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She must escape, nude, from this attack.", "description_bbcode_parsed": "This fic follows Lyra, Princess of the kingdom within the story, as she deals with a surprise attack in the middle of the night. She must escape, nude, from this attack.", "writing": " Lyra was not a worker of the fields, a Man At Arms after a day’s training, or even a merchant who spent his days nose deep in paper and spending the rest of his time swindling those about him. No, Lyra arguably had the easiest job out of anybody else in the whole Kingdom: a princess.\n Of course, anybody could look at those above them and see how much easier it was. A regular peasant might see a soldier standing guard and think about how good it must be to stand around doing nothing all day. A soldier might look at a merchant, or a noble, and think about how good it is to sit around all day doing nothing but writing and talking. That chain of thought continued all the way to the top of the hierarchy and, once at the very top, that thought turned into a “woe is me” attitude.\n Of course her father, the King, thought he did more work than anybody else. He was their leader, the most important person in these lands, and as such he was tasked with the most important work. He was the one who imposed the taxes, negotiated trade and treaty, and took care of many other strifes that his Kingdom took on. Of course, he was held to the highest standard by his court and his people but he was still the most powerful of them all. He had enough “yes men” to execute any order, or any person, that he so pleased. All by doing little more than lifting a finger or opening his mouth.\n Her father was a smart man, that much she knew. You had to be smart to run a Kingdom successfully. Intelligence had to run in the blood for a Kingdom to work. What good was a foolish king surrounded by those more intelligent than him? He was no more than a puppet. That much could be said for Lyra, too, as she was no more than a puppet.\n Being a puppet was tiring, the most tiring of all. Maybe her bones did not ache at the end of the day, maybe her lack of physical work would keep her youthful appearance around longer than most, but the mental strain that it took was such a burden upon her shoulders that she often wished she had taken up a hoe instead of a quill. Tending to the fields was an honest day’s work, that work directly feeding yourself and those around you, but sitting at her father’s side while he babbled about imposing higher taxes to fund an upcoming expedition into an unknown land? Sitting and listening to all of that while being unable to give one’s input? It was tiring.\n Lyra was part of the family enough to listen but not enough to learn. She could not point out the faults in whatever plans she saw and heard, whether from her father or those below her, and it was her inability to voice those points that she never got to learn what was or wasn’t a good idea. Each and every one of her unvoiced opinions came from the books she had read and what she had overheard. To keep all those thoughts inside of her head was maddening.\n She felt like a slave, which was rather insensitive to actual slaves, but she did not know in what better term to put her feelings. From the moment she left her room to the moment she went back in her life was all planned out. What she ate, what she said, what she was to do, all of it. She had no life of her own outside of her room, where she spent her time reading, but it was still “easy.” All she had to do was stand and look pretty most of the time, which was not hard for someone like her.\n Lyra was young, nineteen bordering on twenty years of age, and tall. Her family came from a long line of maned wolves, about as pure in their blood as could be without divulging into too much (but still some, sadly) incestuous activities. Height, as a maned wolf, was a valuable thing and she had been blessed with her father’s side of that scale. While her father stood at around 200 centimeters in height, she was about 180 centimeters. She towered over every woman she knew, even her mother who was 140 centimeters, and she knew of the imposing sense of presence that it gave others.\n Every time a new guard was brought into the palace, weathered by years of battle and unwavered by just about anything, they were taken aback by her height. Their family was the only maned wolves of this land and, as such, folks were not used to the heights that their species brought them to. Lyra guessed that it fit their status as royalty, too.\n Lyra felt that she was getting off track in her mind and delved back into her thoughts on her “enslavement.”Her life was physically easy, but mentally straining without much input of her own. She was doomed to a life of servitude as, like many slaves, she was to be sold off one day. Instead of coin, though, she was to be sold off for political gain. A neighboring Kingdom had been warring with them for longer than she had been alive and, just a year ago, they had begun treaty talks as they feared that the recent introduction of marksmen into her father’s ranks would begin to turn the tide of battle. They were correct.\n As such, they had arranged a meeting and had decided on a fairly simple trade: in exchange for stopping all hostilities and giving back the lands that they had taken, Princess Lyra was to be married off to the Prince of their ailing Queen. The King had died of pneumonia many years back and the Queen had proven herself to be a strong leader, but untrained in the knowledge of war. As such, it was her who had decided on this treaty.\n Lyra’s father agreed to this treaty under one condition: Lyra was to not be wed until she was twenty-one years of age. Her father was notorious for making his kin wait for a long, long time before marriage. Fifteen, even fourteen, was the common age in which royal children (and even noble) around the world were married off for the gain of their family. Her father, funnily progressive in his thinking, thought that as way too early of an age to marry. That was one of the few things she had thanked her father for. To be sold off into a marriage barely a year after her “monthlies” came into effect? She found it barbaric and her books agreed!\n It did not mean that she was safe, though, as her time within her father’s kingdom was short. She had a year of relative, if not stressful, comfort before she became the “property” of another Kingdom. She didn’t even know the name of the prince she was to be married off to but she feared that he was likely not the best person. She had heard some stories from the servants.\n Alas, she felt as though her brain was about to explode from all this worry. It was getting late in the day, the sun about an hour from setting, and she was desperate for a nice rest in bed. Maybe even a book in her hand, a hot cup of tea brought to her, before she delved into sleep. Sleep was the one place in which turmoil never entered her mind.\n\n\n Through the labyrinth of hallways that made up her family’s palace, Lyra walked at a leisurely pace. The walls were cream in color, a bronze trim lining the bottoms of said walls. The floors were of oak, dark and pristine, and all of this was lit up by lanterns hung on the walls every fifteen yards or so. Paintings were liberally splattered on the walls, gifts from artists near and far, and some of them were even portraits of the royal family. Mainly of her father and his son, her brother, but there were a few of her mother and even herself.\n The main portrait of herself stood above her room’s door, heavy and made of the same oak as the floor, and detailed a solo portrait of her. Her hair, a reddish orange, was freely open as its curls went down to her shoulders. Her hair contrasted, rather prettily, with her reddish-brown and gold fur with black accents around the tips of her ears and hands.\n This portrait differed from her usual state of dress, which was currently a flowing dress of light blue with golden trim and other golden accents, by portraying her in armor. The painting was from the torso up and, in said painting, she wore a black gambeson. This gambeson, with orange trim around her neck and sleeves, was covered with a breastplate. The breastplate was made of blackened, spring steel and had been made specifically for her. It was not an overtly feminine piece of armor, for it did not hug her like a corset and did not accentuate her bosom, but it had still been forged and fitted with her in mind.