December 26th, 1892 — Blackwood Estate

The day had started out so fine and beautiful, and Merida had risen that morning and had dressed with care, feeling rather in a mood to be fussy and particular. In the end, she had opted for a pale green under garment, a dark green lining and a grass green over garment, decorated with intricate designs and flowers in beautiful accenting colours. A pretty gown, entirely ill suited for where she intended to go. It was meant for a party but the ornamentation felt natural and appropriate for a traverse in the woods.

She should have known from the way she rankled this morning at her maids moods the evening before that she was feeling homesick. It wasn't the girls fault, but the mess with Maxime had rather ruined teh Greyback festive spirit and for the first year in a long time they had decamped to their various homes for the holidays. Only Murdock and his daughters remained at the reach, and he would decamp to the Blackwoods for a few days. Perhaps when that happened she would make a point of visiting - it wasn't too hard from here if she remembered correctly. She would ask her sister later where exactly the Blackwood estate was.

It had been a hard few months. Work had been crazy, so busy and intense - as it often was. Then added to that was the mess with Maxime onyl 2 months since he was bitten and he was already a pain in her ass. She had never met a more graceless and obnoxious ass than that man! Honestly, she had, at times regretted saving him. It was a terrible thing to say - especially for a healer but he seemed determined to make her life miserable - and he seemed to enjoy doing it.

She had been ready for a break, and yet she would have preferred to have stayed in The Reach, instead of taking her sisters invitation to spend boxing day with her. It had sounded quiet and restful at the time, but not felt more isolating and lonely than even the quietest day in The Reach. No sooner had she set out for her walk, sneaking out the back stairs so that no one noticed her slip out of the house in the dawn hours. Then the rain had started and she had been caught without a coat or cloak and it had seemed that regardless of where she had run for cover the miserable little rain cloud had followed her. The warming charm on her gown had seemed like enough when she had left home. Now she regretted it, as she headed deeper into the cover of the trees for shelter.
There seemed to be several miserable little rain clouds hovering over the forest, black spots amid early morning winter sunshine. Worse still without her wand she had been unable to fend it off.

She had gone for a walk in the forest in the hopes of solace, she was content to be on her own, she didn’t need the constant chattering of friends to be happy, but today the silence of the woods had been oppressive. Her friends were miles away, she loved her sister, but she was so much older than her, and the two had little in common. She was constantly chastising Merida for her employment - telling her that she ought to give it up in favour of society married bliss. She couldn't imagine herself as a mere society wife. Most of the men she had met were cold and stiff and looked at her as though she was a curiosity or something to be put into a sideshow. She wasn't sure she could ever give up the life she had for that. She would never be able to do this again.

As the dense cover of the trees, made the air heavy and the noises muted, she glanced around quickly. It was still early, just after dawn and there was no one around. She changed, her skin melting to soft red and pale tawny fur that whicked away the soft mizzling rain, mottled spots on her side and flanks, dark eyes better adjusted to the dim light and she took off at a run.

This always helped exertion and freedom all in one package. Springing through the brush and tree cover, she lost track of time, as the predawn light gave way to the cold grey light of a winter morning she wasn't entirely sure how far she had run, but her breathing was ragged and strained and she stopped in the shadow of an ancient elm to catch her breath, feeling better equipped to face the day now.

Merida had been about to turn, to start heading back in the direction she had come when she heard voices - the conversation in fine clipped accents. Not poachers or lads on their way to harvest firewood. Gentlemen! a hunting party! She turned, running a little distance from the voice, before stopping to listen again, making sure she was heading away from them. All she could hear was silence.

Merida breath a small sigh, preparing to spring off through the trees, to flee as far and as fast as she could, to run back to the forest edge and make her way back to her sisters estate before the house woke, when there was blazing pain in her side and before her brain could process the sensation she was deafened by noise. She staggered a step before buckling to her knees.

