A distant port city. A young girl boards the grand ship Marie, surrounded by burly men with red necks and tall spears. Her hair is covered in a dark green veil. Suddenly, a guard cries out in pain. An arrow is stuck in his neck.

“Run,” he says, and she does, under the cover of foreign men. She makes it onto the ship, she bars the door to her cabin, she grabs her knife and holds her bed sheets tightly, her knuckles pale with fear. A cannon fires, a woman screams, and a crash is heard on the starboard side of the ship.

Everything is calm. Marie is far from the coast and the cannonball lies at the bottom of the sea.

Princess Anais of Woodgrove has escaped the revolution in Floris and is coming home.

Amalia groans in pain, her brown eyes fluttering open. The first thing she notices is a warm stickiness coating her. Was that... blood? She didn't know, as everything was blurry. Everything hurts. Her abdomen, her face, her hand. Then, she heard voices. She recognized only two: the voices of Levi and Avary.

Was she going to die? By the minute, more and more blood trickled from her stomach and arms, surrounding her in a sticky, warm pool. It was becoming an effort to keep her eyes open. This time, instead of a groan, a light whimper comes out of her.

@Overlord24@DriveEMOut@Nikki Moonlight@Drakeonis

@canaryrose@Overlord24@DriveEmOut@Drakeonis

Elizabeth said to Amalia, "Your Grace, try to relax, I've almost stopped the blood flow.... Just lie back, please." She kept glancing over to Rais worriedly. Her pendant gleamed as it fell close to Amalia. She grabbed it and stuffed it back into her dress. Then she continued to attempt to help her.

@canaryrose@Overlord24@DriveEmOut@Nikki Moonlight

Rais turned at the sound of the bleeding princess's whimper, ignoring his new adversary in the darkness. He just barely caught his fascination attempting to hide her necklace. He smirked and went to her side. "Sounds like she's coming to." His tone became lighter, as he grazed his fingers over the exposed chain of her pendant at the back of her neck. "Are you trying to hide this from me, Little Lion? Afraid I'll steal it ?"

The ebony-haired young woman slapped his hand away from her neck. "Don't touch me!!" she snarled.

@Drakeonis

The ebony-haired girl slapped his hand away. "Don't touch me!" she snarled at him.

@Nikki Moonlight

Rais' hand recoiled and he chuckled at her rage. "So Defensive , Little Lion I'm getting the feeling that pendant of yours isn't just sentimental." He was already curious about this girl but this pendant matter intrigued him even more. "I still don't know your name Little Lion. Won't you please tell me?"

Seeing his enemy's mistake, Levi ran at one of his men and slashed his throats open with one swipe of the katana. He turned to the rest. "Fight me! Or are you just going to wait for your master?"

@Drakeonis

@Drakeonis

She lifted her head, then she said, "Shouldn't you be worrying about different things than a simple maid?" She raised an eyebrow, her father's pendant safely hidden once again. Her kingdom was the long burned Kingdom of the Roses. Elizabeth had been simply the name King Cyrus had given her. However, were one to pull down the back of her dress one would see the mark of the First-born royal of the Roses. She prayed they wouldn't catch on.

She pulled herself from her past and she looked at Prince Levi, then went back to working on Princess Amalia.

@Nikki Moonlight@DriveEMOut

"Probably but you're just so fascinating to me." He laughed again. "You've got fight in you and then there are those eyes of yours. If you couldn't tell gold is my favorite color, I just can't help but be intrigued by you." The sound of his man being cut down by the stranger from the tunnel had managed to take his attention away from the girl. He rolled his eyes to himself. "Well I have to go deal with this now, I guess you're spared my company for a little while, Little Lion." He grinned at her one last time before drawing his blades and walking towards the stranger

Rais' men were more than ready to strike the man down with everything they had before Rais walked over and stopped them. The men nodded and moved to the side giving their leader some room. The Golden King gave an annoyed look at the masked man as he looked him up and down. "And here I was expecting a good fight. Instead, I get a coward who only springs out of the shadows when the big threat turns their back on him." His eye's lidded and he glared at the man with a dangerous look. "Why dance with them when the master is more than willing?" He raised Akatsuki, his own katana, and gave a confident smirk. "At the very least, You've brought me something else for my collection."

@Drakeonis@DriveEMOut

Elizabeth grumbled, "Men..." Soon, after some work, the princess was healed.

@canaryrose

She said, "Princess, you will be alright now....just lie down and regain your strength, your Grace."

Slowly, Amalia regained full consciousness. She opened her eyes fully, taking in the dark world surrounding her. She was still lying in a pool of her own blood- yet it was not flowing from her body any longer. But the bandit king- he concerned her. She could recognize the voice behind the mask- it was her brother, Levi. 17 years of living with the insufferable boy had made Amalia able to recognize his voice quickly, even behind the mask. Against the servant's instructions, Amalia reached out for something to steady herself as she stood on shaky feet.

"Abduct me and my brother? Over my dead body." Amalia hissed with as much strength she could render. Which was very little, considering her current state. She stood on wobbly feet, and she needed to lean heavily against the wall to even manage standing. She glared at the bandit fiercely.

@Nikki Moonlight@Drakeonis@Overlord24@DriveEMOut

@canaryrose@Nikki Moonlight@DriveEMOut

Rais snickered yet still kept his eyes on his opponent. "You want to reword that, Princess? Cause just a couple seconds ago you were real close to have this little show of bravado with the Reaper if not for your fascinating maid's intervention" He scoffed and turned his back to the man, showing the disregard he had for him as he faced the princess. "Maybe now that you've come to, you and I can discuss terms? The rest of your little band doesn't seem to keen without moving without your say so." He pointed at the masked man behind without looking at him. "This one killed one of my men, though, he has to bleed for it. That isn't open to negotiation."

@canaryrose@Drakeonis@DriveEMOut

Elizabeth frowned as the bandit called her "Fascinating." Then she paled slightly. If her true identity was ever found out... She nearly shuddered at the thought of what would happen. But she stood firm, then went to help the princess. "Please, your Grace, do not push yourself!"

A thousand feet to the south of the underground fight, Princess Anais was silently observing the tide of battle in a secluded area at the edge of a cliff overlooking the castle. She watched quietly as her father's men fought, her eyes tracking the swarms of soldiers that had gathered before her like a cook tracks a fly in the kitchen.

She had returned to the kingdom with her band of Florian guards a few hours earlier but was forced to take refuge in the forest after barely being spotted by the evil army surrounding the castle. She reckoned her siblings were somewhere away from Woodgrove, if not waiting patiently for victory in the tunnels, though something in the way this new army moved was telling her that this was not the case and that she would soon have to get up and get blood on her pretty new dress.