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The creature widens his eyes, curiously tracking the movements of glimmering onyx scales that arched through the water. He blinks, following his mother toward the surface of the water with a huff. The instant he breaches the surface, his onyx scales smoothed and shifted into soft fur- his dorsal fins morphed into a dense mane, and his piscine tail shifts into something similar to the terrestrial equines his mother had described to him before.
He whinnies, tapping his snout against his mother’s side as the water clung to his hooves- as if begging for him to return to its embrace.
“Are you hungry?” his mother whispered in the tongue of crashing rapids and murmuring brooks, the flash of too-sharp teeth peeking out from beneath her lips.
He blinked, whispering back his affirmative with a swish of his tail.
She raised her neck to attention as a distant rustling caught both of their attentions. A man, tall and stern-faced, wandered in while dragging a limp body behind him. He watched with ears perked in interest as his mother strutted forward. The moment her hooves graced against the soft, marshy ground, she began to change. Her bones crackle, fur shrinking in to reveal skin- until a human now stood in the place where his mother’s equine form once perched.
The foal watched in morbid fascination the man freezes before ambling forward as if in a trance. His mother smiles, her skin glistening alongside a necklace with an onyx scale, as the man follows her closer and closer to the water’s edge, his hand still clasped tightly around the corpse’s wrist.
But the instant the man’s feet reach the water, his mother’s form cracks- and her body dissolves.
The man screams out in shock, jerking in surprise as he was yanked away from shore. Driven into a frenzy by the panicked thrashing, the foal joins his mother in their meal. The water was dyed a deep scarlet, the churning water stills, and the pair of Kelpies feasted.
Damian huffed, gently setting the stray spider onto a branch before venturing further into the pine barrens. He’d traveled to the New Jersey Pine Barrens alongside Jason to investigate a string of disappearances and suspicious actions. Strangely, the reports the Bats have received seemed to only be along the Oswego River. Usually they wouldn’t have bothered with cases outside of Gotham, but when the deaths occurring were of several high-ranking Gotham crime lords- that was when the Bats got themselves involved.
“Why did they have to choose such a nasty place to die?” Jason groused, his tone sour with irritation. Damian wonders how the man even made it through the League when he could barely handle a little humidity.
Damian sniffed, peering into a pitcher plant with intrigue, “If you were too weak to handle this mission, then I’d suggest you scamper back to Father’s side, Hood.”
“Oh cut it out,” the man snapped with no real heat to his voice before he decided to be useful for once and gesture toward two pairs of heavyset foot prints not yet washed away by the forest’s ceaseless movements, “Here. You head down toward the river, I’ll continue southward. If you get lost, you know what to do.”
Damian grits his teeth, silently fuming as he follows the footprints that branch off. Despite how much he despised working with the lesser Robins, Father had made it explicitly clear that while working with Jason, Damian was required to obey the elder’s orders.
The prints were deep, likely belonging to a man who was either carrying something heavy, or was himself heavy. Damian hummed, carefully following the footprints until it reached the bank of the Oswego River. But when he looked further into the water, he saw shredded clothes that matched what one of their targets, Hyde Camdyn, was wearing four days ago.
“I’ve found Camdyn’s clothes,” Damian called over the comms, “no clear remains, only shredded clothes.”
“Copy,” Jason replied shortly after, “Keep searching for more. There’s no signs of Vernon yet.”
Damian hummed briefly before straightening out. He was about to continue forward, but a flash of darkness from the corner of his eye caught his attention.
His head snapped to alertness, hands tightening around his blades as he scanned the treeline… but there was nothing?
With a frown, Damian straightened with an irritated huff. He was fourteen- far too young to be having hallucinations of these sorts. Then, he spots a horse from the corner of his eyes.
He tilts his head in confusion, eyes carefully carding over the creature’s form as he slowly crept closer. Its pelt had the smooth glossiness of a well-fed animal, muscles rippling with every move as its mane seemed to fall like a waterfall off its back. What was peculiar, though, were the scales that seemed to dapple its spine and ribs, growing denser the further back you look, and the hindquarters-
Damian blinked. The hindquarters of the horse was scaly and fish-like, a glossy obsidian hue with a curious iridescence that gleamed a deep red when the sunlight struck the creature’s hindquarters just so.
He steps forward, his foot falling against a stray branch and breaking it. The creature’s head shoots over, its sharp and eerily pale blue eyes seeming to pierce into Damian’s soul.
The air was still, and the birds refused to sing. The pair were stock-still, both refusing to move a single muscle.
They were at an impasse.
“Damian?” a voice called from his right, and he jerks his head around to see Jason standing on the crest of the hill.
He blinks before turning his attention back to the horse-like creature… but it was gone? There was no sign that it even existed in the first place…
Strange.
“I’ve been trying to call you for the past two minutes,” the elder rolled his eyes, leaves and twigs cracking under the man’s heavy steps, “Those guys were eaten by some- some creature… ”
Damian blinked, glancing back at where the creature once stood, before turning back to the older Bat. Wordlessly, he climbs to his feet and the pair begin their return to Gotham.
The creature watches the small human follow the tall human up the hill and away- interest sparking in his chest as the water rippled above his head.
