Crossroads, Part 1, Waylaid (Patreon)

The winding dirt road stretched onwards, weaving back and forth underneath the boughs of trees, around hills, and skirting the edge of the sea.  It stretched as far as the eye could see, barely even considered to be on the outskirts of civilization.  The edges were overgrown with grass and weeds.   Its shape was maintained only by a foundation of stones sporadically scattered on either side in the semblance of order.  Trampled flat over the years of use by hooves and feet of untold numbers, it did not even have a name; it was just one of a thousand unremarkable rural highways that connected the various kingdoms of Europe.

Eyes, bright green as the fields beyond, scanned over their surroundings with energy that, for all the recent days of strife, bloodshed, animosity, and suspicion, could not be dampened.  He did not see the great rolling plains where armies of Human and the animal-like, mysterious Anthros might wage battle, and most likely had in any number of similar locations.  He saw only the raw beauty of the world he inhabited.  The wind that blew through his chestnut-brown hair was the same for both Human and Anthro.  He saw a world of potential, of peace, and of opening minds and boundaries to include all sentient peoples underneath the bright blue sky.

Why else, and who else, would have agreed to the task he had undertaken?  Who else would willingly brave the unsettled tracks of land between Human and Anthro in order to pass along messages, carry diplomatic information, or ferry gifts, tributes, and favors between the previously warring factions?  It was a dangerous line of work, but potentially the most crucial to bring the days of darkness to an end and usher in a new dawn.

Anson dared to hope.  It was a foolhardy quality, but he had only the light in his soul and heart to keep his feet sure as he traipsed down the road used usually only by wandering merchants, peddlers, roaming gypsy caravans, or messengers, like him.  Still, even for all his boundless enthusiasm, he wished that he at least had a horse.  It would have made the trek much faster.  Then again, for all the rough terrain he often had to navigate in order to avoid any and all settlements that might attempt to bar his way and impede his incredibly important mission, a horse would not have been a fit companion.  A mountain goat, maybe.

He was sorely glad to have that treacherous mountain pass firmly behind him.  He could still remember the rickety wooden planks underneath his boots, the chain in his hand slick with ice as the wind howled around him.  One slip and he would have fallen into the mist below, never to be found.  Still, it had been that or try his luck with the actual bandit clan that had taken up ownership of the merchant's road up the mountain.

Lawlessness like that was everywhere in this age of war and uncertainty.  With the fighting between Human and Anthro having finally deescalated from full, open warfare and instead become scattered pockets of skirmishes between the more fanatical or reticent clans and principalities, maybe that would all change.  Even so, as ever, the vacuum of security and vigilant patrolling by the land's otherwise occupied sentinels had allowed for a massive influx of raiders, bandits, highwaymen, and thieves.

With only his short sword, a sling, and a woodland-patterned cloak to protect him, as armor would have slowed him down too much, Anson had been forced to take many such precautions, diversions, backroads, and detours to avoid detection by potentially unfriendly eyes.  He had even had to skirt around actual towns and holdings, for fear that someone might be lying in wait there.

As he walked, he gave his wide-open mind the room to wander and roam even as his feet steadily ate up the terrain.  He had miles and miles to go yet.  He felt, even now, the weight of the document he carried in his satchel.  When he had been handed it by the taciturn Anthro warrior, he had immediately understood the extreme importance passed down to him, speeding his feet back towards his home to bring the message to his leaders.

So far, the two peoples had been operating underneath a promise of armistice, of the ceasing of battle at long last between the Anthro people and his individual kingdom that had finally agreed to halt their advances of armies.  They were not the only ones either.  News of the proposed 'Four Royals Alliance' had spread far and wide and the entire European continent, and many other places besides, held their breath to see if, somehow, peace were possible.

And with the cessation of hostilities, many clans and peoples actually began to realize it truly was.  Or at least, that was how Anson wished, and hoped, that it could be.  Nearly every holding, clan hall, castle, and princedom was anxiously waiting to see if news of the fighting's end was to become permanent.  He only wished it could have been this way forever...

Not everyone wanted the war to end.  Humans, for the most part, had immediately hated Anthros for their vast strangeness and the abrupt arrival of their people out of the Dark Forest almost a century ago.  They feared their unnatural appearances, walking and talking animal-humanoids of all sorts of breeds, colors, and sizes.  It was the last point that truly sparked fear amongst the common folk.  Anthros, as a general rule, were much larger, stronger, more durable, faster, and more primal than Humans. Their capacity for war was limited only by their seeming active disdain for it.  These points, while alleviating some worries, only served to allow power-hungry, xenophobic, or opportunistic warlords, princes, kings, and regents to justify the mustering of armies in preparation to wage war on the alien people.

