Old Grudges

First topic message reminder :

"We will save her, sire!" Rothain shouted, fighting to make a path to the doorway for his king. It was proving harder than he thought. More people were coming in than going out. It was looking like it would be better to head toward the window and try for a jump. "Dahlia is alive. I must believe that." He whispered to himself. 

Marid shook his head, "Go haunt something, woman. I must work..." He disappeared back into the cave, now scowling down at the mirror image of his wife. "Your father is in the middle of a war between humans and dwarves. Shall we go and save him?" He asked Dahlia.

"Come now, girl. In the months you have known me, is that something you know me to do?" Marid snorted. "I delight in misery not the other way around." He told her, remembering a time when all he wanted to do was make Darla smile.

"Not that it matters now." Ro whispered. "She's furious with me."

"You offered to hurt my father and Ro without me wishing." Dahlia pointed out bluntly.

"And what do you plan to do about it?" Abalas challenged.

"that's because I like to hurt people. No wish required." Marid told her. "And mark my words I will hurt the elf king one way or the other." 

"She'll think me weak if I simply apologize, sire." Rothain whispered. "I don't know what else to do."

"Liar." Dahlia snorted. "You saved me when I never asked for it. You stopped my pain when you could have increased it."

"So your solution is to wish she was still with that damned human boy?" Abalas asked thinly.

"that's because someone else asked me to." Marid snapped. "I owed her a favor. There was nothing else to it. Never forget that."

"actually, I was just hoping to get her home. I knew that once she was with her father everything would be alright. You could talk some sense into her. All she needs is you. Everything else will fall into place as it's supposed to. You can always make her see reason nothing else matters."

"Her?" Dahlia probed, folding her arms across her chest in same way her mother often had when she meant business.

"That girl see reason?" Abalas snorted. "She is her mother's daughter, and Darla rarely saw reason in anything." He added. "Go and bring her back here, I need a moment to collect my thoughts if I am to even begin to fathom a way of finding Iris again."

Marid's fingers shook. Not for the first time he was tempted to kill her. If she hadn't made the wish that he not be able to harm her, he would have. "Never you mind." He hissed, cocking his head when he heard footsteps approaching, "She is no longer a concern of yours." 

"As you wish." Rothian said, getting to his feet and heading in the direction he'd seen Dahlia go. He paused when he heard a dark, familiar voice, his fingers resting on his blade.

Dahlia's head turned ever so slightly when she heard the very light snap of a twig on the forest floor. "Be gone, djinni. I have no use for your twisted words right now." She hissed, her own fingers reaching for the branches above her head before she disappeared up into the foliage.

Abalas wouldn't be there when Rothain returned. The elven king couldn't afford for his headstrong daughter to lose him any time in tracking Iris.

"Dahlia?" Rothain called the young woman's name, worried by the voice he had heard. His chest was heaving as his eyes searched the growing darkness. 
Marid smiled. The child had wished for herself and her father. She had said nothing about this simple wood elf. He was in the mood to kill something and why not this fellow? He appeared from nowhere raking his talons along the elf's back and then disappearing again. "Come now, boy. Are you too weak to fight something mythical?" he purred, licking the blood off his claws. 

Iris was exhausted. The fat little pony she was on was swaying with her, plodding through yet another mud puddle with a heavy step. She was tied to its back, her face all but pressed into the sweating skin. She tried hard to stay brave, dragging in several sobbing breaths. Bartrand had found the king's dagger and had shoved it into her thigh, punishing her for trying to hide it from him. He was not to know he'd left a perfect trail for the king to follow.

Dahlia dropped onto Rothain from the tree, forcing him face first to the forest floor. Angry violet eyes glared up at Marid as she got to her own feet, both blades drawn as she advanced on her dijinni. She wanted to scream at him, tell him he had crossed a line, but doing so would alert Rothain's to the fact she was aquainted with this creature.

Abalas had headed for the dwarven kingdom to begin his search when he picked up the ever so helpful trail Bartrand had left him. "Foolish dwarf." He snorted from where he was crouched with his fingers touching the red substance.

Marid scowled at her but found himself unable to threaten or attack her. Instead he could only hiss like everyone snake and glare at the young woman.

Iris watched her blood slide down the pony's haunches. It made her weary more than anything else she had no real hope that it would lead her king to them. He had his own problems to deal with.

Dahlia swung one of her blades at Marid, slicing across his chest. "Eye for an eye." she hissed in reference to the attack he had just inflicted upon Rothain. "Be gone, creature!"

Abalas was truthfully blind to everything that had happened to his kingdom, even to the news his daughter was still alive. He was surrender it all for this one human woman.

"Dahlia, you fool you need to be paying attention!" Rothain barked there is a creature in these woods that is attacking elves! I have left your father unprotected to find you!"

The dwarves were very drunk by the time they made camp. Iris was taken off the pony and dumped in the mud and left there. Bartrand went behind a tree to relieve himself, all the while muttering about what he planned to do to his wife.

Dahlia's violet eyes quickly darkened when Rothain snapped at her. "Then go back to him, I don't need protecting! Not from the creature, not from anyone!" She hissed, resenting the way he first insulted her, then treated her like a helpless child.

Abalas was making good time now he was alone. He could take risks he never would have, were he with his daughter and friend. It wasn't long before he could hear the noise the dwarves camp were making.

