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Enoch bats the black turtle between his paws, such odd little things. Their eyes were a delightful muddled puddle of color, rather like another reclusive forest dweller he knew. He rolls onto his back tossing the little turtle. It flew in the air as he kicked it about.

So focused on the tossed turtle against a starry sky, he nearly doesn't notice the long stilt-like legs approaching him. The Beast looms over him; he was rather tall wasn't he, Enoch thinks idly as he stares up at him. He was so used to towering over the winter spirit.

Those luminous moons peer down at him and he allows his torment of the turtle to cease but continues holding it fast beneath his claws as he lies upon his back staring up at those beautiful white pools.

Very slowly those two white orbs blink down at him and the Beast stoops, a single hand reaching for Enoch’s prize. Enoch does not protest and allows the turtle to be taken from his paws for the Beast’s inspection. His tail thrashes as the Beast studies the little thing.

The winter spirit observes the dark creature for a long moment before looking to Enoch’s feline form, still laying upon its back. The Beast’s head tilts questioningly, the turtle still cupped in his claws.

“Enoch?” The voice rumbles from the shadows, questioning.

“How can I help you, Hope Eater?” The Beast jerks back as if startled, his claws tightening around the turtle’s shell. Quickly composing himself, the Beast’s furs smooth back over.

“Apologies, I was merely ensuring that it was indeed you wearing the cat skin. I once had a conversation with one of your barn cats believing it to be you.” The Beast says, stooping to return the turtle to his waiting claws.

Enoch worked his fangs around one of the turtle’s legs, claws scrabbling for purchase against its glossy shell. He chuckles; his voice surpassing this simple vessel and it’s occupied mouth.

“I find myself so often speaking to the trees, unknowing if you are out there to hear me, usually as a maypole, however. I do not often patrol in this skin.”

“Speaking of such, why are you wearing the cat skin?”

“I’ve been run out of my own city council.” With a sharp tug, one of the turtle’s legs came off in his mouth crackling with dull undirected magic. The dull magic sparked over his tongue like buzzing liquor. 

“Oh? I am more than happy to provide reinforcements should you need to take it back.” The Beast offered pleasantly but Enoch could hear the steely threat in his tone and purrs out a laugh.

“No, nothing of that sort is necessary. Miss Clara and Miss Elizabeth have cooked up some sort of surprise and I mustn’t spoil it for myself. They sent me out, saying it’s high time I took a break anyway.” Enoch tore off another of the creature’s legs.

“Unfortunately, my maypole is in the barn where they’re doing their scheming.” He continued. The Beast shifted above him.

“And you are certain it is nothing foul, Enoch? If it’s necessary to inspire a little fear to make sure they know their place I am at your disposal.” Enoch found a throaty chuckle rising in his body, it came out as a hissing laugh, caught between his cat form and his voice.

“I’m quite sure, I would be able to feel the shift in my people if they were uneasy in any way.” Enoch’s teeth nipped at the little turtle but it had managed to draw it’s two remaining legs and head back into its shell. How inconvenient.

The Beast falls silent, content apparently with watching him struggle to lure out the turtle.

Enoch’s tail thrashes as his sandpaper tongue darts to lick inside the shell of the creature. The stubborn thing does not emerge.

“Allow me.” The Beast stoops to remove the turtle from Enoch’s paws. Enoch watches him curiously as the winter spirit easily cracks open the shell and places it, offering it’s delectable magic, before him.

Enoch scarfs down the rest of the turtle leaving the shell and nudging it with his paws. Enoch’s eyes find the Beast’s face once more.

Had the Beast been one of his Pottsfeilders Enoch is sure he would have felt disgust and mild intrigue radiating from the Beast, but he feels nothing from his companion. Nothing save the grating hunger always looming behind his companion. Enoch licked his feline lips tracing the last scraps of buzzing magic.

“I don't suppose you’d like a turtle, neighbor?” Enoch offers. The Beast hums.

“No. They’re nothing but pests to me, driving my dogs mad and turning babes into witches. It is better you have found a use for them.” A silence spans between them and when Enoch has, at last, licked the inside of the turtle shell clean he gets to his paws tail flicking.

Rain begins to pitter around them and Enoch’s ears flatten against his skull and he shies away from the dampening rain. 

“I don't suppose you’ve been banished from your barn?” The Beast asks as the rain begins to come down harder, plastering Enoch’s fur down and making the Beast drip with water. How he dealt with storms in his forest Enoch wonders, surely it couldn’t always snow, there must be rain.

“No, no, follow me, neighbor.” Enoch purrs as he makes his way to the lone barn sitting away from the rest of the town, the Beast’s long strides pulling even with him quickly. They come before the looming structure of the barn, weeds licking up along its wooden walls, Enoch eyes the scraggly plants with displeasure. 

The Beast pulls open the doors, a crack and warm golden light spills out into the cold dreary night. Enoch slips in between dark legs into the warmth of his barn. The Beast trails in behind him edging into the light almost warily. 

Enoch curls up in the warm straw and rolls on his back relishing the scent of hay, a nose is such a pleasant thing to have. He watches with half-lidded golden eyes as the Beast steps into the barn, shutting and latching the doors behind him, so courteous. 

He watches as the Beast shrugs his wet furs from his shoulders and hangs them upon one of the lantern hooks on the columns of the barn. Bared in the light he was a sight to behold, a lanky form of wood cloaked in a thin layer of shadow.

Yes, Enoch could get used to that sight.

The Beast takes up his place in a corner dark with shadows. His incandescent eyes peer from the darkness fixed on Enoch. 

A silence yawns between them, unbridgeable but easily broken. Enoch blinks lazily at his companion, the Beast’s eyes do not so much as flicker. 

The rain thunders outside, pattering against the ground and the roof in the drumming of a thousand fingers. The soft crackling sound of frost forming under his neighbor’s feet is nearly drowned out by the rain. The swish of his tail through the hay echoes in the silence. 

Enoch allows his mind to roam as his eyes remain fixed upon the Beast. 

He thinks idly of the harvest and the work to do as he tries to pick out his neighbor’s shape among the shadow. He blends into the darkness but Enoch thinks he can just about make out the shape of those distinctive antlers. 

A knock comes at the door and the Beast’s head swings towards it as thunder rumbles outside. 

“Would you get that for me, Hope Eater?” Enoch’s tail flicks against the floor as Beast moves to the door. 

He unlatches the door and opens it, Enoch can see just beyond into the darkness. There’s the vague outline of one of his Pottsfeilders.

“Oh! Hello Mr. Hope.” A cheerful voice drifts around the Beast.

“Miss Clara.” The Beast’s voice rumbles. “May I help you?” Enoch sees movement just beyond the Beast who is thoroughly blocking the door. 

“I’d like to speak with Enoch dearie.” Miss Clara’s voice comes. 

“Enoch.” The Beast’s head turns to look over his shoulder.

“Yes, Hope Eater?” Enoch purrs. 

“There is someone here to see you.” The Beast rumbles. 

“Well, don't let them stand out in the rain.” The Beast steps aside and a drenched, soaking Miss Clara steps past him. The Beast shuts and latches the door behind her and takes up his place in one shadowed corner of the room.

“I do hope you are doing well, Mr. Hope.” Miss Clara removes her hat only to find the hook she usually sets it upon is occupied by dark fur and a blinding lantern. She contents herself with holding it against her chest. 

“I am.” The Beast says with a note of finality. “Thank you.” He adds as an afterthought.

Miss Clara glances between them. He supposes it must seem quite strange to a mortal. For them both to be on opposite sides of the barn, speaking with such distance between them, or more often than not, simply not speaking at all.

He cannot expect a mortal, even one so clever as Miss Clara, to understand.

“How may I help you?” He asks. Miss Clara is staring at him and Enoch’s puzzlement rises. 

A long moment of silence spans before them, filled only by the chirping crickets outside and the drumming of rain. 

“Miss Clara?” Enoch prompts. 

“Oh, yes, I’m sorry, dear,” She clears her throat. “The rest of the city council and I have been speaking.” She pauses and Enoch notes that despite how subtle she’s trying to be she’s glancing between he and the Beast. 

“Yes, Miss Clara?” Enoch licks down a stray tuft of fur on his paw, keeping a careful eye on both his subject and his neighbor. 

“I-,” She falters. “I’ve forgotten what I came to say...” Enoch’s tail flicks as the Beast turns his attention away from the woman. She is far less fidgety when not under his gaze.

