𝘚𝘦𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘵𝘴, 𝘓𝘰𝘷𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘓𝘪𝘦𝘴

The Girl in the Woods (part 3)

"Wymond." It was a whisper. "Wymond... please..." his mother was trying to get her sons attention but her voice would not raise above a whisper.

"Mother?" He mumbled back before standing from the stove he was cooking on and strode to his mothers bedside. There, he raised the pan of medicine, he had gathered ingredients from the woods, to her lips and forced her to drink it.

His mother bat Wymond's hands away and shook her head. "Just let me go." She murmured. "Save yourself. Eat. Just let... me... go..."

"Mum?" Wymond said, his voice beginning to raise to a shout. "Mum?"

She reached up and grabbed his hands. "I am fine." She forced out. "Just sit with me. Just let me go. Please." She added when Wymond started to object.

He nodded his head.

"If your father comes back... get away from him..." she said. "Look after yourself... I am so proud of you." She cupped his face in her hands. "Look at you... so grown up... so handsome... so strong..."

Wymond hushed her and told her to close her eyes. She looked so frail. She had aged about twenty years since last week. His mother was beautiful once but now, she was like a corpse - her pale skin and deep wrinkles, her cracked lips and shaky hands. The graying of her hair. Without her, what would he be? He once loathed his mother for ignoring the abuse his father gave him, but now, when she was leaving him in this world of violence and lies, he was scared. Sacred of what would happen.

This is shit, he told himself. I have been living for myself for years, I will survive on my own, at least I don't have this burden.

Her breathing was becoming shallower. Slow, rasping breaths. She turned her head to the side and opened her eyes to look into her sons. They had the same hazel eyes with flecks of yellow in them.

"Wymond." She breathed. "I love you."

Her chest rose for the last time before becoming still. Wymond just sat there. Emotionless. His mother's hand was limp in his own.

***

He waited until dark before sneaking to Kamden's house.

Before he knew it, he was with his friend in the woods again.

"Wymond." Kamden panted. "Stop... Stop."

At the second stop, Wymond was forced back to reality.

"It's dark. We can't see far. Just stop." Kamden persuaded as he took a few steps closer to his friend. "We can't be out here, you know that, what if someone finds us?"

Wymond wasn't listening. He had heard something and was intrigued with that.

"Fuck." Kamden breathed from a short distance away from him.

Wymond raised a finger to his lips and pointed pass a tree. There was a shape moving in the shadows.

"Shit." Kamden murmured.

Then the shape came into the moonlight to reveal a girl.

"What the hell?" Wymond whispered.

Kamden just shook his head in disbelief.

They watched as Princess Hilda raised her bow and fired at a tree. Then she turned on the spot and hit the tree behind her. Turning again, she hit another. She kept turning until all her arrows had been spent.

Breathing heavily, she took in her surroundings: about a dozen or so arrows in the trees, none on the ground.

Carefully, Hilda removed all the arrows from the bark and placed them back in the quiver.

"Fuck you Father." She said, her voice shaking with anger.

The boys exchanged glances with raised eyebrows.

"Fuck you." The Princess said again. "I will always go against what you tell me to do. I will always do what is right for me. I will not live in this world of men controlling me... of men controlling women... of- of men controlling everything that happens. No! I will make a change. I will do what is right."

With that, she took one last look of the trees she shot and ran back towards the castle.

"Whoa." Kamden said, smirking. "Let's make her Queen now!"

Wymond punched him in the arm. "At dawn, come with me, I want a job. And I want a job for the King. I want to be a Hunter. You can either say no now or come tomorrow."

Kamden's forehead creased between his eyebrows. "Where did that come from?"

"Don't know, but we're doing that now. Are you up to it?"

"I guess so."