Once upon a time, there was a river that sprang deep and strong, from the upper glens of the Celtlands. He galloped wildly, his hooves digging up earth and rock, toppling tree and tower, defying man’s attempt to yoke him and bow his head to thrillage. He cut a swath, wild and freeborn, braving mountain and dark forest, misty moor and open farmlands, all to reach his lover, the sea. As their waters finally mingled, after so many long centuries apart their coupling brought forth new forms of life. And among one of these was the kelpie.

Perhaps other waters gave birth to other kelpies, but as for this river, it was his, and his alone. For many years the kelpie patrolled his waters, chasing the salmon from the sea up into the heart, hunting the ravenous sleipnir, making war with the direwolves, battling the elvians in their wooded haunts with rapids, carrying silt down the currents to enrich the soils. And always, always, the river flowed on, and the brackish waters teemed with life.

Time waxes on, and new creatures came to his clear waters. They did not heed the local legends, the warnings etched on the stones. They buried their spades in the sandy river bed, planted poles, erected massive wheels to churn the water.

And then they slaughtered the trees. And those trees were dropped into the river to float down the stream. Hundreds, and then thousands of bark-bodies clogged the kelpie’s river, drove him, as he drove the salmon. This he could not abide. So he waged war upon the humans and their workings. He tore down the mills with his teeth, he ripped through their ropes with his claws, he smashed their bridges with his tail, he swallowed down their livestock. The cry went out: slay the Monster! Mount his head on the wall! Man and canine set out to hunt down the beast.

Many met their end, though none by the kelpie’s jaws, for the river was swift and deep and unforgiving. Still people kept disappearing, swallowed by the moors, and the forests, and the waters, and still the kelpie was at large, wrecking havoc on all of man’s wonderful creations. Well, not all of his creations. One in particular caught his interest, and that was the creatures they had brought to life. The kelpie, though a loner by nature was not ignorant of creatures of totally different species bonding to one another. He had seen it with the elkrin and the elvian, the dire and the wolfkin, even the rune dragons and the otterlings who would play in the shallow pools at the river’s edge. But this was altogether different. This wasn’t two separate creatures coming together, but one creature split into two. The longlegged part could see far across the horizon, but his nose and ears walked beside him on four legs. When they traveled together they came closer to him then one or the other could on their own. Together they were as at home in the deep woods and deadly moors as he, but apart they floundered and drowned.

Once broken in two, nothing can be put back together. But could two which were broken, somehow be stronger than one whole? Nothing in nature seemed to support this, but as he watched the humans, watched them bind broken tree and stone and gut into new creations, his curiosity grew and gnawed at him. He had to know.

Using the river’s transformative secrets he took on the form of the jaders he had seen and went to the edge of the human lands to wait. Sure enough a jader soon came out to him, and he sang to them, and asked them to tell him of the secrets of two being one. The jader was startled by this stranger. They didn’t smell like any canine they’d met, but still there was something about the scent that was clearly jader. They told this stranger about their human, and the bond between them that was not magic, but as real as the bond between a body and it’s tail. Before they could elaborate, the sound of their master’s voice called them away, but not before the kelpie jader had elicited a promise from them to return.

Over the next few months, the two would meet late at night; sometimes they would frolic in the human fields, rolling in the grass and barking at the moon, and sometimes they would run the river’s edge, hunting the crowned princes of the forest, and driving the salmon upstream. For a time all was perfect, and if sheep went missing from the shepherd’s flock, or a new mill blocked the river’s passage neither seemed to notice. As time went on the kelpie jader even got a name, which he learned was part of the ancient spell that formed the strange two in one; for how can one truly use one’s tail if one cannot know it? He was Esk - the Water. He couldn’t remember when he lost the ability to shapeshift. Perhaps it was his name, which gave him a permanence, or perhaps he had already become broken, half of a whole and missing his old part, but in any case he was fully a jader. And though he was more bound to the land as a result, he could not regret the change, for it brought him closer his new friend, and he felt as though his other half were fully formed in them. At last he understood the great power, and the joy, and the love of the being who walks in two bodies.

But such things always come with a price, and for Eskie that price came too high.