Much like when the Norse raiders first established farms and villages in England, the initial response, especially given the peaceful intentions and actions of these new, bizarre, animal-like people, had been mostly hesitant.  Many had immediately feared and respected them, worried that they intended to conquer or were less intelligent and thus prone to violence.  It soon became clear, however, that Anthros were as unwarlike as could be. They even offered their strength to those most willing to accept it in terms of construction and manual labor, but never as fighters or warriors.

The only thing they asked for in return was space: they needed vast areas to settle and govern themselves within.  It seemed an easy trade and several kingdoms benefitted greatly from it.  But when jealousy began to build off how gifted, talented, but unambitious they seemed, Humans quickly found justification to begin their war, despite the protestation of the less numerous factions.  It was easier to assume the Anthros were just like humans in their eventual need for conquest or expansion, two things that Anthros neither understood or cared for.

The first raids had been brutal, horrific, and terrible.  Hundreds of innocent Anthros had been put to the sword, driven from their beautifully intricate homes into the wilds where they were hunted like the animals they so closely resembled.  Whole clans had been butchered or were lost to the woods and mountains.  Anson shuddered at the memory of the skins that hung on several castle walls, fortress gates, and even the houses of villagers like trophies.

The Anthros had petitioned for peace and armistice immediately, which only served to baffle the Humans more.  Humans knew only the proper way that things were done was by violence: when someone has something you want, you make them your enemy and thus are justified in taking it from them in any and all capacity.  You either fought back once targeted, fled your homes, or were slaughtered.  That was the way it had always been; the sad truth of the Human race's existence and interaction with even their own kind for such scant and minimal perceived differences:  what God or Gods they worshipped, the color of their skin or hair, and sometimes just because.

Anthros had satisfied any and all of those requirements for many people.  And still, they did not fight back.  Perhaps that had only added to the continuance of cruelties they were subjected to, the Humans feeling they had free reign to treat these foreigners however they wished to, for the most part.  Whole colonies of their people begged for mercy, subjecting themselves to the rulership of others if only to spare their children and families from similar fates.  And that began yet another age of strife and hardship for the Anthros: the age of Anthro slavery.

They made good workers, as was already known, for their exponentially greater strength.  They were tough and hardy, meaning they could withstand days of work at a time if they were forced to do so.  And most of all: they were kind, not only to each other no matter their species but to their very oppressors.  That above all made them exploitable.

Sentiments spread that they were either a foulness that had to be wiped away, or that their natural place in life was as servants to Humans.  Through Godly design or base desire, nearly all Humans began to feel that they were better in every way for the simple sake that no matter how they treated the Anthros, all they did was plead for mercy and obey when pushed as far as was necessary.  Some humans rebelled against this treatment of an obviously intelligent species and were labeled by cruel words and even crueler atrocities.

The ruling clans of their people had finally had enough.  Throughout it all, even as the outlying groups and colonies were put to the sword or whip, the Anthros had indeed formed their own country, squarely in the heart of Europe.  Their leaders, the mysterious, regal, strongest, most targeted, and persecuted of them all, the Royals, went to the most sympathetic of Humans and begged for their aid in releasing their enslaved people.  Most of these outcries fell on deaf ears.  For the Royals did not resemble any natural animal like their lesser kin.  They were taller, stronger, naturally commanding leaders, and even those not born with all their traits, and instead only inherited some were above and beyond their own, species-specific brethren.

The Royals, in their own tales of origin when they passed them eventually to Humans willing to listen, were the original seed of their homeworld.  For some mysterious reason, this completely separate realm of reality, whether magical plane or actual planet, had lost the ability to sustain their people any longer and forced them to use their failing magic to flee to Earth.  They were the true children of their original world of Ahn, who had uplifted countless species, nearly identical to the wildlife of Earth, and passed on the gifts of knowledge, shape, speech, song, thought, creation, and faith.  Despite all of this, it was easiest to fear these people above all, for they most closely resembled the beasts of myth and legend that Humans most feared.

Dragons.

Offers of help were thus scarce and often hollow.  When they could not convince through words, the Royals, with broken hearts, at last, gave the order to their remaining people, free or enslaved.  It was a primal reawakening that returned them to a darker part of themselves; an inherently angry, violent core at the very center of every single one of their beings, kept contained by their desire to become more than they had been.  It was something they had apparently tried to leave behind when they fled their home to come to Earth.  Although they refused to speak of it, many of Anson's people began to suspect it had some kind of connection to the ailment or contagion that eventually claimed their old home.

