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Anemone flies against a tree. It hits her back, and forces air out of her lungs, making her cough loudly. She tastes blood in her mouth and licks it off her sharp teeth, savouring the taste. It's been a while since she actually got to taste her own blood in her mouth.
As much as this angel could slam against a wall, choke and die, Anemone is still convinced that this is a pretty fun exercise. It's been about an hour since they started and she hasn't felt this out of breath since... well, since she was like-... a fourteen-year-old kid. Evangeline might be the most annoying, disgusting, ugly, disturbing creature in all of the three realms, but at least she knows how to fight. In the end, that's all that matters. Will, perseverance and capability.
She looks out into the forest, where a white creature is slammed against another tree far off in the distance. She looks at her for a moment, and wonders if she can taste the same amount of blood in her mouth. If she can feel her old wounds reopening. If she can feel the burn in her chest and throat, the fresh scars and magic burns against her skin. If her eyes are watering at every movement and arms and legs feel shaky and sore. It's been an hour of non-stop fighting, swords clashing, sparks of enchanted metal burning and their wings trying to hold them up in the air. Anemone breathes out, sweaty and tired, the sun already pressing harshly from above.
"Ready to die yet?"
Evangeline's voice echoes from the forest, still annoyingly calm and ready to fight. Anemone is only comforted by the slight breathlessness in her tone. They could keep going, but they both know that it's time to set their prides aside and get serious.
Chepi escaped over an hour ago. They both knew that it had happened, the moment it happened. Chepi isn't as quiet at escaping as she must think she is. Or, well, she's not silent to their well-trained ears. But they were both convinced that they could kill each other fast enough to be able to chase after Chepi later. Sadly, they were both wrong, and now it's been a whole hour after the fairy escaped and they're still stuck fighting each other.
Anemone rests her head back against the tree and tries to catch her breath.
She kind of wants to stop fighting and start chasing Chepi instead. But if she turns her back against the angel now, Evangeline will just find a window and kill her. She groans, frustrated. There is now way out of this. Soon they'll both go home without a fairy and without a crystal. And eventually Chepi will return home, where Dieq might even put her in a room without doors to keep her safe, and kidnapping her from there will become even more difficult.
"Or-.. Did you die already?"
Anemone rolls her eyes at the hopeful tone. She closes her eyes and sighs, swallowing her huge ego in one big go. It really hurts.
"Do you want to postpone the fight?"
Anemone closes her eyes even tighter, expecting the usual, 'too scared?' comment from the angel, which will certainly tick her off. They'll go back to fighting and neither of them will ever get the fairy again. She can already feel the rage bubbling under her skin, and her ego threatening to come right back up where she swallowed it. That's what all of her training buddies used to say. Demons are a little immature like that. They like to egg you on even though it's unnecessary. In a way, it's stupid. But in a way, it helps you push your limits and either burn and die, or grow and find power.
"You mean like... work together?"
But angels aren't demons, Anemone should've known that.
She opens her eyes, a little bewildered, and maybe a little hopeful. 'Working together' sounds so disgusting, but she can't deny that it's the most logical thing they could do right now.
"If-..." she trails off a bit, her voice echoing in the forest. "If you swear not to kill me for a while, I promise not to kill you either"
Silence answers her. It takes a few moments. She imagines the gears turning in the archangel's head.
"Chepi will be long gone if we don't leave now..." She hears the angel think out loud, perhaps to satisfy Anemone's terrible patience. She nods, even though Evangeline probably can't see it.
"Do you swear?"
They look at each other, far away, but somehow closer than ever before.
"Alright... for my kingdom, I guess I'll- I swear... not to kill you"
Anemone breathes out, still a little winded.
"And I do too"
"It's just fifty silver per piece! Each one weighs less than a feather, and yet is more beautiful than the sun"
Chepi glances over at the merchant, his voice partially drowned out by the other people yelling similar things. She looks down at the golden jewellery on his table, looking all shiny and bright against the red blanket under them. She tilts her head, and frowns. Jewellery is so ugly in the goblin kingdom, compared to what she remembers from the fairy kingdom. Here the jewellery is lumpy and badly formed, it seldom shines and is always scratched up and old. In the fairy kingdom, bright crystals, shining gold, silver and bronze exist in beautiful, detailed shapes, easily and cheaply sold in the capital markets.
She shakes her head with a tsk, and looks back up at the merchant. His eyes are wide, suddenly, staring right back at her. Chepi tilts her head, confused.
