Squirrel opened her eyes blearily, and found herself buried under an ocean of silk sheets. She started, sitting up and flinging the covers off before leaping to the ground nimbly. A man who had been sitting in the corner, asleep, woke up at the sound of Squirrel’s scrambling.

“Good morning princess,” the man said, stifling a yawn. “I’m-“ The man’s words were cut short when squirrel vaulted over the bed, and slammed into his chest, knee first. He managed to put his palms between her knee and his ribs, but as his back was braced against the wall, it did him no good.

His eyes widened, and he slumped to the floor, gasping for breath. Squirrel hastily bent down and began searching the man. At his waist, she found a dagger and in his vest, a handful of keys. Taking them, Squirrel came to a stand and tried to slip the dagger in her belt, then realized she was wearing a single silk shift, her clothes were nowhere to be seen.

Glancing down at the man struggling to stand, Squirrel’s brows furrowed, his size was close to hers. Squirrel stared a moment longer, as something about the young man’s reddened face was familiar.

“You-“ he began to say, when Squirrel kneed the nobleman in the balls. Squirrel was fairly confident that’s what he was. the man wore a fancifully embroidered leather vest above a beautifully dyed silk shirt. His black silk pants were tucked into black boots whose polished surfaces reflected light from the candles interspersed around the luxurious room.

Squirrel stooped down and began stripping the nobleman. “What,” he wheezed, trying to ward her off with a single weak hand. Squirrel lost her patience and put the young man’s dagger on his throat. He went completely still.

“Take off your clothes,” Squirrel hissed, and the man’s shaking hands travelled down to his waist, unbuckling his belt.

“Oh my, she’s practically feral,” a woman said from the corner of the room. Squirrel’s head jerked up and she spotted a grey haired man and woman sitting in what appeared to be an observation booth. “Seems awfully eager, though.” The lady’s hair was up in an extravagant design, and her dress looked softer than anything Squirrel had ever seen. Her face had a certain loveliness sharpened by age.

“Obviously, she was trying to steal his clothes,” the grey haired man said with a scoff. “As she is rather underdressed.” He waved his hand toward Squirrel dismissively. He wore fine, simple clothes, and though his stomache bulged slightly with age, his muscles showed no signs of withering. His black hair was streaked with grey, and his well-defined jaw was shaved.

Squirrel conceded the man might have looked good had he been thirty years younger.

“Oh, is that what it was?” the lady said, poorly concealing a pout. “I thought she’d love it.”

The man with the greying hair sighed and scratched his head. “Not if she’s never worn one before, she has to have some basis for comparison, otherwise how would she know if it’s good or bad?”

“So, silk nighties are an acquired taste?” the older woman asked, as if she were genuinely curious. Her husband sighed.

Squirrel cast her eyes over the couple, who bickered about her even as her dagger was pressed to the young man’s throat. “excuse-“ Squirrel began to say, but was ignored as they continued to speak over her. Squirrel was spoken over one more time before she lost her patience.

Squirrel pressed the tip of the knife against the neck of the man beneath her, and he gave a plaintive yelp. As he screamed, the couple’s head’s swiveled to face her, their mask of vapidity replaced with searing intensity.

“Who are you, and what do you want?” Squirrel said, then looked down at the man beneath her. “I never told you to stop taking off your clothes.” He resumed sliding off his pants and boots.

“Introductions, yes.” The man with graying hair spoke, coming to a stand. “My name is Firelle Reinbahm, and this is my wife, Marie, and the boy at your feet is Gerald, my son.” The man stood a moment, preening as though he expected her to immediately fall to her knees and grovel. Squirrel narrowed her eyes.

With a sigh, Firelle continued. “What I want is for you to let him go, princess.”

“Clothes first,” Squirrel said, fixing Firelle with her best Ringmaster stare. It must have worked, because the lord glanced off to the side and motioned a guard over, whispering something in his ear. The man nodded and trotted off.

“I’m having some of Gerald’s clothes sent down to you,” Firelle said. “None of my daughters are quite so… statuesque.” Marie beside him was fluttering a fan in front of herself, visibly distressed.