Humans called it Fury or Blood-Rage.  But the Anthros called it: Aggression.

As one, all across the lands, Anthros, upon hearing the command of their Royals in their hearts through some mysterious connection, rose up.  Whether shackled or not.  No matter the distance, their people finally put aside their pleas for mercy, peace, and justice for the wrongs done to them, and took matters into their own hands.  Open hearts closed, claws were bared, and eyes shone red.

The Humans were finally proven correct in their fears, but only through their own doing.  Anthros, who previously disdained the use of them, learned the art of forging weapons and armor where they thought it necessary.  These secrets came from the few Humans that had, from the start, remained their allies.  This had caused these same Human towns, clans, and settlements to be targeted by their own kind with the same hostilities.

They needed no siege engines; what castle wall did they need to scale with ladders when they could do so with claws alone, or bash down castle doors with just their combined might of arms?  They needed no horses, for they were faster on paw than any horse could dream of matching.  Supplies were not as necessary to coordinate, they were as animals in their capacity to hunt and thrive in the wilds where Humans could not without shelter, lodging, and tools.  Their cries and howls turned from fear to wrath, led in a song of battle by their glorious and vengeful Royals at the head of every charge.

The war truly began in earnest, no longer one-sided.  Even depleted as they were, Anthros quickly recovered ground and manpower by freeing their enslaved kin where they could, liberating, uplifting, or avenging their Human allies as they went.  Indeed, it was a grim thought that if they had begun their arrival to Earth this way, Humans could easily have been forced to become their slaves.  The Anthros had learned much from their fellow sentient beings of how things were done on Earth.

But this was not the world that either side truly wanted.  Anthros, committed to the war even if it cost them every life they had to spend but still wishing only for peace, and Humans, now terrified of the beast-men they had unleashed upon themselves, desperately began to search for solutions.  They found it in the Four Royals Alliance.  Two royal children of both Anthros and Humans were sequestered in a secret summer palace, including his own people's prince, Evan Anglesey, son of Angharad Cynanson, his King.   The war dragged on to a stalemate; both sides having agreed reticently to no more fighting after over a hundred years of it, to see if they could truly leave the past behind.  So, the children had begun to grow up alongside one another, completely removed from their own people as an attempt to learn if peace would ever be possible.

He prayed to every God in creation, even his own, that it could be.  It was not just for the safety of his crown prince, he'd never met Evan Anglesey but that wasn't much surprise, given his low birth, but also the success, health, and happiness of all involved in this last attempt to guarentee peace and coexistence between Human and Anthro  But maybe Anson was just a wishful thinker.

The world simply had enough darkness in it to not need this continuance of genocide and enslavement, although the Anthros had never taken part in the latter.  Captives taken by the animal people, from what Anson had learned, including his own brother, were held in captivity, treated well, and eventually released with no ransom after a specified length of time.  It was one of the things that inspired him to become a messenger between his King and the Anthro clans.  If they could behave somehow with more humanity than actual humans, he had to do everything he could to aid in the ending of this pointless and horrible war.

They were such a beautiful people after all.  The way they spoke of Spirits, of their ancestors, and how they lived their lives in quiet solace, seeking to perfect themselves in their chosen trades and coexist alongside nature; it was humbling to say the least.  Looking through their eyes, he truly had begun to appreciate the world for what it was.  They deserved every chance to find a home in this wide open world they all lived in.

Turning his eyes back onto the world outside of his mind, he saw that he had crossed a vast distance since starting off that morning.  The sea rolled ever on to his left as the road wound on around the cliffside overlooking the coast.  Vast stretches of open fields surrounded him and in the distance he saw the beginning of a vast forest that led to a distant mountain range.  He even saw the telltale smoke of chimneys, a far way off, but evidence of another town.  Surely they might be a good rest stop.

He noticed then that he was slowly approaching a copse of trees that trailed off the closer it got to the coastline.  A single massive oak had taken root on the cliff overlooking the sea, its shadowy branches reaching almost eighty feet into the air.  It looked magnificent, a lonely but proud watcher of the countryside.  A short rest beneath its boughs would be lovely, he decided.

Anson reached the base of the tree after about another hour of walking.  As its shadows fell over him, he immediately felt more at peace.  He sat down against its trunk, sighing as he undid his sword belt and laid the weapon at his side just barely still within reach.  He looked out over the area in front of him, confident that he would see anyone approaching by a good ways off.  He dug in his pack for some travel rations to slake his hunger.  His meager coin pouch jingled and he counted out the silver in it.  Enough to refill his pack when he got to the next village, assuming that they weren't of an enemy faction or clan.

