" BEATEN BY HOPE "

THE ELONGATED NIGHT HAD faded birthing the boisterous sound of morning birds, and awoken thoughts with an hazed air. The world sounded upon peace, for the Forest they pushed forth held the hands of forgotten sorrow like a mourning widow. The troubled soul of both the breathing, and the lost devoured by the groaning of the swaying trees.

Augustina rode in distanced silence, her lips sealed into a line of floundering disparity, her eyes glued forth as the landscape around her sank against the trot of the beast below. The woman hadn't shed a tear for the man she had left behind, her lips unable to part in a scream of forsaken agony. She was numb, her heart broken with the shattering effect of the damaging world.

The gentle thump of her heart remained beneath her breast, the feeling unnatural in such a grey colored time. How could a heart beat after it had shattered? The question lingered in her mind as the rider behind her pulled the horse to a practiced halt, his arm loosening around her torso.

A sudden alarm had bubbled through her body, only to be snuffled out by the lacking hostility of her current mood. "Where are we?" Augustina questioned, her voice falling from her lips in an shaken melody. Her head turning slightly so she could catch the appearance of the man, only gaining sight of the corner of his clothed shoulder.

"The Singing Forest," The rider had answered in the deadest of voices, his presence behind her disappearing with a gust of frigid air. "Anymore questions princess?" The man had grumbled with a lightened growl of displeasure, his heightened figure landing beside the horse with an inaudible triumph.

Augustina couldn't help but be consumed by a shutter of lacking warmth, her focus drawn toward the man who had captured her from her fated misery. For a mere moment the woman was thrown into an world of shock, her body frozen upon the horse as the man took possession of her slender waist.

The rider wasn't a man, but an elf shadowed in an cloak of the darkest blacks. It wasn't the pointed ears, or feverish scowl that drew her fastened attention but the blood red color of his hair. It was a rarity amongst the world of Elves, for the color red signified something far darker than the subject of condemned death. It was something that signified the fires of war, and lacked prosperity.

His face held an enchanting glow, one that could only be plastered upon the face of an Elven counterpart. The freckles that decorated the delicate curve of his nose and his heightened cheekbones were spaced with an honest perfection. The freckles alone reminding Augustina of the Stars that pierced her skin hours before, the template for such Stars fastened against the fair skin of the Elf before her.

The hue of his eyes held the coldness of a thousand winters, the chilled color of gold hazed with forbidden desires. The tattoos that lined his face were faded with the color of green, the ink almost nonexistent against the platform of his skin. The tattoos much like Osiris was made into the design of a tree, the wavering lines rolling down his nose to spread across his cheeks, and soft chin.

Her attention was drawn back toward his hair, for the thickened texture of the reddened strands laid sideways against his right cheek, the sides shaved to expose his pointed ears; which were pierced with the finest of gold.

Augustina was brought from her examination with a snap of the man's fingers, his hand held inches from her face in an act to pry her attention away from his exotic appearance. "Did you hear me?" The Elf questioned, his hand falling from the air to land against her shoulder in an tightened embrace.

With a confused look on her face, the raven-haired maiden reached outward to rest her hand against the saddle of the horse that swayed behind her. The solid texture of the soil beneath her bare feet, sending a tingle of unfamiliar nerves throughout her body. "No, I wasn't listening."

"Of course you weren't, you were to busy gawking." He murmured with a haughty groan, his hand raising to brush through the red strands of his disheveled hair. "We can't ride through the forest, the terrain is too dense for the width of the horse, and to narrow for us to drag him along."

Augustina nodded, removing her hand from the saddle of the black stallion with a hesitant gesture of her hand. Naturally, the woman flinched inwardly when he pointed out her gawking, and the simple fact that he had caught her in the act. "And when we get to the end of the forest, with no horse?"

"Once we pass through the gates of the forest, we will be greeted with a party of my kin. And from there we will make a small trip to Mageía Forest, where you will be taken into the humble home of Osiris himself." The Elf murmured malicious tone, his golden hued eyes bypassing Augustina to focus on the horse. "Now, if you will kindly follow me into the depths of this damned place."

Augustina nodded slowly in response to his words, her brain brisk to absorb the information he spits. Osiris must've been the man behind the escape, for the King had addressed her more than one occasion during the meeting with the King of Theadale. His words of power danced through her mind, sending a wave of heat down her arms.

"Who are you?" Augustina asked as she watched the Elf fiddle with the saddle of the horse, his hands collecting an Elven designed bow, and a quiver filled with silver tipped arrows. His nimble fingers danced across the saddle of the beast, collecting the things he deemed needed for the travel through the forest of singing souls.

"Keir Drayce Lichelle, second born son of Killian Lichelle, and servant to The Prince of Mageía." He rehearsed in a tone of boredom, sounding as if he had exclaimed those words a thousand times. Turning back toward her, the Elf thrusted a sheathed dagger against the center of her chest. "And currently the protecter, of a golden bloodied flat ear."

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A/N: Thank you for reading, I am sorry for describing Keir in four paragraphs, the man is my scolding brain baby.

What do you think so far?