Redcap

Redcap is a small, squat Fae of ruined towers and lonely fordings, compact like a creature carved to fit stone crevices. In the field it announces itself with a metallic, old-iron tang in the air — not sweet, but the dry, mineral smell of rust and cold rain on iron. Sound is the clearest clue: quick, hollow footfalls on flagstone, the sharp tick of knitting-needles or a rasping chuckle that bounces off walls, and sometimes a low, practiced cough as if clearing moss from a throat. Temperature drops sharply near its favoured haunt; the air goes thin and bone-cold, as though the stone itself has been pulled into shade. A naturalist's record: sightings cluster at dusk around broken battlements and overgrown stairwells, where the creature keeps to shadow and narrow ledge.