That pauper prince, thought Hikari as she ran. Her parents should have never ever let him stay when his father ditched him. She hated him. He carried himself like haughty, arrogant know it all. She hated his guts.
He was such a bully, too. Trying to tell her what to do, to get back to the castle. Then insulting her when she refused him. He also would not fight her back when she was raging at him. She wished she could just get him kicked out of the castle, her castle. Fighting with her got him in trouble before, so why not again?
Still, she was upset with him. Upset that he only attacked her verbally when she antagonized him. Upset by what he said. She knew he was wrong about what he said... but could not help believing it in the moment. She ran away from him and away from the castle. If he wanted her to go back to the castle so badly, he would have to drag her there kicking and screaming.
She stumbled over a tree root her blurry eyes missed. She tried keep on her feet, but in her extra induced stumbling, she feel into a green, prickly bush. She kicked and clawed in panic at that. She knew if she got cut or scraped, she could get sick easily since her blood was prone to infections.
She reached to her left hip, scrambling to find the knife she usually had sheathed there. Her parents always insisted both she and her brother carry a spare weapon beyond their elemental dragons. Have a spare weapon once saved her mother's life. She felt like her stomach sank when she realized her knife was not with her. She had been in a rush to get ready in the morning that she forgot all about it. Likely it was still laying on top of her dresser where he left it. If either of her parents knew about this, she would be in such trouble.
When she managed to scramble her way out of the bush, she sat on the ground, weary to the bone from her exhausting spar with Izo. She checked herself over, finding just a minor scratch along her calf. Easy to hide. Just keep it clean and neither Mother nor Father would ever have to know.
She sat, thinking over her failed attempt to fight with Takashi... She should not have thrown the rocks. Yet she thought for sure that would have made him give in. She wanted him gone though. It was her castle, so it did not seem fair that her parents decided he could stay. For running away from him and off on her own in the woods worn out and unarmed, she already knew she was going to be in trouble anyway.
She sighed, picking herself up off the ground. She ran her hands over her pants, clearing away the dirt and pine needles there. She looked around the trees, finding the silence eerie. She turned around, looking this way and that. In panic, she could not remember which way she came from. She could tell which bush she fell in by its broken branches, but beyond that, she had no idea which way she had been running.
She opened her mouth, whimpering out, "Takashi..." She would much rather be with him right now than alone.
She tried to remember the survival training Mother had drilled into her. Don't eat or drink anything you are not sure is safe... No... Light a three fires in a haphazard triangle... She did not have the energy for that... Or even knew how to light a fire beyond her energy... Izo could do it... No... Get high and survey the area... Yes.
She looked up in the area surrounding her. The tree to her left looked high enough. She went over to it and started to climb it. Half way up though, her limbs shook so bad she had to stop and rest. After a few breathes, she pushed herself to climb high enough to see beyond the other tree tops. She saw the castle. She felt relieved, even though it also looked so impossibly far away. It was going to be a long and weary walk back home. The afternoon sun was also waning.
She looked over to the right, seeing a coil of smoke rising out of the tree line. Maybe it was someone from the village. Maybe they had food. Her stomach gave a sharp, almost painful growl of desire at the thought of food.
She climbed down slowly and shakily, slipping and nearly falling out of the tree. She walked the direction she remembered the smoke was. She wondered who was there exactly, and if she knew them. Probably villagers out hunting. They would know who she was though. Her crimson red eyes were hard to miss... As Takashi deemed to point out.
It felt like it took a lot longer than expected for her to find the group around the fire. She heard the muffled voices though, but could not make out what they were saying. Her heart was too busy pounding in her ears. Sounded more like barking to her than anything else.
When she broke through the clearing the group was in, she stopped dead still at the sight of them. Five wolf demons looked up at her around their fire, most of a half cooked animal carcass roasting on the spit over the fire. They looked more animalistic than Asa, the old wolf healer in the village did.
The biggest one, with a full wolf's head and hands that were half claws rose up first. He growled savagely in her direction, ears flat down on the top of his head. He barked louder over at her, gesturing at her with his paw/hand. Two of the nearest wolf demon's by him rose up to their feet, looking just as fiercely as their leader. Looking right at her.
She raised her hands in the air submissively and shook her head. "I just... wanted help... to get home..." she stuttered out.
She looked the leader dead in the eye, knowing these were wolf demon outlaws her parents wanted dead or at least gone. They had been harassing the village, even killed a few of the villagers. And here she was, unarmed and exhausted, right before them.
"Takashi..." she breathed, closing her eyes and hoping she would hear him running after her.
"Bring her," the leader barked the order.
She turned to run, but only making it a few yards before she was knocked to the ground. Her head hit the ground with a resounding smack that left her ears ringing. She hit and fought and struck at her assailants as hard as she dared, but to no avail. She was too weak to do anything substantial. If she had kept some of her spirit energy in reserves, she would have set them aflame.
Their fists continued to rain down over her as she curled up into a ball on the ground. She brought her hands over her face protectively and kicked at the two assailants on her. Thankfully neither of them scratched or bit her or drew her blood. She did feel one grab her at the bottom of her left pant leg and drug her across the ground back towards the fire.
