Eighty nights after meeting the General
I saw a forest in the distance. When the trees first appeared, I could have cried tears of hope. I kept my cool. Who knew what was in store for me? It was too early to rejoice. It was too risky to react. Still, a voice softly whispered words of faith in my ear.
Four days ago, we started our journey to Tellevine castle.
The crown prince, the bastard, and the druid.
It tickled me, how much it sounded like a fairytale.
And maybe it was. Jareth was an enigma to me from the very start.
While the prince paid me no mind, I was fed.
I was clothed. I was watched over while I slept.
With plenty of bread in our bellies and a good night’s rest, we left the village on horseback. Jareth lifted me on his horse too gently. He sat behind me, steadying me with one hand, holding the reins with the other. Never getting too close. Never squeezing too hard.
When we paused, he lifted me from the black stallion like a maiden in an epic. He made sure I was fed before eating anything himself. I kept quiet. I did not want to make a scene and lose whatever kindness I was rewarded with. I preferred his softness over the spears he carried on his back.
There were moments where I looked for an escape route.
For a way to throw the alpha off his saddle and ride off into the sunset with my newly acquired steed.
In those moments, one look at the prince was enough to make me give up.
At least for a moment. A bow and arrow hung loosely around his shoulders.
He would hunt me down. He would catch me.
The moment passed. It wasn’t the right time.
Maybe Jareth knew what I was thinking before I did. When I was looking for an escape route, he would whisper to me: “Eyes on the horizon, druid.”
The prince did not say a thing about his treatment of me until the third day.
It was during the late afternoon, when the sun was disappearing behind the rolling hills.
I was sitting in a poppy field. The tall grass reached up to my elbows.
Jareth and Victor were tending to their horses.
Jareth handed me an apple, before feeding one to his horse.
“Is the omega affecting you?” Victor asked. He stood beside his horse, chewing loudly. He was not prince-like at all. Jareth frowned at him.
“Affecting me how?” he asked. Victor shrugged.
“Appealing to your beastly nature? Seducing you as an alpha?” Victor was jesting. Mocking. The tone of his voice held nothing but disdain. “You are treating him like some nobleman’s virginal daughter.”
“I’m a werewolf. Druids don’t affect me,” Jareth responded. I kept myself small. I kept myself quiet.
Victor scoffed. “He certainly affected Axel,” he said. “How did you do it?” he asked of me. It was the first time he met my eyes in a while. I wished I could go without being noticed by him forever.
“Axel and I are not the same,” Jareth answered for me. They held each other’s gaze. Victor’s face held contempt. Jareth was relaxed. His soft smile ever present.
“Let’s get going,” Victor said. Jareth turned towards his horse. He picked me up, holding me a little tighter than before, when he put me on his horse. Off we went.
We slept underneath the stars. It was then, that first night sleeping in the fields, that I noticed a chill in the air.
A wind that was colder than the sea breeze had been the night before.
Tellevine was southeast from us. The climate more forgiving.
I was no expert. My experience with travelling was very limited.
But as an omega, I was sensitive to shifts in the environment, and I knew something was not right.
Far from the coast, the air was dry. To the south, the air was hot.
It was too cold for the region we were travelling.
It was wrong for the time of year. I did not think on it for too long.
The next day we were off again. It went by just like the last. Wild grass and grazing cattle. We avoided roads. We came across very few people. There was the occasional farmer tending his land, but they never interacted with us. Travellers often meant trouble.
The day came and went, and another morning had broken after yet another chilly night. Even during the day, the wind remained. It came in waves, but it never really ceased. And it was during that morning that the first seed of hope was planted within me.
Wherever I looked, as far as the eye could see, there were no vineyards. There were no ponds, no geese flying south. My legs were kept warm by the body heat of the horse we sat on. The nip in the air went straight through my tunic. My nose was almost an icicle. And I remembered.
It was Jareth that was holding the compass. It was the alpha that led us through grassy hills and open moorland.