“We can’t have her wear a man’s clothes!” she cried, her voice nearly a moan of horror.

“Come now dear, she was already wearing men’s clothes when Jon rescued her,” Firelle said, rubbing his temples. “It won’t hurt her, at the very least.”

Marie fidgeted in her seat, but didn’t contradict her husband. When the clothes finally arrived, Squirrel let the hyperventilating young man pinned beneath the dagger go, and he sprinted out the door, gaining as much distance between them as he could.

Squirrel started pulling the pants on, and Marie let out a startled yelp, stood and clapped a hand over Firelle’s eyes. The older man bore it with good humor, placing a hand on his wife’s hip with familiarity as Marie protected Squirrel’s modesty.

“Rescued,” Squirrel said as she threw Gerald’s clothes on, feeling the clothes a little tight around her hips and shoulders. “Seems like an odd word to use for drugging someone in a back alley.”

“The outcome is what I’m concerned with,” Firelle said, his eyes still covered by his wife. “You were being chased, to be killed on sight, and now you are safe. What is that if not a rescue?”

“I guess that the difference between a rescue and a kidnapping would be whether I can leave,” Squirrel said, buttoning the vest together as Marie took her hand away from her husband’s eyes.

“Oh, then you’ve been kidnapped,” Firelle said jovially. “My apologies for using the wrong word, princess.”

Squirrel’s fingers stopped mid-button. “You keep calling me princess,” she said. “Why?”

“Because you are one?” Firelle said as Marie arranged her dress to sit back down beside him. “The king’s oracle is never wrong, and despite her nasty temperament, she would never be misleading. it’s against the magic that allows her clairvoyance. If she were to lie, mislead, or allow people to misunderstand her one question each year, she would lose her power and the privilege that comes with it.”

“So, at the very least, we know to be a fact that at birth, you were given the name Princess Ariana Heartglow Fellianore.” The man continued, a smile dawning on his face. Suddenly the handsome older man looked rather predatory.

“I don’t know why exactly the king demanded your death as a spy, but-“ Firelle was interrupted as his wife chimed in.

“She could have been named that at birth as a ploy to deceive the oracle, couldn’t she have?” Marie said, glancing between the two with her brows furrowed.

Firelle sighed. “One properly worded question to the oracle next year would have cleared up any doubt,” he said, rubbing the bridge of his nose before directing his gaze back to Squirrel. “The logical thing to do would have been to welcome you to the palace with open arms, and inquire as to your birth parents when the oracle was available again next year.”

Marie frowned, her lips pouting as she seemed to be deep in thought.

“But he didn’t,” Squirrel said, meeting Firelle’s gaze. “And you think you know why.”

“Speculation is worthless,” Firelle said. “I have a suspicion, but it means nothing now.” Firelle Reinbahm stood, and Marie stood with him.

“You will not be allowed to leave the grounds,” Firelle said, his voice rising in dismissal. “If it were discovered my family had aided you, we would all be put to death, so please do not resent your captivity, it is solely to protect myself and my family. Your tutor will be able to explain more.” Firelle and his wife turned and left the booth high above the bedroom.

“Tutor?” Squirrel asked, even as the door clicked shut behind them. Squirrel glanced toward the solid oak doors with iron bands across them, as if the bedroom had been designed to withstand a siege. Her gaze travelled back to the observation booth ten feet above the floor, and Squirrel seized on an idea.

Silently, Squirrel rushed forward in her bare feet, leaping up and pushing off the wall, snatching the ledge of the observation booth. Squirrel pulled herself up, letting a breath of effort out. Squirrel snuck up to the door, and carefully opened it, peering out. Squirrel spotted the retreating backs of the two, who spoke to each other as they walked down a windowed hallway. Sunlight streamed in, and birds chirped, giving Squirrel the information that this side of the castle she found herself in faced East.

Squirrel placed her ear in the crack of the door, and listened closely, straining to make out the words the two spoke. “…need to position loyalists like Harold beside the king, they’ll follow blood and custom when they realize they’ve been outmaneuvered, smoothing the transition,” she heard Firelle say as their footsteps faded into the distance.