\n Between the gambeson and breastplate was a chainmail neck guard. This neck guard was to go with a chainmail shirt worn underneath her breastplate, covering her arms and all the way down to her upper thighs, but the artist found it to be “too ugly for such a pretty woman”. She had rolled her eyes at that, but obliged in removing it.\n She was sitting in the painting, face serious, but not as dangerous-looking as she hoped. She hoped that the sword, held sheathed in her arms and before her body, helped to make her look menacing. It was a Side Sword, the blade 83 centimeters in length, with a cord-wrapped wooden handle. The blade was straight and held within a deep purple leather sheath, the family crest in gold at the tip of the sheath and near the entrance where it stopped at the curving crossguard. Her family crest was also engraved into the blade itself and was also upon the pommel.\n Lyra stared at this painting for a hot minute before she entered her room. She had spent many, many hours practicing with that sword. Her father had never allowed her to spar with a living person, though. All of her training was theoretical, unproven, but she hoped that her knowledge of proper stance, swing, and guard were enough to throw off any would-be attackers. Not that she ever planned on needing to defend herself. A life surrounded by guardsmen damn near guaranteed that.\n Waiting within her room were two servants, female and of rabbit kin. They bowed to her at a slight angle and Lyra bowed back to them, having always respected them. Servants had essentially raised her and she always held a respect for them. She held a respect for everyone, really, but those who put the lives of others before themselves were the most respectful of all. Servants, soldiers, workers dedicated to their craft. All worked so that others may do what they needed or wanted in relative comfort.\n “Lords above, please undo the strings of this dress before I suffocate!”, Lyra called to them, extending her arms out into the pose of an A.\n The servants got to work quickly as one worked on the black leather belt she wore around her waist, which held the sheathed sword in her painting, while the other moved at the laces of her dress along her lower back and collar bone.\n Her sword was removed from its sheath and leaned against the wall for Lyra to put away while her belt was carefully wrapped and stored in a drawer not too far away. Her dress was left on after the laces were undone, the servant stepping away.\n “You may go, I can handle the rest myself.”, she smiled at them, nodding them farewell. The two servants bowed and left the room, off to do whatever they did when not serving her.\n She did not try to be different from those around her but it seemed to come naturally. She wore a sword, unlike most royal and noble women, and she undressed herself instead of a servant doing so for her. She could go on and on in her mind about her reasonings for both of those and more. Did she really need to establish her own reasoning to herself, though? No, no she did not.\n No longer feeling constrained in the laces of her dress, she moved to pick up her sword before making her way over to her bed. It was by the bed that two wooden dowels stuck out from the wall, placed far enough apart for her sword to hang by both sides of its crossguard. Aside from ceremonial purposes, it was the backup for the flintlock pistol stored within her bedside table. It was a fickle thing and, even when it worked, she was a terrible shot.\n She moved to remove her dress, rather ungracefully might one add, in one fell swoop. She struggled as she bent over the bed but, eventually, she made it out. She wore a bright white, cotton shirt now as she folded up her dress and put it on the bed for her to put away. She then easily took off her white shirt and folded it up, leaving her in nothing more than her underwear.\n She was of slim body, inevitable with her tall frame and lack of manual labor. Her small bosom was held in a black bra, lacing around the top of both cups. This bra matched her lowers, plain black panties being worn. Lacy black garters were worn with black straps going down and hooking into her black stockings. Such underthings were rather unbecoming of a woman of her status but they made her feel pretty. They were for nobody's viewing, not even her future husband, but herself.\n She unclasped her bra and removed it, leaving her chest bare, before moving to remove herself of the stockings, garter, and then panties. These were all neatly folded into a pile with her dress before she carried them over to a small wooden door within the wall. It was by this wooden door that she knelt on one knee, opening it up to reveal a chute of sorts. She threw her clothes down into it, an echoey thud being heard before she shut the door. This chute went down to the basement, where servants cooked and cleaned unnoticed. It was a rather simple, yet amazing, contraption.\n She stood up and stretched before rubbing her fingers over her eyes. She was ready for bed, not even feeling as though she had the energy for even a paragraph of reading or half a mug of tea. She turned to walk towards her bed but not before she stopped at the singular window of her room. Her room was three stories off the ground, high enough for no angle to ever be had on her. She was comfortable in her nakedness, arms crossed beneath her chest, as she stared out at the town below. It was more of a city, really.\n Buildings of stone and wood were expertly planned out into a grid pattern for miles upon miles. It was the densest and largest urban area in the world, that she was aware of, and she loved it. It held every niche, every item, that a person could ever dream to want. The best part? The harbor at the foot of the city. Trade was a massive moneymaker for their people and such easy access to shops not a few minutes walk from the harbor made business boom.\n She stood there for about five or so minutes, growing more and more tired, as she watched a large merchant ship in the distance sinking into the horizon. The sun was about gone now with that distant ship right in the middle of its golden haze. Lyra felt as if she could sleep from sundown to sunup and, as such, she planned to do just that.\n The bed was soft as silk, thanks to the silk (lol), as she laid down upon it. Her body quickly became swaddled in both the sheets and the comforter as, within seconds, she fell fast asleep. Her book, unread past the first chapter and a half, laid on her nightstand. She’d get to it in the morning. Maybe.\n\n\n Unbeknownst to her, something was brewing in the distance. The ship that had been sailing out into the sea didn’t even get to disappear beneath the horizon before its mast came toppling down. A new mast rose from a different ship carrying the family crest of a different Kingdom. More and more ships with that same crest began to come over the horizon.\n The treaty, in fact, had not gone well with such an impatient bunch. They wanted the princess now and, by God(s), they were going to get her.\n\n\n________________\n\n\n\n\n How long had she been able to sleep? Two? Three hours? Her sense of time was all off but she did know that the amount of sleep she had gotten was not enough. She felt dizzy, along with groggy, as she sat up in her bed. Something had awoken her, but what?\n Her room was dark, candles not exactly being needed in one’s sleep. In such a state the only light coming into the room should have been moonlight, usually, but tonight there was a warm glow to the light. What in the world was that all about?\n Lyra sat in her bed for a few seconds, her blankets resting upon her lap, as she worked to get the energy to stand. She felt a hundred pounds heavier as she put her bare feet upon the wooden floor and brought herself to a stand. Hands going above her head, she stretched until she was on the tips of her toes. Her arms went limp to her sides afterwards as she began to make her way over to the window to peer outside.\n Right before she could get to the window, a loud boom echoed throughout the entirety of her room. The entire palace seemed to shake as she fell to the floor, the glass of the window shattering and falling outside onto a stone path below where the sharp shards scattered into millions of pieces. She had to lay on the floor for a few moments, dazed and wide awake, before she pushed herself to her feet. It was after doing that in which she moved to the broken window, her unfiltered gaze staring at miles upon miles of fire.