As he munched on hardtack and dried, bitter jerky, he felt his eyes beginning to drift closed.  The tranquility and open space of the area, the sounds of the sea and birds behind him, and the gentle sway of the branches in a soft wind were almost hypnotic.  He yawned and stretched out a bit more in the space between the roots he had taken for his seat.  It had been over a week since he had rested in a real bed.  Maybe just a short nap...

***

The slithering whisper of a sword leaving its sheath jerked him awake.  He sat up in alarm, reaching desperately for his own weapon when something cold and sharp tickled his throat.  His eyes went wide with abrupt panic and he froze stiff.  No...

"Afternoon, handsome," purred a sultry, accented voice from behind him and slightly overhead.  It contained a heavy, growling, husky quality to it, immediately grabbing his attention almost as much as the sword poking at his jugular.  "Sorry to disturb your napping, you looked so peaceful there.  Afraid I couldn't wait any longer though."

He peered out of the corners of his eyes towards the source of the voice.  He saw someone just barely lurking there, causing him to turn his head ever so slightly to see them better.  That apparently had been a mistake.  The sword lifted, dragging across his stubbly throat and actually giving him a partial shave on that side.  Several hairs drifted down to the ground.  Somehow, it didn't cut his actual skin at all.

"Ah, ah, ah," chuckled the person.  "Now, who said you were supposed to move?  Wouldn't want me to slip and cut that pretty neck of yours, would we?"  The voice contained an almost flirtatious edge to it alongside the deep rasp.  They sounded as if they were actually amused at the visual image that had him sitting abruptly so stiff that all his muscles had clenched on reflex.  "Be such a shame.  Not to mention a waste."

He opened his mouth after several seconds of being held at sword point.  He had to swallow, again jiggling the sword against his neck, to get enough moisture on his tongue and lips to be able to speak.

"My...money is in my pack," he told his attacker.  "Feel free to take it."

"Okay," they said jovially.  "Throw me the pack."

His hands clenched tight on the bag in his lap.  "I...I can't do that."

"Why?" they chuckled.  "Not carrying some lady's favor in there are you?  Some village girl's shawl to hold onto at night during your lonely travels?  It's sweet and very sentimental of you, but I don't think that it's worth dying for."

His eyes narrowed and he again peered as much out of the corner of his perception to see even a single detail about them.  He failed to do so, but he thought he heard the rattle of armor.  Their weight shifted, perhaps against a tree root, a good distance back but not so much that it couldn't still be them.  He couldn't tell if they were alone either.

Lifting a hand very slowly, he reached inside the pack and pulled out the precious purse, tied with string at the head, that his king had given him for travel expenses and emergencies.  The crest of the kingdom was stitched into the leather.  "No, I'm not," he replied then to their insinuations.  "Here."  He held it back out behind him as far as he could reach.

Something lifted the purse delicately from his palm although he didn't feel that it was a hand.  The sound of armor rattling again came with it.  Coins jingled a second later as they seemed to be counting them out.

"Much obliged," came their response once they had concluded.  "This'll buy me a few ales or so."  The sword point didn't lower.

He took a deep breath, trying to calm himself from the combination of fear and irritation at his situation.  He'd been so careful this entire time only to be robbed by a simple bandit.  How embarrassing.  It wasn't like he would stand much of a chance against an armored opponent like them either, even if he could reach his sword.  Even from just the voice, they sounded like a rather large adversary.  Big, quiet, and very well-armed.  The sword at his neck was a well-made one, scarred from battle and use but still honed to a killing edge.

"If that's all you wanted," he tried to say.  "I have somewhere I need to be."

The sword did not waver.  "Afraid not, handsome," they said.  The ground crunched softly as he heard them slowly start to pace around him.  Slowly but surely, armored feet stomped into view, disturbing the loam and fallen leaves that lay all around the base of the tree.  Armored, clawed feet.  His eyes went wide.  Those weren't human.  "While silver is always welcome, our business unfortunately isn't concluded yet."

His vision began to ascend, never moving his head as the bandit circled around to stand directly in front of him.  His eyes climbed up a huge body covered in spare but well-fitting pieces of plated armor, chainmail, and fabric that strained over a massive frame.  The metal was crafted somehow in a leaf-shaped design.  Each polished, rounded plate gleamed, even in the dim light that pierced the leaves overhead.

