Once they were close enough to the outskirts for sunlight to drape across his forelegs, he fell back to allow her room to squeeze through the entrance, the opening just accommodating her modest size. From there, Mephistopheles watched her go, her filly-prancing registering even in the dim glow of his pitted stare. They were all so young, these mares, all so full of playfulness and anticipation, ready to crack the world open in their jaws and taste its riches; oblivious to the shadows that towered over them. Perhaps his daughter was that way as well, this Laurelin whose mother had betrayed him and his cause. But they would soon meet despite her best intentions. Alyssum would not fail him, and she would certainly not turn on him. She was dim, but without a death wish that he could see.
His thoughts returned to his child, a golden, tastefully tree-decorated version of his misshapen body, something to be proud of and praised for. In another time, a different circumstance, he might have chased poor suitors away from her and betrothed her to someone of status. But she was probably a life-lover, a free-thinker, someone who might protest such treatment. That was the new female nature, it seemed, no longer willing to be stepped on, as in days of yore. But he did not doubt she would jump at the chance of meeting the parent she never knew. And she might have remained that way, if not for his bout of good fortune. The only thing she'd taste when she bit down would be her prized insides spilling out across her tongue.
He smiled faintly, waiting until the doorway eased shut with a flutter of leaves, thorny branches tightening to eliminate the last lattice-traces of light before turning deeper into the woods. Every ventured step back into his domain had his powers returning to him, the whispers filling his limbs and head with disapproving ideas. They didn't matter, none of it did. Once he was done with her, he would be able to come and go as he pleased, the forest's spat-out curse peeled away with his bark, his trees, his eye-lung-heartlessness. After all, a promise was a promise.