\n From the harbor to only a few hundred yards away, fire engulfed the city. The blaze was so hot that she could feel it wafting over her as if she was sitting in front of a hearth. Lyra was made stone still at the sight, her mind hardly able to comprehend what in the world was going on. Had someone let a fireplace get out of control? There were measures to control such a thing! How could a fire spread so much from such a simple thing?\n Sounds like fireworks, distant thuds and cracks, could be heard coming from the blaze. She squinted, putting her hand on the windowsill where no broken glass was, and leaned forward to see what in the world was going on. Just barely, she could make out the muzzle flashes and smoke of firing muskets in the streets. Unseen men were firing off their guns in the blaze and the thought of it made her ponder if this was some sort of uprising, rebellion, or an act of a tavern getting so drunk they turned treacherous.\n The blaze of the fire lowered enough for just a moment, long enough for her to see out to the harbor. It was there that her legs became weak. She held her ground as she stared at the family crest of the family she was supposed to be married into within a year. Their ships were lit up with lanterns, candles, and cannon blasts. Her father’s ships, merchant and navy alike, were lit up in blazes of fire that caught onto the sails like tinder. One ship was even belly up in the water.\n What had her father done?\n That was her first thought. How had her father screwed up the treaty so badly that it had led to a full frontal invasion of their main city? A city that was supposed to be well guarded, for it had to be with it being so close to the sea while also housing the royal family. It wasn’t until seconds later that she recalled the impatient nature of the other kingdom. They weren’t happy with the wait of her marriage, likely used to getting their “wives” as soon as the treaty was signed. Was that it? Was that the reasoning? Had they gone against the treaty because they couldn’t wait a year?\n Whatever the reasoning was didn’t matter. Her home was being invaded, here and now, and she had to get the hell out if she wanted to not end up either tied by a noose or forced into servitude as a trophy wife. That was quite the common thing when it came to the fall of nobles and royals. Women of higher standing didn’t get to die with dignity, no. They were forced to become shells of their former selves, sat beside or even on the laps of those who “wed” them. Noblewomen, princesses, even queens. It was a devilish sign of power, one that made her skin crawl and her fur tingle into bristling.\n She brought her body away from the window, disappearing to the side of her bed. The first thing she did was pull her sword off of the wall, putting it upon her bed. She then moved to open her bedside drawer where her pistol sat on a white handkerchief, the wood engraved with skilled designs of images of her father’s kingdom. The bronze bands and accents were shined to a near mirror sheen and the locking mechanism for the flint hadn’t sparked more than five shots.\n She, too, put the pistol onto the bed after bringing the stiff hammer back into a full-cock. It took both of her hands to do and it reminded her that carrying it in “half-cock” would not do for something likely needed to be used as soon as someone was spotted. Why risk her life trying to get it to full-cock if it took too long for her to do so before she could defend herself? Safety be damned, she’d just put her finger behind the trigger.\n She slammed the drawer shut, peering at her unfinished book for a moment as if pondering whether she should take it, but decided to not do so. The next step was to get herself dressed as hastily as she could. Turning around and beginning to make her way to the wardrobe, she didn’t get to even take two steps before another boom echoed throughout the room. This time it was right beside her.\n Something slammed into the side of her ribcage, knocking the wind out of her, and sent her rolling across the bed. She landed on the floor opposite of where she had been, blinking in and out of consciousness for a solid minute before she stirred. She moved to stand as she brought her arm up onto the side of the bed and used that as leverage to pull herself up. Her head came over the side of the bed and it was there that she saw a gaping hole in the side of her room. A cannonball, either aimed or by accident, had slammed right into her room.\n If that cannonball hadn’t hit her, then what did? She looked at the splinters scattered across the bed and floor, blocks of stone laying on the floor as well. Had she been hit by a stone brick? A support beam? She didn’t know and, frankly, she didn’t care too much. Whatever she had been hit by didn’t even leave a bruise as she felt of her side, now pushing herself to her feet.\n The pistol likely wasn’t far, but it wasn’t in her sights. Wherever it was, she left it behind as she snatched up her sword and stumbled away from the fresh hole in the side of her room. The fear of another cannonball kept her from getting close to that wall again, the same wall which her wardrobe had been pressed up against. The wardrobe had fallen face first, its contents (including every ounce of her clothes) inaccessible.\n A wave of despair came over her as she pinched the bridge of her nose, trying to think on what to do. How long had that fire been burning outside? Why had nobody woken her up whenever the first blazes started? The first sights of that family crest? It made no sense to her. It truly didn’t.\n With the sword held by the sheath, her hand just beneath the crossguard, she backed up towards the wall that stood between her and the hallway outside. It wasn’t like servants hadn’t seen her naked before, despite how much she disliked it, so she could track one down and get something on her to at least make her decent. That was the plan, anyways, but as she creeped her way to her door and placed her hand upon the handle she heard something that sent chills down her spine.\n Male voices speaking a dialect that she was not familiar with. The prose and structure of the words were completely unfamiliar to her, but there was another voice. This voice was more feminine and spoke her language. It sounded like a servant girl.\n “T-There! There, in that room! That’s where she sleeps! I swear it!”, the servant woman cried.\n The unknown man spoke some more, his tone questioning, and Lyra felt as if she could feel the servant’s head nodding as if silently confirming her location. Then there was the sound of flesh meeting blade and all was silent from the servant woman. Heavy clunks began to advance towards her door. Although beginning to go into a panic, she had enough sense to lock her door before silently scrambling away from it. She needed a place to hide and fast. Where?\n \n There was a murmur from behind the door as the man attempted to open it, finding it locked, and then a meaty kick was delivered to the door as it splintered open in surprising fashion. Either the door had been built weakly, unlikely, or the man that had kicked it possessed damn near superhuman strength.\n Lyra had scrambled beneath her bed right before the door had been kicked down, her legs and arms moving pieces of wood and stone out of the way. Metallic clinking could be heard as the man entered the room and, although she could not see his body, she knew he was wearing a full plate of armor. His feet and calves were covered in the stuff, part of a full set, and every movement he made that she could not see caused the rattling of his armor. The buttstock of a rather heavy-looking musket rested on the ground.\n If one were to have a view from behind Lyra, say through a peephole in the wall or through a device that did not even exist yet, then one would’ve had a mighty view. Her right leg was straight back, foot almost touching the wall, while her left leg was bent outwards. With her tail perked up against the bottom of the bed, one would’ve gotten a full view of her loins. Her outer lips were closed, slightly asymmetrical in shape, and hid her inner lips along with all the other goodies inside. The position of her legs even allowed this fictitious view to even get a slight view of her anus.\n Lyra’s heart beated in her chest rapidly as she stared out at this foreign man’s legs. He stood for a solid ten seconds, likely scanning the room, before an agitated grunt escaped his mouth. He picked up his musket before turning around, exiting her room. Putting her chin against the ground, she got to see a little more of him before he left. An empty sheath, long and straight, hung on his hip. The sword that belonged to that sheath was attached to his musket, essentially making it glaive or spear. It was a mean-looking thing.