Marianne was NOT having a particularly good day, she was minding her own business tattooing a client, when who should wander into her business, but the CROWN PRINCESS. Accompanied by a guard frantically reasoning with her that her father would not appreciate it if she got a tattoo.

Wait a minute, Marianne had heard this conversation before, many, many times, and even when the client was an adult like Her Highness it usually resulted in irate parents. As a staunch believer in body art, and bodily autonomy she fully approved of whatever The Princess wanted to do.

However as a subject of her father, who probably had the power, resources, and if she did this INTENT to provide Marianne herself with body mods of the more terminal, and definitely unpleasant variant.... Well that was a concern. She briefly considered buggering off via the back door before the conversation could end. But...........

Oh bollocks, it was too late, they’d spotted her, and there were no handy distractions to mask her escape either. Do you refuse a Princess? COULD she refuse a Princess? To make matters worse this was a CROWN Princess. Meaning essentially a Proto-Queen. Times like this a paper bag would be useful, it was so hard to make a convincing excuse not to provide body mods to A Princess, while trying to hold back on potential hyperventilation.

“Sir Leeroy, I am well aware of what my father likes, or dislikes, and I’m pretty sure the top of the likes list is DUTY. I know this idea is an experiment, but if it works then when I’m fighting that bloody git oversized fish out there I don’t need to worry about drowning.”

“I understand that Princess, just a tattoo is, such a permanent thing, will you even use it after this battle? Because I don’t go out and buy different armour before every fight”

“Hey it’s a big shark, I have to survive this fight to deal with others. Besides we’ve got to deal with The Mer after this, and I get the feeling that diplomacy will be a little easier if they can hear me talk. What with my not knowing sign language and all.

“Wait a second, she was going to fight THE DON? OK that was a little bad-ass, and she had walked into a body modification workshop, with the word Experiment. There were several reasons this was amongst Marianne’s favourite words, and the involvement of body mods placed this one pretty close to the top of the list.

“Ummm, excuse me, may... may I know the nature of this experiment, if you don’t mind that is.”

At that the guard facepalmed, and The Princess grinned in a rather unnerving manner.

“OHH curious then? What would you say if I used the words Mana, and Tattoo. I need you to tattoo a magic circle, and a special sigil. It works, if I end up swimming today I don’t drown.”

“B...b...but, tattoo ink isn’t mana conductive.”

“Put this in and I’m willing to bet ya it is.” The Princess said, with a smile so smug it would give a cat a run for their money.

“W..what is it?”

“Powdered mana-stones, carefully sourced, took me hours of shopping, and some outright bribery to get the magic shop owner to part with some of his collection. But it will work. I’m (almost) certain.”

“Umm can you repeat that please?”

“Which bit?”

“The bit where you told me how sure you are that this will work.”

“Oh that bit, sure, I’m (almost) positive this will work.”

“You’re positive?”

“(Almost) absolutely positive.”

OK then would you mind giving your word as a royal you won’t blame me... if anything goes... uhhh.... wrong?”

“Sure, you have my word.”

“Can I get that in writing too please? So the mayor doesn’t come after my head or something.”

“Okiedokie you just prep the forms, I’ll fill em in, after checking them of course. As a Princess I kinda can’t sign anything without checking it through first.”

“Ummm... OK that’s fair, I’ll modify the standard forms for this sort of situation.... I need assurances vs beheading. I’m sure you understand.”

“Sure I’ll be right here.” The Princess replied, grabbing a seat and pulling out some of the old magazines of designs, and eyeing them with a worrying level of zeal.

She was sincerely hoping that didn’t mean that she planned to stick around for more afterwards. Marianne’s will had held up so far, only because she was well practised at demanding payments from men several times her height (that was not hard, she was dainty) who she had just jabbed repeatedly with a needle. Which tended to make anybody a little cranky. Especially the big buff guys who hated to admit they’d cried.

Marianne pulled out a standard PF27, aka The Idiot form, and decided the first thing to modify was not the contract, but the title. That done she carefully added clauses in to prevent suing, torture, lese majeste charges, decapitation, banishment, compulsory closure, being made to take a walk off the pier in weighted footwear, embargoing the town, or any other punishment for the experiment. (Looking at The Princess in question she wondered if she should have included being slugged in the list of changes. But it was too late now.)

That done she returned the form to The Princess. Who carefully read it, and signed, Marianne had to admit, despite the fact this situation was bloody terrifying, she found herself quite looking forward to seeing what would happen. That and a reputation as a Royal Tattooist would do wonders for the business. (Assuming The King didn’t notice the contracts conditions largely applied to his daughter, and would likely not be binding to him, she really, really hoped he didn’t notice that. Or kept the royal word on grounds of The Princess having given an oath too. She was less worried about The Queen, as Gidea Von Harmsworth’s reputation definitely didn’t seem like she would be the type to get upset over something like body art. Or rather was more likely to pin the blame on her daughter than an innocent artist who was scared out of her wits.)

To be fair, the theory from what she could see was sound. She couldn’t really comment on the efficacy of the circle, mainly because she wasn’t in the least bit magically inclined herself. But The Princess did seem to know what she was talking about, hell she seemed to have enough ego on the subject for ten Princesses. That had to mean something reassuring didn’t it?

Oh well, it was too late to back out now, she prepped the machine, dipped the ink, and got to work.

************************************************************************

It was around this time Mibbet discovered the fact everybody had failed to properly tell her previously. Tattoos use NEEDLES, and Needles bloody HURT. Rosalind held her in place while carefully reassuring her apologetically.

If she had been given the chance at that point, she would have dove off that table and left no sign of her presence but a Princess shaped blur. She understood theoretically what was involved in tattooing, but it’s a lot more abstract when it isn’t jabbing into your back.

She also understood that running off with a partially completed magic circle etched into her back would not end well. But every time the needle passed over a bony bit she seriously considered the possibility. With any luck the resulting Sqwoomph would turn her into a frog.

“Hey” snapped Rosalind.

“Hey yourself, you let me get myself into this situation, so you get the stick for it” Mibbet muttered in her head, gritting her teeth as the needle moved.

“Sir Leeroy, I have an order for you, do not let me move until this is done, if I move and screw this circle up you get to explain to The King why his daughter is suddenly a newt or something.”

That got Sir Leeroy moving in a hurry, while Mibbet grit her teeth, and sincerely wished she could turn off her brain, as the machine buzzed for what felt like hours, or maybe seconds. It was hard to tell, for starters she was too busy swearing at herself for ever thinking this was a good idea. This was the worst idea in the history of bad ideas. Then running out of things to berate herself for she started looking for something, ANYTHING, that could distract her for a minute. It turns out that even as bad as Mibbet was at Maths, she was succeeding in counting every single brick in the wall, and there were a lot of bricks. But that was infinitely preferable to the buzzy hell that was thinking about anything else. So every time she lost count she was delighted to start again at one.

Eventually after what felt like forever she heard Marianne talk.

“Almost done Princess, all that’s left to do now is to fill in the outline with colour, and add the shading.