place?” she cried, crumbs spraying about.
"What have I done? This is your home!" the bat chittered angrily, flying frantically above the rafters, "You invited me inside!"
She swung the flat pan overhead, "You flew in as I slept!"
"You left the window open, I flew in. I was cold."
As if to accentuate the point, the knitted owl bear cap floated down listlessly, coming to rest at her feet.
She lifted her head towards the rafters. "And hungry."
His answering sigh curled into the woodgrain. "I'm always hungry..."
Something twisted in her chest. The way he said it almost sounded...human?
She shook her head. He was getting into her thoughts again.
"I do not care. Let me go!" and she threw the skillet up into the rafters.
Rushing away from where the heavy thing would land, she caught hold of the counter ledge. A searing pain ripped through her finger when the embedded knife's blade cut into her flesh. In her disturbed state, she had forgotten about it.
Her skin flayed to the joint. Shaken, she clutched her finger, holding down her gasp of pain.
"Godsdammit!"
Blood dripped between her fingers, staining her lap as she slumped to the floor.
"Oh no, no," she heard him flap down to the counter above her, "have you hurt yourself?"
"Go away," she ordered, keeping her head bowed so he couldn't see her bleary eyes. "You've done enough. Just leave me alone."
"But how can I reward your kindness with apathy?" he thumped down to the floor, waddling to her on his tiny blackened feet. "Let me see."
The little fingers at the end of his wing curled over her protecting thumb. His small head lifted up and his dark round eyes gleamed with sympathy. "Please, sweet thing?"
She didn't want to. He had inconvenienced her all night. She just wanted to curl up in her bed and forget this horrid night happened at all. What could he even do to help her anyway?
"Will you go away if I let you see?"
His small ears perked up, nearly forcing the owl-bear beanie off his head. She noted the light twitching of his snout. "Yes. I will."
Slowly, she withdrew her protective hand. The throbbing in her finger worsened and she sucked in a quivering breath.
"Here, look at it."
He paced back and forth around her knee, staring up at the open wound. His pupils nearly doubled in size when he saw the blood flow anew.
"There, you've seen it," she said, returning her hand to apply pressure again. "Now, please leave so I can tend to this."
He blocked her hand with his wing. "No. I will."
"What? How?"
"Keep it still, sweet thing," he ordered. Then, his fangs bared and sank into the bleeding skin.
His bite hurt at once. The sort of pain she'd felt getting her arm stitched up after her ancient ceremony. Flashes of phantom pain blended with the living pains, breeding multiple memories in her mind.
Memories she didn't want to keep. Visions of dark forests, ritual stones, foul beasts possessed by hostile ancients. Their presence felt strong about her, as if only the walls of her kitchen held them at bay.
Gods, she really had succumbed to a nightmare, hadn't she?
Strangely, with that understanding, all the fire in her chest died. Perhaps if she stopped resisting these nightmarish circumstances, she might finally wake.
Closing her eyes, she leaned back against the counter. The throbbing in her finger rose to a fever pitch and then--nothing.
But she dared not look until she felt the creature's fangs loosen their hold on her. Languidly, she gazed down at the lump of curls in her lap. Crimson stained his white snout, which still glistened in the dim light.
"Have you done enough?" she asked, not certain why she did.
He licked his fangs clean impishly. "See for yourself, you sleepy girl."
Her skin, it bore no mark of an injury. No trace of blood or even sweat.
She held up her hand, looking at it over and over in disbelief. "You--how did you--?"
"Gratitude," he quipped, fluffing out his curls, "and perhaps a little greed, if you must know."
"Greed?" For her blood?
"Now, sweet thing, I really am quite tired from nearly becoming a griddle-cake. Could you perhaps take me to the sill so I might gather strength enough to flutter away?"
To emphasize his point, he drooped his wings and sank into the dip of her lap, properly exhausted--and engorged.
And the way his round eyes peered up at him her from beneath his beanie, he almost seemed...harmless.
But she swiftly silenced the unbidden worry that she would miss him.
Gathering him in her hands, she left the kitchen. The dark narrow corridor greeted them. She didn't quite know what to say when his tiny hands grasped the fringe of her nightgown again. She felt him knead against the spots like a needy little cat.
Was he a cat? He wasn't a true cat. Why did he have wings?
By the time she had returned to the windowsill--whose latch had reappeared, but she found no use in following that thread now--she mustered up the courage to say.
“Given as I’ve fed you now--and in more ways than I first intended,” she hesitated on what was the best way to phrase her request, “aren’t I owed knowing what you are?”
She found no point in asking who he was. Primal urges governed his every want. His identity wouldn’t help her here.
He chuckled and the vibration in his throat soaked through her lungs. “What am I? Surely you must have figured it out by now, sweet thing?” the stubby pink snout took a drought of her scent, “Or did the fangs and the wings not give it away?”
She held him up, his wings fluttering as he found his balance on her palms.
"You're a bat? With bloodlust?"
"Am I? I'm sure there must be an easier way to say that," he smirked, fang peeking from beneath his snout. "Thank you for the biscuits. Your flavor was quite sweet."
"Oh, I did not make them," she said.
"I know."
She drew in a breath, neck growing warm.
Shaking out his curls, he began to preen them. "Might I return to you tomorrow?" he asked.
She had him on the sill finally. And she had no intention of opening it tomorrow.
"You may."
He paused, curl tufted between his fangs, "You will open the window for me?"
No.
"I will."
"Thank you," but his eyes searched her soul. Until he smiled. "Goodnight, then."
"Goodnight."
Then with a chitter and a flutter of his small wings, he flapped away into the night.
Only after she shuttered the window did she find he had left a momento: the owl bear beanie sat crumpled on her pillow.
Even listless, its eyes seemed to watch her.
She placed it beneath her pillow, unable to shake the feeling that he would keep his promise to return...
