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Fox waits by the lake of the fairies as the sun sets. Her teeth still hold the rich taste of Jacob’s blood. Fox had nipped him before, when he had well deserved it, but never this hard, clamping her jaw like she would never let go.
She leaves the edge of the lake. She kills and eats a mouse, then returns to the shore.
How long would she wait there? Jacob had gone into danger before, into the mouth of death, but always with Fox by his side, in the half decade they had known each other. What if he was already dead, or changed beyond all recognition. Fairies were well known to be spiteful and merciless, a previous lover was an inviting target for their harshest malice.
Once again, she feels the dissonant time between them. On the rare occasions she shifted out of her true form, her human face was now as old, or older, than his. They were in step now, but would only slip back out again as time continued to progress. One day her hair would grey before his, her eyesight would dim, her death would come creeping while his was a distant figure on the horizon. Unless one or both of them met a swift death at the sword of a soldier, or the six fingered hand of a red fairy.
If it came to that, would she wait a year for him? Her time was so much more dear, a year a much greater share or her life. But then, what was Fox’s life without Jacob, her closest comrade. Would she sink into the skin more than she ever had before, forgetting language in favor of the syntax of the hunt, of the woods? Would she return to towns and cities, be a human woman just enough to accept treasure hunting commissions, travel the lands alone, or with strangers met along the way?
There was another option, that was not truly an option. Fox would sooner die than renounce the fur.
Her change is voluntary at least. Fox wonders how Will feels about his own new skin, if it’s a diseased invader, or a revelation of a truer self.
The lake water is an onyx mirror, and beside it, Fox settles down on her paws, and waits.