The tops of their thighs were exposed above the greaves and spiked poleyn knee-guards, as they did not wear the usually accompanying skirted steel faulds.  The skin, where it was visible, was a distinct and rather alarming red, nearly blood-colored in hue, patterned with overlapping scales that were barely distinguishable like those of a huge lizard, almost armor-like on their own.  A hanging loincloth hung down over the waist in lieu of pants or leggings.  His eyes continued to climb.

He saw their sword more clearly now: a large, broad, geometrically-crafted weapon that looked sufficient to cleave a fully grown man in half.  It was made with a unique, triangular guard that did not match any of the blades he knew were carried by humans.  The entire thing was also too big for any human to wield conventionally.  This person, however, was more than strong enough to do it, as was evident by the gauntlet and vambrace clad arm that held it.  The limb bulged underneath the similar red-scaled skin with musculature that no human could hope to match.  A single blow might very well crush bone even as it cut.  And they wielded it in one, massive, armored paw that had claws poking out from underneath where the metal finger coverings ended just before the tips.

The arm connected to the body where thicker scales grew across the collarbone and bare shoulders.  They wore no shoulder guards but somehow they didn't really look like they were needed.  As his eyes fell upon the true upper body, he paused, shocked.  This person was a woman, undeniable, for the size and shape of the chest, defying all sense of human proportions he had ever seen.  She wore only a segmented half-breastplate over her top half, cut off at the belly where yet more of the thicker, plated scales helped protect her mid-section, which was actually broader and more rounded rather than a trim or athletic shape.  Her entire frame was like that: robust, curved, and healthy.  None of it was fat, however, he had no doubt.  Behind her waved a long, spine-covered tail with actual armored plates, similar to the chest piece, attached to the top half, leading down to a blunt, almost mace-like tip.

Upwards even further, he finally saw his aggressor's face.  A long coat of midnight hair, not just black but tinted somehow blue or red in places depending on how the light struck it, hung around a rough, scaly muzzle.  A pair of dark horns poked up through it and curled back over the angled skull, behind a frilled set of ears that twitched every so often.  One eye was visible through the curtain of dark tresses, gleaming brightly with a slitted pupil that blazed in an orb of seemingly living flame.

The Anthro woman grinned after several seconds stretched their interaction into stunned silence.  The tips of sharpened fangs showed, glinting in the dim light.  They drew attention to her jawline and neck as she leaned her head back, hair falling back slightly to one side and baring her scaly throat.  She almost looked amused at his reaction.  Only then did he realize he had been staring, nearly open-mouthed, since she had come into his field of vision.  He clamped his mouth shut at once and finally averted his eyes from her bewitching features.

"What's the matter?" she teased.  "Too stunned for words?  Never been held at swordpoint by such a lovely, delicate flower before?"

"I'd hardly describe you as delicate," he countered immediately, flicking his eyes back up to her face again.  It wasn't that it was hard to look at her, in truth she had a certain, intense loveliness to her that he had never come across, almost like a magnetic force.  The reality was that he was also incredibly leery of being thought of as staring, as it was rude to do so to a lady.  "But no this is definitely a first for me."

Somehow, her grin widened, stretching her muzzle more and exposing yet more long, sharp teeth.  On any other day, that might have unsettled him.  "A flatterer then!" she crowd, voice strong and loud.  Her sword finally lifted from his neck and came to rest, nonchalant, against her shoulder.  He breathed a sigh of relief and rubbed at the freshly shaven spot at his throat.  It was smooth as a woman's, or very close to it.

"I...don't follow," he admitted.  "How exactly did I flatter you?"  He made to stand but hesitated.  She didn't make a move to stop him from doing so but he got an immediate sense that rising would not have been a good idea.  Only then did he also realize something else: this woman was not just large as a combination of bulk, proportions, and armor.  She was large for a whole other reason as well.  And that was her height.

This draconic appearing woman towered over him by almost half again his entire height.  Even if he stood as tall as he could, he would only come to above her naval.  She must have been almost nine feet to the top of her horns.  Even one of her four-fingered, armored paws could have nearly enveloped his skull.  That also meant that her assets were also extraordinarily sized, not just in proportion to her frame but in direct comparison to his own body.  Even one of those orbs contained beneath that metal breastplate would have been bigger than his head.  His face flushed to even be thinking of such a thing with death seemingly still so close.

Winking one of those flaming eyes down at him, the Anthro woman continued to leer.  "Well, you didn't deny the lovely part of that sentence," she shrugged, looking ever so nonchalant as if she were fully aware of how striking she was.  "Rare for a human to have that kind of opinion, I'll admit.  But you yourself aren't that bad to look at."

