[Metal Tsubasa]: 95.Contest Entries.Fairy Tales Entry

Well, this was supposed to be for the Fairy Tale contest... but then it turned out to be it's own little short story. I hope you enjoy it.

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Fog rolled gently over the tops of the trees, dropping off at the edge of the lake like a huge water fall in slow motion. Small fairies danced about as phantom figures in the fog. There was only the sound of nature, sighing in its peaceful slumber of night, beyond there, it was utter silence. The night was cold, since winter was about to set in, though the trees were fooled by the past few months of warm weather to bloom pleasantly. The clear sky showed the on coming chill, as if warning the world below that something was to come.
Staggered footsteps shattered the silence as they were shortly followed by the scraping of metal against the thick stones which lay lazily about the forest floor. All the fairies, playing so happily, paused and turned to see where the noise had come from. All there small eyes found a rest on a lone knight, as he staggered towards the lake.
The fog spread apart as the fairies fled from the human creature, hiding behind the trees and about the lake shore, adding a slight ere glow to everything. The knight continued forward, clutching his side as blood spilled out from between his fingers and from between his lips.
His pale skin stood stark against the dark of night and his blood spattered armor. He was almost there, almost to the lake, if he could only get to the edge, to feel its cool presence, then he would be fine to die. As he neared its edge, the fairies began to peer out from their hiding places, sensing something more from the figure than they had before. He was no ordinary human, or at least, not a full human.
As his dark blood dripped into the water, it hissed as though it was a fire hitting the placid liquid. The figure wasn’t fully human, he was mostly angel; a fire angel to be exact. The water hissed even more as it touched his skin, and it stung almost as bad as the hole through his side. Bloody tears ran down his face as he began to collapse into the water from the pain.
“Celen!” he cried out, trying to hold himself above the water by the use of his sword. “Celen! Please! Tell me that you are still here!”
The knight could barely hold himself upright, but still he waited. His skin was burning off and the dark blood was causing a good ripple of steam to flow out over the water, but still he waited. His breath was heavy, and he was worried than any of those breaths could be his last, but still he waited.
A hush came over the forest and the water began to move away from the shore, pulling inward to the middle of the lake. It pillared upward in a cone shape, and then formed into the shape of a woman. She looked like any human woman, but her fingers were webbed, and small slits made their home in her neck. The knight smiled gently at the figure, but then, as if seeing her was enough, the knight began to collapse forward into the water; the woman came quickly to his rescue.
“How have you come to be like this?” the woman questioned, her eyes filled with worry. “Seren, you should not be here! You should be with a healer!”
She tried to move him towards the shore, trying to save what little was left of the skin on his lower body, but the knight would not budge. He clung to Celen, burning the skin off his hands as he did. “I am dying my love,” he told her as he dropped his head onto her chest. “If I can not touch you now; I will never have the chance.”
He clung so tightly to her, even with the muscle in his fingers beginning to melt away. There was no more pain; he simply couldn’t feel anything anymore. The knight looked up into Celen’s eyes and smiled. In his last movements that he could drive his body to do, Seren pulled himself up just enough to whisper, “I love you…” in the woman’s ear.
That was all his energy. The night was engulfed in a burst of flame, leaving his armor, sword and blood with Celen, as she wept.