"No," she cried out in panic. "No, please, I just want to go home," she begged. She kicked at the wolf demon with her right foot feebly. She turned her upper body over, trying to dig her hands into the ground. "No, please, no," she pleaded, terrified of what would happen when they got back to the leader. "Takashi!" she screamed out his name, hoping he was nearby and could scare the wolf demons away. Yet she was unsure if he would help her after she had thrown rocks and insults at him.
She reached for her fire dragon, but it was asleep. It and she had no energy left to awaken it. She wished she knew how to use her life energy to call it up. Her parents never taught her or Izo that, but told them it was to be a last ditch effort to survive. Now seemed like the perfect time to use it, but she had no clue how to do it.
The wolf demon dragging her stopped abruptly and set her down underneath the gaze of the leader. The leader looked down at her, growling down at her. She saw and even smelled the spittle and drool slipping through the gaps between his sharp teeth in his long snout. The smell made her stomach go sour. She just wanted to run away and throw up somewhere.
"What do we have here?" he bit out. He brought his foot down on her throat, barely applying any pressure. Hikari winced in panic, too afraid to close her eyes. "I know those eyes," he growled out. She kept her eyes open, not daring to look away from him. "Hucker's eyes." He applied more pressure on her throat, making it harder to breathe. "Maybe we should carve them out and send them to your parents, eh? Can they maintain that frightened look when we pop them out?"
She grabbed his foot, trying to pull or shove or push it off her neck on something. It felt like her voice box was being ground into the back of her neck. She tried not to panic about the inability to breathe. It made her wish she was a wind mage like her mother or little brother. Then the inability to breathe would not be an issue.
Unexpectedly, she felt him let her neck go. She sucked down a desirable breath as deep as she could make it. She only managed two before he brought his knee down between her ribs. She smacked and punched at his leg, but to no avail. She could not breathe, could not scream, all over again.
"Knife," she heard him bark out the request. One of his gang, the one who had drug her across the ground, past him a tarnished and rusty blade.
She reached again for her fire dragon, begging it to wake up, trying to order her life energy to be shoved into it. She begged it to wake up and save her.
As he was bringing the knife down towards the right side of her face, just under her eye, she felt her dragon blaze up at the realization of danger. Her head went cold and fuzzy and eyes went a unfocused and blurry. Her fire dragon in such a tiny form leaped up from her neck, keeping its tail attached to her neck. It latched its jaws around the leader's knife hand, setting it ablaze inside and out.
It was not much, but was a fleeting chance for her to escape. The leader lifted his hand up to the sky and roared in pain. He got off of her and was busily beating his fist and arm against the ground. She took the slim opportunity to turn over and begin to crawl away. Before she could get far though, she felt a clawed hand come back and grip her hair. She cried out in panic, trying to get away the hand yanking her back. The leader had her again, yanking her to her feet and against her.
"Drop her," Hikari heard a gruff, out of breath voice sound.
She felt the leader yank her against him, hand going from her hair to around her waist. "Make me," the leader said, right next to her ear and face. Her stomach flipped at the smell of his noxious breath.
She blinked up, clearing up her blurry vision. Takashi stood across the clearing from them. He had a bow and arrow conjured up and taking aim at the leader behind her. He was panting, but kept the bow steady. He had run after her. Now he was here.
"Shoot him," she called out to Takashi.
Takashi stood steady, not moving or even blinking. "You won't do it," the leader challenged.
Takashi widened his stance. He took aim and shot one of the other men, point blank in the eye. The man dropped like a bag of bricks. The leader growled furiously right next to her ear. He brought his mouth down over Hikari's left side's shoulder and neck, burying his teeth into her flesh. She screamed out in panic and pain.
She heard Takashi swear and then heard a resounding twang sail past her ear. The leader's mouth dragged off of her neck and shoulder. His weight forced her down to the ground with him on top of her. She kicked and struggled to slip out from under him. She heard more sounds of arrows being shot, four to be exact. She managed to get her upper body out from under the leader. She could not manage much more than that. She twisted to her right side, laying on it heavily. Her shoulder and neck felt so wet, with a deep ache within it. It hurt so bad, she felt like she could not move anymore.
She watched Takashi rush over to her, grunting as he yanked the leader off of her. "You shouldn't have run away," he sighed exasperated with her. He reached down to help pull her up from underneath her right shoulder. The pull made her left neck and shoulder shoot up through pain. "Fuck," he swore.
She brought right hand up to wounds. She could not bring herself to look at it until now. The front of her shirt was red and getting redder. "I need a healer," she choked out. She could not even think about what could happen before she got to Izo, or even Asa. "Izo... or Asa... the healer in the village."
Takashi growled in frustration. Hikari wondered what he was waiting for. She tried not to think about how she needed one of the two of them immediately. He stepped over to the dead leader's face and stomped on it harshly. A sickening snap echoed when the jaw bone broke. He rounded on her. She felt herself want to quiver under his piercing blue eyes. He tore off the sleeve of the leader.
He stepped over to her, wrapping the leader's sleeve painfully tight around her shoulder and slightly around her neck. She still felt all wet and sticky. He loomed over her, ordering, "you scream loudly and don't ever stop while were moving. It'll likely bring your father or brother down on us."
"Why...?" she winced.
He reached down and picked her up, throwing her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. She cried out as the pain gouged deep her shoulder. The pain was sickening, threatening to make her pass out.
"Keep screaming," he order her. "Draw someone out to us."
That was something for her that was not hard to do.