Killian rose slowly and quietly from within the thick underbrush and aimed his notched arrow. He'd expected the buck to emerge from behind the big Fir tree beyond which it had been feeding at any second. And yet three or four minutes had passed with Killian seeing nothing more than the tips of the buck's big rack shaking about as he nibbled the grass.

His arms were beginning to tremble, and he was about to return the bow to an idle state when suddenly his prey stepped forward and presented its neck. Killian let the arrow fly, watching it whiz over the underbrush, between the two big Firs, and – because of his trembling, exhausted arms – over the buck's neck and off into the forest.

The buck leapt upwards at the surprise and bolted away. Killian quickly snatched another arrow from the quiver hanging at his hip, notched it, and aimed for a second shot. He wouldn’t have the chance to get it, though.

He stood and walked forward, beginning the search for his wayward arrow. He could have just let it go, but arrows didn't grow on trees.

He'd traveled through over two hundred feet of forest before he found the arrow stuck in an old rotting tree. He cocked his head at a new sound, listened for a moment, and realized it was the crashing of waves upon the seashore.

Killian loved the sea but only from on the shore. He'd never been on a sea going boat, unlike his grandfather who’d been a merchant sailor all his life. Still, Killian enjoyed the sand and the smell of the salt in the air and even wading into the surf and feeling the waves slam into him.

He continued onward, abandoning the hunt and emerged from the treeline to a very unexpected sight: the wreck of a merchant vessel on the reef just a couple of dozen yards off shore.

Just as interesting, though, was a large crate sitting in the surf, being battered by the waves. It appeared to have breathing holes along the top edge and was large enough to hold perhaps a dozen goat kids or other animals of such bulk.

Killian looked for survivors of the shipwreck. He saw a half dozen bodies littering the beach in both directions but saw no one seemingly alive. Taking the animals while crew and/or owners were still alive was, of course, a crime. But if there were no survivors to speak of, such taking was considered legal salvage.

Killian stripped off his quiver and pack, then hurried down to the crate to see what treasures – living or otherwise – might be his. He checked for locks but found only clasps with pins through them.

“So, who's inside here?” he joked softly to the animals as he unfastened the clasps and opened the gate just enough to peek inside. He added, “And will I be eating you tonight or milking you so that Stella can make cheese?”

(OOC: For the image below, imagine her in the "box", not on a ship's deck.)

“So, who's inside here?” a male voice asked from outside the crate as it was jostled about in the surf. He asked, “And will I be eating you tonight or milking you so that Stella can make cheese?”

Just as he unfastened the last hook, the door smacked hard against him, sending him backwards into the surf. As a wave washed over him, Annabelle rushed out of the box, losing her footing and falling into the same waves as had he. She struggled back to her feet and ran for shore. She hadn't been able to see much from behind the breathing holes, but she'd seen enough to know that there was a thick forest just thirty or forty yards up the beach.

She made it to the wet sand, then the dry, but she was exhausted from weeks of ill-treatment and very quickly ran out of oomph. She fell to her knees, struggled back to her feet, made it a few yards more, then fell once again. This time, though, she couldn't get up. Instead, Annabelle rolled to her side, closed her eyes, and waited for the worst. The man certainly couldn't milk her but killing her with or without eating her was still quite a possibility.

(OOC -- And you can imagine my guy in a forest in that first post and now on the beach. Context, context, context. ;))

Killian most certainly hadn't expected to find a person inside the crate. In turn, he most certainly hadn't expected to get smacked in the face by the door. The strike was so hard that it threw him back into the surf, nearly unconscious.

He regained his senses, rising out of the waves to cough out vast amounts of seawater. Another wave hit him, then a third and a fourth. Finally, Killian rose from his knees to his feet. He wobbled back and forth, the swimming brain and moving water confusing him.

Eventually, he caught sight of the woman running up the beach. She wasn't having much more luck that Killian was in remaining standing. He looked into the crate, finding what might have been clothes and a blanket or two. A bucket was half submerged. He would realize later that it had been a shit bucket.

It didn't take a genius to understand that the woman had been being held captive in the box. Killian started up the beach toward her, only just now seeing the shackles on her wrists. He reached his gear and donned it once more. Then, moving toward her, he asked rather bluntly, "What the fuck?"

