Old Grudges

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"You, elf." A gruff sounding human man was seated in a tavern in the human village of Earlestown. It had once been a bustling market place, a meeting place for merchants and scholars. But now... It was lucky if a handful of hunters passed through on their way elsewhere. The people here lived close to the neighbouring kingdom that boasted that is was the seat of all civilisation, Elven, of course. The exact border was somewhat of a foggy issue, meaning battles often broke out over ownership of land. Elves passed through, most of them simply wishing to look down upon what they considered the uncivilised and rather boring humans, before returning to their own cities of silver.
"Elf?" The dark haired female asked, spitting that one word back at the man who had called it to her as she walked past his table. "You do not address the other women here as 'human', so not call me by my race either." She added rather haughtily.
"Well la-di-da! Ain't you just lady of the manor!" The man sneered, banging his glass down on the creaking wooden table. "Your kind aren't welcome here! You never will be! Get your knife ears back to your own side of the border!" 
The elven woman sighed heavily and with silent and sudden movements, she was in front of the human, her ornate elven dagger slammed into the chair all too close to his privates. "Do not test me, human. I have no humour for your kind this evening."

"Done enough? I've hardly begun." An oddly familiar gruff voice remarked from the darkness. "You, duster, almost cost me a pretty penny by letting the princess there escape." The man from the tavern sneered, his bow on his back again as he approached Isla with his sword drawn. "The vile creature was about to murder that man. I'll take great pleasure in carving those knife ears from her pretty little head before I chop it off completely."

"You just try it, human." Isla snarled, shaking her head as she backed up to where Dahlia lay over the human. "I'll make sure you leave less of a mess in this forest than your friend there." She added, holding out the dagger in front of her. "You were quite easy to take down the first time, you know."

"And yet here we are, again." The man sneered. "If you really think you can take me down with that butter knife, please... by all means try. But if I fail, more will come. Our king is a well loved man."

"King?" All at once Isla looked more green in the face than in her eyes. "Stones preserve us, you must be joking!" She cried, looking down at the blood soaked man who was now wheezing with every breath he took. She knew full well that things couldn't get any worse at this point.

"Yes, king." The dark haired man growled as though Isla were stupid. "The same king you and that knife ear were just trying to finish off!"

Isla shook her head, not sure how else to get around any of this. She dropped the dagger and grabbed for a bottle in her jacket, tossing it at the hunter. It wouldn't last long but the stone potion would keep him frozen long enough for she and Dahlia to run. Provided she could get the elven woman to her feet...

Dahlia could barely draw breath. The arrow was still in her shoulder, but like any good hunter, this man had laced the tip with poison. The elven woman was now hanging by the same fate as the king she had just been accused of trying to murder.

"I can't carry you!" Isla cried, now trying to drag the other woman over the king's body and into the trees. She hated being small. It wasn't helping her at all. "Stone preserve me! This isn't working!" She cursed, not even managing to break into the first row of trees before the blonde haired man rolled over and made a drunken grabbed at her ankle.

"Go..." Dahlia wheezed. "You... you're not... Part of this!" She had rolled onto her beck now and was staring up at the dead branches above her.

"It's a little late for that!" Isla hissed, trying to no avail to pry the human's large fingers off her ankle. "Tell me what to do! I can get us out of this, you just have to help me!"

"JUST GO!" Dahlia hissed, a sudden unseen force pushing Isla away. "I will not have dwarven blood on my hands! Your people are free from this, keep it that way!"

"It will come to us soon enough. And if we don't help our kind then we are nothing but cowards." Isla hissed, trying to get back to her feet after the force had sent her tumbling into the leaves. She went back to dragging the elf, knowing they were out of time.

The hunter was already breaking free, his fingers beginning to twitch slightly. He would make them pay an even harsher price now.
"Isla, he will find you if you keep trying to help me. Just go!" Dahlia insisted again.

