Disclaimer: I own nothing.


Anna was running for her life. They had come out of the dark from nowhere –no one had even heard their approach– and had charged into their camp, brandishing weapons and screaming for blood. Her father had gathered her up from where she'd been sleeping and dragged her through the chaos until they'd reached a hidden spot behind one of the caravans, then he'd shoved her in the direction of the tree line with a single, desperate order:

Run.

The stitch in her side robbed her of breath, leaving her lungs burning and her heart pounded painfully in her throat. Branches scratched her face and thorns bit into her skin, but she didn't dare stop. They were coming, she just knew they were, and if they caught her...

She charged into a small clearing and suddenly tripped over something, she wasn't quite not sure what, and crashed to the ground, tearing up the palms of her hands on the rough forest floor. She pushed herself back up as quickly as she could, ripping her dress free from where it had become caught on the jagged edge of an old log by a smoldering campfire and a bedroll (probably what she had tripped over) and then she took off running again.

She tore back into the trees and kept on going until she thought she could go no more. And then she pushed herself farther, stumbling numbly along. Finally though, her legs gave out and she collapsed to the cold, damp earth. Her aching chest heaved as she tried desperately to suck in the oxygen her lungs so desperately needed. Her legs felt like lead and her body shook with exhaustion. How long had she been running? She didn't know.

She managed to crawl over to the closest tree and leaned her back against it, taking a moment to close her eyes and focus on her breathing, trying to calm her harsh wheezing. She would only sit there for a minute to catch her breath, she told herself. Just a minute, that was all.


Anna wasn't aware she'd fallen into an exhausted slumber until she jolted awake at the sound of snapping branches and approaching voices. Her heart started thudding painfully in panic and her breath hitched in her throat. She strained her ears to hear which direction the voices were coming from (behind her and to the left) before she climbed back up onto her sore feet and as quietly as she could, bolted into the trees, running in the opposite direction of the voices.

She apparently hadn't been quiet in her escape at all because the sounds of those approaching didn't seem to lessen. In fact, they seemed to be growing closer. She involuntarily let out a gasping whimper of terror as she frantically weaved in and out of trees, pushing through thickets and climbing over logs. She moved as quickly as she could, but found herself stumbling in her desperation more often than not. Even the light from the dawning sun, which had apparently crept up while she had been sleeping, offered little aid in her chaotic escape.

The voices continued to grow closer and her efforts to escape became more frantic, less thought out. She didn't even try to keep quiet now or watch where she stepped. She just kept going. She didn't even notice the cliff until she was skidding to a frenzied stop right at the edge of the sheer drop-off.

She took only a moment to glance down the gorge thats drop, had she not stopped, surely as not would have killed her before she changed her direction and took several steps forward in preparation to dart back into the trees...

...But it was too late.

There was a shout from the shadowed foliage in front of her and then a shrill, whistling sound. She knew what the sound was, but before she could even think to move, fiery agony ripped through her right shoulder, robbing her of breath and driving her hard to the rocky ground. She lie in a dazed heap for a few beats, trying to breathe through the pain, before she lifted her head and spied the source of her torment. An arrow. It had impacted her upper right chest just below the clavicle, tearing through the muscle, and had nearly passed all the way through her body. The fletching was protruding less than a fingers length out of the front of her shoulder, and she didn't even need to look back to know that the head of it was jutting out in a similar fashion from the back side as well. She whimpered.

Four men stepped into the small clearing, some grinning, all brandishing weapons. Anna's heart dropped and her hands began shaking in terror. She pushed herself painfully up onto her feet, clutching a hand around the shaft of the arrow in an effort to keep from jostling it, and took an uneasy step backward away from the men despite knowing full well that there was no where to go.

The men fanned out, creating a semi-circle around her so that there was absolutely no way to bolt past them. One in the middle stepped forward, a dark and terrifying scowl slipping across his scarred face. He was stroking a wicked-looking blade that was as long as his forearm. It still seemed to be crusted with the blood of his last victims.

