Sir Leiman strides towards one of the rge, dominant tents, his chainmail ccking with every step. He gestures for the archer to follow, then turns briefly to speak with another knight outside the entrance. Their conversation is too low for me to make out, but the occasional gnces in my direction can only lead me to think they're talking about me.
The tent fp is pulled open, and before I can even process what’s happening, the archer yanks me forward, forcing me inside. The tent is dim, the only light being that of a brazier pced in the middle. Five men surround the soft crackling fmes. They roll up scrolls as we enter in an attempt to keep their meeting and their messages confidential from the ‘Eivan criminals’ that walked in.
This…This looks just like a medieval war tent? Why bring us here—
They’re going to interrogate us.
I can’t tell them that I might’ve fallen into another world. They’ll call me a witch! Maybe I could say I got lost gathering supplies? No, that’s dumb.
That knight made it seem that being in that ‘sacred’ forest alone was suspicious behaviour.
I need to think of something.
Of the men around the brazier, one stands out as his clothes seem more barbaric than the medieval style of the others. In a strange mixture of exposed chainmail and leather, his entire arm is adorned with a rge fur cloak held to his body by a silver chain. His body hints that it’s built for war and not politics.
His dark wavy hair cascades down his chest, a stark contrast from the other men in the tent with shorter styled hair. With a short beard and piercing hazel eyes, his appearance is nothing short of captivating. His gaze suddenly locks with mine, and I quickly lower my sight to the floor, my heart beating at a faster pace.
Sir Leiman steps forward, standing with confidence before the group of perverted men. I unconsciously pull my skirt down in remembrance of the exchange in the wagon.
“My lord, in fulfilment of your commands, I have brought prisoners who hold information on the Eivan uprisings. However, none y cim to knowledge of this ‘beast craze’, my lord.”
One of the men by the brazier speaks, his voice old and unrelenting. His hair is peppered, and his surcoat is amassed with jewels, showing that he’s of a high rank. A scarlet-blood scarf drapes from his shoulders and shifts as he moves forward.
“The woman?” He asks, his brows raised in curiosity. The other men shift, their faces puzzled, as though my presence is an odd finding in whatever the knight’s mission had been.
Argh, here it is.
Think. How did medieval knights treat lost women? I’m not even sure this is Earth, but if it is, then…The code of chivalry. In theory, they should help? Ugh, but that rarely happened.
I’m utterly screwed.
“She was found alone in the sacred woods,” Leiman states, his voice ced with suspicion. “She has yet to speak a word of expnation. It has been this way since we came into possession of her. I suspect her a spy.”
A spy? My thoughts scream for me to argue, to fight about my origins and innocence. How I was practically kidnapped. How, if they followed the code, they were most certainly breaking it! But I bite my tongue, keeping my silence, knowing that as a woman I have no say here. What he says is fact, and I have no right to voice my story.
My life is worth more than my innocence.
At the knight’s words, the peppered man’s eyes began a scrutinising inspection of me. I follow his eyes as they scan me from head to toe, only stopping when he reaches my ankles. He tuts towards the knight, changing his gaze to avoid catching a second glimpse of my exposed skin.
“Good Gods, Man! She's practically naked and bleeding out. Go get her some clothes and get her cleaned up!” He frowns, mumbling about the ‘loose styles of women these days’. Gods?
“Soldier, take her to Ester, he’ll tend to her,” the barbaric man who has yet to utter a word, speaks. His voice is deep and commanding. His eyes study me as if he is trying to piece together something strange, something he can’t quite put his finger on.
The archer walks towards me and unties my restraints from the rope connecting me and the prisoners together. Putting his hand on the small of my back, the archer guides me to the tent entrance and holds the fp open for me as we exit their temporary war room. The barbaric man’s eyes only leave my presence once I’m gone.
Still guiding me along, the archer pushes me towards another rge tent in the middle of a swamp of smaller tents that, by the looks of things, seem to be soldier barracks. Walking to the entrance, I am greeted with the sight of injured men on mats, both inside and outside of the tent. Gently pushing me in, the archer guides me to a middle-aged man in a light blue tunic that reaches his ankles, with an apron marked with a red star tied around his waist
“Ester, the lord commands you to dress and tend to the maiden,” the archer announces to the bouring man.
