Trevir had just received his permit to hunt the woods south of Morrovale. He also inherited Harlen's range, as his successor. Harlen had been a excellent tutor for the youth and he knew the ways of the woods as well as the best and better, by far, than most.
He surveyed his main hunting area, peering with his keen eyes over the woods from the small hillock that marked its eastern bound. He was proud of himself, being only twenty and having full rights as a huntsman.
Harlen had not died, or even retired, but had left Morrovale to be with his wife, Hyandai. He smiled, remembering the first meeting he had with that lovely creature when he was a lad of twelve. She had blatantly flirted with him. Elven lasses have slightly looser restrictions about clothing, and he soon after that had seen her unclad in the yard, and had something to fantasize about when he fooled with himself in the dark for several years.
Now he was grown to a young man, and had known a few of the village girls quite well, and needed no such lofty fantasies any more. Though none of them could compare to that elven lady in sheer beauty, they had made up for it with enthusiasm and availability. He hefted his bow and started down the hill. He would march south this day and hope to come across a deer or perhaps a wolf, who still bore a silver mark bounty, though none had been seen in this wood for four years.
It was a crisp spring morning, and the sun was still low in the sky. He watched his breath turn to smoke as he exhaled and reveled in the tingling at the ends of his ears and tip of his nose. As his mother said, he turned out a handsome lad, tall and broad shouldered, with well-muscled arms from the heavy work of skinning and butchering the animals he killed. As Harlen had put it 'working muscle.'
He wore linen pants, and a leather jerkin, bearing his seal from the duke, which permitted him to hunt. He also wore a pair of heavy boots, which had cost him dearly, but were amazingly comfortable. His blonde hair was tied back in a tail, as Harlen had worn, and the Lady Hyandai, and was quite the fashion throughout Morrovale for males and females these days.
A soft sound caught his attention, but it was not the sound of a animal approaching, or the tread of a human, or even the light shuffling of an elf in the wood. It sounded like a person sighing, but it was a sad sigh, full of resignation, and the sound of one who knows they are doomed.
He approached from behind some bushes, the sound growing slightly louder. Peering cautiously over the shrubs he saw a woman, lying on the ground, with her ankle caught in a illegal bear trap. Trevir knew it was illegal because it was in his assigned and lotted territory, and bear traps were illegal, as well. Perhaps for this very reason. The rushed forward, and the woman turned to face the sudden sound.
She screamed as he drew near, her face full of terror. She was lean, almost scrawny, and her arms and legs were long and slender, with well-defined muscles. Her hair was her oddest feature and was a bright, almost luminous green. She was clad in an outfit of close fitting cloth that resembled leaves. It covered her well enough, but left her arms and legs bare, elven style. Hyandai had dressed thus often, much to the pleasure of the eyes of the men of Morrovale.
Her ankle was broken, he could see, and he crouched low to make himself less threatening. She stopped screaming when he held out his hands, palm forward and approached her slowly, whispering quiet soothing words to her. She said nothing and seemed to be mainly sniffing the air. She looked to be quite young, though Trevir knew better than to try to judge the age of fey folk. That she was fey was beyond doubt, the green hair was one definite clue, but the sheen in her eyes were the clinching fact. They were also green, but they had a glow about them, that screamed magical.
She watched him warily, but said nothing. He moved slowly around her to the trap itself. She had broken off several of her long fingernails trying to pry it open, and blood clotted from her broken ankle. A small stone was lodged in the jaw, and that had kept her from losing the foot altogether for it prevented the jaws from snapping shut. He grabbed the releasing spring and pushed it down, and she slid her long leg out, screaming as she did so. Fresh blood poured from the exposed wound.
She tried feebly to crawl away from him, but she was obviously weak, from pain, or loss of blood, or hunger, Trevir knew not which. She let the trap snap shut then moved toward the woman. She watched him with terrified eyes, like a doe that he had shot a few weeks back that still lived as she lay gasping her last few breaths as he neared. "I won't hurt you." He said quietly as he neared her hurt ankle. "I just want to help." He reached her, and took off his pack. She sat up and faced toward him. She watched him keenly, but made no move to flee again. She knew she could not flee him, so she might as well trust him. He brought out a leather roll and unrolled it, exposing dozens of tiny pockets. From one of these he took out a vial. He dripped the contents on her ankle, she gasped and pulled the ankle away, but soon the pained look on her face eased and she let the leg move back to near him. The foot was twisted at an odd angle from the shin, and he knew it must be set and splinted, to heal.
He hated what he was about to do, but he grabbed her calf in a iron grip and then grabbed her foot. She screamed a banshee wail that hurt his ears as he twisted the foot, feeling the bones slide and move inside. Finally, he felt it sort of pop in his hand as it went into its natural position. He stopped moving and let her go. She did not draw that leg up, and stopped screaming. She looked down at the ankle and almost smiled. Trevir looked around the clearing and found a few small branches and made for her a splint with that and some cloth cut from his bedroll. Finally, her foot was secure as it could be. She looked at it dubiously, but seemed to be satisfied that he had not, indeed, harmed her. She tolerated his touch as he bandaged the deep cuts from the teeth of the horrid trap, and covered them with cloth strips as well.
He looked at her again. "Are you an elf?" He asked, but knew the answer was no. This woman was almost his own height, and she had rounded ears, like a human, not an elf. She looked at him blankly and said nothing, just kept sniffing the air as she had been. She leaned toward him and sniffed his belt, then his water skin.
