The forest was peaceful. Birds and insects flittered through the air, smaller animals scuttling through the underbrush, while the occasional deer or boar grazed the short grass underfoot. The woodlands were at peace, the quiet thrill of birdsong carrying on the soft breeze, rustling through the grasses and tall bushes like a gentle breath. Willow-the-wisps flickered in the air, tiny little pinpricks of light on a canvas of dark greens, trailing wispy trails behind them. For the forest folk, the world was well, and they were content.
Ambrose was…slightly less so.
He wasn’t panicking, to do so would help no one. He was…mildly alarmed. Enough so that his voice had raised an octave from its low, bassy tenor as he tried to reason with his unexpected captors. His footsteps were hurried but shuffled, legs bound at the ankle by a stretch of rope just the right length to let him move, but not much more than a foot at a time. Blunted poles and the occasional sharp prod of a pitchfork kept him moving, the hostile eyes and tense bodies of the villagers behind him burning holes through the back of his neck. Their gazes were only a little less painful than the burn in his gut and chest where they had beaten him.
He didn’t try to stop, to do so would achieve little but riling them further, but he did speak.
“I be begging, good people. I only be wishing to help you, see? I don’t want to be bringing you any trouble. You don’t need to be doing this.” He couldn’t turn to look at them, his eyes focused on the overgrown path in front of him, a patchwork of vines and broken branches beneath the flickering sunlight of the forest canopy. He didn’t need to see them, though, he could
feel the anger resonating from them, the disgust and loathing, but most of all,
fear. They were afraid of him.
“Shut your mouth!” One of those closest to his left side snarled, the feelings of distress tangling and intermingling with Ambrose’s own trepidation, threatening to choke him. The villager struck out with the pole he had previously been jabbing into the Serenian’s shoulder, catching him across the side of the face and making him stagger.
With the rope around his ankles, Ambrose stumbled, and had little chance to save himself from falling. His hands, bound in a similar fashion to his legs, were useless to stop his descent, and he bit the dirt with a muffled thud, pain flaring across his cheek and through his chest as he tried to breath. He registered a few of the other villagers yelling at the one who had struck him, tears welling in his eyes as a result of the vicious, stinging welt across his jaw and cheekbones. His breath stuttered briefly as he drew in air around the earth beneath his cheek and the solid, angry lump in his chest, and then hands pulled him back up again, shoving him forwards on wobbly steps.
“Keep
moving, Mage. Ansen, hold your damn temper. I don’t want there to be any chance of him being found, we need to go deeper in.” A lighter voice, possibly a woman, most likely the owner of the hand still fisted in the collar of his jacket, tight and slightly suffocating.
They were so
afraid. Perhaps, had they not been, had they been less focused on attempting to kill a man - a mage, maybe, but still just a man - who only wished to help them, and more so on their surroundings, they would have heard or seen one or both of the young women enjoying the forest on this fine, refreshing morning.
Ambrose noticed them, but he wished they would not notice him. No one else needed to be hurt here.
@SanctifiedSavage @InvitedPanda
