Not The Best Of Situations [Arthur]

[Jade Santeras]

Why was her life so boring? Jade couldn't help but wander this as she led Ruby from the stables she had been staying at since their arrival in Camelot. The life of a messenger was hardly one of excitement as pretty much as far from glory and riches as she could get without working in the stables picking up dung from the floors or being a lowly prisoner. Pfft, she'd never be a prisoner cause she's never really done anything interesting that would land her there. It was often that Jade had such low thoughts about herself but that morning she had woken up feeling down and depressed and as far from her dream as possible. Brushing her hair back from her face for the hundreth time, Jade walked past the still sleeping denizens of Camelot that were still in their houses and such, it was just before dawn when she had woken and for some reason she couldn't fall back asleep.

Was she just born a boring person? Did whoever was in charge up there just decide to fill her head with dreams of glory and riches and yet neglect to give her the means to actually make them come true? If that was truly the case then Jade was seriously screwed and trapped in the life of a peasant messenger who would never do anything great with her life. How depressing… Jade wasn’t normally a depressing young woman, she was a woman who believed that you had to work to make things happen and she believed she was doing that but surely a little help from somewhere could make itself known. She believed in fate as much as the next person but really, why would she feel so certain about being a warrior when it didn’t look as though it was going to happen. If it wasn’t mean to be, then why?

Bleh, she was so tired of delving into thoughts that made her head hurt. A nice ride through the woods would surely help her sort things out. No, she wasn’t exactly an exceptional rider and Ruby wasn’t the most well behaved beast of burden but as long as Jade was paying attention and not with her head in the clouds, she should be just fine. The thought of some swordplay came to mind of course, since not many people traveled through the woods on the outskirts of Camelot so early in the morning, she hoped anyway. It would be private and meant she would have no distractions. It was a nice thought of course but it wasn’t possible because she had not brought her sword with her. Not that it could be called much of a sword of course; it was rusty and wouldn’t last much longer if she kept dueling trees like she did.

Brushing her hair back from her face, Jade pulled herself into Ruby’s saddle and rode off into the awaiting woods, taking in the lovely morning air that permeated around her. Camelot wasn’t all that different from Mercia and yet it had a different feel to it. She didn’t know what it was but she liked it. It was because of this that she chose to stick around Camelot for a little while before heading back home. She could play messenger around Camelot and not have too much worries and she had enough money to last her for a little while. Of course she had to pay someone to write a letter to her mother and father telling them of her intent. Of course her mother wouldn’t like it, but Elizabeth had to realize that her daughter was grown up and fully capable of taking care of herself.

Upon entering the woods, Jade ducked and swayed to avoid branches and bushes, having learned her lesson from last time. It felt good, being alone in such a lovely secluded place. Well, that was her initial thought before she felt herself thrown from the horse, a body colliding with her own. Someone had jumped off a small hill when she hadn’t been looking. After first she thought it was another low branch as she landed on the ground but the feel of a body landing on her own for a moment before it rolled off her made her realize what was going on.

Apparently she had stumbled across a small band of bandits…

Oh COME ON! She thought to herself as she sat up, her horse running off deeper into the woods. Her elbow was bleeding and she was dizzy from the fall. When her eyes were able to focus, she noticed she was surrounded by four or five rough looking men, all leering at her with dark intent in their eyes. “I have nothing on me, nothing for you to take.” It didn’t matter it seemed, she could tell by the way they looked at her, this was not good…

[Arthur Pendragon]

After the entire embarrassment of everything -- not to mention the last few donkey noises that he emitted when he was training his men -- Arthur needed some time away from everyone, who he knew would most likely be gossiping over what happened to him. Why did everyone had to know? He understood why Gwen knew, why Merlin knew, why his father and then why Gaius . . . but the entire royal court, his knights, probably the townsfolk by now . . . it was humiliating! Arthur wondered if he would ever live it down and hoped that braying was the last one he would ever make. He was dressed in casual attire, making him look like a citizen rather than a prince. He did not need to be easily recognized just in case rumors had reached here.

And that was when he saw something in the distance that distracted him. A woman on her horse, surrounded by a group of men who Arthur did not need to know personally to recognize that they were bandits. He dismounted from his horse, and began to sneak up on them, not wanting to cause too much alarm so that they would be able to take her as a hostage. This was something he did not need to think twice about, even if he did not know the woman. He did not even want to imagine what they planned to do to her, apart from rob her. There were many crude thoughts that possessed the minds of some men, and it was absolutely revolting to the Prince. So when he could, he would take the opportunity to stop them before they put some of these thoughts into action.