She frets her hat. The poor thing, the Beast must have scared it out of her. Such a shame, Enoch would have loved to know what the council was up to.

“I apologize I’ll just be getting home then.”

“Of course my dear.” Enoch purrs and rises to his paws. “We shall walk you home.” Miss Clara glances between them uncertainly. 

“Oh, it’s fine. It’s raining, after all. You two just stay here and continue...” Her hand flutters and Enoch tamps down concern at her flightiness, billowing with contentment he attempts to soothe her unease. 

“Nonsense, we’ll walk you home. It is no trouble.” Enoch strolls towards the door and Miss Clara replaces her hat upon her head, apparently resigned to her fate as the Beast pulls on his furs and takes his lantern in his hand. “Besides while we walk you can tell me just what the council decided.” Enoch purrs. 

“O-Oh! Yes.” She immediately launches into an explanation and Enoch is put at ease. The Beast unlatches the barn door and holds it open. 

As Enoch weaves out between his feet the Beast holds it for Miss Clara. 

Enoch hides a smile at the courteousness of it.

They walk along the dark streets, the water matting Enoch and the Beast’s furs. Lightning lances past them and rumbles through the ground, illuminating the colors of Miss Clara’s dress and outlining the Beast against a flashing sky. 

The Beast holds his lantern aloft before them, lighting their path in cold light. In the crook of his other arm, rests Miss Clara’s hand as he escorts her home. Enoch walks alongside them, purring pleasantly.

Miss Clara lives on the other end of town.

They walk for a long time. Miss Clara and Enoch making most of the conversation, the Beast only offering his opinions intermittently. 

Enoch preens when Miss Clara laughs at one of the Beast’s jokes and calls him charming. Enoch is inclined to agree. 

When they finally reach Miss Clara’s house she tries to invite them inside. 

“I’m afraid not Miss Clara, we must be going. It was a pleasure, my dear.” Enoch coos. “Perhaps next time we can tempt the Beast for tea.” He murmurs conspiratorially and Miss Clara hides a giggle behind her hand. 

Enoch is little else than insufferably pleased with himself when he gets the distinct impression that, had the Beast been mortal, he would have been rolling his eyes. 

As Miss Clara bids them goodnight. She turns to the Beast, most likely to thank him, but finds her voice stolen at the sight of him. 

Enoch finds that one could gaze upon the Beast for eternity and have your breath stolen any time you look to him. Though, he at least suspected it had more to do with the Beast’s intimidating figure for mortals than it did for him. 

“Miss Clara.” The Beast nods to her and turns, his lantern lighting their path as he and Enoch make their way back along the cobble and dirt roads.

“Back to your barn?” Enoch flicks his tail at the question.

“No, to the chamber of commerce, I find myself missing my maypole at the moment.” 

“Very well.” The Beast rumbles beside him and they pick their way across narrow roads through Pottsfeild.

When they make it there they speak for an hour or so more before the Beast declares he must leave.

Enoch waves him goodbye with a flick of his tail and walks him to the fences around his barn. As he watches him leave, his ears strain, hoping that his neighbor will begin to sing on the trek back through the forest. He is left only vaguely disappointed that the Beast remains silent.

He watches the Beast disappear into the darkness. Watching until he can no longer make out the outline of those antlers against the stars and turned back to the warmth of his barn. Shrugging off his cat skin he steps into his maypole body just as a cawing comes from the loft window. 

His fabric head tilts. 

One of his ravens? He did not recall sending them out for news. 

His ribbons coil at the latch and he throws it open to the storm, the rain buffeting in a dark streak. The raven tumbles to the ground among the hay. Its wings beat wildly as it caws its disapproval. Before he can check for a message at its feet, it begins to shed its feathers. 

Soon a lovely young woman stands before him, the last dredges of her feathers shield her modesty, her hair dark as pitch over her shoulders. 

“Not one of my ravens then, are you dear?” Enoch coos.

“How would you know, Harvest Lord?” The woman barks angrily. “Your memory isn’t the most reliable thing, is it?” She snaps. 

“Oh dear, we’ve met then? I’m absolutely sure you’re not one of my ravens. Mine don't turn into people. Whose are you then? Madame Summer’s perhaps?” The woman looks up at him and a fire burns in her eyes. She stands before him, proud and defiant.

“I am no one’s raven.” She snaps. 

“But you have been sent to give me a message?” Enoch questions politely, his ribbons creeping idly. Enoch doesn't want trouble, but the woman’s demeanor is making him anxious.

The woman deflates ever so slightly when he does not yield to her insistence. 

“I have come to tell you that it is time for you to fulfill your part of the prophecy.”

“Prophecy?” His curiosity has been piqued.

“You must help me to claim my birthright.” The woman’s face melts from anger and defiance to a cruel smile. Enoch’s ribbon twist with a niggling sense he has forgotten something.

“Hmm?” Enoch shifts his grip on reality ever so slightly, ready to spin reality on its head to protect his town if he needs to. “And what would that be.”

The sword that appears in her hand is one well known to his kind. She smiles a cold smile. 

“Your head.” Her grin is wicked. The sword glitters. 

She strikes forward and he recoils out of shock as flutterings of green ribbons list to the floor like autumn’s leaves.

The cut is deep. Deeper than this physical form, deeper than this skin. It cuts into his very essence. It is not a clean cut, it tears a piece of him, cleaving it from his being. 

Enoch was no stranger to having pieces of himself separated, but this was different. The pieces of him she had cut away were not awake like the parts of him hanging over Pottsfeild guarding his people, they were not even asleep like the parts of him deep below the earth ready to be awoken with bloodshed. 

He could feel them.

They were not dead. They were still him, but they were no longer accessible. 

Her blade flashes as she darts forward again. He’s smarter this time and he evades the clashing blow. His ribbons lash out coiling to restrain her but she cuts them away with a single swipe and with it cuts into him. 

It burns. 

He lets out a low note, deeper than human ears could hear, deeper than the raven before him would sense, howling his distress. 

On reflex, he draws more of himself from deep below the earth to combat her but realizes it’s a foolish endeavor. 

Why give her a bigger target? 

Why give her a target at all?

He drops the maypole, smooths out the parts of him that he had called for aid, he tucks himself away beneath the earth. 

Only a single shred of his consciousness does he allow anywhere near her, perhaps not the most wise decision he has ever made, but he must ensure she does not turn her wrath upon Pottsfeild. 

Beneath the warm hay of his barn, a cat opens its eyes. 

It watches through sheaves of gold as she cuts his maypole to shreds, tatters of it flutter and hang in the air around her, drifting slowly to the ground illuminated in gold. 

The woman seems to know her task is not done and she screams in rage. 

“I will return, Harvest Lord! You cannot hide forever!” She clings to the sword and allows the change to overcome her, her feathers drawing up.

The blade dissipates into her dark feathers and the raven takes to the sky, powerful wings carrying it out over Pottsfeild’s fields towards the horizon.

Enoch stays under the hay. His streams of consciousness alert, feeling her presence as it leaves. He waits until he can no longer feel her in his web and then emerges. 

His ears flatten against his skull as sickening feelings rattle around him.

His Pottsfeilders find him coiled in the ruins of his maypole. 

They do not say a word, simply gathering the tatters to try to mend the maypole, Miss Clara runs a soothing hand down his furs, trying to comfort him in something she did not understand.

The Beast comes a week later. He does not bother with small talk and Enoch knows deep in his soul from the moment he sees the lines of the Beast’s posture that he heard Enoch’s distress. Enoch wants to curl up and sleep for an eternity if only to stall coming face to face with the Beast.

What’s worse, it is high noon when Beast enters his barn. 

Beast had abandoned his forest during the height of the day to find him. 

Parts of Enoch that are not busily feeling along his web and throwing up defenses curl in on themselves in shame . 

“Enoch.” His neighbor's voice bellows and he can feel the command in it. He cannot yield. His neighbor stares at the maypole skin slumped against one of the wooded walls of his barn. The Beast doesn't notice the cat until it emerges from the tangle of green ribbons. 

“Hope Eater, I do hope you will excuse me. I’m feeling a bit under the weather, can’t keep up the maypole right now, you understand.” Enoch endeavors to keep his worry out of his voice and posture. When he notes his neighbor’s narrowing eyes he realizes that neither of those would have mattered, had he been able to keep his scent ringing with satisfaction. 

Damn the Beast and his sensitive nose.

His ears droop in defeat and his shoulders hunch up. 

“Enoch.” His neighbor commands again. “What has been done to you?”

