This was part of Endejester's Feathered Serpent Contest.Streams of Silver smiled as she leaned forward, to the little crowd of foals and colts and fillies before her. "Come closer, all of you. There is safety in numbers. Strange creatures have started to enter the swamp, unlike any but for those told in legend." She smiled. "First, it was the Kiokote, and their cats. Then, the Acha, and their sand dogs. They are benevolent, goodly creatures-" She paused as she heard chatting among her small, assembled crowd. "What is it?" she asked, irritated.
The foals shifted, and one spoke up. "What is benevolent?"
Silver smiled. "It means good, or kind. The Acha and the Kiokote are friends, and their companions are faithful and loyal. They are good. But we all know, there isn't just good in the world-"
"There's bad, too!" another small voice interjected. Silver paused a moment, then nodded.
"Exactly. Terrible things, with long snouts and forward-facing eyes, the better to hunt you with. Large maws of terrible teeth, to gnash and tear and snap up little ones whole." Her fiery eyes practically glowed as she regarded the little crowd, her expression almost fiercely alien as she padded around them. "There are beasts in the swamp. Great, gigantic snakes - longer than the biggest buck from nose to tail tip - with the wings of hawks and the crests of eaglehounds." She watched the wide, staring eyes with a feeling of satisfaction. "Some stories say they come from another swamp, on the other side of the sea, where kin not unlike us do constant battle with one another. Others say they come from the mountains, in search of food, only to return to stony lairs up as close to the sky as they can get." She leaned in, voice lowering to a near-whisper. "But one legend in particular..." she paused, expecting the chatter. "It means, 'more than all the others'." She smiled. "One legend, more than all the others, sounds like it's true."
Wide eyes stared at her. "This is the story of the Feathered Serpents, little ones. Listen, and listen well." She smiled as she sat back, settling as they crowded even closer.
"There was a time when the Motherfather gave many of the kin gifts of great magic, that many had the ability to weave spells and charms to better the lives of each and every one of us. The stags and mares of legend walked among us, then, much like they do now. But not everyone used these powers for good. One such witch was named Ravens' Circle, and she used her magic for personal gain. She was known to make a deal with desperate kin, to offer them the stuff of their wildest dreams. And then, she would make them promise something. Sometimes it was a lock of hair, sometimes it was a pet or a rare flower or even a moon of their lifespan. Things to help her further her spells. One time, it's even said she took and transformed a kimeti who asked her for the power to live forever, and turned it into a watersnake, and charmed it so every scale on it's skin would give them another day to live, and in doing so, allowed them to live forever. For the snake shed it's skin every few moons, and by doing so, allowed them to live a few moons longer. She had lived a dreadfully long time, and every day that she lived and made her deals, she grew more and more bitter. Every happy kin she saw made her anger at her own unhappiness, and the angrier she got, the less happy she was with her life. And that... that was when she made the deals hurt. She came to enjoy inflicting pain on others, making them give her something that they would later come to regret. Or making them promise something, not saying what, just some undetailed thing that she would come to collect at a later time. She would stalk them, and wait to see what in their lives was most precious to them, then claim that. Their voice. their sight. Their ability to ever see their beloved ever again. It was something, and for a while, it appeased her. But eventually, the kin stopped coming to her.
"Who would want to suffer at the hands of a terrible old witch when you could go to another, someone who could get you similar results for far less pain? And even if they wouldn't help you, wouldn't the cost only outstrip the value of what you wanted? There came to be a time where almost no one would come to her, when only the most desperate came to her for her help, or her counsel. So the doe made a plan.
"She would wait for the perfect time, the time to claim a life, or two, to turn into birds, enchanted like her precious snake. And she would charm them, so their cries would strike fear into the kin's hearts, so that their songs would send the vulnerable into a trance-like slumber, and so the strong would lose all will to continue on. But most of all, she would train them to weave a curse, upon whosoever she set them upon. But the best part of her plan, is that she wouldn't let anyone know the birds were hers. They would become hated, and her prices, her deals, would be demanded by all. She would see the whole swamp miserable, cursed, or scared, and she would claim whatever she wished, whenever she wished it, to cure or fix or help with their ailments, their mates, their children. All she would need is a willing kimeti. So, she would wait.
"One day, she was approached by a pair of twins. They were very much in love with each other, and had deigned to never love any other as truly as they loved eachother. But as every kin knows, the Motherfather would never bless such a union. Year after year, winter after autumn after summer after spring after winter again, they tried to have a clutch of their own, and were denied their deepest desire. None of the goodly witches, nor those neither here nor there, would ever help them in their endeavor. And most of those who would try what they wished, were too weak to manage it. Ravens' Circle, however, was very old, and very strong, knowing how to tap into the magic that the Motherfather had left in certain places of the swamp... her own cave was dug into one of those sites by many seasons' labor from countless kin. When they came to her, she agreed to help them, so long as they promised to give her whatever she wanted, as soon as the sacs had been laid. They agreed to her price, and she wove her magic, giving them the power to create their own life, without the blessing of the Motherfather.
"The twins left, overjoyed with the fact that she had given them what they had most desired. Soon came the day that the doe expected to lay her clutch, and Ravens' Circle showed up to witness it. Seven sacs, all perfect, unmarred. More than the Motherfather gave most of the kin - the new parents were elated. But when she fixed a milky eye on the eggs, and walked over to nose at each and every one of them, they became nervous.
"It was the buck that spoke first," Silver said, her voice almost a whisper. "'What do you want us to give you?' he asked the witch, his voice not quite as steady and strong as it usually was.
