I sat on the window sill of the room that had been my prison for a month now. I looked out past the shadowy wasteland to where I knew my family was. I had heard from some of the generals' conversations with my mother that there was an army forming with some of my friends and families in the lead, but I didn't know how successful these were. For the past month, I had been held captive in Tarsis, the base of my mother's forces. And I had prayed every day to my sister, Lunitari, and to Paladine that someone would free me. But mostly I prayed that I would see my husband soon. Every waking and sleeping moment some part of my mind was thinking of Abe.
My internal reverie was interrupted by my aunt, Kitiara, coming into the room with a scowl on her hard face. "The Queen wishes to speak to you." She hissed.
Kitiara and I hated each other. And our mutual blood meant nothing in our minds. I was a half breed higher than her and she was the Dragon Highlord who has wanted to kill me since I was born. So I followed her silently to my mother's thrown room. The thrown on which she sat would have seemed to be filled with just a swirling mass of shadows to most, but I was part deity, so I saw through it. Her warrior form sat leaning on one of the arm rests, watching her seeing-pool aimlessly.
"Ah, Cara. There will be a ball tonight here; to rally more support with the dark nobles. You simply must be there, to show those pessimists that we have a powerful mage on our side." She had been counting on my cooperation the who time I had been here, no matter how many times I told her that that wasn't going to happen.
"I will never fight for you!" I growled.
"If you want your beloved family and friends to stay alive, you will." She sang, lithely moving from her seat to stand in front of me. "Now, we must simply get you into something more than your normal clothes." She eyed my leggings and tunic. "Kitiara, help her pick out a more suitable gown for tonight."
"What?!" she sputtered.
"General Uth Matar, do I really need to repeat myself?" her voice became hard as some of the shadows that surrounded her gathered to her hand.
"No." Kitiara mumbled. "Come along, Cara." She grabbed my arm roughly and practically dragged me to her quarters. I didn't struggle too much for I may have hated my aunt, but she was a thousand times better than my mother. Once we were inside her stone room, she crossed to the small bureau in the corner, roughly looking for a dress small enough for me. "Here." She tossed a burgundy dress at me.
Holding it up, it was as close to my size as I would find with Kitiara. It was also about as form-fitting as some of Laurana's dresses. Hopefully any men who approached me that night would see the gold band on the third finger of my left hand. I quickly made my way back to my room, not wanting to be the target of one of Kitiara's bouts of anger.
As I looked out the window quickly again, I saw some of the horses approaching the gate of Tarsis. I wondered if any of them could be my friends in disguise to come and rescue me. But everyone who could rescue me would have been recognized by someone in the fortress.
I quickly changed into the dress from Kitiara and sat back on the window sill. An hour later, I saw a group of three more horses approach the gates and come through. My window overlooked the main path, so if they were to enter the castle, they would have to pass under me. And as this group passed, I very nearly fell off my perch. In the lead of the small party was a large red demon with shaved off horns and a short black ponytail. The woman who flanked him had black hair as well but longer, and I could see the tops of her pale shoulders. And finally, another man rose behind them. His head was down, but I didn't need to see much of him to know who it was. His short black hair was in a bit of disarray, and as he trotted along, a green pendant was jostled into the air from against his chest.
It was Abe.
He had come for me! Usually I hated being the damsel in distress, but since this was my terrene family, I wasn't as embarrassed about having to be rescued as I would have been if it was someone like Elidor or Cat who had come to my rescue. It also meant that I could be with the love of my life again, which was an extreme bonus. But how had they gotten here?
That question plagued my mind as I was dragged out of my room and back to the throne room by Kitiara, who was also now in a dress. Except hers was tight, low cut, and a shiny black like her dragon's scales. She had been the Blue Dragon Highlord until she took the crown of power and her old dragon, Skye, defected to her daughter, my cousin, Cioria. As I was pulled through the doors to the great room, I saw that in the past hour, a great magnitude of people had come to the castle fortress. Nearly every open square foot that there had once been in this room was now filled by one or more persons of varying races. In the back corner, I saw my friends. I tried to act like I hadn't seen them to keep form drawing attention, but I still watched them out of the corner of my eye. It seemed like Hellboy was holding Abe back. And Hellboy was being smart enough to use his left hand, making sure that less people saw his stone right hand and started asking questions.
And soon enough for my liking, Kitiara released me to join her consort, the Death Knight Lord Soth. This left me free to make my careful way over to my friends. But before I could get there, I was confronted by General Caius. He had wished to court me since I was captured; having said that my marriage was irrelevant, since Abe wasn't a race worth my affections. And I curtly slapped him in the face whenever he said that. He still had a bruise on his cheek from the last time I hit him.
"Hello, Princess." He bowed, but kept his eyes on me. "Would you care to dance?" he extended his gloved hand to me.
"I would prefer not to." I snapped back.