"You're a-"
Chepi's own eyes widen in realisation. She looks down at herself. Her long pink hair, the crystals stuck to her clothing, her see-though, crystal-like wings. Nobody must've noticed until now, because the market inside this large village is busy and cramped, covered in the shadows of the market stands. But this goblin doesn't need to look at her for a moment longer to realise what she is.
"I'm a fairy, yes" She whispers, mouth forming a bashful smile. She presses a finger over her lips, telling him to be quiet, her eyes sparkling mischievously. Then, she turns around and dives back into the crowd, disappearing from the goblin forever.
Her breath is caught in her throat as she makes her way through the busy market. The sun shines brightly on top of the sky, but it's mostly covered by the shades of the stands, and the taller goblins walking among her. It smells strongly of different spices and meats, as well as vegetables and old, rusty metal jewellery. Smoke rises up from a few market stands, covering the already dusty crowd of people. The scent of freshly cooked food and bread enters her nose, and Chepi ducks under someone's arm to get past them.
She hears laughter and talking, so loud that it consumes her completely. Somebody is trying to play an instrument for money, but it's not loud enough to be completely heard in the crowd, and whoever was playing disappears from her view the moment the large crowd moves forwards. If she weren't just a little shorter than these goblins, it'd be hard to move around at all. But thankfully, she is a fairy, light and easy with her steps, good at hiding in crowds.
It's been just a few hours since she escaped and now she has left the forest behind her. This goblin village is known for its weekend market, and Chepi feels lucky that she ran into it while escaping. Here she can get lost in the crowd and become impossible to find, at least until the night falls and the stands close. Now, she also knows exactly where in the goblin kingdom they are, since she's visited this village before. It's closer to the fairy kingdom's border, somewhere between that and the capital, right in the middle of a large, leaf forest. It'll take about a day to get back to the capital, but she'll make it. As long as she can shake this demon and angel off her trail, first.
This village feels familiar and warm. She remembers coming here the day after she escaped the fairy kingdom. She bought new clothes, stole food and hid in the crowd for the entire weekend, making her father's soldiers lose her trail. It was a tense, but still such a freeing experience. Now that she's back here, once again trying to make someone lose her trail, it feels like home. It feels comfortable, familiar. Chepi is glad to have her confidence back.
A dark blue cloak catches her eye, and she smiles to herself. She walks towards the goblin wearing it, ducking under a few outreached arms and in through a few openings in the crowd. The moment she comes near the goblin, Chepi grabs their cloak and drags it off them, quickly running off with it. She hears accusing yells behind her, loud and angry. But the bewildered and angry goblin is quickly left behind her, and nobody can catch her before she has long disappeared into the thick crowd. Chepi grins and puts the cloak on herself, hiding her hair with the hood of it.
Anemone and Evangeline might be two of the most powerful creatures in the three realms, however Chepi is confident that they'll be just like the rest. Every single creature who has ever tried to hold her hostage or kidnap her, whether it'd be a revenge thing or a blackmail thing, has always failed. Chepi can see things that others can't. Ways out, holes, escape routes, distractions and everything in between.
"Lady! You look like someone who'd want pretty jewellery? Straight from the fairy kingdom!"
Chepi chuckles to herself at the eager salesman, turning around in the crowd to face him with her eyes shining with mischief. She bends down to look at the sparkling crystal jewellery. Indeed, they must be from the fairy kingdom. Smuggled over the border with the fairy and goblin guards getting their pockets full of gold. "From the fairy kingdom?" Chepi picks up a pink bracelet, something similar to a copy of her own royal pink bracelet that she left at home before she escaped. It's made from the finest rose crystal. She admires it in the sunlight. The shopkeeper, a very young and excited goblin boy, grins to the point where his fangs shine.
"It would suit a pretty lady like you. Just twenty gold per piece. It would go perfectly with your-" the goblin boy trails off, looking straight at her now. His face morphs into an expression of surprise, and then borderline shock. He pales, and Chepi grins. "-Eyes..." Her bright and colourful eyes stare back at him, together with the blue rings around her irises. Whether he's shocked about the fact that she's clearly a fairy, or the fact that she's the finder of the teardrop crystal, is unclear. However Chepi would like to think that it's both.
"You're a-"
"I wonder what the crown prince would say if he knew you were smuggling fairy goods across the border, hmm? It's quite a lucrative business, I imagine. Dangerous, too" Chepi picks up another piece of crystal jewellery, this time a shiny blue necklace. Compared to the goblin jewellery she looked at earlier, these are way brighter, prettier, shinier. Clearly fairy jewellery, at an expensive price too, considering what it must've cost to smuggle it over the border.
