“Fair weather, not a bad change to the last two years of either frigid cold or unceasing rain,” thought Eliphas to himself as he trudged on behind Daedra, the girl before him wearing the only clothes she probably owned. Black bands ran around her triceps and biceps, her half-covered upper thighs along with a groin piece concealed more of her well-sculpted frame as she moved with subtle, confident grace. Her clothing was sparse, especially around her chest where her gifts were not considerably small, and the single band that concealed only their midriff revealed much of her body. She wore partial gloves and full arm bracers, Eliphas had seen the material of all these pieces deflect steel despite its clearly light consistency. His own plate, in contrast, clunked and scraped over his entire body and against his inner mail, the sounds of the metal as it carried his movements becoming over time as natural to his being as breathing, though it seemed to be more of an annoyance to his current company, but she’d stopped complaining about it after a while realizing there was nothing she could do to silence it.


This, however, did not stop her from using it to poke fun at her noble in tow.


“Do all of you wear such obnoxious armor where you’re from?” She said closing her eyes and frowning without glancing to address him, the constant droning, scraping, disturbing her focus.


“Yes. And maybe to you it's obnoxious, but it’s saved my life more times than I can count.”


He remembers how he had been greatly bothered by Daedra’s earlier snoring, and he used that to stab back at her now that noise was the current complaint.


“And I much prefer the noise it makes to the racket you produce while you sleep.”


Daedra chuckled low and murmured over her shoulder, ignoring his small retort,

“Stupid humans. It’s not worth what you get in return. Lot of good that stuff did for your little warriors when they needed it most…”


Eliphas scowled with the menace of an angry viper, his brave guardians’ memories being so casually tossed around as a playful insult. The two met eyes briefly and the woman caught sight of her captive’s upper lip curl and tremble with rising fury. He really did hate her, with or without her constant prodding with ill-tipped words, though for now at least this mattered little to her.


“You’re loud, and you move slowly,” she continued, the barb of her last statement embedding itself, its purpose fulfilled, “And it was foolish of you to try and fight me in the mud where you couldn’t move as well. Even at your own tiny size, it wasn’t difficult to beat you.”


“You ambushed us,” Eliphas said with a low voice like a barely constrained wolf, eager to attack a pack competitor, “the only way to endure a surprise attack is to fight your way out of it, though I suppose you wouldn’t know anything of tactics or proper warfare, mongrel.”


He grins to himself as he narrows eyes in Daedra’s direction, taking a brief bit of sweet satisfaction, remembering the savage cracking sound his fist had made when it had hammered into the side of her skull.


“How’s your head by the way?”


The woman scoffed and smiled slightly as well at his tiny prick of a victory he reminded her of, remembering the surprise she had felt when his blow had landed, actually hurting when it met her skin and making her dizzy.


“It aches a little, but not much. And who says I know nothing of war,” Daedra said with a look of true surprise, as if she had made things obvious in her perspective on the topic, “I seemed to do just fine against your, “tactics and proper warfare,” she replied with a mocking tone, gesturing about with her hands on the last few words.


The prince frowned upon hearing her retort, knowing she was in this case actually correct. Despite the clearly unequal forces, she had minimalized harm to herself with her assault, cut off their escape, and had annihilated her enemy in less than a couple of minutes, even managing to escape and bring him to this strange forest he was not familiar with without being pursued.


That was indeed, he thought, a sudden point of interest. He had yet to pose a particular question about their location, and as such, now that she seemed talkative again, he endeavored to learn of it by at last bringing it up.


“What is this land that breeds such shadow warriors, anyways? This is no set of woods I know, and I have been to most in the realm,” the black lord said casting his gaze to the unfamiliar trees and thick vegetation, the woods were shorter but thicker and far denser around the bases than his native homeland. They seemed somewhat, and somehow, more healthy by comparison.


The two were still walking, where their destination lie was something of a small secret to Daedra, and as such, she had not told him where they were headed, but she saw no harm in telling him about where they were currently. She, in fact, found the thought suddenly delicious, for a reason that would soon reveal itself.


“This is Almaahni, forest of the far east.” She began without rebuttal or arguing, to Eliphas’ surprise.


“This is the wilderness, not a land belonging to any one people or race.”


“Where is it in relation to where you took me?”


That was the important question, the answer, hopefully, telling the captive noble how to get back to his coveted civilized empire in the planning of his escape, even if he was skeptical she’d actually tell him. Daedra again caught him off guard, offering the answer without as much as a tease or taunt.


