Author: Elizabeth
Rating: A saucy PG-13... cause that's all I can write... and no more, else you'll be highly disappointed with my knowledge thereof.
Disclaimer: I wish I did... but I don't... wish I was one of the official writers, but I'm not... and never will be <sigh>... so, is that good enough to disclaim my non-existent ownership of W/T?

Life is an obnoxiously complicated thing, and yet, quite simple at the same time. As beauty is in the eye of the beholder, it can also be said life's complexities can be described only by the beholder's experience.

For example, one moment a person knows earning a good grade on a final exam paper is the most important thing in their life; it's their gateway to a productive, and therefore happy future. Yet, two seconds after said person receives that grade, and is happily walking out the professor's door a carriage swerves, and knocks them dead instantaneously.

Life's silly that way.

As finite beings, we morbidly treasure the infinite wondering of when, how, where, why and what will kill us, maybe not as obsessively as some others do, but enough to recognize that universal bond of life and death. We all wonder. Each of us has thought at one point the reason behind death and life. The only thing we know for sure: we can be the ones to speed up the natural process; humans can have babies as early as pre-teen hood.

And we can also kill.

To kill is a frightening idea, no? To suck the life, the genius that is life out of a body is quite an awesome power. What we treasure most are our lives, that is, what we can choose to do with our lives. The one true freedom we own as humans is to choose what we want to do with ourselves - whether or not we actually get to do that is another thing, which leads to the next problem. Taking a life is a finite action. There is no going back, no reversing it once it is done. And that is why we glorify, and at the same time, fear murder.

Tar'airah stood up.

Her friends were asleep on their respective bed cots, both snoring loudly.

She picked up her one long knife, careful to be wary of its deathly sharp blade.

A true warrior at heart takes care of her weapons.

A slow walk to the skin-doorway, with purposeful steps as to not awake her "guards," brought Tar'airah to the open air of her world. The moon shone brightly in the sky, easily lighting her way. She had been planning this since Caranthia first sentenced her earlier that evening. It took several hours before Fa'aithlia and Buf'aneah fell asleep.

Even when they're tired they bicker...

She stopped for a second, and remembered her friends. Suddenly she missed them. A silly thing it is to miss those that were only five feet away. But the thought that she wouldn't return to them, ever again as their friend, the person that they knew... that frightened her.

She moved forward, walking stiffly.

A few solemn minutes and she had arrived at her destination. A hut stood in plain view, one that she had seen repeatedly since she was first brought into this world.

So simple.

The small building looked so simple, plain even, not the house of a murder victim.

Life's funny that way.

She sighed inwardly at the horrifying, yet logical judgment she had made. And yet, her logic was the only thing keeping her from collapsing in tears again.

Better to kill now than wait seven days...

She pulled back the curtain swiftly, and allowed her eyes to adjust to the darkness of the small room.

Willow was tired of this. No, seriously. This whole 'prisoner of wild Amazons' thing was just getting old. There was no service in this tribe whatsoever. Willow had expected some source of water, perhaps a washing pitcher, or a face cloth to make her appearance less gruesome.

Her face was that of a wild boar - mud everywhere. And it had dried, ruining all past facial creams she had placed on her delicate skin. Yet no water was given. You'd think they had forgotten the one rule of taking some one prisoner: 1). Giving them water to freshen up with so as not to look unpresentable to the leader of the group. It was just common knowledge.

Why would a colony of women be so set against normal hygiene?

But no matter how much she discussed this in her head, weighing the pros and cons of asking a passing Amazon for a jug of water, she was unable to do anything about it. And her clothes were not getting any less muddy.

Escape was the only way.

She pulled off her helmet, and grabbed a bobby pin she had luckily placed in her hair earlier that morning when she was waiting for Whahemia to round the men up.

How long ago that all seems...

She crawled off her "bed" and began fingering in the dark for the chain's lock. Slowly twisting the bobby pin into a workable shape she placed it into the lock and began turning it this way and that.

When one is faced with unhygienic surroundings, one will become more resourceful.

She had been twisting the bobby pin, sure the lock was beginning to twist open, when she heard footsteps outside her "door."

She stopped all movement while sitting on the floor with her chain. The footsteps stopped as well. Whoever was out there, she could see their shadow. She could hear the rough breathing of the shadow's owner, and did not question for an instant that this person was not the delayed jug of water, but something else. And it frightened her.

Willow sat there, paralyzed by fear, wondering what she should do. She couldn't run, not effectively anyway.

The bobby pin had slipped out of her fingers, and before she could think her curtain had been pulled back, letting the moonlight flood in.

She squinted and unconsciously held her hand up protectively in front of her face, and with a flash noticed the large knife her visitor was wielding. The figure slowly raised the knife above her head, and then stood there paused for action.

Oh god...