What Have You Done Now? [Lancelot]

[sissy]

Fear seemed to course through her veins as she ran through the woods. It was a feeling that she had grown accustomed to since her banishment from the druid encampment and even before that. It was sad that Freya found it difficult to remember the good times in her life since they were so far behind her now and also because of all the things she was going through now. Constantly on the run from others as well as herself, never being able to rest for long, never knowing peace. It was a terrible burden to place on such a young soul and yet Freya carried the burden with her every day of her life. That did not mean that she never had a good day because she did but they came few and far between because once the day passed and night arrived, her curse took affect and she was forced to do what she hated most. She was forced to kill. She had tried various means to keep herself from carrying out such acts but so far nothing had proven affective and it was discouraging to say the least.

The rain fell, making the ground slippery beneath her fleet feet and causing her to stumble and fall to the ground. It was another day in the life of an outcast and so far it was turning out to be a rather dreary day complete with rain and people chasing after her. If she wanted to be honest with herself, a part of her hoped that they caught her and ended her existence because then at least her suffering would be at an end and she would finally know peace but another part still held out some vain hope that maybe she could find someone to lift her curse and allow her to live again. Perhaps it was foolish to have hope and maybe she didn’t deserve it either but she hoped for it just the same.

Those that pursued her had reason to do so. She had attacked them in her Bastet form the night before, killing two of their people before she ran off. It would seem Freya’s luck that she would come across a small band of bandits and while some would be glad that she had killed two rather nasty ruffians, she didn’t think that way. She didn’t know that they had been bandits and there was a chance that she would still feel guilty even if she had known. Her curse had taken two more lives and added to the dozens that she had already killed since the curse had been placed upon her. It wasn’t right to place so much blood on her hands for a mistake that she had made what seemed like ages ago. Magic had been cruel to her and there was nothing she could do to reverse it. Swords had been drawn as the bandits searched for her, following her footsteps and other signs of her trail since they seemed rather adept at tracking her. She had seen swords drawn and knew that they were out for blood. Her blood. And if they caught her, they would have it because she was defenseless. She had magic but she wouldn’t use it. Magic was not her ally.

They were gaining on the poor young woman. Freya had been running since she had regained her human form and hadn’t stopped since. She felt as though her lungs might burst and feared that if she stopped she would be overtaken and then there would be no hope for her. While she hadn’t gotten a very good look at the small band, she was certain she had counted at least five of them coming after her, more than enough to catch and kill the cursed girl who had killed their two comrades. Her clothes were tattered and torn and her hair stick to her face as she ran, giving her the appearance of a beggar girl. The rain that fell didn’t help matters at all for while it may have slowed them down to some degree, it slowed her as well and made her clumsy. If she could just make it to a place where she could hide until they passed her by, she would be safe. Till that night anyway…

All bets were off once the moon rose and the curse took hold.

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Tags; Lancelot
Word Count; 720
Lyrics; Shattered by Trading Yesterday
Time-frame; Late Afternoon – Before ‘Lancelot’

[Deleted]

Lancelot was in-between villages and not just kingdoms, at this point. He had been traveling, without a real home, since the age of 15. His family had been wiped out by that band of Raiders from the Northern Plains, but his apprenticeship master had been kind enough to keep him on at the carpentry shop for nearly a year after. In that year, Lancelot had done what he could to hone his skills. His swordsmanship was self-learned to a great extent, but he had learned what he could from the occasional patron who came through the shop. His master had even paid, through trade, for some lessons. Lancelot had moved to the first major town, and gotten himself attached, through the stables, to a local noble in Wessex. He realized now that the man had taken pity on the young teen that he had been, and that he had been fortunate to not be seriously injured, if not killed in one of his early escapades. Anyhow, the teen-age Lancelot had begun the long road of gaining the fighting skills that he now possessed in his early twenties.

Normally Lancelot did not spend much time thinking about his past, for he did not think that there was much to be gained there. He knew there was very little that could be changed about his present circumstances by such knowledge. He dimly remembered stories told around the table of his family’s origins on the continent, in Gaul to be exact. There was even the implication that they may have had noble origins. He had never been shown anything to verify it that he could remember. In fact, he had no solid notion whether they had just been stories that had been told, and not real family history. Anyway, it did not change his present path, that of being a still-learning nomadic fighting man, who did his best to act in a knightly way, at least as he could best understand it.

He was now in the now-familiar forest, where he had had spent much of his time traveling through in the past years. There was no village close by, so he had figured that he would bed down, with his horse, somewhere in a nearby thicket, at least somewhat protected by the falling rain. His cloak and hood did a relatively fine job of protecting him from the elements, even the presently falling shower. However, it did not block out the gentle drumbeat of the falling drops. Several minutes before he had that he had heard some shouting voices in the intermediate distance. He did notice, however, in the succeeding minutes, that they were growing slowly closer, almost as if they were hunters trying to drive a deer or some other game before them. It seemed, although he thought he might be mistaken, some relatively quick foot-steps to his left. His curiosity was further aroused when he began to hear the bending and breaking of branches as something moved through them at a rapid pace. He suddenly saw a figure break into the open of the clearing, and stop, just before they began to run across to the other side.

There was no doubt that it was a woman, a young woman. She wasn’t much to look at, in her present state. She was obviously muddy from running through the rain, her hair was a mess, and her clothes were in a sad, tattered condition. However, partly because of that it was easy to tell, by the contours of her form that she was a young woman. It was also easy to see that she was being pursued, and given that her clothing was in such a sad state, it was also easy to see that she was not armed. He could tell by the shouting in the distance, as well, that it was at least a small group that was chasing her …. men by the sound of their voices. A group of men chasing a single woman, unarmed? It was clear to Lancelot who he must try and protect or defend, but first he had to get her to stop and come close-by. He realized that time was short for her to gain any trust of him, so he would have to compel her to do what he wanted her to, if he could. As she began to run across the clearing, he took out a bow, inserted an arrow, and delivered it at her feet as she reached the middle of the clearing, and saw her slide to a stop. “Woman, come this way …. at the edge of the clearing …. I mean you no harm and we have little time to discuss the matter.”