“Dear, you have the most mischievous smile right now…” Marie’s voice faded into obscurity as the nobles turned a corner. Don’t get involved with nobles. Reginald’s mantra echoed in her ears as she considered following the couple and looking for a way out. It was likely that she could use one of the windows in the hall to climb out of the castle, but she’d have to see more before she could make a plan of escape.

Squirrel started as she heard a door open behind her. Squirrel dropped down and peered over the edge of the observation deck. Why the hell is there an observation deck for a godsdamned bedroom anyway? Squirrel thought to herself, before she recalled Toren’s words about the nobility’s emphasis on good breeding, and she shuddered.

Squirrel started when she heard a door opening behind her. A slender woman with crow’s feet at her eyes entered the room. “Princess?” she called as she pulled a cart of book behind her. Squirrel ducked behind the lip of the observation deck, and slipped out the door the older couple had used, finding herself standing in the hallway with the sun beaming in from large open windows.

Squirrel heard the woman’s rising voice fade behind her as she silently padded down the hall, knowing she only had a few moments before she caught. Squirrel leaned her head out one of the airy gaps in the wall, and looked down into the courtyard of what appeared to be a small castle.

Delicately pruned shrubbery formed an eye-pleasing swirling pattern, appearing to be smoke or clouds drifting across the courtyard. In the center was a single white fountain, whose waters flowed along small gutters that bent and twisted with the landscaped shrubs. In the corner of the courtyard was a grassy clearing where a small boy was reading a book in the sun.

Squirrel craned her neck up, and noticed an unused flagpole, four feet above her head. Without hesitation, Squirrel climbed onto the stone railing, and jumped up to grab the flagpole. The unusual movement caught the attention of the black haired boy, and he stared agape as squirrel hauled herself up, finally coming to balance atop the pole before leaping onto the roof of the castle.

Squirrel crept along the roof, checking the area around the castle. In every direction save one, she saw rolling hills. The last direction, to the east, lay a town on the edge of a forest. It appeared to be a logging town, as the forest receded away from the town like Reginald’s hair.

Squirrel’s smile at the thought of her father froze on her face for an instant before it melted away. Was Reginald even alive? In her mind, Squirrel knew the answer, but she found her body angling toward a side of the castle where a decorative cherry tree came fairly close to the wall.

Squirrel leapt from the roof, caught herself in the cherry tree’s branches, and then dropped herself to the ground with minimal bruising. Squirrel set her sights on the town to the East, and began running. She had to find her troupe. She had to find her brother. Squirrel was panting with exertion as her body flew over the path, eating the distance between her and the town.

If Squirrel could get away, they could too. Squirrel blinked burning tears out of her eyes as she ran. Squirrel was halfway to the town when she heard hoofbeats behind her. Squirrel leaned forward and put on a burst of speed, her arms and legs burning, but the sound kept getting closer.

Finally, a dozen riders pulled ahead of her, and came to surround Squirrel in a loose semicircle. “Ariana, this is pointless,” one of the riders said. It was the grey haired man who had spoken to her in the bedroom.

“That’s not my name,” Squirrel said, her lips twitching at the unfamiliar name.

“I have it on good authority that it is.” Firelle Reinbahm said, crossing his hands over the saddle. “Jon, could you do something about her?” Firelle glanced at the man beside him. Squirrel recognized the man who’d spoken to her in the alley. The brown haired man with the shrewd look nodded and began to climb from his horse.

Squirrel took the opportunity to replace him. As Jon stepped down, Squirrel lunged forward, leaping through the air, tumbling around the startled horse’s rearing head, and into the saddle. That was the way Squirrel saw it happening in her head, but an iron grip seized her ankle in midair, and Squirrel and Jon fell to the ground in a tangled mess of cursing, punching, and biting.

“Careful of her face and stomach,” Firelle called out from atop his horse as the two of them struggled, causing the horses to shy away from them. Squirrel was no stranger to a scrap, and she tried to punch him twice before kneeing him in the face, but he ducked under both swings and pushed her knee away from him with the sheer force of his arms before twisting himself around her right arm like a snake.

