Struck with instant fear and caught off-guard, the Knight and Ranger fled on foot, racing through the thick forested area. The adrenaline carrying them along as deer, they made their way toward the morning sun in the east. Panting heavily the knight looks back, “Hold on, hold on, we are alone,” and both men fell to the floor of the forested kingdom they had ridden through not even twelve hours earlier. “That Troll, I have seen that troll before, but can not place him,” the Ranger whispers. The Knight looked over, “What the hell do you mean you have seen him before? Hell I do not even know what a troll is.”
The men re-gathered their composure and set off down the path, each man in deep thought as only footsteps and the occasional murmur from the Ranger broke the silence. It was not long before they exited the forest unto an open meadow filled with the morning dew on open fields of green as the sunlight fell upon their faces. Thankful to be out, each smiled at each other but the relief was for but for a moment as sudden fear came upon the Ranger’s face. “What is it?” the Knight urgently inquires. “That was no troll we saw,” replied Ranger. Growing ever more nervous, “Than what or who was it Ranger? “That was the Prince of Midian who sought for years permission to court the Princess and yet was always denied by the King who had better taste. And Anna, you saw the clothing she was arrayed in, we both were taken back, but did you notice the cross weave loops at the fringes of her garments? Yes Sir Knight they point directly to the customs of the Midian peoples.” The Knight torn between common sense and his lust for this beautiful vessel called Anna urges Ranger to speak on. “The acorn, the seven drops of water from the pool Lindax, the dragon scale, do you not see the symbolism each of these requests bear? The Knight intensely listened on as the Ranger calculated in his mind the meaning of these things. “The acorn is the prince of Midian, who seeks to grow into an oak, who is the King over us. The seven drops communicate that in seven years will he turn the kingdom over and the dragon scale represents the ones to whom the kingdom will be transferred to.” “Well who would that be?” eagerly questioned the Knight.
Ranger’s voice fading away, “I am not sure.” “But I get the feeling when the prince of Midian was denied entry into the kingdom through marriage that his plan was unintentionally thwarted and that now they have sought a second course of action in taking the Princess away to use her to accomplish their goals.”
The Knight stands up before the Ranger, “What course of action do we take from here?”