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 Annie, 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 hated 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 did 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, "What the fuck?"

She sat up and looked up and down the beach for the same thing he had: survivors. She was also looking for his cohort, 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, "Mae henui? Mae henui a 'ú? A 'ú Gorthin?"

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 pointy, Elvish ear.

Killian caught the woman checking his weapons. He didn't think much of it except that she simply did it. He had no reason to think she was judging him as being from her ship or not. He mistakenly assumed that she knew he wasn't.

She sat up, looking up and down the beach. Killian assumed she was looking for other survivors. He was about to tell her he'd found none.

Then she spoke in a tongue he didn't know. "Mae henui? Mae henui a 'ú? A 'ú Gorthin?"

Killian just stared, unsure of what she was asking. He'd heard a lot of languages in his life. This one was not like any of them.

She then spoke in barely comprehensible Common, asking, "Who are you? Who are you with? Are you Gorthin?"

“Um, my name is Killian,” he answered. “I'm not really with anyone.”

Killian had heard of the Gorthin, of course. They were a wealthy and sometimes ruthless Family. Despite not being Nobility or Royalty, they held great power in the Republic of Yalla.

He was concerned, of course, about her connection to the Gorthin. She was shackled and being transported in a box by sea. Killian doubted very much that she was an honored guest of the Gorthin.

She had to be their captive. She'd either been bought or was about to be. And if she was, it was incumbent on Killian to make sure she was turned over to them. To not do so could mean him losing a finger or worse.

The woman suddenly grimaced and grasped her head. In doing so, she inadvertently pulled her hair back and revealed a pointy ear.

Killian freaked out, withdrawing a couple of steps in panic. He took a bad step and fell to his ass in the dry sand as he again exclaimed, “What the fuck!”

He rolled away and scrambled to his feet. Pulling his danger, he spoke the obvious, “You’re an Elf! An Elf! What the hell? Who are you…?”

The Human introduced himself as Killian, then – when Annie accidentally exposed the pointy ear hidden beneath her mass of hair – stumbled back and hit the ground. Annie looked around in her own bit of panic; she didn't realize that she'd revealed her true nature, so her first thought was that some other danger, such as the Gorthin, had suddenly appeared.

But explanation came when he asked and then stated, “What the fuck! You’re an Elf! An Elf! What the hell? Who are you…?”

Annie caught Killian staring not into her eyes but a bit to one side. Suddenly, realizing what had happened, she reached up and pulled at her overgrown hair to again hide the pointed ear beneath.

Then, just as an embarrassed Human might, Annie blushed a deep red; she only now consciously realized that she'd spoken to Killian in Elvish. An iestannen, she chastised in silence, calling herself stupid.

She'd made her mistake out of exhaustion and confusion, but there was nothing to be done about that now, so she moved on.

“My name is Annabelle f’Allordan f’Gree f’Aw f’Pewn,” she explained, her Elvish accent becoming especially obvious during the introduction. Then, after giving Killian a moment to consider all of that, she emphasized “Princess Annabelle f’Allordan f’Gree f’Aw f’Pewn … of the House of Fenwater.”

Again she gave Killian a moment, then continued, “I have been kidnapped and held in chains for three, maybe four moons … the purpose being to be sold to the Gorthin Family for reasons unknown to me.”

That wasn't entirely true, of course. Annie knew the reason for which the Gorthins wanted her: Magic. She could use it, of course, due to being an Elf, and they wished to exploit it due to being power hungry criminals.

Annie held her shackled hands up before her, asking, “Can you get me free of these, please?”

“My name is Annabelle f’Allordan f’Gree f’Aw f’Pewn,” the Elf explained.

Killian stared silently at her. He couldn't believe what he was hearing. He wouldn't believe what he was hearing. Elves simply didn't come to the Republic of Yalla. Hell, they didn't come to any place because they weren't even supposed to exist anymore. (map, lower right)

The Elves had died out long before Killian was born. Before his father or grandfather or great-grandfather had been born. At least that was what his father had raised him to believe. Oh, sure, when he'd been a boy, Killian had once seen the skeleton of an Elf. His father had paid a penny each for them to see it at the Traveling Oddities show in the next town over from where they'd lived.

