(Two months after Vaile had been ‘rescued’ by Skwiik, and three months before Vaile met Seivalt)

A woman in regal garb scratched at the edges of her face. If one looked close enough they could see the incredibly thin line that seemed to outline her countenance, the scar left from having her face torn from her body by a rat monster. As the last surviving member of her family’s royal line, she was able to become queen of her nation. The problem she faced was her lack of one (pun intended). Thankfully, her father’s father’s father had done a great service to the elven king whose line owed a dept of gratitude that she cashed in on.

An experienced Flesh Sculptor (what we would call a Magic-Based Plastic Surgeon) was sent to heal and undo the damage, but unfortunately for the new Queen of the Stronveil Monarchic State the agents used by the rat monster were too hard to fully remove. She had a face again, but it was not perfect and constantly itched, especially at the edges of where the knife had cut around her visage. The former princess, now Queen, who Vaile had dubbed ‘Puke Princess’ ultimately stopped using most makeups due to the constant itching making her scratch away the applied product.

Unfortunately, she could not stay atop her role as ruler of her nation forever. Her nation was a strict patriarchal nation, and her even being in her position was seen as taboo. There would have been others to take the throne in her place, but all of the Arch Dukes and Dukes and basically anyone with a hint of royal blood aside from herself had been butchered by the rat monster during a botched execution.

So, what was Natalie Malavinge Stronveil to do?

She was, in the eyes of most other royal families, damaged goods. Due to her scars she was not even worthy of a 4th or 5th son from the other kingdoms. She had no one available to have a child with in order to preserve her line and succeed her. If she could find someone willing to marry her, she could at least attempt to have a son or two and allow her nation to have a king, no matter how young.

Well, that wasn’t entirely true. There was one King who had no heirs nor a spouse. A king who was so genocidally inclined, just like his ancestors, that he was rumored to be absolutely mad. She really had no other options but to try and get a marriage with him. Anything to keep the bloodline alive.

She had no idea what kind of a mess she was getting into.

…

(One week before Vaile met Seivalt.)

Natalie cursed herself for thinking that marrying this addled mutant was a good idea. She had been treated poorly in her own nation before, but the way she was treated here was exponentially worse.

In her homeland she was seen with mixed views. She was the only member of her nation left alive that still had royal blood in her veins, but she was also a woman. Here she was viewed less as a person and more as a breeding sow. Locked in her manor that was more of a prison than anything else and forced to try and get the impotent and deranged lunatic that was the King of the Trelawney Kingdom to mate with her.

The manor’s guard were entirely Trelawney soldiers as her own had died off one by one in ‘accidents’. She could see the outside world beyond her barely-gilded cage from her bedroom window and made every effort to try and get in contact with her people.

Messenger birds were shot down and cooked, then fed to her while being stuffed with the notes she sent or had sent to her.

Letters were intercepted and either destroyed or altered.

Magic was blocked, so not even the might of a dozen arch mages working together could communicate with her.

She hated every moment that the deformed and inbred hick of a kin came to her. Demeaning ‘play’ eventually devolved into downright torture and rape. In fact, she had overheard that the King was bored with her and was going to let her be a breeding bitch for the higher ups in his court. After a few years of that, she was going to be turned into a toy for the military to use as they saw fit. After that they were going to send her broken body back to her nation and use her ‘infidelity’ as an excuse to go to war.

Natalie cried herself to sleep when she heard these things. The walls were closing in and the noose was tightening around her neck, figuratively speaking, of course. She prayed from that night onwards to any god that would listen.

“Someone! Anyone! Any God or Devil! Deliver me from my fate! I will be whatever you demand me to be, I will do whatever you demand me to do! Please, Save Me!”

…

(Three and a half weeks after Vaile met Seivalt and just under a week after Seivalt was buried. Three hours before the Revolution begins.)

Natalie paced in her room. She had been confined there for three days and fed a meal that her enchanted necklace told her was filled with potent aphrodisiacs and agents designed to force her into a constant state where she would always be ready to have a child. She had refused to eat any of it, tossing it all out through the barred window. She was starving, but she would rather starve to death than become nothing more than a breeding bitch.

She looked around for anything in the room that could be used to kill herself. She would rather die than face a moment of this torture anymore. Unfortunately, there was nothing in her prison cell of a bedroom that could be easily used. An hour passed and she took her sheets and began to make a simple noose. It would be another four hours before they checked up on her again for a ‘medical examination’. Bullshit. It was to see if she was doped up enough to be a mindless fuck-toy.

She would go out on her terms. To hell with everyone, to hell with the world!

Then she heard the sounds of a struggle outside. The sounds grew in intensity over a relatively short period of time and caused Natalie to wonder what was going on. Perhaps her people had gone to war to rescue her?

She finished setting up her noose so that if worse came to worse she could just end it and looked out through the thin window. Then she saw a sight she could not believe.

Beasts of all kinds were rampaging though the land beyond the walls. She could see bears, wolves, elk, birds of prey and even livestock and domesticated dogs and cats causing absolute havoc outside. What made the sight even more outlandishly bizarre was the fact that these animals, both predator and prey, were working together and using their strengths to counterbalance their weaknesses.

Squirrels and other rodents swarmed guards inside the walls as racoons made off with the keys to the gates, no doubt going to open them. Soon after, the guard dogs sprinted into the area and began to ragdoll the human guards with their powerful jaws. She barely managed to pull away from the window and shut it in time to stop a seeming horde of spiders, centipedes and rodents from entering.

She could hear the scratching on the other side of the metal-plated wood shutters even as she backed away in fear. The scratching died down shortly thereafter and she began to do the exact opposite of what she had wanted to do weeks prior. She barricaded herself in her room, even going so far as the strain her muscles in the act of pushing a wardrobe in front of the door.

It was a good thing she did, too. Almost as soon as she did so she heard the sounds of the door being clumsily unlocked, soon after followed by the noises of various irritated animals as they tried to force the heavy metal-plated door and thick oak wardrobe open and out of the way. Natalie nearly threw out her back pushing against the wardrobe to keep the animals at bay, but her suffering payed off as the critters got bored and left.

Natalie once again got on her knees and prayed to whatever god, angel or devil that would listen. But her prayers fell on deaf ears as the mansion and many other places throughout the Trelawney Kingdom were overrun by animals and monsters. She should have been thankful at the end of the day that the manor was not burned down and while she starved for two more days afterwards she finally ventured outside to see both the carnage and lack of obstacles left in the wake of the attack.

The rising of the beasts was over, and the domestic animals were back to their old selves as if nothing had happened. Wasting no time, she stuffed herself with food from the untouched larder, packed a lot more of it into a wagon, hitched a horse and got the hell out of dodge.

She hoped she would get to her nation before anyone noticed her absence, but in truth the Trelawney Kingdom had bigger issues to deal with. Red Mountain had attacked and broken through the wall that separated them from the Kingdom almost three hours after the rising of the beasts began.

The Revolution had begun.