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She was all summer.
The way her golden eyes twinkled, bright and keen orbs reflecting the sunlight, burning like the smouldering embers of a once roaring fire.
She was all summer.
The way light seemed to radiate from her, an ethereal glow of life. Light licking her summer skin.
It had hurt him to look at her to begin with, he was so used to the cold darkness. But like a moth pulled to a flame, he found himself getting closer, just to feel some of that warmth. Even if that warmth meant doom.
His eyes watched from the fringes at first, cold glaciers of red frozen blood, appraising a creature he hadn’t witnessed in centuries or perhaps ever.
The slight twitch of her lips, as she smirked in amusement at platitudes and niceties, the fold of her arms with slender fingers the colour of a skin that had spent most of its life outside. Basking in the freedom of the outdoors. The sharp wit, and sharper senses of a hunter.
Would this hunter be the easiest of this strange group, to manipulate… the easiest to ensure his survival?
He stuck to the fringes, where he had remained for last two centuries. Lurking in shadows. Pallid skin an almost sickly pale: he saw it now, looking down at his hands, comparing to those around him. Comparing to her own summer skin. The sun was her ally, whereas for him the sun was a weary blessing waiting to be torn from him once more.
He stuck to the shadows. Though no longer praying to please a Master he had only barely survived, while simultaneously praying to not be seen. He wasn’t as worried anymore, when his lurking was noticed, by those summer eyes. The golden orbs spread a warmth he couldn’t quite explain.
He would watch her with wonder, as she swelled around the campfire with the other summer companions: a happy go lucky wizard and a righteous warlock. It hurt to look at. All of them.
She smiled and laughed, sharing jokes and small talk stories, while he watched, book forgotten in his hands. A touch of her fingertips on the wizards arm, a slight flick of her chestnut hair. The wizard looked at her with a longing when she wasn’t looking that made him scowl.
His own honeyed words, would illicit a similar response from her, those summer eyes honed to him. It took him a while to understand that maybe she too, was playing a game to survive.
This perplexed him. She perplexed him.
The way she had goaded a fight out of the Tiefling and human. The anger in the humans eyes a palpable twitch. It took one word from her to start the brawl and she laughed the entire time.
The way she stood unmoving, just watching as the snake bit down on the jugular of the Tiefling child. The warlock had certainly vocalised his distaste, but she had remained silent, summer eyes blinking slowly. The blood from the child pooling on the floor as the Druids fell apart around them.
Then she sliced her blade, across the neck of the Druid. It was a blood bath, mingling with the blood of the Tiefling child. He hadn’t expected any of it. Not from the Ranger who spoke to animals, with that summer smile.
He watched perplexed by her deft sleight of hand, exchanging goods before a blink. She was not as good as he was though. That would make him smirk in triumph , whenever a lock or a trap would leave her confounded. Unexpected for a ranger used to the outdoors.
There were times when she had him chortling uncontrollably. In the Blighted Village after killing the goblins in gleeful flurries, she turned the lever of the windmill, sending the dwarf tied to it flying to his death. How the other summer people had complained, but she replied with a simple shrug: it was an accident. He had looked down at the levers seeing them clearly labelled. Her eyes twinkled when he met her gaze, sharing a little secret.
He was perplexed with the way she too, at times, would stick to the fringes, like a stalking wolf, letting others do the talking as she watched, waiting and expecting something. What it was he didn’t know.
But he did know something.
She enjoyed killing.
The ranger enjoyed being a predator. He saw it. The way she twisted the dagger through the hearts of the humans, goblins, or whatever else had set up them, emerging from a cloak of shadows that ill suited his summer Ranger.
The spark in her eyes as life faded before her from the piercing arrow, or the power when her dagger took the life from her foe. The smirk of superiority when her arrow had found its way to its target, once or twice whizzing past his head. Or the times she set her wolf summon into an enemy watching, with those golden orbs, the beast tear the victim limb from limb.
Those eyes of summer cooly appraising her work like the winter sun.
Then he slowly noticed. The smirk on her face was part bemusement and part dominance.
The fold of her arms an impatient gesture, or an act of superiority when her chin tilted upwards, summer eyes glaring down at those she spoke to. Including the doting wizard.
The eyes glowing as she set her animals of their foes, that smirk twirling from their screams.
She was the predator, used to years of stalking her varying pray- animal or mage, or whatever else. He likened it to a game a chess, one in which she was almost always two steps ahead of most of the people around her.
He didn’t know that included him until later.
He didn’t realise he was watching her more closely, no longer sticking to the fringes like the moth moving towards a funeral pyre, the glaciers inside of him shifting, didn’t realise he would glance to her neck.
He used his honeyed words, brushed his fingers against her own, to manipulate. He didn’t realise that some of his actions were becoming an unconscious move: gravitating to her at camp, during fights, on the move- she was pleasant company. Those summer eyes illuminating him.
He didn’t realise she knew. Maybe she had always known. She was a hunter after all.