Once he was close enough, he revealed himself from the concealment of the trees, slowly pulling out his sword while doing so. "You should really listen to her, and leave before you regret it." It was a threat he planned to make good on. If they took one step towards him, or advanced towards her, he would be sure they would not get very far.

[Short post, sorry! Just trying to drag it out a bit! Next post, he'll kill the bad guys ]

[Jade Santeras]

Right, well this definitely was not ideal. Her vision was still slightly blurred from falling off the horse and she was sore all over. What exactly was she going to do? Had she had her sword, there might have been a chance that she could take on one, possibly two if she was able to take them by surprise. It wasn’t a surprise that the element of surprise was entirely the bandits and it wasn’t like they would let her borrow one of their swords. Thoughts raced through her mind as she got to her feet, eyes darting between each of the leering bandits. Who would make the first move? She moved quickly and there was a chance that she would be able to last a few moments against one but once they all joined in, she stood no chance. Blood dripped from her elbow but the adrenaline kept her from actually feeling the pain for the time being.

Despite being surrounded, Jade steeled herself for a fight. She was most likely going to lose but god damn it she was going to go down fighting and hopefully she’d be able to dole out some pain before she was taken down. A million thoughts came to mind but none of them made sense. Calling for help… Nah, no one was around that she knew of and the moment her voice rang out, she figured the men would attack to keep her from being any undue attention to them. Running wasn’t possible since they were all around her and it didn’t seem likely that she would be able to get past one of them. Fighting was her only option but that would only last so long… Yeah, so not going well with ideas.

She wasn’t going to cry, she refused to cry!

Men were so crude, taunting the poor messenger girl with promises of pain and humiliation. It wasn’t surprising since they wanted to intimidate and scare her. They would have loved to see her cry, make her beg for her life but that was not going to happen. “Stay back!” She yelled as they started to move in slowly. Of course they had to draw out the moment and make her swear, making it more dramatic for them and more painful for Jade.

A voice called out, drawing all their attention on the one who had spoken. A savior? Seriously? Maybe someone up there did possibly like her. Being that there was only him, even with a sword, wasn’t exactly the best reassurance for Jade. He could take on one of them, possibly two but what about the others? They all stood there, as though actually considering his thread before the larger of the four seemed to snap out of it. “What are you waiting for? Attack!” His loud order seemed to stir the men into action, two of them surging forward to clash with the casual looking Prince, feeling confidant that two against one was good odds.

With them going after Arthur, the ‘leader’ stayed back to watch the fun while one of his men went after Jade. Odds improved for Jade since it was now just one against one, something she could handle. No, she wasn’t as big as this ugly looking mutt but she was smaller and quick. Meeping, Jade dodged the man’s large beefy fist and reached for his sword but he slapped her hand away. This wasn’t going to be easy…

[Arthur Pendragon]

Arthur was not blind to her already sustained injury but that was not the primary concern right now. At the moment, he was going to ensure that they would survive this; that she would not fall victim to these men's cruelty and of course . . . for him to walk out of all of this alive, and not mortally wounded. Their reaction -- including hers -- made it clear that they did not recognize him as the Prince. This was both good and bad. Perhaps they would not have been as ready to kill him had they known who he was, and the cost of killing him. Of course, it could just so happen that the truth about his identity would cause them to perhaps alter their goals and try to take him for ransom instead. This would not be the first time that happened, nor would it be the last.

He had positioned himself close enough to the woman to notice one of the bandits begin to approach her. This would be his first reaction to the whole thing, but unfortunately, two of the men lunged at him first. Blocking both swords, with his one, the three blades collided with one another. They were all entangled and unfortunately, Arthur's blade was on the bottom, as he felt the force of the two on top, pushing downwards trying to loosen his grip. This was a bloody waste of time, for out of the corner of eye, he saw one of the men approach the girl, a menacing gleam in his eyes. Refocusing on the two men at the moment, he finally pulled his sword out from the entanglement and forcefully swung at one of the men. The bandit managed to block his blow, but while distracting that one, Arthur kept one hand on his sword, and with his other, grabbed the other bandit and will as much force as he could, pulled him a bit towards him and then pushed him right into the man threatening the woman.

It was enough to force both men off balance, and with that very temporarily solved, Arthur finished off the bandit he was in a sword block with, by swinging it once more, slashing his chest and watching him fall lifelessly to the ground. He then turned his attention to the two that had now regained his balance. One of them charged towards him with his sword, and as Arthur began to engage in a sword fight with it, it was evidently clear that he was more skilled than the other ones. He was trying to focus on the fight but at the same time, trying to keep an eye on the woman who had fallen pray to them. He hoped she ran from here; though did not want to say it out loud so that others would expect her to. There was an opening, now that the circle of bandits had been broken, and he sincerely hoped she took it.