~HEARTS & FANGS~

8: PERIPETEIA💫

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PERIPETEIA💫

The taste of freedom was intoxicating and she was nearly inebriated. Her stray hairs flew wildly around her face, carried by the strong wind her equitation was producing. She was riding at a very fast almost sickening gallop down the stone path, extremely excited and nonchalantly delighted, raring to see what her freedom would bring her, happy at her peripeteia.

She came to a slow halt gradually at the sound of running water, splashing loudly in the silence of the night. She urged the horse into a lazy walk as they arrived at a dead end -it was not so dead anyways. The stone pathway had ended at the shores of a lake. Her earlier internal ululation died within seconds and disappointment began to slowly seep into her, lambent yet lethal. She hung her head, disturbed. This meant that she had to turn back and go the intersection to try another pathway, maybe the straight path and not the left.

Meanwhile, the sound of approaching horse hooves made her heart catch in her thoracic cavity, causing her diaphragm to stretch upwards, attempting to smother her heart. She knew without being told that she had been found and was being pursued. They were coming for her. The hooves drew closer. She looked left and right, forward and backward, confused, unable to make a decision in that moment -she would regret not doing so later. She was completely caught between the approaching devil and the clear water of the lake for her left and right were forest thickets. She decided at the last moment to dart into it nonetheless, despite whatever wild animal awaited her in it. She would risk it.

An arrow whisked past her, frightening her horse, indicating that it was too late to do so. Her pursuers had caught up with her, pursued and overtook, yet to recover. She would not let them recover. She turned towards them all. Linamine soldiers flocked unto the shore from the stone path on horses, surrounding her quickly. Their numbers made her spirit nearly die.

A picture of her, wild and free, unrestrained in a lovely meadow came to her mind and her dead spirit sizzled to life, reviving with a new vigour. She refused to be taken back to that prison. She would stand her ground. She would not surrender to them easily, not without a fight that is -even if it was a fight to the death. She was ready for such.

'Surrender!' one of the guards at the fore front said to her in a loud voice. She shook her head vigorously at him, declining.

'No! Let me alone!' she protested.

'Surrender or be made to do so!' he repeated. She wielded her spear, ready for anything.

'Stop,' the emperor's voice rang out, clear and commanding. All movements seized. 'All of you, retreat,' he commanded in a loud authoritative voice.

'Everyone, retreat,' Cora repeated loudly. The warriors obeyed, letting him ride forward. He dismounted from clover and came to her. She brandished her weapon afore him. She was a good fighter but she could not best him, and she knew it. He said nothing to her for a long while, staring into her eyes with a cold hard and dark expression that sent shivers of trepidation upon her, dancing flippantly around her body, chasing one another.

'Mine,' he finally said to her in a gentle voice that betrayed his annoyance. She needed no one then to brief her of the intensity of his anger. His eyes gave away the fact that he was fighting madly for control. He was on the verge of losing it, at the very brink of his self control. There was no mistaking the icy murderous look in his eyes or the chilliness of his cold frightening aura.