With a thrash of his tail, he propels himself forward and sinks his teeth into the flesh of a dead human he’d drowned four days ago- the first kill he’d made after striking out on his own.
He glanced once more toward where the humans had disappeared. Strangely enough, he supposes he wouldn’t mind seeing the small human a few more times.
Strangely enough, the small human returned sooner than he expected- though this time, the human seemed to lack the bright red-yellow-green pelt that had adorned him. His eyes seemed to differ too. Gone was the whiteness, now replaced by eyes his normal prey-humans had.
“Are you here?” the human called, eyes scanning the treeline as if searching for something.
He blinks in amusement, slowly pulling himself through the water to creep closer to the human perched by the bank. The human could not see him, but the kelpie could see the human clear as day. For a brief moment, the creature wonders if he should leap from the surface and drag the human to the depths, but the thought was quickly whisked away by a different feeling- one that was foreign, but not unwelcome.
The human speaks again, his eyes dipping down to scan the water, even though human eyes could never hope to pierce through the murky, iron-filled river that currently housed him, “I’ve brought gifts for you.”
At the notion of gifts, the creature shoots toward the surface- poking his face out of the water to peer at the human on the shore. Now with his nose out in the air, the creature could clearly smell a sweet, fruity scent that made his mouth water. With a soft huff, the creature caught the human’s attention. He knelt down by the bank, placing a couple red and yellow fruits by the creature’s snout before stepping back.
“You don’t have a name, do you?” the human asks as the kelpie emerges from the water to investigate the strange item, “... I suppose you look like a… Timothy.”
The creature flicks his ear, eyes darting up to glance at the human before biting down on the fruit. His sharpened teeth easily cut through the item’s skin, allowing fresh and sweet juice to flow down his tongue.
Perhaps he wouldn’t mind having this human around after all.
After a few weeks of constant visits, Tim learns that the human’s name was Damian, he accidentally reveals his human skin while trying to take a look at what Damian was sketching.
The pair had stared at each other for five solid seconds before Damian shirks off his jacket to throw it at Tim’s chest.
“Wrap this around your waist,” the human had said, “to maintain your modesty.”
Tim had shrugged and did as Damian asked, even though the kelpie didn’t quite understand what the human meant.
“Are you capable of speech in this form?”
Tim tilts his head, thinking for a moment before staring at the human with narrowed eyes and warbling with an unsteady voice, “...Damian?”
The human’s eyes brightened, excitement and glee bursting in the depths at the sound of his name, “That is indeed my name.”
A few days later saw Tim sitting farther into dry land than he ever had before.
The kelpie tilts his head and gives a satisfied hum before biting into the sliced apricot Damian had brought for him. Ever since the human had begun to visit him, Tim found that he hadn’t had to hunt for himself in a while, and in all honesty, it was quite peaceful.
“How long will you be able to stay on land?” Damian asked, cutting up another apricot for Tim to snack on. After the first incident a week ago where Tim nearly choked on an apricot pit, Damian had begun to cut everything up before allowing the kelpie to eat it.
The creature hums thoughtfully, his hand reaching up to drag along the scale that hung around his neck, “Well… I haven’t been on land longer than a few hours at a time, but I do know if you take the scale off my necklace, then I would turn into a- uh… what are those animals called again?”
“Horse?” the human offered.
Tim nods, “Yeah, those things.”
“Damian!” a voice screamed, and shapes emerged from the treeline.
The pair leapt to their feet, Damian lunging forward to place himself between the kelpie and the humans, and Tim lurching for the water. The creature had the benefit of being of this land and knowing the terrain, so with barely a ripple- he broke the surface and disappeared beneath the murk.
“Why would you do that?!” Damian snapped- borderline screaming- as he stared helplessly into the water where Timothy had disappeared into, and their little picnic was all but destroyed.
“You were acting suspicious,” Todd answered, crossing his arms in a manner that was petulant despite the man’s stature and build, “Who even was that?”
“Someone who would be worth more than you’ll ever be,” he hissed in return, irritation and anger searing deep in his chest, “he did not have a name prior to our meeting, so I decided to call him Timothy.”
Todd winced, guilt staining his features- but Damian pressed on regardless, “Timothy lacks companionship, he lacks a family, and he lacks a home. Do you even understand how long it took for me to gain his trust?! WEEKS. Do you hear me?! Weeks, Todd, WEEKS. And now you come clamoring in like some wild beast, and now- now who knows if he’ll ever place his trust within me ever again!”
“Damian-”
“Shut your damn mouth, Todd,” Damian snarled, spitting the older Bat’s name with a deadly venom, “I don’t want to hear another word out of your mouth. You’ve done more than enough.”
But as he watches Todd sulks off toward the vehicle, Damian subtly gestures toward the water before following after the other.
Damian seethed, his arms crossed as he refused to meet his Father’s eyes.
“Damian,” the older man sighed, pinching his nose bridge with a weary expression. It was almost as if the man aged twenty years in the span of minutes, “please run that by me again.”
