The darkening of hearts

Forest fury

Ariniel had never been that scared, or that angry. She had been busy with some nuts when she had heard a sound behind her and she hadn't reacted since she thought it was her husband. But it wasn't, and a hard knock to her head the last thing she had felt before darkness took her. She had woken up hanging over a pack horse like some bag of flour and she was tied up and felt horrible. Her head did ache, she was nauseous and knew she had a concussion or something like that. But the worst shock was seeing who her abductors were, her own grandfather and the one he had tried to make her mother marry. She didn't know what to do, and she realized that they were going to use her as a hostage. Ariniel swore to herself that she would prove to be the worst hostage ever, she would escape for these two were obviously not able to understand that a female in fact can be both cunning and strong.

She held her eyes closed, tried to pretend to be unconscious still and before long she did realize that they were heading south, into the woods. Were they nuts? It wouldn't last long before they had every avarin elf in the area hot at their heels and did they really think they could outrun the natives of this land? She was almost amused but only almost. The position made her ribs hurt and she was feeling nauseous still, and the horse she was tied too had a very uncomfortable trot indeed. Oh when she got out of this mess she was gonna beat Costaro's ass so hard he wouldn't be able to sit for a month, if ever! Calpon was silent most of the time, almost sulking and she realized that he wasn't all that loyal to Costaro at all, he would flee if they ran into trouble and she had to grin. There is no such thing as loyalty among thieves then, good to know.

The terrain was easy to travel through, smooth slopes with open beech forest and some bushes and they did make good speed but it was rather clear that Costaro had no idea of how to find his way through the wilderness. He was making errors all the time and failed to read the terrain right. Ariniel would have laughed if she could. Calpon had to guide them most of the time, he seemed to have at least a miniscule understanding of how to navigate. She couldn't pretend to be unconscious anymore so she made a few groans just to let them know that she was coming too and she blinked her eyes as if she had just woken up. They swallowed the tiny deception with hook line and sinker and she was pulled up so she could sit on the horse but her hands were tied to the saddle and she couldn't get loose.

Ariniel was a noldo by birth but she had spent many years among the forest elves and she did realize that something was off. The birds did sound rather agitated and some blue tits flew straight by her ear, making some rather odd sounds. She had to grin, of course the forest elves had warned the very land of this crime, the forest would help her for sure. When she thought about it she could see that the bushes deliberately caused them problems by letting branches and twigs snag on the horses manes and tails and roots were in the way all the time. Before long they would have a whole horde of angry avarin elves there and Ariniel felt pretty confident that they would give these two hell.

After a few hours they did stop to rest the horses, the poor animals were starving and sweaty and Ariniel was appalled by the lack of concern these two showed. They had probably never taken care of a horse themselves, servants had most likely done that sort of work for them. The two didn't speak to her at all, they just ignored her like she was a piece of meat and she felt anger burn within, she was tied to the stem of a willow tree and felt that the tree too felt rather shocked by this. Some branches came slowly crawling, trying to untie her knots but they were too tight and the tree probably didn't know how to untie knots anyhow.

Instead it obviously entertained itself by sticking its roots up here and there, making the two neri trip all the time. Ariniel was hungry and thirsty and more so, she needed to pee. She tried to look as fragile and non threatening as possible, held her eyes lowered and her voice soft. "Excuse me, I need to...do my business"