“We’re around maybe sixteen…seventeen thousand leagues from where I beat you in single combat,” She said with a smile, though not for the small joke at the end of her statement, but for what she knew would come next.


Eliphas halted at once boots grinding against the gravel and dirt, his eyes wide and his mouth coming slightly open, the girl stopping as well when she heard him cease moving, looking back to behold him with her full set of teeth on show in a devilish smirk.


“Se-seventeen thousand leagues?!” The prince blurted in shock, trying to comprehend the words she’d just uttered. “The empire is only fourteen hundred from edge to edge, that’s impossible! T-there's no way!”


Daedra rolled her eyes and raised a hand, pointing a finger off to the west, smirking with that venomous look she loved to sport,


“Yes, it's possible. Home for you is that way, if you’d like to start walking.”


She turned and laughed aloud, starting to walk again, knowing full well something as ludicrous as that would never happen, and even if it did, she’d shrink him in a heartbeat and seal him away in her leg pouch again, ending the matter once and for all.


Eliphas snapped out of his momentary shock and jogged to catch up, continuing his questions eagerly now, greatly interested to have her participation in the conversation.


“How was this done? What did you do?!”


“It’s a spell common to my people, we can travel reliably short distances through trees that are large enough, though you should be happy for me,” she said turning to look at him, clearly proud of herself, holding up one extended index finger just before she kept on, “of my kind I’m the most skilled in the technique!”


“Wait,” Eliphas came next, “you said short distances.”


Daedra next waved the same hand dismissively at the warrior walking to her right side.


“I also said I was the most skilled at the spell. Though I have to admit, the farther the distance, the more strange the outcome tends to be. Even for me.”


The prince raised an eyebrow at the last piece of curious information.


“Strange?” he said, the question obvious enough.


Daedra continued, “Sometimes I’ll leave for a few hours and arrive home days or weeks later. Other times I’ll end up a few miles from where I left, and in some cases, I can’t even go back to where I’ve been.”


This last part deeply concerned Eliphas, from what the girl was saying, though without knowing the extent of her experience, or even if she was telling the truth, she seemed to suggest she could not return him home regardless of whether or not she wanted to do so.


Her next few words confirmed his rising apprehension.


“And I definitely can’t take you back to your home either, it was way too far in the first place. I only went there because it’s too dangerous to go anywhere else right now.” She grinned up and over to him, happy to crush his hopes of seeing his lands again with cold certainty, “so you’re stuck with me.”


Eliphas took to silence; he knew in his subconscious, somehow, that she wasn’t lying. As such, he was trapped then, incomprehensibly far from Emoria, and about to be sold as a slave to some horror of a new life. It was a dark, uncertain prospect, but with vicious calm, in as little as a heartbeat, he reminded himself he would accept it to be away from this devil-girl.


There was no possible means of escape now, not with her outlandish magic cast upon him, but perhaps later…when he was with a less experienced captor…


“Why did you cut the line around your arm?” Daedra came after a short pause, changing the subject.


Her eyes narrowed and she smirked deviously, “So tired of my company already that you’d kill yourself like a true warrior and end it?”


This woman was becoming too much. She intended to not only insult him personally, but in the same breadth of time, further glorify herself. Daedra really was unbearable to be around and it felt like the prince’s blood was constantly set to a violent boil whenever she spoke.


Eliphas bared his teeth and clenched a fist of armored knuckles, the same one that had broken the skin of her skull not long ago. Though the thought of capture and ransom was one of extreme dishonor, especially to his own people, there were other things he was guilty of that unfortunately far outweighed that newest of sins.


“You wouldn’t understand,” he said frowning and turning away, his anger cresting but barely under his control in that moment.


“And why wouldn’t I?”


She replied curtly, stepping over a puddle of shallow water as the two kept on, “you know nothing about me.”


“And I don’t care to either, filth,” Eliphas growled out, not even looking in her direction. Over the course of his capture, more and more the prince felt his vulgarity and spite rise, he became as time went on, less and less refined, and he more frequently chose to allow his emotions guide his behavior, letting slip, as in this case, anger and a lapse in discipline. This was something he had always been taught to remain conscious of, to resist. And though Daedra chuckled and broached no further questions, appearing to grow tired of poking at his noble, personal visage, even apparently finding humor in his momentary loss of control, he knew he was better than this.


