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Warm brown eyes, nostrils like flame. A mane of pure starlight and hair of deepest space. Hooves pounding over the ground.
Come, catch me if you can.
Bucky’s mouth hurt -- with one hand, weaving a net from rope tended to involve a lot of teeth -- and he gingerly adjusted his jaw. “It’s fine, Steve, I got this,” he said.
“I just don’t like you out here alone,” Steve said. “This isn’t our place, we don’t belong out here.” He turned his eyes from the small stable that Bucky had constructed with help from both Sam and Steve. It wasn’t great, none of them were carpenters of any sort, but it kept the rain off him and left him with a dry place to put his hooves.
It didn’t need to be forever. Just for a little while.
“Well, I don’t belong back with the herd, either,” Bucky said. “Phillips made that perfectly clear.” Chester Phillips, the general of the herds of centaur, had put Bucky in rear guard, a position equivalent to elderly and sickly, who the predators will eat first. Chester Phillips didn’t have to outrun the dragons, he just had to gallop faster than Bucky.
Which, Bucky had reason to know, Phillips couldn’t. Which was probably why it had been suggested to Bucky that he move on.
Catch me, catch me.
“That’s ridiculous,” Steve snapped. “You’re missing an arm, not a leg.”
“If it’d been a leg, pal, Phillips would have had me shot,” Bucky pointed out. “Look, far as the herd’s concerned, I ain’t worth all this. I’m a burden.”
Which was sort of true; Bucky couldn’t hold a bow anymore, which made him useless as far as hunting went, and most of the farming tools that centaurs employed required two hands. Bucky could harvest grain, one handed, but he was slower. He could get close to the vast herds of wild cattle with a spear, but it was easier for the bowman to take out two or three cows in the same hunt, with less effort.
So Bucky had come here, to the Loch. The herd didn’t travel there, even in its hunts. The locale was rumored to be haunted. Bucky hadn’t seen anything that frightened him.
It’s a fine night. The moon is full, and devil-bright. Come, run with me.
He was on his own -- mostly. Steve still came to visit, and he’d made friends with a family of local brownies by gathering up thyme plants for a smudge fire to cut down on the local mosquito population.
Bug bites were annoying for Bucky, but a few swishes of his tail could keep them away; for something as small as a brownie, a bite could be fatal. The campfire nearby often smelled like herbal tea, but it did keep the bugs off. While Bucky was slow, compared to other centaur, he was pretty fast, for a brownie’s needs. May, Peter, and Ned were grateful, and the brownies had been willing to trade rope-braiding for Bucky’s help. And, as it turned out, kindness to the smallest of things had drawn attention.
It wasn’t so bad.
Bucky missed the herd, of course he did. Centaurs were herd animals.
Run free, under the demon-sky. Black night and cool water. Run, run.
Without a herd, he was dependent entirely on his own skills for protection. Of course, without a herd, he also didn’t have to worry about letting his boss mare drink first, or eat the finest foods, or even cutting the leaders in on his share of kills and cuts. He did what he wanted, when he wanted, and if he had to work harder to keep himself fed, at least he was doing it on his own terms. He wasn’t scared. He was barely even nervous.
Which would do him fuck-all good, if a dragon decided to come down and eat him up.
Don’t worry, I’ll protect you.
“It’s fine, I’m making do,” Bucky said. And he was. He’d be doing better if he could finish the damn net, but talking and knotting rope just wasn’t going to be possible and Bucky didn’t want Steve to volunteer to help. He was already going to be in trouble if he didn’t get his hooves moving and bring in something from the hunt for the evening’s meal. When he said as much, Steve scowled. He gave Bucky a quick, almost hesitant hug, like he wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do with his arms now that Bucky couldn’t put both of them around his friend.
“I’ll be back in a few days, Buck,” Steve said. He checked his bow, grabbed up his quiver and headed out. Steve was pretty good at bringing down small game, rabbits and the like, and he had a quick eye for spotting berries. He’d be okay.
Bucky watched him go, and then got to work on the damn net again. He was hungry as… well, as a horse. If he could get the net idea working, he could go fishing once, and gather enough food for a few days.
He was very carefully thinking of other things. Fish. That’s what he was doing. Fishing.
It was evening before he finished the net. Bucky sighed. There was a perfect spot, just off the end of a natural pier, rocks and fallen trees, but he didn’t want to risk going out at night; the rocks were slippery and the last thing he needed was a broken leg. Bucky laid the net out neatly, just to the far side of the pile of driftwood along the beach.