~

Inevitably the river’s wildness would prove too alluring for man’s need to tame all things. Hands itched to yoke the great current and plans were drawn up to split the river in twain, and from the broken halves would the humans harness new power. And so construction began on the dam. Eskie would allow no such structure to stand in his presence. He had grown tame, and his tameness had made him negligent, but no more. He could not allow this dam to sever one drop of the river from it’s tie to the sea. His attacks became relentless. He’d tear apart the work camps every night; breaking loose the sliepnir, destroying bags of grain, tossing tools into the river. Consequently the price on his head went up, and hunters from all the land tried and failed to catch him. Eskie delighted in his game of cat and mouse, but each close call became closer and closer, as he devoted more and more energy to thwarting his enemy and less time caring for his river. The salmon ran less, the pools clogged with silt, the browsers pruned the forests back, and more and more often the kelpie went hungry rather than pause the fight for one moment.

The jader, his beloved friend saw the kelpie weakening, while the human forces only grew stronger. They warned Eskie against this crusade, begged him to give up the river and run away, but the jader paid no heed. Only tragedy lay in this path, they argued, but this was the only path Eskie could take. Couldn’t they see that damming the river would break him as well? How could his other part wish to see him torn asunder? Perhaps there was no deep power or love in living in two bodies, only dependence and pain. He would tear off the rotten part of him, as the trapped ursa gnaws off it’s own foot. Better to live as only half a creature than to be trapped by love.

A storm was rising. Eskie could feel it crackling along his fur, promising wanton destruction. His beloved could argue all they wanted - he would not be persuaded from his path. As the winds whipped the rain into a fury, the waters rose up against the dam workers. The river was all fury, and Eskie was its sword. The waters overflowed the banks, fattened by rain. A flood unlike any other seen swept through the camp. Men, women, and beast all were carried away by the unstoppable waters, from the tiniest rune to the largest slepinir, helped by the teeth of the kelpie jader.

By morning all evidence of the tragedy had been swept away. There was nothing left of the dam. Nothing left to show man nor his creatures had ever dwelt here. In the empty mudflats only one figure could be seen. Eskie’s old friend, the jader, ran frantically along the shore seeking their other half. Their beloved master. The two legged part of them, the watcher, the hunter, the praiser. But they too had been swept away in the deluge. They were gone and the jader sat alone in the mud and howled out their sorrow. If Eskie heard the cries, he paid them no mind.

The lost jader knew of a witch who lived far, far away. Many months did they travel, utterly alone, before reaching the witch, and from the witch did they acquire a magic bridle - the only thing that could tame a kelpie, or so it was said. And so the trek again, only back now, the way they’d come, over mountain and down dale, through the moors cloaked in secrets, and the forests, now diminished. They went all the way back, to find Eskie sleeping on a rock in the middle of his river.

Over his snout went the bridle, and placid as a lamb, the kelpie was led out of the river. The locals rejoiced. The kelpie was snared at long last! The terror was over! The waters were calm! Many called for the beast’s destruction, but saner heads intervened. Perhaps it was even the kelpie’s lost love who voiced a plea of mercy; one can never be sure. In any case, the kelpie was not killed, but put to work. Eskie was put into harness, and made to tow the logs and supplies up stream that would become the dam he’d strove so hard to destroy. It was a common sight to see the kelpie jader along the river’s edge, head bent under the strain, bridle over his head, towing a ferry laden with lumber.

Slowly, as the years passed by, the dam rose up, built on the kelpie jader’s back. The river calmed - this was no longer the domain of wild things, but the domain of man. Like a tamed horse, the waters gentled under the firm hand, and more and more settlements were built up upon it’s banks. Bridges spanned it’s girth, and fisherman lounged on it’s shores with no fear of anything bigger than a trout snapping at their lines. And where the waters met the sea, the humans paid homage to the abundance birthed from river and sea and built a magnificent port city - a shining jewel in the crown of human achievement, as rife with life and variety as any marsh.

And still the kelpie slaved on, only dimly aware of these things, toiling up and down the river, year after year.

~

As the river rushes ever on wards, so does the flow of time. Years passed, while Eskie towed small boats and ferries up the river, but even so the bridle never frayed nor broke. Its magic thralled him, lulled him with its whispers. Kind bridle, fine bridle, it sang in his ears. Beautiful bridle, work to be worthy of the beauty that encircles your head. And he did, though the harness dug furrows in his back, and the brand on his shoulder burned bright, and the beautiful bridle cut deep into his muzzle. Still he hauled on, the rhythm of pawsteps and creaking ropes drowning out the river, even as it cried out for him. The humans and their jaders who minded him grew ever complacent of this kelpie jader, and soon no one could even remember where he’d come from. Not even Eskie himself could tell them, for he could remember nothing before the bridle. And he was - mostly - content. But there were some warm spring nights, when the twittering call of the toads drifted upwards, his dreams would be full of waters rushing past, bearing away dark shapes.

