Jaded against the constraints of a rugged rope winding around her panting chest and pinning her back against a spruce tree beside a six feet hunk of a viking-esque gagged man, Agnes Raqs coughed in the absurdity of the moment. Her palms tingled and throat felt clogged curtsy eccentricities form the fire.
A thick veil of smoke abandoned the stars from her sight as she hastily tried to blink the sting away. Belladonna, tied to a farther tree, violently resisted the treatment provided whilst the man beside Agnes had resigned to fate and everything that it had to offer him.
A twig snapped.
Agnes' neck jerked up in response.
Hair. So much hair. In curls. Dark ringlets hiding the form the man who poked a burnt twitch into Mr. Axe-man's sacked forhead whilst grunting in a thick accent, "Telled yer, dinit I? Telled yer loggerhead to brick the fire!"
Agnes' eyes travelled to the dying embers of the small bon-fire crackling in hiccups in front of the prisoners. The expanse around it was burnt into a crisp and Agnes knew it for Mr. Sword-man was limping over the burnt area, crunching wildly over the leaves, as he headed toward them.
He clapped his hands, twice, for attention.
The hairy man scratched the burnt twig on Axe-man's forehead and dragged it along the rough perimeter of the sack, going south, and stopping to a stiff poke in the man's naked arm.
"W'at'ver yer onto, Tuna!"
In the fading moonlight, Agnes witnessed him sign with his fingers.
'Peed over inventory. Ration burnt.'
Agnes' nose coiled into her cheeks, as much as it could, baffled by the disgust of sitting under pee smoke. She shuddered in innumerable possibilities of what may happen next, but the hairy man's abhorrent accent bugged her line of thought, almost always.
"Soddin' fir's. Burnin' me business!!" He shouted into the odd silence, "And yer! Salmon! Scarred the horse away! Runned! Yer deserves a rottin', ye do!" He prodded the pointy twig further into the man's sweat laced bicep. "Go fetch me wat'r from Akane!" He barked orders, spitting in front of Axe-man's feet before pushing him off into the distance, out of perspective.
Belladonna's vauge vocal resistance of cold nerved threats spoken in a dull baritone of bored melancholy, "Release me, for if you do not, I shall debone you slowly," and, "When these ropes are off, I will have your nails shaved off your fingers, you cowards," earned her a knee to her jaw.
The ravenette, in turn, spat on the hairy man's battered leather boots which were wailing for a smidge of water to ease it out of its germ embraced misery. A second's worth of stare on the spit was long enough before he wiped that god-awful tip on Belladonna's riding pants and bent to look her dead in the eye.
The woman challenged his stare, cold irises devoid of the slightest expression of feeling. The man, with two inches for his pebble like eyes and one inch of his thin mouth barred from the pleasures of hair overgrowth, did not back down from competition.
Belladonna, asserting dominance, stared him down to a blink.
"Who'er you?"
"A singer at Faber's tavern. Who are you?"
"Non o' yer concerns."
"I told you about me."
"Ye lies."
"We act in local plays, name's Bella and Sana, ask around."
"Me nun see ye in any."
"Look harder next time, boozehead."
"Name som'."
"Pirate Orca's Trident Rescue."
The man's glossy pebble black eyes scrutinized Belladonna, the tatters around the shoulders, the pulled threads crippling her buttons and the burnt hem of that dirty riding shirt. Her pants too were a vision of equal distaste to social choices in public presence.
The man turned to stare at Agnes' form. The ashy haired princess flinched under his, sudden, intense gaze, tugged her chin to the crook of her neck and let her hair curtain her lesser-to-almost-negligibly-known face. Her chest heaved menacingly under the hole-helmed cheap fabric of the dress-shirt she had worn as her seemingly bruised lanky legs peeked out of the obnoxious turd colored breeches.
They looked the role of mere nobodies, easily falling into the madeup characters of Belladonna's lie.
A pair of eyes from the back and another from the front, Agnes peeked through her hairy curtain to find the fellow prisoner's eyes glaring daggers down her soul. She fidgeted her head around, trying to find a focus for her eyes as her fingers finally began mapping the knot which held her wrists captive.
Cold sweat broke through like an old friend, embracing her whole body in long-lost fervor.
"Wh't yer doin' in the 'oods?"