He had been taught since he was as a child, that one must never forget who they are. His people were a proud kind, and that fact gave him new focus.
He allowed a bit of time to pass before he reluctantly kept on.


“It is a practice among my kind…”

Eliphas began lowly, looking straight on as the two walked side by side, Daedra flicking her eyes up and raising her brow, surprised to hear him still on the topic.


“Nobles of Emoria are a part of a warrior caste. We and we alone are burdened with the leadership of his majesty’s armies. Together, we all make up the legions of our great military, each fiefdom of the nation contributing its own men to fight for the empire.”


Daedra cut in, compelled to speak on the matter, as always unable to avoid the prospect of a potential insult.


She scoffed first, “Huh, so much for your warrior caste then,” she said shrugging her mostly uncovered arms, clearly referencing how she’d stepped on and devoured some of the best fighters his country could produce.


Eliphas rolled his eyes and tried to ignore her as he went further, intent on answering her question, the reminder of his previous life comforting in a way, never mind how dark the present subject was.


“All those of noble blood and seven years of age are sent to the great Barracks of Helmar until the age of seventeen. They undergo training and suffer brutally at the hands of the battle-hardened veterans.” He trails off, the memory of that horrible place surfacing vividly for an instant as his eyes see a flurry of past hardships, death, blood…and worse.


“Many do not survive.”


Daedra is quiet now, somewhat intrigued by this interesting new perspective on the social practices of others in distant places. She asks, however, the question that originally brought the conversation up.


“And the circle? What’s it for?”


“It is a ritual of my bloodline… Some say it has carried on since the beginning of the empire…” he pauses, nervous about what he’s finally going to admit aloud for the first time. He murmurs out the next reply, barely audible regret in his voice as it creeps out. He dreads the fact, but it is the truth of his fate, and he would not further dishonor himself by trying to hide from it.


The man inhales and then says with his eyes coming closed, bracing himself, knowing how the girl will probably react, but intending with all of his willpower not to lie.


“It symbolizes defeat in battle...”


The inhuman girl suddenly erupts in laughter, her lips bursting open as her breath rushes out of her mouth, her hands falling to her stomach as she tilts her head back in cries of glee. Eliphas feels his brow twitch and his nostrils flare, anger again rising in him as he resists its new hot embrace. He expected this kind of response, even tried to prepare himself for it, but the overwhelming sense of mocking amusement at his expense created a sharp tug at his discipline, which was starting to erode at an alarming rate it because of it.


Daedra, of course, continued to make things worse.


“You cut your arm because you got beat by a girl?!” She tilted forwards now, her breaths erratic, almost laughing between each and every word she managed to get out.


“You must have dozens, no, HUNDREDS of marks then!”


Eliphas finally snapped pushed to the edge of his restraint. The Emorian lord swung out with his left arm, shoving the girl around as he turned to face her as well, the pair coming to a sudden halt. The prince roared back at her, his voice raised and his gathered knuckles formed into a fist, held out before his chest.


“It doesn’t matter if I was beaten by a starving child or the war god himself you stupid mongrel!”


Daedra had her eyes closed as she covered her mouth with one hand, as if to give the impression she was trying to control herself, though truthfully she wasn’t.


 “It is an ancient and sacred tradition carried by all who have come before me; the only thing your ancestors have apparently accomplished is the inconceivable task of fucking a herd of sheep!”


The horned girl burst out louder with renewed energy, laughing more with a new wave of enthusiasm, with noticeably more vigor, Eliphas made out a few words as she wiped at one of her eyes, looking as if she was shedding small tears.


“A flock!” She laughed out, her slightly larger than normal canine teeth gleaming.


The prince felt his anger melt away suddenly, due to his on setting confusion, not understanding her angle.


“What?” He said, also coming down from his emotional outburst.


“A group of sheep, you idiot,” she began once more, “a group of sheep is called a flock, not a herd. And you call me stupid.” She began to laugh more as her prisoner felt his brow twitch a second time and his right temple throb with frustration, resisting the urge to split her open with the nearest sharp object.


+ + + +


The moon was full, and larger than Eliphas was used to, looking up momentarily from his lap, his long, single-edged battle knife in one hand, and the smoothest, flattest stone he could find in the other. A small fire crackled and a piece of wood broke as the prince returned to his task, his brief distraction at the beautiful night over with. It was cool out, but not cold, and the air was crisp, the sky above, full of bright stars and celestial bodies.


