Running. The air punctuated with the sound of tearing fabric as my bare feet tangled in the skirting of my dress. My panting, ragged breaths couldn't keep a rhythm while my arms and legs pumped, trying to propel me through the thick woods as twigs and branches slapped and cut at my feet, face, arms, skin...
I turned to look over my shoulder for just a moment, catching a sight of the men gaining ground on me, even as I ran for my life. It wasn't enough. Their dirty faces and ragged clothing only grew closer and closer. My frightened, pale, and sweat-glistened face turned forward again, my mind belatedly whispering warnings of 'don't look back.' Simultaneously a thick branch caught my foot as it was lifting in another long gait to continue my escape, tripping me forward into a thankfully soft forest floor of dying leaves.
As I lay in a heap of once-frilly skirts, tangled waist length hair, and dead leaves, I tried desperately to regain my footing and continue my plight. My desperation turning tenfold as I heard the thundering of the bandits' feet as they bore down on me.
Too late I got to me feet, lurching forward just as a thick and callused hand reached out to snatch my arm hauling me back. I caught in mid air, my free hand reaching out to the horizon of the seemingly-never-ending forest; the moment seemed to last a life time, but ended all to quickly as the hand pulled me back, the sudden halted momentum of my body causing me to crumple to my knees on the forest floor again.
Another hand grabbed my thick hair, ensnaring it with vice-like fingers as the bearer yanked back, forcing my neck to arch and my face to turn upwards to face him. The other man was content to twist my already-captured arm behind my back, while easily subduing my free one as it tried to scratch and flail my way to freedom, similarly twisting it behind my back as he moved to kneel behind me.
I kneeled, sandwiched between the man at my back and the man gripping my hair as he towered over me at my front, my dirty tear-streaked face turned up to him. He shook me by my hair, my scalp screaming in protest as he did, saying some no-doubt fierce words of recourse for all the trouble I was causing them and the payback they had in store for me. But I could not hear them. My thoughts and senses were lost to desperation and the adrenaline coursing through my body telling me to fight or run, fight or run...
I kept my eyes downturned, refusing to look at his gruesomely featured face, as one last act of defiance. I flinched my eyes to the side for only a moment, as I felt the bandit behind me begin to lick his slimy tongue over my shoulder where my dress had fallen away. With that quick dart of my sight, I caught out of the corner of my eye what I presumed to be another assailant in the distance. My eyes stayed glued to this new addition as he moved towards us, my current captors catching the direction of my stare and letting the object of my attention draw their attention as well. We all three paused, seemingly struck deaf and dumb by the vision of the man walking towards us, perhaps caught trying to make sense of what we saw.
He stood with silver and textured chain mail coating his arms and legs, a white tabard thrown over it; the chest of the tabard torn away where normally a symbol or coat of arms would draw the eye. Helmetless, I took in the image of his chestnut hair as it flew softly in the breeze; only long enough to fall into his eyes every so often and curl to the nape of his neck. The features of his face were obscured by the way the light of the sun silhouetted around him, making him seem almost divine in the halo of retreating sunlight.
As his hand rose to raked fingers through his hair, drawing it from his eyes, his palm shadowed the halo of light long enough to allow me a glimpse of his face. I gasped for the beauty of it. My gasp enough to shake my captors out of their mutual reverie, their holds turning firm and unforgiving again as they called out insults, gruff questions, and threats to the stranger as he continued to calmly approach without wavering.
The man that held my hair released it in a lightning fast move that was coupled with drawing a knife from a sheath at his hip. His back curled forward to prepare for a lunge and combat, as he held the knife up aggressively, moments before launching himself at the knight as he came closer and closer.
The knight drew his sword from his sheath so quickly it made a metallic singing noise ring through the air, my senses so overwhelmed that it seemed as though I lost a moment in time. For in the next moment the bandit was halted then falling to the forest floor as he clutch and arm to his belly, the leaves around him beginning to slowly soaked and color with blood.
I turned my face now to look over my shoulder at my other assailant, feeling a tremor from his hands that still held my wrists in the small of my back. His face was ashen, jaw dropped and eyes wide; my only guess was that he was mystified by the speed of the knight as well. He used his handle on me to throw me into the path of the white knight, an obstacle as the bandit clumsily got to his feet then and ran, with the sound of crunching leaves and confused noises of distress following him.
The knight didn't give chase, as he instead paused before me, where I lay- hands hastily thrown out to catch me and pressed into the rotting leaves. I turned my face up to him, again blinded by the light as it flooded around his form. But I thought I could make out the slightest smirk painting his lips, though darkened by the back lighting. He promptly bent at the waist, grabbing me about mine and lifting me easily. I squealed in one frightened and confused moment, as he lifted my into the air and then tossed me to spin me around, feeling as though I would drop from the height just before his hands found me again and then slung my form over his shoulder. Then he simply began to walk.