\n Her door had been shut the best it could behind the man, more foreign words being spoken as he walked down the hallway. Her pounding chest combined worked with her thoughts to push her out from beneath the bed, sword still grasped tightly, as she stood up. After quickly dusting herself off, she made her way over to the door. She pressed her back against the wall beside it, on the side of which the wood was splintered, and waited.\n She pressed the cool grip of the blade against her left breast, squishing it slightly, as she willed her heart to slow down. All the while, her perked ears listened as clanking footsteps came and went in the hallway. There had been a point in time where armor had fizzled out for about a hundred years before the techniques used in its manufacture began to make it reliably block or glance off shots from even the most powerful rifles. There were stories of officers on horseback, clad in armor, much like the Knights of centuries ago, leading charges as musket balls bounced off of them harmlessly. Now, of course, a well placed shot from a marksman was sure to put any man down.\n What was her plan? She didn’t know. As she listened to the voices and footsteps outside, she thought of her escape plan. It was fair enough to assume that the entire palace had been invaded and that she was, essentially, on her own. That much was a dire situation for someone like her. Where was her father? Killed? Captured? What about the guards of this palace? If these foreign men were coming and going with such ease then had every single guard been taken out of the fight?\n It ached to think about being on her lonesome after relying on others for so much of her life. She had to actually think, weigh her options, and live through the consequences of her own actions. This was all exacerbated by her state of undress, her own pride and embarrassment driving her to think even harder. To be captured in such a state of undress, or even killed, was a humiliation that she did not want to endure. Would it drive these men to do more to her? Would they touch her? Force her? Make her do things?\n The thoughts made her sick. Lyra had to force herself to push them out of her mind as she restarted her thoughts, going back to square one.\n She was on the third floor, so going through the broken window or out the hole in the wall was not something she was able to do. Her only escape was through this door. She briefly pondered the chute down to the basement, but deemed the hole too small and the fall too far to be safe. She had to risk going through her door and either to another room or down the hallway. Both options were risky as the invaders could be in any of these rooms and they could pop up into the hallway at a moment’s notice.\n She thought of the rooms to her right and pondered on whether or not they led anywhere. She knew that her father loved the look of vines creeping up the sides of their palace, although kept within reason, and the corners of the palace had the vines extending all the way to the roof. If she could get to a room with access to the corner of the house, would the vines be able to hold her? Could she climb down, or up, without being spotted?\n She pondered for a moment and, eventually, decided that it was possible. She had seen the servants climbing on the vines before to trim at some weary branches and flowers. If they could hold those servants up then they could certainly hold her up. She was certainly fit enough for a good climb so that wasn’t a worry. The only thing she had to worry about now was being spotted during her descent. If she was spotted, she couldn’t go anywhere but into either the arms of the enemy or onto a roof that she could not escape from.\n Despite not liking it, she knew it was the safest option. Gripping tightly onto the sword’s sheath, she used her free hand to gingerly open up the door. Peering out into the dim hallway, she looked left and then right. There were two bodies of servants to her left and the body of the servant that had pointed out her room to her left. All had stab marks into their backs, clean and precise. The sight made her stomach curl, but she fought back her sickness and pushed out.\n She was in the open now, naked and open for viewing for anyone that looked her way, and nobody looked her way. She silently ran to the end of the hallway, passing multiple doors that had been smashed in before she made it to the last door in the hallway. She could choose to go down the stairs before her, circular in their design, but she stuck to her plan and carefully pushed into the room.\n The door had been smashed and not much else. The room was for nothing more than the storage of banquet and party supplies, tablecloths and the finest silverware, plates, and cups kept in here. It was stuffy, dusty even, and the smell of it was akin to that of an unwashed body lathered in perfume. She wasn’t eager to stay in this room for long. So, making her way to one of the two windows, she peered outside.\n It was dark on the cobbled road below aside from the torches carried by armored men running to and fro, all in light metal armor with the family crest on their black shirts and muskets in their arms. None of them looked up as they went in and out of the home, searching and plundering. This was terribly risky, but she had to get to an area with more avenues of escape. She could run into the gardens and plan her way from there.\n Calming her nerves beforehand, she turned the handle on the window’s side and opened it like a door. It silently caught on a latch and stayed open, allowing the now chilly air to brush against her face and her chest. Her nipples reacted to the cool air, becoming a little stiff.\n “Lords above, if I survive this then each and every coin I have saved is going to the church..”\n\n\n________________\n\n\n This was, by far, the most dangerous thing that Lyra had ever done. She never had much of a chance to get up to mischief in her younger years, so maybe her own bar wasn’t all that high, but climbing out of a window and barely holding one’s self from falling off a three-story high ledge seemed pretty high on the list of dangerous things.\n Her heart was pounding, her slim figure being the only reason there wasn’t enough leverage for her to start tilting back. A few more cakes and she might’ve not been able to suck in her stomach enough to balance herself. A lip extended all the way around the palace beneath each window on each floor. She didn’t know the reason for its existence, it looked kinda ugly to her, but she was silently thankful for the person that had either built or organized the building of this place.\n She was facing the wall, her tail and rear end facing outward, as her breasts pressed the rough wall. Her nipples rubbed uncomfortably against it as she carefully shimmied the few steps needed before she could grasp onto the vines. All the while, her ears were perked as she listened for approaching footsteps. If she could just get down from this ledge and onto solid ground, she felt pretty confident in her means of escape. She did have a bit of a worry, though, and that was how she was going to climb down with this sword in one of her hands.\n The sword was too large for her to grab the vine at the same time as holding it. She had no belt to wear it on and no strap on it to sling it over her shoulder. The idea of just dropping her sword down onto the path beneath her didn’t sit right with her. Damaging, or even destroying, the blade seemed like a real possibility. The sound of it falling could draw unwanted attention, too, and she didn’t think she’d have enough time to climb down and pick up her sword before hiding. What was she to do?\n Out of the corner of her eye, having difficulty seeing through it due to the cool air that pushed against it, she looked down at what exactly was below her. There was the stone path she had seen, maybe a meter and a half in width, and after that was a line of shrubs. Grass extended out past those shrubs to a stone wall. The wall was the first, and really only, line of defense for the palace. Its walls were smooth, climbing it being impossible, and the tops of it were just wide enough to hold a man.