Nydewin

Prologue As I watched her from a far, while she did her daily routine, I became to realize that she wasn’t at all what I had been expecting. I thought I had been sent to observe and collect a princess. Instead I was watching, a quiet, selfless, somewhat unceremonious, hard-working young woman. In-slaved by a selfish, lazy, big for nothing brute. She was not the princess, I and any of us hoped for. ‘This changes thing.’ I thought to myself. I continued to watch her, for the next month, bidding my time. She seemed to spend a lot of her afternoons with the cows, patting them, talking to them. I noticed that her late afternoon chats with the animals seemed to be the only time she was genuinely happy. What had me the most curios was that, all the farm animals seemed to linger on every word she said. Enjoying her company as much as she enjoyed theirs. I struggled with the knowledge that, the women that I had been sent to collect to save my world was not a powerful witch princess, that I had been led to believe, but a helpless, farm girl, that had somehow let herself be enchanted by a lazy sod. She might not have been the princess that we were all hoping for, but it still made my blood boil to see her working herself into the ground, while her keeper sat in side. Not even the farming men in my world would knowingly let their partner work the farm alone. I struggled to figure out why she stayed with him. Why she didn’t leave. She was a beautiful woman, even covered in muck. I growled low in my throat whenever I heard her keeper calling for her. For days, I watched her, trying to figure out how to get closer to her. But her keeper was never too far away. I had started to grow protective of her, after watching her for so long. Every day the desire to kill her keeper, by ripping into his jugular, grew stronger. I knew if I did that, it would spoil my plans to get her to trust me. After all that was the whole reason I was there. I needed to get her to trust me, so I could return her to home, where her people waited for her. So, I would sit and wait. The longer I watched her, the more she confused me. This woman, was a rather short woman, even in my world, she stood at about 5’4”. She didn’t let her short stature get the better of her though. She worked on her body every day. Of course, she had no choose, there was no one to help her with the feed bags, or any of the other farm work. Her long, wavy, red hair, was away always tied back in a bun on top of her head. Except for one day a week, when it would hang down just past her waist wet, as she sat in her large cocoon like chair. On those days she did none of her usual chores (except for the farm animals of course), instead while her hair dried she would enjoy her freedom by reading a book. Then when the light started to fade, and her hair was dry, it would all be over, and she would be back to caring for her keeper. It was on one these afternoons, that I had been running late. Dinner hadn’t been too easy to catch that day. There wasn’t a large variety of game, in the forest. The only thing in abundance was rabbit and wild boar, and in this small agile form, wild boar would have caused more of a hassle then it was worth, so I had to resort to hunting small rabbit, every other day. When I finally had the allusive rabbit in my mouth, I heard someone screaming in distress. I dropped the rabbit, who bounced away terrified and ran as fast as I could, hoping that I could get to the princess before something bad happened to her. By the time I got there, the fight was over. She was just stood there crying, watching her keeper leave in his strange metal box on wheels. She didn’t cry for long, just as quickly as the lights on the metal box faded so did her tears. Already I could see a huge weight lifting off of her. Her arura had already begun to heal, trying to break through the dark vail that was draped over it. I knew then, that no matter how hard, I needed to get her away from this place, from him. Just then she turned and stared blankly into the forest. A small forced smile tugged at the corner at her lips but failed. I felt a ping of guilt and pain for her as I watched her searching for answers in the dark forest. Then like she had sensed my precents, she looked right at me. Our eyes locked, and I felt something inside me stir, something deep, something old and buried. I didn’t know what had come over me. Every bone, every muscle, every nerve in my body ached to go to her. I wanted to go to her, comfort her, claim her as my own. I had already taken several steps towards her, before I realised what I was doing. Panicked, I shook myself, clearing my mind. Pushing the emotions that had tried to take over, back down, I turned and disappeared deep into the forest. I needed to get away from her, I needed to get back to the clearing. I needed answers, but most of all, I needed to get her to Nydewin.