When [Name] was caught, he was dragged back to his room and there was increased security around the vicinity of his place of sorts. He groaned at the gnawing boredom in the back of his mind, [Name]'s just laid on his bed and fell asleep to pass time.
This carried on for a few months. During the last few weeks [Name] noticed the increased activity of the Bandits and the Shamans.
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It started with an influx of people migrating into their village. Then their permanent residency and the influx of people within the trading industry, slowly slipping into the ranks of the soldiers and things like that. The vast majority of villagers didn't notice, but the Elders, Commanders and the sisters of the village noticed. They kept silent, it was a gradual process, one that they did not like, they wanted to do a deep search of the people who were moving in. It soon turned into a difficult task, difficulty growing as time passed. Another problem was that many of their own were questioning why they were acting so suspicious of these people. The Elders did not want to alarm their own so they said nothing and pursued it further, the ones in the army were not questioned as much but they were being talked about by the other soldiers in their downtime. The sisters themselves had to keep an eye on the people who were constantly purchasing willow bark and other sleeping herbs, they even began to keep a daily watch on their imports to make sure they were not giving too much of the same herb away and noting down who was using what in a room piled high with records of who had purchased what.
It was hard work for them, although each week on the third day, there would always be a visiting elk with a piece of paper attached to it with a thin leather string, hidden under all the fur as the bull elk pawed at the ground in front of the clinic and waited until one of the sisters came out and after they took the paper, it threw its head back and snorted before galloping away. The girls all thought of this as [Name] trying to encourage them to stay vigilant and keep an eye out and tell them to have faith in him. As long as the bull elk persistently visited, so they stayed persistently stayed vigilant and aware. Even if they were tired and weary of the constant watch, their faith in [Name] was what was keeping them grounded.
On the day Lucy came back to them, Stacy was furious and refused to speak to any of her sisters no matter how much they tried explaining to her that [Name] would not come back to the village, and ever since that day she would get awful, vivid dreams of [Name] dying in front of her and her sisters, dying because he was protecting them. Protecting them from a range of different things and sometimes she would almost go mad with worry, which always meant that she would be waiting for the elk that visited on every third day of the week. It was a comforting presence to her, something that stopped her mind from running around in circles and many times it was the same elk that stopped her from venturing too far into the woods. This behaviour baffled Stacy and her sisters it always seemed as if [Name] had ordered the elk to keep every one of them safe, as it was never too kind to them, regarding them with a regal gaze; huffing, snorting and pawing at the ground whenever they strayed too far from their gates. Even sometimes going as far as going on its hind legs, threatening them and falsely charging at them to keep them from venturing any further.
Which aroused the curiosity of one of the twins, Briella. She was the youngest, and the one that had the least attention put on her. Briella was almost always alone, and only ever spent most of her time with her twin, Bella. Bella, in truth, was the only one that ever understood her, the others brushed her off most of the time, and as she had no other outstanding skills she would always be brushed off or fade into the background. Maybe it was something to do with those letters, as whenever [Name] wrote a letter he always made sure to include her into the little space he had on the paper, making sure to wish her good health as well as the others. It was a nice feeling for her, not being overlooked or deemed as something slightly less than all her other sisters. Sure, she did like to sleep and laze around, she had no interesting hobbies and preferred being alone by herself. It was just the little things that [Name] had written about within his letter that made her feel special.
Which is the main reason why she was prompted to go out on such a cold night in search of the elk. Briella wanted to see it, it gave her hope that [Name] may be near or within the area, she just hoped that she could be in his company or his elk's for a bit. Briella understood that her endeavours were naïve and childlike.
Slowly, she got out of her bed and walked to the door, she stopped, looking at the doorknob. This is one of the first times she ventures out without the company of one of her sisters. Closing her eyes, Briella takes a deep breath before she walks down the dark hallways which now seem slightly unfamiliar and menacing. Her light steps creating little pit pats that echo down the hallways as she hurriedly walked to the entrance hall. Grabbing her winter cloak and leather boots, then grabbing Bella's hunting bag before she slipped out of the clinic.
The cold air bit at her face, goosebumps rising all along her neck and her hood did nothing to keep the cold off her. Briella huffed and started sprinting towards the gates. She ran up the stairs towards the tops of the barricade, Briella needed to talk to Oliver.
Oliver Shaw was her long time friend that normally helped her sneak out and indulge with watching her polish her mediocre hunting and skinning skills. So it was no surprise for her to visit him this late at night.
Creaking the door open slightly, she saw his figure hunched over his desk, scribbling furiously. He seemed to be in a hurry, whispering furiously to himself as well his scribbling. Briella did not go in, she knocked and saw his flinch before he turned around and looked at her with the eyes of a startled deer.
"What's wrong?"
Oliver looked at her with an indecipherable gaze before getting up and bringing her further into the room and closing the door, but not before looking out into the hallway and then bolting it shut.
Briella looked at him, waiting for an answer.
"It is with the recent influx of residency in this area. You have noticed to right, they're moving very slowly. The letters that [Name] sends are of big help as they notify us of what the opposition is doing," Oliver shook his head, "I don't want to imagine what the bandits are doing [Name]."
Briella flinched when she thought of that, both she and her sisters only thought that [Name] is well and would never lie to them. But now that Oliver mentioned it, how do they truly know that that's true? It made her feel awful, the fact that [Name] maybe constantly tortured and subjected to horrors no one would dare speak of hurt her. It made her heart pound unpleasantly.
Oliver was fretting over the letter his Commander had sent him. The data that the clinic had given them and the slow increase of people buying willow bark had increased, not in quantity but they had been purchased more frequently by lots of different people, all of who were the most recent residents.
Briella looked out the window, it was still late.
"I need to go out."
"Why?"
"To see the elk, and maybe follow it."
"Why follow it? That elk won't lead you back to [Name], it protects you and everyone here, it won't listen to you. It only listens to [Name]."
Briella looked at him, determined, "I need to try."
Oliver nodded, "I don't have anything to do for the next week, we can both go and find him. It would be good for us to locate their base."
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After getting the things they needed for the night, they ventured out, past the gates, avoiding the guards who were on night duty.
As they trekked through the dark, Briella and Oliver ventured carefully deeper and deeper into the woods.
The trees reached up into the night sky, like giant gnarly fingers, brushing the sky. It intimidated them but still, they kept moving deeper and deeper. Until a sound akin to a Ringwraith accompanied with thundering hooves thundered towards them, making the two fall back, hearts pounding, sweat soaking their backs. Briella and Oliver scrambled back.
A peal of maniacal laughter echoed all around them.