\n Going out by climbing the walls wasn’t going to work out, but maybe she could toss her sword into the shrubbery or on the grass beyond it? Like most blades, it was flexible enough to not snap in half at the merest pressure, so maybe that would work? The sound shouldn’t be loud enough to draw any attention and, if she were to get it in the grass, nobody should see it after it landed. The plan seemed like a good one.\n The only thing she needed to watch out for was guards. As she shimmied her last few steps and took hold of the vine, dewey and cold in her grasp, she looked out to her left and down the stone pathway. She saw nobody, although she could certainly hear the occasional thudding of gunfire and footsteps from the inside. She shuddered, carefully leaning to the right to peak around the corner. It was there she saw three guards, halfway down the path, and walking away from her. Too far to hear her sword.\n Willing herself to calm, she awkwardly contorted herself to whatever was safe. Not having much leverage, she used what strength she had to awkwardly toss the sword. It swung in the air with a circular motion and, with a sound that she almost didn’t hear, landed in the grass behind the shrubs. It took a lot for her to not become giddy at the success in that. She could save any and all celebrations for when she was safe, clothed, and warm. Her fingers felt a little numb and, at this point, her nipples had been exposed to the cool air to become erect and hard to the touch.\n Lyra looked at the vines for a moment, pondering how she was going to go about this, but decided that overthinking it was not going to be the wisest decision. So, she just prayed to the higher powers above before grasping both hands with it and locking her feet onto either side of it. The only thing keeping her from falling was her strength, which seemed sufficient enough to keep her from descending too fast. Going back up, though? She’d need some adrenaline before she did that.\n Climbing down was a slow and tense affair, the dew of the vine wetting her forearms and the inner parts of her legs and thighs. A leaf extended out at just the right angle for it to ride up between her legs, the soft yet stiff leaf riding against her “slit” before she climbed down far enough for it to break downwards. The feeling was nowhere near pleasureful. In fact, it was the coldest thing her loins had ever felt and that's saying something considering how cold her own hands got in the winter.\n Either by divine intervention or pure luck, she made it all the way down to the stone path without seeing a single person. The sound of approaching boots, clunking with metal, made her act fast as she silently dashed to the other side of the stone path and towards the bush. She took a desperate dive across the bushes, falling hard onto the grass on the other side. She bit back any pain she felt from the bruises as she rolled onto her stomach, crawling towards her sword and grabbing it by the sheath. She then pushed herself closer to the bush, seeing just enough through the branches to see who was approaching from around the corner.\n It was the same man that had entered her room except, this time, she could see his full set of armor. Not a single ounce of skin was visible, not even his face, as he walked around the building’s corner and past the vines she had just climbed. She squinted, paying attention to the joints of his armor. Where skin or gambeson might’ve been exposed, such as in his joints and especially his armpits, chainmail covered. From what she knew of chainmail, it was weak to thrusting blows. You could slash your sword all day on chainmail, but a powerful thrust into the links was enough to break them apart. Of course, there was more than simply shoving a spear or sword into that gap. She felt she got the gist of it, although she wasn’t going to try it for herself. Even if she was armed with a musket as big and mean as his, she likely couldn’t do much.\n Lyra didn’t plan to fight the man anyways. Not only did she not want to be seen in this state of undress but she didn’t want to get caught up in a fight at all! Best case scenario, she won but caused a lot of noise. Worst case scenario her broken body would be strewn across the courtyard for all to see. Even the best case scenario looked as though it would lead to that worst case eventually. There was no way she could take on more than one guy and, even then, that was pushing it. These were trained soldiers, she was just a woman who trained in her bedroom sometimes.\n Aside from the man’s armor, he walked silently down the pathway and towards some soldiers who spoke to him in that unfamiliar language of theirs. They sounded tired and the armored man sounded agitated, either at himself or them, and then the soldiers sounded puzzled before agreeing to something. She wasn’t going to stick around for whatever it was.\n As she laid prone, stomach and chest becoming soaked in the dew of the grass, she pondered on her next move. Moving to the gardens was still the wisest choice and, from there, she could maybe find a way to scale the wall. She knew of the servants growing certain foods on vines that required lattices to be attached to the side of the wall. If those lattices were sturdy enough then maybe she could make it across the wall. From there? She could jump, if needed, but the chance of a sprain or even a broken bone seemed high. She needed to be sure she could jump onto something before climbing the wall, making herself a target with her tall silhouette, but how could she do that without first climbing the wall?\n The entrances and exits were a no-go, surely guarded by men ordered to shoot anyone who even dared come close to those doorways. As far as she was aware, any secret passages were either unknown to her or simply did not exist. Her family lived in so many different palaces at different times that she never did feel like she knew any of them. She felt underprepared in more than her state of dress.\n Laying here and getting ticks on her wasn’t going to do any good. Action led to results while pondering led to nothing. So, when she felt it was safe, she pulled herself across the ground in a crawl. It was a quiet crawl, the only noise being her fur rubbing against grass, and that was not loud enough to drown out the sounds of any approaching footsteps. Didn’t make the whole thing any less uncomfortable, though, as the cold ground numbed her nipples and brought uncomfortable wetness to areas that she didn’t want wet at the moment.\n As she crawled, knowing she would have to stand and run across another path before delving back behind some bushes, she pondered on what she would do after escaping. She could not fit into the peasant population by stealing some clothes, no. Her mannerisms would give her away immediately and, if not that, then likely the fact that her family were the only maned wolves of this country. She would stand out in a crowd, even with her face covered, and she’d never make it far. Would she have to stealth her way all across the city? Miles upon miles of burnt buildings wouldn’t hide her bright fur well. What if she couldn’t find clothes? That seemed to be the most worrisome part of her mind.\n After a few minutes of crawling, she came to where the hedges blocked her path. The stone path split off from the one that went all the way around the palace. The path itself went nowhere as it ended at the wall, a planned entryway having never been built past the path. On one hand, the lack of an entryway meant that there were no guards stationed here. On the other, she had to risk being spotted traveling that meter and a half of space. It agitated her to no end but, even worse, the sounds of footsteps were approaching.\n A regular soldier was walking down the path but, instead of going on, he turned onto the path and stood in the middle of it. He wore the uniform of the invading country, a black cloak with gold edges and a white undershirt, while a steel breastplate was worn and a helmet atop his head. The helmet came down over his nose and flared at the back like curly hair from beneath a hat. The smell of tobacco smoke began to fill the area.\n Lyra silently cursed, fingernails curling into the dirt. Why, out of all places, had this man come here for his little smoke? She pressed her face down into the grass to get a better angle at him. A wooden pipe was extending from his mouth and, with disgust, she recognized the pipe as belonging to the head chef of the household. Blood splattered the man’s breastplate. It was likely related to the pipe.