There was a time in her life where the woods had been a sanctuary. The place was her home, her everything. It was the only place where freedom was a guarantee. These days freedom was hard to come by. Her brother had been desperate but that didn't change much. It didn't count for anything when his decision to sell her off left her so abused and violated in many ways. Elf-women, even if they were only half so, were a rare delicacy. Isabella's mother had been a full blood elf and her father a full blood human. Guy had the luxury of attaining no elf blood whatsoever. It was a mercy, he hadn't had to live in fear. Not like she did. He chose to wear his hair long, she was forced to-it was the only thing that hid her ears. Isabella had guarded her secret so well that only her mother, father, and brother knew it. Her mother and father had taken it to their graves.
But Guy...
Guy sold her secret for a few gold pieces and then sold her for a few more.
They were on the verge of starving to death; before the torment started, Isabella had understood his reasoning. In a perfect world, he would have the money for food and shelter-which he had achieved-and she would have a stable home. This was not so.
The man, Thornton had a fetish for elves and half-elves. He would stroke her hair and brush his fingers over her ears whispering something-something about how enchanting they were. About how her eyes were such an other-worldly blue. And every time he would make a tactless and contradictory remark about how disappointing it was that her eyes were blue and not an elf-ly shade of emerald. Daily, the vile man would make a remark or two about how mythical of a woman she was.
But that wasn't that either.
She wasn't a woman. She was only a girl.
A broken, frightened girl of thirteen.
She would have rather had him keep speaking to her as though she were a clueless and pure little doe. An occasional obscene remark was better than him acting on his perversions, better than him making his sick, evil fantasies a reality. But she had told him a good many times to end his endless barrage of sensual speak. Enough times that he got it into his head that she'd prefer him to skip the 'pleasant' talk and get right down to it. She could do little more than weather it out as he discovered the wonders of a half-elf woman-or so he said as if he were trying to justify what he was doing to a child. Over and over again until she no longer felt at all in touch with the mystical side of herself. There was no longer anything enchanted or magical about Isabella, no matter how much elf blood coursed through her veins.
.oOo.
Things only worsened as she grew older. Old enough to apparently exhibit more signs of her elf blood. She was taller, her skin pale, she could do simple magics like reading the aura of a person. His was so brightly and startlingly red. It always was when he was around her and exclusively around her.
She decided then that she needed to get away. She had taken too much of his abuse already and bore it on her arms in the form of bruises and on her face in the shape of a few small scars. Nothing too noticeable, he didn't want to marr 'such a delicately pretty face'.
She would take to the forest and try to find a safe haven within, or better still, she would find more of her kin. Maybe full-blooded elves like her mother. But that lot was hard to come by, many of the elves had been hunted down by the Sheriff of Nottingham and people like him. Such was another threat that Thronton like to hang over her head ever since they arrived in Nottingham; if she didn't let him take her to bed then he would sell her off to the Sheriff and let him do as he pleased. Likely she'd be killed.
On some nights, that didn't seem so bad.
On some nights, Thornton was particularly rough and Isabella would have rather been dead.
Such nights grew more common as she grew further into woman hood.
On such a night, she had finally found her courage. She might slip away, if she was lucky, and make it to the forest. Or she would be caught. Either way around, she'd have her freedom and release. Thornton came in stammering drunk, as per the norm. Like clockwork, he tossed her onto the bed. He was just getting started with her, he had her out of her corset already and her top pushed down. She could very well wait another night to make her escape, it would be much easier, Thornton had 'business' in the taverns every mid-week. Of course such business would always leave him in a drunk stupor and she'd have to deal with his violent temper. Indeed, such would be an optimal time to make her getaway. But Isabella had vengeance on her mind. On his last trip to the tavern Isabella had procured an ancient remedy, one that her mother had taught her to brew before her passing. "Playing with weeds again, Izzy?" Guy would remark. "What a useless hobby."
"Not so, after all." She muttered to herself as she crushed her herbs in the mortar. With any luck her poison would kill the man. If it didn't he would be plagued with chronic muscle spasms for the rest of his life, which would be fine by her. She just wanted to look him in the eyes as it happened. She was playing a very dangerous game for a plethora of reasons, the first of them was that if the poison didn't work, then he would surely kill her or assault her with more force than ever before. But beneath that, she dusted the poison over her own lips. So long as she didn't like them, she would be okay.
This time though, the man seemed content to run his hands up and down her frame, trying to elicit some pleasured response from her. But he never would. At last his lips slid roughly over hers and the poison was taken. If her elf blood had been running particularly strong during its making, then Thornton would have only a few more moments before he succumbed. Those moments seemed to last for ages as he tore off more of her dress. Finally he faltered, his eyes rolling back. With a wicked grin, she pulled her dress back up.
"Y-you, evil wench. What have you done?"
"Something long overdue, sire." She heaved him away from herself as the first convulsions came about. For a few sublime seconds she watched the man fight feebly for his life. They both knew that it was a losing battle, and she relished in it as he had once relished in her struggle.
They would find his body eventually, but for the time she was a free woman. Free to find her brother and confront him for helping to destroy her so completely. Free to run back to the woods that used to keep her so safe.
And she would seek them out. The band of elves she had heard so much about. 'Outlaws with pointed ears', so the Sheriff called them.
Robin Hood's band of Merry Elves.