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[h1][color=D4F0FF] Bodil Bera [/color][/h1]
[hider=Trying Not To Slip Into The Fear] [youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6C3ND1nitRs[/youtube][/hider]
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Bodil felt him before she saw him. An intense and intimidating aura like smoke tendrils wrapping around her with all the desire in the world to choke out her flickering mortal flame. She swallowed harshly, willing her lung to move no matter what. Drowning in fear is not something the brave did. And she would be brave. Her eyes could not tear themselves away from the wraith of a male who pressed down on her as if she were something under his heel to be crushed. He unsheathed his blade and she dared not look away nor blink nor even move. Gold pins from the gaze the burned to kill would have kept her there anyway.

He spoke words in a lithing language she did not understand, but she could guess from that posture and the gleam of his blade. It seemed that her very realistic revolt to being kidnapped, spirited away and then forced into a meat market wasn't very polite. The dark-haired woman's round eyes narrowed a bit. [i]Screw politeness! They had no right to do this![/i] She had only just escaped one form of enslavement, she didn't need another to take its place! The cold bite of the barest tip of the blade against her skin made her shudder, but her glare did not soften. Her breathing hitched, whether from fear or anger she did not know. Even if she was shaking in her boots, she would not cower! 

With a flicker of surprised curiosity as the wraith spoke to her, Bodil blinked but did not back down. And then a glimmer of the monster she knew he was surfaced. It ripped through her like a warrior on the rampage, and while it left her waxen and passed through her with a shiver, she refused to let it show on her face. Her heart could burst from fear, but she would not falter in front of his eyes. Bodil glowered at the wolf, but could not hide her shock when his blade struck her chains and freed her. The sudden release made her stumble a bit, every inch of her mortal self like a child dwarfed under the looming warrior. She rubbed her wrists.

It was the lordly King's turn to try and press her to the ground. His words were like the whispering chill of the wind, whereas his hound's had been the shuddering growl of a beast. And where his beastly warrior held wild and ravaging handsomeness captive, the monarch held the chilling beauty of something completely foreign and silently destructive. His form at one moment was far away and at the next, he was standing before her. Bodil flinched but she had no chance to get away when the cold slender fingers of his bare hand wrapped around her neck. He said she was not a slave, but without choice or will to live free, wild animals had more rights to themselves than she or the others. 

Lifted up, Bodil's face was inches from the hissing king and all his piercing and painful beauty. Her hands grasped the beautiful but strangling hand that held her up in the air, lips parting to struggle for air. This king bit into more with the closeness of his words and visage than any biting animal could. In his talons, as he snapped at her, and yet he said he was no falcon! Run? He didn't have to tell her twice. But he would be sorely mistaken if he thought she would return to him! "I..." she gasped, "do not...belong...to you!"

There lay the core of it. She would not be owned. And when he dropped her, she hit the floor painfully and with a short-lived cry. Lean arms and strong but slender legs scrambled up to set Bodil on her own two feet. Her dark hair ruffled from her tumble and her petite body held as straight and proud as any warrior. With one last glare at the man-handling fae, she lept off center stage with every grace of a dancer and with the speed of a newly released sparrow. And she ran.

Bodil might not be brave in the eyes of the Fae, but she was strong and bold enough to defy them. She did not bend to her fear, but struggled, grappled and rose above it. Others could scorn her battle all they liked, but in the end, they were still bound to the market and she was given a taste of freedom. And even just a taste was enough, for it was more than none at all. Breakneck speed her feet carried her, straight through the door of the decaying palace of horrors that belonged to the Collector. She flew with every strong elegance of a leaping doe and sailed past the iron suits. With arms, legs and blood pumping, she finally smiled.

 And that smile was like the breaking sun on the most ominous, dark and cloudy day.[/center]