Enoch allows the illusion to drop, allows his neighbor to see what has become of him. 

The maypole illusion falls to tatters, scattered about, only half repaired by Pottsfeilders pretending everything was fine. His cat skin is emancipated and tired; its bones creak when he moves. His magic is frayed and tattered and his being is in a state only aptly described as a mess. It takes so much power out of him to keep up such an illusion, to keep his people from fretting too much, especially when he is so weakened already.

“How did this happen.” His neighbor stands still among it all as the cheerful facade of the barn fades, half-eaten with rot Enoch had so long been able to keep at bay. His eyes thrum with color.

“A prophecy.” Enoch rasps, his voice is rough, to have parts of him separated for so long, parts that he could not control, could not awaken, could not put to sleep, draws power from him. It has been sapping him dry. “She came with The Sword.” 

The Beast does not flinch or recoil, instead, he stands pensive among Enoch’s failure. 

“Who?” The word quakes with the Beast’s rage. 

“No one really,” Enoch mutters. “A raven, I suppose I took someone from her. She has come for revenge. The folly of mortals escapes me, so many have come with her task, I forget their individual motives.” His neighbor is silent for a long time.

If Enoch had as sensitive a nose as the Beast he wondered what he would smell. Other than the rage that was rather obvious in the Beast’s blazing eyes.

Quiet stretches between them before Enoch speaks again. 

“Hope Eater, I must ask something of you. A favor.” The Beast went stiff beside him, favors and debts are unstable ground with him; before he can speak Enoch jumps in again. “I know you do not like to be indebted and you prefer to have favors to call. I will do anything in return. Every debt you have to me, forgiven. Twice over if you will begrudge me one thing.” 

The Beast mulled over his offer for a long moment but with each passing moment, Enoch’s anxiety grew swelling in his being. 

He could not keep it out of his eyes, out of his posture or his scent. His ears flattened and head drooped, shame coiling tight around him.

“Very well.” Those luminous eyes fixate on him, his weakened emancipated form, if the Beast were a lesser creature Enoch might see hunger in those eyes. Enoch does not even have the modesty to shy away. “What would you have me do?” 

Enoch could have wept with relief. When he speaks again his voice is haggard.

“Hide me.” He does not bother trying to catalog the Beast’s reaction. “Hide Pottsfeild, hide us, shield us so that no one else can come, so that she may not return to finish her task at least until I am recovered. Please, I beg of thee, tuck autumn under your furs and hide us from even the eye of the moon.” 

A moment of silence stretches between them, Enoch’s skin panting and heaving as if it had done something very strenuous. 

Then solemn, slow and deliberate the Beast’s head inclines in a nod. 

Enoch feels it. 

He can feel the power of winter welling up around them like an untapped spring finally brought to the surface. The Beast is no good with traditional magic, but the forest, his forest, is an extension of his very being, or perhaps the Beast is an extension of the forest. 

The Beast draws it up with ease, shaping it and suiting it to his needs. 

The parts of Enoch that lay in the very foundations of Pottsfeild, deep below the dirt among the twisting roots and half-rotted corpses, feel Winter’s encroach. Not aggressive, but a creeping finality, the lands that separate Winter and Autumn shrink. Winter conforms to grip to the nooks and crannies of Pottsfeild. A thin veil of frost snakes over the dirt, drawing the amalgamous blend of Winter and Autumn into a finer line until the place where Autumn and Winter met was stark and clashing. 

Winter and Autumn once ran together at a point that no one but Enoch and the Beast themselves could tell where one ended and the other began, but now it was clear to any onlooker. Winter drew Autumn close in an embrace and sunk its teeth deep. 

It was as if the Beast had drawn Pottsfeild close to his breast and thrown his cloak of winter about it. 

The skies of Pottsfeild were as clear and sunny blue as they always were, but it was a Winter’s sky, not an Autumn one. Pottsfeild soil extended many feet down before winter began but begin it did, a yawning gaping void of hunger and cold. A bubble of autumn held in Winter’s cool embrace.

It was a strange thing, and Enoch would be lying to say that he did not shudder with the sudden envelopment. 

The Beast was not a large creature. 

He was one of the smaller among their fellow patrons. He towered over mortal folk, but against monsters and fae, he was small. Even standing at 8 feet tall he could not loom over most of their fellow Lords, Ladies and Queens. He was dwarfed by their sheer size.

He was not like Enoch, he did not have untouched oceans of himself dwelling just outside this body.

But his forest was a vast entity, so large it dwarfed even the greatest of their fellow eldritch. Save perhaps Lady Midnight’s domain, the Beast’s domain stretched on the furthest, onward and toward’s forever, and the Beast knew how to blend himself with his forest. 

The sudden grasp of winter upon him, entwining and enfolding with his town left Enoch staggering on uncertain paws. Winter enveloped Autumn and Autumn burned back.

When he crumples he nearly drops the cat skin but he manages to cling to the dredges of the skin long enough to watch dark feet approaching him. Cool claws gently wrapped around him and as he is being lifted Enoch allows the body to fall and retreats into the earth. 

His town is in safe hands, his cat skin is in safe claws, and his people will be fine. He can rest, if only for a short time.

When he wakes, he finds the cat's skin again still cradled in cold claws. The Beast is sitting in Enoch’s loft among the hay. Enoch has been set next to the Beast, his head rests upon the winter spirit’s hip, the Beast’s furs are lain atop him. 

It will be a long time before Enoch has repaired himself. He prays the Beast can and will keep this illusion up.

For now, all he can do is attempt to patch himself back together haphazardly and pray that one day he can repay his great debt.

Half a century later Enoch is asleep. Only a few wisps of him, fragments really, drag across the land to keep Pottsfeild in order. 

The rest is fitful, most of him is tucked beneath the earth, deep enough to be cradled by winter, and in his sleep, he dreams. 

He dreams of memories and desires.

The old warrish parts of him dreaming of blood, and a crusade. To call all of him to his side and rip down the edges of the sky, to tear and sink his teeth into winter’s domain and turn it to the sweltering heat of a southern autumn. To shred the petals of Spring’s delicate hold and chill the water of Summer’s song. 

He could call away the subjects of the Queen of the Cloud’s domain, and he could tame the gruff inhabitants that dwelled in Summer’s seas, he could content the warriors under Spring’s control and devour their domains with a snap of his jaws. 

Lady Midnight’s domain was vast but empty; he need only be steady in his pace. To devour their worlds and bring them into his own, annex them into himself, he was a vast creature, his essence spanned wide, with their domains it could span wider. 

No longer would the dead linger in their hands, they would be within his feelers the moment their bodies failed.

Ah but the winter woods, they would pose a problem, the Beast was not liable to give them up, and Enoch could not devour that which had no substance. The Beast was a creature shaped void, it could not be devoured, only filled. 

Oh, and how wonderful it would be to fill such a void, to hold a cracked and splintered wooden frame in his tendrils as he poured inward. Years of self-restraint had built up dams, but dams could be torn down. To destroy such dams would be so wonderful. 

To give and take, it was all so very close to the same, build or destroy, contentment and fear so similar upon his palette. 

Doomed to be a paradox, always wanting to give, always wanting to destroy and kill, he was a god of death and a lord of the harvest, it would be so lovely to give in to his urges once more. 

The sentimental part of him dozed in fitful sleep, ignoring the bloodlust that raked against it. 

He dreamed of the beginning, perhaps not the beginning, but the start. They were not new, but they were not quite so old back then. 

He had been just shedding his part as a warlord, returning to roots older than blood and acting as a pastoral deity for the first time in centuries. Times were more unstable then, their territory was not so clearly marked, their squabbles for power frequent and more than a little destructive, with the lands they fought upon left barren in their wake. 

It had taken something great to unite them, something that posed a threat they could not face alone. 

The creatures in the winter wilds, for they had not been woods as much as brambles, taller than any man, the hunting grounds of beasts. 

And so they had gathered here, to discuss, hopefully without bloodshed, what to do with the winter wilds. 

The gazebo had not been so far from the winter wilds then, only a few hundred meters. 

He remembers sitting on haunches in a body not quite feline, but nothing so low as lupine. Vulpine perhaps. He watched through narrowed eyes as the gossamer dress of the queen of the clouds swept about her feet, she had been smaller then, her gauntlet of iron not yet forged. 

There had been 7 then. Lady Midnight, The Dutchess Of the Clouds, as she had been called then, Tzar Spring, the predecessor to Lady Spring, Madame Summer, Her High Lady Noon, Mistress of the Winds, and himself, Lord Autumn. 