He tells us to wait a moment, as other men are in dire shape.
Taking a seat on the ground, the archer takes off my restraints and stands to ensure that I’m unable to run away.
After a short wait, Ester returns and crouches on the floor in front of me. He takes a gnce at my damaged arms. He looks up and halts a young d carrying a bowl with a rag, taking it off him. Ester drenches the rag and pours the water over my arm, causing me to hiss at the sharp pain it causes. Acting cautiously, he wipes away the grime and debris on my cuts. Once done, he sets the bowl aside and pces his hand over my arm. He concentrates, and a warm green glow emits from his hand. What the… My jaw drops in utter shock at the strange glowing hand.
“What the fuckk…?” I mutter out in a state of great disturbance at the unholy?! Unnatural?! Or quite frankly, freaky shit.
As if taken aback that nothing is happening, Ester frowns. Taking a breath, he begins rubbing his hands together, speaking a quick chant between them, before bringing them back to my arms. He scans his weird, glowy green hands over my arms once more to no avail…Nothing happens, thank God. Frowning once more, Ester stands, walking over to another soldier and committing the same action. I watch in utter amazement as the soldier’s arm wound gradually closes, leaving nothing but a scratch for Ester to bandage. Standing beside the soldier, Ester looks back at me, brows furrowed in deep thought. He contemptes a quick idea of something strange he’d like to try. Coming back over to me, he dips his finger into the water bowl that was mixed with my blood and draws a symbol on his hand and cps it with the other, transferring a copy of the symbol to the other hand. As if by magic, a soft blue light emits from the symbols, and he hovers his hands over me.
This guy is a freak of nature! What is this? Magic!?
“My great Gods…” He falls back onto the floor with a gasp, the symbols slowly dripping off his hands as he rests them on his knees in shock. Gods? So, it wasn’t a mistake when that man said it before?
“Ester, are you alright?” The archer asks, helping the medic back to his feet.
“Uhh…Yes! Yes, I am. Too many patients today is all.” He reassures the lowly soldier, but with concern painted all over his face. His questionable demeanour causes me to quickly acknowledge that he knows I don’t belong here. But I look on, keeping up my clueless facade, trying to not only hide my anxious state of being surrounded and kidnapped by unknown men but also knowing I don't belong here.
“Is she a guest of the lord?” Ester asks the archer with an intense, quizzical stare.
Victim of the lord.
“On the contrary, we found her during our passing through the sacred forest.” The archer furrows his brow, looking at Ester, trying to gather more information as to why he is acting so strangely.
However, Ester just coughs, putting on a neutral face in an attempt to disguise his thoughts as being ‘completely normal.’ He walks over to a desk and brings back some bandages as well as a long-sleeved green tunic and brown cloth trousers. He wraps my wounds and tells me to put on the clothes. I look at the men with an arched brow, and Ester replies with a confused face before realising something. He takes me to the corner of the tent and holds up a bnket for me to change into. His hands glow. HIS HANDS GLOW!? I mentally freak out, now having time to acknowledge what I actually saw. After changing, I tug down the bnket Ester was holding. I now face both men shyly in the oversized medieval outfit I was given. These people are going to kill me with their weird, freaky hands.
“It’ll do,” Ester says nonchantly with his arms crossed, looking back at the archer for his opinion. Dropping his guard to let out a witty word, the archer attempts to speak, but it is halted by Ester grabbing the back of his head and smming his other hand onto the archer’s mouth with a cloth. The archer is lowered to the floor by Ester as his body gets more limp. I gasp and step back, csping the tent tightly behind me, my mouth agape. What the fuck?! I go to say something, anything, but Ester points the rag towards me in an empty threat to ‘do me off’ next.
In the bustling tent, Ester’s actions go unnoticed, which I could tell he was gd for. He leaps at me and grabs my arm, dragging me out of the tent in haste towards the direction of the war tent.
“Get off me!” I finally shout, attempting to yank my arm out of his grasp.