Squirrel sank her teeth into the man’s gloves, but he only gave a grimace. Within seconds there was a loud crack, that reverberated all the way through Squirrel’s arm and into her shoulder. Squirrel bit down a scream, and seized one of the man’s fingers with her teeth, twisting it in kind.

The man’s finger twisted out of place beneath his glove, but he didn’t let go. “Let go, or I’ll make sure you never use it again,” Jon whispered, his face flushed with pain and anger.

Squirrel and Jon stared at each other, each unwilling to surrender their advantage. “Jon!” Firelle shouted. “You’ve already got her arm, leave the rest to the men, you lunatic.”

Jon pushed away from her and stood. Squirrel pushed herself to her feet as well, her right arm dangling uselessly beside her. Before Squirrel could run, two men seized her arms, causing her to moan in pain as the throbbing in her arms echoed throughout her entire body.

Jon glared at her as he pulled his index finger back into place. Firelle ignored him and slid off his horse to stand in front of her. “You should be proud, you’re the first person to hurt Jon,” he said, stepping close as Squirrel hung between her captors. “I think he took it personal.” Firelle gave her a jovial grin before his expression darkened.

“But,” he said, glowering at her. “Such behavior is inappropriate of a princess.” A sharp slap rocked Squirrel’s head to the side, and she was held aloft by the horsemen at her sides. the bones shifting in her arm hurt far more than the stinging in her cheek, and Squirrel let out a gasp.

Firelle’s expression softened. “I hope you understand that I do this for my family,” he said, straightening his gloves. “But most importantly, I do this for you, princess. You have no idea the danger you’re in, and I’m the only one who is willing to risk the ire of the crown to help you. Selfishly running away does nothing but hurt both of us.”

“So my broken arm is my fault?” Squirrel said, her voice barely higher than a whisper.

“Indeed, you could be obediently learning from your tutor right now,” he said, standing in front of her with his chest thrown out arrogantly. “But here you are instead, learning a more valuable, albeit much more painful lesson.”

“And what’s that?” Squirrel asked, shifting her stance to take some of the weight off of her broken arm.

“That I own you,” Firelle said, leaning forward. “you’ll learn what I tell you to, you’ll dance with who I tell you to, say what I tell you to, and you’ll f-“ Firelle’s words were cut off as Squirrel’s foot caught him in the chin, causing him to bite through his bottom lip. The dignified, greying man rocked back, an exhalation equal parts blood and surprise spurting from his lips as he toppled backwards. Firelle hit the ground, his eyes rolling back in his head.

“Let that be a lesson!” Squirrel said, glaring down at the insensate noble even as the guards belatedly hauled her away from him. Squirrel spotted Jon approaching with a murderous expression, and she screamed with effort, twisting to deliver another kick. Jon pushed her foot out of the way, and plunged forward, delivering a blow to the side of her head. Squirrel’s vision went white, and her ears were almost drowned out by a persistent thudding.

“Carry the count…” was the last thing Squirrel heard before she lost consciousness.

Squirrel opened her eyes, but this time she was not in a luxurious room with fanciful furniture and a morbid observation deck where nobles could witness the conception of the next generation. This time she found herself staring up as a plain wooden ceiling, atop a small room with plain stone walls.

There was a single door with banded iron, and a chamber pot in the corner of the room. The wall across from the end of the bed was covered with a smooth black piece of slate. In front of the slate sat the woman who’d entered the room shortly after the count and countess had left. Her gentle face that was just beginning to show the signs of age was marred by a black circle around one eye that hadn’t been there the previous day.

Upon seeing Squirrel looking at her, she bowed “Good morning princess,” she said, straightening her back. “I’m your tutor for history and etiquette, Jenette.”

“Don’t call me princess,” Squirrel said, pushing herself to a seated position, hissing in pain as she unconsciously tried to move her splinted arm.

“The doctor said that the arm’s set well, but you shouldn’t try to move it for at least a month,” Jenette said apologetically. Squirrel glanced down at the professional wrapping of her right arm, grimly assessing her chances of escape with a broken arm.