"Shouldn't have run," he rumbled, his gravelly voice low and menacing. "The boys here don't like running, especially not through the night." He shook his head. "He said he wanted you alive, but he didn't specify that your fingers needed to be unbroken. Or even your legs for that matter." There were chuckles from the men behind him.

Anna swallowed hard and backed up another step, her left foot landing half-way off of the edge of the rock face. The man apparently thought she intended to kill herself by diving off the cliff because he charged forward, startling her and causing her to step back farther, and grabbed the front of her dress a moment before she completely lost her balance. He yanked her forward, throwing her past him to the ground between him and his men, saving her from plummeting to her death.

The impact of her rough landing snapped the arrow shaft just below the fletching, leaving a jagged, splintered end protruding from the front of her shoulder. The resultant waves of fire that shot down her arm and into her chest almost made her black out. The pain was so intense that her throat seized, cutting short the cries of agony that tried to wrench themselves from her lungs.

"What? You think you can just just throw yourself off a cliff and kill yourself after we've chased you all this way?!" he roared as he marched the three steps between them. He grabbed her by the front of her dress again, hauling her into a sitting position, and then furiously backhanded her across the face. Her bottom lip split and she tasted blood.

Anna brought her head back around and met that man's gaze, trying her very best not to show him just how terrified she was, trying her very best not to make a sound. She knew men like this, or at least knew of them. They got off on the fear and pain of others and she refused to give him the satisfaction.

His eyes narrowed at her feeble attempt at defiance and yanked her upward to her feet. "Well?!" he demanded, shaking her.

Anna shook her head, biting the inside of her cheek to keep from whimpering. "N-no." She silently cursed herself when her bottom lip quivered ever so slightly. So much for not giving them the satisfaction. Her vision blurred as tears began to flood her eyes against her will, threatening to fall down her freckled cheeks.

"Don't lie to me, girl!"

"I-I'm not! Really!" He raised his hand to her again and she tensed hard. It took everything in her not to cower.

His lip turned up in a sneer. "Pathetic." He shook his head in clear disgust, then he turned Anna and tossed her toward the other three men. She landed jarringly on her hands and knees, biting down hard to contain a yelp. "Tie her and let's get out of here. I want to be back by midday tomorrow. If she is the one, then all this damned madness will finally be over."

One of the others, a huge, dark-haired beast of a man, stepped up to Anna. "Get up," he growled at her, quite obviously in as ill a mood as his leader.

Anna tried, but was shaking and weak. She just wasn't fast enough. "I said, get up," he ground out. He grabbed her by her coppery hair and jerked her painfully up. She yelped, this time unable to stop herself. Grasping at his hands, she scrambled tremblingly onto her feet as he continued to pull upward.

One the two remaining, the tall, skinny one with the bow, stepped up with a coil of coarse rope. He grabbed Anna's wrists, halting her desperate attempts to claw free the tearing fingers in her hair, and he yanked her hands down to her waist. Burning spikes shot through her abused shoulder again, stealing the breathe from her lungs and turning her knees to jelly. He wrapped the rope roughly around her wrists and tied it off.

Her hands bound, the surrounding tension seemed to wane a bit. The brute holding her by the hair loosened his grip and the one in front dropped his hold on her hands. Anna glanced to her right. She was close to the trees now, only a few strides away, and they were all letting their guard down because they believed they had her. Maybe, just maybe...

She took a steeling breath.

Giving no warning, she threw her foot down, stomping as hard as she could on the insole of Brute's foot and in the very next breath, threw the same foot out, connecting solidly between Skinny's legs. How she, as a person who possessed the grace and accuracy of a drunken, three-legged elk, managed to aim so truly, she didn't know, but she wasn't going to stand there and contemplate it. She tore off into the trees.

