Private Tales The Lost Princess and The Exiled Prince

[Arun]

This time Arun opened his eyes.

A smile touched his face as he saw Maeve laying against the deck, her face scrunched up and pressing the wood as she quietly began to snore. "Ah yes."

The Elf mused to himself.

"The best form of meditation there." The words were more for himself than her of course, but he couldn't help but smile. His eyes closed after a few seconds more, and then he simply continued to meditate.

She would wake up eventually.

He would mock her then.

 

[Maeve]

It was actually rather pleasant sleeping under the warm sun on the porch. She had loved the comforts of a feather bed but she had grown almost accustomed to sleeping on the floor and found she slept just as well. She wasn't entirely sure how long she had been asleep when her eyes finally opened. The Wind was playing lazily with her hair like a mother might a child whilst she slept, though when it noticed she was awake it fled. With a yawn she sat up and stretched, glancing to her now cold cup of tea with a sigh.

"How did I do..." she rubbed the sleep from her eyes and offered him a lazy, tired smile.

 

[Arun]

"Badly, I'm afraid." Arun said as he opened his eyes and peered down at her. Head shook from side to side.

She had tried, that was something at least. He had met many who would just give up in the first five seconds when they couldn't get their mind to focus and clear. It could be an incredibly frustrating experience, especially for the unquiet mind.

"I believe what you did is called a 'nap'." The Common tongue was so strange. "So.."

Arun smirked down at her.

 

[Maeve]

Maeve had never heard the word nap before and for a moment she stared at him as if he had just snorted or made some odd hacking noise in the back of his throat. Her brows pulled down as she tried to link the word to what she had done and then to the word in her own tongue. A flicker of understanding.

"Néal, Nap," saying the two beside one another was like singing and spitting. "I see," a smile touched her lips now she understood the joke and she ran a hand through her tangled red mane.

"Is it not the purpose of meditation to relax? Well I relax by sleeping," she returned her own smirk.

 

[Arun]

"I suppose that is one interpretation." Arun agreed with a nod of his head. For himself it was not meant to just relax. He needed to meditate in order to keep his mind clear, to keep what whispered there at bay.

He did not tell her as such of course, it would only settle a new kind of fear in her. Best to avoid the subject.

She'd had enough unpleasantness. "I will hunt for you today."

Arun told her.

"I would ask you to accompany me, but I suspect it would not end well." He still rather doubted that she would even make it down the tree at this point.

 

[Maeve]

"I'm still not sure if I trust a vegetarian to hunt my dinner," Maeve looked him up and down a bit more openly critical than she had been the night before when she was tired and hungry. She had the cockiness of youth about her now she was beginning to find her feet a little more. It had been a trait that had served to win her beatings in her first few days but not one they had apparently successfully crushed.

"Is there anything I can do while you're gone?" she couldn't argue with his logic despite herself. If she hadn't been able to stay awake during meditation then she very much doubted that she would have been able to do much else. But the idea of doing nothing at all felt wrong.

He had opened his home to her after all.

 

[Arun]

He smiled up at her. "We will see what the fruits of my labor bring you."

Arun was careful not to say 'us'. His people rarely ate animals of any sort, but it happened at feasts and other events from time to time. He himself though hadn't had a single piece of another life in near a hundred and fifty years.

Even before his exile he had become more strict, for the exact same reason his mother had needed to teach him to meditate.

"Perhaps begin a fire in the stove." The fireplace would of course not work. "There is wood in the cabinet, and other than that..."

He shrugged. "Perhaps educate yourself on the Falwood. I have many books, though only a few are in common."

Most were in elvish of course.

 

[Maeve]

The face Maeve pulled probably indicated her opinions on reading in Common but she nodded nevertheless. She did enjoy learning it was just the way these people wrote gave her a headache with their harsh bold strikes. There was no elegance to it, no skill.

"Remember, the pointy end of the arrow goes in the animal," she said it slowly as if she were talking to a small child, even putting her hands on her thighs and bending down a little in a patronising gesture. She smothered the smile that threatened to twist at her lips then stood and wandered back into the house. As she left the Wind swirled about the elf with a musical laugh.

 

[Arun]

"What kind of a savage uses arrows to hunt?" Arun called back as he wandered to the edge of the platform. Wind swirled around, whipping his long red hair around his head for a brief moment.

The entity, whatever it was, set the thing in his head ill-at ease. Arun ignored it, he always did, but for whatever reason it did not like the wind. He frowned for just a brief moment, and then shook his head as he half turned.

Then he simply jumped.

Arun disappeared over the edge of the Porch, and if she looked back his form would already be gone within the trees. It took two hours for him to return, the sun standing high in the air and casting on the little Tree Cottage as the sound of heavier than usual boots struck the wood.

