Chapter 3
Shaan
Being captured like this was not what I was hoping for. After that impossible encounter in the forrest, I didn't think I wanted to go anywhere else but back home. I had thought that there was a woman who was beckoning me to her but I was so very wrong. There were men waiting for me with swords and shields as if protecting a princess. And they trapped me as if I was a monster on the attack.
One of the taller men behind me pushed me to make me walk faster. "Move it along, human."
Human? Weren't they human as well? Why were they calling me as such? "I do not know why it is you call me human as if we are different. I-"
"You are not as we are," the soldier sneered pushing me harder this time. "I said move it, human."
I kept my mouth shut after that. I could well enough die from the hands of these tall men. Though I was tall, they were bigger and much more meatier than I was. They could crush me if they wanted but there was someone who wanted to know me. And how I got here. Quite honestly, I wanted to know that myself.
We had been walking for quite some time and I was getting tired. These men were trained for this as far as I could see and I, being a mere human in their eyes, needs a substance to keep me going. We were just passing the river and I was crazily thirsty.
"Can I get a drink" I asked the men stopping them. "I do not think I can go on without one?"
One of the men in front of me turned and gave me a skeptical look. "I heard humans were weak. I did not think it would take this short of a time for you to ask for water." He loosened his grip on the chains around my hands and walked me over to drink. "Please make haste. We have to meet with the king and queen."
I impatiently drank to my hearts content and more. The river water was clear, blue and fresh. And cold and soothing. I never have drank from a river so pure and lively and I didn't want to stop. Water on earth didn't look like this. There was never water so clean where I'm from.
Then I heard the splashing from in front of me. At first I didn't see anything but I looked a bit harder and there were piercing yellow eyes staring at me from a blue face. A soft of fishy looking face yet, she was human. Human with scales and beautiful warm features and creamy white hair. And she was swimming toward me. With a fish tail.
"Zarya," one of the men stated as if he was talking to any other person.
"Is this the hu-man," she asked in this high sing-song voice. "He is quite beautiful. Are we bringing him to Saffron?"
"We are," one of the men said but I didn't turn back fast enough to see which one it was.
"That is disappointing. I wanted to play with him."
"If the princess declines him then you will have your chance."
She sneered hard and cold then. "He will be Akia's? She will not stand for another arrangement. She is my best friend after all," her expression softened as she spoke about this faceless princess. "And I will not stand to see her heart broken again by the likes of non worthy men."
She looked at me again. This time her beauty was angry and a lot more monster like. "Trust that if Akia throws you out of her castle, I will be there to avenge her broken heart. You can imagine that any person that has broken her heart has not lived to tell the tale."
"I don't know of your princess but I do not treat any woman with disrespect, madam," I said trying to get my thoughts. "My queen didn't raise me with such outrageous affects. But I do assure you that I will try my hardest to be what it is she wants me to be."
