The words the summer fey spoke were not shared in English, but Autumn understood her all the same. Sylvan, her newfound knowledge supplied. The primary language of the Feywild.
Amusement danced in the summer maiden’s eyes, alongside a sprinkling of impatience and desire. Her hand was still stretched out toward Autumn, awaiting the young girl’s touch upon her naked skin. “You won’t keep a lady waiting, would you? It’d be terribly rude~ and we don’t do rudeness here~”
Autumn gulped. She was no fool. She’d read about fairies and fair folk in the past, and knew how dangerous they were behind their smiles. However, she didn’t have much of a choice right now. She had no clue where she was, or where to go.
Hesitantly, she accepted the eladrin’s hand as she stood up.
Her touch was electric. Autumn felt her face heat up as she was quickly brought into the fey’s naked embrace, spun around so that they could dance intimately through the ballroom of summer. Lips like fire grinned inches from Autumn’s chin.
“Wonderful!” the maiden cheered. “My last dance partner was unfortunately unable to keep up~”
“Um, I’m not really that good at dancing,” Autumn muttered. “S-surely someone else w-would be more fitting? Uh, my lady?”
“Nonsense! I desire to dance with my guest, and so I shall! Besides, if you don’t dance at my ball, well, then you won’t be guest now will you~”
Autumn shivered at the maiden’s words. Guest rights were widely practiced in many parts of the world, in part thanks to stories and fairytales about rude princes, jarls, and other folk coming to great peril upon scorning a disguised fey. At this moment, she realized that many of those stories might, in fact, have been true.
Her wayward thoughts were robbed from her when the fey she was awkwardly dancing with let out a startled gasp.
“Oh!” she exclaimed. “We haven’t introduced ourselves yet! How forgetful I’ve become in my excitement. I am the Summer Maiden, the virgin youth, summer’s first rays, and your first love. You can call me Love, if you wish,” the maiden fluttered her luscious lashes. “Might I have your name?”
“I-” Autumn quickly cut herself off, choking down her instinctive answer. “I n-need my name, so you cannot h-have it.”
The summer maiden pouted at her answer. Around them, the rest of the court tittered. Although, given it was such a well-known and easy trick to avoid, she wasn’t exceptionally piqued by Autumn’s denial.
“Come now,” the fey cooed. “You must have a name I can call you as, at the very least, or shall I give you one myself?”
“T-that’s not n–necessary," Autumn stuttered. She quickly racked her brain. “You can call me Guest.”
A jubilant sly smile crested the maiden’s face, making Autumn feel as if she was being smiled at by a shark. “Oh, very well, I shall call you my Guest for as long as you call me Love and dance with me. I think that’s fair. This is my party, after all.”
“Um, what is this p-party about anyway?”
“What is this party about anyway, what?” the maiden purred sweetly in Autumn’s ear. The air within the court grew heavy as the fey’s hand clenched tighter around Autumn’s. Eager, hungry faces leered at Autumn as she shivered.
Looking around, she saw another mortal dancing enraptured across the ballroom from her. He didn’t even notice how his feet were torn and bloody, leaving behind crimson footsteps on the tiles. A fool of fate who’d failed the unknowable rules of the court.
“W-what is this p-party about anyway, m-my love?” Autumn hurriedly stuttered out.
The oppressive air eased.
Humming, the maiden carried her through a looping fandango. “Mortals, so hard to train~” she sighed. “Does a party need to be about anything, my lovely guest? However, this one is to celebrate the birth of summer, so it is my party! Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately for you, my queen wasn’t able to attend this little soiree of mine.”
“The queen of summer? You mean Titan-”
“Hush!” The summer maiden quickly silenced Autumn with a finger pressed gently but firmly to her lips. She glanced around nervously. “Don’t speak her name so lightly, Guest! Honestly! Even I wouldn’t risk her ire should she be disturbed by a loose-lipped mortal.”
