Chapter 3: End to the Kokiri Warrior
A cool cloth was placed on her forehead. Wren opened her eyes as much as she could, but tears immediately came from the effort and she blinked rapidly in small half-circles.
A soft, feminine voice floated on the air to her ears. She couldn't see; everything was dark, but she grasped at that voice as it chanted to her in some language that she didn't understand. Supple hands touched her body, skimming over her nakedness; her scraps of clothing were gone now. When the hands reached the bottom of her left leg, fiery pain shot through her. The pain made her delirious, her head spin, and even holding fast to the voice almost proved to hard to do. Then a scratchy blanket was pulled over her from her feet, tucked up beneath her chin.
She felt bruised and sore and really bruised when she tried to move.
"Rest, child," the voice that belonged to those hands said. "Be easy,"
Wren, exhausted, heeded the advice, falling the scant half-inch back to her pallet.
All at once she realized she was in a tent when a tall Hylian yanked the cloth cover from over the door. The light was harsh on her eyes and she flinched away.
"Drop that drape, Kyle." The old woman hissed at him. Kyle did as she had commanded him, stepping inside, but she was again blinded, the tiny amount of night vision she had managed to acquire gone.
"She's awake?" he asked.
"Barely."
"Good," Kyle said with enthusiasm. "Give her a canteen of water and a ration of food; we're leaving within the hour."
"You cannot mean to leave her here, Kyle, she's barely—"
"I can and we will. Only look at it, something akin to Ganon. I will not harbor a creature like it in my caravan."
"You listen to me, boy, and you listen well," Beatrice said, her voice low and angry. "I do not care if she's the very child of that monster Gandorf, you will not turn her out into the world when she's so wounded. I will not allow it. The poor thing deserves better."
"Grandmother, be reasonable—"
"You be reasonable, boy. The Goddesses work in strange ways, for goodness sake, do not treat one of Their children like rotten meat!"
"She is not a child of any of the Goddesses, Grandmother—Not Din, not Farore not even Naryu would claim the likes of…that."
Wren, angry and hurt by this stranger's cruel words, tried to speak, but all that came out was a strangled, "Please,"
"There now, see, she wants to leave," Kyle grunted.
"Fool of a boy—you're just like your father. Be gone of my tent now. No, now!"
Kyle left with a last cruel look in Wren's direction and Beatrice turned back to her, and even though Wren could not see for the darkness still, she felt the smile on the old woman's face and felt some peace return.
"I will watch over you, Wren, until you are strong enough to continue on your journey."
"How do you…"
"Shh," Beatrice pressed her finger to Wren's cracked lips and she fell back into sleep.
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1 Week Later
Wren woke slowly to the morning song and stretched gently. She was still bruised and sore, but some of the swelling had gone away. Beatrice's tent flap was pinned open, letting the wet morning air and light in. Across on the other side of the tent, Beatrice was still asleep, curled up in a small ball almost like a child. The old woman had been good to her, tending her needs and knowing what she needed almost before Wren herself did.
Wren could walk now, though not for a long time. Her left leg was especially sore from where she'd fallen hard on it in her escape of Kokiri Forest. But despite the throbbing that always came, she walked around the camp everyday. Usually alone. Beatrice came with her sometimes, but for the most part, Wren walked along the fringes of the camp, watching the children play and the adults talk in small groups, watched them work and mend and cook and clean and weave. Some looked at her with fleeting curiosity, but most ignored her. They followed their leader, Kyle, in his dislike of her.
The same way the Kokiri children had followed Mido when he'd turned on her without a second thought.
She wrinkled her face at that thought; that betrayal still left a bitter taste in her mouth. Mido, quick- and hot-tempered that he was, she might could understand in his instant hatred of what she was, but the other children? Her friends and family, those she had played with for as long as she could remember? Kokiri with each of whom she had special memories, special times. How could they betray such a friendship as that?
And Roarke…
He had not been attacking her with the others, but neither had he come to her rescue. He had abandoned her, too.
No, she thought. I am being too harsh on them. They are too innocent to understand. The blame is mine and mine alone. The fault of it is my burden to carry.
Discouraged and disheartened, she tossed the covers from over her legs and limped out of the tent, intent on her morning walk around the fringes of the people she now accompanied.
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2 Weeks Later
"You seem quite improved."
Wren turned and looked over her shoulder. She had been filling a jug with creek water for Beatrice, who had determined to pass along a few of her cooking techniques. Kyle stood back off the bank of the quick-flowing little creek with his hands on his hips and a slight frown that drew his face in on itself.
"Beatrice says I'll be strong enough to go about my way soon."
"Hmm, soon, she says," he nodded with a pleasant tone as if he understood. "Soon, she says, but she'd keep you if she could."
"I would not burden her in such a way."
"No, I'm sure you wouldn't," he said, coming to kneel next to her. "But perhaps…you wouldn't have to."
An instant chill went down Wren's spine and she turned her eyes, but not her head, and saw that Kyle's eyes were on her breasts. His eyes were big and lit with a lust she had not seen, but suddenly realized had been there from the start.
Her large jug full, she stood, closing the lid over the water lest it splash out as she hurried back to the safety of Beatrice. Kyle followed her movements, rising slower beside her, his eyes roaming further down, then returning to her breasts.