I tried to move away, but apparently he had other plans. He roughly grabbed my arm and bean to drag me back to the hallway I had come from. "The Queen has agreed to give you to me, to break you of your useless marriage. So if you don't care to dance with me, I have other plans." I doubled my struggles to get away. If I made enough of a scene, maybe someone would come over and ask what was going on. What was I thinking? I was just the half-breed mage that they were going to use as a secret weapon, bait, or ransom in the war. No one would care about what would happen to me at the hands of General Caius. My only hope was if one of my friends saw me.
"Excuse me, may I cut in?" I heard a voice ask from behind me. I turned my head around, expecting to see a snobby noble. But instead I locked eyes with Abe.
"Yes, you may." I told him as I finally got my arm free from General Caius with a shock spell. Abe gave me a questioning look which I understood. He had seen the wave of energy that was clearly magic, but there was no ring on my thumb. And that was the ring that held all my remaining magic. Well, it did before I was captured. Before General Caius could try anything again, Abe took my hands; putting one on his shoulder and keeping the other one before he put his remaining hand on my shoulder.
"Are you alright?" he whispered, knowing that there were some elves with superior hearing in the near vicinity.
I nodded. "Read." I whispered. It would be so much easier to have a conversation that no one else could hear.
If that man lays another finger on you, I will kill him with my own hands. He seethed. His mind quickly flashed to him trying to drag me away.
I shook my head and smiled slightly. If you're here for the reason I think you are, then you don't have to worry about it.
How are you doing this? Your ring isn't on. He spared a glance down to wear the old gold ring should have been.
My mother did some experiments, and they worked, all the magic that was in the ring is in me. They were going to try and use me as a weapon against the other army. But my other ring is on. I smiled up at him. It was pretty obvious to anyone who knew both of us that we were hopelessly in love. That had been true since I joined him at the BPRD almost two years ago.
Abe squeezed my left hand, which he had in his right, and smiled back. And I still have mine, even though General Lahela said it might give me away.
Which one? The man or woman? If it was the man, then it was Elidor. If it was the woman, then it was my cousin, Cioria; and I doubted that she would say that.
The man, Elidor I think his name was. He showed me quick flashes of the conversation before he, Liz, and Hellboy had left the camp for Tarsis.
How is everyone? Abe knew I was reffereing to those form Earth.
Alright, all things considered. Thankfully there haven't very many paranormal problems in the last month, so we have had more time than expected to work on getting you back. I saw that Abe was having a hard time not kissing me right there and then and holding me and never letting go until we were back into ally territory.
But he wasn't the only one. When are we leaving?
In a few moments. Hellboy's going to punch one of the Generals, preferably the one that had you, and make a run for it. We'll follow after him. We have the horses waiting. You'll have to double up with me until we get to the first checkpoint where we have your horse and a pack of your belongings. Everyone, terrene or otherwise, had reviewed this plan many times before tonight.
I didn't realize I was this important of an asset. I joked darkly. But I knew this whole war could be won simply because of what side I was on.
Abe simply nodded and we continued the dance. Towards the end, Abe locked eyes with Hellboy and then jerked his head towards General Caius. I had to smirk at the utter hate that was flowing from his green eyes. That's when the fun started. Hellboy hit General Caius square in the face and I was positive that he broke at least his nose and gave him a concussion, and it might have been worse. He took off running down the front hallway while Abe led me to the back one with Liz trailing behind us. Soon we were out in the back courtyard, where all the horses had been stabled for the night.
Liz put her fingers to her mouth and gave a quick burst of sound that hurt my ears. Apparently we were riding elfin horses. That was fine by me. Three black stallions quickly trotted over to us, their manes and tails shining purple in the moonlight.
"Up you go." Abe whispered as he lifted me onto the saddle.
I crossed my arms and faked annoyance as I watched him mount behind me. "You know I could have done that myself."
"Yes, I know." He smiled as he kissed my cheek. Liz mounted her horse quickly and grabbed the reigns of Hellboy's. We spurred the horses around to the front where Hellboy was waiting, hiding in a bush. He jumped onto his horse reigned it to a gallop. Liz's horse joined his at the faster pace and so did mine.
Once we were out of the gate, Hellboy turned to me with a smile on his face. "It's good to see you again, kid."
"It's good to see you too, Hellboy. And you too, Liz." I truly had missed them, and it was good that they had come to rescue me. They were also less likely to run someone through out of revenge, they didn't know anyone and all the atrocities that they had done.
"What, you didn't miss me?" Abe asked, playfully nudging me in the back.
"Oh, here's you 'I missed you.'" I turned in the saddle so I was facing him and reached my lips up to his. By the force and pace he was kissing me with, I could tell he wa glad to have me safe, which was with him and those he trusted.
After we finally broke apart, the four of us turned back to business. "What are we going ot do about the dragons if they send any after us?" Liz asked. She knew her fire would do nothing against the full grown dragons the armies used.
"They won't send any." I told her. "They know that I can kill one easily. And I don't get affected by Dragonfear, so they can't count on that either." The others nodded and the ride was silent except for the sound of the horses' hooves and breathing.
It finally registered in my head that I was safe, I was going home. It didn't matter which one at that point.