The others were already dead or devoured by then.

 The creatures of the winter wilds posed a threat to all. And so they spoke of conquering together, an alliance spun of fragile fear. 

A figure had emerged from the wilds.  It did not pace on four feet, it was not malformed or giant with rolling eyes and a maw of sharp teeth, it was simply strange. 

A creature draped in shadow. It’s thick furs spilled over its shoulders and dragged along the ground, the winters were colder then and even he needed protection from the chill. From his head a broad crest of antlers spread, only it was not a crown as it first appeared, they seemed to bloom from shadow. 

An old lantern hung upon them, older than anything Enoch could remember. It glowed the same dead light that the creature’s eyes seemed to exude. 

And oh those eyes, they were cold white but blazed with color. 

As he stepped frost ghosted across the ground, behind him sprung up forest where there had been none before. 

He walks and is flanked by creatures that are bent and awkward, they are huge hulking mockeries of animals. Their eyes swirl with color and lull in their heads. Their shaggy and patchy fur drips with something viscous and black. One of the creatures gives out a shriek it’s vestigial wings beat wildly, the eyes embedded in feathers rolling wildly.

The man is unfazed.

Enoch had never seen him before. 

The creature betrays nothing as it mounts the steps of the gazebo, it’s creatures peel away and whimper as if unable to approach the structure. A hand emerges from those furs, tipped in claws, it waves them away and the creatures slink back into shadows, melting back into the forest. 

“Hello.” The voice that seems to come from nowhere and everywhere at once drips into the eaves of his consciousness, invasive the sound lays heavy upon Enoch’s mind, an impression of a sound rather than an actual one. 

Enoch does not know this man. 

But Enoch knows that voice.

Enoch has never seen him out of the shadows.

He turns his head to scrutinize the figure.

Tzar Spring bears his mandibles at the newcomer in a sneer, the others seem to have similar adverse reactions to the stranger’s voice, they shake their heads and back away from him. Enoch is not sure why they shy away, the newcomer’s voice is pleasant, but he supposes he’s had more time to get used to it. 

“Beast,” Enoch speaks calmly and the Beast turns his attention to him and recognition sparks blue through white eyes. 

“It has been too long, Death Rearer.” The Beast’s voice is level. 

“You know of him, Lord of Autumn?” Lady Midnight’s voice held no malice, only a question. Out of all of them, she had ever been the diplomat. 

“Indeed,” His tail flicks. “We are something of neighbors.”

“Yes.” The Beast’s voice rumbles. “You were discussing my realm. I have come to make sure it is fairly represented.” 

“Your realm?” The Queen of the Clouds hissed. “You mean to say you are Lord Winter?” 

There is no mirth of a joke in the Beast’s voice when he speaks again. 

“I am no lord.” 

“If you claim the winter wilds are truly a realm, your realm, then you must be it’s Lord, or perhaps you prefer the term: King.” The Duchess of The Clouds snapped at him. 

The Beast shakes his head slowly, his antlers scrape the edge of the gazebo. They shy from him. He is not a thing of substance like they, instead, he is a hollow where something should be. 

They too can feel it, Enoch realizes. They can feel the hunger that emanates from him.

“The forest is tended to by I. No other holds control of it, but I am no Lord or King. I merely tend to the forests.” 

“So you do not have control of it.” Tzar Spring’s voice is eager, his thoughts of conquest reflect in his eyes, unmuddled by the prophecy that churns in them. 

The Beast gazes at him for a long moment and the very air seems to turn to frost. 

“My forest is at my whim, but I let it grow as it wishes.” His voice is thin and brittle, a threat.

“Well, you mustn’t.” Madame Summer speaks up. “Its creatures are a danger to us all. You must control it.” 

The Beast shakes his head slowly. 

“If you do not neighbor,” Enoch’s voice is low, spoken through the vessel rather than around it. “They will control it themselves.” 

“A threat, Death Rearer?” 

Enoch hangs his head low. 

“No, merely an omen.” 

The Beast seems to consider this for a long while. His silence is pensive, but the others grow uneasy in it. 

Enoch is used to these silences, he often thinks the Beast has retreated back into his forest where he cannot speak to Enoch when these silences arise but he waits at the border anyway, just in case his never seen neighbor does respond. 

It is strange to put a face to a voice, the Beast does not quite seem to fit in with his voice, but he fits perfectly with silence. 

Eventually he speaks and his judgment is final. 

“I will control my forest.” Relief is weakness, those around them choose to look instead as if this is what they expected all along. “If, Lady Midnight will lift her skirts.” 

Her High Lady Noon flares with rage, heat bakes the area around them, the winter warden remains unfazed. 

The icicles that have begun to gather in the rafters of the gazebo around the winter warden’s head begin to drip in the heat, the water that slides from them evaporating before it hits the ground.

“She shall do no such thing.” Her High Lady Noon snaps.

“I do not think,” Lady Midnight says, placing a hand upon her beloved’s hip. “He was propositioning me.” Her High Lady Noon calms with Lady Midnight’s touch.

Mirth tinges the Beast’s voice. 

“No, I was not.” His gaze sweeps over them all. “Lift the skirts of your border for me Lady Midnight, allow my forest to grow.” 

The Lady of the Moon seems curious. 

She peers at him with two disk-like eyes and he stares back.

“There is nothing beyond my skirts, merely void.” The Beast bows his head. 

“I will shape it into a world in which my forest can grow. My forest will not be contented with being unable to grow. Lift your skirts to me, draw back your veil, part your hair, and allow my forests to grow.” 

The woman nodded, folding her hands before her. 

“It shall be done.” 

The Beast inclined his head. 

“Lady Midnight,” He turns to Enoch. “Death Rearer.” And with that, he turns and disappears back into his forest as if he had never been. 

As the memory fades it is eclipsed by another, and Enoch sleeps and he dreams of the gazebo.

As Enoch dreams of the gazebo the Beast makes a pilgrimage there.

It is the first time since he cloaked Enoch that he has been called.

The call prickles at his furs and for a time he considers ignoring it, but they are insistent. He sighs, leaves word with a Pottsfeilder of what to inform Enoch should the death god wake before his return and makes his way into the wastes.

They wait for him and watch his approach without cowering. How the years had changed them, their fear of him had soured into what was only a prickling anxiety in his presence.

They are agitated, he can smell it.

His foot has just hit the rotting step when Lady Midnight speaks, her voice serious and filled with promises of pain should he dare to answer incorrectly.

“Where is he?” Contrary to the belief held by so many mortals that he could only speak the truth, the Beast knows how to dance around a question, but when given the opportunity to, he usually chose silence instead of elegant word twisting.

He chooses silence.

He is only silent for moments when Madame Summer speaks up.

“No one has heard from Autumn in many moons, centuries. The Queen of the Clouds has not even had wind of him, no one other than you could have hidden them.”

“Such foolishness.” The Beast spoke lowly. “To assume I did not simply kill him.”

“I doubt you could have.” The Queen of the Clouds hissed but the Beast did not begrudge her a reaction, oh how he hates these gatherings. Politics, it disgusts him, and Enoch is not even here to act as a buffer to keep him from clashing with them.

The Beast doesn't care for the damage he may cause to fragile alliances with his harsh words.

Enoch is not here to step in, to smooth his furs, and unruffle the Queen of the Cloud’s feathers. 

“You wouldn’t have.” The finality of Spring’s decree is taken as law, even the Beast himself does not speak against it.

They stare at him expectantly.

“He asked a favor of me.” The Beast stands rigidly. “I granted it.”

“A favor.” The Queen of the Cloud mocks. Favors were the only currency among creatures of their dominion, and yet, it seemed as if among them, it was only he and Enoch, who regarded them with the severity they deserved.

“Yes, and you shan’t find him until he asks I revoke my aid.” Silence spans between them.

“Even his owed cannot find him if you hide him so. What would drive a god of death to turn away his future subjects? What must he have asked of you, Beast?” Spring’s voice is soft. “What must he have offered you in return for such a thing?” Her eyes blaze with divining prophecy, but they cannot pierce the veils of winter, and without a subject they are useless.

The Beast will not answer, and they do not pretend he will.

“Oh, I doubt the Harvest Lord had to offer him anything.” The Queen of the Clouds hissed. “He has wished to devour autumn since the very beginning.” The Beast’s head snapped towards her.

