Elemental

001 | You can’t run forever

______I LOOK OVER my shoulder, knotted and tangled black hair flailing over my shoulder and into my eye as I ran pushing every fibre in my body to its limit as the ache in my legs burn. I can hear the snorts and grunts of the Palace horses not far behind me and I find myself swiftly cursing under my breath before running out into a clearing in the woods and curse again when I spot a river too deep to wade through

I glance over my shoulder again to see the palace guards gaining on me so whatever I was thinking of doing I would have to do fast because I was running out of time. Sighing I sprint to the water before diving in, the cold water sending a shock through my body which makes me gasp filling my lungs up with river water causing me to gag and for more water to filter into my mouth

Feeling myself sink to the bottom I push off the murky ground and swim haphazardly to the surface when I get to the top I’m coughing and choking as I swim to the other side of the river before tugging on the stones trying to haul myself up onto the rocky bank and I lay there for a minute, my chest heaving and the thin material I call clothes but is more like a dishrag is soaked through to my bones making me as cold as ice, but as much as I want to stop and lay there and surrender to the cold clutches of death

I couldn’t

There was more to do, more to steal

And I had to get out of this

I unsteadily get to my feet before I take off into a sprint darting back and forth like a rabbit as I run towards another stretch of the woods trying to get out of the sight of the dozen or so palace guards that were currently chasing after me

“Shit” I heard the head of the palace guards curse from my position in the woods as he shouted out the words in a burst of anger, I had been running from the palace guards for a good hour or two and the one thing that I learnt is that they can be very hot-headed and most of them have a nasty temper, but the one with the nastiest temper was the head guard -- the king’s right-hand man

Suddenly the wind picked up to just below a gale blowing my hair into my mouth and I coughed as I tried to spit it out my hair leaving a bitter taste in my mouth and I cursed yet again I knew that if they were to continue fighting against me like this I wouldn’t be able to run for much longer and they knew that I couldn’t fight back because I wasn’t marked and the head guard found this out during our second meeting when he caught me stealing a loaf of bread from a vendor and he had caught my wrist and before I could pull away he forcefully yanked my wrists upwards and stared at the ashy brown flesh for a minute or two with a confused expression before he burst out into taunting laughter knowing that I was a non-magic folk and ever since then I had been running from the guards since I could no longer pretend I was marked

It was frowned upon if you hadn’t got your Element tattoo by age 16

I turned 16 four months ago and nothing

The heavy thud of horse beats shook me out of my little trance and I snapped my gaze ahead to find a dozen guards charging forward red-faced in anger and I quickly looked around and over their shoulders to see the churning river now had a stone bridge across it stretching from one end of the river to the other but with one big crash of the waves the bridge in demolished and sent into the river in pieces I inwardly groan as my brain works as fast as it can trying to come up with some sort of escape, I am angry with myself as I should have known that at least one person in the guards had control over the earth and water element in fact between them they probably have control over all the four elements so I’m screwed

As if reading my mind the guard at the front who I knew was the head guard and it wasn’t just because of my many interactions with the stern-faced guard but also because of the colouring of his uniform that consisted of white trousers and a tight navy pea suit and while the other guards just wore that the head guards buttons were bronze and he wore on his right shoulder a red sewn into the material crown cementing his power over the other guards and I was almost certain that the guard had some kind of marking above his element tattoo but right now I couldn’t see it as his forearm was planted down and he was tightly gripping his reins “Leora” He spoke in a strong and slightly strained voice “You are surrounded here. You really want to because you can’t run forever.”

The head guard was right I couldn’t run forever and wherever I did run they would most likely catch up with me so I hold my hands up in mock surrender “Alright, alright I will come to see your king, do you always follow the King orders like a lost puppy?” I snip him which makes his jaw tense and his knuckles turn white from how tight he was gripping the reins

“I am not a lost puppy!” The head guard snapped “I am simply doing my job, something you are making more difficult the more you run”

“We really going to do this song and dance again?”

“We don’t have to if you would quit being so stubborn!”

“You’re one to talk about being stubborn -- how long have you been chasing after me?” I snark, twirling my hair around my finger in absent-minded boredom “I mean when are you going to realise you're in love with me and just ask me out already? You don’t need to chase me through the whole kingdom and put me in a cell for the rest of my life just to get my attention, that’s so last century!”

The head guard lets out an angry splutter and my smirk grows wider, because I know I have won. I know I have bought myself enough time to escape and before my mind can catch up with my body that’s exactly what I’m doing, jumping into the angry depths of water below

But the current is too strong

And no matter how good at swimming I am, I sink like a stone

Down. Down. Down.

Deeper and blacker the further down I get, my body is too tired to fight

Suddenly my head hurts and I can’t do anything

| | |

My head is pounding when I awaken, blood drips down my head and rolls down my cheek. Screw it. I must have hit my head harder than I realised, at least my vision is not blurry so I don’t think I’ve got any lasting brain damage so that’s a point for me I guess...At least I was not dead so I guess that was a plus for me

Now the only thing left for me to do was escape

The castle was a brilliant thing, full of grand design and gold glimmering off the walls when the sun shone on it. The marble decorated the floors and my boots scuffed along the floor and the head guard glared at me but I didn’t bother picking up my feet...It was a small, petty win but it was a win all the same

There were six guards surrounding me and my hands were bound with water (which may seem easy to escape from but when there is a water Elemental every time I attempt to slip out of the cuffs, the water somehow slips back around my wrists -- only tighter and more painful) and I swear every time that I glare at the guard, a smirk flicking up the corner of his lips

“If you’re thinking of escaping, that’s not going to work,” The head guard tells me, his voice low and gruff -- even though he was only a couple of years older than me -- twenty at most, they had been doing this song and dance for almost three years and he once let it slip that he was almost eighteen and that had to have been near enough two years ago

My face scrunches up into a grimace “No shit sherlock”

“Good because you have to meet the King. This is your third offence”

Oh no, no, no, no