"She smiled, her lips stretching over her teeth like an old, dry hide over empty bones. She opened her toothless mouth, a red tongue flicking out from a black abyss, carefully pronouncing every last bit of word with careful, terrible focus. 'I want them all,' she stated. Her voice was raspy and rough, like the skin of a crocodile, and as she grinned, openmouthed, one could almost imagine a maw full of sharp, sharp teeth.
"The doe cried out, the buck looked on in horror. They had come so close to it, having their own children to raise, but no. There was nothing they could do. The witch's words spelled it out in every terrible scrape of tongue and flap of lips. She had caught them in her plan, and there was no escaping it.
"They left, and she took the eggs back to her cave, turning them into seven tiny songbird eggs. It was they, that would be her pets, to cause misery among all of the kin, and to bring despair to all four corners of the swamp. She was delighted!
"But then, something happened one day, when she was bathing in a clear pond not far from her lake. Her beloved snake, who she pampered and fed all sorts of delicacy, decided that it wanted to try to eat eggs. One by one, the snake wrapped it's little mouth around the eggs, and swallowed them whole. By the time the witch came back, though, all that was left of the eggs were seven round lumps on her snake's belly. Ravens' Circle screamed, she raged, and she kicked out at the air at her lost birds, but she didn't harm a single scale on the snake. She coudln't hurt the very thing that made her immortal.
"And she was very glad, a few days later, when she saw what had happened with the snake. It had laid seven eggs, eggs that looked to be strangely like the birds' eggs that her snake had laid, but they felt leathery. She watched the snake mother them, keep them warm, move them. She watched them when they hatched.
"She was delighted when the first feathery head poked it's way out of the shell, confused when she saw the scales. But then her mouth twisted, the corners coming up into another crocodilian smile. This was it! Even better than songbirds, these feathered serpents that her magic had made would be hers to raise and command! Birds were hardly a threat, but a strange new monster? Oh, she could terrorize the entire swamp with them! She could get anything she could possibly dream!"
Silver's glance swept across the expanse of big, wide eyes before her. "So, the witch took the tiny creatures, and raised them in the deepest depth of her caves, teaching them to be loyal to her, and showing her a love like a mother bear gives to her cubs. She fed them everything she could get her hooves on, meat to make them strong and big and fierce, and watched them grow big enough to devour a foal, should they so choose. They grew to love her, and no other, not even the snake that had seen them hatch. She had fed them many others like it, and they saw it only as food.
"And one day, when she wasn't watching her snake as she should have, they ate it, tearing the thing apart in a tug-of-war and greedily snapping up the scraps.
"Ravens' Circle, who was making a deal with a pregnant doe, screamed as she felt her life nearing it's end, writhed on the ground as the scales that gave her her unnatural life were eaten up and turned to nothing.
"And then she died, fading into nothing but a curl of black smoke that smeared the sky. Her children, the Feathered Serpents, felt it as their mother died. It filled them with a rage, made them escape the cave that they had lived in for so many seasons. Filled with naught but lessons of destruction and pain, they tore through the swamp, attacking everything and anything that crossed their paths. They were terrifying and beautiful, and all the kin gathered in hidden places to try and keep from being killed by the vengeful monsters that were tearing up the swamp.
"It so happened that a group of kin came up with a plan, with their greatest hunters and trap-setters loosening rocks above many a cave in hopes of trapping or killing the great beasts. All they needed was bait. Brave kin who were willing to risk their lives to lure the terrible beasts into place. The twins had heard of the great monsters, and had no hope, no reason in life to keep on going without their children, not knowing that the witch had turned them into terrible beasts.
"This new purpose, however dangerous, might just let them die feeling a little better, knowing that wherever their children were, that they would be safe for the monsters.
"So out they went, away from the protection of large groups, the only things that seemed to keep the monsters at bay. They ran around, searching for the monsters.
"When they found them, they despaired, recognizing the serpents as they were, their very own sons and daughters, warped by strange and unnatural magic. They would have to lead them to one of the caves, where rocks would fall, and trap them forever... or kill them. Though they didn't want to do it, they had to. They made the snakes chase them, guiding them along down to a far corner of the swamp, where a cave held a small maze, that the twins had played with as foals. There was one loop, that would probably give one of them time enough to get in and out, without the snakes following them. They hoped, as they raced towards the mouth of the tunnels.
"The buck and the doe both charged into the cave, pursued by the relentless monsters. they turned into one tunnel, taking the three bends before the serpents knew where to follow them. They turned, leaving their monstrous children in the cave, then ran for the entrance of the cave.
"The kin had been waiting at this cave, and many others like it, and heard the roars of the monsters inside. They didn't wait for the kin to emerge, didn't want to risk any more lives by letting any of the monsters escape. With a crash of hooves, they sent the rocks to fall over the mouth of the cave, burying the creatures, and the kin, inside. No one knows if the buck and the doe were crushed to death. The buck that told this story likes to tell me that the parents were reunited with their children, and lived long and happy lives before eventually passing away due to old age, and that the great beasts fell into a magical slumber after that time. No one is quite sure.
"But time has since revealed the cave, the boulders having shifted in the many years. One day, a kimeti, who had been named Feathered Serpent by the swamp, happened across these great beasts, and somehow managed to tame them. I like to think that years of loneliness has tempered their rage. It would make sense, right?" The foals nodded, visibly shaken, a couple of them looked rather shaken, and some seemed to be about to cry.
The Silver doe smiled, turning around to start walking away.
She turned her head over her shoulder to add one last thing, for the benefit of the petrified semicircle of faces. "Just make sure to behave around them, colts and fillies... you don't know what might make them angry."
She almost felt guilty when she heard the first scared wails.
Almost.