Another soldier snuck up behind her and tried to take her down, but couldn't and another fell.
The fight raged on for hours and hours as Jeanne brought more Englishmen, some twice her size, to their bitter ends.
At last, when the lights of dawn began to glint at the top of the hill, the Englishmen retreated.
Jeanne stood, panting, a victorious smile pulling at the corners of her lips. This was yet anothe victory brought to the French by Jeanne d'Arc, only nineteen years of age.
She sheathed her sword once the final man had left the battlefield, turned on her heel and started to walk home. She could hardly wait until she could get to her on-base home to see Francis and inform him of yet another battle won.
As she took a step, she felt a pain in her side.
'Great, the pain is catching up' She thought as she looked down to see a slight wound from a sword 'Heh, I guess the adrenaline was rushing today. I didn't feel it at all' she adjusted slightly to get a better look at it 'It's not too deep, I can wrap it at home'
She then continued to walk to her horse, Charles, named after her king and mount him, riding off into the sunrise.
Luckily, she wasn't far and was home, tieing Charles to his post and limping slightly into the small shack in a matter of minutes.
"I'm home!" She called "Ah!" Francis exclaimed, embracing her "Il est merveilleux de vous voir!" [1]
She gave him a kiss, then felt the pain in her side again, reminding her of her injury.
"J'ai besoin de bandages" [2] She said, causing Francis to pull anway and examine her, stopping at her side.
"Oh my!" He exclaimed, grabbing the bandages off of the table, where an empty bottle of red wine sat, painting a smirk onto Jeanne's face.
'He was worried' She thought "Here, sit" Francis said, gesturing to the wooden chair in their living room.
She did as he instructed, the pain growing more prominent as the adrenaline from the battle left her body.
He pulled up her shirt, her armor having already been removed, exposing the wound fully.
Francis winced, causing Jeanne to question the actual severity of her injury, and leaned her forward, wrapping bandages around her waist.
It was a rather intimate situation, but Francis' heart remained in his stomach, forever worrying about his beloved Jeanne.
He finally finished bandaging her, and she looked down at him and smiled.
"Qu'est-ce que tu souris?" [3] Francis asked, still a solemn expression on his face 'I wish she didn't have to battle to protect me,' he thought 'she is so fragile and beloved to me'
"Je t'aime" She replied matter-of-factly.
"You had me worried sick" He said, not completely thinking of what she just said, but rather still consumed in his own thoughts.
"I know, ma ch rie" She said.
He still ignored her terms of endearment and stood, beginning to pace.
"Every time you leave, Jeanne" Francis said, distressed "Every time I have to worry that you aren't going to return."
"You don't need to"
"Oui, I do!" He shouted, clearly tired and intoxicated.
"I can take care of myself!"
"If that wound were a matter of centimetres upward, you wouldn't be home." he said "And I have nothing to worry about?!"
He scoffs, stops pacing, and looks at her with sad eyes.
"You're tired," She said, walking to him and cradling his jaw "Let's go to bed."
"I can't!" He yelled, pulling her hand off of him "I can't sleep, and when I do, the only things I see are you. Dead. Taken. Gone."
"That isn't going to happen, Francis" She tried to reassure him "How do you know?!" He yells, practically tearing his long, blonde hair out "Even I don't know, and you know who I am"
"You are not only my country," Jeanne shouted back "Tu es mon seul v ritable amour!" [4]
"You don't need to risk your life for me!"
"Yes, I do! It is my one duty in life!"
"Tr s bien!" [5] Francis finally said, collapsing into his chair and hanging his head in his hands "Il suffit d'aller au lit." [6]
"Tr s bien!" Jeanne shouted back, going into their shared bedroom and slamming the door.
She stripped down to her undergarments and bandages, and laid down in the bed, falling asleep only because she was tired from battle.
~~At the English base~~ "We need a new strategy!" The General shouted demandingly "That girl is kicking out arses!"
"Damn right she is." A voice said from the shadows in the corner of the room. A young man with blonde hair and thick eyebrows emerged from the shadows.
The entire room gasped, and some men were so shocked that they stood from their seats.
"I'm going out there." the man said.
"You can't, Arthur" the general reasoned "You're valuable, hell, you're the country itself! We can't send you out there."
"And you also can't order me around" Arthur stated arrogantly "I am going out to battle tomorrow, and I will take Jeanne from the French"
"And how do you plan to do that?" A soldier asked, clearly unbeknownst of Arthur's position in the military heirarchy.
"Just like I said," Arthur stated, tilting his head further into the light "I will take her. Simple as that. She's the only one there with a brain, so if I sneak up and whisk her away, it won't be until they're counting bodies that they'll realize she's missing."