The proprietor purported the skeleton to be that of an Elf who had only recently been captured, killed, and boiled down to its skeletal frame. But Killian's father had told him otherwise after studying it for a long moment.

"It's just a deformed Human skull mixed with Human and animal bones," he'd reassured his son. "It's what makes it look different. Taller, stronger ... scarier. It's a farse, and I'm going to get our pennies back."

No one had seen an Elf one in more than three or four centuries to the best of Killian's knowledge. Hell, most people thought they'd never existed in the first place.

When Killian didn't respond to her other than to simply stare in shock, the Elf emphasized “Princess Annabelle f’Allordan f’Gree f’Aw f’Pewn … of the Royal House of Fenwater.”

"Princess?" he responded, finally able to form a word. "How ... how ... how--"

He wasn't getting anywhere, obviously, so she continued, “I have been kidnapped and held in chains for three, maybe four moons … the purpose being to be sold to the Gorthin Family for reasons unknown to me.”

Annie had her own opinions as to the Gorthin's intentions: Magic Killian laughed aloud and offered his own opinion. "Because they are powerful and wealthy and ruthless ... and anything valuable or interesting or unique in this world upon which they can possibly lay their hands--"

Killian's gaze lowered to her body as he finished, "--they will lay their hands, no matter the cost."

Killian finally let his eyes take in the Elf's form for the first time since approaching her. He would have thought her to be just another beautiful Human woman if he hadn't seen her ear. Very beautiful Human woman, he thought to himself.

She had incredibly wonderful curves in all the right places. Her clothes emphasized that point. They were still wet from her adventure in the box in the surf. The thin fabric was pasted to those wonderful curves emphasizing her body. Her hourglass figure, her generous bosom, her large nipples which so conspicuously pressed forward for his viewing.

She lofted her shackled hands before her, asking, “Can you get me free of these, please?”

"No," Killian said without even thinking. Then, actually thinking, he continued, "No, no, no, no, no. Uh-uh, no I can't."

Annie obviously didn't understand his answer and responded as she felt due. Killian explained, "No, you're ... you belong to the Gorthins. They'd skin me alive if I let you go. No, sorry, but ... I have to take you to them. If I don't..."

He'd already explained that, of course, so he didn't repeat himself. Killian looked up and down the beach again. There was no one else alive there with them. He was certain that at least one crew member from the vessel would have survived and would be coming here to claim the Elf. But no. It was just the two of them.

"Listen, I'm sorry," he said, looking back to Annie. "I understand that this is not right. You know, you being chained and a prisoner and being sold. I mean, no one should have that done to them. But ... well ... I'm not a brave man! I mean, I am! I was in the Guard, and I did fight in battle.

"But that was just war," he continued. "There were rules and there was chivalry. The Gorthins! They know nothing of these things."

(Map)

In contrast to what Killian was thinking about them, the Elven Race was still very much alive and well in their ancient homeland of The Fenwater. Well, alive they most certainly were, but well was a matter of debate. For a thousand years, the Elves had been hunted by the other Races of the Known World, resulting in them hiding deep inside the swamps of the Fenwater.

The Humans had seen the Elves as competitors for the natural resources upon which their species' rapidly growing population survived and thrived. But the Humans weren't the only race to want to see an end to the Elves. The Dwarves feared Magic, a power to which they were acutely vulnerable. And with the exception of the Witches and Warlocks, no one was more magically powerful than the Elves of the Fenwater.

When Annie spoke of the Gorthins and the potential reason for their wanting her, Killian laughed and said, "Because they are powerful and wealthy and ruthless..."

Annie noticed how Killian's eyes went to her body as he spoke of laying hands. She wasn't a stranger to the hungry gazes of men, whether they be Human or Elf. She didn't mind being ogled either, as it meant that her ogler's attention was often not where it should have been at the time.

When she asked if he'd help her out of her shackles, Killian most excitedly said, "No, no, no, no, no, no. Uh-uh, no I can't."

Annie pouted out her lower lip simultaneously with arching her back forward to emphasize her bosom a bit more. She knew that her tits were of interest to him, so she figured she might as well take advantage of that fact. He stressed that she belonged to the Gorthins, saying, "They'd skin me alive if I let you go. No, sorry, but ... I have to take you to them. If I don't..."