"The creature?" Rothain echoed, missing the sight of the dinning disappearing into the trees over head. "It was here? Did it hurt you?" He asked, taking control of the situation and looking her over. 

Bartrand returned to Iris and pushed her down in the mud, singing drunkenly with the other dwarves. "I've missed you, girl." he hiccupped. He tried to kissed her on the mouth but only received everything mouthful of mud.

"Unlike you, I am without injury." Dahlia scoffed, still beyond livid with Rothain.

The other droves were singing ever more loudly now, the ale flowing freely. The loud singing made it all too easy for Abalas to slip into the camp, blade in hand as he happened upon Bartrand and his 'wife'. "And you wonder why you are the punchline in so many bar stories?"

"It's a scratch and I'm glad that's the case." rothain said wearily, reaching out to pick a twig out of her hair. "now, tell me how who you were talking to." 

"You again, king elf? I thought we had a fair trade. She is after all my wife." Bartrand said, crudely grinding himself against Iris where she lay beneath him on the ground.

Dahlia swatted at Rothain's fingers with annoyance. "A scratch you got by assuming I'm some helpless little girl in need of rescue." She huffed.

A alas leaned over the dwarf and grabbed a handful of his hair, jerking his head all the way back with a quick movement. "One little tug, and I coudk snap that disgustingly fat neck like a twig, master dwarf." He hissed.

"I never said that." Rothain said softly. He pulled his fingers free and stroked her hair again. "But you are ignoring my question."

"Shut up, elf." The dwarf snarled. "I'm not afraid of a magik user like you. You can't tell me what to do to my wife!"

"I'm not ignoring it, I am simply under no obligation to answer it." Dahlia breathed, though this time she didn't swat Rothain's fingers away.

"Then why are you so afraid, dwarf?" Abalas purred, pulling hard in Bartrand's hair again. "Worried I would perhaps slip the lady a knife and give her the man's to castrate you?" He asked, a blade indeed appearing in Iris' fingers.

"As your teacher and future husband I could demand an answer you know." Ro teased her, his tone oddly loving.

Iris gave Abalas a horrified look and shook her head. Bartrand threw back his own head and roared with laughter. "I ain't worried about her. She's broken. Too weak to stop me. Soon I'll be riding her like that fat pony. And she won't even try to stop me."

"Which one are you? You can't be both." Dahlia replied, her violet eyes staring up at Rothain intently.

Abalas was disappointed that Iris had refused to defend herself, but at the same time he knew he was wrong to expect of her what he did his daughter. They were two very different creatures and Iris had been through so much. The blade appeared back in the king's hand and without warning he jabbed it between Bartrand's ribs. There would be no blood or internal damage, the enchanted blade was simply mimicking the pain of having one's spleen ruptured.

"what would you like me to be?" Rothain whispered, his wood colored eyes resting on her face. "It has come to my attention that no one ever asked you what you wanted."

Bartrand's howl of pain alerted the other dwarves o what was happening  and almost instantly the forest want silent.

Dahlia was somewhat stumped by that question. Rothain was right, no one ever had asked her that. "What if I don't want a teacher or a husband?" She asked at last. "Ro... You don't trust me to take care of myself, how can I trust you with the rest of my life?"

Abalas kicked the howling dwarf aside and lifted the mud and blood smeared Iris up into his arms. "This is going to hurt." He breathed into her hair, knowing the jerking movements of his running would aggrivate the wound in her leg.

"IIts not that I don't trust you," Rothain whispered, "perhaps it's that i would like the honor of doing it for you. As I did when you were a child, Dahlia."

Iris nodded, too ashamed of herself to say anything to him.gingerly she clung to his arms and closed her eyes.

"I don't need another father figure, Ro." Dahlia whispered sadly. "I need someone strong enough to stand by my side, not in front of me as commanded to do so by his king."

The elf king sprinted into the trees, knowing the dwarves would need their horses to keep up with him.

rothain didn't know what came over him but he slid his fingers along Dahlia's cheeks and pulled against him. He pressed his lips to hers, hoping she wouldn't push him away.

Iris could hear her former husband screaming at his men to get to their horses. There was a loud clamoring to do as they were told and soon hoof beats were sounding behind them.

Dahlia was surprised by Rothain's action, despite the fact she had seen him kiss Gwen a hundred times when they thought they had been alone. Slender hands pressed against Rothain's chest before Dahlia pushed him roughly against the tree she had dropped from minutes ago. Unlike Rothain, Dahlia knew her father was under no threat from the 'creature', though she didn't know the king was long gone.

Abalas didn't know what had come over him. He was acting like a lovesick boy, the same way he had lost his senses upon meeting Darla all that time ago. He was still running through the trees, looking for a safe sanctuary in which to ease Iris's pain.

Rothain took this shove as a rejection and instantly held his hands ups to show Dahlia he would push things no further.

Marid was watching the king from the trees, frowning. "even after her wish I feel nothing," he said to Darla who was nearby. "She wished for her father's safety and yet I don't feel like I should help him. Why is that?"

The gesture seemed to break Dahlia somewhat, clear by the sorrowful look in her eyes when Rothain held his hands up. She saw this as him regretting what he had started. The young princess felt the perfect fool and stumbled back a few steps. "Go back to my father like a good little lapdog. Elves aren't safe in these woods." She breathed, letting her hair drop of over face as she leaned down to collect the blades she had dropped.

"You can't come to a conclusion by yourself?" Darla asked, almost seeming like she was annoyed with Marid.