~~Back to France and Jeanne's home, Morning~~ Jeanne was awoken by the sound of battle trumpets in the area, she sprung out of bed, putting on her clothing and armor without stopping to check her wound. In her opinion, if she could walk, she could fight.
She pulled Francis' hair away from his still sleeping face, kissed his forehead, and left the home.
She quickly untied Charlie, slung a leg over his back, and kicked his sides into a gallop towards the battlegrounds.
Immeadeately upon arrival, she dismounted, unsheathed her sword and began to take down enemies one by one, managing to plunge her sword right through the weak points in the English armor that she had grown so accustomed to.
Suddenly, after she had worked her way deeper into the battle field than she probably should've gone, still thinking of Francis and his dreams, and wondering if it could truly happen to her, a gloved hand clamped over her face, and worked her sword from her hand.
"Tsk tsk tsk," the man behind her said condescendingly "Someone's distracted."
She didn't recognize the voice as an English general or colonel, or at least the ones she had heard calling for retreat. Before she knew it, the man had a gag in her mouth, keeping her screams from being heard over the firing of guns and the cries of soldiers, and her hands were being knotted behind her back. She struggled, but it was no use. The only person she had felt have this strong of a grip was-
Francis.
This man was a nation. She knew it as soon as she had felt his hands on her body. She stopped struggling, as she knew it was pointless, and felt a tear roll down her cheek at the thought that her love's nightmares were about to come true, and that she was never going to see him again. She choked back the other tears that threatened to fall, knowing that she was a warrior, and needed to act like it. She was thrown in the back of a carraige about a mile past the back of the English battle line like a pig, and was then enclosed in darkness like the prisoner she was.
At that moment, she was no longer Jeanne d'Arc, she was just Jeanne. Jeanne Bonnefoy.
Soon, she was being yanked by two men from the carraige and thrown immeadiately into a prison cell.
'Why are they keeping me?' She wondered 'I will refuse to fight for them instead'
Arthur stepped out of the carraige himself, laughing like a madman.
"I got her!" He shouted "I told you I would, and I did!"
"Yes," the general said "But what are we to do with her?"
Arthur shrugged, even though he did have an idea already.
"Burn her at the stake, of course! Do it at dawn."
A highly painful way to die, and a way that let the victim die thinking of all that she is losing as the world slowly slips away.
~~The Bonnefoy home, 4AM the next day~~ 'She should be home by now' Francis thought to himself 'All the others have come back'
He heard some panic when the troops were returning, but he couldn't understand them in the chaos. As the hours ticked by, and the wine glasses continued to empty, he began to worry that the commotion really was about his beloved.
"Merde." [7] Francis finally said, storming out and grabbing the nearest soldier by his collar "O est-elle?" [8]
"Qui?" [9] The soldier asked, shocked by Francis' surprising violence, and the worried glint in his eyes, not to mention the alcohol on his breath.
"Vous savez qui!" [10] Francis shouted "Jeanne! O est Jeanne?!" [11]
"Nous ne savons pas!" [12] The soldier replied "Elle a t prise" [13]
Francis gawked and set the soldier down, receding back into his home, all eyes on him, feeling as if he were about to throw up.
"Non..." He said, shocked "Not Jeanne...she can't be"
He nearly fell backwards onto the hardwood floor as he shut the door to the shack.
'How?' He asked himself. He began to think of the ways that they could kill her and torture her, tears brimming at the corners of his eyes.
He finally got a disgusted look on his face as he realized that the only man strong enough to take her away was not a man at all, but a fellow nation.
Suddenly, Francis got to the possibility in his mind that Arthur was touching her in the way that only he had before, and that was when he snapped. He threw his door open and began to run in the direction of the enemy base, tears beginning to stream down his face, getting caught in his stubble.
He had to save her at all costs.
He ran and ran until he saw it. A perfect set up. Perfect for burning at the stake.
Jeanne was crying and screaming like the fragile girl Francis knew she was, being tied to the large piece of wood.
"NO!" Francis screamed, alerting the previously distracted soldiers of his presence. Some began to run toward him when Arthur emerged from the shadows once more.
"Stop." And they did "Let him watch" He said with a cynical smile across his face.
"Please," Francis begged to Arthur "Let her go. Please. From one nation to another."
"Sorry," He replied "The British Empire doesn't give favours."
Francis, his face tear-stained and contorted into an expression of pure rage, charged at Arthur, but was held back by a combination of three soldiers.
"JEANNE!" He screamed through tears "JEANNE!"
In that moment, another soldier dropped the match onto the pile of wood at her feet, and as she went up in flames, Francis dropped to his knees like the men Jeanne had slain.
"Jeanne!" he sobbed "Je t'aime. Je t'aime tellement."
Jeanne smiled at him through the flames, her tears not nearly enough to extinguish the flames that were raging around her body.
And at last, she said;
"Je t'aime plus, Francis"