Chain Mail and Butterfly Wings

Angeline’s Point Of View

This was astupid idea, I told myself fiercely as I huddled around my pitiful excuse of a fire. What made me think that I’d be able to travel all the way back to Castle Burdock on my own?

But it was the only way. It would have hurt too much to just stay there and see him happy. I knew it was selfish, and I shouldn’t be hurt by his happiness, but knowing that I was part of that happiness is what wounded me. It was a deadly wound that would keep me bleeding no matter what I did. It would have been too painful, it was better this way.

Or, at least, that’s what I kept telling myself.

There was a pain in my chest since I had left that was suspiciously close to my heart, almost as if someone was jabbing me repeatedly in the heart with an oversized icicle. A cold, sharp pain that I couldn’t seem to get rid of. Of course, I managed to keep from crying by focusing on other things, such as breathing, walking, and the like. But the pain was still there, and, somehow, I knew it wasn’t leaving anytime soon.

I whimpered to myself, my quiet alternative to keep from crying, the only way I could relieve the pain in short bursts.

It would have been too painful to watch Aiden be happy? Then what was this other pain? A frolic through a field of flowers? If that was it, then it must have been a field of blackberry bushes.

I knew I was a pitiful sight, but that only made me all the more grateful that Aiden wasn’t around, if he had seen me in such a state, I wasn’t sure what I would do or how I would feel. Embarrassed, I suppose, among other things. I thought of this and tried to pep talk myself into at least sitting up. But my thoughts were sullen, and my body was sulky, unresponsive. So, I lay in the fetal position, my arms wrapped around my legs, and whimpered every now and again when the pain compelled me to do so.

How could one person indirectly cause me so much pain?

__________________________________________

I remembered my nightmares vaguely when I awoke, most consisted of shadows and silhouettes and a crushing fear of not knowing what exactly I was looking at. But the moment I woke up, they were nothing but memories, washed away by the sunlight that pressed against my closed eyelids.

I picked myself up off of the ground and saddled Celeste carefully, with a lazy sort of persistence, making sure every detail on the saddle was perfect, although I was hardly aware I was doing it. What ever was driving me forward, what ever force, or thought, or feeling, I could only describe as a numbness. Me wallowing in my own self-pity, focusing only on the concept of nothingness and pushing away the necessity of food and water and the seemingly vacant need to breathe. Although, my body did the breathing for me, that wasn’t something I particularly needed to focus on. As for food and water, I didn’t starve myself, I simply didn’t act on my acknowledgement of necessity until my throat was dry at the end of the day and my stomach felt like it was digesting itself.

And so, five days passed in the same stupor, the same routine, the same meaningless day seemed to repeat itself over and over again. Not that I really noticed. Each day consisted of six simple parts; I would whimper at times, sleep, have nightmares, wake up, saddle Celeste and then ride.

Celeste evidently could sense my strange state, and reacted with an uneasy demeanor that seemed unlike her. But I didn’t care about that, or at least not enough to pull myself away from my numbness, my blissful lack of feeling that only allowed some of the pain through as opposed to the torrent of hurt waiting just on the exterior of my barrier.

I silently wondered about this pain in a distant way, acknowledging it, but not quite able to decide what the source was. However, I stopped wondering on the sixth day of my travels, after I made it through the mountains without any trouble and was even able to use the pass. A voice broke in through my barrier and pulled me out of my stupor, just long enough for me to speak for the first time in days, “What?”

“What’s wrong with ye lass?” The voice was familiar in some way, male, deep and heavily accented. I stared at the man, as though he should have been more familiar but I couldn’t quite place him in my memories.

“Nothing,” I replied simply, my voice void of emotion. What good was emotion when that pain was still lurking in the shadows? Waiting for me to drop my guard so that it could return and torment me.

The bandit leader’s face finally registered and I said carefully, “Oh. You.” My voice was dead, eerie almost, had I been paying attention.

“Where’s that accursed assassin lass?” the bandit leader asked gruffly as I began to look around me. I had thought he was alone, but I soon realized that I had been mistaken. I was surrounded but at least half a dozen men on horseback and ten more footmen. When had they gotten there?

I distantly realized that they were trying to find out where Aiden was, but that seemed irrelevant at the time, what was the point of distributing information? Who cared who received this information? So I answered, with a slight feeling of someone squeezing my heart between their hands, “He’s at Castle Reloir. With his fiancée.”

The bandit leader swore and his men followed suit, swearing, spitting on the ground and cursing names of gods I had never heard of.

“That reward’s as good as gone now!” One bandit shouted above the rest and was rewarded with a club over the head by one of the other men around him. He swore loudly and glared at the man.

Reward…? I wondered a little distractedly, still not quite in my right mind.

