Halloween I.F. – “Something Rich and Strange” – Day 12

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For a moment, Star stood frozen, still holding the hose. He wanted to run after the figure, of course, and briefly entertained an image of him and Georgio running the person down, fighting him with Georgio at his back, speed and strength working together. The idea of letting that person go when he could solve their problems now was horrible. But—

But screaming was worse, screaming meant something bad was happening, and he couldn’t turn his back on it, not again. And water, that he could do something with. “Georgio! Come with me,” he shouted, turning to run back toward the track. No time for regrets; maybe he could have sent Georgio after the mysterious figure, but it was better not to be alone right now.

After all, water, screams? Who knew what was waiting for them.

When he opened the doors at the end, water sluiced in, running up to his knees right away; it would have bowled him over if he weren’t a water spirit. The more mundane mounts in the paddocks began to scream and thump around in their stalls as their feet suddenly dampened.

“What the fuck,” Star said, and Georgio shoved the doors more wildly open with his shoulder, also standing against the water.

It was chaos outside. It appeared that five of the water trucks used to dampen the track had all burst at once, but too much water was coming out of them, like they were drawing on an endless reservoir. There was a faint sulphurous tang of magic in the air, mixed with something else, something familiar he couldn’t quite put his finger on.

The track was slightly downhill of the paddock, a dip built so the stadium seats would get a full view, and the overturned and broken water trucks were continuing to pour out an entire waterfall of water into it. The track was fully flooded already, with the water roaring around it, nearly a whirlpool as the current from the spouting water spun it along the track. The infield—the middle section that the track wrapped around—was already fully flooded, its decorative pond hidden under the rest of the water, with only one decorative tree still showing branches above the water. One woman in a janitorial outfit was barely clinging to a pole next to the track, legs and shoulders in the water, and it was clear she was going to lose her grip in a moment. Many people were along the sides, shouting, dialing for emergency services, sobbing. 

Staring in horror at the track, Star saw a pair of head and shoulders bob up from the water, then get sucked under again. There had been people swept into it. Of course there had been.

He shook himself into action. “Georgio, get that woman! I’m going to—I have to—” Georgio was already going, though, galloping over and throwing down his head to transfer her grip to the horns on either side of his human face. With his muscled neck, he would have no problem dragging her back up to safety

Good. Anyone at risk on the outside, Georgio could help with, but he’d be useless with what Star was going to do.

Star dove into the whirling water, switching forms as he did so. 

It had been a while, he had to admit. He slept in the pond, and swam in rivers, but usually stuck to his humanoid form to do so these days. But he was simply faster as a bäckahästen once he was in the water.

His legs pumped, and then he was galloping underwater faster than he’d ever be able to on land. Water filled his lungs and he coughed even as he ran; it was thick with the dirt and debris from hitting the track at such high force and breathing it was like breathing in a dust cloud would be in air. He caught sight of one form that shouldn’t be there, swam as close as he could, and stuck that figure to his side before continuing along the straightaway.

Brook horses—kelpies, nixies, whatever you wanted to call them—would traditionally hang around in the wilderness until someone tried to mount them. Then they’d stick that person to their back, make them unable to separate, and run them into the river to drown them.

Star was doing the opposite here, grabbing people who were drowning, attaching them, and running with them to get them to air. He tried desperately to do math in his head; he could do the full track in a minute and a half on the dry land. Faster in the water, but he was weaving to collect people. How long could a human hold their breath? How long had any of them been in here? No way to know how many additional breaths they’d managed to grab and how many had had them knocked out of them.

Stop thinking, he told himself. The straightaway was ending, so instead of taking the clubhouse turn, he ran up the slope the few paces it took to break into air, and released the humans stuck to him, letting momentum take them up onto the still-dry land. The helpers gathering around the water could take care of them.

He dove back in, rounding the curve without as much momentum as he’d like, sweeping up more humans, continuing along the backstretch, doing this over and over, releasing the humans he gathered as soon as seemed reasonable. Some of them might still not make it, he cautioned himself, trying to avoid disappointment.

Star hit the home stretch, flung the last stragglers out, and veered to cross the infield in case anyone had been washed out there. They didn’t seem to be, not at first; the whirling movement of the water had dragged most of them along the track, but he caught sight of one figure and swam toward it.

The figure turned and looked back at him, and he saw blue hair, tangled with seaweed, yellow eyes, a naked, lithe form—with a human in their arms. 

The human was more important than dealing with the other nixie. Star shot forward, transforming, grabbing the human and hauling at them. For a moment, his arms tangled with the other nixie’s, and then that nixie hissed, bit his arm hard, and then swam away. Blood clouded the water where he was swimming, and he lost sight of the nixie almost right away.

That was fine. Star swam upward and to the side, dragging the young man with him. He wasn’t moving, and Star pressed his lips to the man’s, sucking water from his lungs, spat it out, did it again until he was out of water, then pushed air into him.

Despite himself, he was fucking hungry. If he was drowning this man, rather than saving him, he’d be eating him about now. No help for it, he told himself in exhaustion as he attempted CPR. It was just biological.

The man coughed, and other people were rushing over now to help him. Star sat back and actually got a look at him, recognizing Garrett, one of the schedulers here. He let the professionals take over, just sort of stumbling back and taking a seat. 

When he looked around, he saw that the water trucks had finally finished pouring out water—whatever spell on them or other mechanism that had caused the increase in volume had ended. 

Georgio trotted up to him. “Yooo,” he said, shaken. “What the fuck, huuuuh?”

Star could only agree, though he was suddenly desperately grateful that Georgio had been there to help with things on the outside. He was shaking, bleeding heavily from the ragged bite mark in his arm, cold not from the water but from something else, something deeper. He felt like he should be taking some kind of action, but what? The other nixie had almost certainly gotten away in the chaos—if they’d wanted to. Same with the person in black. He could try to look for them, of course, or see what else he could do here, but his head was empty, tired. He didn’t even know what to think about, let alone what he could do. Why had this happened?

[Leave a suggestion in the comments!
(Sorry for funnelling you into a bit of a binary choice previously,
this one’s a lot more open to whatever you want to have Star do or think about.)]

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