Glare barely finished his food when the slender voice of Morwenna sliced its way through the silence like a dull blade. Standing behind the cottage in a black hooded cloak, she looked at me with a command in her eyes. I could barely understand enough when she said:
"We're short on pine fruit, go fetch some from the northern woods."
The Norther woods.
At night.
Too dangerous.
She knows that!
"Now?"
"You are eighteen, strong, act brave and thus YOU WILL, unless you wanna sleep out tonight!" she smirked, narrowing her eyes. She has already trapped my soul under her conditions.
Sighing, I glanced down at the moss which looked black under the moonlight, I must walk now, deep into the woods and perhaps manage to not be eaten alive by a grizzly. I accepted my fate.
Glare stomped once, ears pinned, catching the shift in her tone. Disgust flickered across Morwenna's face as she noticed her.
"A stray? How fitting." Her lip curled. "You will handle it. Then go."
The door slammed on any argument that could have come out. Second thoughts came crawling beneath my lungs, but obedience — pathetic, stupid obedience — won. Glare looked at me and lowered her head. I ordered: "You need not follow!" she disobeyed.
The night opened the path on its own when it saw unexpected visitors. I could smell the playful instinct, the forest whispered, Let's play! But we moved. Glare, she thumped, and for a moment stood in resilience when the deeper woods opened up themselves.
"I wanted you to stay back," I rolled my eyes at her;but perhaps she wanted to get out of there. After all, she is not as experienced as I am at handling bullies.
As we moved, I felt vulnerable. The moonlight dripped between the branches like cold silver as I felt my fingers quivering towards the dagger on my waist.
Silence clung onto the ground.
No crickets.
No wind.
No peace.
"It feels different tonight." As if the forest murmured, "Return when you can!"
Pine cones, I see them, almost out of the woods in an hour now. I saw the relief and sat on the ground hovering on my knees when the quiet was torn by a scratch.
Not a twig.
A boot!
My eyes moved fast, instincts rushed in, but the forest couldn't save me. In a moment, I found black all around me, the smell of
"gun powder? "
Throwing my hands helped none of the grief to escape that bag inside which I struggled to breathe. Glare protested, weighed in anger and perhaps, attacked too, but I was too weak without air to figure out the world beyond the black. Soon I passed out!
Absolute darkness, not a single drop of will to fight against that darkness. But I was too wild to accept my fate and slipped out of the grip of the bag. They did not tie it.
I shrugged several times, but a hand gripped my arm and then another.
"No!",
"Let go!"
"Shut up! Your stepmother said You'd fight..." they snapped at my attempt to release.
Thunderclap of those words! Morwenna. She sold me off? The ground spun. Rage turned into fear.
"Morwenna, she sold me?"
"She did! Your bloodline is the problem," one of them replied.
Bloodline.
Dad.
The Queen and target!
My eyes felt weary, I could eventually see a swarm of fireflies in my surroundings or maybe an illusion. Every moment passed, every grip tightened, every knot gripped harder, and they hauled my body like a wild animal refusing to become a prey. I could again breathe the air which was familiar. A scream tried to claw its way out of my throat, but it could never make its way through the grip under my jaw. I was desperate. "I need to breathe," not a gasp of air, but small blows of air which would quench the thirst of my lungs. The discomfort when you feel multiple hands grabbing onto your body parts feels like a death sentence. I gagged and he returned to me. My dad! I cannot faint now! He fainted but I must keep open. Tired and fainted are two different ways of categorizing fear. A liter of sweat flowed into my palm. My nerves had been doing this to me for the last two years, I could feel my sweat drop by as they carried me forward.
In a while:
"Ahh!" one of the men shouted in angst. "Get this damn animal off of me!" he sharply pleaded.
Wait! Could it be the forest? I am going to be rescued! No! For no good.
Soon I felt the same huff in my palm, which I noticed some hours prior to this disaster.
"GLARE!"
The urge to shout out her name made me desperate enough to forget my instincts, and she got stabbed in her mane with an arrow. She collapsed with her face in my sweaty palm and I struggled to unwrap myself, but I was again in the air, taken to somewhere I had no clue about!
"Please take her with us! I will obey you!" That was all I could ask for her. A tear carved a path through the dirt on my face — not mourning, but a promise of what those people would pay for drawing Glare's blood. A sharp pain affected my ability to think and again, the same cloak of unconscious hid me under the veil of vulnerability.
"Glare!" she was the last thing I had a memory of...