INCIPIENT ➵ EDMUND PEVENSIE

07 | A Sword to Sever

07 | A SWORD TO SEVER

Falling into the soil, she hisses as the weight of her body exerts pressure onto her healing palm, coiled with broken rope.

    The undergrowth around her begins to shrivel, desiccating and withering at her touch, bereaved of the chartreuse gloss they once glowed with beneath the effulgence of the moon.

    Gasps fill her ears as the creatures around her began convulsing at the malignant scene, and she looks up to find everyone abandoning their original positions and withdrawing from where she lay.

    She bows her head in shame. She is weeping.

    All but a pair of hooves slink away from her vision.

    Her gaze trails up the body of the beast before her - a centaur, the same centaur who spoke before, with a horse's body of burnt sienna and toned torso of a human male. His kind eyes meet hers, burning with a kind of austerity and inquisitiveness.

    "Who's this?" he asks, his voice thunderous, his words directed to someone behind her.

    She attempts to prop herself up, before coming to a halt at the awareness of an algid material jostling against her back - a blade.

    "An intruder, Sir Roonwit, found her eavesdropping amidst the bushes," says the one behind her, who turns out to be a faun. "Not forgetting that she has an interesting talent," he finishes with a little tease.

    "Be polite, Norkirn," warns Roonwit the centaur, bending down to her level. "Are you all right?"

    She doesn't know what to say. It just feels so unfair. She was a breath from escape and yet, she was caught.

    "Your name?" he asks shortly after.

    "I-" she stutters, "I don't- No, my last name is Elliott, s-sir."

    "Where are you from, Miss Elliott?" he continues.

    The interrogation is making her stomach churn.

    "Oxford, England."

    "She's a daughter of Eve," she hears whispers.

    "No, a devil."

    "She has dark magic. A witch I say!"

    Roonwit disregards the comments and extends his hand towards her. She abjures his touch, images of the possible aftermath flashing through her head.

    "Please don't touch me," she pleads, tears brimming, "I don't want to hurt anyone."

    "Of course," says Roonwit in reply, standing up again so that his shadow casts over her and seems to encase her in his protection. "Who brought her here?"

    "It's rather obvious that the Telmarines sent her to wipe us all!" someone accuses.

    "Yeah, 'pecially with the King's nephew missing," resonates another.