\n A swell of anger began to build in her that wished to take revenge. She was in the shadows, unseen. She could draw her sword and strike the man down in the same swipe before he even heard the sound of steel clearing leather. Could she bring herself to do that, though? She practiced on still targets, imaginary and real alike. She would just have to superimpose her targets onto the man and strike, but a lack of willpower also overcame her. The thought of driving her blade into someone, or even cutting him, made her nauseous. She was never shy to the sight of blood, but a fresh wound gaping with it? The screams of a man as he garbled and drowned in it? She didn’t think she could do that. Bludgeon? Yes, she felt she could do that, but she did not have the strength to make the light blade’s hilt do any more damage than a knot on the head.\n There was also his body. She could not leave his body out in the open, but she knew damn well she hadn’t the strength to drag him behind the bushes. She was beginning to think about just passing by this man and leaving him be, but the smell of that tobacco and the sight of that blood brought a fresh rage back into her. She peered at his waist belt and the sidearm that he had on it, a flanged mace, and grinned a near sadistic grin. She had an idea.\n The sound of her sword rustling the brush and then thudding against the ground brought the guard’s attention, a confused “huh?” coming from his mouth. It seemed that some noises came across language barriers. He thought it to maybe be a squirrel or even a loose domestic rabbit, if these people even kept rabbits, but felt bored enough to check it out anyways. Lazily, he made his way over to the brush and held his musket in both hands. His ears, canine, perked when he saw the sword. He didn’t have much time to figure out why the sword was there.\n Lyra had come up behind the man, plucking the mace from its basic sheath soundlessly as he walked. The only thing keeping him from gazing upon her slim, nude body was his curiosity of the sound. He would get a glimpse of that body later, just for a moment, as she used all her strength to shove him from behind. The man yelped, falling forward through the bush and onto the grass on the other side. He fell onto his side, dazed and confused, before a kick met his stomach and caused him to lay on his back. It was there that his eyes looked up at the tallest woman he had ever seen, beautiful and naked, as she sat upon the cup that covered his loins. He watched as his mace slammed down into the top of his head, knocking him out with the image of that beautiful body vivid in his mind. He did not last much longer as continued blows led to him becoming comatose, brain dead, and then just plain ol’ dead. All without a single drop of blood spilling from his helmet.\n Lyra was on her back now, panting and crying after she had gotten off her mounted position on the now dead man. She didn’t know whether he had seen her long enough to take her in, that didn’t bother her as much as she thought, but she did know that taking a life was not as easy as she thought. Her hands trembled as she brought her hands up to her eyes, fighting back a gutteral sob. Man was not supposed to kill man, even moreso woman killing man, and yet here she was laying next to a man who had hopes and dreams. Maybe even a family, but now he was dead.\n Lyra laid there for longer than was safe, five minutes being stolen by her to wallow in her guilt and shame. This man had likely killed that chef and, if not, then he had killed someone who did not deserve killing. A guard? All of them were good men. A servant? Gooder men and women than maybe even the guards. Her father? Brother? Then the sorry sack of shit certainly deserved it, but that didn’t make her feel much better.\n By the time she had gotten ahold of herself, tears had stained her cheeks and rolled down onto the grass beneath her. She needed to move, now, and no amount of laying in the brush would keep her safe forever. Sooner or later, someone would realize the man was missing. Sooner or later, they would start peering behind the brush. Sooner or later, they would find the man dead and her with him if she didn’t get her sorry ass moving.\n She put the man’s mace back in its sheath, she wasn’t sure why, before she grabbed her sword and its dirtied sheath. Crawling back onto her stomach, she forced herself to shut up and began crawling again. She needed to get to the garden and out of here before she killed anybody else.\n \n________________\n\n\n\n\n Lyra was beginning to get a little tired, her lack of sleep beginning to catch up with her. She must’ve gotten nothing more than two or three hours, likely the former. She could feel that lack of sleep as her crawling became more and more sluggish, her usually pristine fur dirtied by the grass and dew beneath her. She was beginning to fear that she might not have enough energy to actually climb the wall. What would she do if she became unable to do that?\n Every time a pair of boots came past the bushes, she stopped and held her breath. The shooting had stopped at this point but she could still hear the distant pops and cracks in the city below. Even the occasional boom of a cannon, although at this point she didn’t see much use in them. If all their ships were taken out and nobody was on the offensive then they felt a bit pointless. A lot of this felt rather pointless, in fact.\n They had burned the city, a city of riches, and not had enough time to take anything of wealth. Whether one was a brigand or the richest army in the world you always had to plunder to fund what you spent on battle. Were they being spiteful? Were they essentially saying that they weren’t even worth the trouble of plunder? It felt childish and something that didn’t befit any king or lord that she knew, even the prince that she was to be married off to. Was she ignorant? She had done plenty of listening, heard plenty of reasons for invasion, but was this lack of plundering for a reason she hadn’t thought of? Was it over her?\n No, it had to be something else. Why cut off political ties with a country because a year couldn’t be waited for a woman to be deemed “old enough” for marriage? There was impatience and then there was that. The thoughts were driving her mad and she had to drive them away. It was not her job to think like this but, then again, what if it was her job now? What if her father and brother were dead? What if her mother, in a different palace, had become ill or had been killed? What if she was the last of her bloodline and, like it or not, was the rightful ruler of these lands?\n Would anyone take her and accept her as queen after such a disgraceful defeat?\n The thoughts only worked to make her more sluggish but, eventually, she made her way to the gardens. It was a grand place, the stone path separating it from the house. It was a large garden that extended from wall to wall of, well, the wall on the southern side. Every single vegetable that could be grown in this climate was here and there were even a few fruits. Grapevines for winemaking, too. That was what the lattices were for. Nobody she knew of ever ate grapes, only drank it.\n She peered through the bushes, watching as three separate men walked around the gardens in a marching stance. Their muskets were held up by the buttstock, their bayoneted tips pointed towards the night sky, and they looked downright mean. Maybe some of them were decent folks but in that armor and with those muskets? It could turn any family man into a feller not worth trifling with. She wished she knew the training of the rank and file of the invading country, try and figure out what she was dealing with, but she hardly knew the training of those around her let alone another country.\n Behind her, distant but loud, a loud voice called out. The three men in the garden, one eating on a cucumber, immediately ran. Alarm was on their faces and, judging by the direction they were running, the body had been discovered.\n Her fur stood on end as one of the men came mere inches from looking down and seeing her tall and lithe body filthied by stealth and murder. She was spared the humiliation as he kept on running, musket now in both arms. They might start checking behind the hedges now so she needed to make a proper dash for the garden and work her happy ass onto the lattices. Sprained ankle be damned, she’d have a better chance in the chaos of the burning city then she would here.