The children ran through the midnight wood. The sky overhead was pitch; not a star could break through the cloud cover. However, the horizon was brightly lit golden red. The glow licked the paths clear for them to see, the bare trees overhead shivering with November. One of the boys tripped over a root lurching up from the sod. His brother stopped and turned. His breath came heavily and materialized in the chilled air.
"Come, we must go." He persisted, dragging the fallen boy to his feet, "We must keep going."
"To where, muindor?"
"I don't know but we must."
The boys picked up their speed as the sound of what seemed to be horse hooves came from behind them. Blind terror drove them deeper into the forest. However, the boy that had fallen soon lagged behind.
"My foot." He cried, stumbling to the ground.
His brother turned toward the roaring sound and realized it was too sharply repetitive to be a horse in gallop. He crouched by his brother and listened more intently, his heart pounding hard in his ears.
"What is making that?" He breathed, dark eyes wide.
His brother shook his head, his face bright white in the bitter cold. He blinked as he looked past his brother's shoulder.
"There is someone." He whispered.
Suddenly, a figure broke through the trees. Gasping audibly, the figure burst forth unto the path where the children lay exposed and terrified. The children huddled together. The stronger of the two gripped the hilt of the small knife he had been given in his pocket. However, neither of them could move for fear as the figure stumbled towards them.
The stranger was hooded and breathing heavily, walking with a slight limp. They came to a halt right before the trembling children. The boy with the knife stood and brandished his pitiful weapon. The figure threw back their hood. A flash of light behind them, a blossoming explosion that stretched to the blackened sky, illuminated the face of a young woman. She studied them quizzically, as though she were in a dream. Without a word, the dark haired woman knelt to the ground and abruptly took the knife from the child's hand. The boy gasped, reaching out too late for it.
"T'es qui?" She breathed, her eyes running over his form, "Qui es-tu, ma petite?
Though the children could not understand what she was saying, there was a kindness in her voice that reminded them both of their mother.
Nimloth. She had pushed them beneath the bed before taking the fine sword mounted on the wall and running out into the hallway. That was the last they had seen of her before the cruel elves had taken them deep into the wood and left them. Starved and beyond exhaustion, all the boys could do at the sound of a kind voice was weep.
"Mes poulettes, être encore." She begged, pulled them to their feet and tucking them under her long coat, "Les Allemands, les Allemands!"
They looked up at her, their faces uncomprehending. She seemed to realize they did not understand what she was saying.
"German." She spoke, the boys still looking up at her as the explosions behind them continued to grow, "Nazi."
Delphine tipped back the full glass of wine, wincing as her grandmother inspected the wound to her shin. A piece of shrapnel had lodged itself in her leg.
"An inch over and this would have severed a vein." Her grandmother grumbled, peering at the torn skin over her glasses.
Delphine hissed through her teeth as the jagged shard of metal was pulled none too gently from her flesh. She took a long pull of the wine, a droplet of the liquid trailed down her chin.
"Wipe your mouth." Grandmother growled under her breath as she dabbed at the blood coming freely now from her wound, "Tell me about the children."
"They were just in the woods." Delphine replied, running her sleeve over her mouth, "I found them by themselves. They don't speak French."
"Nor any other language I have ever heard." Grandmother stood, pulling Delphine's free hand to put pressure on her leg, "Hold that, you'll need more bandages."
Delphine glanced over to the open bedroom door. In the glow of the kitchen fire, she could see the boys' forms curled up on the bed covered in a red and green quilt. How strange they looked to her and yet more beautiful than any children she had ever seen. Clearly, they were twins. Onyx black hair fell to their little shoulders, their faces bright and open with disturbingly blue eyes. Their clothing was odd; short robes made of cloth she could not recognize. These were not peasant children.
"They might have escaped from the latest German shipment to the camps." Her grandmother returned, her tone blunt.
Taking Delphine's hand from her wound roughly, she began to clean the ripped flesh. Delphine reached over and refilled her glass. She didn't care if she got drunk. After what she had witnessed that night, a comfortably detached numbness was appealing. Her grandmother reached out and roughly yanked the bottle from her hand without looking up.
"If they are, the soldiers will come looking for them." She continued, picking up a needle and sterilizing it with the flame of a nearby candle, "We need to be prepared to hide them and answer questions."
Delphine nodded grimly, "Mémé."
The old woman paused. She set down the needle and looked up at her only grandchild with sharp grey eyes. The fire light invaded the creases running through her furrowed brow. She narrowed her eyebrows.
"Mémé, I am sorry if I have caused you pain by my involvement with the Résistance," She leant forward, laying a hand on her grandmother's knee, "But I just cannot stand by any more and do nothing."
"Well," Her grandmother brushed away her hand, her face flinching with unspoken emotion, "You should be thinking of more than yourself now. Best be putting away such heroics. You have picked yourself up some real responsibilities and they are sleeping soundly in your bed."
Without another word, Delphine's grandmother dug the threaded needle into her grandchild's shin and began to sew up the wound.