Becoming Her Knight

Chapter Five

Some of the soldiers gave chase, but not nearly as many as Finn had expected. She assumed that the confusion of setting up their camp made their reactions slow enough that Finn was able to break further and further away from them, even after her magic had run out and she was carrying Adi with only her own physical strength.

"We're getting too far away," Adi gasped, slapping Finn on the shoulder, once Finn slowed down to a panting slow jog. "My father!" she exclaimed. "We can't leave him!"

"We need to shake them off first," Finn said, short of breath. "If we hang around while they're still looking for us, we're just going to be caught."

Adi groaned and Finn felt her tuck her face into the juncture of her neck and shoulder, her arms squeezing tight around her neck. Adi was a warm weight on her back, her skin soft and warm in the cool evening air, but Finn pushed thoughts about her body and skin away viciously. She needed to focus. She could be a gross hormonal mess after they were both out of danger.

Finn was slowing down, her endurance flagging. She let herself slow down into a more sustainable pace, focusing on lifting her burning thighs high enough to clear the crunching underbrush of the forest and listening for the sounds of the human soldiers crashing through the forest behind her. She was slowing down, but they were even slower. She was still increasing their lead, but she wouldn't be able to do so forever. Once the other humans back at the camp got their shit together, they would surely put together a more organized hunt for them. They needed somewhere to hide out. They didn't have any kind of equipment or provisions needed to survive a long chase, they didn't even have clothes on their backs to protect them from the elements. They wouldn't outlast the human soldiers, so they would need to outsmart them.

Like a godsend, just as Finn was thinking that they came across a deep ravine that she had to carefully pause at the top of. A small stream that Finn had been carefully stepping around for the past half hour emptied over a steep rocky outcropping to spill maybe twenty feet down into a sandy basin in the hillside before continuing down with ferocity. Thinking this might be their hiding spot, Finn carefully picked her way down around the waterfall, circling back toward the water crashing down from above. Sure enough, there was a shallow cave just behind the water, hidden by hanging vines and the sheets of water falling from above.

"We should hide out here," Finn said as she carefully let Adi down from her back. Her arms ached as they slowly unlocked from where they had been clutching Adi's legs. She pulled back some of the long green vines of ivy to show Adi the space behind the waterfall. It was just barely big enough for the two of them to sit with their backs against the slick moss covered rock wall with their feet in the shallow water. "Hopefully they'll go around the ravine and pass right by us."

Adi had her arms clutched over her chest and her knees tucked together. She looked anxious, her eyes ringed with red and her mouth tight and narrow. Her shoulders were up around her ears and she glanced nervously all around her, like she expected someone to jump out of the woods at any moment and grab her.

"Come on," Finn said as gently as she could manage, reaching out a hand to beckon Adi in under the vines.

Shuffling, Adi came forward and took Finn's hand in her own, her fingers trembling. She allowed herself to be ushered into the small hiding spot and crouched and then sat, unable to stand up behind the waterfall without sticking her head in the water. Finn followed her in and squatted beside her, trying to keep her muscles loose and her breathing deep. She knew from experience that if she went through the motions of being calm long enough, actual calm would eventually come.

"What happens if they find us?" Adi whispered after they had been sitting silently for a little while. Finn could hear the soldiers' loud passing through the forest, but she wasn't sure if Adi could. Finn had heard other people say that elves had better hearing than most, but she didn't know if that was actually true or just a stereotype based on the size of their ears. She had never bothered to find out for herself.