The prince followed obediently. Like the commoner he should have been. I held my breath until the late afternoon. When the sun set even earlier than the day before, and on the top of a rocky hill, a pine tree stood tall. I licked my lips.
“Where are we?” Victor asked. I did not look behind me. If I did, I would see the look on his face.
“Close,” Jareth answered. His voice remained level. “Only a few more hours.”
And we rode on for a while. My eyes closed. My muscles tensing. Whether from the weather or the stress, I did not know.
It could not last forever. The sun had almost fully set when I saw it on the horizon. Pine trees and even great oaks. The forest.
The prince and his horse were no longer behind us.
“What is the meaning of this, brother?” Victor asked, riding next to us then. I swallowed nothing. My throat was dry. Silence followed. “Why are we going north?! Where are you taking us?”
Jareth did not respond. I did not dare to look to my right, to see the face of prince Victor. I had no idea why we were going north either. Why we were nearing the forest that stood between the Empire and the Oaklands.
“I told you before we left. We are taking the omega home,” Jareth said. My heartbeat sped up. I felt it beating in my ears. A surge of adrenaline blinded me for a moment. Jareth’s hand on my waist was what kept me sitting upright. Kept me from falling from the saddle.
“We are not even close to home!” Victor said. “Give me that compass,” he said. He snatched the brass contraption out of Jareth’s hand. Victor was riding alongside us, close enough for me to see the compass. The arrow unmistakably pointing north.
It took longer than expected for the prince to catch on. Prince Victor was not known for being the bravest, nor the strongest. Clearly, the prince was not the brightest either.
“Whatever do you mean, brother? The omega’s home is up north,” Jareth said. And I could not hold myself back. The absurdity of it all. The days of confusion. Wondering what Jareth was playing at. Why he was being so kind. It all came to a head at that very moment.
With the prince’s mouth hanging open unceremoniously. With his eyes bulging out of his head. With a vein popping in his forehead. With Jareth’s simple answer. With his even tone of voice.
I laughed. A choked up guttural chuckle. Somewhere between a sob and genuine laughter. Between relief to have an ally and fear for what came next.
I would remember the prince’s face twisting and changing as I laughed. Before my fate changed, and my shackles were broken. Victor’s expressions evolving into every emotion under the sun. The betrayal wrapped up in shock that was written on the lines that coloured his forehead.
Two heels tapping on the belly of the black stallion, and we went flying. Past Victor on his overpacked mare. One that would never catch up to us. Victory was in our hands.
We rode towards the forest; with a speed I had never known before.
And we got close. We were nearly at the forest’s edge.
A pained neighing filled the air. I could have thrown up at the sound of it. At the excitement that turned into dread. The horse fell first, and we fell soon after.
I tumbled on the grass, through dense shrubbery. Thorns biting the bare skin of my ankles. I heard the horse whinny and whine. The cause: an arrow in his neck.
Jareth was already up. A glass spear in hand. His eyes on Victor, several meters away. The prince was still on horseback. He was gaining on us. His arrow was pointed at Jareth. I got up and braced myself for the fight that was to come.
“Run,” he said. I took a step back. “Run to the forest, omega.”
The forest was right behind me. So close I could already feel the energy of it tangling up with my magic. But I could not just leave Jareth.
The alpha released a spear. It made a perfect bow and landed on its target.
Victor was down. It was grotesque, the way the spear went through his shoulder.
The way he ended up on the ground with a thud.
His mare running away. She was quickly nearing the forest’s edge.
Where Jareth wanted me to run to as well.
“Go now, omega. Tell your alpha what happened here today. Tell him the prince is dead. Tell him I am waiting for his message,” Jareth said. He pulled out another spear and advanced towards Victor.
“He is not dead yet,” I said.
“He will be,” the alpha responded.
I could not bear to watch. However much I hated him, I could not watch him die. This was nothing like the battlefield. Everything felt different when the faces of the defeated were no longer anonymous.
So, I ran towards the forest. A place not known to be kind to humans. But I was not a human. And the forest was a part of me.