The goblin kid tries to snatch the blue jewellery out of her hands, but Chepi is quicker and draws her hand back. She glances at him, noticing that he seems to be pretty good at thieving, too. Too bad she's better. She grins in his direction. He frowns. "Put that away. I don't do business with nosey people"
Chepi coos sarcastically, holding up the jewellery in his face. He tries to take it again, quick as lighting, but she is faster to draw it back. "Did you steal these in the fairy kingdom, or did you buy them?" Her voice sounds teasing, but there is a dangerous edge to it. The goblin hesitates. He stares up at her fiercely, but there is a sense of nervousness in the way he stands and fiddles with the jewellery in front of him.
"I bought-"
"Cause' if you stole it, I'd gladly buy it"
He looks up at her, eyes wide. Chepi grins. Hesitantly, he reaches for a bell next to him on the table. It's an alarm bell, golden in colour but metal on the inside, designed to alert guards even in the loudest of crowds. "Leave me alone, or I'll call on the guards" Chepi rolls her eyes. Nobody ever lets her have any fun these days. Hiding in the crowds of a marketplace is boring, you get through the entire market in a few hours and then you have to do that all over again, a few dozen times, until the weekend is over and your enemies have lost your scent. Terrifying little scammers and smugglers is her only form of entertainment. "Come on-"
"You will do no such thing"
Both Chepi and the kid startle at the sound of a heavy sword, still in its hard leather shaft, slamming against the market stand's table. It shakes all the crystals and sends vibrations all the way to the ground, catching a few eyes from onlookers. Chills run up Chepi's spine, and her breath gets caught in her throat. She feels a heavy presence behind her, and sure enough a powerful scent reaches her nose shortly after. She doesn't dare to turn around. It's like her feet are frozen stuck to the ground.
"I'm sure you're familiar with demon soldiers" the person behind her muses, a dark warning to her otherwise calm tone. She grabs Chepi's arm, and the fairy can barely move at all in an attempt to rip herself free. "Pretend like none of this ever happened and I'll let you live" Chepi still doesn't dare to turn around, so instead she watches the goblin kid hesitate for a moment. It's quiet and tense, as nobody dares to move. Chepi's heartbeat picks up when she notices the boy slowly reaching for the golden bell again.
"I wouldn't do that" Anemone laughs, stopping him in his tracks. "I could slaughter every guard in this village in less than a minute, do you understand that? But I'll kill you first, so hands off that bell and let us walk without a disturbance. I can't let anyone know we were here, you see" Her words match her intense stare, and even though she laughed a little she still sounds dead serious. The kid nods, slowly, and drags his hand away from the golden bell. He gives Chepi one last look and then turns around to fumble in his chest of things, pretending not to see them.
Anemone nods, satisfied. She drags Chepi towards her, suddenly, and the fairy startles with a small yelp. "I told you, didn't I?" She muses, sounding awfully happy. "I told you that if you'd run, I'd chase and catch you"
Chepi looks down at her feet, eyes wide with shock. No thought is able to enter her brain and she feels like she can't move or think or breathe properly at all. How has she, the almightiest of almighty escape-artists, managed to get caught for the second time in one day? How has her every last escape-attempt failed? All of these methods have worked in the past! They are solid, proven, perfect methods for escaping! How could this demon have figured them all out? Chepi can't think of anything right now. Her brain feels scrambled, and it's almost like the demon can sense it, too. Because she chuckles under her breath.
"You're coming with me"
Suddenly, another heavy presence surrounds the both of them, making the air feel both lighter and heavier at the same time.
"You mean us, Anemone"
Chepi hears Anemone scoff under her breath, quietly enough only for the two of them to hear. But she can't think anymore. She can't think because why is Evangeline here? Wouldn't Anemone only be here if she killed Evangeline? How are they both here, at the same time, still breathing and quite (sadly) alive? It doesn't make any sense! She shakes her head, already feeling the dread gathering in her stomach. She's going to be sick.
"Yeah, yeah. For now. Us."
Evangeline grabs her other arm, and Chepi doesn't dare to look up at her either. The taller archangel leans down to her ear.
"You didn't think you'd get rid of me that easily, right?" Chepi can practically feel the uncharacteristic smile of the archangel against her neck. She shudders. The angel chuckles once. "Don't worry, little princess. I'll be the one to take you out of here in the end, not that demon"
Chepi wants to slam herself against a wall, choke and die.
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