"Run," Sam's sound is a choked, pleading thing from behind her, a plea she pays no heed to.

The younger fae has slouched into the mud, face contorting with pain. His breaths are audible, harsh pants that grow shorter with every moment that passes. Red now staining so much of the man's clothes that the blossoms of it disguise the colour of the remaining fabric.

She reaches for him, her own fingertips trembling with the effort, but reach for him she does.

For the dark fabric of his jacket, his clearly dislocated shoulder, anything she might reasonably grab, pull him upright, run again.

But it is already pointless.

Even if she had wanted to - there was no place left to go.

And she is done running.

The stranger starts forward, strides elegant and sure. He dons the silvers and dark blues of Court Draco, the scales catch in the pale moonlight, illuminating the stranger's features, cruel and delighting all at once. 

Less a dragon, more serpent than dragon now, weaving and coiling. A dancer, his blade little more than an extension of his person. His wings, broad, heavy things of dark leather stretched thin across a wingspan broader than she is tall. 

He brandishes a sword the length of her arm, tossing it from hand to hand as easily as he might have a ball.

Eyes the colour of magma fix on her, a grin as devious as the wildcat carved into the pale of the unfamiliar face.

Her own weapon feels mousey in her grip, pitifully small. A dagger that seems a mockery to the sword, but her grip remains steady.

He swings it, metal singing on the night air as he jabs and twirls.

Only when he is mere metres from her, does he suddenly lunge forward. Blade now gripped between both hands as he swings for her neck.

She dodges left, her speed one of the few things still on her side.

When she turns back to her assailant, that grin isn't gone.

He had bluffed, falling short of anything close to a killing blow. 

Yet she had flinched. 

"Still a little fight left in you, then." It isn't disappointment in her assailant's tone but pure satisfaction.

He lunges again, this time her dagger sweeps up with enough time to collide with the blade. She doesn't parry, she can't, but it offers defence enough that she can leap out of his way a second time. 

Now she jabs out, dagger cleaving the air, colliding with the scale armour only to rebound as ineffective as launching feathers at sheer diamond. 

To the stranger's credit, his smile falters if only for a beat. 

His features narrow, and he launches forward again with snarl. The first slip of a mask she had, until that very beat, believed to be unshiftable. 

It slams back into place once more, but this time his features are more unreadable. 

Now the man's companions have stepped forward from the shadows, but before they can make an offer of help, the man angles his head back at them. She cannot see his features, only make assumptions based on the hurried steps of retreat they make. 

This is enough to spark a little hope in her, tightening her grip on the dagger, she steps forward again. 

"Come little Princess, this can be so easy," the words are an inviting, melodic purr. "Just come with us, and this can all be over, little more than a nightmare."

The fae with blazing eyes advances, swinging his sword with an ease thought ought not have been possible considering its size. The night air sings with the speed of the metal, but Elodie does not retreat.

"So easy," no hint of impatience or annoyance to the voice, as pleasant as her own mother's might have been. "Play nice, Princess and I'll make sure you are treated well."

She can smell the lies as plainly as she can smell the pine, no matter how beautifully this cruel stranger puts it.

In time with his next step, she surges forward, catching him off guard as she palms her blade, striking diagonally, once, twice a third time. Forcing the man back mere inches, but any amount of space is as close to victory as she can grasp.

"I would sooner fall flat on my own dagger." She rocks back, dodging a swipe by only the skin of her teeth. 

"As amusing as that would be to watch - I'm under firm orders to bring you back alive." 

As close to disappointment as she is likely to hear of the man.

"Though no specifics were made as to what state you were to be brought back in." He looks at her like the starved man might behold a fine piece of meat. Like he could take her limbs for trophies to hang at his mantlepiece. "So we can still have our fun, sweet Princess." 

Creating space for a brief moment, but it fades quickly, the man advancing on her again, three more shadowing his footsteps this second time.

Seemingly little more than an audience for what was to come.

"I am Princess no longer," comes her snarl of a reply, symphonied with the splatter of blood on grass, only just biting back the thanks to you.

But the longer this goes on, the more her movements lag, become sluggish and slow. 

Exhaustion eats at her, away at her seams as she struggles to keep herself upright. She has no idea how much longer she will be able to last, put up a fight. 

But she will continue until the last of her breaths. 

Recognising this, the stranger launches forward again. Not using the shining blade now, but the hilt, drawing it up and landing down, cleanly on her right temple. 

Her howl of pain is something that cracks cleanly free from her chest. 

Her vision blurs at the blow, her own retaliating thrash falling short only by painful inches.

Its a game of cat and mouse, the mouse getting backed more and more into a a corner.

A second, harder blow leaves her vision black. The next instant she feels a boot on her sternum, the kick breaks the air with a crack. Wind dragging from her lungs as she falls backward, her wings doing little to break her fall as she lands among the rubble.

Skidding to a stop with a wrench. 

She hates herself for the scream of pain it drags from her dry lips.

Her vision has barely had the chance to refocus, when the sound of boots is all she can hear again. 

Elodie trembles as she tries to place her feet beneath her again, but her knees buckle under her own meagre weight. Tearing open her hands when she catches herself from the fall. 

She rolls, pulling her leaden lids apart just in time to see the stranger towering over her again, that devious grin and the glitter of pearly whites all she can see.

He has moved to grab her again, when Sam, half dead from blood loss, finds what remains of his energy to kick out, landing against the enemies calf.

The blow is weak, she doubts its done anything more than tickle the stranger. But it provides enough of a distraction to allow Elodie to return to her feet once more.

Her own legs drag beneath her, she is bent at the waist with pain but she grabs the dagger again, wielding it with fury.

But it is Sam that distracts her a second time.

"What in the name of the Gods?" His voice is hoarse and terrified. 

Against every warrior instinct she had ever had forged into her bones, she follows the line of Sam's gaze.

A new figure is above them, his silhouette visible on the ledges over the canyon.

But just as her gaze fixes to it, it is moving again. The movement is impossible to track, sunlight behind the thick of the trees blinking in and out of view, like trying to track the movement of lightning flickering through the clouds.

Her axis shifts, turning to take in as much of the sight as she can. Fingers grasping her remaining dagger so hard her fingers feel numb on the hilt.

It is power like she has never known in her fifty years, something her mind can't give name to.

But it is not fear the sight inspires in her.

She does not realise it in the moment, but the strangers too have stopped in their advance upon her. They too turn skyward, tension bolting through each of them as they focus in on the creature.

It watches them unmoving, with a steady, unerring eye that could have unnerved monsters. Even the Gods wouldn't have the courage to meet the stranger's eye.

There comes the fear, a palpable thing the metal of which she can taste on the air.

When the movement stops, the blur comes fully into view, just visible between two jagged rocks on the ledges above them. A shadow silhouetted against the night sky, only illuminated by what remains of the moonlight.

Even in the darkness she can see the eyes, dark golden pools of sunset that fix cleanly to her own form.

It takes a moment for her to focus enough to recognise the form for what it is.

Not fae, but wolf.