On his shoulder the Elf carried a creature that looked much like a deer save for two odd curling horns raising from it's head. Noticeably, there were no bloody marks upon it's skin.

 

[Maeve]

The fire on the stove hadn't been too much of a trouble but she hadn't been able to bring herself to pick up a book. Even looking at the titles had made her feel tired. Instead she had set about cleaning the cottage. In fairness it hadn't needed that much tidying per see but the floor definitely hadn't been mopped in god knows how long and she was positively horrified by the dust on the bookshelves. When she had run out of things to clean she had finally picked up a book and as she had predicted she had fallen asleep almost instantly.

The sounds of boots outside woke her and her hand curled upon the sword she had fetched from the other room before she had settled down - just in case.

He returns, returns, returns...

Maeve sighed and released the blade as the Wind dispersed about the room then stood to go and see if he needed any help. There was a flicker of genuine surprise when she saw the animal; she hadn't thought he would return with anything quite so large especially if it was only for her.

"Do you need any help?" she leaned against the door frame assuming he wouldn't gut the thing in his livingroom.

 

[Arun]

He raised an eyebrow at the sword in her hand. "Not with that, no."

The Long-Knives, as his people called them were not really meant for carving animals. They had been created for the butchery of man, and not beast. A frown touched his face as he wondered if she realized how many men those blades had killed.

He opened his mouth to speak, and then quickly closed it as he realized it was a topic that neither of them likely wanted to discuss.

"You could help me skin it." He told her. "Though only if you are able to keep in tact."

Arun refused to let any part of this creature go to waste.

 

[Maeve]

Her eyes dropped to where his had travelled and she flicked the blade over her hand with surprising skill and pointed it back down at the floor rather than in an aggressive stance.

"I..." she looked a mix of angry, embarrassed and guilty as she turned her face away from him. It would have been a surprise if anyone but he had come to see her here but she had needed the comfort of a weapon in her hands to settle her nerves whilst he was away.

She swallowed the hard lump in her throat and returned her attention to the creature he had over his shoulder.

"I can skin," everyone in her tribe could. "Every part of an animal was used by my people.... but I have never seen one like that before."

 

[Arun]

"Excellent." He declared and then motioned with one hand over his shoulder for her to follow him.

"You can leave that there." Arun said, not wanting the blade around him. "I have another more suited to the task."

He waited for Maeve to follow him out the door and wandered over to a long table that stood opposite the tub on the other end of the porch. A leather pouch sat upon it, though it looked as though no one had touched it in years.

Lugging the deer like creature onto the table Arun turned back to Maeve. "This is a Falwood Rei. They are not too different than Deer or Gazelle."

Their anatomy was similar at least.

"The flavor, I've been told, is very much like Chicken though." An odd creature to be sure.

 

[Maeve]

Maeve dutifully set the sword back down before following him outside, glad that he didn't further push at her reasoning for having it in the first place. As she walked she rolled up her sleeves in an anticipation for getting her hands dirty. The tribal tattoos that were on her face matched the one on her left wrist that ran up to her elbow and could be seen on her right arm just below the elbow before disappearing further up the sleeve.

She stood at the other end of the table to him and ran her hand over the animal's coat, behind the ears, looking for some kind of wound but there was none. She frowned.

"Did you kill it with magic?" her gaze flicked up to his.

 

[Arun]

"Yes." He confirmed with a nod of his head. "It's faster than an arrow, or a knife."

Less cruel in his eyes. The Spell he'd woven had been quick, painless.

The leather pouch at his end of the table was unfurled to quickly reveal half a dozen different knives. All of them were beautifully crafted, handles made of some sort of wood while the blades were engraved with Elvish scroll. "Here."

He said, offering her a filleting knife.

"This will do." Arun said confidently.

 

[Maeve]

Maeve took the blade with upmost care once more not to brush her fingers against him before withdrawing the knife back to her side of the table where she relaxed again.

"They're well made," she balanced it on her finger for a moment and then let it flip across three fingers before catching it by the handle. Her attention turned back to the animal on the table and then she set about her job. It was good to be doing something with her hands again that she knew how to do. Hunting was what her people were famous for. The large Winter and Summer Hunts they organised drew Tribes from across the Isles together in times of peace.

It was surprising how quickly it came back to her and soon the skin hung in one piece ready to be treated. She set the knife down.

"Do you have one for gutting?"

 

[Arun]

Arun offered her another knife. "They were forged by Therolin of Vol."

The Elf explained.

"He was a renowned Blacksmith." One of the few left among the Elves when Arun had been born. "After the last war he swore to never create either sword or bow."

With a deft hand Arun handed her the gutting knife. "He has stuck to his promise, creating mainly horseshoes and the like. A few times he has been convinced to great other tools like this."

The oath did not extend to carving knives.

