Two flourescent bands of silky pouches clung to Agnes' wrist and oscillated down her raised hand. Two greedy pairs of eyes stayed at hands distance, bodies bouncing over their heels in anticipation, as Agnes held them off with a, "Heave, aye?"
The small bon-fire died down with no one to ponder and poke it awake. Darkness overtook the forest and wind rustled through the branches, as if communicating secrets in a language of unknown whispers. At the break of dawn, The Whispering Woods stood true to their given name.
"Blimey matey! Avast now! How long have you been on land? Curious, ye know?" Agnes enunciates in a cheeky tone, slowly but very blatantly wiggling out of the ropes that held her down by her chest. She stood up without any repurcussions, much to her own surprise, as the peanut pouch swayed in her hand.
"Prized Poseidon's Revenge, arrgh, rite before the Emp'ess passed them sea laws and banned all boats. Me dear ship— all gone—!" Hair-monger rasped out, holding onto Tuna's arm and clenching wildly around it. "Been five years after that, been soddin' on land for all them years," his thickly accented voice rasped around the end.
"Poseidon's Revenge? Are you people of the Serpentine Crew?" Belladonna questions.
The hair-monger nods vehemently, leaning back as if in the arms of his glorious past.
Agnes raised a curious brow for she had read about 'Poseidon's Revenge,' a pirate ship setting sail around six years ago, looting merchant ships loaded with cargo. Every breathing child was made aware of the terror spread by the Revenge Crew.
At nighttime, stories were whispered about the Revengers, "they are coming to throttle your family into poverty." They would steal ancestral legacies like Vikings hogging a pint of beer. Word of families committing mass suicide to avoid a life of poverty became breakfast discussions.
The economy had taken a massive hit down-low during that time and the Empress had a bounty set on the Revengers crew.
With sailors from all over EDA hunting for Poseidon's Revenge, the crew could only hold so much longer before there was a mutiny. Captain Serpentine of the Slithering Canvas, a new sailor, had valorously captured Poseidon's Revenge and visited the Capitol to claim his reward. But the Empress had different plans. She passed anti-sailing laws for anyone without a government authorised permit setting afoot into the waters of EDA and jailed thousands of sailors to land, all without parting with a single penny of the promised bounty.
The incident was widely known as Empyrean Dawn Ark's second most hurtful betrayal by the Crown.
"Captain Serpentine?" Agnes addressed Mr. Hairyhead, reaching to run-a-hand through his forehead and push the lush overgrowth of hair upwards. She rubbed some grime off his forehead and the rolled-up dirt gave sight to a black snake engraved underneath.
"The one and only," he all but sobbed out, beady eyes watering up.
"I ne'er reckoned a greet with you of all people! Great, isn't he... sister—?" Agnes faked enthusiasm, moving all of her body in faux excitement as she turned to involve Belladonna in her conversation of praise, but forgot the ravenette's fake name.
Though the ravenette was quick to catch on, "I, Bella, would call it a miracle of the dawn, Sana, we should call 'em over the tavern sometimes and give em a free pint of beer!" The maid all but exclaimed, a little too in character.
"Ah-Bella, eh? should we now?" Agnes coughed out with uncertain hesitation, because, where are they supposed to conjure up a tavern where they are alleged play performers?! She raised her eyebrows at Belladonna's bold claims. For someone so rigid with rules, Belladonna sure was imaginative with her lies.
"Yes, will you come? It'll be a better time for you," Belladonna urged him, much to Agnes' wide-eyed disdain.
"Arrgh, tis been a tuff time, tis has, tis always a tuff time on land. Ye understand? Ye know tis been almost a decade I saw the real red in Akane. Tis been so long," his words were slurred with restrained emotions. Agnes guesses him to be a sentimental sort of a person.
Tuna, on Captain Serpentine's literal other hand, nudged his master out of a sobbing slumber and pointed at the pouches still hanging off Agnes' wrist.
Agnes was quick to interpret the glance. Before either of the men could snatch the pouches, she pretended to trip over her step and fall face-first onto the burnt ground, mid-way flinging the pouch as far as her unathletic hand could throw it over, into the woods.
"Ouch, miss-stepped?" The ashy haired princess croaks out a groan, palms landing over the broken glass shards from the kerosene lamp. Hallelujah!
She wraps her fingers around the glass, as carefully as one could with a burnt hand, and crawled back to her knees. "I reckon the peanuts fell that way," she pointed her free hand into an ambiguous direction up ahead, "Sorry."
