Chapter Two: The Wolf
Aeria, without a word, opened her window, and took a chance with death to escape her seemingly shrinking room.. She leapt, sucking in a deep breath, her raven locks of hair flying upward, blue eyes tightly shut.
She was still wearing her royal gown, but her tiara was in her room, perfectly balanced on a stool, silver and gleaming with precious gems. The knight, watched with curious green eyes and a cocked head, evaluating the situation. Aeria did not notice, and ran, ran like the wind, like her father was after her with a thousand men. The knight ran after the fleeing form of Aeria, hollering.
“Wait! Wait!” he yelled at the top of his lungs. Aeria heard but she ignored him, continuing to run for her life. He raced after her, easily catching up with his harsh training as a knight, without the slightest decrease of fatigue. She kept running tirelessly, dodging trees and bushes but suddenly stopped to a halt. A beautiful wolf stood there with silver and snowy fur, having dark mysterious blue eyes which seemed to hold a secret. It stood there, with a look of great intelligence.
She held in a breath and slowly stepped forward, her legs moving of their own accord, her footsteps lightly crunching the late autumn leaves on the forest floor. When it seemed like the silence could not hold still any longer, the wolf padded slowly and silently to meet the awestruck Aeria. Its eyes gleamed intelligently as it’s contemplative gaze watched her. Aeria slowly turned as she heard loud footsteps behind her. The knight who had chased her was there, panting and his face flushed a red, tomato color.
He was without armor, but had two weapons strung on his back, a long sword and an elven bow, with a quiver strapped to his belt. The long-sword was simple, made of steel in a black leather scabbard. The elven bow on the other hand was much more graceful in comparison. His disheveled, raven black hair was tousled from the wind and his green eyes portrayed an unguarded curiosity at the sight between girl and wolf. The wolf exchanged gazes with the pair, then turned, and padded away.
Without a word, he took one of the two weapons, the elven bow, and handed it to her. Aeria gazed at the bow, not understanding the gesture. The beautifully pale, birch wood was outlined with the Black Kingdom’s insignia, an inky dark flame-like shape was etched into the bow, starting from the bottom to the middle of the firm shaft. The handle was very extravagant for a bow, a midnight dark metal with wisps of silver engraved deeply in. The string was finely made, colored a thin silver, she concluded that the bow was simply beautiful. She looked at the bow with confused eyes. She cautiously accepted the bow, turning it over, inspecting it warily, lest it be a trap. After she concluded that it was harmless, she could feel something when she held it.
Aeria felt a certain power through the bow, calling her, beckoning it towards her. She could feel her power channeling through the ranged weapon. Though, there was one tiny problem, well, a big one actually.
“That’s it? This is all I get? A beautifully useless bow and nothing else? Do you not get the concept of arrows? They tend to be useful when owning a bow, they help you hit people attacking.What am I supposed to do with this? Hit someone over the head with it?!”
He stood in complete silence, a corner of his lips quirked up in a ghost of a smirk. He took off the quiver of arrows tied to his belt and slowly handed it to her, his eyes now twinkling with amusement. She examined the thick, fine leather, beautifully dyed a midnight blue. In this was a dozen arrows, enough to sustain her if she needed to hunt, but not in an attack.
