To the Capital City Athenela

(Cythistia POV)

A day had passed by since we set off to the capital and I was carrying Traytora, who hadn't woken up since yesterday, on my back. The whole troop acted as some kind of escort for me just because I was pregnant, with my brother on my left and Dorrak on my right, though he was more protecting the sleeping beauty that was resting on my backside right now.

"Hahh, you know I can take care of myself, right? It's only been a few days since I became pregnant." I said, knowing that this was for my own good, but still, I'll be fine to do thing for a few months, at least until the foetus is formed.

"You know we can't let that happen because, one, this might be the child of the chosen one from the prophecy, and two, you're in big trouble with mother and father for this." My brother said scoldingly.

I sighed, knowing that our parents definitely wouldn't be happy with me, and most certainly wouldn't be happy with Traytora for impregnating me.

I know that they'll still accept her and our child but they would probably have some kind of disgust towards Traytora for not marrying me first.

I've heard that in the desert the people are very open to casual sex and that marriage does exist there. But ultimately it all boils down to the fact that our cultures are and always will be different.

I decided to keep to myself and my thoughts for a while.

_

A few hours later we reached the main path, which was just a well-maintained road that led from Athenela to the human territories. It was mainly used as a trade route.

We had just started traversing it when we heard the sound of numerous cars coming our way.

We moved off to the side of the road to let them past but they stopped a short distance after us.

We were confused as to why but when I saw a thin human man, wearing baroque red robe, laced with silver to make the pattern of a knight in armour. His brown hair, which stood still even amongst the light breeze of the forest and a handlebar moustache that adorned his baby like face.

I inwardly groaned.

I knew this man, and I wasn't very fond of him for various reasons. One of which was his 'Human Supremacy' mindset, which nobody in this forest liked.

He strode over to us with a look of superiority and when he reached the front of our troop, he stopped, giving the rangers a look of disdain.

"Make way." He said in a commanding and haughty tone, his high-pitched voice shrill with unkindness.

The rangers in front of him just looked at each other and drew their swords. Clearly this lot has dealt with him before, and I'm not surprised, he takes any chance to cause chaos just to get to me.

"You dare point your swords at me!" He shouted, his voice clearly fraught with anger and he pointed his fingers at the rangers, "Guards! Apprehend these miscreants at once!"

Then, armoured men came out of the other cars, drew their swords, and jogged over to us to arrest the rangers, who easily disarmed these men with ease.

This made the man flinch, then scowl.

"Do you know what you've just done?!" He screamed, though, nobody was listening to him.

His face grew red and he shouted again, "Answer me! Or else I'll have you executed for this blatant disrespect!"

That's when my brother had enough and spoke up, "You have no authority here, get moving." He said in a stern voice and looking down on the disgusting man with the same look of disdains that he gave the rangers.

The man flinched again before shouting once more, "How dare you speak back to me! Do you even know who I am?!"

"No, do you even know who I am?" My brother replied, putting an emphasis on the 'I' part.

"No, and why should I care?" The man responded.

"Huh, that's funny, although, I'm not surprised that you don't remember me considering what happened last time you came here." My brother said, which made me remember what happened when that man last came to this place, causing me to snort.

"How dar- Oh! Cythistia darling~ There you are! I- What is... that?" The man began with anger, then upon realising that it was me, changed his tune to a more pleasant tone, which just disgusted me, and then when he noticed Traytora on my back, disgust larger than anything I'd ever seen out of him was written on his face.

My face turned dark and my magic started to flare up. "If you want to live, I suggest you shut up and go away." I said in a menacing tone, conjuring vines to come up from the ground beneath him, sharp, thorny vines.

He stepped back, scared and tried to talk his way out, as all humans do. "Now now, let's not get violent, shall we?" He said in his snivellingly shrill voice.

"FUCK YOU DAREN! FUCK YOU AND YOUR HYPOCRISY!" I'd had enough of his shit and this was the last straw. He clearly abhorred seeing Traytora on my back instead of him. And I'd had enough of all of his attempts to 'court' me like he would another pathetic human. I was sick of it.

He was clearly taken aback by my outburst, as was everyone else, though my brother didn't seem as shocked as everyone else.

"W-What are you saying? I've done everything for-"

"LIES! All you do is get your people to do it all for you, you don't even love me, you just want my magic! That's all you care about! All you humans care about is your own self-interest, and you're no different Daren!" I didn't let him finish, going on a small tirade and venting all of my frustrations about him.

"H-How could you say that, I really do love you!" He tried to say but I just ignored him.

My brother came over to me and put his hand on my shoulder, helping me calm down. He then said to Daren, "You should leave before things get ugly."

Daren's face turned from worry and shock to understanding, then he showed his true face, the face of a man who didn't care about others so long as he profited. All humans are the same.

"Hahh, I really didn't hope it would come to this, but I guess I have no choice now." He said with a dead and uncaring face. He then reached into his robes and pulled out a scroll.

All of us immediately became cautious, as humans tended to prefer using scrolls over casting magic themselves as the scroll would be enchanted to perform a one-time use spell, and unlike when someone would cast a spell, we couldn't tell what kind or element it was until it was activated.

He opened the scroll and shouted, "Activate! And capture my target!"

We all tensed as it was a capturing scroll meant to capture someone and then teleport someone back to a specified location, this wasn't the first time I'd encountered something like this.

Thankfully there were two ways to stop the scroll from finishing it's task, one is to destroy the scroll which sounds easy but it's enchanted with magic to be very durable. The second option would be to kill the caster, which would lead to a war, but at this point we didn't care.

Dorrak quickly grabbed Traytora off of my back to prevent her from being taken with me.

We then got our magic and weapons ready while everyone surrounded me as I was obviously the target of the scroll.