“I did not come to be insulted, Queen of the Clouds. I have been many things, but untrue to my word to him is not one I will be accused of.” His voice is low and vibrating with wrath. His gaze fell over them, only Madame Summer refused to meet his eyes. “If that is all. I shall take my leave.”

They do not speak and he nods sharply.

 He turned and strode across the empty horizon and they gazed after him.

“He speaks the truth and only that.” Lady Midnight’s voice is soft. “Only he could hide Pottsfeild from my gaze. I dare not ask why again.”

“I fear,” Says Lady Spring, “We would regret the answer we received.”

The Queen of the Clouds simply huffed, but fear glittered in her eyes as she watched the Beast’s retreating from.

The Beast scoffs and hails the north wind to escort him back to his forest. He needs a moment alone in his woods, away from the open suns of the waste, deep in the darkness and frost of the forest.

The Beast’s presence causes parts of Enoch to awaken.

He is tired, fragmented, and lonely, and the Beast serves to ease at least one of those problems. Sending out tendrils of himself he wraps them around the Beast and uses him as an anchor to pull himself to the surface.

Drawing himself to the surface using the Beast he pulls a body together out of the leaves of the corn stalks weaving them loosely together into a crude imitation of his maypole.

“Beast.” Enoch sighs out pleasantly, wrapping himself around the Beast. “I missed you.” He speaks using the wind to give voice to his words.

He had forgotten how easy it was to bend the earth itself against his whim.

He rakes cornstalks against the Beast, twisting beneath his furs, the Beast is like ice against him, cool and soothing against the harsh edges of his being.

“I have only been gone a day, Harvest Lord.” A day, a week, a month, a year, in his state they were hard to tell apart.

Enoch sighs.

“Even so, it is lonely without you.” He curls a root around the Beast’s ankle, less focused on their conversation, as he is to get as much of the Beast against him as possible.

“You have your citizens, and you hardly spoke with Them anyway.”

“Yes, yes, but it is strange, to not feel them there, right at the edges, pressing in.”

“Enoch, I am the only one you ever feel at your borders.” Enoch hums doubtfully and presses in against the Beast, cool hunger thrumming against him.

He squashes down the temptation to indulge in such hunger, but it wavers just beyond his palate, tempting and alluring.

“Perhaps only you at the borders, but Madame Summer runs a creek down from the mountains, and Lady Spring busies herself in the corn buds, it’s the growing that’s her work. And the Queen of the Clouds sends her rains, and Lady Midnight watches over my town by night.”

Enoch busies himself with shifting the dirt beneath the Beast’s feet to better coax up his roots to wrap around the Beast’s legs.

The Beast seems to consider this for a long moment but if he reaches any particular conclusion he does not see fit to let Enoch know, choosing instead to place a clawed hand upon his makeshift form. His cool touch rather forcefully suggests that he let the body go and rest.

At the insistence of the winter lord’s magic against his own, he lets the form fall to debris, sinking into the earth.

He closes off his eyes to the outside world and silences his ears, feeling along the ley lines of Pottsfeild, sensing rather than seeing.

Yes, there in his web he can feel his Pottsfeilders going about their lives when the crops did not grow and the days were short. He can feel their concern but also their resolute determination that it will all be OK.

The satisfaction and contentment of Pottsfeild has ebbed, leaving them susceptible to fear, curiosity, jealousy, anger, and yet they continue on as if nothing were wrong. Enoch loves his citizens, so persistent.

And in the center of it all, he can feel the Beast, cool and hungry and resolute, picking his way carefully through cornfields to Enoch’s barn where he has taken up staying most evenings, helping to give the impression that between the two of them they had this under control.

Perhaps they do.

Enoch isn't sure he knows anymore.

Contented with the state of affairs he falls back into dreams, ghosts of the past flickering through errant feelers, impressions of the future pushing upon his mind, a fragmented and piecemeal memory coaxing together fantasy.

He sleeps.

Enoch does not awaken on his own. Something is pulling him up to consciousness, something hungry and vast.

The sort of thing he wants to wrap in his ribbons and delve into. Something to drag beneath the soil and treasure, to grow roots around and hold close in the embrace of the earth.

Not something consciously pulling, but how could something so hungry not call upon his plenty?

It emanates from his barn and he pulls himself into the cat skin only to find his barn dark. So rarely did he allow his lanterns to run low on oil. It is strange, but this skin is adapted to seeing the darkness.

A single light shines without brightening the darkness.

A retching sound of a flame guttering emanates from it.

The Beast is nowhere to be found.

Enoch draws himself up and listens.

It is night, he can hear it in the wind and the gentle song of insects.

He does not know what to do, so he stands a silent vigil over the flickering lantern as it runs low in oil.

He has a bottle in the cellar he thinks. He had bought it from a traveling merchant, but he cannot open the doors of the cellar in this form. 

He could go get the maypole, but that would mean diverting his attention from the lantern. 

So he sits, silent and careful, watching the lantern.

At last, when it seems the night has lasted forever the doors to his barn swing open and pale starlight silhouettes a tall figure.

The Beast staggers in, gripping something close to his chest.

He falls to the dirt, a low sound emanating from him. Something which might be a groan of agony but might be the creak of wood. Pushing himself up to his feet the proud creature staggers forward, clutching the lantern close to his chest.

He does not bother with the oil reserve, simply tearing open the lantern and pouring something from the vial he holds close into the flame.

He’s going to drown it, Enoch realizes with his heart in his throat, but before the flame is enveloped it blazes white.

The light is blinding but eases after a moment, the Beast is there, his eyes are still dim but they glow brighter than they did before, upon his knees cradling his lantern.

Those bright eyes slide shut and a sigh of relief radiates from his companion.

“You are hungry.” It’s not a question.

The Beast’s head snaps around to find him in the darkness. As if on reflex he draws the lantern closer to his chest, furs prickling.

“I am always hungry.”

“It is not usually this bad, though.” Enoch counters and his tail flicks.

Those luminous eyes find him in the darkness and the Beast slumps.

“I have indeed… neglected to go hunting recently, and I have exhausted most of my stores close to our border.”

Enoch’s tail flicks.

“You must go and hunt, Hope Eater. I will not stand by starvation.”

“I will not-”

Enoch silences him with a hiss, irritation under his fur.

“Imagine yourself to be in my place for a moment, neighbor. I am weakened, at the mercy of my own base desires. And my one protector refuses to feed himself, leaving his hunger exposed. It is distracting, and dangerously tempting, Beast. I would not wish to destroy us both in a moment of weakness.”

Silence yawns out between them.

The Beast moves his lantern to rest upon his antlers and Enoch knows he has won.

“Very well, Harvest Lord.” The Beast’s voice is clipped, he turns and strides from the barn without further word and Enoch feels his moment of victory sour into something sickening in his mouth.

He does hope this doesn't have lasting repercussions.

He settles in the loft and peers out, watching the retreating form of the Beast as he slipped into the shadows of the winter wilds.

Enoch is correct the Beast decides.

If he neglects the lantern it is nearly the same as leaving Pottsfeild open to attack, so he delves into his forest.

He ventured into the wilder parts he has not roamed in many years, with groves of untouched edelwoods.

He feeds the lantern and leaves it in the care of a witch in a tower he dares to trust.

The Beast is drawn towards the depths of his forest by something he cannot resist.

Hope, untainted by fear.

Someone new, not one of his forest’s people, dampened and dulled by years in the winter wood. Their hope is sharp and crisp against his nose, luring, and taunting.

But their goal is misty on his palate.

He does not like uncertainty when it comes to his prey.

To not know their task leaves him without leverage to use against the mortal.

He ghosts around their camp for hours, trying to detect the young man’s purpose. There was magic thick around him, a young witch perhaps. The boy made no move to pack up or leave during the day simply sitting before his smoldering fire.

A stack of firewood keeps the embers lit, but not dancing high.

The shadows begin to stretch and as the darkness looms longer, gold filtering through the leaves of his trees, higher too does the boy’s fire burn.

When at last darkness blankets all the world, save the halo of orange firelight around the boy, the Beast decides to test the youth’s perseverance, to see if he can sully that untainted hope.

A blizzard would be ideal but he dared not try to tempt the north wind to his aid in such a momentous task so soon after an altercation with the Queen of the Clouds.

Things mysteriously disappearing was an old tactic but a reliable one. Unfortunately, the boy is not distracted enough from his pack to be feasible.

But he need not come into contact with the boy or his things to instill fear.

