Sincerely, Jennifer x

Once upon a time, there was a lonely man. 

If I am to be truthful, I must tell you that he was not quite a man, but still, he was ever so lonely. He had the world at his feet, and a power that made the ground beneath him shudder in terror, but still, like the men he often watched, and tormented, he longed for something that eluded him. 

It is often said that you are nobody until somebody loves you, and deep within his aching, ancient bones, he felt that, and it wounded him in a way he could not escape. 

His heart, if he truly had one, burned with an urging, desperate desire to belong to another, and so, he sought out a matchmaker to find him a wife. 

When the lonely man came to me, I was amused. 

My brother and I had not spoken in years. He disapproved of my hobbies, and my fascination with the creatures from the other realm. I was scolded every time I made a journey to add to my collection, browbeaten by criticism and questions. He couldn’t understand why our lands and all of their treasures were not enough for me, but eventually, I knew that he would come to understand. 

My playthings were such fun, and with enough time, they could be everything that I desired. My brother had all the power, but I had all of the joy. 

I was not a matchmaker by trade, but I had a knack for finding the things that could bring a little thrill to the doldrums of life. My palace was smaller than my brother’s, for I was just a lowly Prince, but he was a King without an heir, and almost a man without somebody to love, and so, I was content. 

He glared with envy as we paced my playroom, his eyes as green as freshly cut grass while he watched my playthings reach desperately to me from behind their bars, hungry for my attention and affection. 

Their eyes were not green, but blue, misty with how much they missed me. 

They adored me. 

They always did. 

I was everything that they had desired, and I fulfilled their every need. It may have seemed cruel to keep them locked away, but I satisfied their every whim, and they were always safer with me, than they were free. 

They were special, you see. Not meant for the place that had birthed them. I could feel it. I could see it in their eyes before I’d even met them, crying out to me and pleading to be saved. I was so gentle with them, like a lover should be, and for that, after a little period of adjustment, they adored me. 

We would feed and feast with merry smiles, happy as the days were long. 

Some of them could not withstand my affections, and my heart howls for them still, but for every loss, there was an opportunity to save another soul, lost in a place that could not understand them. 

Every now and again, my playthings would roam, homesick, I suppose, but never my sweet Bambi. She was devoted, loyal, ever true, and I suppose, that is why my brother wanted her so. 

She had grown into a beautiful woman, since I had captured her. 

I had fed her well. I had nurtured her and loved her, but I had to accept that she was ready to leave my arms and serve her King. 

Bambi had never roamed, never even wandered, and she had come to me so willingly, almost insisting. It was hard to part with her, but I couldn’t deny my brother his only wish. 

She would be a good wife to him. I was certain of that, and that was why I was so surprised when he darkened my door again just months later, with another request. 

At first, I thought he wanted another wife, and I was quite offended. Bambi was perfect, and frankly, far more than he deserved, but his request was perhaps more bewildering, and disturbing. 

My brother wanted an heir. Not just any heir, but a specific child. He had seen her, smiling in his slumbers, an infant, in the Earthly realm, that called to him. He had rushed to her side as she broke free of her Mother, watching from the shadows with a hunger that haunted him for days afterwards. 

He spoke with such madness that I considered a coup. 

He wanted the child. He wanted her desperately, and with ridiculous abandon. She was to be his daughter. My eyes dimmed and my head sunk low into my chest. 

The idea sickened me. 

I enjoy the amusement that the humans provide me, even the arousal, but the thought of bowing to one, as my Princess, and future Queen turned all three of my stomachs. The child wouldn’t even be a halfling, it would be an abomination, a disgrace to our royal bloodline.

He wouldn’t have a child with Bambi, even though she was capable of it. I had begged him, but he refused. He wanted to… adopt, like we were pathetic, silly humans. 

It was revolting. 

I couldn’t allow it. 

I told him that she wasn’t right for him. I had offered him his pick of my strongest and most sensuous playthings, but he would not be swayed. 

He wanted HER. 

I got down on my knees and begged my King, but he would not change his mind, and so, after many threats to myself, and many meals made of my sweet playthings, I set sail for the child, with a heavy heart and an even heavier frown, wishing that the chaos I was leaving behind was nothing more than a bad dream.

It was no use. 

A wasted trip, and a waste of my time. 

She could not be captured. I knew that it was a doomed endeavour, but I also knew that if I returned empty handed, it would be the last thing I ever did, so I tried again. I slipped into her sleep, singing sweetly of the happy times we could have. I left dreams of harvesting beneath her pillow, I pleaded and plagued her with insistence, but the hideous child refused me again and again. 

I crept closer every night. Poison in her ear, purpose in my soul, but the brat would not be swayed. 

She would run, crying to her father with tales of terrible nightmares, and he would hold her, long into the night until she finally fell asleep peacefully. 

It just wouldn’t do. He was getting in the way, and keeping the child from my clutches. I had no choice but to return home, and find another way to capture the wretch that had stolen my brother’s heart. 

My brother was furious. I barely escaped his wrath, ducking and diving as he tore my palace to pieces. My playthings ran, as I pleaded with him to listen to reason. There were so many girls I could offer him, and believe me, I tried. Girls of all types, colours and ages, but his heart belonged to the brat who would not belong to us. 

I explained until the sun soared and sizzled above us, and as he sighed, leaning, resigned against the remains of the palace door, I hoped that I had gotten through to him. 