The dam was built, and along it, the waterways were widened, and deepened, and canals and channels dug. Towns and cities sprang up along the river’s banks, and boats clogged her passages. Towing no longer paid what it used to, and with the Company losing money, a jader named Alvaro sought to have Eskie turned to other work. Alvaro was an ambitious young jader from a good family, who had ingratiated himself to the Company’s treasurer. The wire-coated jader was a common sight around the offices, but unbeknownst to them, he was secretly stealing baubles from the humans and funneling them towards more shady practices. It was he who convinced his favorite humans that Eskie could be put to better use than wallowing in the kennels, and the kelpie jader found himself entered into the prize fighting rings to win money and acclaim for the Company. Jaders competed in these barely legal fights, muzzled against bites they fought with paws and tails, boxing for supremacy. With a size and strength built up from years of hauling ferries, Eskie swept the competition. Jaders from up and down the river came to challenge him. One fateful night, a jader’s master loosened the muzzle of his competitor, hoping to turn the fight in his favor. In the heat of battle, the muzzle came loose, and a set of jaws snapped shut on Eskie’s face. That might have been the end for Eskie, but the others teeth hooked on the leather bridle. After many long years of service, this proved to be the breaking point. The bridle was torn free, and the magic spell broken.

Eskie staggered, bleeding and broken, as his identity came crashing back to him. But though his self was back, the memories were jumbled and lost. The river was there, in his mind, as was his time in the bridle, but the magic had mangled his past into something he could not look at for fear it would drive him mad. All he knew now was that a jader was rushing at him, fangs open to kill. Eskie twisted around them, as swift as a river. He slammed into the wall, and when it did not yield, he jumped and found himself in the crush of the crowd. Outside something was calling, and he ran towards it, towards home, towards the river. The river embraced him with open arms after so many years apart, whispering truths, but Eskie’s ears were deaf to the river’s voice now. He could no longer hear the song of wildness, it was muffled, no more than the gurgle of water over rocks. But neither could he return to man. The humans who would capture him and harness him again. Forever trapped in the in between, between wilderness and society. He took up the remnants of his bridle and with them tied a sword to his hip and became an outlaw.

The best way to make one’s way in the world, Eskie concluded, was to gamble. Not just at cards, but at anything and everything. And so his career as a river gambler began. Up and down the river he roved, winning passage on the boats that plied their trade, taking the hard-earned money of any who dared cross cards with him. One day, he’d earn enough to buy his own boat, he told himself. But it seemed whenever he got close to his goal, he’d push his luck a little too far and lose it all. The kelpie jader was constantly reinventing himself, building back up from nothing again and again. But as luck would have it, he does, at last win enough for a boat of his own, in one of the most daring games of his life. Not long after he meets a jader named Alvaro, who smells familiar, though Eskie can’t place why. The scruffy brown jader is down on his luck it seems, having lost his work when it was discovered he was stealing money. The Company’s jaders are now after him, as well as Eskie. The two wanted jaders sit down to play a game of cards, commiserating with each other on life’s many miseries. After a few drinks, Alvaro manages to empty Eskie’s purse and his dreams of owning a riverboat. The brown jader salutes the kelpie jader and goes to walk away, but as he does his sleeve slips and cards spray across the table. Eskie jumps up, fuming at having been cheated. Alvaro flees, and Eskie pursues. The small brown jader leaps from boat to boat with surprising agility, but the river is Eskie’s domain.

The kelpie jader eventually tracks him down, and Alvaro is met with a big, furry hulk, covered in water and weeds, and full of lots of sharp teeth. Fearing for his life, Alvaro offers to pay Eskie back - every cent, plus interest - but he needs Eskie to do him a favor. See, the money’s already been invested in a little venture - one Alvaro hopes will pay off big time. Enough to pay off the Company’s dogs. A smuggling job, he says, but he needs a second jader to pull it off since his partner chickened out on him. Eskie agrees to help him, on one condition. He wants a boat. And Alvaro’s gonna help him steal it.

Thus begins an unlikely partnership, and a new chapter in Eskie’s story.

~