Instead, he darkens his forest, if only slightly. He allows his eyes to blaze, staring out across the licking flames of the fire at the boy. White eyes staring from the shadows.

The boy’s eyes flick up from the coals of the fire and gaze up into his eyes.

But the boy does not flinch in fear. He merely stares at him, eyes flicking about the shadow trying to pick him out of the darkness. The Beast is taken aback when he does not immediately recognize the emotion in his eyes. It is not wariness, but eagerness in his gaze.

The boy stands and takes a step around the fire.

Approaching him. 

Mortals don’t approach him.

“Winter warden.” The boy’s voice is high, not yet deepened by manhood, it sullies the silence of the forest with its pitchiness. The Beast remains silent, watching the boy warily. “My name is Bran, I have been seeking you for many moons.”

The Beast shifts, his eyes flaring up red and yellow, delicately he reaches out to the strands of magic around the man.

He does not allow the boy to feel his careful tugs at the net of magic around him.

He allows the boy to speak as he attempts to reveal the purpose of the magic without unraveling it.

“I seek your aid, Winter Warden.” The boy seems unfazed by his lack of response. “I have a great need to meet the Autumn Warden, I have need of his blessing before I travel to the underworld to claim back my younger sister.”

He recognizes the magic and then allows his eyes to focus upon the boy once more. His hope boyoued up around them.

He considers the boy for a moment.

The boy shifts on his feet while the Beast weighs his options. 

He makes his decision.

The Beast blinks slowly and deliberately at the boy, then turns and begins to walk into the shadows of his wood, his ears listening to the young man scramble to keep up with his long stride.

The boy follows the shadowy figure deeper into the forest, shadows growing longer and longer, darkness snagging at his coat and cold biting his fingers. The blues and purples of the winter wood deepen, birdsong hushing in reverence, snagging thorns and brambles, the paths were worse worn this way, strange for a path meant to be leading to a place everyone ended up in.

And yet the winter warden led him deeper.

The boy stumbled and fell to his hands and knees and nearly lost the warden in front of him. Scrambling to his feet he turns past the tree that the Beast disappeared around and stumbled into the wraith who loomed back from his touch.

They had entered a clearing, made to allow scrappy cornstalks and squash to grow. Golden light spills over the fields from a town in the distance, painting the darkness like autumn.

The Beast pointed with an elegant arm toward a lonesome barn tucked in the center of the fields, not too far from the town but far enough away to be distinct.

The boy’s thanks fell on deaf ears as the shadow turned back towards his woods.

The young man practically sprinted down the dirt paths to the barn but halted halfway there glancing over his shoulder to the tree line.

The winter woods were ominous, yawning like the maw of a hungry beast, frost glittering on every naked tree, but the warden was nowhere to be seen, having disappeared back into his forest.

When the young man turned back towards the barn his features no longer held such youth.

Sharp beady black eyes peered at the dark structure. Gilded light poured from under the doors and between the gaps in the planks of its walls. His cloak fell way to feathers and the woman stalked forward.

She threw open the barn doors, the great maypole, busied in a corner turned towards his gaping doors.

“Hello, Harvest Lord.” She purred with a voice of silk. The knife at her hip glistened in her hand as she darted forward, she cut a wide ark into the ribbons of the harvest deity.

The great deity flinched back in shock, tendrils rippling wildly, the maypole drew itself up as it recovered from the blow.

She smiled, she hoped she cut deeper this time.

The maypole is silent for a long moment, gathering itself, but it does not draw back, merely looming forward.

She grows uneasy in the silence.

“Foolish mortal.” The voice that radiates out from the maypole was without the drawl and twang it was so often known for. “Do you really think I would so easily give up my quarry?”

The illusion began to flake away, the barn timbers falling back into the boughs of edel trees.

Like the ashes fluttering away from a dwindling fire, the illusion dissipated. The barn falling away, and the hay flaking into nothingness.

The broad fields of Pottsfeild long gone, replaced by the claustrophobic trees of the winter wood pressing close. The golden light that washed over the fields of Pottsfeild dissipates until only the moon illuminates the great figure before her.

The illusion falls away until only the maypole looms before her.

It’s sickeningly strange to look at.

The bright orange head, cheerfully stitched together and bright green ribbons, looming tangled in the dark somber colors of the winter wood.

“Do you think,” The maypole purrs in a voice that did not belong to it as it leans forward so it’s fabric face is inches from her own, “That I did not see the blade at your hip?”

Two tendrils move forward as if to clasp around her. They stop short as if their user is not quite sure what to do with them.

“Did you think me so foolish as to not recognize it?” The voice is cruel and taunting. The ribbons begin to rot and fall away, fabric dripping from the maypole, spilling away into rotting leaves. The moon vanished and all the stars were tucked into the darkness, until all that remained were two glowing eyes, looming high above and swirling with color.

“The blade that took so many of my ilk? In illusions thin as paper, you thought you could hide it?”

The woman’s mistake was a grave one, but she refuses to admit defeat, she grips the sword’s handle and it’s glamor falls away, singing with bloodlust.

Just as he recognized the sword, the sword recognized him.

She lunges into the darkness cutting blindly into shadow.

The blade makes contact with something and the spell is broken, shadows fleeing as the moon returns bathing them in silver.

The sound of wood splintering rings in her ears.

The blade is burrowed deep in his shoulder.

She smiles a cruel smile.

He does not flinch, very well, perhaps he is not so spineless as the Lord of Autumn.

He laughs.

His claws swipe and she barrels into him to try to dislodge the sword, but its handle is knocked from her grasp.

Warm crimson trickles down her cheek.

She knocks him to the dirt, who knew wood would be so light, and grabs the handle of her blade firmly placing her foot upon his chest and rips the sword free.

She holds the blade aloft and his eyes flash yellow.

She swings downward aiming for his injured shoulder but he rolls from under her sending her to the ground. She topples to the dirt, her elbows stinging.

The sword hums in her hands, dragging her to her feet.

Staggering to her feet she sees him standing a few paces away, his mirthful inhuman laugher ringing from him when she darts forward with the blade in hand once more.

He steps out of the way as she stumbles forward, the sword lurches towards its quarry. It sets her off balance each time it lunges at him.

With each swing, he simply steps away from her, and with each missed swing her wings begin to beat stirring dark feathers around them, he dances away from her blade, dodging gracefully as brambles tug at her feet.

He might have made a wonderful dancer, with his graceful movements and perfect form. Any other time she might have admired his control and ease of movement, but now it only served to fuel her rage.

It is as if he had led her into the most thorn woven part of his forest.

Her legs and ankles are cut to the bone, red dripping down and watering his forest.

Finally, she strikes him, his twirl out of the way leaves his left side angle towards her. Once more the blade is buried in his shoulder.

He backs away from her before she can withdraw her sword, copper blade glittering as slick oil drips down his furs from the wound.

She stands paces from him staring at where the sword is nestled in his shoulder.

It sings to her, calling forth her bloodlust, and she is a slave to its song.

He doesn't seem hurt, he doesn't recoil or clutch the wound.

His hand finds the handle of the blade and he frees the sword from his shoulder.

It fits naturally in his hand, like an extension of his arm. He levels his gaze upon her and she watches as his shoulder begins to refuse, growing back together.

The shadows swallow him and she is left alone in the dark woods.

She turns slowly, surveying the winter wood. It’s empty and quiet.

The rough shove that comes at her back has her tumbling to the ground, the stones cut her cheeks and the dirt stings her eyes. She rolls onto her back and faces him.

As she had done before to him, he places his foot upon her chest and holds the blade above his head.

She shuts her eyes.

And suddenly the weight is gone.

She props herself up and watches a figure dissipate into darkness, a bronze blade held on its shoulder.

His laughter rings through the forest.

“Foolish mortal.” He is gone to shadow, his voice clings to her, the dredges of it coming from everywhere at once. “You really thought I would be so kind.” His chuckles drift off into the forest’s song.

The crickets hum and she is alone in the darkness. Cold seeping into her, snagged by brambles.

She squashes down a flicker of fear with anger, she would return for the sword, but for now, she must get out of the forest.

She clutches her arms, cold biting her flesh.

She reaches for her feathers to draw them around her and pull herself back into the safety of her raven skin, on ebony wings she can flee this failure.

She reaches for her wings only to find them missing.

Around her, strewn dark feathers have been sliced from her body by a copper blade.

She turns slowly.

The dark feathers, like fallen leaves, linger around her feet, stirred by a faint breeze.

He had taken her wings and grounded her.

