"Turn.....here...."

"There isn't anything to turn into, can't you see?" Gertrude grunted, having trouble lifting her legs. It had been more than a couple of hours, it had to have been. Gertrude had never felt so tired. Her legs were open to the elements, as she didn't have the time before to change. Her nightdress was torn from their tumble down the hill, and her silk robe was the only thing keeping the swamp creature clothed.

It was just an endless stretch of trees, really. Gertrude wished those faeries would return to dance among the flowers as they used to when she was alone, but Boots tended to chase them all away. Annoying, really, more than frightening. Gertrude refused to acknowledge past events, for Gertrude never cried unless she wanted to. And, of course, she had only cried to get Boots off of her. Her superior thinking ability had predicted it.

What the creature was referring to as a 'turn', really was just a wall of stone and plant. Gertrude wondered if it was addled enough for her to slip away. Let it muse over it's imaginary path.

"Go...under the moss."

Gertrude bent a small amount, peering underneath the hanging fibers and seeing that the creature was correct. They definitely could turn. Into one of the darkest caves Gertrude had ever seen.

"I am not carrying you anymore, creature. Not into this ghastly place."

She huffed, letting Boots slide onto the ground, where it sat like a petulant child, fiddling with the soiled ribbons on Gertrude's robe.

"Oh." It said.

Gertrude looked out into the woods. It was chillingly silent, no creature to be seen. After seeing Boots' temper tantrum back a ways, Gertrude could understand why.

She looked down at Boots, whose chin had sunk low to it's chest. It was sleeping.

Gertrude turned and left without a second thought.

However, her steps only took her about a foot into the wood before muted sounds of someone walking reached her ears. Not sure where it had come from, Gertrude stopped, putting a palm against the closest tree and turning her head from side to side.

They were strange footsteps. Slow, dragging. Like Boots had somehow cloned itself and created an army. Gertrude quickly chased away the thought, for Gertrude thought she might go mad just thinking about it.

Boots, in question, was now laying on the moss, looking to be dead. If it hadn't been for the faint rise and fall of it's chest, Gertrude would have celebrated.

The footsteps were coming from inside the cave, and Gertrude ducked behind the tree, thinking it best to stay very, very quiet in the shelter of the bushes until the creatures left.

"My lady-!" An extremely deep voice bellowed, quickly shushed by his companion. Gertrude dared not to peek, but the urge was terribly hard to resist. It seemed as if Boots was more important than she had previously thought. Gertrude began to regret her treatment of the swamp rat, if that were the case. What wasted opportunity.

"What is this strange cloth?" The quieter one whispered, another male. Gertrude presumed he was smaller in stature as well. His footsteps were light, very unlike the larger one pacing the perimeter of the area, sniffing at something. Gertrude brought an arm to her nose, also giving a sniff. Just the faintest scent of rose.

Gertrude cursed her perfection.

"Tengi, can you carry her in? I'll check it out."

Gertrude breathed a quiet sigh of relief as the bigger one left, presumably carrying Boots' limp form. She had a chance now, perhaps. Gertrude wasn't strong, but smaller men meant a shorter reach to the eyeballs, which she would rip from their sockets if need be.

The remaining newcomer was too quiet, and Gertrude closed her eyes, knowing he would probably jump down on her from above, or pop up from the bushes ahead, or-

"Speak to me."

Ah, the side. Wouldn't have been Gertrude's first choice, but to each his own. Something long and thin was placed right up against the flawless skin on her neck, threatening to slit it. Gertrude thought it best to start talking, as commanded.

"That creat......Boots....brought me here. It--She wouldn't let me leave. I was just following her orders-"

She winced as her words were cut off with slight pressure to the blade, and the man...thing...whatever it was grabbed her arm, wrenching her to her feet.

"Ouch! I say, do you know who I am?" Gertrude protested at the rough treatment, thinking that she may have said the same phrase at least three times more in the past couple of days. The sun was just beginning to come out at the time, and Gertrude was finally hit with the exhaustion that had crept up on her over the past night with no sleep. She barely had the strength to stand, let alone claw the man's eyes out.

"High class, perhaps. Not in this forest." He said, and Gertrude finally turned her gaze to look at him. He was very tall, built like one of father's stewards that ran place to place. It was strange, for he looked to be very human, but his eyes betrayed him as part of the Fae. Without pupils and without the whites. Just a swirling mass of gold.

"Boots will vouch for me, sir. I did not have any villainous intentions, I promise you-"

"I don't know this 'Boots' you speak of. If, in fact, you are referring to my lady, Heldera, I highly doubt that." He interrupted, sounding very offended. His grip tightened around her arm, and Gertrude shut her mouth, eyes wandering the forest floor for anything that may trip him up as he led her away from the cave entrance, heading to the right of it.

"Where are you taking me?" She finally asked, giving up. She was too weak to get him to trip over it anyway. The man didn't answer, but seeing how the forest grew darker and darker the more they went on, the more Gertrude's heart beat. For the first time, she wished Boots was at her side.

Immediately, Gertrude had the overwhelming urge to drink toxin. Death was preferable than having to live with what she had done. What she had just thought.

"I pity you humans' short lives, but at least I saved you from wilting, yes?"

Gertrude was snapped from her thoughts of suicide at her captor's comment, and before she could reply, she was pushed forward. Gertrude gave a small yelp as her feet hit the edge of the cliff, and she teetered there for a bit before both of the man's palms rammed into her back, and she was toppling into the air.

Before she could think of screaming, Gertrude was hitting the ground a couple of seconds later, rolling once before coming to a jarring halt. Dirt clouds made her throat sting, and she coughed, looking up with eyes watering to see the man turn and leave above. Was he joking, perhaps? Teasing a poor girl such as herself?

A sudden grunting noise made Gertrude jump and swing her head back around to the source, and she clutched at the roots of the wall behind her, scrabbling for a hold to pull herself up as she spotted the creature opposite her.

Crouched over a dead boar, looking to be quite a few weeks old, was a pale grey, skeletal figure. It moved with quick and decisive movements, dipping it's head to sink it's fangs into the coarse hide again and again before it realized Gertrude was there. Then, it turned to lock eyes on her, blood dripping from cracked lips and a few pieces of flesh attached to it's claws. No longer human, or whatever creature it had been before, but a living corpse.

Vampire.