Unmaking Percy

Part II - I, continued (The Hushing Manor)

"Well – look – maybe it is another enchantress testing you, or maybe it isn't – "

As he spoke, the old woman drew a vicious looking dagger from her ragged robe.

" – or maybe it is – "

She swiped at Evans with her dagger as Percy jumped away from her like a scalded cat. Evans dodged her blow, hefted his sword in a flash of steel, and then, inexplicably, looked at Percy, rather than at the crone who tried to slash at him again with her dagger. He evaded her easily. His eyes wandered to Percy once more, and something in them changed. Percy, standing bewildered just two feet away, guessed the words that were now tangled in Evans' mind. "One should never be too certain". Somehow he was already succeeding in making Evans falter and doubt himself. He was fulfilling the role those faceless robes from the palace had given him, even as he tried very hard not to. He wished himself a mere pebble on a path, easy to kick away and forget.

"Fucking get her!" they heard Valeria's voice behind them, still trapped in vines and branches.

Evans spun his sword, ready to use it, but a sliver of hesitation distorted his ever-smooth gestures. His aggressive stance shifted to a more defensive posture as he eluded another furious attempt from the crone and her dagger. He slid behind her to grab her arms and immobilize her.

"Percy, disarm her!" he shouted as he struggled to restrain her, her limbs thrashing and flailing in a brutal frenzy.

Percy rushed forward and slapped the dagger out of the old woman's bony hand, sending it flying off. It landed on a lost patch of grass with an underwhelming wet thud.

"Madam" Evans wavered as she delivered an abundance of kicks, "you must excuse us, but we thought you might – "

His voice choked in his throat as Myrtle barrelled into him fist first, punching him with a resounding smack. He stumbled to the side, though he still held his grip on the old woman, looking far more stunned than injured.

"Myrtle!" Percy gasped, grabbing her arm to pull her back.

"Bloody hell, what are you doing! Attacking a sweet old lady like that?" she yelled. "I knew I shouldn't have just gone off to ride with complete strangers, who of course turn out to be – "

Myrtle staggered backwards and tripped on her own feet as Valeria charged at her and punched her in turn.

"How dare you punch him!" she raged, fists raised.

Percy looked about him helplessly, wondering which fight to break up, and whether such a course of action carried a high chance of breaking him too in the process.

"How dare I?!" Myrtle bellowed, her hand fumbling about her bruised face to ensure she still owned a nose. "These nutters just start attacking this poor woman like they mean to do her in, and – "

The clearing around them shivered, from blade of grass to canopy leaf. Percy stepped back instinctively. The transformation he saw now had none of the glinting and glistering magnificence of the one he had witnessed before on a forest road. There were no jewelled sparks, no bursts of dawn light, no crystalline sounds tinkling at the air: there was just a horrible crack that stretched and stretched as the old woman's body distorted into an impossible tortured shape, split in the middle, and ripped itself in two. Each half melted to a puddle under their astounded eyes, and from each puddle rose two women. They were not old, not young, beautiful as the other fae in the woods had been, but with a belligerent twist to their features that made them something else entirely.

Just as he had done before, Evans fell on one knee in front of the two sorceresses, lowering his head in deference.

"Well done, sir knight" the one on the left started, addressing him as she adjusted her storm-grey robes. "You have done an... adequate job of obeying authority."