fistsofjustice | @makehistoria

Ever since she was old enough to feed herself, Amelia only went after humans who deserved it. They are pitiful creatures, her father said, and that is why you must always be righteous. Killing innocent humans was frowned upon like humans frowned upon kicking small, helpless animals; there was no justice in that.

Hunters were a favored target, as were priests who spoke ill of the Fog God. She wouldn’t usually interfere in human-on-human conflict, unless the crime was especially heinous - sometimes one had to put down a rabid sheep.

Such was her recent prey. A Bavan native, notorious for taking any job, no matter how gruesome. Amelia swooped down on him and carried him all the way back to her nest beyond Lager Woods, on the cliffs by the north-western shore. She put him on a rock ledge where no human could reach without special equipment, plucked his eyes out and left him there to starve, though she gave him water once a day. Amelia always made sure they regretted their crimes before taking their lives.

It’s been a week now, and he wasn’t screaming as much. If he doesn’t throw himself on the rocks soon (like some did. Others would beg her for release) she’ll have to do it herself.

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Ugh, why does he have to be so stubborn (like she has any room to speak)? Amelia fends as many projectiles off as she can, weaving the wind expertly, and she grows angrier the more junk he flings at her.

"I will do no su – " Her yell dissolves into heavy cough. She can't block everything, and she gets sand in her eyes and a small, very confused crab down her throat. Amelia is still wiping dirt off her eyes when the shot rings out. Her heart skips a beat and when realizes the shade is in her path, it's already too late.

She barrels right into Stocke – monster and human roll on the ground, and the impact knocks the wind out of her. Amelia flaps her wings wildly, struggling to sit up. Her talons latch on to something, though she isn't sure whether it's the shade or the human or something else. Another bullets whistle past, and she stares around wild-eyes until she sees their lights, dancing about near the forest and coming closer.

" – hunters!"

It's Stocke. She's latched onto Stocke. Who would very definitely have something to say about this if he weren't worried about other things right now.

He curls over his human, trying to shove both of them to the ground and make them smaller targets, but Amelia's flapping jerks him back upright almost immediately. The shade's crackling goes a bit louder - if he didn't have the human with him, he'd be perfectly fine with vanishing into the shadows and leaving Amelia with the fallout. But right now that's not an option.

So what he does is yank back hard. If Amelia lets go, all for the better - she'll make an excellent decoy. If she doesn't, she'll probably go down with him, where he'll hiss in her ear, "Truce." Hunters first, then back to fighting.

No way is Amelia letting go. Even with the hunters looming by, she won't missed this chance, with her prey so close and the shade locked into solidness for once. She tumbles down when Stocke pulls, one wing pressed against the shade. It's weird and uncomfortable even in his solid state, more like condensed smoke than flesh.

Truce, he says, and her feathers fluff up. Amelia's first instinct is to refuse – the shade stole from her and attacked her, working with him is beneath her honor - but she hates hunters far more than thieves. "Agreed."

She can hear them shout now. Back on the sand, the human stirs and lifts his head, empty eye sockets staring ahead. The hope of rescue sharpens into one last burst of energy in his useless body, and he yells, "They're here, the harpy and another one, help - "

Stocke snaps into the man's body for a second time, cutting him off. Too late to avoid hunter attention, of course.

This leaves Stocke an excellent opportunity, though: stay in the human, pretend to really be him, and throw Amelia to the wolves. He wavers for half a moment -

...no. Much as it annoys him, he already agreed to a truce - what kind of bargain keeper would he be if his word was untrustworthy? No one would commit their vengeances to him, nor should they.

"Over here!" He yells, struggling upright in the man's body. And, more desperately, "Help, help, they're - no, let go of me -" He staggers off to the side. It's too dark for the hunters to see without aiming their flashlights properly, and Stocke pushes the human to his limits in terms of speed - far as they know, the monsters probably are dragging this poor bastard away.

She wishes she had the compelling voice. Her father had the song, and so does her sister, but Amelia wasn't gifted that way. She gets by just fine without it, most of the time, but it could be useful when dealing with hunters. She wouldn't have had to rely on a sneaky shade.