Daedra sat across from the armored man as he ran one side of his weapon in circles along the wet stone, scraping it to a fine edge as he toiled in silence to himself. She sat against a tree, back pushed on the bark and feet propped up on one of the logs they had set aside for fuel to be fed to the fire, her soles bare and dirty from the days’ traveling.


“Why do you insist on doing that? You've been at it a half hour, give it a rest.” The girl called over to him as he didn’t look up and continued.


“It needs to be sharp,” he said in an annoyed voice before looking up and meeting her eyes, speaking in a more normal tone after doing so, “in case I have to stab someone.”


Daedra smiled and brought one of her hands down, the both of them having been behind her head a moment ago as she relaxed. She placed one palm over her the center of her chest, and said with the type of voice that suggested mocking a wounded heart.


“Stab someone, you don’t mean me, do you? After we had so much fun today?”


Eliphas smiled at that, bringing the blade up to the light of the fire and turning it over a few times, examining his work thus far.
“Eh, well, the thought had crossed my mind. But no. I said “someone,” not you.”


The girl narrowed her eyes and then closed them, replacing her hands behind her head and tilting back with a sigh.


“Good, I’d hate for you to make such a mistake, I might feel bad after killing you for trying.”


“I don’t kill people in their sleep, that would grant me dishonor equal to practically what you have earned thus far. Though I would encourage you to rest,” he pauses before finishing with, “it would finally give me some quiet time away from you.”


“Rest? You mean actually sleep, with you over there, and making all that noise?” She said opening her shining, yellow eyes as the fire played dances of brilliant color over their vibrant surfaces.


“You really think I’d trust some strange man to stay awake near me while I’m lying defenseless? You have to be kidding.”


This, for a reason he really wanted to ignore, gathered Eliphas’ attention as he stopped working his knife back and forth. He looked up and ruffled his brow, thinking to himself his thoughts must be incorrect about assuming a portion of Daedra’s meaning. He looked over to her, surprised by how her eyes made him feel for a heart beat’s span of time. He was nervous suddenly to continue, because he couldn’t wrap his head around what she may be insinuating.


“Wait. Did you just suggest that I… That I might-“


“Well of course,” she says plainly, as if she’s discovered some secret plot of his, “you are a male, and we are roughly about the same age, so there’s no way I’m sleeping without knowing you can’t try anything funny.”


Eliphas stammered and held a look between disgust and shock, despite a flare of red washing over both sides of his face.

“Y-you can’t be fucking serious?!”


“Hey, I know I’m pretty,” Daedra says with a shrug, “and don’t even try to deny you’ve taken looks at me since we met...I’ve seen you.”


The prince roared as his face went hard, despite its color betraying his inner emotions, the primary of which was of course though, not anger.


“Yes, I’ve looked at you, you egotistical idiot! Trying to imagine all the ways I’d like to kill you!”


“Ah ha!” Daedra says sitting up and pointing a finger at Eliphas as he shuddered with malice in his blood.


“I knew it! You have been sneaking looks at me!”


Eliphas stabbed his sharpened blade into the earth and sat up straight as the woman had a just before, leaning in her direction, matching her posture,


“Maybe if you didn’t prance around half naked everywhere you wouldn’t harbor such fears about people wanting to defile you!”


Eliphas blurted out with complete disbelief next, his appearance for restraint all but gone now in his eyes,


“The very notion that I would do such a thing, at all, with you no less is completely insane. You’re insane, Daedra. You tried to kill me, probably killed my best friend, and plan on selling me as if I were cabbage. What in all the realms is wrong with you?!”


“Hey,” she came back with a defensive tone, “I can probably get waaay more out of you than cabbage, I’ve only resorted to stealing that once.”


“You!-, “Eliphas began to reply and stopped himself, shaking his head and feeling as always, like he was trying to converse with a boulder. He held up both of his hands and closed his eyes, trying to calm himself, shaking his head a moment, trying to banish his rising fury.


“Look… No, ok? I had no intentions of doing what you suggest.” He stopped and looked over into her glowing gold irises, attempting to convey sincerity, “If you’d like, I can go to sleep first, but you have to take first watch.”


“Take watch? This isn’t a campaign, tin-boy. There’s nothing out here scarier than me, that’s for sure.”


“Fine, fine, then just go to sleep after me, ok?” he managed while shaking his head again, just trying now to bring an end to the conversation, still in shock at seeing what small amount of respect she looked to have for him.