There were shouts of pain and anger and Anna thought for perhaps three full seconds that her idea to kick and run had been a good one until the cries of indignation behind her turned into the sound of heavy boots charging through the thicket after her. She silently cursed everything, though mostly her inability to actually think things through before acting. She'd barely managed to evade the men when she'd had a head start, didn't have an arrow through her shoulder, and when her hands had been free. What exactly had been going on in her head, she wondered, to make her think she'd be able to just dart off into the trees to freedom?

Oh, right. Nothing.

She wouldn't give up though! Not now. She'd broken free of her captors and she wasn't going to stop for anything...

...except for maybe six and a half feet of pure muscle barreling in from her blind side and tackling her with such force that she blacked out for a few seconds.

When she came to, she was being yanked up off of the ground and onto her feet. Not that it much mattered because a moment later she was in the dirt again, driven there by a vicious backhand from Brute. She stared dazedly up at the man as he crouched down beside her and lifted his fist.

"His Majesty wants her alive," the fourth man reminded the others in an almost bored tone, speaking up for the first time since they'd caught up with Anna. He meandered up with the limping Skinny.

The leader was standing about three feet from Anna's head, just staring down at her with an expression of dark loathing. He crossed his arms. "She'll survive a few bruises, and perhaps then she'll learn not to run," he rumbled, flicking his chin out to Brute, giving him his permission.

Brute grinned nastily and brought his fist down across her face again.

Anna tried to curl in on herself, but it was no use. Brute had her pinned in place. All she could do was watch his shadow through tear-flooded eyes as he pulled back his arm again to deliver yet another blow.

She tensed, bracing herself for the pain... but then it didn't come. Instead there was a light hiss followed by a thud, and then:

"I would not advise touching the girl again," a voice said, a new voice.

A female voice.

Anna hadn't heard the woman approach and apparently, neither had the men because they all made startled sounds. Or maybe they'd been startled because she'd just flattened the biggest of the four. When Anna could see past her tears, she saw the man who had been attacking her lying on the ground not to far from her, his eyes lifeless and his lips... blue?

A few beats passed and Anna heard the leader shift his position slightly, placing himself closer to the two remaining men. The woman stepped between him and Anna, her back to the downed girl.

Anna couldn't see the woman's face, but she could see that she was tall and had a shock of white-blonde hair that fell in a long braid down her back. She wore a light blue tunic beneath a dark leather vest and matching breeches. Her nearly-black riding boots reached just below her knees.

And she also had a broadsword strapped on her back.

"This isn't your business," the leader growled and Anna watched through her now slightly-hazy vision as his two remaining men began shifting their weight, slowly moving to flank the woman on both sides.

"Well, I'm making it my business," the woman replied cooly. "Now the girl and I are going to walk away and you're going to leave us alone."

They were? And they were? Anna was confused.

The man actually laughed and his men followed suit, though the other two sounded a bit strained. "Is that so?"

Anna shivered slightly as the temperature randomly dropped.

"Yes." And then the blonde woman's sword was out and it was arcing toward the leader. He jumped back, out of the way and out of Anna's field of vision. The woman followed.

Anna clenched her eyes tight and covered her head with her uninjured arm, too weak and dazed to move, and too petrified to look, but she could hear everything. Weapons clashing, grunts, the sound of flesh slamming into flesh, cries of pain... and then what seemed like an eternity later, silence. She was too afraid to move. Were they gone? Were they all... dead?

But wait, no, she did hear something. There was one sound left, but it took her terrified brain a few moments to realize what it was.

Soft panting.

They hadn't gone. They weren't all dead. Someone was still there.

And they were suddenly walking right toward her.

Soft footfalls slowly approached and Anna's tortured breath caught in her throat. Her whole body tensed and she wished vainly that she could be invisible. Oh God, oh God, oh God...

A hand landed on her arm and she shrieked, wrenching herself away and trying to scurry backward in a pathetic attempt to escape. The sharp movement sent agony rippling out from her damaged shoulder again and she sobbed once aloud, blinking hard as her vision swam. It was all just too much.