The question seemed distant, Agnes' fingers worked faster. Five years of training with the royal scouts and eight years of living on the streets played its perks in the oddest of ways when it came to Agnes' life.
"We were lost."
"YE SAID YER WAS LOCAL!"
"In the woods, lost in the woods. Saw a royal party rush past us, we were coming back from Aeternalis you see, heard about Faber Meadows being under attack so we walked inside to seek shelter. Found you."
"Got som' silv'rs?"
Agnes' long and nimble fingers worked their way over, wrists wriggling and nails tugging their way through the knot. A finger accidentally scratched her palm and she audibly winced upon impact.
Hairy man snapped his attention to a paper pale Agnes freezing in action. Her breath hitched as she heard the man beside her grunt loudly.
"No, it was all on the horse. We got none."
Belladonna's reply was a nonchalant rescue. Unfortunately though, Mr. Sword-man, Tuna, limped over to Agnes' small scene of unseen crime and hovered tall above the man beside her. The princess kept her head down, curtaining her expressions of pure panic as she losened the knot around her wrists.
A thrash. Loud slap.
Shivered Agnes to the bone.
The impact was not hers to hold. It was the man beside her. Seething from his white teeth and malice driven bloodshot black eyes. The gag in his mouth flung out with pressure and fell at a distance.
"I WILL TELL YOU NOTHING!" he barked in a ferocious intensity, raging with all of his body so much so that Agnes felt the vibrations through the tree. It freaked her out breathless.
Someone laughed.
Agnes' perspective shifted to the Hairy man. "Aye, Aye, shiver his timbers and he ou'htta flood ov'r!" He exclaimed, rough hands clapping maniacally ever so close to Agnes' head.
She gulped audibly, stomach churning, hands free and itching to do something.
But what?
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Zephyr's eyebrow kept twitching with an air of uncertainty as Clover kept circling around him. Piaget's men were working diligently, noting down names and details for reimbursement of all parties involved. Faber Meadows had stopped burning but a new fire was ignited under Zephyr's footsteps.
Screeching rage of the people was subdued by Zephyr's sweet comforts and plans of building a better, grander, stronger, Faber Meadows. A place not invadeable. The pursuits were strong, spirits were high but Zephyr's gut dropped with a feeling unknown.
His fingers kept fidgeting with the scabbard tucked around his waist. Uncharacteristically, he could feel its weight — for some unknown reason, it weighed him down. It was not a fleeting asset of greatness as it usually felt to be. But a pressure with a downward pull that was almost intolerable. It kept dropping lower with his gut, into an abysmal uncertainty. To overcome it, Zephyr had a strange urge to pull it out and use it for blood.
Why though?
What is he after?
Where is this restlessness coming from?
His eyes unintentionally zoned into the direction of The Whispering Woods. 'Was he having a fear of missing out?' He rolled his eyes back at River Akane, now glistering, under the full moon.
His fists clenched, teeth gritted and nostrils flared at the sight of River Akane but before he could drown himself, or a wailing Clover in it, someone's question brought sanity knocking back on the doors of his brain.
All braincells finally calibrated in harmony to comprehend the question presented to them, "I beg your pardon, but your highness isn't going to save the Princess?"
The question came from Ralph.
Zephyr's entire being plummeted to form a reply. He stared at Ralph with a dead face, legitimately done with these damsel shenanigans for the day, and answered with charged undertones, "She is Piaget's Princess! He has gone to play blonde knight is shinning armor and he will save her just fine! Though, I'm certain he shall be repulsed by every thought of hers that translates into speech. She's vile, my word. No, on second thought, they are both vile! Ha! They shall enjoy a happily ever after, I bet, wait and see— but wait, why are you so pressed about the circumstances of the Princess? Do you wish to go save her? Why don't you all sign up for that as well. I'm certain she'll spare you some—"
"—What he means is Princess Agnes is in good hands. There is nothing to be worried of. Everything is under moderation."
Clover crisply cut in what was beginning to be sound like a concerning vent escapade from a seriously pent Prince.
Zephyr catches his breath, guards his tongue and looks away while its Ralph's turn to stare into awkwardness.
"Your point was?" Clover raised an eyebrow in question, narrowed eyes curating the reason of Ralph's presence in their royal vicinity.
"It's about Chief Ruben, your highness. Will he be okay?"