She leaned at the waist then, armor shifting and grinding.  Her mouth opened slightly, baring an intimidating view of her double rows of gleaming fangs.  Her hair swayed down around her shoulders, even more, revealing both of her eyes.  He had expected to see both blazing, red, and yellow orbs like fiery mirrors.  He blinked in shock to instead see the previously covered one was pale and greyed over, obviously blinded by a huge scar that cut down over her brow to just above her cheek.

"Those roots you were sleeping between look pretty comfortable.  I'll have you know my flower is much more sensitive than it looks, Messenger boy," she growled huskily.  "Care for a tumble, test it out yourself?"

Anson's mouth went dry and once again he felt it falling open as he stared up at the Anthro bandit woman who had just propositioned him.  Him.  A human.  That just wasn't something that was done.  Humans and Anthros had so little in common, especially given the animosity between them, that the idea of lying down with one seemed as outlandish as trying to breathe underwater.  Not...unwelcome just impossible as a concept.  Her striking eyes, handsome features, and admittedly fertile-appearing assets aside...  He struggled to put such things out of his mind.

Even as he tried to muster up even a single thought in order to rebuke her, as politely as possible, or to say anything really, he felt an impending sense of danger lurking about her.  Maybe it was the gleam of that single glowing eye, the way her hand idly gripped her sword, or the deadly relaxed posture she used.  A single wrong word might have been his last.

The tension mounted more and more, stretching on into what felt like an eternity, despite that it was only maybe a couple of seconds before the woman abruptly stood back up and howled with laughter.  Her hair once again fell down over her blinded eye, concealing it as her open mouth flashed her dagger-like teeth.  Her merriment rang around the coastline, shaking her whole frame and making her armor clatter.  The tree's leaves rustled overhead somewhat more than they had been.

"Spirits," she chortled, wiping at the corner of her one visible eye with a claw.  "I needed that."  She grinned at him directly again, seeming to be actually amused.  "I'm in a good mood now, Human, so I think we can conclude our business here without the need for actual bloodshed.  Just leave the bag and you can go on your merry way to charming farmer's daughters or wooing the blacksmith's widow."

It was Anson's turn to growl.  Despite his instincts warning him that this was a bad idea, he stood up from the ground at last and planted his feet, keeping the bag firmly tucked behind him with one hand.  "With all due respect, milady," he began, trying to keep his voice firm and strong.  "That is impossible for me to do.  I was given the task of transporting this satchel to its destination and I intend to do so, no matter what, or who tries to stop or deter me."

Her smile and lingering chuckle ground to a halt.  The corners of her muzzle began to droop and the merriment drained from her expression.  She almost seemed shocked by his direct confrontation of the out she had presented him.  He saw the clawed hand holding the sword tighten its grip slightly.  At any second, he expected to see that limb move and the blade hurtling towards his head and neck.  Instead...

"Well..." she grated out.  "I can safely say I wasn't expecting that answer."  She cocked her head to one side down at him.  Her eye flicked toward the bag held behind his back.  "Whatever is in there must be awfully important for a messenger to be willing to die to protect it."

"It is," Anson grunted firmly.

"You know that I can kill you without even really blinking," she noted.

"I am very aware of that," he admitted, unable to stop the shiver of fear that traveled up his spine as the sword lowered slowly from her shoulder to hang at her side ever so casually.

Her lip curled slightly more.  "And once you're dead, nothing at all is going to stop me from just...taking it anyway."

He stood up straighter in front of her, steeling himself.  "Nothing but your own morals, lady knight, or whatever your title is.  My name is Anson, Son of Aedwulf, courier, and messenger of the Human Kingdom of Wales.  My people are engaged in armistice with yours.  I am not your enemy."

The Anthro woman's eye became flinty as he continued to speak.  He thought he saw her jaw clenching, teeth grinding against one another, as she seemed to be deliberating something.  The sword twitched at her side.  Her tail lashed behind her from side to side and he tried to muster up a mental prayer of absolution to God or whoever might listen to receive him well.  He had no idea what this woman might do but he wasn't afraid to die in his chosen line of duty.

"Anson," she growled out a second or so later.  She lifted a claw and scratched at the scales of her chin.  Her eye finally looked away from him, up towards the leaves above and perhaps beyond to the clear, blue sky.  "Handsome Anson," she blurted out.  All of a sudden, her entire demeanor abruptly changed again.  She beamed at him, eye flashing with amusement once more.  "Good nickname for you."