She felt her deer form, melt away as she collapsed into the knee high ferns and brush around her. Merida grasped at her hip, her fingers coming away slick and red. A distant part of her brain registered she had been shot - and the pebbling wounds meant buck shot not a rifle - that was lucky, she thought dizzily. The sudden adrenaline burst was too much for her system and her head swam, the trees before her swaying into and out of focus. She vaguely saw a human shape heading in her direction, as she blinked groggily.

The ground rose to meet her but she never felt it hit.

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1036 words!

Endymion Dempsey

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   Endymion Dempsey

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He wouldn’t have said his heart was in this hunt, especially, because hunting had never been one of his favourite society activities – but he had been roped in to make better numbers for a set, and by this stage the hunters’ footsteps had all dispersed through the forest, everyone left to rather their own devices. Endymion, in his usual fashion, had not suffered to spend too much time doing any real game tracking, and had settled for a morning of forest wandering instead.

He had been doing so quite happily, even in the remains of this rainy winter weather, the drizzle and the dew and the soft ground underfoot. He could hear his companions’ voices from time to time through the trees, and then – quite out of nowhere – the deer they must have been after had materialised in the clearing just ahead.

Endymion sighed to himself and readied the shotgun. One swift shot would be surely enough to send the deer running and the rest of the hunting party off in the right direction again, while he might go back to enjoying the countryside. He watched the doe for a moment, angled the shotgun vaguely at its flank without aiming it precisely, and took a shot.

Birds scattered from the trees, the shot resounded in his ears, and the deer had obviously fled and evaded the buckshot in good time, because it had disappeared. What he could not explain was the woman. The woman, right there with the red hair, standing... No, no, not standing – Endymion abandoned the gun in alarm and jogged over in haste, horrified at how easily he had missed her.

Missed her, as in hadn’t noticed her, because – “I hit you?” The realisation came to him aloud as he lurched over to catch her about the shoulders, before she sank any further towards the ground. “Miss, I –” he faltered in panic and utter bewilderment, because how on earth had that happened? “I swear I didn’t see you there – I think I shot you,” Endymion exclaimed, looking her over for where the blood on her hand had originated. Fuck. Was he really that stupid or that blind? She was wearing green, maybe, but surely he couldn’t have just neglected to see her amongst the ferns?

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   Merida Greyback

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Her lashes fluttered as pain brought her too once again. Her vision swimming into and out of focus. There was a man, keeping her upright. She strained to focus, strained to see him clearly. It was the highwayman, dark eyes full of concern. It would have been bad to have been some poacher, a working man who could be bought into silence with some galleons would have been bad, but the fact that it was a gentleman of the ton made it so much worse. The fact registered in a dizzy part of her brain.

She wanted to run, but she couldn't move and allowed herself to lean on him, one hand on his shoulder, her hair falling in curtains around her face as she leaned her forehead on the back of her hand. 'My hip' she rasped, trying to keep pressure on it, her medical training registering somewhere in the back of her mind. She wasn't bleeding too badly, but the buckshot, still embedded in her skin were like pinpoints of fire in her skin.

She was caught! She was going to be driven from society for being out so early, alone, unchaperoned, and then being an animagus wouldn't help her case for continued respectability. She forced herself to look up, to meet those deep brown eyes of his, 'Please!' Merida begged, 'No one can find me here.' she said, her green eyes wide with near hysterical panic, that was only in part due to the pain.

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This but green

  

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Amidst all the inexplicable elements of this encounter, Endymion registered faintly that she was the naiad he’d met before. Her hair, her voice; he was sure of it, though he scarcely had time to interrogate that, never mind what she had been doing in the woods or where she had materialised from so suddenly, and how.

Her hip was where she’d been shot, Endymion heard next, but the surge of panic as she looked up at him was apparently for another reason entirely. “It’s alright,” he assured her without thinking at all, “It’s fine – no one will.” He wouldn’t tell anyone, at any rate – because what exactly would he say? That he’d stumbled across a society woman in the woods in middle of nowhere, doing who knew what? Strange and suspect as that seemed, Endymion still thought the story became rather worse at the fact that he’d shot her. He glanced up, over her head – she did seem to have been alone out here. But if anyone else had heard the shot, they wouldn’t be alone for long, and they would both have some explaining to do...