She is flightless, helpless, alone.

She lets out a wail into the empty night.

She cries out to the moon, and the moon turns its eye away, blind to her plight. 

The Beast’s pace is jaunty, smug even.

The sword on his shoulder sings its protests, and yet even it cannot damper his mood.

Above him, the skies roll warily, and four deities watch from their respective hiding spots, but he does not turn the blade upon them.

Everything old enough to know the significance of the blade is silent. The birds, warned by stories passed from mother to daughter, hush their song. The crickets silence their bows. The wind does not scream or even rake it’s fingers through leaves, instead, the north wind hangs about the Beast’s feet, displaced from its place upon his shoulders by the sword.

His feet follow a very distinct path, not quite overgrown, but thick enough with brambles that no mortal would travel it.

As he walks the path behind him shifts, tying itself in knots and hiding once more.

Whether he is following a distinct tugging on his souls or a smell, or if he simply warps the forest so the path is true does not matter.

He’s five nights walk from Pottsfeild.

He makes it in two.

Enoch is awake when he arrives, and absolutely surrounded by Pottsfeilders, but it puts no dent in his mirth.

The evening has begun to cast long shadows across the ground, Enoch’s great maypole looms above his citizens. He’s speaking to them, but the Beast has no care for their trivial conversions.

He approaches the gathering from his woods, the sun chasing his shadow and casting it across the ground before him.

He reaches the fringes of the crowd and they part before him. Their blank jack-o-lanterns turn towards him. He supposes that with mortals who read into faces and gestures it’s an impenetrable shield. But to him their every emotion is laid bare, stripped, and venerable like a gaping wound.

Pottsfeild has always reeked.

The pure unadulterated stench of contentment had always been an abrasive buzz against his souls that had wanted so desperately to reach out whenever he even skirted Pottsfeild or dared to think of the town and its lord.

Yes, Pottsfeild has always reeked.

But never to his memory with fear.

It’s not a new smell, it's an old one. One that’s been lingering for long enough that it has seeped into the ground. It clings to its inhabitants, most of it stale, with flashes of freshness whenever the partially comforted fear is raked across the coals.

Perhaps the old smell was always there, old and stale from the time before Enoch, but covered in a layer of contentment so thick it could make a hummingbird set down roots.

The Beast doesn't care.

Enoch’s gaze falls upon him the Beast feels the fabric of their reality shift suddenly in Enoch’s grasp. Suddenly far closer to Enoch than he had been, the Beast came to a full stop.

His souls are singing in his ears, torn between a desire to keep moving forward and run for the hills, gravity feels like it’s lurching under his feet as Enoch’s gathering presence around them begins to distort the world around them.

The Beast remains steady though and stares up at Enoch.

Enoch looming intimidatingly before him, tendril’s deadly still as silence spans between them.

The Beast can smell Enoch’s elatement. It hung about his antlers so potent it was boiling the air around them.

But he can also smell the thick rotting smell of rage that flows off of Enoch’s ribbons, something that might have been fear catches along his souls, anticipation rising between them.

“Harvest Lord.” The Beast’s voice comes evenly between them, shattering the fragile silence.

All at once, Enoch’s tendrils give a ripple and the maypole’s great head lolls slightly.

“Hope Eater.” Enoch truly must be distracted if he dared to use that name in front of his precious Pottsfeilders.

The Beast holds out the sword before him, like a hound presenting the hunt to its master, the comparison makes the Beast want to scowl, but he holds the blade aloft anyway.

Enoch’s pure unadulterated anger billows forth.

The fabric of his maypole twisted into flesh, needle-like teeth flashing, ribbons tearing themselves into shreds, the earth cracks under his rage, or perhaps the earth is Enoch, quaking with his anger. The roots beneath them shift, tearing their way to the surface.

The ribbons fasten themselves around the blade, holding to it fast.

Withdrawing the blade from the Beast’s grip the Harvest Lord cradles it before him.

And then with a screaming howl, snaps it.

Copper glitters in the air and the Pottsfeilders stumble back from the shrapnel.

The Beast too takes a step back, but not for the broken shards of the blade. The sheer power that had radiated out from the blade as Enoch broke not just the copper but the enchantment on it nearly swept him from his feet.

It’s a feat that would require a coven of witches, one that the Beast certainly couldn't have done, and one that he hadn’t realized Enoch could.

All at once autumn reunites, roaring to life like a wildfire that clawed at the borders of the winter woods and sent scores of fire thrashing under the Beast’s bark.

The stench of Enoch’s rage fades slowly and the Beast stands there unflinchingly in agony, as autumn did its damnedest to burn him alive.

Slowly, contentment begins to ebb from the maypole. His ribbons flick easily as he reunites with himself and becomes reacquainted with being one cohesive entity rather than the jagged tatters of a being.

Around them the Pottsfeilders begin to shift, eased, their fear dissipates, the scent replaced with the overpowering smell of contentment.

“You may withdraw your borders, Beast.” The maypole murmurs as pieces of him begin to settle around them, smoothing over the land’s sudden crevices and sharpness, returning the land to its form before Enoch had distorted it.

The Beast nods, and gladly takes down the borders of winter.

He tears the edges of winter, seared now from their exposure to Enoch’s full being, and smooths over the land between winter and autumn, blurring the lines of their territory once more.

If he had been a weaker creature the Beast might have gasped with relief as the scorching grip of autumn released the fragile frost of winter.

A crisp autumn wind graces Pottsfeild for the first time in a long while, coaxing the already blossoming pumpkins from the ground. The breeze sends yellow and red leaves dancing through the sky, their gentle rasp makes up autumn’s lullaby. So long Pottsfeild had been deprived of autumn’s gentle embrace, stifled in winter’s cruel grip.

Their relief is palpable.

The Beast for his part is trying to shed the scalding traces of autumn that had seeped into his being during his brief contact with the borders to draw them back.

The world smooths back over its framework without Enoch’s overbearing presence to distort it.

“You may go about your tasks as normal,” Enoch speaks over the Beast’s head. “I shall call a town meeting soon enough and we will get everything back in working order.”

The crowd of Pottsfeilders begins to dissipate. Their voices rising in a chorus as they shed their silence.

The Beast is silent. The ball is, as mortals say, in Enoch’s court.

“Miss Clara.” Enoch rumbles and offers a ribbon to the woman. “Please accompany us, your bookkeeping will be needed.”

The gentle looping of a ribbon around his antler is the Beast’s cue that he is the other half of ‘us’.

They must make quite a sight walking through the streets, Enoch looming above, gliding, flanked by the elegant Miss Clara on one side, and the Beast, half tangled in Enoch’s ribbons, with brambles and leaves clinging to his furs.

Enoch pushes open the doors before them and into the barn, he leads them both.

Golden light spills around them and the Beast untangles himself from Enoch enough to stand in the shadows.

The Beast watches as Enoch ushers Miss Clara into one of the chairs along the walls of the room.

Once Enoch has ensured both his guests are settled he turns. Straw sifts through his ribbons as he unveils the trap door that the Beast has always known the location of from the sheer stink of alcohol around it.

The maypole draws back the door and sends two ribbons delving into the dark.

They emerge with three books, bound in leather, wrapped in one green tendril, and a bottle full of a dark viscous liquid in the other.

Enoch relinquishes the books into Miss Clara’s waiting hands and the bottle is gently placed by the Beast’s feet.

The Beast stoops to lift it and hold it up to the light.

No flickering gleam pierces the darkness of the liquid.

“How? I believe we had an arrangement about my trees.”

“Yes, yes, I purchased it from a merchant who sold it as snake oil, I recognized it from the start. I had intended to return it to you.”

The Beast considers this, and evidently finding it satisfactory, cracks the cork off, taking a deep whiff of the vile liquid.

“It is from my trees indeed.” The Beast is careful not to mention the origin of those trees around Miss Clara. His eyes flick to the books.

Enoch supplies an answer.

“They’re records, my memory is not nearly as reliable as yours, Cricket.”

“You don’t trust me?” The Beast murmurs, without any real bite, trust was tricky, and though the Beast was vigilant and honest with his favors between those of his kind, he wasn't above lying for his own gain.

“Oh, I do.” Enoch purrs, finally sounding more like himself. “But that doesn't make me a fool.”

“You’ve always been a fool.”

“Perhaps, perhaps, but I am the fool you chose to consort with.”

Silence stretches between them.

“Now neighbor, I believe I promised you all your debts forgiven, twice over.”

“You did.”

