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01-08-2015, 09:19 PM
And so here we are, back at the beginning. Oh, how the mighty have fallen. The dove's walk is stiff and pained, and she bites it back with every step. She had never had to run on rocks quite that jagged before, but she hadn't had any other choice. To fly would be to risk death. No doubt they would have been watching for her, brilliant and white, rising into the clouds, imagining herself safely home - and then they would have come for her. It would have been more than one of them, the second time, for they would not have taken well to her outsmarting the first. And she had outsmarted him - here, too, she hadn't had any other choice. He was a huge stallion, taller than she and bulkier, too. She might have been able to outmaneuver him in a fight, but with one blow he could have broken her. He tried, of course, but luckily they had wanted her alive. There were several times that she thought he might try to overpower her, to force her to submit to his will. And if she were still the frightened filly of her youth, she probably would have. She would have cowered at his hooves, offered herself to him any way he wanted to avoid the threatened punishments. But she was older now, and wiser, and braver, too, though she wasn't really sure how that had happened. They wanted her alive, and he would not harm her - at least, not seriously. She could withstand a few kicks and bites, but she would never forgive herself for giving in to his desires. He had drugged her somehow, though she couldn't remember it. Perhaps he had mixed something strange in with the grass where she grazed, having left the Dragon's Throat on Academy business; in any case, she awoke to him looming over her. For days, she plotted her escape, taming her furious bonded with soothing thoughts and promises of revenge. Finally, she managed to find her own herbs, and she managed to trick him into eating them. When he fell into a deep sleep, she ran, hard and fast. That was how she had bruised her soles; the rocks had been large and jagged, but she knew that she needed to put distance between herself and her captor. The thought of her family keeps her moving. She has been away for almost two months now - a full season, and all because she hadn't been smart enough to take someone with her when she left the Throat last. She ought to have known better. She did know better, which makes it all the worse in retrospect. How could she have been so stupid? But she had assumed that threats to her safety would come from within Helovia - she never imagined that the brutes from her homeland would come for her one day, looking for a Queen to solidify their rule. And who better than the escaped daughter of the king they slaughtered? Astraeus flies above, circling worriedly in the sky above her. Her captor badly bruised her right wing with one of his kicks; aside from her fear of being seen, she had been afraid to injure it further. Even now, it aches dully, though she wonders if she hasn't simply gotten used to the pain. Her pelt, once so pristine, is dotted here and there with wounds - the clear imprints of half-healed bites and kicks. She needs healing desperately, but she cannot stop - no, she must return home, must see her family. They need her. She needs them. @[Rasta] "Talk talk talk." |
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