And explaining could wait. Endymion held onto her more securely, in this odd sort of embrace, and shut his eyes to disapparate them – not far, they were too far from any of the hospitals out here and he didn’t know the destinations well enough to get them there on the first try and he didn’t think long-distance apparating would much help her in her present state – but with a crack they had left the clearing where he’d seen the deer and were back, a few miles away, towards the edge of the forest he’d come from, presumably somewhere else on the Blackwood estate.

And alone, still. He could go for help, but his instinct was to stay: he loosened his grasp on her, a little, not sure she could stand, and lowered his gaze to the hand she had pressed to her hip. “Can I?” Endymion said, wanting a better look, wanting rather desperately to help. He hoped it was just a graze, that the pellets hadn’t gone too deep. (And – he had a little healing knowledge from his work, but he was by no means a healer.)

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She gripped his shoulder fiercely, redoubling her grip when she felt him grip her tighter, apparating them to some other location, that was clearly still within the confines of the forest. She gave a small whimpering sob as their feet hit the ground, the pressure of the action making her knees weak, as darts of fire shot along her nerve endings and took her breath away.

At his question she nodded, her head still swimming too much to lean over to see her wounds, but she could feel the pain making a space for itself in her brain. She knew this because in a distant part of her brain she was aware that if the wound had been serious she would already be dead, if the pellets had ripped her femoral artery. Her hand came away slick with blood, the 4 small holes in her dress indicated the path of the lead pellets. She was lucky - he had all but missed her, and it appeared as though only some stray buckshot had winged her. It felt odd to say that she could tell that they were not deep, she could feel them moving inside her body when her muscles shifted around them.

'I can't do it' her eyes still closed against the discomfort, but her voice steadied as the painful fog cleared. 'Do you know the vocare* spell?' she rasped, a little worried that the sight of blood might send him running. ' I won't be able to see them properly if I bend' she managed, if he could manage that, the wounds would be small and manageable. She met his gaze, appreciating for the first time who she was faced with, the highway man! The realisation made her let out a laugh, that turned to a wheeze of pain halfway through, 'You didn't even give me the choice of your money or your life highwayman!' the tightness in her voice still very much present.

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*Latin for summon - headcanon it's a spell for delicate removal, like magical tweezers

  

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He knelt down on a knee to align himself better with the wound just at her hip, and made sure she kept her hand on his shoulder to steady herself there. He frowned as she took away her hand, seeing where the smattering of pellets had torn her skin and embedded themselves. He didn’t think he would have flinched so if it had happened to him, but in reverse he was all too conscious that not only was she wounded, he had been the one to do it. So even if he felt a little woozy and uncomfortable now, he had to help her. (The alternative was carrying her back to the house and explaining this to the mediwizard on call, which was also mortifying.) Besides – he drew in a shaky breath to calm himself – he could do this.

“I’ve never used it on a –” person, he had been going to protest, but if he just thought of it in a non-medical sense, like a delicate operation to remove some valuable object from a precarious position, what would be so different about it? “But yes, I – I know it,” he assured her, fumbling for his wand. As he did so, he heard her last remark – and whether out of relief that she was lucid enough to make quips, or that he had finally met the redheaded naiad again – Endymion couldn’t help but let out a laugh. The concern was not quite disguised in it, but chuckling had had the unexpected side-effect of settling his nerves.

It would be fine. “Well, I didn’t expect you to be carrying anything of worth all the way out here,” he returned teasingly, half-concentrating on surveying the wounds and half-trying to keep her distracted from the pain. He steeled himself and cast the spell on the first piece of pellet he could see lodged in. His brow furrowed as he watched it slowly taking effect, something coming out. “I was actually after a deer,” he explained absent-mindedly, but he shot a sudden glance upwards at her face as it dawned on him. He’d thought there had been no explanation for his impossibly bad shot, but: “...you were the deer?” Focus, Endymion! Much as the confusion and curiosity was eating at him, he paused to cast the spell again with renewed concentration.

