The underbrush becomes only more difficult the farther I go into the thicket, and I grow only more hungry with each handful of tall grass and tangled vines I grab and cut with my machete. It's tough going, and tougher the longer it goes. Whoever said elves were meant for forests likely never met Rien Monfrense, a poor excuse for an elf if ever there were one—though, in her defense, she is only half of one, on her father's side.
It must be midday already, but I can hardly see the sun through the thick canopy of trees overhead. Taking a pause, I lean against the broad trunk of a nearby tree. I lounge for a moment, swiping moisture away from my forehead with the back of my glove. I pull some of my short, ivory hair, dappled with the sweat of my effort, behind my pointed ears and sigh. I loosen the ties of my jerkin, fan the thick wool a bit to encourage a current of cooling air over my chest. I swipe fingers at my cheeks and my gloves come away laden with dirt and sweat. Looking down, I see how the dust has wormed its way even between the valley of my breasts, adding an ochre tinge to my obsidian skin. I shift the position of the bow slung over my shoulder to prevent its taut string from digging so tightly into my cleavage. My tongue is thick and dry. I pat the canteen at my side, but it rattles against the buckles of my belt, empty.
Where am I? I should've hit the river by now, I'm sure of it.
Suddenly, a distinct odor finds my senses over the smell of freshly cut grass—the tangy scent of roast meat, and the freshly stoked firewood. A camp is near.
Starved as I am, it's all I can do to stop myself from breaking into a full-on sprint at the promise of a nearby meal. Caution, however, guides me to a slower step. Starved I may be, but a deserter too. This could be an army camp I'm approaching, and if the army finds me, I'll suffer a worse fate than an empty belly.
My stomach emits a ferocious, needy grumble; caution can go screw.
I trudge forward through the saw grass and the gripping, thorny bushes, grabbing and cutting, like a woman possessed, the thick brambles that attempt to snare around my high boots and slow me. My shoulders and back ache from the effort. My legs groan and beg me to stop, but I pay them no heed, nor do I pay any to the risk of being discovered by the very army I fled just last night. A worse fate with the army? I'll suffer the risk of a few dozen lashes if it puts a warm meal in me—or even a cold one, at this point.
I stumble into a clearing, a small copse, finding a sight so pure, so beautiful, it compels me to blink several times to clear my sight, lest I discover I look upon only a cruel mirage.
In the clearing is a small hut, built of raw-hewn timber with a small porch and a roof of dried thatch, joisted on rough pillars of tree trunk, bark and all. But that's not what captivates me so. In front of me, barely five feet away, is a fire pit, stones of various sizes ringing a smoldering campfire, above which, on a crude wooden spit, crackles and weeps the most precious sight my amber eyes have ever beheld:
A full rabbit, skinned, trussed, and waiting for me to eat. I tumble forward another step, into the trodden grass of the clearing, reaching my hands as if they alone could breach the distance between myself and this feast. My stomach roars out a curious combination of joy and greed.
Slow down girl, take a moment. Against all cries of my stomach—it thinks it knows better—I halt my ungainly steps. With a deep breath, I clear my thoughts, focusing on my senses. I slow my heartbeat, and use the clarity to sharpen my hearing. Someone's cooking, they must be nearby, but my heightened senses detect no beings among the nearby trees. Without the echo of living nature to guide me, I can be less sure of what lies in wait in the nearby hut, I see no candle light or oil lamp's glow through the crude windows of the small hut. I am surely alone.
Beside me, on a wide, flat rock, is a wooden bucket brimming with fresh water. Thirsty enough to choke, I lift the bucket and upturn it. In my haste, I get more water on my face than down my throat, I'm sure, but my face needed a wash as badly as my throat needed a drink, so where's the difference? I gulp down eagerly, exulting in in the cleansing chill of water down my face and as much as I do each quenching gulp.
I surface for air with a sated gasp and drop the bucket to the ground beside me. There, that's better. I slick damp hair from my face with both hands as assess my situation.
This is no army camp. Of that, at least, I am certain. At worst, this looks to be the home of some defenseless old crone or hermit. Let it never be said that Rien Monfrense took pride in banditry—but let it also never be said that a fear of dishonorable behavior prevented her from engaging in it, in such times of dire need.
