A'elin was out exploring the vast woods of his father's kingdom, completely unaware of the large predatory animal that had marked the young prince as its prey. Viresse, who often went into the woods to practice his archery, had been tracking the creature. He suddenly noticed a change of behaviour in the beasts movements, it had found a target. With a shock Viresse realised that target was none other than the prince, whom he recognised by the red cloak he bore. The elf knocked and arrow to his bow, brought it up to a shooting position and after he took a few seconds to steady himself, let go of the bowstring. The arrow soared through the air, inbedding itself in the back of the beast. It, on its turn let out a thundering roar and charged the prince.
A'elin had heard the loud roar and promptly dropped everything he'd been doing, now focused on running away, Viresse ran up to the other boy and grabbed him by his arm. "Excuse my manners your majesty, but we need to get out of this forest, the sooner the better." A'elin, not wanting to die let the archer drag him along. "I'm Viresse" the older elf said as the prince was now running next to him. They'd almost made it out of the woods safely when A'elin, but used to running this much, felt his leg get stuck behind a branch and crashed to the ground. He let out a scream, his face twisted in pain. "Viresse, my ankle." He winced. "This isn't good." The ankle was now throbbing, it was either broken or badly sprained and there was still the issue of the creature, which by now would not be far behind them. Viresse made a quick decision, he'd have to carry the royal on his back. He swung his bow down and placed it on the ground besides him, then moved to help A'elin up. His eyes were filled with worry as he saw the obvious signs of pain in A'elin's face. "Your majesty, if you'll let me, I will carry you on my back." The prince nodded and prepared to hop onto Viresse's back, as well as that could be fine with one leg out of commission.
Viresse moved to hand A'elin his bow, who awkwardly held it across Viresse's chest as he carefully walked back to the castle. With every step that moved his hips he could feel A'elin tense up behind him, occasionally wincing in pain. "We're almost there." Viresse said, in vain trying to bring some comfort to the prince, Viresse knew it wasn't his fault that the other had injured his leg, but he could not help but feel guilty about the pain it was causing him.
A'elin showed the archer a secret route to the castle yard, to avoid the two of them being seen by civilians going about their day in the city surrounding the castle. As soon as they made it through the entrance, A'elin told Viresse to get away, at risk of being seen and arrested for trespassing on royal ground. Viresse nodded and with one last sympathic look he turned and ran.
Just when he thought he was safe, he saw a flash of metal and felt a cold blade across his neck. "Where do you think you're going? Snooping around the castle like that?" said a voice that bore no signs of being understanding, no matter what Viresse's answer would be.
