Annabelle had no idea where the Roc might be taking her. She consistently cried out during their trip, "please! Put me down! I must be with my family! My mother and father are in trouble!"
The Roc would not shift to human form to answer her questions; he would not even stop flying until late at night when they landed on top of a mountain. Annabelle was dizzy and her emotions frayed as the Roc set her down. Her eyes were wet with tears; so much so that she couldn't take pleasure in the lush and green mountain beneath her feet and the sweet smelling flowers.
Annabelle angrily turned to the Roc and pushed the great white beast furiously. "What's wrong with you? My parents might die without me!"
The Roc ruffled his feathers and nestled down with a coo. He blinked his red eyes at Annabelle curiously.
Annabelle sobbed bitterly and turned away from the Roc. "I thought you were good! I thought you helped good people--but you left my parents!"
The Roc did not shift into a human. Instead, he outstretched a wing and motioned for Annabelle to take cover from the rain. Annabelle fell to her knees and couldn't stop crying. "Take me back! Take me back!"
The Roc cocked his head curiously again as she sobbed. He hopped over to her and examined her with one big red eye. Annabelle tried to dry her tears that wouldn't stop coming, and she faced her back to the Roc and began trying to climb down the soft incline of the mountain. The Roc finally shifted into a human and peeked over the mountainside. "W-where are you going?"
"I'm going home! If you won't take me, I'll go by myself!" She wiped her eyes bravely and sniffled a little before taking another step down the mountain.
The Roc said to her nervously, "you shouldn't go..."
"I have to go!" Annabelle cried miserably.
"They're dead." The Roc said carelessly and emotionlessly.
Annabelle stopped climbing. Her body seemed to freeze; her heart seemed to sink. She felt numb. "How do you know?"
"I've seen it. They were both headed out of town that way and they got caught in the fighting." The Roc explained with his feet hanging off the mountainside.
Annabelle wept silently for a moment. She climbed back up the mountain and slept.
***
When she awoke, she was confused for a moment. The previous day had melted away like a bad dream, and she couldn't remember everything that had happened. Rain drops were falling on her as she blinked her eyes and finally remembered what had happened. The Roc had propped up a stick with a large leaf wrapped around it over Annabelle's head as she slept.
Annabelle heard the rain splash off of the leaf as she sat up with tears still stinging her eyes. She was sleeping in a makeshift nest made by the Roc. There were little twigs, mud, and leaves tucked under a blanket to make the bowl-shaped, troll-sized nest a comfortable bed for her.
The Roc was looking at the dawn sky with his legs dangling off the mountainside.
Annabelle was unquenchably angry him. She stood up and walked towards him, shivering in the rain.
"Why won't you pick a side? Why won't you help this war end to prevent more suffering! Why did you only save me? There were so many people you could have saved as well!" Annabelle asked with dark anger.
The Roc glanced at her--supposedly unphased. "I could save no one else without getting hurt."
Annabelle clenched her teeth. She grabbed the Roc by his collar and lifted him to his feet. "You're a coward! You let my parents and all those people die when you could have helped!"
The Roc's head twitched to the side in a bird like fashion. "Are you angry? I have saved many people like you. I have loved people like you. I am sure this is why I have been granted this endless life. Do not be angry."
The Roc's eyes were dead and emotionless and he seemed to be little more than a shy animal to Annabelle. Survival was important to him--but she previously thought he was invincible. The way he spoke was not like that of an animal. Not completely. He had feelings. Deep feelings, she could tell.
"And who are 'people like me'? Why are they more important than anyone else?" Annabelle demanded, releasing the Roc furiously.
"Because with your own two hands... You save people." He said quietly. "When people have lost faith in me, they can depend on people like you."
Annabelle wanted to hate him. She wanted to tell him he was a no good coward for knowingly letting so many people die and suffer--but she just couldn't.
When she looked into his supposedly dead eyes again, she saw something else. Fear. Fear she had seen in many eyes for the past months. She knew that, despite whatever powers he had and whatever enormous strength, he had real feelings and fears like anyone else. And if he had really lived forever like he said, they had probably been stacking up over the years.
Annabelle just cried silently, covering her face in her hands.
"I am sorry. I can't take sides in this war. If they are going to kill themselves, they must do it by their own hands." The Roc was truly apologetic. She could see it in his red eyes. "The more wars I see, the more mad I become."
"Mad?" Annabelle asked.
"I will tell you someday. Will you... Be my friend?"
Annabelle thought about it. "What do you mean by that?"
"Live here with me and be my friend." He repeated vaguely.
Annabelle didn't know what that entailed. For the time being, however, she obliged. "I can leave if I wish, right?"
The Roc nodded, "of course."
***
Annabelle didn't know what the Roc wanted her to do while she was his friend. She was still horribly angry at him. The Roc told her, however, to climb on his back in bird form and he flew off to the east.
The Roc landed in the middle of Haalan territory. It was a little village very close to the Haaland castle--and Annabelle wondered just why the Roc would bring her to the heart of the territory--the enemy of her own country, Yab. The same people who had killed her parents.
As the Roc landed in the middle of the small village, many peoples of Dru, Trolls, humans, and Elves, ran up to him excitedly. Annabelle climbed off of the Roc and looked upon these people with hatred and disdain. At this moment, they were just animals to her who had killed her friends and family.
But the Roc shifted into a human and greeted these people with a smile. "Someone said they needed their crops to grow?"
Annabelle was in tears. It felt to her like the Roc had brought her here just to torture her. He was giving gifts to her enemies--these people who had killed her mother and father.
Annabelle ran off with tears in her eyes. The Roc didn't noticed for a moment as he was being dragged lovingly away by a crowd. When he did notice, he chased after her.
Annabelle hugged her knees miserably under an ash tree in town as the Roc approached her and touched her shoulder.
"What's wrong?" He asked Annabelle.
"You brought me here so I could watch you help my enemies?" Annabelle wiped a tear away with her palm.
The Roc made a motion like ruffling his feathers as he told her, "these are not your enemies. These are civilians. One of them is sick and the village needs a nurse. I thought you would want to help."
"I'm not going to help!"
The Roc shook his head and sighed. "I'm really disappointed in you..."
Annabelle watched him as he went to go join his Haalanite friends. Those words stung her. She had to make a choice then and there whether to close her heart to Haalanites or to open it.
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