Work Text:
The forest dreamed.
Silverhöjd had its roots in deep beneath the earth, not so much clinging to the surface of the soil as deeply entwined with the very bones of the hills that lay beneath it, and it crept inch by inexorable inch outwards, roots reaching and grasping towards the stone foundations of the nearby town. It was new, this settlement, carved deep into the rocky soil just out of reach of the forest proper, and the foundations disturbed the forest's extended senses as surely as if they had cut through flesh and bone and nerves. The loss of one tree, or even a hundred, was nothing to the vastness of Silverhöjd – but there was something in the air, the smell of steel and the blood-metal scent of iron, that promised more.
The forest dreamed, and when it did not dream, it hungered.
Deep underground its roots stretched far beyond the circumference of sword-straight trunks that grew above. The insignificant patter of human feet, gentle on packed earth, shivered down their woody network and the forest breathed, sighed, learned the rhythm and location of these faint vibrations with as much ease as if it had its very own eyes. Some footsteps echoed harder than others: those whose ambitions betrayed them, those who feared the forest.
Those who were almost kin to it.
When she arrived, her very presence hummed along the roots, soaked up into the branches and pine needles; most humans did not dare to enter far beyond the edge of the treeline.
She was different.
Ylva, she called herself, and her footsteps far above the questing roots shimmered like gossamer in the dewy sunrise. She was not afraid like the others, ventured into the depths of Silverhöjd with no more than a dark cloak drawn up over her long grey hair, gathered fruit and nuts and even those herbs that the forest itself nurtured, deadly to the unpractised hand. She sang as she walked, songs long-forgotten by human tongues.
Silverhöjd had not forgotten, and its roots and and branches trembled with recognition.
Its denizens emerged.
*
Silverhöjd was sharp: sharp thorns, sharp branches, roots that jutted from the peaty earth and scratched and grabbed at Ylva's ankles like long-nailed fingers. She wore her dresses long, as was the custom, covered her hair with cloak or shawl to keep the clawed braches from getting caught in her hair, but for all her precautions there was little here that frightened her. This forest had tugged in her veins for too long now, pulling at her heart from so far away, drawing her in like a spider in its web. After all, she journeyed many weeks on foot to get here, eschewing the popular horse-drawn carriages for the sheer pleasure of putting one foot in front of the other and feeling the earth beneath the soles of her boots.
Walking into Silverhöjd was like walking into the cool, misty embrace of something ancient and inhuman. She had her favourite routes, winding between tall mossy rocks, passing by cloudberry bushes and hazelnut trees, and crossing the ice-cold streams that fed the mist and damp beneath the canopy, and as she walked the air clung to her, moisture beading on the surface of her cloak, everything smelling thickly of leaf and peat and moss. Her leather boots kept out the worst of the water but it seeped right into her clothing, damp against her skin. And the branches clawed still, greedy, and every scratch, every drop of blood that Silverhöjd ripped from her, felt like a reminder that she was a living, breathing creature of the earth – and the forest was breathing around her, too.
It made her feel alive.
She sang as she wandered, songs she learned long ago in her youth, songs that no man now would recognise, and the tree branches swayed above her. A crow called in the distance, and the soft trickle of the stream beside her was almost musical in counterpoint to her songs. There was music in the very air, the humid breeze whispering through the trees, the widening and deepening stream sounding its own tune until there was a pure line of melody weaving above and below Ylva's voice. The rippling whisper of the of water solidifed.
Somewhere out of view, a violin was playing.
Ylva pushed through low-lying bracken and hogweed towards the stream, the ground marshy underfoot, and just over the slight hill the trees thinned out and the stream opened out into a craggy lake, circled menacingly by spindly branches that reached and reached into the empty space. The tune was louder now, the violin played aching and trembling, drawing her in closer to the lake.
Still she sang, humming the ancient tune unperturbed.
Come closer the song whispered, and in the lake something – someone – shimmered into view: a man, waist deep in the black water, swaying with the melody that his long fingers brought forth from the violin at his shoulder. He was clad in rich cloth, glowing jewel tones in the mist above the water, and his fair hair hung loose around his shoulders. There was an icy chill coming off the lake, trailing cold fingers up beneath her skirts and making the hairs on her legs prickle.
Ylva raised her voice and sang, the old words coming off her tongue with as much ease as if she still spoke it every day, and the violin wept every note alongside her, the player's face beautiful like some sort of ancient god. The music wrapped itself around her limbs and pulled, begged, seduced her closer to the deep, freezing water.
But the song ended on a long, drawn out sigh of a note, the player's bow falling to his side, and Ylva was still on dry land. “Näck,” she said with a warm smile, loud enough for her voice to carry out to the misty surface of the lake where the shapeshifter stood. “Your playing is indeed spellbinding, but it helps to be sure that the woman you seek to seduce to drowning has any interest at all in the male sex.”
There was laughter, sudden and quick, and then the player was gone in a shimmer of mist.
Deep in her pocket, Ylva let go of the steel knife that she had been holding in her palm every since the music had begun: steel to drop into the water, to ward away the näck.
She had never been one of those foolish enough to wander into a forest unprotected.
*
The forest dreamed, and the forest woke.
Ylva's footsteps deep within it trailed invisible silver away from the rocky lake, gentle and unhurried across the mossy above-ground. Root and tree and creature breathed as one. Ours, came the whisper through the pine needles, and high up, a crow screamed.
Ylva looked to the sky, patches of grey through the damp green canopy, and smiled a faraway smile. “Sister-crow, come to me.”
The bird flew down in a flurry of shining black feathers to settle on her outstretched arm. All around her, Silverhöjd exhaled a breath of relief, a soft breeze puffing through cool humid air.
“Hello,” Ylva said to the crow, bowing slightly from the waist in greeting. “We belong here, you and I, and I am glad we have found each other.”
The bird cried out again and Ylva laughed, lifted her arm to let her fly away. “I know,” she said. “I know what this place is, and it knows me.”
And deep underground, the roots and tunnels and precious metal of Silverhöjd shivered in acceptance.