"I don't belong to them," Annie argued. "I am not a horse or swamp raft. I'm a living, breathing Being ... a free Being."

"Listen, I'm sorry," he said.

"No!" she cut in. "I don't think you are."

"I understand that this is not right," he told her. "You know, you being chained and a prisoner and being sold. I mean, no one should have that done to them."

"Then help me," she suggested, now rising to her knees and again using her posture to emphasize the curves that Killian continued to glance at between words.

"But ... well ... I'm not a brave man!" he continued. "I mean, I am! I was in the Guard, and I did fight in battle. But that was just war."

Annie had noted the way Killian was dressed and armed, of course. She didn't recognize the style of armor and garb as being from any one particular Nation or Army, but she knew that it was the wardrobe of a soldier or, at the least, former one. He didn't carry a war sword, but the bow wasn't the typical style of a mere deer hunter; it was a powerful weapon meant for accuracy at long distances, and the way he wore his quiver on his hip meant he used it for rapid firing at multiple targets.

"There were rules and there was chivalry," he continued about the conflicts in which he'd participated as a warrior. "The Gorthins! They know nothing of these things."

"And what do you think they will do with me once I am in their hands?" she challenged with a bit of begging in her tone. When she saw that she wasn't getting anywhere, Annie smirked devilishly and said with a suggestive tone, "I could make it worth your while, good sir. Return me to my people ... and I will see you become rich beyond your wildest dreams."

She paused a moment, studying his reaction, but unsure of whether she was getting to him or not, Annie caressed her shackled hands up her belly and over her bosom until her fingertips found the bared skin of her chest. She whispered seductively, "And ... in the meantime ... while we travel..."

She pulled downward on the dress's neckline until nearly simultaneously each of her firm, grapefruit shaped tits popped out into view. She finished, "...we could get to know each other ... intimately.." She smiled wider yet, asking, "Have you ever fucked an Elvish woman, my good man?"

(Map)

Annie pouted out her lower lip at Killian's refusal to help her. He felt sympathy for her. How could he not. What was happening to her simply wasn't fair, let alone moral. Slavery had been outlawed in the Republic of Yalla for more than a century. He didn't know for certain that the Gorthins intended to enslave Annie in the strict sense of the word. But if they didn't, the alternative wasn't likely any better.

"No! I don't think you are," she responded when Killian said that he was sorry.

They talked more. Then Annie told him, "And ... in the meantime ... while we travel..."

She smirked and pulled down the front of her blouse. Her tits just popped out. Killian's eyes widened at the sight. Her bosom was perfect. Full, round, firm. Her nipples were pert and darker than any he'd seen on a woman who wasn't Black or Brown as some of the Known World's ethnicities were considered.

"...we could get to know each other ... intimately," Annie continued. She asked, "Have you ever fucked an Elvish woman, my good man?"

"No..." Killian murmured under his breath, more to himself than to Annie. His gaze was fixed on her delicious bosom, his brain unable to pull them away. Finally, he tore his eyes away, stepping a few yards away as he said, "No, no!"

He paced back and forth, the voices fighting in his head. One was saying, Fuck her! Fuck her! Then, take her to the Gorthins. A second was warning, You can't do that, take advantage of her and then turn her in. The third voice in the mix was soft but still getting through. It was reminding him, rich beyond our wildest dreams. She'll make us rich ... beyond our wildest ... dreams.

That same voice continued pushing him, telling him And it's the right thing to do. She's a Princess. She's an Elf. She shouldn't be handed over to the Gorthins. It's wrong. So wrong.

It was probably also wrong that as he paced, Killian couldn't help but frequently peek back to those wonderful tits. He wanted so badly to take a hard turn toward Annie, take one of those pert nubs into his mouth, and suck on it while she stripped her of the remainder of her clothes.

"Put those..." Killian waggled a finger toward Annie's breasts. He meant put them away, of course.

He came to a stop, looking out at the ocean for a long moment. He looked back to her again, drew a deep breath, and gave it out in a resigned sigh.

"What would you need me to do?" Killian asked. "And ... what exactly do you mean by rich beyond my wildest dreams...? Because I have incredible dreams."

If anyone's been reading along, I am sorry to disappoint you by saying that we are moving to a different story.