Anson stared at her, completely dumbstruck.  "I'm....I'm sorry...?" he asked, unable to keep his stubbly cheeks from flushing red.  It wasn't that he was unused to the attention of women, but certainly he had never been put into this kind of situation before.  One second this woman was threatening him, and the next she was seemingly flirting.  Anthros were ever a mystery, he supposed.

She shrugged and then sighed.  "That being said, handsome or not, you're still going to give me that bag."  Her tail waved behind her, armor-plates jostling at the motion.  It was almost hypnotic.  "The people that hired me specifically said that the courier along this route would be carrying important documents and I was supposed to retrieve them.  And the only thing I like more than a good fight is being paid.  I doubt you can give me the former, and you already gave me your money which isn't more than what I'm promised for this task.  So unless you've got more silver stowed somewhere you, I'm afraid business is business.  I could always frisk you though, that might be fun."

He stiffened, his ruffled emotions calming back into stoic determination.  "Did you not hear me?" he demanded.  "I said I'm not your enemy!"  He gestured at the bag with his opposite hand, still holding it behind himself.  "I am carrying a signed message of vital importance from your Leaders to carry to mine.  You're an Anthro!"

Her snarl made him jump back, his spine bumping against the trunk of the tree.  Her expression had become feral and a strange, subtle scent had begun to emanate from her.  His stomach clenched.  Aggression.  He had scented it before, not so much a smell than a seeming natural reaction that caused the world around an Anthro to become tense and tight, like a bow's drawstring.  It was akin to a fight or flight response, he had been told, but he had no doubt which of those options she was about to pick.

"They're not my leaders" she spat out.  "The Royals can all rot in their scales for all I care.  I don't have allegiance to anyone but myself anymore."  Her lips curled more on one side, flashing her fangs again.  "Furthermore, I don't have enemies," she continued.  "I have threats."

"I'm not a threat~!" he tried to object.

Her sword flashed, faster than the eye could follow.  Anson flinched in alarm, eyes closing on reflex.  There was a heavy thud right above his head, followed by a muted ringing.  He opened his eyes.  The draconic Anthro woman loomed above him, barely a foot between them now.  Her sword had buried itself into the wood of the tree directly above his curly hair.  A second later, her free claw grabbed onto his tunic, lifting him up off his feet until barely his toes were still touching the earth.  She had bent down to meet him eye to eye.

"And I...make the threats," she snarled, soft and low.  The light in her fiery eye had intensified, nearly seeming to glow.  Her teeth opened slowly and he felt a rush of hot air brush past his cheeks.  "Now..." she hissed, leaning forward more and barely grazing her scaly cheek against his ear before she nipped at just the tip.  "Do I have to threaten you more?  Or are you going to give me what I want?  I'm not a patient woman, so I'd think hard and fast if I were you."

His stomach had tightened into a frenzied, clenching ball, his heart hammering in his ears.  His arms shook and he knew, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that he had no chance in this situation, body nearly frozen, of making it out alive if he didn't do what this woman wanted.

"W-why?" he managed to get out.  "Why would you want to impede the potential peace this message could bring?"  She leaned back, again looking him in the eye.  He took the minute chance he had been given to keep talking so long as he had a tongue to do it.  "We don't have to be enemies...not you and me, nor our peoples."

Her fiery gaze became slightly distant.  She still gazed at him but now she also seemed to be looking beyond him, past even the tree behind his back, to someplace far away and distant.  He knew that look; the agonized chill of the past.  "Our peoples..." she hissed softly.  She again focused her gaze onto him, hers having grown dispassionate and cold.  "Your people took away someone I loved.  My people, my Royals, did nothing to stop it.  I don't have loyalty to those who claim inaction as choice until it's too late."

His heart sank.  "W-who...who did you lose?" he asked.

She snarled again, snapping her teeth right in front of his face.  Her armored body crushed against his, her grip tightening on his tunic front and making his breathing a bit harder to maintain.  She was so heavy and strong...  "What do you care?!" she demanded.  "Humans didn't care about us until they pushed us too far!  Just like you're doing now!  Only now that we are a threat, that we are the monsters that you were afraid we might become, do you possibly seem to grasp that none of us wanted this fight!  She didn't have to die!"  A single tear leaked out of that fiery orb as it gazed down at him.  "My sister..."

