{Elevine}

  Elevine was bound in outrage, as well as the admittedly passable snare that now wraps around her ankle. The shock of sudden confinement sparking the purest of terrors in her after what she just escaped. So much so that instead of using a bit of her naturally inherited magic to sever the bindings, she merely stared at her snared ankle with wide, trembling eyes. So much so, in fact, that she failed to hear the rustling of bush and crunch of twig from behind her.

  Right up until she finally broke her vision to instead y eyes on a small form yered in mud and filth. Orange curls of hair, a ripped and barely held together strewn tunic being patched with woven grass. Childlike features that match her own. Emerald green eyes that shine in surprise, but also hold a deep, haunting sorrow beneath the yer of astonishment. The same look that Ele had glimpsed on her own features when passing by a still river after the first day of her escape.

  In that brief moment of recognition, of shared trauma, Elevine does the only thing that she knows how to do. "Release me. This instant." The command nds on the confused girl, but seems to achieve the desired result. Her messy bright hair shaking along with her head as the momentary shared stupor comes to an end. A stone knife quickly and surprisingly deftly cutting away the bark hewn bindings at Ele's foot.

  The moment she is freed, she kicks out with her newly unshackled limb to the child's hand, knocking the crafted knife to the dirt some feet away as her opponent squeaks in arm. Shock once more reigns on her captor's face before Ele tackles her to the ground, a small bde of wind pressing against the quickly throbbing throat. Her center massed on top of the girl to arrest any movement, free hand pinning her shoulder to do the same.

  But, the hand stays itself. The reason? Once the suddenness of the act washes over Ele's newfound prey, that same crippling darkness returns to the green specks on her face. Their once slightly vibrant color now pale, deep, and forlorn. Any momentary struggle Ele thought would come before silencing the first non-hostile face in days never coming. A quiet acceptance found in its pce.

  For the first time since being cast out into the world with nothing but survival on her mind, Ele finds her resolve fgging. That same sense of kinship sparking once more, trembling her hand and making her magic difficult to keep active. As she is about to shift to interrogation instead, the small, fragile face below her whispers out something that fully shocks the exiled elven princess.

  "Just do it. Please."

  Ele's eyes go wider than ever as she stares at the girl. Small droplets of dehydrated tears pricking the corner of her ghostly eyes. And while compassion and empathy - something Ele thought dead after escaping - certainly begin to reform inside her, another emotion becomes even brighter. Its fire hot poker prodding away the filing magic on her hand at st.

  Anger. For reasons she can't really comprehend, she is angry. At this girl, at the world, at those metal men embzoned in suns. But most of all at the words the weak person below her spoke. The resignment to oblivion, something that Ele can't even process or fathom. So alien to her survivor's mind that the only way to process the notion is to sh out.

  *Smack!*

  Her free hand sps across the sodden face of the pinned girl. That hollowness leaving her eyes once more at the sharp sting of her cheek. Trembling lips barely containing sobs, hitched breath doing the same. Tears now flowing much more freely than before, now with purpose instead of despair.

  Without even realizing it, Ele stands over the once again shocked child and begins speaking. "Disgusting. How could you hold your life in so little regard? I see it in your eyes. You are a survivor like me. Why are you not defending yourself?! How could you possibly just... just give up?!"

  The anger coats her words in harshness, but underneath the smoldering heat of her voice is a plea. Ele, though vastly more mature than whoever this human girl is due to her elven blood and upbringing, is still a child as well. One of royalty and magic, but inexperienced with some blind spots like complicated emotions. Exacerbated at the notion that someone would just... y down and die. When she has had to fight tooth and nail just to exist outside of the occupied elven capital.

  The unknown girl pulls in on herself from both the rapid changing of motion Ele performed as well as her votile words. Flinching at every punctuation and haughtily pronounced sylble. But, Ele admits, those haunted eyes never leave hers.

  After a few moments, the girl finally gives her reply to Ele's stinging critique. Her body still trembling on the ground as her voice warbles out, "I-I've lost everything. Momma, Papa. Our home in the city. I've been on my own for days now, barely able to fill my tummy at night. Sometimes not eating at all. Drinking muddied water. Sleeping in the roots of a big oak tree. I'm... I'm tired. And scared. I don't know what I did to deserve this..." A choked sob stilts her speech, a final whisper echoing across the forest floor. "I just want it to be over. To see my Momma again..."

  Ele, for all her previous outrage, falters a bit at the tale. More than the eyes, this child before her also shares a past like her own. The details murky still, but the overtones almost exactly the same. A... kindred spirit in suffering. Someone... Someone that maybe Ele can commiserate with. Someone who might actually understand her own struggles. Maybe... Maybe Ele doesn't have to be alone anymore either.

  If, that is, this girl can actually survive. And though it is odd to spend so much emotional debate over someone she just met, someone that accidentally imprisoned her no less, Ele can't help but to cling to that idea. To have someone to not only ease the burden of survival, but that will comprehend the anger and vitriol still bubbling up every moment the memory of her past surfaces.

  So, Ele makes a decision. "If you surrender now then whatever love was given to you by your parents will have been for naught. Their memories and intentions dying along with you. Is that what you wish for? To scorn your forebearers and relinquish their hopes and dreams?"

  The human girl stirs at the prodding, but even Ele can see her words missed their mark. "I-I don't want to do... whatever you said. But I'm just a little girl hiding in a forest of monsters and beasts. Isn't it only a matter of time before something gets me? At least..." Her eyes gnce to the hand that was previously coated in magic angled to her throat, "At least you would have made it quick..."

  Ele clicks her tongue, crossing her arms over her demure chest as she thinks. She really thought that would work, that by appealing to her line that would rouse the girl back to action. Make her a worthy companion in these desperate times. So, a different tactic then.

  "I would not have." Ele lies to the girl's widening eyes. "I would have made it excruciating. You, a human, tried to trap me and brandished a knife upon my discovery. Just you knowing my existence is a threat to me. If you were to scuddle off and report on my sighting to those bastard armored knights, I would perish in a matter of days. But, if you are so hellbent on dying in that manner, I can just continue with that pn here and now."

  Wind coats her nails again, green whisps of turbulent force springing to life on her skin. Though without any actual force behind it. At best, she would merely tickle the girl's skin if she were to touch her with it. But the cowed human child before her doesn't know that.

  "P-please!" The child begins anew as she backs away on the ground, crawling a few feet before butting against a tree in panic. Ele waits to hear her finish, not taking a single step towards the terrified body that stares at her hand in fear. The decision to either knock her out and escape deeper into the forest or take this pitiful human with her hinging on the rest of her plea. Victory dances in Ele's eyes at the awaited result: "Don't!"

  The wind disperses as satisfaction blooms inside Ele's chest. "Oh? But you just said you were fine with perishing? That you were tired of this life? Don't you know that it will be painful no matter how you pass out here in these woods? At least with me delivering your death, you will not have to suffer through being eaten alive or used as some monster's pything until the light fades from your eyes."

  The girl merely hiccups a small sob, frightful vision still locked to Ele as the silence remains. Ele takes a single step forward, making the girl cower even harder. "But. If you wish to live, to get out of these nds, then I have a different solution. One far less bloody and tragic, at least where it concerns us."

  Again, silence is all Ele receives in response. Though those emerald orbs do alight with the faintest spark of something she has been waiting to see. Hope. "Come with me. Show me how to forage and hunt and I will protect you from the creatures who lurk in the night. From threats both bestial and human."

  Using the hand that has threatened her twice, Ele leans down and offers her palm to the child. Her brows furrowing in thought for a few moments before she timidly reaches out and takes Ele's hand in hers.