The Peering Assassin (Erosaf)

Castien Nararon

The queen of the elves beamed down at her daughter before finally noticing the unsure and somewhat confused facial expression.
"Oh my darling daughter, years since I have held you in my arms...15 long years," she murmured before stepping back beside her husband "I am your mother, your true mother..Queen Talaiel Lithvathar and this is your father, King Rinfadorien Lithvathar."
Her deep slanted eyes flickered to Castien before narrowing slightly.
"Why is there an assassin with you dear?" she questioned frowning.
"Táim assassin nach bhfuil níos mó, banríon mo ... shábháil mé d'iníon ó na deolchaire ar a ceann," he said softly, bowing his head "Bhí fostaíodh mé a mharú aici, ach nach bhféadfaí a thabhairt mé féin é a dhéanamh .."


OOC: I am an assassin no more, my queen...I saved your daughter from the bounty upon her head.
I was hired to kill her, but could not bring myself to do it..

“We only met a few days ago. He was an assassin, as far as I know, but more than once he’s stopped himself and others from killing me.”

She smiled a little. “He told me who I was and though I kind of still don’t believe him, I know more now than I did before I met him. Though getting me to leave the family I've always known was not easy. I didn’t want to leave them at all, seeing as they could well be in danger because they know me. Not to mention they do not have a clue where I am right now.”

Castien Nararon

He nodded his head, despite it still being hidden within the dark cowl.
"Another killer was sent..." he said gruffly "but is no longer a problem."
His words seemed rough compared to the fluid talk of the elves, but the queen nodded her thanks anyways.
"My daughter," she said quietly to Anya "come it seems we have a lot to speak of..."
The king nodded his agreement, though no words left his mouth.
"And for you...killer of no longer, your horse can go to the stables and you can be showed to a room, I shall speak with you later," she said dismissing them with a smile to her daughter "I am glad you have kept Broneruiel, his mother and father used to run in these forests, such beautiful creatures."

Castien frowned slightly, not wanting to leave the young princess alone despite having brought her here. He sighed and nodded though, not wanting to fight with the queen and king of the elves.
"Of course..." he murmured with husky tones.

“I’ve never seen his parents alive. I found him one day, he’d hidden in their den so he was safe. Took a while for him to trust me, but he did eventually,” she replied, looking down at her tiger. Of course he chose to sneeze.
“Broneruiel!” she scolded him, but laughed at the same time. It was clear that she loved him to bits.
She watched as Castien went in the other direction though. That was something that was hard for her to see happening. She had grown to trust him over the last day and a bit.
“I guess there is a lot to talk about,” she said, following her ‘mother’ away, Broneruiel at her side eagerly.

Castien Nararon

He walked slowly away, Luas following in his masters strides. The queen watched him go and nodded to her self in satisfaction, glad to see the huge oaf gone from her sight.
Wrapping a slender arm around her only daughters shoulders, she led her and the tiger into the family home.
"I know dear, I was hoping you would take care of him...he is your protector, as many others have," she said sweetly and rubbed the tigers head as they continued to walk "we can go to my day room and speak there."
She made a gesture to one of the elves on the side of the room, ordering drinks and other such refreshments.

Settling herself across from the child, she rustled her red silk skirts until she was comfortable and sighed, forcing a smile in place.
"So, Anya dear, tell me about yourself and how you ended up here with that...thing," she said with an elegant flutter of her hand.

"I was raised in Raviata. All I've ever known are the ways of the human family who found me." She paused. "I grew up on a farm just outside the walls of Raivata, I've learnt a lot of things from there. Then I found Broneruiel and I've looked after him. At first I didn't know if my family would let me keep him, but I managed to get them to agree."

Somehow she knew that the smile on her mother's face seemed a little forced. An odd thing that was.

OOC: sorry its short, not much for her to tell

The queen nodded her head elegantly, eyes fluttering around the room as she listened. The nose tilted into the air slightly, cool gaze landing upon the girl with a mixture of emotion. This girl...her daughter...had worked on a farm? A farm girl? She scoffed at the mere thought, gesturing with a long, perfect finger for the child to approach.
"Show me your hands."
She demanded it with the voice of a royal, making it clear she would not be disobeyed.

Castien moved quietly over the rocks and leaves of the forest floors, hidden eyes darting around the space. He was being followed, he knew it. The soft breath, the silent feet, eyes following his movements. Someone was following, and if he didn't know all the tricks of the book, well he wouldn't have noticed.
Suddenly he ducked, the horse leaping away from his owners side, it had been trained well. Castien twisted as a dagger narrowly skimmed across his ribs, tearing the fabric and a small slice upon the pale skin, blood running freely but the huge killer ignored the pain, rather embracing it as he lept towards the elf, large hands wrapping around the slender neck until it snapped.
Pausing, but only for a moment, he lept onto the stallions side. Only one thought upon his mind.
Was she okay?

