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She ran, and she ran like the wind. She ran like the deer in their easy bounds, like freedom incarnate. She ran not from fear, but because running was her nature, and she knew no other.
When she had entered the Fae's court, entered her devil's deal, she had bargained with the easy sharpness of someone that knew exactly what they needed, and weren't afraid to demand it. She'd bargained for running shoes, well fitting ones, and lights, and a compass. She’d bargained for the Fae's handicaps, their horse and their powers stripped from them. She’d bargained for her chance, and the raised eyebrows and curious narrowed eyes told her she’d succeeded.
When the Fae leaned over, purred in a voice like honey to ask for what she’d get in return, she offered them a smile, easy as anything, and declined.
"It is no bargain if there is nothing in return."
"The thrill of the hunt is reward enough for me."
"And if you are caught?"
"Then I shall be caught."
There was very little talking after that.
She ran, and she ran like the wind, blending in with the shadows, a laugh touching her lips, trailing sweet fingertips across the tree trucks, and led them on a merry chase, around and around in circles, over fen and hill, the hours then the minutes ticking down until she would be trapped. When she reached the border to the moral realm, the first rays of sunlight beginning to creep over the horizon, she stopped, beaming, limbs trembling from exertion.
Slowly, she stripped herself of the Fae's gifts, everything they had equipped her with. She left then neatly bundled, a pile carefully placed at the intersection between her world and theirs, and turns.
It's mere minutes when the Fae appears from the woods, their eyes wild with the thrill of the chase, and the mortal smiles, not quite sated, and calls a thank-you across the thicket before stepping backwards into the mundane embrace of the veil.
When she appeared in court the second time, the murmurs of the court pressed thick around her, hungering curiosity for the little mortal that had escaped and returned.
"Wandering back into the lion's den, swift-footed rabbit? Did your heart not desire what you thought it did?"
The words are soft and mocking, spoken with the steadiness of gods.
"I got exactly what I wanted, and would very much like it again."
They bargained, and their voice was just as steady, and the eyes of the crowd were heavy and scorching on her skin. The court was stifling, but the sweet air crashing through her lungs would be worth it.
She played with them this time, a shadow through the woods, letting them get nearly close enough to see but leaving them with naught but merry laughter. The moon was bright and silken across her back, and she was prey incarnate, the sort of freedom people cower from, that leaves them hollow and shaking and lonely. At the end of the night, when she had stripped away her gifts and dappled her fingers in the veil, the Fae called across the clearing, voice crisp as the rapidly setting moon.
"Why do you do this?"
A glance at the sunrise, a gauging of time, of trustworthiness, "There is no adventure left there. They've captured it all in concrete and steel, packaged in neat little boxes. There is no time, just endless cycles. Here, I am more free then I will ever be there."
"Then why not stay?"
"I am not meant to be a pet or a trophy. Thank you, for the wonderful night."
She returned- ten, twenty, thirty times. Maybe more. She grew taller, her body stronger, not just a slip in the night, but wild nonetheless. She grew a constellation of aches and pains, of thorn scratches across her skin, of torn ligaments healed together not-quite good as new. On the nights she ran, she forgot all that, forget she wasn't wind and stars. Forgot her mortal body.
Only once had she turned down a chase. She had looked into their eyes, and saw not the yearning and excitement of the chase, but a covetousness for herself. A chase that would be not for the pleasure of it was no chase at all to her, and her denial was as firm as it was unexpected.
"No."
"No? You run for years and years, for anyone that will chase you, yet now you say no?"
"You will cheat."
"I am Fae. I cannot lie."
"Yet, you will cheat."
She left, with the tingle of danger running down her spine, and the blank smile that she gave elicited frowns from the courts who had come to recognize her face.
They had not expected her to return. Yet, clockwork as anything, she still did.
The chase was thrilling.
She ran for years, drinking in the thrill and the sweet running streams that sustained her through the hunt. She never asked for anything other than the hunt, yet still she was gifted favors from those that insisted that such a bargain was not fair. The faery power pooled in the hollow of her chest, in the curve of her leg. In the burning muscles, the constellation of scars and aches she had gathered over the years.
She ran, and she felt more at home in the chill and the crisp of moss springing under her feet than she ever had in her apartment. Time became real here, real in the hammering of her chest, in the slow slide of the moon downwards as time slowly ran out. More real than the endless cycle of days, the rent, the morning routine with everything the same. Here she was real.
She ran, and never forgot the consequences for failure.
She ran for years.
It was stupid, when it happened. A mixture of happenstance and exhaustion, of a hunt she had drawn out just a bit too long. No one would have predicted the hollow in the ground. It was no trap, for her pursuer valued their night spent in the hunt far too much to cheat, even through the spirit of the game. It was stupid. If she had been a bit faster, perhaps she could have caught herself. If she had not tried to catch herself, perhaps she could have fallen better. If she had fallen better, perhaps she could have climbed out. She had gotten herself out of worse situations before.
The snap was audible enough that she thought it a twig, in the heartbeat when her leg was numb. In the heartbeat when this was a mere setback, and not a tragedy. Then the pain came, and she couldn't get enough air, not enough air existed. The high pitched keening of a wounded animal was impossible to stop. She'd lost. She'd lost and her mind could hardly work, hardly grasp the enormity of that, because all she could think of was her leg.
They found her there, and she did not see the horror in her pursuer's eyes, did not hear them swear over the blood rushing through her ears, streaming down her leg. She had been hurt before in the hunts, of course, but not like this. Never like this.
One couldn't run on a broken leg.
She tried to bite, scratch, kick them away, but her limbs were merely mortal and shaky at that, and her head was buzzing and far away, and her throat was on fire. She couldn't be caught. She was wind, she was sky, she was freedom.
Easier to capture the stars.
Yet there she was.
She thought of begging, but knew the Fae. She would just make herself the object of derision, one who could not keep their word. And to a Fae, a human's word was her worth. So, she did not beg- only scream and swear and fight and finally go limp, boneless, unhearing as she was carried. She's lost. It was impossible, but she'd lost.
She'd lost, yet here she was, standing at the end of the clearing, the veil to the mortal realm across from her. Her newly-healed leg ached with the pain of any old injury. The weight of the Fae's hand on her shoulder, steady, grounding, but not pinning her in place.
"I don't understand."
"You don't remember your own bargain?"
The Fae's voice was gentle and heavy, and she could remember their expression when they found her- stricken. No triumph on their face, not for her, not then.
"You caught me."
"And you were caught."
She turned, and freedom incarnate was something terribly delicate. The wind blew hesitantly, in sputters and gasps. The moon was muted behind a heavy carpet of clouds.
"Are you not going to demand my name?"
Her eyes were wide with confusion. Of all the things she'd dreaded if she lost, she hadn't even dared imagine this. The Fae's voice was terrible, soft and sad, and she couldn't imagine why.
"Go, swift-footed. You promised us nothing more than your capture. Go, and return when you are ready to hunt again."
Things were different after that.