"Wait. Wait wait wait hey stop what are yoooooooOOOOUUUf!"

Ok! First of all! This is! Not a! Kidnapping! Alina is not! Being captured! Right now! Ok? She's just! Eeep! Just! EeeeeeeEEEep!! That doesn't! Eeeep! Go there! Hey stop! Don't tou-huhuhahahahaha!

Alina's squeaks are indignant and shrill. Her flailing is useless, but beautiful. Her shawl is floppy. No wait, it's on the floor. Her hair is bouncier than anything. Her butt is too high in the air, and her wind is not where it needs to be to do crucial tasks like breathing, thinking, or speaking with royal elegance.

"You jerk, I trust-eeep-ed you! We were -oof!- having aaAAaaa moment! I was just about to-- guh! Just abouuooorg! Rivers, why are you so tall! It's not fair! That's illegal! Height crimes! I'm reporting you!"

This is not a kidnapping or an arrest or whatever it is you think this looks like, ok? It's not! This is just a... minor setback! A surprise! No no, wait, go back! It's a... a... uh... a feint! Yeah, that's got it, a ruse! Step one in Alina's brilliant 11 point fool proof escape plan. 

She has to... you know, [i]act[/i] helpless and captured and squeaky and YEEEEP! Er, flustered, yes, so Shazari will lower her guard! That's why she hasn't used her lights to zip herself to some window or fill Shazari's pants with ferrets or flip her onto [i]her[/i] back with dragon strength or, or um...

No no no no, no wait! Go back, go back, go back! This is the real actual truth this time, ok? This is a... a uh... um... a charity case! Yeah! Alina's just feeling sorry for Shazari, so she's [i]letting[/i] her have this win, ok? That's something a Cascade would do, right? Intentionally play the final hand as wrongly as possible so her rival can go out feeling like she's on top. As an apology for all the difficulties she's had to endure recently. As a thank you for the Fire-Sharks, even though Shazari had nothing to do with that, just a thank you to, you know, Jedad in general for making Fire-Sharks exist when Illumina needed them the most. So now their crown princess gets a moment of glory and Jedad gets a new story and a song about the wily Princess Alina was finally brought to justice. Let it never be said that anybody steals the crown jewels of Jedad nine times and gets away with it!

...It's definitely, definitely NOT that this has been one of Alina's secret fantasies since she was thirteen and started really noticing how pretty other girls could be. Don't be ridiculous. Just because she's so tall firm and moves like dancing serpents and her hair smells like warm spices doesn't mean anything! It's completely coincidental that she's the one princess in Hyperborea who understands all the complexities of Alina-the-master-thief and takes her seriously enough to try and compete with her in every arena. You're thinking too hard about this. Stop it. 

I mean, look. If that were the case, would she really be crying out like a damsel in distress so much? That's what I thought.