Chapter Text
Lord James Olsen is running for his life.
He barrels through the dark woodlands on the outskirts of the lush Thorul Estate, his bare feet thundering beneath him while the moon watches silently from above.
They’re after him.
He hears their whispers in the trees around him, sees their shapes in the shadows that shift and morph and move in the inky darkness of the woods. His eyes are wild and panicked, and his mouth's as dry as the desert sands.
But he doesn’t stop.
A banshee’s scream pierces the thick night air, urging him onward, his heart pounding an unrelenting drumbeat of fear through his veins. Branches like ghostly fingers claw at his bare skin as he rushes through the underbrush, blood trickling down his chest where they find purchase, where they rip and tear and grasp. Despite having shed most of his expensive clothes further back, sweat drips out of every pore, his body burning uncontrollably from within.
Escape is elusive.
Breathless, he slows, leaning heavily against an oak tree to catch his breath. The wind rustles the leaves in the trees, and the voices begin again, soft, susurrant.
Eyes widening with sheer terror, he recoils when something brushes against his neck, launching himself off the tree with a panicked cry. Racing again through the dark underbrush, a fiendish laugh sounds behind him. Spectral trees and shrubs loom large and menacing, and when the moonlit shadows shift once more before him, his foot catches on an upturned root, sending him hurtling to the ground.
Only there’s no ground to catch his fall. In his desperation to flee his pursuers, Lord James Olsen careens off a small cliff and into the rushing black waters of the river below, his descent marked only by a resounding splash.
The estate settles back into its normal cadence. A barn owl cries in the canopy above, and the insects continue their nocturnal symphony while the moon glows, silent and bright in the midnight sky.
As dawn approaches, the blackened sky above the village of Midvale gives way to ash grey. It’s Snapper’s favorite, the way the sky and the fog rolling in from the river dampen the noise around him, making him feel like he’s the only man alive. The sounds of his weathered boots against the wooden planks form a counterpoint to the soft lapping of water against the boats at the dock. It sounds like home.
With a jolly whistle, the fisherman makes his way to his pride and joy moored nearby, ready to head out for the morning catch. There’s a chill in the air, and he pulls the collar of his coat high around his ears as he reaches his boat, squatting down to loosen the rope anchoring his vessel to the docks. The cabling, however, resists, and he struggles to pull it from the water. Squaring his shoulders and tugging with all his might, the mooring finally pulls free, bringing something sizable onto the planks.
Snapper falls backward in shock, the whistle dying on his lips mid-tune. The fog swallows the sound as if it never existed.
“What in the—” he curses, scrabbling backward on the dock in a fruitless attempt to escape his first catch of the day.
In a pool of inky water, wrapped in mooring lines, lies a man, his bare chest covered in deep, jagged scratches and expensive-looking trousers torn on his frame. One muscular arm is outstretched as if reaching to the fisherman for help. The rope is wound tightly around it, evidently having managed to tangle up with the body sometime overnight, preventing it from flowing further downstream.
In spite of the low light of the ash-grey morning, a dull glint on the distended hand catches the fisherman's eye—a signet ring, gold and expensive.
Steeling himself, Snapper's gaze wanders slowly to the man’s face, and what he sees robs him of breath.
The man’s mouth is open as if stuck forever in a silent scream, and his eyes—his eyes are wide, pupils dark as midnight and large as saucers.
Propelled by sheer panic, the fisherman finds his legs and stands, crossing himself out of habit before turning and running the length of the docks, an alarm hailing from his lips.
James Olsen’s eyes stare back into the water from whence he came, unseeing, unknowing. The fog soon swallows the sound of the retreating alarm, and once again, the Midvale docks descend into calm, the only sound the gentle, ever-present rush of the river.