The Magician used both hands to hold her scepter out this way and that. When the ruby-throated hummingbirds started their birdsong back up, she deduced the temporary quiet had been a false alarm. It was daytime anyhow, surely a child born of the moon had no inclination to find himself out in the scorching sun. Mother nature's perfume was wonderful as ever, and she inhaled her sweet scents while trudging along. "You'd have been my mother if God had given me a choice," she thought aloud. The trail she'd been following soon led the young lady to a curious-looking garden. Kneeling down as to admire the blue irisis and her favorite flower more closely, she placed her scepter on the ground and proceeded to pluck a handful of honeysuckle, roots and all. A blossomed bud brushed her lips as she sucked out its nectar.
"You look lovely," approached a velvet voice from just a few paces away. The young lady became startled and lost her grip on the edible flowers. The velvet voice belonged to a masked man who came forward, picked the flowers up, and held them back out to his beloved. When she wouldn't so much as blink, he offered his hand instead meaning to kiss her hand hello, she knew, but she'd be damned if she let him. Blood began boiling in her veins as she contemplated how she'd get out of this one. "I thought I told you to leave me be," she said, seizing her scepter as she straightened up. "You and I both know I can't do that," he said as he relinquished his hold on the flowers and allowed his arm to fall limply at his side. "Of course you can," she said, rolling her eyes. "Careful, you'll get dizzy," he told her with genuine concern etched in his heterochromic eyes. It was all she could do not to scream. "How did you find me?" she was mystified. "Finding you wasn't a difficult task. Getting you all alone was," he confided. She'd heard enough and was prepared to make him wish he'd never sought her out, but he followed her train of thoughts easily as he'd known her and her wayward ways for years. "Sometimes you leave me no choice but to hurt you," he said, wrapping his long fingers around her wrists to keep her magic from circulating. The tightening continued gradually until her hands started spasming. She sunk to her knees because of the pain and became afraid when her silver safety slipped from her fingers. He noticed her eyeing the scepter, so he evoked a yelp out of her by pulling her submissive wrist in an awkward direction. As he lowered himself to the ground with her and brought his lips to the top of her ridiculously long hair, he said, "It would be in your best interest to control yourself." She thought about telling him off, but her self-control needed practice, it was true. So she pursed her lips and looked up at him defiantly. "Your body, your mind, and your soul belong to me," he reminded her. "I am aware," she said to him. He began helping her up, but she pulled away sulkily and started steadily opening and closing her unscathed hand as to return feeling into it more quickly. "The things I want to do to you," he sighed, taking her grandeur in anew. "Damn demon!" her burning ears canceled her concentration. "Princess, please," he said huskily, pinning her against his body and that of a tree. He held her in place by putting a hand on her waist as his other came to rest beside her head while his lips inched closer to her neck.
"Leave her alone," a chiseled face man spoke as he raised his blunt weapon. "She's worth too much trouble anyway," muttered the masked man. "Move along then," the newcomer warned as he took in the scene before him. A young lady was being held with her back against a tulip tree, and the newcomer judged her to be in distress by the clammy moisture on her forehead and grit of her teeth. The masked man suddenly righted himself, returning her personal space. He then partially turned his back on them, scoffed, "Watch your back, Creator," and walked away, crushing the fallen flowers with the heel of his black boot in the process. "How do you fair?" he asked as he strode to the young lady's side. "All right," she winced. He watched her bend down to retrieve her weapon and figured she was using the tree as support to keep from falling over, so he hurriedly sheathed his mace and took her scepter meaning to help hold her steady. "Were you even planning on calling for help?" he wondered, removing his hachimaki to use as a makeshift sling. "I was holding my own," she insisted. "Like hell you were!" he accused, placing her good arm across his shoulders. A few minutes of walking along the once again lively greenery passed. "I wasn't able to scout the entire area," she lamented. "I took care of it," her right hand informed her as they stepped cautiously over a fallen log. "Thanks tons, Siro," she said, offering a grin. "Always, Kai," came his automatic response.
"Just how much longer are we supposed to stay put?" demanded Elyne of the stars, shaking her fist as a hand came to rest on her naked shoulder. "There's a town a little ways yonder. No worries, Elyne." The young girl spun around quickly. "League master, I didn't hear your approach! Wh-what happened to your arm?" Kaichou took back her good hand and locked eyes with each wary traveler in turn. "Siro, if you would," she motioned before sitting down on a nearby rock that Marmar and Rena inhabited, and the two girls fretted over her shamelessly. "Tomorrow, we'll split off into groups of two and enter the town," he began. "Might we stay at an inn there?" Lance interrupted, inquisitive as always. Siro caught Kaichou's curt, dismissive nod from his peripheral vision. "I'm afraid not," he said slowly, allowing the words to sink in. The group had been traveling for weeks now, their soles sore, their thirst unquenchable. They should have turned her down when she'd asked them to come along, Kaichou thought. But they would've been furious if she'd kept quiet, Jer especially. Fireflies flickered in the moonlit forest. "Everyone ought to get some rest," she spoke up, ending the deafening silence. "I'll take the first watch," JohnPaul jumped up, eager as can be. "That's all right then," she allowed, and the lot of them headed inside a darn near claustrophobic cave. Kaichou would go on to dream that the velvet voice had returned and taken her back to his castle while she slept with no one the wiser. Worse, she hadn't felt like a prisoner at his mercy. Not entirely at least.