She knew that her hands were toughened from the years of helping in the fields, but it was not something she was uset from doing at all. No, she'd loved helping out there. Though she did miss the ones she had called family greatly at the moment. Right now she felt so out of place here amongst the elves.

None of these people did she even seem to look like. Both her real parents looked like elves to her at the moment. There were some things that needed to be figured out in her head at the moment, and not all of them would be easy. Somehow though she knew she would have to show them to this tall elf who did not expect her to disobey her though.

She raised one hand, moving a bit closer to the elf, knowing that this was indeed something she would never have imagined herself doing right now. She might be the one who had many things waiting for her, but there were so many things at the moment which she did not understand at the moment.

"I have learnt to trust Castien, mother. At the moment I do not think its going to ever be possible for him to hurt me. Like he said, there was another assassin that turned up. If Broneruiel had not woken me when he did, I wouldn't have screamed and well, Castien would have returned to find me dead. As soon as that happened, we started moving to here again, and I was safe the entire time he was with me."

It was clear that she trusted the assassin. Maybe there was something else that underlied all of it, but she would not understand what at the moment. Could it have been love? She doubted it. "Even Broneruiel trusts him, though at first he certainly didn't. Now though they seem to be able to get along, even with Castien's dislike of big cats like Broneruiel."

The elegant hand reached for her smaller one, studying it with a rough turn and sighed with annoyance.
"Workers hands," she scoffed, eyes flaring with anger. Her daughter had been a mere worker? What a shame upon the family. But before she could say anything more, the door slammed open and Castien sprinted in, grabbing Anya around the waist and threw her over his shoulder, turning and running back down the stairs taking them several at a time in his long strides.
"Queen...try and kill...Castien," he gasped, throwing her small body on top of the stallion and leaping up behind her, charging back down the path they had just entered the city from.
"Castien want princess safe...queen..." he paused, unable to think of the right word "bad? Different queen from last time..."

"It was your idea in the first place to go there," she snapped at him. Broneruiel leapt, grabbing her off of the horse, and she scrambled up onto his back. "They are my people, Castien. I'm not leaving them." With that Broneruiel ran back towards where he knew that one very stunned elf would be. She did not look back, she was pissed off with Castien now. "Leave me the hell alone!" she called over her shoulder. "Until you learn some manners."

Her mother was different to before? Well that remained to be seen for her. Anya felt... safe in the city that her mother lived in. She wanted to get to know her mother, she was not going to have Castien doing such things like that to her, now that she'd met her.

The assassin cursed under his breath, wheeling the horse around and forcing it to skid to a halt before them, forcing her pace to stop.
"No Anya!" he cried, desparte for her to understand "Castien wrong to bring princess here. Queen wrong one!"
He looked mad with worry, looking over his shoulder as if fearing an attack at any moment.
"Castien wrong!" he yelled again as elves swarmed towards them "not real mother...fake...fake try and kill Castien!"
He urged the large tiger and princess backwards, trying to get them to move before it to late.
"Anya die if not leave!"

He didn't even know it, but he had never called the princess by anything other then just that...princess. Maybe the word Anya would bring it to her attention just how wrong this was, as to what was happening.
The yelling voices drew closer, elves flickered though the trees before one finally lept at the man. Lucas reared, hooves flashing as he screamed a challenge.
"Run Anya!" he cried once more, begging for her to listen.
And then he saw black.

He seems to know what he's going on about, she thought as Broneruiel stepped backwards in fright from the running elves. She'd heard him use her real name and that had counted for something. Broneruiel growled, not really knowing what to do. She did not know where to run to, there was no chance of her finding her way out of the forest. He knew it better than she did at the moment.

Sighing, she looked at the elves around her. "Leave him alone!" Broneruiel growled, moving to stand where he'd fallen. There was no way they were going to hurt him at all.

Lucas stood over his rider protectively, he was just as well trained as Castien was. Hooves lashed out, teeth snapped...but all in all, a horse could only do so much against so many.
Nostrils flared, he kicked the closet elf and grasped Castien's shirt with his teeth, dragging him off. It was an odd look, the huge stallion dragging off his rider. His hooves carefully moving quickly, taking care not to harm the dead weight.
The eyes landed on the large cat and girl before galloping off, uncaring if they followed.

The queen stood at the top of the stairs, eyes wide with both fury and worry.
"Stop!" she cried to her daughter, glaring at her "guards! Take them both away!"