"Calm down! Calm down..."

Anna immediately realized it was the woman speaking, not any of the men. She brought her sky blue eyes up to suddenly meet a pair of azure ones and audibly gasped. She didn't know what she had been expecting, perhaps some gruff, weathered warrior like the few she had met along her travels, but certainly not this. The woman before her was... gorgeous, startlingly so, and Anna didn't quite know what to make of that.

Crouched down in front of Anna with her hands held up unthreateningly, the blonde made a small move to come toward the girl and Anna visibly tensed, unable to help herself. The woman stopped short. "It's alright. I'm not going to hurt you," she said. Her voice was a cool, soft purr that Anna instantly found soothing, but her expression didn't quite match her words. Her face was perplexingly composed, emotionless. Almost cold. Anna wondered if this woman realized that comforting someone took more than just words. "I just saved your life."

Yes, she had, hadn't she? ...But why?

"Alright then..." the woman tried, "What's your name?"

"Uh..."

"Uh? Not much of a name."

Anna somehow found her voice and shakily forced out, "A-Anna."

"Ok, Anna," the blonde said, her tone becoming a little less soothing. Anna could have sworn she heard even a hint of urgency to it as well. "Now, I need you to listen to me closely." She ducked her head a bit to look Anna more directly in the eyes. "Are you? Are you listening?"

Anna nodded.

The warrior woman nodded in return. "I'm sure that you're quite aware that you have an arrow sticking out of your shoulder?"

"Uh, quite."

She didn't exactly smile, but there was something in the blonde's eyes that gave Anna the impression that she was just a bit amused. "Right." The woman took a breath before she as-clearly-as-she-could stated, "We need to go, but first that arrow has to come out. If it doesn't, it will fester and swell, and you don't want that. We must do it quickly."

Anna swallowed hard, terrified all over again. "Why, uh, why the rush?"

"Those men, Anna," she started, glancing over her shoulder where the redhead didn't dare look, where the bodies of the four men lie, "there are more of them and they are coming. We have to go."

"How do you know?" Anna asked.

Anna saw something flash through the woman's eyes. Frustration? Annoyance maybe? "Because after you came charging through my campsite, I waited to see what was chasing you. Yes, it was those four men, but behind them were more men, a lot more, and they are headed this way. If we don't move, they will catch us, and if they catch us..." She gave Anna a pointed look. "Do you understand me, Anna?"

Anna's eyes had grown huge and her hands had begun shaking as a new wave a fear began coursing through her veins.

"Anna," she repeated, "do you understand me?"

Anna's head bobbed up and down again. "Y-yes."

"Good." The woman glanced around for a moment before bringing her fingers up to her lips and blowing out a shrill whistle. Anna cocked a confused eyebrow, but no explanation for the behavior was given. Instead, the blonde glanced down at herself and after a slight pause, reached into the top of her breeches, pulling free the blue tunic she'd tucked in. She tore off a long strip from the bottom of it, then repositioned herself from Anna's front to her side.

"Brace yourself," she said as she gently placed one hand against the back of Anna's shoulder and moved the other to take hold of the arrow.

"Wait!" Anna exclaimed.

The woman arched a perfect eyebrow in question. "Yes?"

Anna floundered for a moment. She understood that they were running out of time, she really did, but she also wondered if a small delay in tearing out the arrow would really be all that bad? "I, uh,... um... I don't- I don't know your name yet. I just feel like if you're going to be, you know," she swallowed hard, "ripping an arrow out of my body, I should at least know your name... because... well, for... reasons, and—"

Anna's bumbling was cut short when the woman said, "My name is Elsa," then gripped the shaft of the arrow just below the head and pulled.

White hot agony blazed through her and then Anna was swallowed by darkness.


Author's Note: More to come? If you like?

Also, just so you know, it's only rated T at the moment, but will be turning to M in upcoming chapters for violence and other adult-ish themes.