His teeth brushed her neck in the dead of night. The fire out. The others a collection of snores. His teeth skimmed her skin, tanned from the sun and such a contrast to his own. He knew she would taste good. His nose close to the back of her neck, which smelt floral with hints of sandalwood. He found himself inhaling the scent momentarily, a slight pause that spelled his doom.
Her orb eyes opened. Searing into him, like an inescapable flame.
“Shit.” He had scrambled off her.
But she remained. That smirk spreading slowly, with triumphant mirth at his own grimace of chagrin. She had let him.
She closed her eyes, laying back onto her bedroll as he sank his teeth into her. He felt her warmth, the beat of her heart, his hands brushing for a moment over her curves before settling behind her head. That seemed more natural.
The first humanoid blood he had ever tasted. It burst in his mouth, exploding with colour and flavour of summer flowers. Or was it baking bread. The warm crackle of a smouldering fire. Or was it the cool rush of citrus. She was summer. She was addictive.
She gasped when he sank his teeth into her, smothering a moan with her fingers as he drank. He felt the glaciers melting within in, as the summer blood coursed through his body. Addictive. Safe.
He didn't quite know it yet, maybe something whispered in his mind as a warning, but when he sank his teeth into her neck, the thaw truly began. He may have bitten her first, but she sank into the recesses of his mind, summer melting the winter and bringing him from the fringes and shadows.
She was summer laid out during the height of midday heat. The others sheltered in the shadow of camp. Not he.
She was summer when she let him lie with her, the pair simply basking in the sun. It was their little secret, a vampire spawn out in the sunlight.
He laughed from the absurdity.
His pale skin remained the same sickly shade of white, but in the sunlight it looked less sullen and dead. He was used to the light of the night, not of the day. The sun baked his skin so he at times, almost felt close to summer. When could a vampire say they had been able to do that?
Did he also detect at times his fingers brushing hers at first, a teasing touch returned by the summer ranger with a sly smile from her radiant face, the sound of her breathing and beating of her heart vibrating in his mind. The ice slowly began to thaw.
Yet the predator in the ranger was still there, coiled and ready to strike, just like him.
World weary.
The Sunlit Wetlands were beautiful, even he had to admit, but he sensed her on edge. Pausing at the pastel flowers, frowning at their petals in frustration at a story she wasn’t getting. The folding of those arms as she stared down at a sheep, with the forgotten baa.
She did something unexpected- his summer ranger who cared for animals. She plunged a dagger into the head of the sheep.
The Sunlit Wetlands changed, the illusion fading, revealing the swamp for what it truly was. The summer faded, replaced by gnarled trees, snapping Red Caps and a stench of death and disease. He regarded the changed kingdom, and he wondered if this was a reflection of his own soul.
She paused as they reached the tea house, the others didn’t notice, but he did. Her eyes wide, for the first time, looking like prey. It had his fingers hovered near his rapier, staying by her side.
She stalked Auntie Ethel as the Warlock spoke to her. He had to admit that something felt off, the way the girl spoke as she ate the pie. The way Auntie Ethel then looked to the ranger, a knowing smile. He saw it then, that this old lady was not the person she pretended to be- she was monster, hiding in plain sight. Much like him.
“All I want is her eye. A beautiful summers eye in exchange for removing the tadpole. That’s only fair isn’t it dearie?”
The wizard turned around to the ranger, a frown settling onto his face.
“Absolutely not.” She had said with the same ferocity to the devil, that night when he transported them to his banquet.
He felt his stomach roll, as though creatures with wings were trying to escape. His summer ranger glared at the old woman, her chin tilted to the sky.
The arrow released from her bow, striking Auntie Ethel with a crunch. He smiled, eager for a blood bath. The old hag cackled and screamed turning into the monster she was- a hag.
He watched her closely as they entered the hags lair. He had seen horrors at the behest of Cazador, but even he had to admit that the remnants of mortals left in the lair, and the magic was nauseating. Cazador liked to play with his prey, he had been on the receiving end of that many times, but this was a little different. The hag played with her prey true, but in return gave them a type of karmic reward befitting their requests. The hag fed off desperation.
She stalked with him in the shadows, moving out to the petrified dwarf, to the mounted skull and staring down her tilted chin at the cauldron in the centre of the room. The wizard acted the chivalrous champion, trying to steer the ranger from looking but she glared at him with a withering look that would have had him laughing under other circumstances- he enjoyed it when she put the wizard in his place.
The summer had faded from her. How odd, he realised as they deepened and the summer faded, that he felt something.
Something that wasn’t an amused curiosity. Instead he felt a grim solemnity as she shifted towards winter, towards his domain. He had thawed, only slightly, the glaciers shifting, but she seemed to freezing with frost taking over.
A sharp sense of foreboding. He wanted to take her from the lair and lay her out in the sun, cover her in grass. Even though it hurt to look at, he liked to look at it. How odd that he didn’t like it, the fading of summer into winter.
Her eyes were now a failed fire in the lair, embers spluttering out, staring at the artefacts, glaring and yelling at the screaming man surrounded by mirrors. He regarded the man with a distaste, arms folded, as he whimpered. Her features turning paler, gaunt. He wondered if he looked like that, catching a glance at the mirror and seeing nothing.
