Rothester

Chapter 34: Friendly Elf

Deep into the forests surrounding Scorrest, Arierane calmly walks along a small trail leading to seemingly nowhere, cloaked and hooded. The only hints of where Ken could have gone are the footprints she is lucky to find or the dead bodies he's left behind.

Soon after leaving the city limits, it was clear to Arierane that a group of mercenaries tried to follow and capture Ken in a last-ditch effort. The way she knows this is from the corpses along the trail. No gunshot wounds, only slash or stab wounds. However, what bothers her the most is the brutality in which some of the mercenaries were killed. It seems as if Ken was purposely, and rather sadistically, inflicting pain and suffering to those who chase after him. The mercenaries are bludgeoned and bloody. Most of the bodies are mutilated, missing arms, missing legs; some were even beheaded. The few who weren't were left to die, hardly even breathing by the time Arierane found them. Whether this is a warning to her or not, Ken has revealed himself to have a threatening dark side.

Ever since Lady Thorne sheltered them, Arierane has continually tried to break into Ken's mind. Every night she tried, and every time she failed. It was made impossible after discovering Ken's injury caused memory loss, and his mind became a convoluted mess.

Now, as she walks through the forest chasing after Ken's tracks, she has time to think. She tightly grips her wooden recurve bow, which she retrieved from a hidden location after Ken ran away. It may already be impossible to salvage her initial objective of taking control of Ken. Infiltrating Ardai Industries might have to be abandoned unless she finds another one of their people.

But then why is she still going after Ken? It might be because she feels sorry for him. Her greedy actions made him severely unstable and may have caused permanent damage. Every night she tried to force his memories to come back, she would hear him talk extensively in his sleep. Though she didn't understand a lot of what Ken referenced, she understood the basic story. He was a warrior in some war-torn area. Thinking he was doing good by fighting evil, he became evil himself.

It's inexplicable, she never cared much for people's sob stories, but something about Ken makes Arierane sympathetic. Maybe it's because she has a direct impact on his apparent suffering. It was always interesting to observe how calm and normal Ken was during the day while telling a traumatic horror story in his sleep.

Just what kind of person is Ken? Arierane feels conflicted. She is too prideful to care about someone, especially a human, but Ken is far more interesting than most people she meets. The only thing she knows for sure is that he's dangerous, and she may be making a mistake by chasing after him. The dead mercenaries he left behind have cemented a dark image in Arierane's mind. Few people are capable of inflicting such extensive damage to others.

.

.

The sky has become dark blue as the first signs of sunlight graze the atmosphere. It's still a while before sunrise, but the early hours provide enough illumination to see without moonlight. After hours of tracking, Arierane has eventually come across coach wreckages, where the ambush took place. Wanting to scan the area before walking into it, she swiftly climbs onto a tree branch and observes.

"So this is where you came..." she whispers as she hides behind the thick leaves and tree trunk.

The area immediately around the ambush site is cleared of trees. Evidence of a battle is still there, but its evident nature has already started to heal. Ken sits on the ground with his knees up, leaning against the remains of the armored coach, still wearing the commoner clothes that Lady Throne gave him. They are stained with smudges of red. His hair is messy and unkempt, with multiple clumped strands of hair hanging in front of his face. Arierane can see he is depressed.