The frigid air chilled Autumn’s skin. She shivered at the thought of inadvertently calling such attention down on herself. She felt like a minnow in an ocean filled with thousands upon thousands of sharks, only to realize there was an even greater predator lurking below her.
All throughout this conversation, the summer maiden hadn’t stopped leading Autumn around the fey ballroom, pressing Autumn into her naked bosom as they danced. The fey watched, idly playing their own games and japes as they awaited for her to stumble.
Their self-made rules were as much bindings as they were weapons.
At least, so long as they felt like playing.
Autumn followed the maiden’s footsteps with awkward confidence. Her birth father had never gotten the opportunity to teach her how to dance before cancer had taken him, but her foster-father had taught her for the upcoming prom, which she’ll miss. Not that she had a date yet.
She was still terrible at it. At least back then, she hadn’t had to worry that her partner might eat her if she stepped on their foot.
Terror coursed through her veins like a thick sludge, sending her heart fluttering like a caffeine-addicted hummingbird. Autumn’s eyes kept darting to her feet as they danced, rapid and wild, slow and swaying, sensual and sultry.
The fair maiden watched her mortal terror and determined steps with seductive glee. She licked her lips, imagining how wonderful it’d be to cage the girl that’d practically fell in her lap forever.
For how long did Autumn dance?
She didn’t know. Time seemed to have lost all meaning within this moonlit court. Everything all blurred together into a seamless impression of dancing and dread. Minutes became hours. Hours became days. Days became lifetimes. And then it all went in reverse. Lifetimes to days. Days to hours. Hours to minutes. And minutes into seconds.
All Autumn knew was that her feet hurt.
She glanced down and recoiled in horror. Blood gleamed under her feet. The soles of her feet had been torn apart by her neverending dancing, leaving behind crimson footfalls to mark her long journey around the summer ballroom. Not only that, but the other mortal that’d been dancing alongside was nowhere to be seen. Only blood on a fey’s lips showed signs of his existence.
Autumn would share the same fate if she stumbled.
She needed to leave this wicked dance. But how? If she stopped dancing, she’d no longer be considered a guest by the summer maiden’s words.
The summer maiden’s grin had grown wider and sharper as Autumn’s stamina slowly failed her. Her grip was tight on Autumn’s hands. Her body was hot as she pressed it against the young mortal clad only in soaked pajamas.
Desperately, Autumn cast her eyes around the ballroom, seeking a way out. The dancers around her flowed like the currents of an ocean, weaving through the space, yet never crashing beyond the circle of mushrooms surrounding them all. The mushrooms! No one was crossing that line! Perhaps her safety lay beyond it?
Autumn stepped carefully on her bloodied feet, leading the maiden for once as she danced slowly toward the edge, leaving more bloody footsteps in her wake. The maiden smiled. Closer and closer, they danced towards the mushrooms. Closer and closer, they drew. But just as she was a step from freedom beyond that invisible line, the fey guiding her spun her away into the mass.
“Almost, my beloved guest~” the maiden said with a laugh. “Maybe you can do it again?”
Gritting her teeth, Autumn held back her tears as the fey led her deeper into the ballroom. Her partner was more skillful than her and played this game a thousand thousand times before. Of course she knew what Autumn was up to before even she knew it herself.
Freedom drew further away.
It couldn’t end like this.
Fond giggling and teasing laughter erupted from all corners of the ballroom as the other fey made light of her peril. They delighted in their game at her expense. Half-remembered facts and stories littered Autumn’s mind, and she snatched for them, desperate to find a way to flee this doomed fate of hers.
A line came to mind, one remembered from a dog-eared book of fairytales she’d once read one lonely night as a child. How did it go again?
“Around and around the mushrooms the children would dance. Nine times, they would dance around, and never a tenth. For a tenth would call disaster upon them.”
If ten times around the outside would call disaster, perhaps ten times around on the inside would see her free?
It was a long shot, but it was better than being danced to death.