"If you please me…I might be persuaded to keep you." He reached his hand out toward her, slowly at first, so that she couldn't quite believe what he was doing, and then so swiftly she couldn't stop him. He cruelly grabbed hold of her right breast and squeezed, his fingers digging into the tender flesh. He pinched then released, then pinched again and a gross smile spread across his face.
He was hurting her. "Come back to my tent when you've taken the water to—"
She slapped his hand away with a hard sting and he released his grip, his pleasure turning to anger, but the lust didn't leave his eyes. If anything, it grew brighter. "Don't be foolish. You've no where to go but to me. No one would take a creature like you in. You've no where to go."
Her heart pounding in her ears, her throat dry and her tongue stuck to the bottom of her mouth, she only stared mutely, horrified at him.
He stepped closer, enjoying the fear that made her eyes wide. "You'll be my slave, obligated to fulfill my every desire." In a jerky motion, he reached out and around her, grabbed her bottom in his hands and clutched at her, pulling her toward him so that her front was pressed to him. She felt him hard against her hip; the violence aroused him.
He licked her ear, then whispered, "Can you imagine? Me inside you…"
Disgusted and still unable to speak, Wren did the only thing she felt she was capable of: she reared one knee and hit him hard squarely between the legs. He grunted, then hissed, then backed away, falling to the ground, his hands over his wounded swollen flesh.
She ran, the water jug still in her hand, she ran up the slope, her gaze fixed on where she knew the camp was, where other people were, where Beatrice was. There, she would be safe.
He tackled her from behind, knocking her down, kicking and fighting the whole way. The breath was knocked from her lungs so that she lay paralyzed for a brief moment, struggling to breath and get over the shock. Kyle took advantage of her disadvantage and turned her over, shoving her legs apart and his knee against her. She lost hold of the water jug, but as he crawled up her, his hands groping and pinching, coming to her breasts and squeezing, pushing the twin globes together and smothering his face in the cleavage there, she brought her hands down in one large fist onto his head. Once. Twice. The dull thud sound her hits made were sickening, and they hurt her hands, but he fell back, holding his head, and she found the strength to grab her water jug and run.
She ran and ran and didn't stop until she had reached Beatrice, sitting at the fire, mixing the contents of one bit pot over the flames. Wren fell, sobbing, her head in Beatrice's lap.
"Child, what's wrong? What's happened?" Beatrice tried to sooth her, running her wrinkled old hands over Wren's hair, but nothing would calm the girl. In the end, Beatrice just held her until the tears stopped flowing and sleep took her over. She slept almost a whole day.
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3 Weeks Later
Wren stepped out of the wolf skin tent and into the morning sun. It was cool out, and she was grateful for the skins that Beatrice had managed to barter and turn into passable clothing of pants and a shirt that wrapped around her, under her arms. A charm of the Goddess Din hung around her neck on a long string, the breeze catching hold of it.
Today was it.
She was mostly recovered from the bile of the potion and the attack she'd suffered from Mido and the other Kokiri. Looking back now, now once the anger was gone, she did not know how to feel, and in fact preferred it that way. The Kokiri chapter in her life was over; she could never go back. She missed Roarke, wondered what had become of him, but there was nothing for that.
Wren was able to go now, to leave the caravan. One part of her was overjoyed—the stares and rudeness of those around her was heart-wrenching, but another…another was loathe to leave Beatrice. In a few short weeks, the old Hylian woman had become like a mother, not like Yetta, her Gerudo surrogate mother, had been but like the loving maternal figure she'd needed.
But she couldn't wait to be rid of Kyle.
As Wren stood there, letting the cold breeze pick up her hair and blow it around, Beatrice came from the tent and stood next to her, watching the sunrise.
"It's beautiful, isn't it? I fancy imagining that this is what the earth blazed like when Din carved it."
"Perhaps," Wren said softly, contemplating her own thoughts.
Beatrice turned toward her. "You're leaving today, aren't you, child?"
Wren turned sad eyes on Beatrice and gave a solemn nod. "Thank you, for—"
Beatrice touched Wren's cheek, turning her face. "Do not thank me child. I enjoyed having someone so easy to talk to. Besides, it was the Goddesses' will."
Wren brought her hand up to cover Beatrice's. The old woman had been kind to her, and she would never forget it.
"If you ever need anything…"
Beatrice smiled. "I will look for you. Now go, before Kyle finds you still here."
Wren shivered at mention of the bastard, but conceded the point. "I'll never forget you,"
"Nor I you."
Wren turned and went to the white and brown stallion she was taking with her. The horse was packed lightly with a spare change of clothing Wren had worked on with cloth from Beatrice, a small wheel of cheese, bread, some dried meat and berries, and a canteen of water.
She mounted and gently nudged Rosemary into a canter, and once they were moving at a decent pace, Wren turned back around and lifted her hand in farewell. Beatrice's small frame was disappearing with the distance and the new morning light, but Wren saw her raise her hand also.
Upset longing filled the pit of Wren's stomach. The little bit of safety and security she had felt with Beatrice was falling away with each step Rosemary took; her shell of protection was falling away, leaving her exposed and vulnerable.
But it didn't matter. Anywhere she could find happiness and safety would never fill her for long; she knew she had to find Paris. She owed it to herself to find her lover, to herself and to him. He had been courageous enough to let her go, but now that her life as a Kokiri was permanently behind her, there was nothing to keep them apart.
She headed for Hyrule Market, the busy little town that surrounded the Castle. If she was to find word of her Hylian warrior, she would find it there.
