Ok. So this is inspired by a one-word prompt I saw online. I bet you can guess what it is from the title. Hope you like this! Enjoy!
Exile
Alice felt a sob build up in her chest as she hurried away from her home in the dead of the night, dodging piles of snow from the previous night's snowstorm. She clutched her cloak tighter to her chest and firmly gripped her bow as she hurried away, tears pricking at her eyes. She pulled her hood further over her head, as if to try to mask the tears.
She was crying.
But she didn't cry. She never cried. She wasn't weak.
But she was crying now.
Even her tears had betrayed her.
Alice tripped over her own feet as she face planted in a pile of snow, the cold pricking at her face. She gasped, trying to reclaim her breath, but her breathing was irregular and ragged from the shock of the fall and the building tears that had already started to spill. She rolled onto her back, holding the bow up in front of her face. When she saw that it was undamaged, Alice sighed in relief. As Alice pulled herself up, she heard angry yells in the distance. She forced herself up, wincing at the movement, and sped up her pace.
Her people were hunting.
They were hunting her.
When the witch hunts had started, they had horrified her. Not just because of their brutality and the fact that most of their victims were innocent, but because they put her in danger because of her magic. She had spent so damn long hiding her magic. It wasn't enough.
She raised her hand to wipe the tears from her eyes, then froze. Her palms were cut open, probably from the fall, and bleeding scarlet. She hadn't noticed the cuts before due to the adrenaline. Even in the pitch-black darkness of the night, she could see the blood, and she realized what it signified. Normally they would have healed by now, and the fact that they hadn't meant that she and her people had become estranged. Stumbling into the woods further and clutching her traveling cloak tighter, she sobbed as she ran.
She had hid. It hadn't been enough. They had caught her and imprisoned her. And when her boss came to visit her, she had thought that she'd be let off easy with only maybe a century or two in hiding from the public as a whole. When her boss informed her that he couldn't do that and that he was exiling her in secret under the guise that she had escaped from her cell, she was crushed. No amount of being would sway her boss, she saw the distrust he had in his eyes. The distrust of her. She had hidden her magic from even him, and he feared that. She had begged and told him that exile for a country in many ways was worse than death, but he ignored her pleas and told her that the only reason why he didn't have her executed was because he knew she couldn't die.
The only reason he hadn't ordered her death was because she couldn't die.
The betrayal had stung more than everything going on. He had unlocked her cage, gave her a cloak that would blend in with the night, and told her that she had about a thirty minute head start before the townspeople would find out and chase after her. He had added that the rainclouds that were overhead as well as the night itself should cover her, and she had to hurry if she didn't want the incoming snow to clearly illustrate where she had gone. He had presented her with a bow and a quiver of arrows, shot her a hateful glare, and left her standing there with the explicit instructions to never step foot in his kingdom again. She had run then, tears threatening to fall, the quiver and bow slung over her cloak-covered shoulders, and had run all the way to the woods that had stood for hundreds of years and would hopefully offer her cover.
She fearfully looked around. The yells were getting closer, and she was lost. She didn't know these woods as well as she did when she was a child, and the fact that the last time she had been here was centuries ago and the landscape had severely changed since didn't help.
"There-" Alice whirled around, startled by the second voice. A young man was staring at her, she must have only just come into his field of vision. He opened his mouth to scream, likely that he had found the escapee, but before he could make a sound, Alice had already nocked her bow and shot him through the heart, and he was dead before he hit the ground. She ran, jumping over sticks and holes as quietly as she could, the only noise that she was making was her increasing sobs as she felt the twinge in her heart that signified that he had died.. She had killed one of her people. A young man, barely twenty-one. He had barely gotten to experience his life. Even though her and her people's bond was already severely estranged by her exile, she still could feel that he had a finance at home, who was carrying his child.
She had killed one of her people. Now they had an actual valid reason based on undeniable, indisputable proof to kill her. She heard the screams of the townspeople and guards as they stumbled upon his bleeding body, and she heard the faint crack of thunder in the distance. Sobbing, she ran faster, clutching her cloak even tighter, pulling the hood even further, and gripping her bow so firmly that he knuckles had gone white. She could feel that on the other side of her ex-island home, it had started raining a mixture of hail and sleet, harshly pelting the homes of her people. Snow fell around her, and she realized with a start that she wouldn't be able to hide for long.