The question was seemingly simple and straightforward, innocent to the epiphany that struck Zephyr's plauged mind like manna to the hungry. His lifeless mocha eyes gained colour, stiff limbs jolted into a bounce and hands almost squeezed the life out of Ralph through a hug.
"Clover prepare the horses! We're heading to the Whispering Woods!" Zephyr announced, keeping a palm over Ralph's overwhelmed shoulder and patting it with consideration. A small wisp of smile ghosted the Crown Prince's face. With retreating steps and a nod of reassurance to a very confused looking Ralph, Zephyr pressed a hand behind the small of Clover's back and ushered him forward.
"Gracious, I told you, keeping the Raqs family in good graces would increase your chances to the throne. They have influence over the council so do not hand this over to Piaget bloody Goldstein!" Clover exclaimed, nodding enthusiastically to himself, before he earned a whack on the head from Crown Prince Zephyr Elstan himself.
"You absolute foddersniffer! Chief Ruben and his family are taken away by the Nightmongers and according to the handmaiden there is a group residing in the Whispering Woods holding people hostage! It cannot be anymore obvious!"
"W-ait-what? Princess Agnes is holding Chief Ruben hostage?!"
"Shut up and find the handmaiden! Make haste!"
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Piaget's horse slowed to a stand still in front of a small, red roofed, cottage edged into the lap of River Akane. Moss befriended algae halfway through the walls and painted the residence a breathing disguise.
He dismounted the majestic creature with a smooth slide and landed with a little thud onto the damp soil. Splashing over a growth of sage and almost tripping into the river for good, Piaget reached the hardwood door and knocked it thrice. Frogs ribbitted in the dead of the dawn.
"Lacto Erbwringer! I need assistance!"
A hitch and click later, two wooden panels extended outwards from the breathing walls and through the hanging glass bottles of rosemary, thyme and fennel, popped a curious head with dark eyes. Strong jaw contoured into a wide grin. He spoke with all the face muscles he could exhaust in a sentence.
"Is it possible? Is not the question, but how I make it possible is your inquisition. And I am the answer," came his wispy, accented voice. With a dreamy flare he wiggled his sleeve clad hands, flapping as if imitating the wings of a bird, and the fresh scent of jasmin exhaled the baggy sleeves of his silken robe.
"Lacto, come out, I need your help!"
The head edged over, thrusting itself in between the hanging, and clicking, bottles. His bright eyes widened with questions of his own. "Are you finally going to conquer the Serpentine Sea?! Do you need my T.I.T.S? Trident of Insidious Torment on Serpents?"
"Morelike poison darts for the Whispering Woods," Piaget shrugged sceptical, bending over at an odd angle to meet Lacto's line of sight.
"WTF? Wolf Terror Falchion?"
Piaget, bent horizontal, shook his head with repetitive tsk tsk tsks.
"Poison darts or tranquilizers for humans would do, please, and you."
Lacto Erbwringer's brassy, arched, eyebrows jutted up in a curious trepidation. He dusted his sleeves into the misty dawn of EDA's morning and licked his plush lips before whispering out hoarsely, "What about the payment?"
Piaget pushed his lips in a straight line, grassy green eyes wandering around in question. "How about the favour of a Crown Prince?"
"I believe in something more tangible than words and favours of whiffle-whaffle, Goldilocks, you know it."
Lacto Erbwringer was a genius healer at hand, a satanic fighter at will, but a true merchant at heart. To extort favours from him was to wager a tangible asset at par with his life. A claim bold enough to outweigh his sensational laziness. Less superficial than money, dearer more than a muse.
"My Columbine is withering, glitter hair, make haste to not make waste."
"I do not have glitter hair!" Piaget advanced in tone to defend his hair with a hand on his head.
"Tell it to the fairies, shh, what do you have for me?" Lacto had retreated into the disheveled heaven of glass jars, bottled insects and ominous scents, that is, his little wannabe home. His swift fingers were working a swab of purple liquid over a silver blade.
Piaget nodded in haste, "I have something. An akane flower, a true bred."
Glass clicked against metal and footsteps hastened, Lacto's handsome head popped out of the window again. All of his face moved with his words, "Buncombe! A true bred, you say, eh? Spare me!"
"You will get it only after Saturn's day comes to pass. Do you accept?"
"Fiddle your willy with cerci, hogger."
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