“Wha’ was that fer?” he demanded angrily and absently rubbed his head where he had been hit. “It doesn’t matter if she hears anything! Tha’ wasn’t even a nice tidbit ‘o information!” he complained. “We ought to storm Castle Reloir this very day! Collect more than our bounty that-a-way!”

“Quiet ye,” the bandit leader ordered and the man grumbled quietly while the rest of the bandits responded with instant silence, he continued, “King Oron might not be able to pay us for our strife, but at least we’ve a pretty lass out of the deal.” He smiled lecherously and urged his horse forward.

Deep beneath my shell, I felt fear nudge at my insides, constricting and twisting like some sort of strange snake, begging me to do something, escape, fight, react, anything. But I merely sat on my horse, regarding the bandit leader as if he were an interesting animal that had crossed my path. How horrible would death truly be? I wondered, aware that death could be around the corner, waiting to club me over the head. The pain would be gone, which was a plus side. A short pain to destroy a pain that would most likely be lifelong didn’t seem like that bad of a bargain.

And what if theydon’t just kill you? A voice demanded in my head, an angry, defensive that reminded me of a part of myself, a part with some life left in it. There’s much worse they can do to a woman than kill her! The voice added, poking my emotions slowly toward the surface, as if trying to lift a body tied to rocks to the surface of a lake. But I fought my emotions back, and forced my face to remain blank.

Chortling laughter touched my ears and the voice in my head faded, but I certainly began to consider what could be worse than death. If they didn’t kill me then the pain would stay and I would be a captive, that didn’t sound appealing in any way, shape or form. Then something clicked, from the earlier conversation--had they mentioned Castle Reloir? King Oron? Was that the name of Nailah’s father? That meant that Nailah’s father had been the one that sent these men after Aiden? I frowned slightly as a small portion of my emotions began to work its was to the surface. Contemplation.

I was thinking quickly now. That made sense. I doubted that General Darren would have sent these sort of men after Aiden, they were too violent, unpredictable, used for dirty work, not the type of men that were sent to achieve justice. They also wouldn’t have tried to kill me had they been hired by Castle Burdock, there was no reason to have one of their own killed. Whereas if they were simply hired to kill Aiden or bring him back alive, then what happened to some girl who was traveling with him meant nothing at all. So the King of Castle Reloir, a man I had never even met before was the one behind nearly all of my near death experiences. Anger flared across my features, and my muscles bunched beneath me, my hands constricting on the reins until my knuckles were white. This wasn’t at the realization that he had almost lead to my untimely death, but that he had tried to hurt Aiden, even ordered to have him killed.

The bandit leader’s callused hand touched my wrist, but I wrenched backward from him. “Don’t touch me you scum-licking Neanderthal!” I cried angrily, jerking back on the reins so that Celeste reared up with an angry whinny and threw her hooves in the direction of the bandit leader’s horse. The other horse leapt to the side and barely missed the attack, and shuffled heatedly from side to side, clearly unfit for battle. I smiled to myself, realizing distantly that Celeste had been trained to be a warhorse.

“Ah, ye’ve the life back in ye, I see,” the bandit leader barked cruelly, clearly annoyed with my retaliation and steering his nervous mount away from the hostile-looking Celeste. “Restrain her lads,” he commanded, backing out of the circle as the other bandits moved in toward me.

Genuine fear grasped me now, not that vague, scratching fear, but full blown terror. I had no weapon and I couldn’t do much on horseback, I was surrounded by other men on horseback as well as some on the ground who would undoubtedly try to dismount me. I considered trying to escape, but what was the point of running when there was no break in the circle to escape from? I bit my bottom lip nervously and felt Celeste shifting uncomfortably beneath me as the men closed in around us.

“Hold!” A voice boomed over the bandits relentless jeering. Several of the bandits jerked back on the reins at the command, puzzled by the interference, others continued forward, completely fixated on me. One bandit that had been on the ground reached up suddenly from my right side and tried to grab my hair, intent on pulling me from my saddle. Celeste swung to the sided and backed away, just as and arrow punched threw one of the man’s eyes, splattering blood across the side of my saddle. He stumbled away from me, shrieking in pain as he clutched at his eye, scrabbling with both hands to find the shaft of the arrow. I stared in awed horror at the man, while the rest of the bandits turned their attention away from me and toward their newest threat. Which happened to be roughly twenty to thirty men from the Castle Burdock royal guard, all trained to kill and protect. And leading these men was a man I knew quite well, and the man who had interfered only moments ago: General Darren.

That was when the real fight broke out. Arrows rained down on the bandits and they scrambled to reach shoddy shields while simultaneously trying to unsheathe their weapons. I jerked back on the reins and Celeste reared up again, clearing a path in front of us so that I could urge her forward. She lunged through the empty space that the bandits had left, however I didn’t allow her to go far before I yanked the reins to the right, causing her to wheel around and face the fight. Already it was clearing up, not many of the bandits were staying to fight professional fighters, especially not since their leader had departed long before the first arrow had been loosed. The few stragglers that were left were killed without hesitation while other soldiers already began to clean their weapons and shout insults at the bandits as they fled. Most of the men were strangely contented with their work, and some already bragging about the scars they would have and examining minor wounds.