Alice dabbed at her eyes with her sleeve. Using magic was risky, but she didn't have a choice. As she ran, she took a deep breath in-between her sobs and cast a spell that would increase her speed. She heard a yell, and Alice knew that they had spotted her, and her magic had likely been bright enough for them to spot. She ran, praying to a god that she no longer believed in that the spell would hold and apologized inside her head to her sisters and the people she had wronged in the past. Sobbing, she ran quicker. But her magic and exhaustion caught up with her, and she collapsed.
When Alice woke up with a start hours later, it had to have been around three in the morning, not that you'd be able to tell, what with the snow that blanketed the Earth and the clouds that covered the sky. Her teeth chattering from the cold, and her hair had come out of their ponytails, she checked her surroundings. She was surrounded by piles of sleet, snow, and icy water, and trees that surrounded her and hid her. She thanked her good luck that she collapsed her, if she had collapsed out in the open the townspeople likely would have found her.
The townspeople.
She took a deep breath and sensed, shaking, engraining her mind in her land and searching for the information the land carried. She could feel that the townspeople had given up when they had stumbled upon the young man's body and she had used magic to increase her speed. They were still running patrols, but the king declared that the French ship carrying important passengers for a political conference that had docked in the harbor was a higher priority. Alice sighed in relief when she sensed that. She was in a good position and she could likely stay, as long as they didn't come too close to her.
Alice rested her head on a tree. Her faerie friends were there, and she could faintly sense them. She couldn't see them because she was too drained, but she could sense that they were there and that they were concerned about her, and that was enough for her.
She curled her hand and realized that she was holding something. When she unfurled it, she realized that she was clutching Flying Mint Bunny's ribbon that was normally tied around her neck. Realizing this, her shoulders shook and she unknowingly stated crying. They cared about her. Her country, her boss, her people had abandoned her, but they still cared.
And at this point, she was fairly sure that they were the only ones who did.
Alice took the ribbon and tied her hair into a loose ponytail, promising to herself that she'd return it later.
She could almost imagine the stars blinking down at her from above.
Alice groaned as she gradually woke up. Her head hurt from a splitting headache, her fingers were frostbitten, and her legs were numb. Every part of her was sore from recovering her magic, and although she still couldn't see her faeries, it still there.
She blinked away the snow that settled on her eyelashes and realized that someone was there. A familiar blonde head with violet-blue eyes peered at her curiously.
Francine.
"F-Fr-" Alice coughed. Her throat was immensely dry, and it hurt to speak. Her friend leaned forward and placed a hand on her forehead. She wore her usual uniform and purple cloak that vividly stood out.
"Mon ami, you're burning up." Francine's voice was teasing, friendly even, but it held a slight note of worry. She had clearly heard about what had happened to her, and-
"Y-you came on the ship for a m-" Alice broke out into a fit of coughing. Francine wordlessly offered her some water, where it was procured from, Alice didn't know, but she accepted it eagerly; her throat hurt badly. Gasping as the cold water soothed her throat, she broke out into another fit of coughing that lasted anywhere from seconds to minutes. Francine sighed, continuing where she had left off.
"On the ship for a meeting? Yes. But because your king had exiled you, it was canceled." Alice broke out into another fit of coughing. Francine looked down on her, concerned.
"I-I'm sorry."
"Sorry for what? Getting yourself exiled? Why would you apologize for that."
"N-not that, you frog. For getting the meeting canceled."
Francine chuckled dryly and offered a hand. Alice stared at it blankly. "What?"
Francine sighed, but it lacked impatience. "You can stay with me. You're exiled, right? You can stay with me until these stupid witch hunts are over. Can you walk?" When Alice shook her head no, Francine pulled her up and Alice wrapped her arm around Francine's neck so she was supporting most of Alice's weight.
"Mon dieu, you weigh a lot."
"O-oh, shut up, frog," Alice snapped, but she was too tired to put her heart in the insult. Francine chuckled some more. "Come on, let's get out of here."
A/N: So, when I was writing this, out of curiosity I looked up Flying Mint Bunny and apparently she's a girl. I did not know this. How did I not know this. *facepalms* These are the things that you don't know but you really, really should. Also, I'm aware that Flying Mint Bunny does not in fact wear a ribbon around her neck, but I thought it was cute. This takes place around the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries when fears of witches ignited and took hold and paved the way for numerous witch hunts that claimed the lived of numerous young men and women. And England isn't precisely a witch but the fact that she can use magic and given the current time period, well... she'd be considered one. Poor England. Anyway, thanks for reading this and I hope you liked it. Don't be afraid to leave a review, ciao!