“Gods above…” he swore, exhausted with frustration, rubbing his face with both hands.


Eliphas took back up his knife and slid it with a scrape into his boot sheath, overwhelmed, as he had never been before, and in such a short conversation.


Daedra glanced away, looking to the fire, the wood cracking and glowing a red-orange color, not far from the shade of her eyes, the light of the small flames washing the both of them warm as Eliphas went silent again, laying to his back with a protracted groan, as if he’d been moving for a thousand years. He sighed heavily as his armored body leveled onto the dry ground.


The prince placed his hand on his chest and kept his other near the handle of his long knife, wanting to close his eyes but finding it hard to bring himself to do so. Both sides of his head had been shaven with consistent regularity over the last two years, but within the last days of marching before his capture, he felt stubble growing there as well as on his face.

The girl looked up from the fire, her newest catch lying perpendicular to how she stretched out against the tree, his eyes and face in clear view, still open, as if they knew not how to relax.


“I thought you were going to sleep? Wasn’t that what you had been on about this whole time?” She said with a taunting inflection.


“Sleep does not come easily to me.” He said back calmly, not partaking in her attempts to rile him up.


He glanced over, though he kept his head fixed in place where it lay on the grassless soil. She stared back at him, both of them not making a sound. It wasn’t clear why he turned his attention to her in this moment, but soon enough it was gone, the truth of the small emotion fleeting into nothing as quickly as it had come.


He looked away, not sure how to describe how her stare made him feel, though he was certain it was nothing of intimidation. She just looked, wrong…somehow…And in some other ways…


“Then maybe we should tire you out a little…” Daedra broke in next, without prompting.


Eliphas ruffled his brow, confused, as she stood and walked over to where he lay on his back, he resisted the urge to roll away or turn, and instead stayed where he was, though he looked off towards the trees as she neared him, standing over him, not unlike when she had almost destroyed his ribs beneath her largest toe.


“Look at me,” she said down to him, her voice a whisper.


“No,” the prince grumbled out, bitter resentment in his throat.


Daedra knelt down slowly, trying not to seem threatening and came to rest by his face, arms on her knees as she stayed on the fronts of her feet. She raised a finger and went to begin tracing it along the names and etchings of his armor, the golden words still glistening proudly in most places despite dirt and grime, but his hand came up quickly and grabbed her wrist, squeezing it a fraction before shoving her arm away.


The horned girl felt the left half of her lips rise the slightest bit, the tiniest of smiles coming forth as she thought silently to herself about him. He was so strung tight, so undoubtedly rigid that she felt as though she might not ever be able to break him, something of a fact that tantalized every fiber of her being.


Only one day more, she said to herself, then she’d have to be rid of him. They would never see each other again, and many, so very many of the questions she felt swirl around in her head would forever go, unanswered. This seemed to be what he desired most, but to her…


“Eliphas,” she whispered again with no amount of anger or menace, lowering her head a fraction, and using his given name, “look at me.”


He closed his eyes, at first, ordering his body to deny her the pleasure. For a reason he could not explain, however, and by no means of trickery or magic on the part of his strange companion, the prince swallowed hard and reluctantly turned his eyes to look into her own as his lids came open, his demeanor stern, as if merely obeying the command of a senior officer, beneath it all though, he was... nervous..


Daedra moved to take the same finger that was going to touch his armor and placed it on his face, going as slowly and as calmly as she could manage, as if trying not to scare off a rare, prized horse that had slipped from its ties.


It didn’t work.


Eliphas pulled at the handle of his knife and nearly had it completely out of the weapon ring when Daedra snapped her fingers, a thump of air reducing him to the size of a date fruit again. He shook his head and made to get up to stand, but the girl was already upon him.


She placed a finger on his torso and brought herself to lay on her chest, her well-rounded breasts pressing against the ground, the tops of which we now proudly within view as she rested on her elbows. Daedra dangled her feet in the air behind her, moving the tips of her index and middle fingers to each arm of the tiny lord, pinning him on the dirt, spread out and at her mercy.


She held his hands down at the wrists as he did not resist in a typical manner, simply instead, back to refusing to look at her. Daedra took her free hand’s index finger and placed it softly onto the right side of Eliphas’ face as he shuddered in response to her touch, still wanting nothing to do with his captor. Gently, with the precision of a jewelry smith, she pushed his head to face her's as his eyes found hers once more, this time, unable to hide from their curiosity.