Summoning whatever dregs of graceful heritage lie dormant in my half-elven veins, I silence my footsteps as I draw closer to the fire. The thick soles of my roughshod boots trace whisper quiet through the grass as I bring myself closer to my feast, step by aching step.
I keep my hearing focused to a knife's point, but still I detect no beings among the trees, not even the small, black squirrels who evaded my poor archery all morning. Not only do elves have a taste for forests, but bows, or so the legends go. More's the pity this elf, or half of one, has no apparent in-born talent towards accuracy, and she spent every arrow in her quiver this morning in fruitless hunt of game hardly worth a mouthful to begin with.
Yet here before her is a feast. No weak, woeful squirrel, but a fat, plump, juice-spitting rabbit! In the dim, filtered daylight, the sizzling sheen of its skin takes on an aura almost holy.
My next step takes me within arm's reach. I grip the roasting spit on one side, planning to snatch it away, carcass and all, and sprint into the woods before I am discovered and whatever small lees of conscience lie left in the empty wine cask of my starving body compel me to abandon my thievery. My glove touches down upon the roughly whittled spit, I wrap my fingers around it, and I...
...find myself quite unable to move.
The startlement that spills through me somehow refuses to transmute into physical response. Paralyzed, as if wrapped in thick chains from head to toe. I cannot move an inch. Not even my fingers, wrapped greedily around the spit will respond. A tremor of warning runs down my neck, far too late.
"Well well," says a soft voice, youthful and curious, from behind. "Seems I've caught something quite a bit bigger than a rabbit."
The supernatural senses of my elven heritage find themselves quickly overridden by the quite natural, quite mortal terror of being caught in the act. Inwardly, I thrash and shake, trying to will myself to life and motion, but it's all I can do just to move my eyes from side to side, trying to catch some glimpse of my captor in my peripheral vision.
She does the job for me, duck-stepping around my frozen body to regard me from the other side of the fire pit.
She wears a clean, but patchwork, cloak, grey and black, long enough to reach her small, moccasin-clad feet, and upon her head is a conical hat, its peak stooped with age, with a wide brim low enough to obscure her eyes, but not her freckled cheeks, nor her brimming smile, widening further with each passing moment. She is a short thing, obviously waifish, the way her simple clothes rest languorously over her slip of a body, but a tremor in the air compels a dread inside my body that clashes with her ineffectual physique. Glancing down to the short, crooked staff she holds casually clasped in both hand behind her back, I realize the source of my unconscious fear.
A glade witch!
The fire's heat buds fresh sweat to my brow. The witch raises her staff into the brim of her broad had, tipping it out of her face and revealing curious eyes of crystalline clarity. She purses her pert lips, regarding me as if I were a sculpture in a gallery.
I groan silently, urging my body to move. Wrenching towards any ounce of strength I can find within, a forcible tremor finds my body. The knuckles of my fingers flicker. I can move! I can move!
"Ah, ah ah," chides the witch, with a leisurely, one-handed wave of her staff through the air afore her.
The air scintillates to life around me. Out of nothing manifests a set of spectral rose vines, glimmering in a pinkish color, around my form. They writhe in patient motions, tensing around my arms and legs, chest and neck, revealing the source of my bondage.
Her casual smile opens wide enough to show teeth. "You're quite caught, I assure you."
My chest sears with the effort it requires even to draw breath.
"It's a long time since I've had any visitors," she says. Bringing both hands before her, she taps the crook of her staff a time or two against her open palm. Though I cannot even think to move, some casual command of hers compels me to do so. Without my input, my fingers untwine their grip around the spit. Her smile morphs to a mock frown, just for a small instant. "Or should I say: any trespassers?"
I make to spit a blithe curse at her, but find my tongue as unresponsive as my fingers. I cannot speak.
With a tut-tut motion of her staff towards me, the spectral shackles slack around me. I tense my body to leap, but before I can commit, the shackles bind me once more. I startle inwardly as my body moves to her command, not mine, my aching legs groaning to life one step at a time, backing me away from the fire. The sheer sense of motion thrills me, even if it is not my own, but my stomach cries out in grief. Paralyzed or no, all that concerns my hunger is that it is now three steps further from sustenance than it was a moment ago.
"That's better," she says. "I'd be a terrible host if I allowed my first guest in ages to slip and get burned."
