Welcome to Gaia! ::

A faint tickle of power sent a small jolt down her spine, making her tail flick to rid itself of the unexpected sensation. Rising warily from the low bed she had been attempting to nap in, she made her way into the main chamber of the underground cavern she had made her home, far from the small damp cave cluttered with her dirty, obnoxious aunts and cousins, her sadistic sister, and the small horde of human men who had been unfortunate enough to be enchanted into slavery by the herd.
She wasn't fond of enchanting humans to keep for fun- the few times Inkari had done so since making a home here had been to make improvements. A carpenter to make a sturdy bed and other furniture, a stone mason to put down a solid stone floor, and a weaver to make her a mattress, some blankets, and a few nice clothes that she later had a passing fae enchant to never damage or dirty in exchange for the stone mason who had been rude to her before she had him ensnared. Every now and again when she didn't feel like hunting she would enchant a hunter for part of his kill, but that was the extent of her involvement with humans.
As she passed through the main cavern and into a narrow passage that lead to the dark foliage covered entrance, she felt the power flare and then compress itself. That was interesting. She paused for a moment as she moved into the sunlight that filtered through the bush that obscured the entrance to let her eyes adjust, and then cautiously moved a bit of the bush to the side and looked out. She could see the figure of a male approaching the waters edge on the other side of the lake, but couldn't make out much of him from this distance other than that he was tall and seemed to have light hair-which wasn't unusual in these parts. Maybe she would move closer to the water's edge herself, and see if there was anything interesting about this stranger whose power danced along the edges of her senses.

Inkari paused just inside the tree line, noticing a somewhat familiar presence bumbling around the edge of the lake before it swerved towards the water. She cursed under her breath and rubbed her temples, recognizing the presence as a hunter that she had previously enchanted, and had since become enamored with her so much that at least once a week she found some large animal carefully skinned, cleaned, and placed inside the entrance of her home. It was something that both amused her and filled her with dread, because free food was always fine in her book, but she just knew having a human who was overly fond of her was going to bite her in the a**. She had told him before he needed to stop coming into this part of the valley, that there were other creatures here who weren't nearly as nice as her, but it seemed he hadn't listened.
She thanked the gods that she had picked a dress with a knee length skirt this morning, because she would be able to move faster. A breeze wafted through from over the lake, making her brown hair flow gracefully among the willow branches twining behind her. She narrowed her eyes at the scent the wind carried. This stranger, while obviously not human, was some form of serpent. There was no way this would go well if the human got himself killed- the entire human settlement at the end of the valley would descend into the forest hunting down whatever could have killed him. She pushed forward into a dead sprint, dodging trees and vaulting over bushes, making her way around the lake. Just as the idiotic hunter was about to break through the trees behind the stranger, he looked back and dove into the water, which surprised her. That was interesting. She slowed, coming up behind the hunter silently. When he moved to take a step out into the open she quickly wrapped her tail around the ankle he was bearing weight on and snatched it out from under him, making him front flip into the open and roll onto his back.
Stepping gracefully out of the trees behind him she crossed her arms over her chest and put on her best scowl.
"I thought I told you not to come back into this end of the valley, human." She irritably flicked her tail from side to side, wondering if she was going to have to beat some sense into him to break whatever misguided notions kept bringing him back. "Are you hard of hearing or simply an idiot?"

The foolish hunter launched into a frantic spiel proclaiming his adoration and intent to not leave this time until she agreed to come back to the village with him. With every word she found herself becoming more irate at his audacity, the only thing betraying her calm exterior was her increasingly agitated tail, flicking back and forth almost faster than the human's eyes could keep up with.
She was distracted by a ring of ripples appearing suddenly in the lake and was about to make a strategic exit, human be damned, when out of the water erupted a large, blue serpent. It appeared to be some form of lindworm, but unlike any she had seen before. The creature threw massive amounts of water into the air as it emerged, and it crashed down onto the shore, soaking Inkari to the bone.
By the time Inkari had snapped out of her shock at the sudden drenching, the hunter had pulled his weapon and had engaged the serpent in combat. She looked up at the beast, trying to decide what exactly would be the best course of action to take, noticing exactly how strange the creature was when she realized that the beast was giving off the same power signature as the stranger who had jumped into the lake. As it clicked in her mind that the two were the same being, the great serpent turned its eyes and locked its gaze on her for just a moment, but it was a moment too long. The hunter swung his sword and created a great gash in the chest of the blue beast, who roared with rage and launched himself at the human and ripped him to shreds.
Inkari stared at the carnage dumbly for a moment before she registered exactly what the human's death meant for her and every other non human creature in the valley, and was once again filled with an almost blinding rage that was overshadowed with the bitter taste of fear, because while the herd as a whole might survive a lynch mob of angry humans, as a lone huldra she didn't stand a chance. Before she could stop herself she dashed forward into the line of the beast's sight and stopped just outside of his range, wet hair clinging to her face and water dripping from the hem of her dress.
"Do you have any idea what you've just done?! You might as well have set fire to the valley for all the wrath the humans in the village will bring down looking for whoever did this! And if you think for one second that they don't know that he was looking for me then you're sorely mistaken. You've just signed my death warrant."

The dragon collapsed back into his human form slowly, and Inkari observed the man before her through narrowed eyes. That slice at least was not life threatening, but needed to be treated. The local humans had a thing for sometimes coating their swords in poison. The idiot hunter had told her the antidote in case she had been attacked by another person from the village. Maybe it hadn't been poisoned. The dragon snapped her out of her thoughts when he started talking. What he said almost made her laugh. Almost.
"Protecting me? That idiot was in love with me, which was my doing in the first place. If he had made a move to hurt me I could have reduced him to a drooling heap in seconds. I appreciate the attempt at protecting the little bitty lady from the big scary human, as misguided as it was."
She reached up and begun to squeeze water out of her hair and tried to flick some of the water from her tail as she watched him attempt to wash out his wound. Her lips quirked up at the corners as she listened to him talk. At least he had a pleasant voice, but she got the impression that he wasn't from around here. She decided that her hair was as dry as she could get it she moved on her skirt.
"It's kind of obvious that you aren't from around here, so no. The humans don't avoid the forests. They know how to kill almost everything they run across. We only have the upper hand if it's one on one or a group of us against one of them. We might be harder to kill than them, but they know our weak spots from centuries of second hand knowledge. Luckily I know a thing or two about them, as well."
She glanced down at his chest and noticed the cut was turning an angry red and the skin was breaking out into a rash. Her small grin fell off of her face as she glanced up his face and saw his eyes slowly dilating.
"s**t. The sword was laced with poison...We have to get you taken care of immediately. If we don't then in a little over an hour, you'll stop breathing."