Zorya is a wild and a beautiful, pagan princess who loves spending time in the depths of her forest, side by side with her wolf, becoming one with a nature.
Darius is a cruel, and dark Christian King, feared by many, with a tragic fate, who comes t...
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Zorya was outside in the woods, haunting with her wolf and her brothers, as usual competing who will by the end of the day have the most meat, and so their competition would usually end in a celebration as they would tell interesting stories from their haunting trips. As much as the Slavs respected Mother of Nature, Mokosh, they respected the food chain that she created to provide them with animals that they will use to sacrifice to the gods, food, and for warm clothes they needed for the harsh winter days.
Zorya wasn't satisfied by hunting only rabbits, she rarely won the hunting contest so she wanted to haunt for something more, deer was no longer an interesting animal for haunting so she decided that today she was going to catch a bear. She could only imagine the look on the faces of her brothers if she would do that all by herself, they would be so proud of their little sister.
"Kreshnik, today we are haunting for a bear, I prayed to Mokosh before we went to help us with our task. We are going to make it, but first we need to make a bait." Zorya spoke to her wolf with a smile on her face as she walked around the forest.
Zorya loved spending time in the nature, she felt that when she was in the forest, she was the closest to the gods, she felt as if Mother of Nature was right beside her protecting her, and so Zorya never feared anything when she was in the forest. Because in some way, that forest represented her home more than anything else.
The pagan princess merged with the forest, with nature, with animals, they understood her more than any human ever could. As she walked with her bow and arrow, her wolf took her to the place where a doe was.
With a swift move of a bow and arrow, Zorya shoot the doe and successfully gained herself a bait for her next target, a bear.
Knowing the forest so well, Zorya knew where to look for a bear and where to set her bait for it.
Soon, she did so, and waited for the bear to come for a meal. When she saw a grizzly bear coming towards the corpse of a doe, she took out her axe and prepared for a fight.
"Stay still Kreshnik." Zorya whispered to her wolf as she watched the magnificent, bloodthirsty animal eating the meal.
"Now we attack." Zorya whispered to her wolf and walked out from the bush she was hiding in.
"Mokosh, help me." Zorya said as she charged towards the animal. Adrenaline was taking over her whole body making her happy, excited, sending shivers down her spine. Kreshnik growled fearlessly at the big animal in attempt to protect the feral princess.
The fight between Zorya and the bear started raging, at first the bear managed to harm her slightly but soon she regained her equilibrium and came striking again, she wasn't as strong as the bear but her fragile structure allowed her to be as fast as the wind and soon she managed to put an axe in the bear's head.
The warm blood covered her face as the fierce animal fall down dead.
But her fight wasn't over, she heard a noise behind her, and Kreshnik seemed disturbed more than usually, Zorya knew that it wasn't the animal making the noise, it was something a lot more scarier than that, a human.
"Who is there?!" Zorya yelled, and then she heard the footsteps running away from her.
"You are not going anywhere!" Zorya yelled as she started running after the sound of the footsteps as fast as she possibly could, Kreshnik right after her, even thought they both were exhausted from a previous fight.
Zorya took out a bow and an arrow and shoot a few times until she heard a loud whimper, she hit someone. She was sure that there were more of them. But just one was enough for her to find out what was this about. She came upon a strange looking man laying on the ground and whimpering in pain he was in. He was a pale, black haired man, and by the symbol he was wearing around his neck, she was sure that he was a Christian. She didn't know their language, but Yaropolk did, so she needed to take this man to her brother.
"Come on Christian, there is someone I would like you to meet." Zorya said as she took away the weapons he was carrying and pointed her axe to him.
"Now get up and walk Christian!" Zorya said making him get up despite the fact he was wounded with her arrow. She walked to her carriage where she put the body of her bear, and made Christian walk in front of her, as she went to the place where she should meet with her brothers.
"I am sure that I am the winner this time, I have enough meat to feed us for days!" She heard her bother Boris say.
"And I can feed us for a month." Yaropolk answered.
"And I got us a Christian? He is not so fat but maybe he can be of some use." Zorya said to her brothers.
First, her brothers were amazed by the fact that she got a bear, but they became worried when they saw a wounded Christian dressed in black by her side.
"Where did you find him?" Yaropolk asked.
"He was spying on me, I am sure there were others as well in our forest, but he will be enough. You know his language Yaropolk, tell me why is he here." Zorya said.
But Yaropolk knew the answer before he even needed to speak to the Christian.
"This is something father feared of." Yaropolk whispered as he walked toward the trembling Christian.
"You are a man of Darius the Dark aren't you?" Yaropolk asked.
"Darius the Dark?" Zorya shivered after hearing that name. He was a scourge of all the pagans, why would he want to fight them?
"Yes, father said that we could expect the attack from him quite soon." Boris answered.
"Then let the blind fool come." Zorya said but deep inside, she felt fear, he was as frightening, evil, despite being blind, he was a fighter, he was intelligent, and he was ruthless, this wasn't going to be an easy fight.
Back in Walnia the spies who returned from their quest told Darius the Dark stories of the pagans they saw in the woods.
"The princess killed a bear alone with her axe, the big, the enormous grey wolf followed her and protected her, she took one of ours, pagans will know that we are coming!" A man spoke to Darius with panic in his voice.
"Are you afraid of a little girl and her dog?" Darius asked feeling amused by the way they reacted to the pagan princess, it almost made him laugh.
But Darius knew very well not to underestimate his enemy.
Soon King Darius the Dark and a pagan princess will meet each other on the battlefield.
Hey everyone! Thank you so much for reading my story and I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoy writing it!
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