Their captors all but ran as if it were a competition. The peanuts had so much influence.
Agnes sucked in a breath and flung at the hunk-of-a-man who was previously tied beside her. She used the glass shard to try and cut open his restrains.
"Agnes," she introduced in a whisper.
"Ruben," the man grunted hoarsely.
"It's a sailor's knot, easy to untie, use the glass to cut around your chest. I was able to slip out easily because of our disproportionate builds. I had an advantage because your— ugh, who makes ropes these rough?!— because of your chest muscles being...um, far more superior to mine. Ahem, yes, they'll be here any moment and I need to help my friend," Agnes whispered a rant while the man spared her no glance, eyes stuck on the tree a little farther to theirs. Where his wife and children were tied down.
Agnes untied his knot and dropped the shard in his hands, rushing over to help Belladonna now. Her fingers frantically worked over her maid's ropes as Ruben worked over his.
Agnes heard rustling of feet heading faster towards them just when she got done with untying Belladonna's wrists.
Her eyes frantically looked around until they fell on another glass shard gleaming over a moonlit area. The princess pounced at it like a predator, hand pressing over it, just when a dirty boot found home on her hand instead. Her heart almost slowed to a stand-still.
Involuntarily, Agnes' head jerked up.
No bird chirped in the mornings of The Whispering Woods.
Under the beginnings of a rosy dawn bleeding into the navy bed of the sky, under the fated sheen of moonlight that haloed her hair like a dazzling star, burning at a distance, and glowed her eyes like molten crescents from the moon itself. Under the looming presence of Captain Serpentine with a heart that was bore down with grudges against royalty.
Agnes crouched there, with the life of five people on the line. Her heartbeat thundered wildly in its confines. She could feel the thumping in her ears. Despite the soft embrace of the cold wind, her whole body was flaming up in fear.
She sat frozen as Captain Serpentine pinched her small chin in the massive blackholes, that were his hands, and brought her face closer to his line of sight.
The eyes.
Silver like a fresh coin from the Crown.
What a fiend he had in his hands.
"You-!! YOU BLOODY LIAR!" Captain Serpentine barked in her face, pungent hot breath and the wisps of his spit gracing Agnes' face. She cringed, soul returning to the realm of the living and ordering her body to scram away, but her hand was under his foot, over a glass shard, and she did not want anymore further damage.
She felt a strange sense of Deja Vu.
"BLIMEY! THEY ARE ALL LIARS! HA-HA! I AM NOT EVEN SURPRISED!!" he shouted, taking in exasperated breaths, pupils blown wide, as his hand now moved to jerk Agnes from her hair. He forced her neck to crain back, eyes directly pointing the sky as her back curved into an uncomfortable 'C'. She hung helplessly in his hand, unprovoked and fear-ridden. A strange hopelessness overcame her.
"NO! LEAVE HER ALONE! I AM THE ONE WHO LIED! LEAVE HER ALONE!! YOU MUST LIVE, YOUR HIGHNESS!!" came Belladonna's panicked shrieks, resounding against the hopeless walls of Agnes' cranium and hitting some sense into them.
"HEAVE IT, BITCH! I WILL KILL ALL OF YOU!!" Captain Serpentine shouted, beady eyes burning with rage as he unsheathed a dagger. He pulled her harsher by her hair, and just when she started resisting with her free hand and he was about to plunge the dagger in Agnes' very inviting neck, Ruben shot at him like an arrow, catching Captain Serpentine off guard. With a whisk of his strong arm, the dagger took to the ground as Ruben circled an arm around Captain Serpentine's neck, bringing him in a chokehold.
Agnes was let go of and fell to the ground.
His body faltered, visibly resisting as he elbowed Ruben's gut. Agnes took the opening and retrieved her hand with the shard, wildly crawling towards a now breathless Belladonna all but choking on her words, speaking something along the lines of, "Princess, are you okay? It's my fault, your highness, i must apologise, please tell me that you are fine!"
But Agnes was too shocked to comprehend. Her hands shook furiously as she tried cutting off Belladonna's ropes. Her movements were slow and clumsy, her breathing was escalated, her teeth bit into her lip and her whole body was in a state of panic.
"TUNA, GET 'EM!!"
There was a loud thud.
The glass shard dropped from Agnes' hold.
Their attentions were grabbed by Ruben's body falling to the ground and Tuna's bloody sword looming overhead. Someone screamed, but it wasn't Agnes or Belladonna.
