"Help!", a young girl cried out, "Help help!", sounded her voice as she ran on bare feet and arms outstretched towards a figure in the distance. She felt fear as she never had before and tears already streamed freely from her soot-stained face. Her messy fair hairs flopped up and down with each step she took. Yet with each step the figure seemed to be further and further away, all the while a creeping thing with talon claws send a shiver up her spine as she felt was drawing closer. It breathed and hissed , the cold air from the creature's lungs causing her to leap as she felt it in her neck!
She yelped and ran even faster now, cruel laughter came from behind her.. not the laughter of one creature, but two! .. Yet where the first laughed with the enjoyment of seeing her being in such fear, the other one's was the arrogant laughter of a supreme being that had found a toy in the lesser thing that she was to him. In her short life, she had gained some wisdom on many creatures. She tripped over a dark twisted root and the air she fell upon was stark and covered with dead leaves that blew away around her. Knowing it was over she wept and awaited what was to come. Yet then as she could feel taloned hands grab her, the laughter turned to unsure gurgles and relief filled her as two familiar figures passed her. She looked up and would've laughed, but one of the two facing the creatures now told her, "Keep moving." She hurried up and was confused.. she tried to grab the young woman's leg, but somehow as she tried she never quite managed to get hold of it. "Runnn..", she said and pushed her away harshly and her fear redoubled as the taloned things, tall and cruel, fell upon the twins that now protected her.
The boy with the braid dangling on his temple took a club and swung with a semblance of skill that had yet to be honed at the male being, while the girl with the fiery red mane drew her bow and arrow and aimed for the female monster. Hope was dashed as the boy fell by the blade of one.. and she cried in pain as the young woman was felled by a sword that even she knew was of vile magical potential. She ran onwards, having had some time until the creatures drew their attention back on her. She suddenly felt the ground beneath her feet sink and she tumbled down, vertigo made her belly ache with fear as she soundlessly fell.. "And now it is over.", she thought, embracing her fate with a quiet inborn nobility. The creatures plummeted after her, as if to catch her before she would reach the end of her drop and she would have chosen death over capture.
Strong arms grabbed her before impact.. and she dared not look, instead she grabbed the long brown beard of the big man with her small hands and sobbing against it. She sobbed even more, yet for the first time since being chased it was out of happiness. Another hand caressed her head and laid her messy hair back in place with the sound of a familiar voice grunting from the throat that comforted her. There she laid for an eternity, warm and safe. Yet it lasted not long enough, for the comforting hand and arms put her on her legs, she opened her eyes to the two siblings looking up at the oncoming creatures and her throat had a lump in it, knowing what was going to happen as the big man drew an axe and the other grabbed a long knife and a club. "Hrm hrm.. keep going."
The command in the voice's tone was feeding the resolve in her and she nodded quietly, she dared to look over her shoulder and gasped, the image of the biggest of the two swinging his axe on the male creature, it howled and stumbled back in the dark.. only to return with the swiftness of a viper, the big man toppled covered from head to foot in red blood. The smaller man wounded the female creature, yet he also fell with the magical sword ripped from the creature. It howled as it had lost it's weapon somehow by this and she knew that only one could save her now. With the haste of the wind she kept going and going and then there -he- was. In the distance in a light, holding a javelin in one hand and with a foot resting upon a dead black horse of evil nature. His free hand outstretched, the distance was closing, "Come!" The man smiled and she ran with all the vigour she yet had to muster, the creatures behind her now desperate and eager closed the distance quicker then she could! "Rarghh!!", the male thing leapt and fell inches short of grabbing her ankle, she yelped in a panic but kept going! .. "Only two more steps.", the man said. The female thing leapt, the girl cried as she could see that beautifull yet terrifying face, greedily wanting to take her along with them to their lairs of decay! "The last step!" The creature grabbed her.
The thing was strong despite being so slender and it's talons scratched her belly. Frantically she tried to get free and pulled with all her might, a single hand of hers held out to the man with the javelin who made no attempt to reach out aside his own outstretched hand. Then with a final act of desperation as the second hand came to grab her, she ripped her small tunic and her hand was clasped by the man's!!
Asatrid awoke.. startled and eyes open wide at the hall she had fallen asleep in. She looked at her belly and found that there was nothing there, her tunic perfectly fine. She huddled beneath her fur and then a man with a javelin entered the room, with worry on his brow. "Bad dreams again my little frow?", the man said as he scooped her up and sat her on his lap. She nodded quietly and began to sob real tears on his tunic.
Meanwhile the others in the hall looked at the child, all of them concern, one of them shame.