Looking at the circle beyond her, Autumn saw three circles of bloody footsteps already stamped along the inside edge. The summer maiden looked to be trying to use her as a living paintbrush, creating a strange symbol upon the pale ballroom floor. She didn’t know what it was meant to be, but she knew it wasn’t to her benefit that the maiden was creating it.
Autumn couldn’t force her partner to dance the way she wished. The only time she’d tried had earned her a tutting which’d sent a thrill of danger racing up her spine. If she wanted to escape, she needed to obey the rules of the dance, and earn her freedom.
Taking the initiative, she took the fey’s hand into her own, placing the other on her hip, and led the summer maiden into a Waltz. It was the only dance she knew.
She stepped forward, leading, making the fey instinctively take a step back to mirror her. Another step took her to the side, moving along the mushroom ring’s curve.
Despite having the lead taken from her, the nude eladrin only grinned brighter. She followed Autumn’s lead with a cunning eagerness, content to wait until the last moment to disrupt Autumn’s plans. To build her hope only to poison it when freedom was within reach.
Autumn stepped to the right, dancing around the other fey who swarmed her who sought to foul her footwork. She danced with summer in her hands.
Multifaceted emotions glittered in her partner’s eyes as they moved around the circle, leaving a trail of crimson marks to denote their progress. Four, five, six times around the circle, they went. The maiden’s grin widened, becoming keener and more teasing. Seven, eight times they danced around. Autumn’s palms sweated.
“Two more times~” the fey teased. “Will you make it? Or will you stumble, my dearest guest?”
Autumn grit her teeth as her feet stung.
The ninth time around the circle was harder than the each before combined as the maiden pulled and pushed her this way and that in an effort to subtly foul her stride. Yet despite all her twisting and tugging and sensual distraction, she couldn’t sway the young woman from her goal.
Laughter dogged their footsteps, now not just at Autumn’s plight, but also at the maiden’s anticipated loss. Her face fell from the loving smile that’d adorned her since Autumn had first taken her hand, replaced instead by the fury of a lover scorned. Her fingers held Autumn’s hand crushingly tight.
There was no more laughter from her.
“A tenth time comes, my guest,” she said, eyes glowing with the heat of a summer’s drought. “I suddenly don’t feel like dancing with you anymore.”
Panicked, Autumn seized the maiden's hands before she could pull away. “You can’t! I- If you don’t dance, then you aren’t a guest, my love.”
The maiden froze. Her eyes burned as the other fey around her grinned malevolently. They whispered to one another behind her back, delighted that a mortal had turned the noble eladrin’s words back upon her, trapping her in her own cage. Pride pickled, the maiden gripped Autumn’s hands so tightly that the young woman could feel her bones grind together.
“So true, my dearest guest. It was kind of you to point such a thing out,” the maiden said, pure malice dripping from her petal-like lips. “But so too must you dance. Once you stop…well,” she drawled.
Autumn’s heart thundered in her chest. She took the fey in a final dance, pressing close, feeling the heat of her otherworldly body burning her, keenly aware of her summer nature now more than ever. Escaped nearer. An actual possibility now rather than a faint dream.
As their tenth lap came near to a close, the summer maiden whispered into Autumn’s ear. “To call thee a most valorous dancer would be a most egregious falsehood, but I must admit that you lasted longer than I suspected upon your most…interesting of arrivals. Stay, and I shall spare you a most dire death. I shall be thine fire, thy flame, a lover fairer than ever you might meet or need. Attempt to leave, however, and I shall devour you whole.”
Temptation tickled Autumn’s ear. Fey didn’t lie, although they twisted the truth to suit their ends. If Autumn spared the maiden the humiliation of losing to a mortal within her own party, she’d honor her word. What that entailed was up for debate.
However, Autumn didn’t want to stay.
Under the baleful light of a cruel moon, the young woman cast from her home into this unreal world with only a pair of sodden pajamas on her back, made a fateful decision that entwined her soul with another. She took the final step, heels clicking together like a gunshot in the sudden quiet, and turned toward the fey of grand beauty and fathomless love.
