Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Little Slave Girl ❯ A Sudden Change of Heart ( Chapter 18 )

Ryven, emerging from one of the tunnels with Rowyn behind her, looked around cautiously. She could feel Rowyn's presence behind her, scared but trying hard not to show it. Ryven knew that the younger elf was struggling to be as brave as she thought her heroine was, wanted, amidst all of the horror, to make Ryven proud of her.

** Do you remember which way to go?** Ryven sent to her, her mindtouch tinged with a stuble fear, **I don't want to get lost in this maze of a ship...**

**Umm, there should be a `lift about three paces to the left, Ryven...** Rowyn said, and she pointed as she spoke inside her friend's mind. The ship shook some more and they heard voices screaming from down the corridor. Thinking fast, Ryven pulled Rowyn into an open doorway. It was dark within the room and they saw people, women and men, most in a state of panic, racing through the hallway.

They caught snippets of words they screamed as they ran; "We're dead!" "Not gonna make it, this time!" "I can't belive this is happening!" "Where's the Queen?!"

** I thought they all ready knew...? ** Rowyn began but Ryven interrupted her.

** Maybe they haven't yet told the rest of the ship...** Ryven said, **After all, they wouldn't have had time, what with this sudden attack and all...**

** You said that you could feel the attakers, Ryven,** Rowyn asked as the crouched in the dark, waiting for the corridor to be clear once more, **You said they felt...familar...what did you mean by that?**

Shaking her head, her side-braids coming loose and her hair framing her drawn and tired face, Ryven said, softly, "I...don't know. I just felt...something...something cold...and dark..."

Just then, the lights in the room they had chosen to hide within momentarily shone in brightness upon them. Ryven gasped and, more as a reflex than anything else, shoved Rowyn behind, drawing her sword with nearly the same breath, blinking her eyes to get them used to the sudden change in light.

"Well, well, well," Came a sickening familar voice, Ryven felt her insides twist and knot, "What have we here? Two little mice sneaking around in the dark?"

The little girl stood in the center of the sparsely funished room, three armed gaurds, more muscular than thier own good, flanked her, grinning cold smiles upon the suddenly trapped little elves. The door swooshed closed and locked behind them. Rowyn shivered in spite of all her efforts and hid behind Ryven, afraid of the little girl and her cold, cold eyes.

"Seize them!" The Princess, now wearing her mother's crown, even though it fell comically over her eyes and she had to constantly keep shoving it back into place, cried, pointing at the two elves, "I don't care what you do with the dark-haired one, but I want the blonde! I wasn't done...playing...with her, yet..."

Ryven lashed out with her sword, baring her teeth at the men as the tried to take her down, she killed one in mere moments and another lost his arm, he watched in horror as it fell from his arm, ice-changed and shattered upon the floor. Missing one arm, he backed away from the snarling little thing and held his stump, his life's blood having been stopped from the ice forming about his stump and swiftly consuming him within it's ice-crystal grip.

Gasping, the third gaurd, looking from his fallen comrades, both having shattered when thier ice-changed bodies hit the floor, the third gaurd threw his weapon to the floor and backed away behind his small mistress, begging for his life.

"You idiot! I told you to seize them!" She screamed, her face red with fury, "Your duty is to me, fool! Seize her!"

Looking from Yarrah and to Ryven, daring him to even try to approuch her, the man, who looked younger than the others had been, shivered, uncertain. He knew that if that odd sword the girl held touched him, that he would die, but he also knew that if he failed to do as the Princess, now self-proclaimed Queen, demanded, that she would have a far more horrid death in store for him.

Because his father had done her mother's bidding before him, and he knew he would have always done the bidding of the daughter, the young man advanced upon the elves, trying not to show his terror as a cold sweat broke across his body, chilling his all ready icy blood.

A few moments later, Ryven approuched a now frightened little girl. She held up the point of her sword, barely touching the underside of the girl's chin, but not quite. "You are a disgusting creature." She began, and the girl, glaring through her fear, backed away, forced to sit down on the floor by Ryven's sword and looking up at her, her face twisted in rage, "You killed your own mother. For that alone I should run you through..."

The little girl blinked up at her, huge tears forming in both eyes, running down her cheeks as she let out sudden, frightened wail that sent Ryven backwards, ears twitching in pain. She looked over and saw Yarrah had folded in on herself, hugging her knees to her chin, shivering and crying. "Let me alone! Let me alone!" She cried, sniffling, "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry!"

Ryven felt Rowyn approach from behind her, felt her reach out empathically towards the little girl, needing to free her from her pain, no matter what the girl did to her...it was just her nature...but Ryven stopped her before she touch the child, holding her by the wrist.

"But..."

"Don't, Rowyn-chan..." Ryven said, "I mean it. She has a lot to atone for...though I really believe this may be just a trick..."

As though she didn't hear the exchange, Yarrah went on sobbing and shaking back and forth, crying out to be left alone and that she was sorry.

"Help me with her." Ryven said, after re-sheathing her sword, she was trying to carry the little girl to the bed, Rowyn took the girl but the feet and Ryven under her arms, they dragged the girl to the bed and tucked her under to covers. The ship shook as it was hit again, the lights flickered. Ryven looked at the child once more, as she had stopped sobbing and now seemed to sleep, her chest rising and falling with her breathing, seeming deep in thought.

"What are you thinking, Ryven?" Rowyn asked, afraid of the answer, a strange look, a mixture of pity and blame, passed across Ryven's eyes as she looked at the child that had caused them so much trouble. "Ryven?"

The girl's mother's crown was laying on the floor, sparkling coldly in the flickering overhead lights.

Without thinking more, Ryven tugged back the bed's blankets and yanked the girl by her arm to the floor in a heap. The sudden movement should have snapped her out of her state, but it did not. The girl continued to sleep, tears drying upon her round cheeks.

"Ryven!" Rowyn cried, her hand flying to her mouth, "What are you doing?!"

"I realized something, Rowyn," Ryven said, trying to explain, "We can't leave her. The main reason we have to keep her with us is that she can call more of those men down on us until we are completely surrounded and I am too tired to fight anymore. The other reason is that...damn it! I feel sorry for her!"

"Y-you what?!" Rowyn cried, "After all she...she did to us? After what she did to her own mother?!"

"Her mother was evil," Ryven said, "And I believe she spread her evilness to her child, I believe that what this child was, what she did, was more her mother's fault than her own. She's hurt bad, Rowyn, I hadn't realized that before, before...My head was just too clouded by anger, I couldn't see past it..."

"Hurt?" Rowyn asked, looked at the child for tell-tale marks of injury.

"She's hurt in her mind," Ryven said, touching her temple with one finger and then Yarrah's, "And in here." She added, touching her own chest where he heart beat beneath her flesh and clothing and then laying her hand breifly upon Yarrah's chest. "I think maybe, if we take her home with us, that perhaps Dende..."

The ship shook and lurched again, sending the girls flying into each other. Ryven felt Piccolo's mental presence, along with Nail and Kami, flickering inside her mind, letting her know that they would be with her shortly, she just had to keep herself and Rowyn together. A single thought, more a feeling than words, washed over her from Piccolo alone and gave her renewed strength...

** I'm proud of you, Ryven...**