The Prisoner Princess

Unexpected Help

"My ears feel all wrong," Sabina complained.

"It's just a glamor, it's not real." Loch rolled her eyes. "Your ears are fine."

She touched them for what seemed like the thousandth time, their pointed tips rounded for human-like appearance. "I know that." she said, hands brushing over the curve. "They just feel wrong. And my skin!" she exclaimed, holding out her arms, which were no longer translucent. "What have you done to my skin?"

Loch peeked out of the alley. They sideled out, just two ordinary human girls arm in arm. No one paid them a second glance. She breathed a sigh of relief, being ordinary had never felt so good.

Steadily, they made their way out of the town, undisturbed, heading into the thick of the forest.

The sounds of life were almost overwhelming. In the water, sound carried on waves of current, but it was never quite so loud. Never to this scale. And this was just one forest.

So lost in thought she almost didn't hear the tiny voice that said, "The bird flew in that direction." Lock was startled to find a little green bug beneath her feet. A grasshopper if she remembered correctly. "That's why you're here, right?"

"Yes," Sabina saved her, then stopped. Animals were tricky things, and they were no longer in their watery domain. "But you have no water ties, why are you helping us? And how did you know we were following the bird?"

"I have no ties," the grasshopper said simply, as though the statement did not shake all she knew about animal loyalty and the elements. "Certainly not to a land prince who employs the very animals I despise. No, I have no ties." He repeated.

No ties? She had never heard of such a thing. Every living creature owed their life to some entity. "Are other animals like this?" Loch inquired.

The grasshopper shifted in what appeared to be a shrug. "Some, those not dependent so much on the elements. Those who have always been overlooked. No one cares about where my loyalties lie." He was right, in a way. Who could care for a grasshopper when they had a rabbit? Who could care for a rabbit when the fox was far more clever?

But the grasshopper, it seemed, could just be the animal the two needed. Loch seized the opportunity. "Could you tell us if anyone's been through here? We are looking for a Naiad. Dark hair, blue eyes?" The description sounded more like a question.

He thought for a moment,. "I did not, but a few days ago my kin spoke of a curious traveler on a white horse. Their companion was unconscious, but she matches your description, although I believe the term was 'devastatingly beautiful'."

"That's her," Sabina confirmed solemnly, trying not to think of the state their friend was in. "Which way do we go?"

The grasshopper's leg twisted, creating an odd sort of chirp. "West, if I'm not mistaken. Good day." With that he hopped off, vanishing into the green of the blades of grass.

"West." Loch repeated. "That's the opposite direction the bird went in."

Sabina nodded. "Do we trust it, though? What if it's going back to the land prince?" Who was to say the grasshopper wasn't loyal to chaos? That it stopped every passing traveler just to stir up trouble?

"What if it's not? What if it's leading us the wrong way?"

"So we split up," Sabina offered.

"Absolutely not." Loch snapped, "Nereida was captured because she was alone. Splitting up just increases our chance of the same thing happening to us."

She crossed her arms, agitated. "So we don't split up. What do you suggest, oh wise one, great power of the North?"

Loch sighed, and although she knew it was a disguise, Sabina couldn't help but think that she looked so completely human. Tired and worried but filled with determination. No matter how much she disliked the land folk for various reasons, that was always a part she admired. "I'll take the grasshopper's word over anything a bird does. We can't trust anything that flies."

With that, the two Naiades turned West, hoping upon hope that it was the right decision, and more importantly, the right direction.