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Harrow was running through the forest outside her gilded cage- outside the tall walls of Castle Drearburh. Her heart beat too fast in her chest, and she could hear many footsteps behind her, the thunder of hoofbeats through the trees to her right. King Priamhark’s small cavalry couldn’t get her through the trees, and through all the shouts and calls from the others on foot, she could easily move quietly enough to avoid attention.
There was only one knight; only one soldier that she was scared of, and it was the one that haunted her both in the day and at night in her dreams- or her nightmares.
She was wearing a dark blue cloak and clothes, and had a small pack with only a few essentials; not as many as she would want, but it was all she could get on such short notice. She had seen her chance and she had taken it.
It had all gone so horribly wrong.
Harrow had almost bowled straight into the guard patrolling the edge of the walls, and he had immediately set out a call, making a grab for her. She had slid past nimbly, but the castle was alive again, and they were all after her.
She hadn’t seen the one face she both loved and hated, both a comfort and a doom. Her only friend and her worst enemy.
Gideon Nav was the knight that she had become tied to in a way that was impossible to untangle.
And she knew, deep down, that it was Gideon Nav who was following so closely behind her. The red-headed young woman didn’t need to shout, Harrow would always know.
The feet got closer and closer, and as Harrow could have sworn she felt the hot breath of her pursuer behind her, she stopped, turning quickly, the rest of the world falling away around them.
Black eyes met gold, and it was all the princess could do to catch her breath. Sound and fire all around them, yelling for many others, and yet, every ounce of sensory perception was focused on the person standing in front of her.
A dark moth to a bright flame.
Gideon was wearing none of her armour, but her two-hander on her back and her rapier in its scabbard, and she had on soft trousers and her classic black tabard over her lighter armour. She had been ready for this attempt; she was dressed. She had a bag over one shoulder and it was only then that Harrow processed what she was looking at.
The knight recited two lines, voice deep and slightly gruff, from their own poem. The one they had left on a note for Harrow to find the night before. “ Of leaving her only home, and the cage that kept her there. ”
Harrow felt the tears at the edge of her eyes, things that she had never let fall. She stared. She forgot what words were; how to speak.
But as Gideon collected her in her arms, she moved with her, and both of them rushed through the forest, the sound around them getting dimmer as they escaped their gilded cage.
Together.