“Miss Clara, I need you to find all of Mr. Hope’s debts to me that are currently unpaid and cross them out.” The Beast closes his eyes and lets Enoch’s voice, full once more, wash over him.

“Do you know how many I should be looking for?” She asked pleasantly.

“I’m not sure, perhaps-” Enoch began.

“Twelve.” The Beast says without opening his eyes.

“Thank you, Mr. Hope.” She says pleasantly.

The Beast can smell the ink as it touches the paper and listens to each scratch and flip of a page. As the twelfth scratch begins to fade Enoch speaks again.

“Please write twelve debts in Mr. Hope’s favor, all under Protection, Miss Clara.”

“Of course, Enoch.” The gentle scratch of Miss Clara’s pen fills the air.

“Now then, neighbor,” Enoch says. “I’d like to hear about how you got your hands upon the sword.”

The Beast opened a single eye and peers up at the maypole.

“She is not dead, if you want her head on a platter I’m afraid I cannot give it to you now.”

“I did not ask for her head, Beast, I want to know how you got the sword.”

“I took it, is there any other way to obtain such a thing?”

“Beast.” Enoch’s voice thundered. “I am not in the mood for your games.” The Beast flattens himself against the wall instinctively.

“Why must you know, it need not be a favor between us. It is only a gift.”

“Answer me, Beast,” Enoch growls.

“I did what I am skilled at.” The Beast murmurs. “I tricked her.”

Enoch settles back, evidently contented by his answer.

“I see then, neighbor.” Enoch hummed, the edge was gone from his tone once more. “I was worried you’d fought for it.”

“I did that also.” 

“What?” Enoch’s voice booms suddenly, and he’s suddenly so entrapped in streamers, that when he jerks in surprise he doesn't even move in the ribbon’s tight embrace.

“I believe I spoke clearly, Harvest Lord, now please relinquish me of your-”

“Were you struck?”

The scratching of Miss Clara’s pen reminds the Beast of her presence, and he glowers up at Enoch from drapings of green.

Enoch, evidently reading the flashing yellow in his eyes, draws back smartly.

“Miss Clara, you are dismissed.”

“Yes, dear.” Miss Clara stood and tucks the books beneath her arm. At the doors of the barn, she halts and casts a glance over her shoulder.

“Thank you, Mr. Hope,”

The Beast doesn't get a chance to speak before the dead woman slips from the doors and closes it behind her.

Suddenly, he’s caught in Enoch’s web of ribbons again, and now they are not nearly half as tame, running under his furs and chasing any of the scant frost Beast had been able to recover away with their heat.

The Beast is choking on Enoch now, the air is thick with his presence, it had not even been nearly so bad when all of Enoch was gathered earlier, but then it hadn't been so focused around him, had it.

“Were you struck?” Enoch repeats and the Beast struggles to focus under the onslaught against his senses.

“Hmm… Yes,” He murmurs as he begins to relax back into Enoch’s coils, beginning to drown on the smells of cinnamon and liquor.

And then the ribbons are circling tight, cracking his wood and splintering it.

“You were!” Enoch practically shrieks.

“Yes.” The Beast tries to push away the ribbons cradling his antlers to clear his head enough to decipher the smell of cinnamon filling the air. “Why are you upset?”

“I was hardly gentle when I broke the enchantment,” Enoch is beginning to fret, his ribbons ripping to shreds. “I was only putting myself together, I didn't realize you might be fragmented as well, oh dear…”

“No.” The Beast interrupts him. “I’m in the lantern, the blade struck my body.”

“It didn't cut your being, neighbor?”

The Beast scoffs.

“Hardly. The blade was never close to my being.”

“So you are whole?”

“A few souls were severed, those of some of the most recent edels. However, yes, I am.” The Beast says closing his eyes.

He can smell Enoch fretting.

“I am whole.” The Beast insists.

“Yes, you told me as much.” He sounds doubtful.

“Are you accusing me of lying, Mouser?” The Beast snaps.

He feels Enoch’s ribbons edge away from him as Enoch withdraws from the bite in his voice.

He digs his claws into the ribbons that skirt away from his wrist, pulling them firmly up and clasping them against his chest.

“Now, I didn’t say that, neighbor.” Enoch’s ribbons are still writhing in his grasp as if trying to draw away.

“Enoch.” The Beast says sharply and sits up, eyes open and filled with green and red.

“Yes, Hope Eater.”

“I am weary. You may be restored, but I have performed more magic in these past days than I have ever done before.”

Worry taints the air.

The Beast twists his claws into the cluster of ribbons he holds and yanks on them, pulling the maypole, close.

He can smell rot and cinnamon and honey and liquor and molasses. It makes his head spin just being so near to the source of such an aroma.

“Stop fussing over me. I am wood and I am fire. My fire burns bright and my wood is unmarred. I am well, Harvest Lord. You are distraught over nothing, I simply need rest.”

“If you are sure, Cricket.” Enoch sighs.

The Beast groans at Enoch’s disbelief.

The green and red edge out of his eyes, replaced by sheet white.

“Will it reassure you, Harvest Lord, if I let you run your ribbons over me, to ensure I am unharmed?”

In lieu of an answer, green streamers lace themselves about his body, tight as a corset and unyielding as they map out his bark.

The Beast closes his eyes, leans back, and relishes in the presence of Enoch.

And Enoch for his part wraps himself about the Beast, leans forward, and relishes in the state of being whole. 

To say the room was silent is a bit of an overstatement. 

There was the soft whisper of a breeze that hung about their shoulders and the drip of salty water as it hit the floor, and there was the soft clicking of the silk spinner’s mandibles behind her palps. 

They sit together, hands folded. 

The Queen of the Clouds speaks first. 

“This does not bode well.” She murmurs.

“The sword was our protection against him .” Madame Summer says haltingly. “And he was the one who broke it. I had measures to ensure the Old Man couldn't break it. I did not expect he would bring the blade to him.”

“You think I do not know that, corpse?” The Queen of the Cloud’s snaps. “I could have hardly predicted they were so aligned that the Old Man would not simply try to break the enchantment himself.”

“It was your job to predict his actions, Sparrow Queen. And now you have failed us. The game is won. We have no way to tip the scales against him.”

“I could have hardly-” The Queen of the Clouds starts to retaliate but Lady Spring taps her mandibles.

She has not spoken, yet, but now, she hums in a way not unlike that of the Harvest Lord, to catch their attention. 

“The game is not lost yet,” She blinks prophecy from her eyes and gazes at her companions. “The Harvest Lord is far from the warlike creature he was years ago, and even so, we were careful. They do not know of our part in all of this.”

She regards her companions with all eight eyes. 

“We can still win.”

“And how do you figure that?” Madame Summer asks her.

“It is clear we cannot get rid of them individually,” She taps one fuzzy hand against her mandibles idly. “At least not while maintaining our subtlety and deniability.”

“What are you saying, Silk Spinner?” The Queen of the Clouds narrowed her eyes at the spider. 

“I am merely saying that they can endure our attempts together when we attack them individually.” 

“Lady Spring, surely you do not mean what you imply.” 

“I do not imply. I simply mean that instead of treating them as individuals, we treat them as a unit, and redirect our efforts around that idea.” 

“What you speak of is war. Not simply treachery or assassination, which can be forgiven, it is war.” Madame Summer whispers. “We cannot fight a war, not yet, not with any hope to win.” 

“I am not declaring war,” Lady Spring insists. “I am merely saying we should turn our attention to their alliance instead.” 

“You mean to undermine them. To sow doubt between them and divide them, to take a note from the Old Man’s book and turn it upon him.” The Queen of the Clouds says and there is a growing giddiness in her tone. 

“There is a lovely mortal phrase that I believe suits this well,” Lady Spring says evenly. “Divide and conquer? Yes, I believe that is it.” 

“Oh, you are your father’s daughter.” The words might have been an insult, but the Queen of the Clouds sounds too charmed for it to have any bite.

“This is madness, you’ll only bring war upon yourselves, I’ll not have their wrath directed towards me.” Madame Summer glances about them, wringing her hands nervously.

“But, Madame Summer, you were the one who suggested our attempt against the Autumn Lord in the first place.” 

“One, I suggested we deal with one, but I will not lose the favor of both.” 

“Very well, Madame Summer.” Lady Spring nodded her head as she spoke, dismissing the corpse who stood and left, leaving a trail of salty dampness behind her. 

The silk spinner turned her attention back to the sparrow queen and the two set about making their plans.