The creature crept from the woods. Turning its head almost one hundred eighty degrees to see around it as it clambered on dark spindly legs. Scampering eerily on one hand and its feet. Carrying the tiny bundle in its arms. It looked furtively around with vivid blue eyes. The irises nearly as big as the whites on a human. Leaving very little white trim around it. The pupils equally as unsettling and slightly slitted on the top and bottom. Just enough to lend it night vision.

It peered around a tree to look at the house it had been studying for so long.

A distance behind, it heard the crack of twigs and knew that the others were coming. Having every intention of killing the offspring she carried, if she didn’t replace it soon.

That was the rule of their kind. When one emerged as darkly inclined as this one already was. The mothers were required to banish it to the mortal world rather than be permitted to keep it.

But to keep it from being identified as something other than mortal, she would have to still the infant already lying upstairs in his immaculate bedding.

She caught another twig breaking and it vibrated in her oversized ears. Making the pointed tip shudder slightly as it reverberated through the fine bones forming it.

She hissed in threat. Cradling her tiny bundle to her chest. A tiny dark hand reached out to cling to her withered white flesh. The fingers too thin and marked with white fingernails. She turned and ran on the three limbs across the finely manicured lawn to the Baron’s House.

She pushed open the shutter to the Parlor, which was regularly left open to allow the fresh air to waft in. She climbed in on spindly white limbs and crept through the massive House scanning the hallways with shining eyes to make sure no one caught sight of her.

The bundle in her arm began to writhe and squalled slighly.

“Ssh...Shush Little One.” She said. Standing up in the doorway to see outside. At nearly six foot tall when she stood upright, she could see from the Parlor doorway that others were loping on all fours across the black meadows.

To the human eye they’d have appeared more like a shrub in motion then a living creature. It was their gift to be distorted in the human eye. Being creatures of a slightly different realm.

She scampered up the stairs and lurked in the corners. Sliding along the walls until reaching the Nursery. She crept in and evaded the cameras in the corner of the room. Knowing she’d have to be quick switching the infants.

She crawled flat over the floor, looking like a rug dragging. Walking on her elbows with her head tucked nearly beneath her. She leapt straight up and dropped her baby in the crib and snatched the other one in the blankets they were in. Having no time to switch.

Staring down into the face of the one now tucked under her, she reached up along the side of the crib with long white fingers and touched the white bars to camoflauge. She sent a surge of magic through the wood that made the room vibrate and energy seep into every wall.

Changing her infant’s appearance to match that of the baby she held. Making his dark withered skin look smooth and white and making his long, wiry limbs seem finer and more plump.

Making him look like a human child.

***

The mother whispered soft things to her baby. Assuring him he’d be well cared for in this lovely home of the humans.

She slid back to the doorway of the Nursery and straightened to meld into the shadows along the wall. Quickly biting into her finger to make it bleed before snatching the bobbing hand of the baby she held.

A child who was now awake and peering at her with lovely brown eyes. Brushing her cheeks with his chubby, clumsy fingers.

She caught one and lightly stroked the soft palm with a thumb before guiding it toward her mouth. She adjusted the little hand so his finger stuck out. Then glided it along one of her pin prick sharp teeth.

The baby whimpered and flailed as his little finger was cut open. Before he could work himself into a full squall, she’d touched their wounded fingers together. And the baby was calmed by her fey blood moving into his body.

The meshing of their blood, became the blood bond and this little boy would now be her child. Bonded to her and willing to obey her as his mother for as long as he lived.

While she left hers to the arms of the humans.

***

She rushed back down to the Parlor. Even more careful with this new child because it was so much more fragile than the heartier fey child she’d borne to her now-absent lover.

A male which had fled upon first sight of their withered child.

When she’d seen it, she’d taken it to their wizened elder who’d told her that the infant would be fine if it could attain maturity. It would outgrow the mutations it now presented. But the elder had warned her that the other fey would not have it and would soon come after her.

They both knew the laws.

If she wanted her offspring to have a chance to survive, it would have to be delivered to a human host and a child from the humans brought back to the fey room to ensure the continuance of their species with less chance of mutations.

To expand the bloodlines upon his or her adulthood.

The mother climbed back out of the Parlor window.

The shadows, which had looked like bushes and flat spots of snow now rose to creep toward her.

One male reached out a fingertip and pushed the blanket from the baby’s face to see that it was a healthy youngling.

They led the way back to their village.

The mother’s tears salting the ground on the way back as she mourned the son she’d lost.