Alas, it was not the case. My brother is as determined as he is cruel. A few days passed, and I rebuilt my palace in bliss, capturing my wayward playthings and returning them to their little homes as a storm swept through the whole of our land. His rage and impatience rang out from the sky to the sea, but I just tried to pretend he would learn to adapt. 

I should have known better, of course, as much as he laughed and crowed, our land and all of our treasures weren’t enough for him either. He had everything that many of our subjects could ever wish for, but it could not compare to her. 

He sent for me one night, his ravens pecking at my palace windows with cold, scolding gazes. I sighed, setting sail once more for the human realm, to do as I must, knowing that it was fruitless, but… there was something different about that night, and something different about the man, sworn to protect the child. 

I set about spooking the child, whispering and wheezing, trying my best to tempt her away from her home, and as usual, she ran, with lungs full of screams to her Father. She dived into his arms, burrowing her frightened face into his chest, but he wouldn’t even look at her. 

He shook the child from his grasp, shoving her away with a grimace as her face fell and tears began to fall from her dark eyes. 

Behind the man, buried in the shadows, watching it all unfold was my brother. I knew he had wanted the man’s daughter, but I had never known how much. He drummed his claws against the man’s head with a chuckle, fracturing the fragile bond between them with a gleeful grin. 

Old Scratch had always had power beyond measure, far greater than I had ever possessed, but he had never liked to get his hands dirty. Truthfully, he could have bewitched the girl and carried her back home without breaking a sweat, but he didn’t just want an enchanted prisoner, he wanted her to love him, as though she had always belonged to him. 

Perhaps it would have been easier on the child if I had succeeded in persuading her to join us, but it simply could not be done, and so, she had to suffer, so that she could be comforted and captured. 

The man who bore her was cold, at my brother’s command, and of course, my brother snuck into her life, late at night when she needed him most, and soothed her sobbing eyes with promises of a better life, until she finally accepted. 

I retired to my palace in disgrace when she arrived. I wanted no part of it, and truthfully, my brother had taken my failure personally, so I was never going to be permitted to have a part of it anyway. 

At first, the fawn was happy, but every now and again, much like my own playthings, she began to roam. It wasn’t on purpose, almost an instinct. She knew that she didn’t belong, and so, she would roam, and return to the lands that she left behind. 

It happened again and again. My brother would beg me to help him search for her, and I would sigh. 

She was always lost, deep within dark lands that I could not reach. 

I had told him many times, but my brother was never one to listen. They cannot be allowed to roam. He had heard me, but he didn’t listen. What he felt for the fawn was different to anything else. He doted on her, adored her, to the point of weakness. He didn’t want to lock her away, or cage her, like I had done with my playthings. It was an act of love, but not one he understood, and so, we searched. 

She would return, and be content for a little while, before her heart hungered for a home again, and she would vanish. 

It bored me, to be honest. The child was a nuisance, still continuing with the nonsense well into maturity. I couldn’t understand his patience for it, always running after her, like an idiot. She was the Princess, destined to one day be Queen, but she couldn’t even be trusted to stay within her bounds for more than six months. 

As time went on, she was gone longer and longer, her bones, knowing that they didn’t belong in our realm, but her “father” insisting that she was of our blood. 

I knew why she ran. It wasn’t just roaming and wandering like the others. She was still tethered to the hope of something impossible. Deep within her, somewhere that she couldn’t even see, there was still humanity, and the desperate hope that one day, things could return to how they were. 

She was happy, sometimes, but swallowed by nostalgia and unanswered questions. 

I had to raise the anchor, and let her choose. There was no other way to keep her in line. Maybe she would run back to what she had known, but maybe she would stay. 

My brother’s fury at this news caused the ground to shiver and shake, but after several nights of shouting, he understood that a line had to be drawn, and that the child must decide where she truly belonged.

Of course, we didn’t play fair. Nobody told Lacey that her biological father stopped loving her because of her adoptive father’s trickery. 

Even with that in mind, I wasn’t expecting her to choose my brother, even with the rejection she would face, because her heart seemed tied to the past, and perhaps, as the silly humans often muse, love would find a way. She wanted to go home. I could see it in her weepy, lonely eyes. She had enjoyed her time with us, but never truly felt like she belonged. 

There had been some changes in the girl. Her mind was much more powerful, and when the rage found her, claws could come, but at her core, the child was still a human. 

I skulked in the shadows, watching her approach the man’s bed as he slept, waiting for her to wake him and listen to his confused and unexpectedly earnest excuses for his failings. 

She dragged her claws down his bare chest, and he yelped, shaken awake and screeching in pain as she whistled and whispered to us with a wicked smile. 

His screams surrounded us, and we laughed as he babbled and bleated for mercy. She was deliciously cruel, taking him right to the edge of torment and then pushing him further and further.

She dragged out his demise, and it was beautiful. She wanted him to suffer, and my mouth watered as she made broth of his bones and swallowed his flesh with a sinful smile. 

My pride journeyed down my throat as I saw my niece devour her past. I had been wrong, and as I watched her eyes darken and her pink lips redden, I had never felt so much love in my old heart.

She may have been born of the humans, but the child she was had died along with the man she consumed, and at last, after such a long time, sweet Lacey was truly a daughter of Hell.