\n Deeming it safe, she stood and dashed for a shed at the edge of the garden. She did not go in it, for that would be a death trap if she were to get stuck in there, but outside of it and away from view. Nobody could view her from where she was, the only thing in front of her being some plants and the wall, and it was here that she could figure out on what to do next.\n There was nobody to view her and that was a sad sight. The lack of any holes in the walls or far flung devices of the future could not capture the beauty of her sight right then and there. Her back was pressed against that shed, standing tall and almost looking proud. Her curly hair had turned into a mess at this point, a leaf from a hedge sticking out of it, and some of it had even drooped down into her face that she used her hand to push away. Aside from her height, her body was damn near perfect for all this stealthing around. Slim form with a bosom small enough to fit into any man’s armor, said bosom having a dirty hand print on it from where she had put her hand on her chest.\n Her midriff and hips were wet with dew and dirty with, well, dirt. Her loins would’ve been on full display for said imaginary person to see, a little dirt on the left outer lip, but otherwise pristine and untouched. Her inner thighs were wet from the dew and so were her long and slender legs all the way down to her bare feet. Some might akin her to a certain white-faced, suit wearing feller from the far distant future of horror and despair.\n Her sword was held in her left hand, ready to be drawn by her right if need be. She looked like a warrior of some far off land, charging into battle naked and unafraid, but she was neither a warrior or unafraid. She was terrified, fearful of the consequences of a fucked up action, and it showed on her face behind a mask of thought. This exact pose belonged on the wall above her room, not the one of her in that armor with a fake sense of righteousness and masculinity. She was no warrior, but she was intelligent.\n Lyra suddenly felt a little exposed, looking around as if expecting eyes to be upon her, but she saw nothing. It was just nerves, that was all. Who wouldn’t have nerves in a situation such as this? Even the strongest Knight of her stories would feel a little, well, naked in a situation like this. The connection made more sense in her mind.\n Peering at the wall, she caught sight of the wooden lattice with the grapevine laced through it. The lattice was black in color, contrasting with the gray stone of the wall, and the wonderful greenery of the plants mixed well with the berries to make quite a picturesque scene. She wished she could paint it, despite never having picked up a paintbrush in her life, but that would have to wait for another day. The day would come where she could do as she pleased. She might need to rule this kingdom first and bring it out of its strife, but the day would come when a son or daughter could take the forefront while she retired. Yes, that would be nice.\n Without too much thinking, she made for the lattice. Her thighs were cut by the thorns of plants and the uncomfortable fuzziness of others tickled her feet, but eventually she made her way over to the lattice. She got ready to hoist her sword right up to the top of the wall, her right hand already on the lattice, but…\n Crack!\n …a shot rang out, the smell of gunpowder filling the air. Lyra felt splinters of wood and fragments of rock shatter against her inner thighs and legs, searing hot panic spreading within her. It took a lot of effort to not piss herself right then and there. It was the closest brush with death, or severe injury, that she had ever had in her life. She knew how bad leg wounds could get.\n “Mmm…”, rang a voice, the clattering of metal being heard along with it. “...Princess..Lyra.”\n She froze, backside facing the foreign voice, but she recognized the sound of that clanging armor and the voice associated with it. It was the first time she had heard the voice speak her tongue, practiced and well-versed, and it was terrifying. It humanized him. He was not a walking mass of steel plate and chainmail, but a person.\n The distant sound of running boots could be heard, but a sharp foreign tongue filled the air. No man exited the house and none came from around the corners of the buildings. She had a feeling that none were looking through the windows, but she could not be sure, and that egged at her a bit.\n Orders were spoken, yelled out with deafening practice, and the sounds of footsteps echoing further away were heard. He had called his men back.\n “You’re…rather slippery. I had thought that wench had lied about your quarters but I can see she was telling the truth. Not as faithful as I thought. My own would die before speaking a word to, well, an unwelcome guest.”\n Lyra began to feel her blood boiling beneath her skin, anger and embarrassment working together to create a cocktail that did not fare well in keeping a cool head. She turned to face this man, this walking mass of armor, against what her body told her. She was defiant, her posture confident, with a grip on her sheath as strong as death’s grip. A death grip, if you will.\n “Anybody can crack under enough pressure. I hold nothing against her or any of those who spoke.”, she retorted with a quavering voice, every ounce of her body working to not make her snap or attack in a rage befitting a brute.\n “Such a civilized comment for someone so…uncivilized in their dress…”, the man said, his voice echoey behind his mask of armor, as his free hand vaguely waved in her direction. “...not that I mind, perhaps. It is a rare sight to see a woman of raw, unfiltered beauty.”\n The comment made her skin crawl, her face deeping in a red hue. Men like him were splattered throughout almost every single book she read. No shame hidden behind a wall of manners and “proper talk.” Fake. That was a good word for people like him: fake.\n “You talk of civility as if you do not attack in the dead of night until the guidance of impatience!”, she spat. “Let me tell you something. I do not care what your Prince, or your King, wish to do with me. I will sooner die with my guts strewn about the palace than allow you, or them for that matter, to take me. I am not a-”\n “Oho! Woah, lass. Now hold on there a moment!”, the man said as he lifted up his face shield, revealing the gray fur of a lynx and his tufts along with it. His eyes shone like honey.\n “You talk as if we are here to enslave you! No, no no my good woman. Your father, may God rest his soul, wrote out the treaty we agreed to and proceeded to not follow through with said treaty! We sent a messenger asking for your whereabouts and we never saw the messenger again!”, he said as he rested his musket against his side, a solid thunk coming from it as it clattered against him. “Simply put, your father broke the treaty and we are here to see it through! Your brother is still alive to serve this kingdom, we have no wish of demolishing you, but you were promised to us at the signing! We were told, then and there, that you were to be brought to banquet and the wedding would be held soon after!”\n Lyra had forgotten about her nakedness for now, her form on full display before this man, as she thought over what he said. He was a fake, that much she had demised, but even fakes had the choice of being honest. The words came out of his mouth so smoothly, and without practice, that it did not sound like a fabrication to her. The tone was similar to that of the honest merchants who came to pay their taxes, going into spontaneous detail about their sales that lined up with their papers. She was untrained in politics, but she knew what he said was fact. At least, he believed it to be fact.\n “Maybe my father said that to you, maybe he did not, but your claim of my father’s death has nullified this treaty has it not? Each and every treaty, every agreement, my family has signed has been written with the disclaimer of all parties are to be in good health for the duration of said agreement. Your treaty is null and void, I am not yours to take!”, she said confidently, beginning to feel like she could actually be a Queen of some sort.\n The man’s face darkened, grip tightening on his musket. His free hand moved for the sword attached to his rifle. He detached it and sheathed it at his side, where it sat opposite to a dagger meant for going between the gaps of armor, before picking up his rifle and holding it much like a club with his hands gripping the barrel while the stock acted as the “mean end” of it all.