Annabelle lay there in the sand, gasping for air as her heart pounded, certain that she was caught yet again. Over the past three months, four maybe -- she'd lost track of time -- she'd escaped her captors six times, only to be caught within hours or, twice, days afterward. She'd been kept in elegant confinement in a guarded tower, tossed into a dungeon cell, shackled to a number of stone wall or sturdy trees, and finally locked up inside that dreaded box. 

That last bit of confinement had been the worse as [i]Annie[/i], as her friends and family had called her, had never liked the sea. Not once in the dozen or so times that she'd been out on the ocean had she not gotten sick over the railing or into a bucket near her stateroom's bed. She [i]hated[/i] the water, unlike the man who was now approaching her over the dry sand.

She opened her eyes again to look up at him and realized that she didn't recognize him. She'd assumed that he'd been one of the crew of the doomed ship, tossed overboard with her and the others when the boat slammed into a rocky shoal well hidden under the coastal swells.

But one look at him told Annie that he was neither sailor nor soldier. He [i]did[/i] carry a bow and a dagger, but neither of them were similar to those weapons she'd regularly seen on the ship or even in the previous locations in which she'd been held.

He asked her bluntly, "[i]What the fuck?[/i]"

She sat up and looked up and down the beach for the same thing he had: survivors. She was also looking for his [i]cohort[/i], presuming that he played some part in the men to whom Annie was being sold. She looked up to him and asked in her native tongue, [i]"Mae henui? Mae henui a 'ú? A 'ú Gorthin?[/i]"

The man just stared at her for a moment, during which Annie translated her question into the Common Tongue that she assumed -- correctly -- that he spoke: "Who are you? Who are you with? Are you Gorthin?"

Annie grimaced suddenly as a sharp pain shot through her head. Reaching a hand upward and pressing the ball of her palm to her temple, her fingers brushed her hair upward from her ear ... from her [i]pointy, Elvish ear.[/i]