The others who walked in summer, felt pity for the minions attacking them. Not she. There was a new ferocity to her stalking, to the string of her arrows, to the snarl of her blade. He ripped their throats open, draining them of blood, to no complaints from the ranger. He watched as she felled the last mind controlled minion in an explosion of blood, ripping off the mask in pure anger as they fell lifeless to the floor.
“Idiots.” He heard her snarl. He realised this was personal.
Then it was deeper into the lair, descending into the cold and dark. The poison. The clouds and finally the screams of the caged woman.
“Let the girl die.” She had growled to them, as the cage above burnt.
“She needs to be saved.” Wyll responded exasperate.
“The hag will use her and you will die.” The ranger replied bluntly. “She chose to deal with the hag. She wants to deal with the hag.”
He realised why quickly, when the cackles of the hag surrounded them. Flickering and multiplying. The hag had powerful magic, and he had no doubt she would use the girl as his own master had used him for centuries.
A true sign of power. A power that was vying to end them all, and he couldn’t allow that. He refused to be made a trinket in this hags gaudy collection. But he also refused to let the hag make her a trinket- hide her away from the sun, with only one eye.
His arrows pierced from the shadows but never hitting the right mark.
“That one there.” She pointed out to him. “That’s her.”
“How do you know?” He growled, the fight already proving long as the girls screams in the cage and the cackles of the hag vibrated in his head.
“I set her on fire slightly.”
He saw it, the smallest flame. His own arrow latched from his shadowy hiding place, hitting the real hag.
“Clever girl. I will take those summer eyes.” The hag screeched, turning her attention to them. “A fair trade for what you did to my sisters isn’t it dearie?”
The cage splintered. The girl falling down to her death below with her unborn baby in her stomach. The ranger watched, chin following her trajectory down. The woman’s eyes pleading. She didn’t show pity like the others.
The ranger placed herself behind the hag.
“Die like your sisters.” She pierced the hag in her eyes with her dagger, leaving it rooted in her vile head.
The hag wailed and stumbled around. The ranger raised her leg, and with a brutal kick shoved the hag from the ledge.
He moved from the shadows to the edge of the pool, the others doing the same, as they all stood and watched her fall to her death below. The cackled scream of defeat getting quieter and quieter, until silence. He looked to her then. Her face contorted into disgust. But still her eyes were dying summer.
“Never, ever, deal with a hag.” She turned from the well. “Any type of hag.”
"You know that the rest of her coven will come for us?" The wizard sounded weary.
The ranger shrugged. "So be it. I have already killed enough hags to know what to expect."
They stumbled from the lair of the putrid shack, through a portal. Near the shoreline. It wasn’t as pleasant as it once had been. A swamp of flies and death. The others went ahead. He stayed behind, watching her as she swayed head tilted to the cloudy sky.
She sank to her knees in the bog. He frowned. Was he worried for her? Concerned for his strange summer predator?
He found himself squatting next to her, he didn’t want to get too muddy after all, and gingerly touching her bare neck. He didn’t know why he did that. She still felt warm. She still had a pulse. His fingers moved up to the side of her face, a gentle stroke of her cheek.
That was when his tadpole connected with hers. A pulsating headache spiking in his temple.
He saw through her summer eyes a similar place, somewhere far away. A small toddler crying as their parent dragged them to a shack in the forest, walking away without so much a glance back.
The small toddler aging to a teenager working on the orders of multiple hags, creating potions and cooking, watching the torture around her, unable to leave. Kept in the shadows, forced to survive off scraps and cast aways. Watching those deal with the gags, and those who did deal get a strange comeuppance. Watching the hags laugh at their power, watching them fight amongst themselves, but also watching for any change in mood that might spell her doom.
The watching saved her. The first hag, she pushed into an oven, joining the pile of bones that had gathered at the bottom. The second hag, poisoned. The summer eyes watched as the hag grasped at her neck. The final hag was trickier. It was her first animal summon as they struggled in the lair; a wolf springing forth to tear limbs from the old bitch. Bodies scattered around them. Pushed by survival to escape and kill.
She popped the eye out the hags socket with a bloody squelch.
She was the street urchin promised to the wilderness- all for the ability to bend a will. Now the urchin was a ranger. Hunting their prey, a dagger pierced through the heart of the parent who had given them away. Given away their only child all for a chance at power. It hasn’t even worked- the wills their parent had tried to bend misfired, power slipped through their incompetent finger tips. Had they regretted it? She watched them die before her, blood draining into the sewers of Neverwinter. Now the summer urchin had the power.
While his summer ranger dealt the final death blows to the hags, he was in Cazadors grasp- a poem carved into his back. Agony.
She looked up to him from the boggy floor. Opposite ends of the spectrum. Winter and summer. Opposites in nearly every way, but here they converged.
“Fancy murdering a Gur monster hunter?” He offered her his hand, removing it from her cheek with some reluctance.
The spark ignited in her eyes. A smirk on her face. “I thought you’d never ask.”
Summer touched winter.
He pulled her to him, she was close now. He realised then, he would follow her flame while he still could.
She was mostly all summer.