[Changeling]: Summer Dreams

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The wind was warm, fresh with the scent of grass and green leaves. He lay back and closed his eyes, but something nagged at his mind. He reached for Trouble, and instead of the stick his hand grasped another; smooth and cool and familiar.

Mort opened his eyes and looked at the woman lying beside him; tall and sturdy, her broad face smiling at him, her dark eyes warm as the sun on his face, her skin the polished sheen of rosewood.

"Tally," he breathed.

"'Ello, Mor'," she replied.

He tried to sit up, but winced at a sudden pain in his chest. He looked down and saw his life's blood pumping from a gaping hole. She laid her hand over the wound, hiding it from his sight.

"I's alrigh'," she whispered. "The pain won' las'." She gave a crooked grin. "I should know, righ'?"

He smiled back. "Righ'."

*

In the darkness of the Deep Hedge, as the killer's blade made sure of its work, Mort was smiling.

*

Some say that in the Deep Hedge there is a tree that is two trees; an oak and a rosewood, twisting together in the heart of a glade that is warm and bright. In the shadow of those trees, in the shelter of their branches, a weary traveller may rest, and no denizen of the Hedge nor hunter of Arcadia will find them.

Some say.