She wriggles against the ropes, but the only result she gets is more severe burning in her wrists. The warm body pressed to her back scoffs unimpressed and Aurora wishes she had her hands free so she could smack him in the head. It was all his fault anyway.
"We have around three hours till sunrise. We can still live through this," he whispers into her ear in a voice barely louder than a breath. The trolls seem to have finally settled for a camp, and there is a huge fire raging happily in the center of the field. Some of them are moving closer to the prisoners now, staring at them with interest mixed with undeniable yearning for blood.
"Any ideas how?" Aurora whispers back, her body shaking, and she is not that sure if it's from the cold.
Hook sighs. "We could use a story. I used to know a storyteller, once," he pauses for a moment. "Do you know a story, princess?"
"I don't know, I haven't really heard one in quite some time," she hisses, digging her nails into his palm. He scoffs again and grasps her fingers into his fist.
"It is essential for you to tell a story. Make it a good one." The trolls are circling them, and Aurora swallows. "And a long one, too."
As always, it was not supposed to end this way. [But the cave collapsed, and she almost choked on the dust, her leg burning with a dull, tingling pain. Mulan was screaming for her from the other side of the stone wall, and when Aurora turned around she could see no one there; (no one except for the Captain – very angry, and very much coughing his lungs out). "The fairy dust is so close, we can't give up now," she called, her voice leaving no place for argument. "We will get back soon, the fairy dust will free you and build the portal."
"I don't trust him," was Mulan's reply, but Aurora wouldn't listen. She had made her choice.]
It was a bad choice, of course.
"Does it hurt?" the Captain asks casually, when they've collapsed under the tree, far away from the stone statues in the shape of trolls. His eyes pierce holes through her, she is sure of that even with her back turned, and it bothers her, makes her doubt the choice she's made, (because she doesn't trust him either, and she sleeps with her hand on her knife, and every time he makes a sudden move her fingers curl a little tighter around the handle).
"What do you mean?"
"Your leg," he says, pointing at it and smiling. She wants to hit him, but she knows he's too dangerous for that.
"It's fine," is all she says, and gets back to cutting the bread. She also shifts her weight to the other leg, (which he notices, of course).
("If you lay a finger on her, I will find you and cut you to pieces," Mulan warned him, but he only laughed at that, a sharp, nasty sound that made her want to change her mind.
She didn't.)
"Are you scared yet?"
She shoves the branch away from her face and glares at him, her eyes full of fire and anger she's been bottling up for all these days. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Oh, I don't know. The Dark Forest, not exactly a place for a princess. Quite nasty, even by my standards. We should see the shades soon, and the phantoms - look out for those. I barely made it out alive the last time I was here."
She would have managed, she really would, if only he wasn't sneering as if the whole trip was a bad joke, and if only his good hand wasn't hanging limply by his side, not even caring to protect them from the dangers he was counting.
"Do you think it funny?" she asks in a voice hard as steel, and he turns around. The grim amusement on his face doesn't fade a bit.
"But this is very funny indeed, can't you see, princess?" He moves closer, dark mist pooling around his legs as he walks. It's getting quieter in the forest and the air stills, full of promise. "You and me, the last people at the end of the world. That is already just marvelous. And it's not even the funniest part. We're running for our lives, only to give them away willingly at our destination. Don't you feel amused, Your Highness?"
That's when she slaps him, a sharp sound that echoes in the quietness of the forest. Her hand leaves an angry red mark on his cheek, and at the very moment she remembers everything about bad choices and dangerous creatures. The protector she's picked for herself is the one she should be protected from, and she lets out a sharp breath she didn't realize she's been holding.
His teeth shine in the faint evening light and in a flash he's right there by her side, grabbing her wrist and shoving her forwards. "You will not do that again," he hisses, and she fears her bones will crush in his grip, "is that understood?"
And she nods fearfully for him to let her go, her other hand curling around the handle of her knife hidden in the folds of her dress.
He turns and she's at his back in a heartbeat with a knife biting into his neck, and she feels a rush of blood to the head when she sees tiny red droplets forming at the edge. "You will not do that again," and when he tries to throw her off, she only presses deeper. "Is that understood?"
But then he laughs, the sound reverberating through her body and through her knife, and he grabs her like a rag doll and throws her to the ground. The shadows curl around her, and they smell like death. She tries to get up, but Hook pushes her down again and kneels between her legs. "Quite a warrior princess we have here," he says slowly, and stills her wrists before she manages to hit him again.
"Let me go," she commands, but the sound that leaves her mouth is more of a plea than anything else.
The piercing blue of his eyes cuts through her like a knife. She thinks she sees something akin to weariness there, at the very bottom. "It was a bad choice you made, putting your faith in me," he says, his thumb absentmindedly tracing the skin of her wrist.
"You said you were a man of honor." He laughs again at that, bitter and sudden like a dog's bark.
"But that's right – I was. I am not anymore."
He pulls her up though, from the dark cloud that has formed around her body. She is breathing heavily, her dress dirty with soil and leaves, her hand cold as he lets go. He looks away, and she suddenly misses the blue eyes, seemingly the only honest thing about him. "What happened?" she asks as she increases the distance between them.
He doesn't smile anymore when he turns back. His face looks strangely empty, almost sad. "I have nothing to lose anymore."