Terror thundered in her heart as she spoke. “I-its a t-tempting offer, but I c-cant stay. G-goodbye!”
Autumn released the fey’s hand and leapt from the mushroom ring. But how could the lover spurned let her go so easily. The maiden snatched Autumn’s right hand, clenching unyieldingly around her fingers as she bit toward the leaping mortal with a jawn of jagged teeth yawning wide, aiming to bite into her neck and rend the life from her in an instant.
Instinctively, Autumn wrenched her caught hand away, drawing their conjoined hands into the path of the furious fey’s gnashing maw. Sharp teeth bit clean through flesh and bone, spraying the pair with hot blood.
Autumn fell outside the fairy ring, landing painfully on her side as her hand throbbed painfully. Looking down, she saw that the maiden had bitten off her index and middle fingers of her right hand, leaving only bleeding stumps behind. When she glanced at the summer eladrin, Autumn saw that she too was missing fingers mirroring her, only on left hand.
Before her eyes, the summer maiden chewed both of their fingers and swallowed, not breaking eye contact with her or even blinking once.
The other fey were laughing and hollering at her behind her back. She’d lost to a mortal. Lost within her own court at her own party to a mortal she’d personally sought out. The humiliation would ring through the courts of summer, spring, autumn, and winter for untold eons.
Autumn gulped. Clutching her bloody hand, she staggered woozily to her feet.
Tears of betrayal and heartbreak trickled down the summer maiden’s face. Her wounded pride and hate mixed with the boundless love that dominated her very being. She reached out toward Autumn, bloody hand dripping onto the mushroom caps. The blood was golden and bright.
“Congratulations, my love! I forgive you for this! But I shall come for you, my beloved, and I’ll make you mine in the end! And you’ll beg to be mine! Run! Run! For the hunt comes! Run! Run! For I shall gather my armor! Gather my armies! Gather my bow and sword and sunlight! Run! Run! Mortal, and be mine!”
With fright urging her limbs to move, a bloody, exhausted, and near-naked Autumn staggered away on bleeding feet out of the moonlight and into the dark forest that loomed beyond the court’s edge. Laughter and howls and the stamping of hooves echoed at her back, along with the heartbroken call of a fey in love.
“Run!”
And run she did.
Autumn wasn’t graceful about it. She stumbled and crashed through overgrown underbrush and scratching thorns with haste, scurrying through the vivid flora of the Feywild like a rat chased by a hunting cat. A grand mess of roots taller than skyscrapers and longer than city blocks latticed the ground like a maze, lit only by silvery light streaming down through the leaves of the towering trees or from haunting fireflies flitting about the understory.
Curious fey creatures howled and hollered in the dark, watching the bare-footed young woman as she desperately navigated the mess of natural stairways, tunnels, and passageways formed in the feywoods. A fox the size of a horse and with many tails shadowed her passing. A dragonfly with a scorpion tail trailed her from above.
While curious and hungry, they were wary of what this stranger was fleeing from. Their own eyes narrowed back the way she’d come.
In Autumn’s flight, she didn’t notice her watchers. She clambered over a dying log, startling as it bloomed with vibrant pink flowers that sprayed her with a choking cloud of pollen-like dust. Coughing and spluttering, she staggered away from the flowers, making her way deeper into the forest.
Suddenly, a horn call bellowed through the forest.
Her time was up. The Wild Hunt comes!
The sound startled the fauna watching from the darkness beyond the young human’s sight. They knew what the sound meant, and quickly fled. While they might not be the target of the hunt, anything that got in the host of the Wild Hunt’s path would suffer the same fate.
Fey hounds bayed and howled as they were let loose. Hunting. Chasing. They had her scent. They quickly barrelled down the forest paths she’d taken, leading the grand host behind them to catch her. The ground rumbled under the hooves of the Wild Hunt.
Autumn had barely escaped a single fey, and she’d not even done so intact.
What hope did she have of escaping thousands of them?
The eternal night was split by the mad cries of her hunters.
She kept running.