“Speak once more and you can meet him unconscious.” He threatens, yet he looks at me with such high concern that he seems more afraid than threatening. However, knowing that he wouldn’t be afraid to knock me out, I ponder the actions I could take at this moment. Make a scene and get knocked out? Orrr wait for the right moment to do the same to him. Ultimately deciding that the second option was better, I scowl at him as he drags me along to the tent.
Once at the entrance, Ester pops his head into the tent, asking the lord for ‘a moment of his time.’ Whilst he is speaking, with my other hand, I try to csp a vial out of the medic’s utility belt. I’m not sure what it is, but at this point, anything is better than nothing. However, Ester keeps moving in a way that makes grabbing anything without notice practically impossible. My moment of potential escape passes when the tawny barbaric man pushes open the fp with his hand, catching my eye as he fully exits the loud tent.
“What ails you, my friend?” The colossal man queries, looking at me with an investigative eye, just as though he were trying to piece together the situation without needing to hear answers.
“She is...without ferra.” Ester chokes out in confusion as if he is seemingly baffled by his own words, as though what he said could never be true, like it was an unnatural statement that went against everything. Ester stares at the colossal man, hinting that what he said might lead to another conversation, a much darker one.
Ferra? Like from my old bedtime stories?
Seemingly quick to realise what Ester was hinting towards, the dark-haired man momentarily freezes in thought, to then return with a dark gaze targeted towards me.
Whatever Ester had said was the ‘thing’ he couldn’t quite piece together.
“Caspian—” Ester pleads, but is cut off by the barbaric man’s hand being pced on his shoulder in a reassuring comfort.
“I trust you, my friend, I don’t question your skills.” Ester sighs in discomfort at his knowledge, knowing that what he holds secret is tormenting him.
“However, this is a situation more dire than investigating criminals about the uprisings in Eiva.” Caspian slowly moves towards me, grasping the hilt of his great sword. “Who are you?” He continues to press forward, his advances making me stumble back and fall onto the ground.
“G-Genevieve..W-Woodsman,.” I choke out in fear at the potentially deadly scenario pying out in front of me.
“Why were you in the sacred forest? Alone?” He asks menacingly, crouching in front of me.
“I-I don’t know.” I blurt out, putting a hand over my heart in a failed attempt to look as though I mean no harm.
“I won’t ask again.” He belows, standing up and unsheathing his weapon slightly to reveal the intricately detailed sword, littered with hand-carved symbols.
“I don’t know! I promise! I just ended up there! You have to believe me…” I sob out, clutching my tunic as my heart and throat tighten. The anxiety and fear building in me reach their climax, and my breath becomes rapid and fast, as I continue to mumble out ‘I don’t know’.
“Please don’t kill me…” I mutter in my smallest voice. Upon hearing the sentence, Caspian’s face changes, and he sheathes his sword. He puts his hand out and guides me to my feet.
“If you truly don’t know, then you’re a danger to yourself and others.” He mutters to himself, crossing his muscur arms.
Uncrossing an arm, he points to me. ”You are never to leave my sight,” he commands, pointing back to himself with his thumb. He turns to Ester and continues. “She is to be watched at all times.”
Though sniffling and still recovering from thinking he was going to kill me a moment ago, I manage to make a dirty face towards him. My will to hold back my screams of murderous anger towards him being greater to disguise than expected.
What the fuck? Who the hell does he think he is? Even a blind person can see that I’m an innocent bystander in all of this. This man is just fucking cruel. I cross my arms and shrug with an aggravated huff at the complete madness of it all.
“Everything I do is for a reason. And as I and many people here think you’re a spy, I won’t have an issue cutting you down if you don’t comply.” He threatens with a stern look, his demeanour darkening. Intimidated, I take a deep breath and look away in compliance with what he says.
“She’ll rest in my quarters tonight. Get Leiman to guard it.” The dark-haired man commands Ester, receiving a salute of the medic’s fist to his heart in return.
“Now, are you going to comply, or do I have to drug you?” Ester teases half-heartedly, but it comes off more like an unsettling threat.
“I’ll comply…”