"Hello,"
Not a monster drenched in blood, but a man with concealed features beneath a red cloak and a bow slinging over his shoulder. He did not bother to dismount and chose to loom over Adela's head saying that one word with a low resonant voice. She found the dominance that layered his curtness suitable somehow.
That was until he uncovered his head.
"…You?"
Prominent chin, a squared jawline, and the same big hawk-like brown eyes that glared down at her earlier. Under any other circumstances, Adela would have immediately recognized the man she had met that same morning even before she saw his masculine facial features and dark complexion, for he had that same one-of-a-kind mahogany cloak that screamed of wealth and power.
Never in her life was she more relieved to be around noblemen.
"Adela…Argh…Adela…"
Without getting the chance to return the curt greeting she received, her eyes drifted to meet her knight's pathetic state. She thought he had regained consciousness at first, but she soon realized that he was hallucinating with fever when she saw all the sweat on his face.
"Adela..."
Laying against his stomach on the back of the white stallion, Arkin kept mumbling her name.
"Get on," The foreigner commanded with an annoyed tone and an outstretched gloved hand her way.
She froze in her place, her eyes glued to his hand, The faster she had to think the more difficult it was for her to make up her mind on whether she should keep up with the pretense of being a commoner or reveal her identity.
They cannot be rebels… I will not be jeopardized...
Lacking both, the time and the leisure to feign ignorance when it comes to horseback riding, Adela found no other way but to act according to her noble upbringing. She took the foreigner's hand and pulled most of her weight up by herself as she mounted the chestnut stallion in an impeccable yet stiff side saddle. It was a long shot, but she preferred not to touch the man behind her unless she absolutely had to.
"Lean back," He commanded vehemently.
Not a single hair on her head moved, "...I will get mud on you, my lord,"
She gasped when he wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her closer until she was pressed against the firmness of his wide chest, enough to feel the string of his bow pushing into her flesh.
Remembering the lives that bow took effortlessly, she shuddered.
"Is my attire more important than the life of a man willing to die for you, my lady,"
Her lips parted as she was about to make an adequate comeback to his rhetorical question and formally introduce herself now that her cover was blown, "Hah!" She gasped louder this time as she found herself pressed more into him when his horse reared up and then charged into a gallop.
While it should have been extremely hard for her to side straddle with the speed they traveled with, his arm around her waist secured her in her place like a prison of comfortable steel. Never in her life had she trusted her body to someone like this, yet she never once feared falling as they blurred their way inside the path that winded through the dimly lit forest.
Anxious for his safety, she kept on throwing glances back at Arkin and squinting in an attempt to see his face, she could not be sure about it, but he seemed to have lost consciousness once more.
My situation might be worse than his at the moment…
It was against herself, the momentary loss of what was happening around her because of how aware she was of the man whose name she was yet to learn. The physical embodiment of nameless emotions erupting in unknown depths located close to her heart spread rhythmically through her abdominal parts. She had ridden with Arkin on a horse before, but it was nothing like this.
Was it the lack of armor on him? Or was it how freely he was able to touch her and keep his hand there?
She could not ignore the way his skin seemed to burn into hers through their clothes and wondered if the memory of that burn will remain once the ride is over. It was unnerving and untimely. It felt indecent and wrong. And all in all, it felt dangerous.
It felt good.
Her immoral epiphany was too strong to ignore even under the current wretched circumstances. In the strong arms of the foreigner, Adelaide de Lanark never felt more like a woman before.
Just when both, the darkness that covered their path and her proximity to him were about to become unbearable, the white stallion behind them whined, and their stallion came to a sudden stop.
He released his grip around her, and she felt him turning back.
"Andreas, take his armor off while I start the torch,"
The sound and smell of water were music to her ears. She dismounted the horse on her own and tried but failed to make sense of her surroundings for there was as much light as one would get in the middle of a new moon's night.
"My lady, once you face the North Star, you can find clean water ten feet away from you. Mind your footsteps, it rained last night,"
She glanced around hearing the words of the kind rider, but she neither saw him nor the ground that was too dark around her. She lifted her head up high and tried to locate the brightest star in the sky as he told her.
There you are...
Facing Polaris, she took the ten steps he asked her to and then added five of her own, she was ecstatic to reach a stream of water that shyly glittered once getting close enough to almost touch it. Crouching down, she ran a hand in the cold water wondering how many springs float unappreciated by her people in this forest and provide life to an ungrateful Lanark.
The stream was suddenly illuminated a bright red as if it had caught magic after her touch, but the crackling sounds around her were those of a torch, she glanced up to see the flame the foreigner lit as he held it out high for his friend. Both of them carried Arkin where she sat.
"Thank you, gentlemen," appreciation was heavy in her murmurs when they placed him down, but her eyes never left Arkin long enough to exchange further pleasantries with their rescuers.
Her basket was lost along the way, but herbs would not do him well anyhow, all she had to do was clean his wounds and then bandage them.
I need some clean cloth...
She looked around her desperately for a solution before her eyes circled back to her own clothes, the only clean thing she still had on was her undergarments. Adela was suddenly thankful for the dim light as she planned ahead.
I have to remove the poison first…
Unconscious and in pain, shades of red reflected off the knight's pale face as she checked the depth of his poisoned wound and the rest of his body for other vivid cuts.
It is but one wound! She fought back tears of pure pride, if it were not for her father, Arkin would have been the strongest man in all of Emoria. She scooped the clean water in her palm and let it drip slowly over his shirt, repeating that many times and brushing a tender hand over his forehead every time he winced.
"Shhh...You will be okay,"
With talented hands, Lady de Lanark began washing her knight's wound until she was sure that there were no traces left of the minty-smelling poison, her relief was almost palpable when she saw his contorted face finally relaxing.
Lifting her head up for the first time in a while, she saw that her rescuers had planted the torch in the ground at an ideal distance. The flames were blinding, and she had no idea whether they were looking at her or not.
There is no way around it...
She unwrapped her shawl from around her neck and draped it over her arm — constructing what she hoped would be a barrier between herself and the two men — then lifted her muddied skirt and checked the state of her undergarments.
They should do…
Try as she may, it was an impossible task to tear the inner layer with one hand. She let go of her shawl mourning the loss of her flimsy barrier, held the fabric with both hands and tore a piece off with a loud shredding sound. She swallowed down the wave of disgrace that washed over her and continued to shred exposing more of her skin that looked pink under the flame.
A job well done. She complimented her handiwork and tried to forget all about her fall from grace, the bandage was long enough to wrap around Arkin's shoulder sufficiently. She made sure that each layer covered a part of the previous one she made and then finished by securing the end firmly and hoping it would end the loss of blood.
The sigh Adela let out was embarrassingly loud because of how quiet it was in the very depth of a forest she never dreamed of exploring. The lady lowered her dirty skirt and then washed her hands in the stream dutifully to rid her skin of Arkin's blood, never quite feeling clean no matter how much she scrubbed them.