Not too damn likely, Squirrel thought to herself, glancing around the cell. She spotted an oil lamp providing the light in the windowless room, and glanced up at the wooden ceiling. Squirrel stored that information away and fixed her gaze on Jenette.

“Listen, Jenette, I’d rather suck a donkey’s balls than stay here a moment longer,” Squirrel said, sliding out of the bed. “You tell your lord that the longer he keeps me here, the worse it’ll be for him when I get out.”

Jenette stood and brandished a thin, leather bound rod, striking Squirrel across the cheek with the flat end. A snap resounded through the air, and Squirrel’s face stung viciously, causing her to blink tears out of her eyes.

“A lady does not use such language.” Jenette hissed. “You must keep your gaze directed at-“

Squirrel didn’t wait for the woman to finish her tirade, seizing the rod with her left hand and kicking the woman in the solar plexus, propelling her across the room. “You keep calling me Princess,” Squirrel said, walking forward and leaning over the gasping woman with her most terrifying glare, the one she reserved for Tom and Hardy. “But I don’t think you’d treat a princess like this, would you?”

“It seems as though one of two things must be true,” Squirrel said, running the end of the rod along the tutor’s jaw. “Either I’m not a princess, and you want me to pretend to be one, or I am a princess, and you just struck me. In either case, why would I ever allow you to do that again?”

The tutor swallowed.

***

“She’s a nightmare,” Firelle whispered from where he watched Ariana terrify the best tutor in the kingdom.

“Do you need me to break her other arm?” Jon asked impassively.

“And invite the doctor back again, raising even more suspicions?” Firelle asked, glancing back at Jon “And think of the maids who would have to attend her should she be unable to care for herself. More people to keep silent. I think not.”

Jon shrugged. “I like her,” he said.

Firelle rounded on Jon, waggling his finger at him. “All the people you like are dead, Jon,” he said. “Do me a favor and keep your attitude professional.”

Jon shrugged, his lips tilting in a smile.

“From now on, I want you to sit in on her lessons,” Firelle said, touching his mangled lip with the tips of his fingers. “Obviously the only thing she understands is the threat of force. Let’s see if your presence can get her to settle down.”

Jon nodded and stepped toward the door, before Firelle caught his shoulder. “And don’t knock her out again, either,” Firelle whispered in Jon’s ear. “I have no use for a vegetable.”

Jenette fled out the door, and Squirrel sat back on the bed, contemplating an escape involving lighting the ceiling on fire. She heard some low speech outside the door, and Squirrel saw Jenette walk back in, her face pale, followed by Jon.

Squirrel’s skin rose in goosebumps as the lithe man took a seat in front of the door. She tightened her grip on the rod, and he raised a brow. She certainly couldn’t beat him with a broken arm… Squirrel considered the lamp against the wall. If she could dash it against him, there would be no fight.

Squirrel must have glanced at the lamp, because Jon looked up at the lamp, then met her eye with a confident gaze. Squirrel tensed, ready to leap up and kick the lamp toward him, when she felt a tugging at her hand.

Jenette was trying to pull the discipline rod from Squirrel’s tightly fisted hand. “Princess, release the switch” she said commandingly as she ineffectually tugged at it. Squirrel glanced down at her forearm, corded with muscle, and then up at the woman trying to take the switch from her.

“I think I’ll keep it,” Squirrel said dryly.

Jenette cast a despairing gaze at Jon, who shrugged. With a sniff, she sat down in front of the slate, and retrieved a piece of chalk from her bag. She began drawing figures. “Today’s lesson is about posture,” she said as she drew the figure of a woman standing perfectly straight.

“You must keep your shoulders at exactly…” the woman’s voice faded into the background as Squirrel shifted all her focus onto the fighter in front of her, waiting for him to get bored or distracted.

Much to her annoyance, Jon hardly blinked, much less looked away. Squirrel was fairly confident that her tutor could have put on a show that ended with her humping the bedpost completely naked, and he would have missed it.

The lesson ended without Squirrel learning much of anything, and Jon casually picked up the lamp and carried it out with him at the end, shrouding her room in darkness.