For tonight, he’d canter down to the orchard. There were apple trees and a few crab-apples and the like, grown wild. Once there had been men in the ruins, the castle beyond the Loch, but something had happened.
The creature, Bucky thought, with a shiver, that the herd whispered haunted the Loch.
It’s not like they had any idea. Bucky was hungry and a haunt didn’t need to eat, did it? He took up a spear -- even a one-armed stallion could wield a spear -- and headed out.
The pound of hooves on the beach. Smell of the water and the ringing cry of a whinney.
Come, come ride with me. Come, come run with me.
His shadow raced along with him, clinging to the bits and pieces of darkness along the path. An echo of his own thundering hoofbeats.
“Hey, handsome,” a voice said as Bucky entered the orchard.
Demon-dark hair and whiskey eyes. A sly, clever face. Familiar scent on the air, and a gentle hand that reached out for him.
“Tony,” Bucky said, and he approached the man who was not a man. Dipped his front leg an a shallow bow.
“This is the third night, and your very last chance,” Tony warned him. “Care to run with me, under the moon?”
“Will you run with someone else, if I say no?”
Tony stepped out of the shadows, slender and muscular, graceful and beautiful, with that diabolical smile. “Is there someone around here prettier than you?”
Bucky gave a little laugh. “There’s no one else around, not for miles.”
“Wouldn’t matter,” Tony said. He was even closer, reaching up. “Kiss me.”
Bucky bent and gave his kiss to Tony. Their mouths met with heat and desire and just enough tinge of fear to add to the excitement. Tony pulled back to end the kiss and Bucky found himself with his forehead pressed to the forelock of the silver maned stallion from his dreams. The blue star shone out of the center of his chest, and his withers were proud.
Run with me. Catch me, if you can.
The kelpie -- Tony -- reared up, sparkling hooves dancing in the air. He spun around on long hind legs, delicate flame whirling around his feltlocks. He left smoking hoofprints in the sand and galloped toward the loch.
Bucky tossed aside his spear and bolted. Running for the sheer joy of it, the power in his lungs, the beating of his heart, the racing fire in his veins.
Three nights, he would chase, and if he caught the kelpie, at last, on the last of those nights, then Tony would be his.
Forever.
And he would be Tony’s.
Tony was fast. He was clever. His hoofbeats echoed oddly, nearly throwing Bucky off the trail. If it weren’t for that glitter of mane, the starlight and sea foam that clung to the kelpie’s shadow, Bucky would have lost him entirely.
Bucky was mortal, the kelpie was not.
He had the sense, though, that Tony wanted Bucky to catch him, even as he led Bucky on a merry chase, over the shadow hills and through the meadows, dodging trees in the cool dark of the forests.
And finally, they were racing clean and clear, along the side of the Loch. Tony’s shadow stretched like eager fingers back toward his pursuer.
They reached the edge of the water, and Tony’s starlight tail was just brushing the edges of Bucky’s fingers.
“Tony--”
Bucky lunged, body bunching as he made the leap, clearing the driftwood pile. Tony landed -- right in the net. His hooves were tangled and he staggered, startled. No mortal instrument could hold a spirit of water for long, and already, Tony was shaking the net free, ready to run, to flee.
Bucky’s fingers came down on Tony’s flank.
There was a blur of color and sound, a feel that the entire world had flipped over and upside down, turned inside out. That black had become white, and up was down. And…
Bucky had legs. Human legs. He staggered, startled, and Tony caught him, keeping him upright, and they turned together in the sand, half-flail, half-dance.
“What did you do?”
“You have caught me,” Tony said, even as his arms went around Bucky’s suddenly human hips. “And thus, you can claim your prize. I am yours. Always.” He kissed Bucky’s mouth, eager and warm. His tongue slid between Bucky’s lips, and Bucky could taste the wild demon spirit of him. “That said, I don’t think your birth-form can swim well enough. Come on, come home with me. Let me taste your mouth and comb your hair, and call you my own.”
Bucky brought Tony in for another kiss. “I’ve been yours since the moment I first saw you.” He found his hoofprints in the sand, like he’d vanished mid-leap. Tony left no hoofprints at all.
For a long moment, Bucky looked back over his shoulder. Steve would worry, would think that Bucky’d fallen prey to a monster.
“I am a monster,” Tony said, reading his thoughts. Bucky kept his hand linked with his mate, the kelpie.
“No, you’re not,” Bucky said. “Or if you are, you’re my monster.”
He followed the kelpie down into the water, to Tony’s home beneath the Loch.
And was never seen by mortal eyes again.
Come ride with the kelpie.
He’ll steal your soul to the deep.