It was Ruben's wife.
Captain Serpentine grunted a signal and Tuna started limping towards Ruben's family. Agnes' sense jumped back on track. The thought of inflicting harm over an innocent family ate her alive, enough to kill her braincells, and make her speak up.
Thankfully her throat wasn't clogged by fear yet.
"N-no! S-stop, i- i can give you anything, you want, ships, boats, access to the seas, I can do it all. Don't hurt them!! Please, stop!!" Agnes blurted out, standing infront of Belladonna in a protective stance. Though, her lanky feet were shaking beyond control. Her heart was brave, but her body was crumbling to external pressures.
Captain Serpentine laughed a mocking laugh.
"Best prize me with yer blood, you royal kid," he raced at her.
Belladonna screamed in defence.
And Agnes shrunk within herself, shoulders cradling into her neck and hands protecting her face upon instinct. His battle cry inched louder by the passing second. Her gut dropped faster still.
Belladonna's swears hastened.
And suddenly Agnes heard the sear of an arrow.
Her eyes opened to Captain Serpentine falling right on her footstep with an arrow piercing his nape. What was this...a Christmas Miracle in Spring? She looked up at Tuna and he too was shot in a similar manner.
Were they dead? Was it the Nightmongers?! Who was it?!
"The weedy hair mangled my spirits. Our chi was threatened to imbalance by every follicle of that hideousness, eurgh," he shuddered over his white horse, using all of his face muscles to express disappointment. He wore a simple creme shirt with rusty silken robes. His hands were equipped with a wooden bow, holding a non-threatning stance.
Another man was perched over a horse, with spun gold for hair and a strikingly lavish attire in comparison to his companion. He too wielded a wooden bow. He jumped off his horse and ran towards Ruben's wife and children.
"Don't hurt them! They don't have anything!" Agnes exclaims, eye brows furrowing. Her feet inched with contemplation, wanting to stay with a passed-out Belladonna but also wanting to protecting Ruben's family.
The blonde person paid no heed to her words and unsheathed his sword at them.
"We come in peace," the brassy haired man announced. The blonde cut off the ropes with a swift motion and Agnes' aching heart slowed with a sigh.
Thank the lord of Peanuts.
"Wh-ho are you?" The princess questioned with a bold intention, but her voice came out meek and shaky instead. The events of the day were finally taking a toll on her.
"I am the harbinger of hope to distressed souls of dazzling beauty such as yours, m'lady, name's Erbwringer, Lacto the famed," the dark haired beauty jumps off his horse with swift elegance and poses beside it.
Agnes ran towards him.
"Hasty, aren't we? I wouldn't mind as long as you don't get handsy with my herb storage on our first meet—"
She sits beside Ruben's body. His back was slashed and bleeding.
"Artless," Lacto stands over Ruben's bleeding body and traces his tongue over his teeth. "He'll live, the cut isn't all that deep," his hands make way to the crook of Ruben's neck, "he's out because of exhaustion. Leave him to me."
"Wh-y, can you help? Are you a healer? A nurse? Spirit mage of some sort?" Agnes questions breathlessly, silver eyes staring into his dark ones with desperation. The look of concern wearing her ashy eyebrows down made Lacto scoff weakly. He pressed two fingers to her forehead and gently eased out her furrow.
"I am the cure to all woes, step away, moony lass," Lacto gives her a smile and gestures Agnes to shoo-away from the body and probably rest in a corner.
"You can trust him, he's our kingdom's best healer," the blonde man speaks up. Ruben's wife and children were now free. Whilst the children were still passed out against the tree, his wife ran up to Ruben's body like a madwoman. Lacto used a dagger to tear open Ruben's shirt and expose his bleeding slash.
"Distance, bewitched woman, the soil of your twin roots needs time to replenish. Don't jump a man in his most vulnerable state," Lacto shooed the brunette away as he had taken out a paste from his pouch and was busy applying it over Ruben's back.
Agnes held the sobbing woman's hand instead, pulling her into a hug, as the blonde man made his way to them. Whilst Agnes whispered sweet nothings of comfort in her ears, the blonde man walked up to Belladonna's passed out figure.
"Is the princess okay?" He sat down at one knee, "May I be rude enough to check her pulse? If have your permission?" He turned to look back at Agnes.
And Agnes internally laughed out loud.
Just a bit.
It was a long day, but now was a good morning.