 

[Maeve]

Maeve listened as she helped turn the creature over onto its side and then slid the blade with only a small amount of effort into the creatures belly to gut it over the carefully placed bucket which caught the mix of liquids that spilled out of the wound. Once the river slowed to a dribble she stuck her arm inside up to the elbow and cleared out the rest with care, separating what could be used from what couldn't.

"It must have been a bad war if your Smith refused to Make anymore," she raised her eyes over the carcass to the man opposite briefly before her arm slid in right to the shoulder. When she was satisfied she passed the blade back to him and wiped her arm on a towel whilst inspecting the animal.

"Are you eating this too?" it might change how she carved it up.

 

[Arun]

Arun carefully cleaned the blade with a piece of cloth as well as some water, ensuring that every spec of blood was gone before quickly replacing it within the small leather satchel.

"No." He answered her last question first.

Meat was one of those things that made his head creep to the darker places. He had always preferred a vegetarian diet anyway, at least...well, it did not matter now. He smiled at her, apparently not at all offended by the work of butchery.

"The war was difficult for us." He explained. "We Elves do not...procreate as quickly as your kind."

It was the most polite way he could put it. "There was much death on both sides, but I'm afraid the effects lingered longer for us."

Though that had not been the only reason The Smith had sworn off his craft.

Arun had been the other.

 

[Maeve]

Maeve paused as she reached for the next knife.

That wasn't something she had known beforehand nor one she had really thought about. But, it made sense in the nature of things that those who lived longer wouldn't be able to produce as quickly. She guessed the world would be overrun if they had as many children who lived for millennia. Mae made a face that suggested she considered the information interesting before she took the knife designed for carving and set about cutting the animal up in her preferred way.

"You keep mentioning the Anirian's - what are they?" her head tilted curiously to the side but she didn't stop what she was doing.

 

[Arun]

He frowned a brief moment, clearly not favoring the conversation topic. "Vel Anir is a city far to the North of here."

Arun closed his eyes for just a second, remembering what the walls had looked like as they besieged the great fortress. He remembered the smell, the burning if the great Treants, the corpses. Lips thinned to a line as he continued.

"Over the centuries they have expanded their holds beyond jus their own walls." Such was the way of Kingdoms he supposed. "Many cities now fall beneath their influence, and the people on those lands are called Anirians."

He frowned again, then continued. "They are humans, and until recently they held a deep resentment for my people."

Though why that was Arun had never really understood. His father had always claimed it was jealousy. Envy of the long lives of the elves and their natural gifts. Arun had never been as sure.

 

[Maeve]

Was that why the elves had treated her so badly?

She frowned as she listened to his words. There were not many races on the Isles, Fae and Humans, but she had never really considered a hatred towards the Fae. One in particular, yes, but not the race as a whole. It seemed absurd. Even now she wouldn't say she hated all elves. Perhaps she would be a little more wary with them but she was wary with humans too.

"I'm sorry," she said after a while of silence and finished off her final cut. There were bits for stew, steaks, roasting. Mae set the knife down and then reached for one of the cloths that hung nearby to wipe her hands.

"War is never nice no matter the reason. But over something neither of you can control seems a pretty stupid one."

 

[Arun]

Arun shrugged his shoulders. "It was not mine to question then, and now it feels too late."

For most humans it was two lifetimes ago, for him...not even a third of his time on this world had passed. The memories still ran deep, the pain of it still sticking in his mind. He had often wondered if what was why he'd allowed himself to be exiled.

Not the thing in his head, but just a way to deal with the pain.

It was a pipe dream of course, Arun knew why he was here, knew why he had to isolate himself. His father would have used it. They all would have.

"People are fickle." He said quietly. "Even those who live a thousand years."

He lingered for a moment in the silence, then spoke. "Do you have a cut you prefer to eat?"

 

[Maeve]

It was actually oddly comforting to know that no matter how old you got or how long you lived that people would always be the same in some way. It was just built into them to be that way. It made them easier to predict. Maeve blinked at his question once as she came out of the tunnel of thoughts she had been running down before looking back down at the meat before her.

"Ah, no. I like them all in different ways. I'm not a particularly fussy eater," the soup yesterday had tasted exquisite, though whether that was because she had not eaten properly for a month she wasn't entirely sure.

"You don't have to cook it if you don't eat it," she frowned. It seemed unfair to slave away on something then not even sample it for himself.

 

[Arun]

"It is a hobby." Over the last century Arun had picked up dozens of them.

It had been a way to keep busy with his own mind, allowed him to draw focus from the more violent urges and instead do something productive. He smiled, reaching over and grabbing one of the more steakier cuts before turning towards the kitchens.

"Oh." He said with a frown, then half turned around and simply snapped his fingers.

As soon as he did the table that she was standing besides seemed to warp for a moment, almost opening up and...eating the meat. "Preservation box."

He explained, as though that would somehow be enough.