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She had reasonable confidence that he could manage the task - there were only a few pellets and they were near the surface. The spell wasn't difficult and it relied more on a steady hand than excellent spellwork. She wasn't sure why, but she was fairly sure he would manage the spell well enough. The fact that he had used it was something after all. She just needed enough the pellets out and she could take care of the bleeding herself.

As he began the work and she could feel the first pellets shifting, there was a sting of pain, and then relief as the pressure on whatever nerve the pellet had been resting against lifted. She could almost have laughed with relief, but the feeling passed quickly.

He was speaking, a distraction for both himself and her - and Merida saw the realization dawning in his face, and she understood in that moment that he hadn't actually been aware that she had been the hind. Oh Merlin!

Her pale hands came up to cover his, enclosing his wand hand in the two of hers. 'Please' she desperately met his gaze, trying to read his expression, if he was aching to run back and tell everyone he knew of her secret. 'No...I am not...I...'' she could hear the distress in her voice - doing a poor job of making any claim of innocence. 'I'm not, I mean, I...please.' she begged, dropping to her knees in front of him, bringing her face to face with him once again. 'Please, I know I've no right to ask, please...' she couldn't bring herself to give words to it; to the secret she was asking this relative stranger to keep.

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Oh. When she had first begged him not to tell, Endymion had only taken it for her presence out in the forest alone – which he supposed some might find suspect activity for a young lady of good society, but which he had merely taken for a free-spirited, nature-loving, roving air (and which had almost lifted her higher in his esteem than lowered her, because he found that rather wild and enigmatic and romantic of her).

But now he understood that the forest-roaming was only part of her secret; the deer transformation was the rest of it. But if she were an animagus – weren’t they all on some sort of legal registry, anyway? So it could hardly be some terrible secret... unless, of course, she wasn’t on the registry? Endymion’s brows knitted, but he hoped the confusion and consternation might merely pass for concentration on the pellet-wounds.

She must have seen something in it, though, because Undine was pleading with him again. He had thought he might resist it, but then she had gone to the effort of clasping his hand and dropping to the ground, and although all reason pointed towards something strange and untoward underneath her plea for secrecy, when Endymion met her eyes – they were not just the brilliant blue he recalled from the masque; in this light he saw a shade of grey to them — somehow he couldn’t fathom her to be anything less than a perfectly honest creature. What could she be hiding, really? She was an animagus – there was nothing inherently bad in that, even if the Ministry didn’t know; indeed, it was rather spectacular magic, to be able to do that – and she was out in the forest alone.

That hardly made her a murderer, or anything so nefarious. Whether by this logic, or sheer desire to believe in her unearthly innocence, Endymion let his concern fall away. Instead he pressed her hand back and offered her an earnest look. “I won’t tell a soul,” he declared quietly, and a corner of his mouth quirked up hopefully. “As long as you promise not to tell anyone I nearly killed you!” he added in airy exaggeration, as if they could make one grand joke of this all. He moved his other hand to her waist, eyeing her hip just beneath to be sure the pellets were all out. “Is that a fair bargain?” he offered, nearly teasing.

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Merida's heart raced as Endymion worked on removing the pellets from her hip, feeling a mixture of pain and relief as each one was extracted. She was grateful for his distraction, his conversation providing a welcome respite from the discomfort.

Her pleading hand still covered one of his. There was a flicker of hope in her gaze. Endymion's words broke through her fears, offering reassurance that he wouldn't reveal her secret. A sense of relief washed over her, and she managed a small smile.