None of them paid me any attention. But I was thankful for this little sanctuary in which I could try to collect myself. I hadn’t been in any sort of fight like that one, all of the fights I had seen hadn’t even shown blood. The image of the arrowhead protruding from the man’s eye socket was still fresh in my mind, blood spurting from between his fingers. My stomach churned and I tried to wash the image from my mind, to no avail. However, I was distracted from my sickness briefly as General Darren surged out of the group of chatting soldiers on his sturdy stallion, his eyes locked on me.

I dropped my head instantly and averted my eyes, unwilling to meet his gaze. I was beyond ashamed, I was disgraced, mortified even. I had sided with the enemy and helped a man that my General had tried to keep contained. I was a traitor and I knew it. I couldn’t linger on my shame, however, for my sickness returned when a wave of blood-scented air assaulted my nostrils. I slid from the saddle and turned around, clenching my teeth when I knelt on the ground, barely keeping from puking as I heard the General approach. As if I couldn’t embarrass myself further, I was going to be the squeamish female guard who hurled after the battle.

“Head back to the castle, I’ll soon follow,” General Darren ordered in his booming voice, he was right behind me now, although still on horseback. I could hear the shuffle of footsteps and sound of weapons being re-sheathed as the men began to obey the orders.

There was a comforting hand on my back and I could hear General Darren speak quietly to me, “It’s alright Angeline, the battle’s over.” I squeezed my eyes shut, feeling like a child again, and it only frustrated me that he treated me in such a way, but I wasn’t about to snap at the man who had just saved my life.

I opened my mouth to respond, and heaved instead, unable to keep from throwing up any longer. Celeste lurched away from me, startled by the sound and then wandered away to nibble at a portion of grass that wasn’t stained with crimson. My eyes were watering and my throat felt raw, I was partially aware of General Darren’s comforting words and the soothing circular motions his hand was making on my back. But I could only think of my embarrassment, and I had to force myself to keep from heaving again, instead I swiped furiously at my mouth with my sleeve in order to clean myself up.

“Thanks,” I murmured quietly, still looking at the ground as I turned around and willed myself to stand--my legs felt like they belonged to a newborn foal.

“First battle?” General Darren guessed and added when I nodded, “it happens to the best of us,” his tone was knowledgeable. I nodded a little, acknowledging the comment, but I didn’t look up, I couldn’t seem to do it on my own. “Angeline,” General Darren said softly. When I didn’t respond, he lifted my chin with one of his large hands, “Look at me,” he ordered gently and I begrudgingly obeyed, meeting his eyes with my own.

“By the gods…” he murmured, seeing the raw look in my eyes that I couldn’t seem to hide, despite my efforts. The next instant passed in a blur when General Darren drew me into his arms and held me tightly. “I thought you were dead,” he muttered in my ear, although his voice trembled only slightly.

“I-I’m sorry,” I replied, completely confused by the sudden show of affection, and completely unsure how to react.

“Don’t apologize, it wasn’t your fault. I’m just glad you’re all right,” he said and then hesitated before pulling back and looking me over. “You are all right, aren’t you? That scum of an assassin didn’t do anything to you did he?” there was a tremble of rage in his voice.

“He--” I stopped myself, I almost said he never would have done anything to me, but thought better of the sentence and rephrased it, “--didn’t hurt me.”

General Darren relaxed slightly and a small smile tugged at his mouth and then he asked, “So how did you manage to escape? And without him killing you, that’s quite the feat.”

Shame tugged at my insides, he didn’t know that I had betrayed him and didn’t think I was gone deliberately. “He left me for dead in the middle of some forest, it took me a long time to find my way out. After that, I tried to follow his trail, but only managed to get lost again. I’m sorry, I failed at returning him to the castle and I took too long in my own return,” I spoke in a weak tone, partly because of the lie and partly because of my raw throat.

“Angeline, it’s all right, as long as you’re safe, that’s all that matters right now,” General Darren said as if it were a common fact and he pulled me against him again, wrapping his arms around me in a comforting gesture.

It was odd, I thought, that I had once wondered what it would be like to be held by General Darren, fantasized about it even and yet, now I realized that I felt nothing. There was only one person I could think of that I really wanted to be held by. And with that thought, the pain assaulted my chest again, causing my heart to throb suddenly. I swallowed hard, and hugged General Darren fiercely, burying my face into his chest and completely forgetting that he was my General, at that moment he was simply Darren, and he was something that I could hold onto until the pain subsided.