Ever since the King's order to burn the witch, Anastasia, had been cast out a week ago, the silver stallions of Mirkwood had been thundering throughout Rhovanion, the area in which Mirkwood was in. It had only been a month and a week; she couldn't have gone far. That was what all the guards thought as they made the King's stallions run faster, puncturing hoof prints into the dirt, grass and mud.

They had not seen Anastasia once in the time that had passed by, as quickly as sand within an hourglass. No one knew where she was, or if she was even alive. The King needed her alive; more than anything.

Under the eclipsed and somber trees of Fangorn forest, sat a lone figure with their back against the trunk of the tree, their arms folded and knees close to their chest. The sound of rain was heard, the harsh pattering falling around the whole forest, creating eerie ripples and echoes. There Anastasia sat, listening to the falling shards of water, her eyes weakly closed and body drenched to the bone. The white dress she had been wearing ever since her disappearance was now torn, ripped, damp and muddy. It clung to her body, hugging her tight. Opening her eyes, Anya looked down at her hair which was over her shoulders. She knew it was unwise to keep her hair this length. During the month she had spent in exile from Mirkwood, she had been residing within Fangorn forest, but not in luxury. Never in luxury. Each day was a challenge of survival for her. For such a fragile thing... she had a lot to learn then. Now she was different. She was more lonesome.

More blank. More bitter.

Her thoughts would always track back to the King and what he did to her. The trust she had put in him and the fact he had thrown that back in her face, along with everything else. He gave up everything they had shared, all over a mere piece of parchment. Tainted writing of envy. 'Who could do such a thing?' Looking around, Anya tried to search for anything sharp.

Despite the innocent elf she was, she couldn't help but be bitter about everything. Even if it was only a little. She could not be blamed for that.

Her head tilted down, allowing her eyes to lock onto the glass slippers in which she was wearing; a gift from the King before the night of their last dance.

"My King, what are you holding?" Anastasia asked as Thranduil entered her room with a green box in his hands. He stepped forward, nearing the maiden as she sat on the side of the bed, the tips of her toes touching the floor. His expression remained inexpressive.

"Your gift" Anya rose her eyebrow but then they furrowed upwards, almost in a pleading manner.

"Y-You did not have to get me anything-"

"No dhínen" ("Be silent") Anya instantly silenced herself but after, she smiled warmly. She knew he meant no harm by his words, something she picked up on each time he spoke to her. It was just his code of speaking and living. Thranduil offered her the box and she lightly took it from him, setting it in her lap. Undoing the white ribbon surrounding the green box, she lifted the lid and her eyes lit up at the sight before her. Crystal clearglass slippers.

Before Anastasia could even respond, saying words of bafflement, Thranduil delicately took out the slippers from the box and he knelt down on one knee. He put one slipper down on the floor where he allowed her to slip her own foot inside, then before she could slip her other foot into the last slipper, Thranduil held onto her leg gently and with such grace, smoothly fitted her foot into the final slipper.

"A' ilvana mára" ("A perfect fit") He whispered under his warm breath. Tilting his head back, he looked into her eyes and stood up slowly, holding both of her hands for her to stand up too. Widening her smile with beauty, Anastasia stood up from the bed and looked down at her feet which she could see through the glass. The King leant forward to whisper one more thing.

"Nîn ier a' sinome mab sin au" ("You are to never take these off")

And she never did. The only time she ever took them off was that night and the night after but kept them on since, until now...

Taking one off, Anya's eyes connected with the slipper and she stared at it for a couple of seconds. Remembering the time he gave them to her made her frown out of despair. Slamming her eyes wide shut, she hammered the glass slipper against the boulder beside her, trying her best to smash the slipper. 'Why? Why?! Why did this happen to me?' Four slams was all it took for the glass slipper to then shatter. Some of the shards slid down the boulder, onto the wet grass, most tiny pieces remained on the boulder, but one bigger shard ended up being embedded in Anya's palm. Wincing her eyes a little, she extracted the piece of glass from her palm and chucked it onto the grass out of anger and stress that had been built up over the past month. The pain was of course sharp, an ironic feeling, however the more she thought about the emotional pain she had been through, the less the physical wound began to hurt. Her eyes slowly opened to look down at the bloody wound on her palm, her eyes softened in a blank stare at her suffering. 'It doesn't hurt as much as it did when he... when he-' A lump formed in her throat. 'When he banished our love'

Her focus went back over to the shard that cut her palm open and once more she grabbed a hold of it, raising it to her shoulder. Grabbing a hold of her hair on one side, she began her task and with a few slices of the shard piece, her hair fell to the ground. Anya kept cutting her hair, not stopping until almost all of it was gone. A very risky price. But right now, for her safety, she was willing to trade her beauty for her safety. She had less chance of her hair getting caught in branches now when running away from the guards, and less chance of people recognising who she was for her hair was now similar to that of a pixie cut.

Raising her hand, she brushed her fingers over her shortened fringe and then went down the back of her hair feeling the short layers she had managed to create by accident. Anya almost felt like crying from losing her hair just now, but when she swallowed once, the lump in her throat disappeared and her expression went blank once more. It was the wisest thing she could do at this stage.

Click clop, clip clang.

Anya turned her head over her shoulder and got up in a very low down crouch and walked over to a tree where it allowed her to look out from the forest, accidentally leaving her last, unbroken slipper behind. She saw a couple of King Thranduil's guards on their horses, both of them holding a rope that lead behind their horses, tied up around a person's wrists. The being that they were leading away on the dirt path was a cloaked being with a hood up over their lowered heads. 'A prisoner?' Anya tilted her head, frowning a little in confusion.

Something then fell silently out from the prisoner's cloak, hardly making a sound when it fell. Its fallen noise was washed out by the hammering rain which therefore could explain why the prisoner did not try and retrieve it. Anastasia waited for the trio to leave before she cautiously made her way out from the forest of Fangorn, over to the fallen object.

Fangorn was a forest situated over a hundred miles away from the edge of Mirkwood forest, the west of it being Isengard and the East being Rohan. If Anastasia's location was ever in any danger, any easy transfer could be made to Rohan, away from any elves that were a threat to her. So far, it had been a loyal hiding place to the muddy maiden.

Anastasia stopped in front of the object, only to find that it appeared to be some sort of book. A novel perhaps. Picking it up, Anya looked at the front of the bare leather cover which read "My Story" However there was no name of the author underneath. Lowering her eyebrows in puzzlement, she looked at the back of the book, the spine of the book and on the first page of the book. Nothing stating whose book it actually was. 'How odd...'

There was no way the book could ever be returned to the cloaked stranger, so Anastasia kept it as something she could read one day, whenever she wasn't worrying about being seen by elves. She had no time to read it now. Anya knew that Fangorn couldn't protect her for much longer. She needed to move on to some place else in order to protect herself. She refused to die for something that was not true; it didn't take long for the Ents of Fangorn to start talking about the "witch" and how the King wished for her to burn.

There's no going back for her. She'll perhaps never return to Mirkwood now. Her only chance was to head for the gap of Rohan, mingling with the human villagers there. Anya had heard many stories of Rohan and the kind people there, giving her hope of their acceptance for a stray woman. Hope for them to relight happiness into her soul, so she would never fall into darkness.

So she would never remain bitter, becoming someone else other than "Anastasia".

The thunder groaned and the lightning torched through the skies, making the female seem ominous and letting off a sense of...

Determination to survive.