OOC: They have been running for a while...elves have backed off back to their queen after loosing track of them. Castien is finally waking up after being dropping by a buggered horse XD

Castien moaned loudly, large hand lifting and clutched to his head. It felt as if it had been split into two, the way it thudded against his skull. He tried to roll over, but the wound in his side stopped him from doing so. The light blue eyes blinked open, taking in their surroundings with a start. The heaving stallion stood to one side, calmly nibbling on the grass, snorting every now and then.
The hand ran over his face, rubbing his eyes as he pushed himself into a sitting position, ignoring the bolt of pain it sent into his side and head, looking for the princess. His Anya. Or even that over sized house cat.
"Anya?" he whispered, shaking his head slightly to try and clear it but it only made him feeling that much worse.

“I didn't leave you,” she said softly.
“Looked like they were meant to capture me as well, and there was no chance I was going to do that,” she said, as she moved over to where he would be able to see her.
There was no chance of her leaving him at the moment.
“that may have been my mother back there, but I doubt she should have have acted the way she did.”
She sighed as he sat up.
“You really should be resting, Castien. You're hurt.”
She was no healer though, which was a pain really.

At her words, his hands snaked out and pulled her into a tight bear hug.
"Your still here!" he gasped, all but strangling her with his strength before finally realizing what he was doing and dropping her lightly on his feet and even sent the tiger a grin.
Sighing with a shrug of his shoulders, he lifted up the edge of his shirt and studied the wound.
"Castien had worse."
He said it simply, sitting back down on the hard ground with an grunt and gestured to Anya.
"Get wood? Need small fire...not wet, dry...very dry...no smoke," he said to her, clicking his fingers to his stallion who trotted over easily and reached into the saddle bag.
There was food, clothes and pretty much everything you could ever need. Amazing though, how it fitted into such a small bag.
Pulling out some clean cloth and a small canteen of water, he tugged his shirt over his head and wet the cloth, wiping away the blood and gore from the day.
He seemed to all but forget the girl before him.

Castien nodded, still wiping and tugging at the injured skin, grunting at the every movement.
"Good," he said, tones laced thickly with his accent.
He chucked her the flint, eyeing for her a moment.
"Anya start fire? Know how?" he asked before moving back to his work and leaning over for the saddle bags and pulling out a smaller bag.
"Look away now....Castien sew," he told her, waving his hands and made a sewing gesture towards his skin.
"Start fire...Castien need water....warm water...." he flashed her a gentle smile before turning back to work once more.

"Yes, we move soon...Castien done," he told her, studying his neat stitches which were now in his side.
"Castien clean, rest Lucas and we go...quickly...not home, but somewhere," he told her, settling a small billy beside the fire and waited for the water to warm before gently wiping away the mess once more. The bleeding had stopped at least, and he was able to ignore the pain. He was good at such things, due to the fact he was an assassin. Many he had killed and many times he had been hunted, it was just a normal day in his books.

"Princess okay?" he asked suddenly, looking up with bright blues. His cowl was down, showing all of his face. It was a rare sign of trust, but they were in this together now.
"Anya not scared?" he asked gently, thumb running over her cheek gently.

Castien quickly yanked back his hand, worried he had hurt her in some way but it seemed she just didn't like his comforting touch. Frowning and somewhat hurt, he shuffled slightly further away from her and listened to her words.
"Castien not want to kill..never had choice was made to by owners," he said gruffing, frowning "only little when started..only sé cinn when started training."
He wondered what the number was in english and struggled to form the word "only...s-siz? Sih? Six?"
He shrugged his shoulders "to little to know."
"Castien not want to be killer...but will kill for princess..yes...kill to save princess," he muttered to himself, sighing deeply as if not understanding that she was saying sorry for yelling at him.
"Princess should yell at Castien...Castien was worried...Castien want to save princess...again...queen evil," he growled softly at the mention of the queen.
"Not real mother...mother's sister...real mother dead, killed by sister's hand..." he paused trying to explain in broken english "mother and queen look same, born same day yes?"
"Same father though....real father, not knowing queen fake."

He merely blinked at the unladylike words which flew from her mouth, looking at her with soft amusement.
"Power...queen want power, princess is way of power..." he said finally "cannot speak to father...queen watching closely. King guess and wonder at sudden change in mother...but not know all yet..."

At her last comment, his smile returned her's warmly before heaving himself to feet.
"We go..quick and far...Castien have many hiding places," he said urging her to her feet and eyed the big white tiger "thank you..."
He mumbled it softly, rubbing the house cat's ears gently before moving to his horses side and dragging himself into the saddle with some sort of grace.
"Go...follow," he said, pushing the horse forth after putting the last of the bags tightly behind him.