"I'm not leaving someone behind." Isla said, shaking her head as she continued to drag Dahlia. "You wouldn't leave me, I'm sure of it. The humans will do terrible things to you and we both know it. I couldn't live with myself." 
The king had lost consciousness finally, his large fingers reaching toward them but not finding anything or really attempting to. He was running out of time.

"Of course I would leave you! You're nothing but a lowly duster!" Dahlia hissed, a last attempt to make Isla run.
The hunter suddenly seemed to burst from his stony prison and stumbled forward to land on his knees by his king. "I give you my word and my life... I will catch those whores!"

"Tell me something I don't know, knife ears." Isla said with a soft laugh, reaching into her jacket for another rock salve to put onto Dahlia's wound. "Now come on. You have to try and walk. If I pick you up You will hit your head on something and it will take time to patch it. My rock potion is going to wear off!"

Dahlia's grunt of pain would be heard by the two humans as Isla applied the salve to the elf woman's wound. "Only if you promise not to give me any more of whatever that is..."

"I'll even teach you how to make it if you get up and run." Isla said, tucking away the salve in her jacket and tugging on the elf for the last time. "The hunter is moving now. We have no time left. Please?" She begged, looking behind her in terror. She was certain they were going to die. There was no getting around it.

Dahlia managed to pick herself up, but the side where the arrow had pierced her was almost completely numb now, meaning she was left ambling along like some sort of undead creature.

"Stone fathers, damn it!" The wood nymph's thought it was the perfect time to play games with the two women. They were moving the forest around as they tried to escape it. Trees were relocating and suddenly trapping the way ahead. Not only that, Dahlia was slowing down considerably and it was beginning to grow dark.

"Isla... We can't keep doing this." Dahlia insisted as she leaned heavily against a tree. "Let them take me. I am not afraid. Let them do what they will to me." She added, her violet eyes heavy lidded with both the pain of her injuries, and the fatigue their retreat was causing her.

"We're almost there. I promise." Isla was trying her best but her chest was heaving. She too was running out of steam. If they didn't find a way out of the forested hell and soon it wasn't going to matter if the human caught them or not. They were going to be dead long before that ever happened. "We can rest soon. I'm sure we've lost the hunter anyway."

"Isla... You don't lose hunters." Dahlia wheezed. "You just get ahead of them. Trust me, I am one. The only way to stop one, is to kill them, or offer them something they want even more."

"I don't have anything like that. Especially not after I heard him offering his life to the king in exchange for us." Isla sighed. "So basically what you're saying is...unless I can get to my homeland, we are both screwed?"

"Then maybe you should offer that idiot king something?" Dahlia snorted. "Isla, I don't understand why you feel the need to help me. You could have put a lot of distance between you and him by now."
"That's right, ladies. And you wonder why dwarves are called stupid." The hunter sneered.

"You are still a little slow, stone man." Isla said, turning back to the hunter the moment she heard his voice. "Is there something wrong with you? I would have thought you'd have caught up with us by now." She was reaching in her jacket for another potion, hoping she had enough left to paralyze this human for one last time.

"And I would have thought the princess there would have called for daddy by now." The hunter sneered. "She has a hefty price on her head, and that was before she tried to kill the king. But you... You would make an excellent scullery maid to the king's step mother." He added, pale grey eyes watching every tiny move that Isla was making.

"Not sure what that is, but I'd wager you'd look better as a maid than a I would." Isla said, her fingers brushing the all but empty flask. She should have made more before she left. Her mother would have been so ashamed of her. But perhaps if she aimed it at the hunter's head this time, it would turn to stone and he would not recover. That might work. "You have been beneath me once, hunter. I bet I can make it happen again."

"Enough!" Dahlia barked. "Let the girl go. We all know you couldn't manage to get both of us out of here against our will. So allow me to save you the trouble. Take me back to your human city, and I use that term loosely, and leave her out of this." Even when poisoned she couldn't hide the regal tone to her silky voice.

Isla was shaking her head. Her fingers fully around the flask now. "I won't let you. You'll have to take us both and that's kicking and screaming, human. You're not going to simply walk out of this forest like it was easy. You are going to bleed first! To the stone with you!"