"I promise," she whispered earnestly, her voice filled with gratitude. "Your secret is safe with me, and I won't let anyone know of this...incident." She appreciated his attempt to lighten the situation, his playful remark about nearly killing her eliciting a soft chuckle from her lips. The tension began to dissipate, replaced by a glimmer of trust between them.

As Endymion shifted his hand to her waist, ensuring that all the pellets were removed, Merida nodded, her eyes filled with appreciation. "It's a fair bargain," she replied, a playful twinkle in her eyes. "No one needs to know about your questionable aim Highway Man" She paused for a moment, her gaze searching his face.

With the pellets now removed and the bleeding under control, Merida slowly stood up, offering a hand to help Endymion rise as well. The pain in her hip had subsided, leaving behind a dull ache. She couldn't help but feel a sense of camaraderie with him, having shared this unexpected and vulnerable moment.

'You know...' she said, a hint of mischief in her voice. 'when a human managed to hunt a member of the Tuatha Dé Danann, they received 3 wishes.' She gave him a warm smile before brushing off some dirt from her clothes. He might have had magic of his own, but then so had Fionn mac Cumhail. 'I suppose you've earned your wishes too Highway man.' Her words held a surprising weight, a hint of vulnerability beneath the surface. Merida found herself momentarily lost in the ancient tales of her heritage, where humans and magical beings intertwined in extraordinary encounters, as all of their encounters to date had been- an extension of the mermaid and highway, now Sadhbh and Fionn.

  

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“Good,” Endymion said, relieved enough by her recovery – and the agreement to keep this between them – to show a glimmer of amusement in this in return.

And he was surprised and impressed at her familiarity with folklore – Irish folklore particularly! – and this was too serendipitous not to smile at. He was similarly struck by the odd series of encounters this had been... and, as she said it, he became half-convinced that this redhead really was just a fever dream. There was no one else to ask to confirm the experience for him, and something about that, being lost in his own little reverie of the encounter with no one else to witness, made it seem less likely still. He might scour society for her and find her nowhere in it.

“My wishes,” Endymion echoed, part-playful, part-thoughtful. “I wouldn’t like to beg too much,” he protested lightly, because she was still something of a stranger to him, and he had already received more from her than he could have wished for – a dance, a kiss, a token favour. “But you could call me Endymion, if you like.” Highwayman would only do for so long, after all – and while first names were perhaps a little forward for an ordinary introduction, he had already shot her, so any lingering formality felt rather absurd.

(Besides – Endymion had an element of myth, too, so it felt fitting.)

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Merida's gaze met Endymion's, a glimmer of appreciation shining in her eyes. "Endymion," she repeated his name with a smile, savoring the way it rolled off her tongue. "Names have a great deal of power Endymion." Her voice held a warmth and sincerity as she spoke, her words laced with gratitude as she repeated the name. 'And I suppose you might call me Merida.' her cheeks coloured a little, she was findable now, pushing an errant strand of hair behind her ear. It wouldn't take many enquiries to trace her - society wasn't that large. It felt like it changed something.

She took a step closer to him, a shared understanding passing between them. Their encounters had been extraordinary, something from a dream. She believed in the magic of those stories, the intertwining of human and mythical beings. Perhaps it was ridiculous Romance of the Highwayman and Undine, or perhaps it was the magic of Sadbh and Finn McCool, but it felt like there was a magnetic pull between them, an unspoken connection that defied explanation. In him, she saw a blend of strength and vulnerability, an intriguing mix that awakened a sense of curiosity within her. She wanted to know him, and yet the mystery that he represented was appealing in it's own right.

"But remember, Endymion," she continued, her voice carrying a touch of mischief. "Wishes can be powerful things, and they should be used wisely." Her eyes sparkled with a mix of playfulness and curiosity. There was a sound of a hunting horn in the distance, 'I should go, before someone notices that I'm gone' she said, Sadbh cum Cinderella, and the hunting horn her midnight. She turned, her lip quirked to speak again, but she thought better of it, and instead simply said, 'Goodbye Endymion, perhaps next time we meet it might as ourselves.'

  

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