She hung her head, hair falling over her face again before she steeled herself and looked back at him again.  Her claws dug in a bit more, tearing through the thick green fabric and nicking his collarbone.  "She went with an exchange of prisoners.  She wanted to help, to ease the wounded's suffering, on both sides.  She was like that, a servant of the Royals just like I was.  She was even friends with our Princess.  But your people laid a trap.  Some other faction of your horrific, violent kind found out about the exchange.  They posted archers to fire on the group.  Your people, of whatever kingdom, and mine, all of them suffered casualties.  My sister died trying to protect Humans, shielding them."  She snapped her jaws shut in front of him again.  "For all the good it did.  They didn't spare anyone that didn't escape in time.  I was part of the patrol that found the exchange site after they didn't make it back to the Clan.  I found her kneeling over children, trying to shield them.  HUMAN children."

Anson hung his head, unable to bear the sheer weight of the amount of hatred being directed at him from this woman who had ever right to do so.  His arms relaxed, the satchel hanging at his side but still not releasing its hold on the strap.  He grimaced softly, heat and emotions burning inside his mind and making his eyes sting.  "I'm sorry..." he grated out.

Her grip didn't loosen, nor did she back up from him, but the raspy growl that had been rumbling in her throat slackened just a touch.  The scent of her Aggression even seemed to lessen.  She didn't respond.

"We Humans..." he continued.  "We've done so much evil to your people, tried to justify it through our fears and jealousies of your kind.  None of you deserve anything that has happened.  Your sister...she sounds like she was a truly good person, better than this world possibly deserved.  I'm truly sorry, for your loss, for her, for all of it."  He looked up into her stony eye again.  "But not all of us are like those men.  Some of us have always known the truth, fought and suffered alongside your people."

She finally seemed to draw back just a bit, but only by the bare minimum.  "And you would of course be one of those," she grumbled with sarcasm heavy on her tongue.  "Your kingdom never once joined in the committing of atrocities.  Never held Anthros as slaves."  Her eye gleamed meaningfully.

Again, Anson hung his head.  It was true.  The recent changes were welcome but his countrymen had once thought as many others had.  "Never I," he stated firmly.  "Never my family.  Nor my village.  We were outliers to the kingdom.  My older brother was conscripted and, yes, fought against your people.  He was captured and then later returned.  Unharmed."

She stayed silent.

"That's why I do what I do," he stated.  "Why I'm willing to be a courier between our peoples, no matter the risks or danger.  I want to believe in a world of true Cohabitation, in true acceptance.  We can never forget the sins of the past but we can work to make the world a better place."

She rolled her one eye.  "Wishful thinking, Handsome Anson," she huffed.  Hot breath gusted past his face again as she snorted.

"It doesn't have to be!" he declared, trying to stay confident and sure, to let her see and believe how he truly felt.  "Let me go.  Let me take the message I'm carrying back home to my King.  I was promised this document would change everything.  It's why, even knowing that you could easily kill me, that I cannot accept any world where I just hand it over.  In the wrong hands...I shudder to imagine what they might do with it."

She met his eyes, seemingly searching for even a shred of duplicity and doubt.  Her gaze was piercing, deeper than the depths of the sea.  He almost felt like she was peering right into his mind.  For whatever reason, he kept it as open as possible, thinking only of the world that so many were waking up and hoping, daring to believe could be true.  Anthros and Humans didn't have to hate one another.

Her claw slowly relaxed its grip on him and he felt the weight of the earth slowly returning to him.  He gazed up at her with a wide grin on his stubble-covered face before he saw that a grim line had settled across her brow.

"That's all well and good," the Anthro said.  "But I promised to deliver to the people who hired me.  I don't believe in magic or fairy tales, or wishful fantasies of even handsome boys like you."  She reached up and retrieved her sword from the tree overhead.  "You're a sweet guy, and I'd hate to have to darken those bright eyes of yours forever."  She touched his chin with a claw tip, turning his face up as much as his neck could strain to do so.  "Give me the satchel," she growled, putting the inflection onto each word.

Anson stared up at her in shock.  How did she not realize the truth of his words?  Did she truly hate Humans and Anthros both so much, wanted to punish them for the loss of her sister by dooming them all to unending war and bloodshed?  It wouldn't bring back her loved ones, she had to know that.

Steeling himself, he met her eyes, jaw firm, and shoulders straight.  She saw his answer before he even voiced it.  "No."

She leaned back from him, sighing, as if a great weight had fallen onto her wide shoulders.  "Such a shame..." she tutted.  She hefted the sword.  "You reminded me of her.  She didn't know when to quit either."

She moved, faster than he could follow.  He closed his eyes as he heard the whoosh of the incoming blow.  He spared one last thought, one last prayer, for this woman's fallen sister.  'May you find peace with your Spirits,' he mouthed before darkness took him with a smote to the side of his head.

***TBC***