The Cruel Prince's Captive

She ran through the forest, clothes torn, hair bedraggled with leaves and twigs entwined. She knew she was running further from home, further into the forest her father had warned her of all those times. She was only allowed to pick flowers and berries from the forest edge, but her pursuers gave her no choice but to run this way. “b***h! Get back here!” one called out, “she kicked me in the balls!” he cried. Her eyes were blinded by tears of fear, but she continued to run onwards hearing their oaf feet pounding behind her. They would surely catch her, and she knew now that they would kill her after they were done and her heart hammered inside of her chest, her breath became harder to catch the faster she ran. “Help me please!” she cried desperately hoping there was someone in this forest willing to come to her rescue. She tripped over a fallen branch crashing to the ground. The oaf’s feet drew near. “Help me!” she cried and one of the men was on her. He slapped her across the face, and she tried to fight him, throwing her fists upwards but he managed to stop her and hold her arms. She cried in frustration now as she could not fight him off this time. Suddenly the sound of an arrow shot through the air and the man on top of her cried out. The arrow was in his neck and he collapsed to the ground beside her. The other men appeared and another arrow, the second man fell. The man wielding the bow stepped out from the forest. Her first thoughts were of relief and then of how incredibly handsome the man was. It then dawned on her as she noticed his ears, he was no man, he was an elf. “Thank you,” she found herself saying as she looked up at him from where she still sat on the ground. He had his arrow trained on the last man but took his eyes off him for one moment to meet hers. How his eyes shined like jewels of the richest king’s crown or the fiercest dragons treasure cove. Yes, they were fierce like a dragon. The third and only remaining attacker alive dropped to his knees whimpering. “Please don’t kill me, elven lord,” he begged. The elven mans eyes moved from her back to his target. “I am no elven lord, I am a hunter,” he said and released the arrow and the last man dropped dead. The elf silently retrieved his elven arrows from the men, wiped them clean. The last was in the man beside her. He then held out his hand to assist her to her feet. “Thank you so much,” she said mesmerized by his eyes of deep green. His hair hung long at his shoulders with a plait either side to keep it out of his face. She realised how perfect his features were and his jaw was smooth but strong and masculine. “I have broken our laws by rescuing you, are you safe to return home now? Was that all of them?” he asked looking back at the corpses sprawled on the forest floor. “Yes,” she replied, “please, I must know your name,” “No, you must not,” he replied. “Iefyr, what’s this?” they heard and from the forest appeared three more elves all similarly dressed as he and wielding bows also. “She was being attacked by these men, I rescued her,” “To kill her quickly of course, now that you have revealed yourself to a human?” her heart was pounding once again, the danger having returned in another form. “She is an innocent; I would rather die myself. I’ll not take her life,” “Then I must,” this new elf readied his bow, but the elf named Iefyr stepped in front of her protectively. “You can’t” Iefyr said. “You have broken our first law. Do not reveal yourself to a human and let them live,” “Those humans would have raped her, beaten her and killed her,” Iefyr spoke, “arrest me if you must but let her go, the poor girl has been through enough!” “And if we see fit to interfere in human affairs, if it is perhaps to rescue a helpless young woman, then it is only to spare her that fate and see her to a swifter one.” The new male elf said. He looked from Iefyr to the woman. “She’s rather beautiful, isn’t she?” the hostile male elf observed, “has Iefyr taken a liking to her?” he asked in a mocking tone. “She is an innocent that is all. Our laws are flawed,” Iefyr said. The hostile elf grinned but lowered his bow. “I shall hear you say that to our Queen,” he drawled. “We shall take them both to our Queen and see what she wishes to do. I, for one, have a suggestion for the girl,” his cruel grin twisted even more and both Iefyr and the girl were seized and bound. The girl was walking to an unknown fate, perhaps one even worse than what she had been rescued from. She had no way to know as she did not know much of the elves, nor other races that lived in various regions of the world. She only knew human. Peasants did not have the luxury of travel; she lived a simple life, but she was happy in that life and now she knew she was being taken farther and farther away from it. She looked to the handsome elf who had been her rescuer as he walked bound beside her to his own fate. “Iefyr isn’t it?” she whispered; his angry green eyes met hers but softened as they did so. “I suppose I might as well learn your name since our situation couldn’t get any worse,” he said and she thought it strange he took a light hearted approach, perhaps attempting to put her at ease, she did find a strange comfort in his deep eyes of green. “My name is Tolanda,” she said, and he smiled. “Pretty name,” “Thank you,” she replied blushing and lowering her eyes. As they trudged through the forest Tolanda began to feel a sense of dread, it felt like something other than fear of what was going to happen to her, the further into the forest they went, she could sense something was wrong in this part. She began to feel the hairs stand up on the back of her neck and she felt unusually cold. Iefyr looked at her as she struggled to hide her discomfort. “You are sensing the magic here, it is intended to keep humans from crossing the river that is coming up, they would not be able to pass it anyway but it is so they turn back,” Iefyr informed her. They cleared the trees and there was indeed a riverbank just ahead and tucked away behind some foliage were the elven boats. They were simple rowboats made from silver-birch by the looks of them and they were beautiful with intricate designs along the sides. The hunters, aside from Iefyr of course who was bound as a prisoner along with Tolanda, all began pulling the boats free and gently sliding them into the waters edge. “Morthil, you break another law by taking a human to our home, are you really willing to risk that?” Iefyr pointed out, a further attempt at trying to gain Tolanda’s freedom. The one named Morthil stopped preparing the boat to look at him. “I have a prize for our Queen, she may wish her for a slave, or she could simply kill her, it matters not to me,” he said. It was another hopeless attempt, but she still appreciated his efforts and smiled meekly to him in thanks. Tolanda longed for her home, she wished she was by the warm fire with their dog at her feet, her father in his chair beside her and her brother preparing the meat he had hunted or bought in town and she would soon get up and help her brother by preparing the vegetables. Her thoughts were taken from the comforts of her home life to her reality. The elves were leading her to the boat, and she was sat beside Iefyr. “What’s going to happen?” she asked him. “We travel down the river, no way back after that unless you know what magic to use,” he replied. Tolanda looked onwards to her fate wondering if these were her last hours alive or if she would be eternally bound in servitude to an elven queen. Tolanda heard a bird cry out from a tree and she looked to it, she was not usually drawn to the many sounds of the forest but this bird’s cry caused her to look up at it. There it was, she recognised it from her childhood it was the same but surely the bird would not have lived so long. She knew it to be the same one as its markings were so unique. It was a white dove but upon its wings was flecks of a colour that almost seemed as if it were gold. She used to call it the gold-winged dove. It appeared to be watching her, watching them all with intelligence and understanding, just as it had appeared to her after her mother died. The gold-winged dove seemed to appear when she was in turmoil. She would never forget the way it sat across from her home, looking in at her through the window as she cried on her bed grieving for her mother. She had been slightly distracted from her grief when she realised the bird’s wings looked as though they were lined with gold. It was beautiful. It was a small comfort before the fate she was soon to endure. This may very well be her last moments alive.