“There’s nothing to say, Father,” he responds tightly, staring down the man with immeasurable amounts of disdain, something he had learned from Mother, “I was simply trying to earn the trust of a fellow teen I had found while working with Todd to find Hyde Camdyn’s remains. The teen was skittish and incapable of speech, similar to how Cassandra was at first. Over the span of several weeks, I managed to teach him speech, I gave the name of Timothy, and painstakingly earned his trust. But due to Todd’s brashness, his inability to wait, and his utterly idiotic behavior, I am sure all of my progress with Timothy will be rendered positively null.”
Father sighs again, his expression tightening in frustration, going through a thesauruses worth of emotions before settling on resigned acceptance, “...How well do you think Timothy would react to us bringing him into the manor?”
Damian's expression remains impassive, but his eyes briefly flick to an innocuous, shadow-cloaked entrance in the corner of the cavern before returning to his father’s face, “I’m afraid we will not be able to find him in the barrens any longer. Timothy would have moved on by now. I'm afraid it would be akin to finding a sewing thread in a metaphorical haystack."
But rather than discouraging the man as Damian had hoped, the words only seemed to spur him on. Quite unfortunate, really. Too bad Damian already made sure they wouldn't Timothy anywhere near the pine barrens. “I’ll have Oracle look for a kid matching your description, and… and I will also have a conversation with Jason.”
“Very well,” Damian responds with a haughty sniff, “see to it.”
Tim inhales, his gills flaring as the cold water travels through his flesh. The dark water lacked enough oxygen to sustain him, forcing the kelpie to make regular trips to the surface to take gulps of water before submerging himself for another couple of hours. It was so boring. Sure, Tim was used to waiting hours or even days for potential prey to wander across his river, but he at least had the fish to both entertain and snack on. Here? In the dark, icy water? No fish, no toys, and absolutely zero entertainment anywhere. At this rate, he was going to go against Damian's wishes and venture out to hunt one of the other humans.
Then, there was gentle rippling at the surface, and Tim thrashed his tail to propel himself to where Damian was kneeling.
“I’ve brought food,” the human says, nudging over a plate of raw beef for Tim to rip apart, “...my father has been made aware of your existence, though he is unaware that you are currently residing here. As far as the others are aware, you remain in the pine barrens.”
The kelpie snorts gently, blinking at the human before tearing into the meat. It was… satisfactory. It wasn't warm, or as fresh as he was used to- and it didn't struggle- but Tim supposed it was alright. What was worse was that the moment he’d finished his meal, Damian had to leave to do... something. And that meant Tim would have to settle for a few more hours of boredom and monotony.
If nothing changes soon, then the creature will be making his rounds.
Dick yawned, his back cracking as he made his way into one of the manor’s kitchens to try and find something to eat. He couldn’t sleep while in the manor despite his bone-deep exhaustion, and whenever he closed his eyes, there was a general sense of unease and the nagging feeling that something was amiss.
The eldest Robin makes his way forward, brows furrowed in confusion as he stepped into the kitchen. He made to turn on the lights, but when he looked up from the floor, he sees two pale blue inhuman eyes staring him back-
A shriek peels from his lips, his fist slamming against the light switch as he scrambled for sight.
But when the shadows were purged from the room, nothing remained other than Dick’s shaky breaths and trembling hands.
“Dick!” He hears a voice call, and he whirls around to see a bleary-eyed Jason standing by the door with mussed hair and a wild look. There was a gun in his hand, and it took everything in him to not flinch and swat the gun from his brother’s hand, “Jesus, what the hell was that?!”
A thunderous sound followed, and a disheveled Bruce appeared at the crown of the stairwell, his expression harried and panicked, “Dick? …Jason?”
“Old man,” Jason addressed wearily, pinching his nose bridge before lowering his gun, “Dickface, what the hell happened?”
Dick shook his head helplessly, “I think I saw something? I- I guess it was just my eyes playing tricks on me…”
Bruce sighs, and Dick couldn’t help the small guilty smile that creeps onto his face, “Alright. Get some sleep soon.”
“Got it, B,” he replies, casting a fleeting glance behind him before flicking off the lights and hurrying back upstairs.
What none of the Bats realized was the shadowed shape, equine in nearly all aspects, was in fact the boy that they had been searching for- and they won’t. Well, not until three days later, at least, where Tim- bored and tired of being alone- was crawling out of the subaquatic cavern wearing absolutely nothing while cold water fell off his skin in sheets.
Tim hissed in annoyance, his expression pinching in irritation as he remembered how weak his human skin was. The ground was unyielding, rough on his palms, and it bit thin and annoying scrapes into his skin. He climbed to his feet, getting ready to search for Damian- only to be met with numerous eyes staring at him with various levels of shock, confusion, and bewilderment.
The kelpie gave the gawking humans an expression dripping with distaste before finding Damian within the group before huffing out petulantly, “I’m hungry.”
Damian, the lovely human that he was, simply nods and leads the creature out of the large cavern, “Very well, Timothy. Follow me, and I will find something that suits your tastes.”
Pointedly ignoring the stares that trailed after them, Tim hums and hurriedly follows. The humans can stare all they want, but Tim was hungry. He was still a growing kelpie, after all, and a few eyes can hardly stop him.