Her claws linger on the human's arm for a moment, digging in his flesh, before she lets go reluctantly. She'll have to trust Stocke to lure them away and not try anything funny.

Amelia crouches down in the sand, folding her wings close to her body. She has to fight the urge to fly off – as exposed as she feels on the ground, they'll shoot her if she takes off now, a large shadow against the moonlight.

She sinks even flatter when they hunters run closer. For a moment she's blinded by their flashlights, not knowing if they noticed her, but they run past her toward to voice. So far Stocke's plan is succeeding.

"I don't see them," one calls toward what he assumes is the innocent victim.

"Must've run like cowards," says another and spits in disdain. "Couldn't have gone far. Hey, you – which way did they go"

Edited 2016-07-31 14:49 (UTC)

Stocke dropped the human's body first to his knees, then to his side as he heard the hunters draw closer - now he curls around some of the man's many scuffs and claw marks. There's heavy bruising where Stocke snatched him out of the sky, the shade notes.

The "human" raises his head as the hunters seem right on top of him. Pained: "I - I'm not sure, I can't -"

Stocke cuts off as one of the hunters turns a flashlight on the man's empty eye sockets. The shade goes still, but all the hunter does is let out a soft, angry snarl. It figures monsters would tear out eye-sockets. After a moment, the shade continues, "I think they went that way after they dropped me -" He motions vaguely away from Amelia.

The hunters confer, very shortly. Most start to spread out in a search pattern - one stays behind with Stocke to keep the human safe.

It's only another few seconds before the man grins oddly - Stocke's just had a thought. A way to keep the hunters busy and turn appropriate vengeance on his prey without Amelia's interference.

The hunter staying behind is looking away, on guard - Stocke reaches his puppet's hands to a corner of his ragged clothes, ripping some strips free and stuffing them in "his" mouth. Then he gathers himself together and leaps at the hunter guarding him.

The man lets out a startled exclamation and fights back, but Stocke is - again - uncaring of how much damage is done to him. It's not his body. It's purely because of that that he manages to bear the hunter to the ground - his opponent has a chance to shout, " - he's one of them! In disguise!" before toppling.

There's an easy to miss dart of shadow as Stocke abandons both his victims. His prey is left to let out muffled exclamations behind a mouthful of cloth, but not to proclaim his innocence to the hunters suddenly attacking him.

Stocke, meanwhile, himself peels out of the ground just behind Amelia and suggests innocently, "Planning to move while they're distracted?"

Amelia puffs up in rage, claws raking the sand. Crouched behind a low mound, she watches the hunters run back to gang up on her prey and barely stops herself from screaming. Her wings twich, muscles aching to take off and snatch him back.

She does squawk when Stocke appears behind her, startling her. Amelia turns around and glares at him. After he went to such lengths to steal the human alive, she hadn't expected him the shade to sacrifice him so readily.

I'm planning to kill them all, she wants to say, but decides to not grace him with a real answer. Instead she grumbles: "Don't act so smug. You just gave up a soul."

"If all I wanted was a soul, I'd have taken it at your nest." You see this shade? This is an incredibly smug shade. This is the best solution that could have come out of this, as far as he's concerned - he didn't break his word, he got to irritate the harpy, and still got his revenge. The man who took any job, uncaring of who he harmed in pursuit of it, is now being killed by a group of hunters, uncaring of who they harm in pursuit of monsters.

It's a twisted representation of circumstances that's probably only satisfying to a shade.

"I suggest you move before they start looking for the other monster. Or realize they haven't slain who they thought they did," the shade offers, just as innocently. Then he turns and starts drifting away.

Argh. If only he had the decency to be solid, she'd rip the words right through his stupid smug throat.

"This isn't over," Amelia hisses after him, needing to say the last word. She then takes off, casting bitter looks at the hunters. Later she would come back to see if they left the body there, but while the meat would sustain her, there'd be no satisfaction in eating.

She will get the shade back for this.

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