She stared at him for what seemed like ages, Eliphas of course not making a sound now that he was shrunken and completely vulnerable. Her eyes narrowed, as if catching a glimpse of something, like the brief instant when a person lies and you see the truth of their flawed deception.


“Who are you?…” She said with a low whisper, to herself, more than anything else.


+ + + +


“It’s a little farther over,” Daedra said frowning and rolling her eyes.


“Where? To the left or to the- Oh never mind, I’ve found it.”


It was about a half hour later, and the two had taken to not speaking for a while after the conversation, stirring something up in the inhuman girl, a feeling she was not sure was one she was concerned about or not.


Daedra had put Eliphas to work with a couple of tasks, he wasn’t going to sleep, so she decided to put him to good use, of course he himself only obliging begrudgingly due to the promise of losing a limb or his life if he did not comply. She first had him take out an ingrown hair on the back of her neck, and that was something she’d particularly felt extremely grateful to him for accomplishing, though she’d never in a dozen lifetimes admit that to him. That had proven a great relief, and as such, she utilized his small stature more to help her with other forms of personal care that came to mind.


At current, he had just located a splinter of wood that had been bothering her all morning, probably a shard from her home’s floor that buried its way into her sole earlier before they had left.


Daedra was lying on her chest, sprawled out and flat as she rested her face on her right forearm, her left arm discarded to the side of her torso. Eliphas was far down at her foot, walking around, mildly tickling her skin, looking for the splinter as she felt tiny taps of his body on her soft, twitching sole.


The Emorian knelt down to the stake of wood, examining it as the skin around the nuisance seemed to already be trying to cover the shard. Every now and again, the warm surface beneath him would undulate, or move, reminding him with an anxious conscience that he was standing on a living being, and not the reassuring, cold earth.


“It’ll need to be dislodged; I’ll have to cut you.” He said out to her, his voice, for reasons explained by the horned woman, carrying at this size as easily as it would as his normal stature. Something he found quite handy, but he knew would probably get him into trouble eventually with a muttered complaint or insult.

“Well go ahead then, and hurry up bug, I’m falling asleep over here…”


Eliphas shook his head as he glanced up and over to where the voice of her response had come, frowning and bitter at being insulted and ordered around like a common serf, now tending to this girls body like he was a mouse.


With care he pulled free his knife and started to cut a tear in Daedra’s skin, no blood rising out as he kept the piercing tactfully shallow, trying not to cause her discomfort. He didn’t care if she actually felt pain, but what he did care about was the fact he was on her foot, and in no way fast enough to get clear or her body in case of an accident, or if she chose to exact her anger on him for going too deep.


Soon enough though, Eliphas wrenched the stick out. It wasn’t small, not by any means, and as he examined its tip, he nodded and raised an eyebrow, impressed by the things that were at a time, so small in the world before.


“You know this reminds me of a story I heard as a child,” the prince began.


The girl rolled her eyes and closed them, talking with her cheek smooshed against her arm bracer,


“Yeah? That’s great…” She said uncaring, too tired to indulge him now at this point.


“It’s about a lion and a mouse. It involves a splinter, like this.” He said, brandishing the stake, then tossing it away and climbing down from Daedra’s massive sole, jumping and landing with a thud on his feet, steel plates and iron rattling with the drop.


The girl's eyes came open sharply as she furrowed her brow, recognizing the meaning in his words, surprised that she did, actually, understand his reference.


“Is that the one where the mouse takes the splinter out of the lion’s foot after he promises to repay a debt?” She says, suddenly understanding.


“Yes, that’s the one!” Eliphas says with what passes for a smile, a small spark of glee coming out as he shares for the first time, some type of commonality with his captor.


Daedra rises and rolls over, careful not crush Eliphas as he stands nearby.


She lays on her back now, head up against the base of a tree as she plucks her small prize from the ground and brings him to her face her eyes sharply bringing him into focus.


“It’s a dumb story, little-lord.” She says with a tired frown, holding him in between her index and middle finger as he rests his arms on them.


“Why would you say that, especially now?” he comes back with, and rightly so.


Daedra leans him in closer and bares her fangs at him as she narrows her eyes and whispers, tired but about to enjoy the metaphor at her disposal, all the while successful in making Eliphas’ skin suddenly crawl, his earlier, brief moment of enjoyment evaporating upon hearing her words.


“Because neither of them can actually talk, which means in reality, the lion would have eaten the mouse.”