\n “And your father is not here now to testify against or for this treaty. Maybe that is what the treaty said, maybe it is not. I have not read it, I will be honest with you my good and beautiful maiden, but I have orders of hauling you back to the ship. There were no specifics to this order. I can bring you back battered and bruised, drooling like an idiot, and ruined beyond repair…”, he said as his shoulders softened a bit, the musket still held in both hands. “...OR I can bring you back on your own two feet, decent in clothes befitting of your status, and you have my word that no man will gaze upon you, but myself, until you are decent and no man will touch you aside from the Prince himself.”\n This was not a bargaining game, that much Lyra knew. It was either go with this man in good health or know nothing else but delerium for the rest of her life as he smashed his musket against her head. Neither was a way to live and she gave her, vocally, silent answer as she unsheathed her sword. The sheath fell to the ground silently as she took a stance with her sword. Her right foot went forward, her left behind her, as she twisted her right hand and pointed the blade behind her. Her right hand went behind her back.\n “A fencer and spunky? Oh, how I like that…”, the man said as he took a defensive position, his musket gripped as he positioned himself for an overhand swing “...oh, how fun it will be to watch that form dance.”\n He wasted little time in making his move, swinging the musket down at her. Her right hand came up in an upper hand motion, defecting his blow just barely before she twisted her hand and thrusted forward. The tip of her blade deflected harmlessly off of his breastplate. For the first time in her life, she was in a real fight, and she felt a little proud of herself for her theoretical practice working out. If it hadn’t been for his armor, she would have gotten a good jab in and maybe a finishing blow.\n The man laughed as he swung underhand now, the brass of his musket’s stock brushing against her hip as she moved to the left and away from him. Her legs carried her towards the shed now, trembling with fright and tiredness. She brought her sword out in front of her and kept her free hand behind her back, trying to keep him at bay as she figured out what she was to do.\n “C’mon, girl! Strike! Give me some fun so I don’t feel like a brigand clubbing a defenseless lass! I already feel bad trying to fight you while eyefuckin’ ya’, the least you could do is just hurry up and get this over with!”\n He swung from his left shoulder, deflecting her blade before jabbing forward and smashing her in the stomach. She coughed and gagged, stumbling backwards behind the shed. Her bottom didn’t cushion much, for there was little to cushion, as she fell. She was beside the open door of the shed now and, on the floor just about ready to fall out and onto the ground, was a leather glove. A thick leather glove, meant for fending off briars instead of warriors. Maybe, just maybe, it was strong enough to survive a grip around a blade.\n The man was tired. Not from the fight, mind you, but mentally. This whole thing had been planned for a week and he had hardly gotten any rest over it. Everything was going nice and proper, kill the king and leave the prince, but he was agitated by this princess. He had expected her to roll over quite easily. Hell, he had expected her to be dressed whenever they arrived and yet here she was buck naked. He wasn’t her type, far too slim, but he wouldn’t say no to any naked woman before him of high standing. He was not a rapist, he would not touch her, but he couldn’t promise her protection from his men if she continued on like this. He really didn’t want to mess her up bad, he was holding back considerably, but sometimes women just needed a good hit or two. He hoped his jab to the gut hadn’t been too bad for her and that it wouldn’t ruin her womanhood. If he was careful, he could whack her upside the head and carry her on to the ship himself. That would do. Just had to get to her first.\n He brought his musket into an overhand swing, ready for this to be over with, but he was met with a sight that he had not expected. There she was, crouching and ready to strike, with her bare hand on her blade. No, it was a leather glove. She was half swording. The technique came as a surprise to him, seeing as she seemed more adept at fencing than anything for the battlefield, and he moved to shield his gaps. He was too late, though, and she let out a yell before jabbing forward.\n Lyra’s legs pushed her upwards and towards him, the tip of her blade aimed right for his armpit. He had moved to protect himself, but was too slow. The tip of her blade plunged into the mail, splitting links in two, and went through his gambeson into the flesh beneath. She felt like vomiting as the smell of blood filled the air, she she delved deeper and deeper as him booming yells filled the air. Four inches of the blade had been pierced into him as her gloved hand left the blade, while her left stayed on the grip, and reached for his knife. It was cylindrical, not made for slashing, and it was just what she needed.\n She was fast, fencing fast, as she yanked out his knife and brought it down into his neck where the armor was weakest. She pierced through the gap and into his neck, his screams turning curdled as blood filled his windpipe. She pulled the knife out as a singular squirt of blood lept out and splattered onto her collarbone and right breast. Bile began to rise as she pulled back and kicked him in the sternum, sending him onto his back where he began dying. Her sword was still poking out of his armpit.\n Lyra stared at him, chest rising and falling with heavy breaths. Something didn’t sit right and it wasn’t the stench of blood. How had she pulled this off? This man should have been considerably more skilled than her, a thousandfold so, and yet here he was drowning in his own blood by her hand. Her thoughts raced as she stumbled to the other side of the shed and fought back vomiting. It was so anticlimactic, nothing like her books, and the stench was sickness inducing.\n She fell to a knee before pulling herself back up again, a distant shout being heard. The men knew that things had gone awry and, now, they were coming for her.\n \n________________\n\n\n\n\n A shot rang out, a crack filling the air before splinters shattered from a hole in the side of the shed. She looked back at where the shot originated from, the silhouette of a man being fifty or so yards away with the majority of his body covered in the smokescreen of gunpowder. She did not believe that he could make out her body, her nakedness, but he had been able to see enough to try and get a shot out. She didn’t know whether the dark or his, likely, unrifled barrel was to blame for the near miss. She didn’t stick around long enough to find out, though.\n She scrambled towards the lattice, sword long forgotten in the armpit of the dead man and the leather glove yanked off of her hand, as more shots rang out and the sounds of heavy footsteps running towards her were heard. Leaves tore and stone chipped as the shots missed, Lyra was feeling as if her luck was beginning to run out with all of these missed shots. The lattice dug into her hands and feet as she scrambled up, surprised that it was able to hold her up, and towards the top of the wall. She didn’t even look over the other side as she brought her upper torso over, silhouetted in the night sky and the distant blazes, before she tumbled forward and down the other side of the wall. A musket ball went through her tail, hitting nothing but hair as pieces of hair floated in the air and fell onto the top of the wall.\n Lyra landed on her back with a thud that forced the air out of her lungs. Whatever she landed on, it was hard but with enough give to break her fall. She rolled off of whatever she had landed on and onto the grass below. She rolled for a good three yards before coming to a stop, body thoroughly soaked in dew, before she just laid there in mild pain. Had things gone better or worse than she expected? She didn’t truly know. She was alive and that was what counted, but what now?\n She turned her head to look at whatever she had landed on and saw a wooden hand cart, bowed inward and splintered in a few places. The side wall, she assumed that was what it was called, had been knocked off and had allowed her to roll out of the cart. Certainly not the most elegant, or painless, place to fall. It was probably better than the compacted dirt beneath it where little to no give was to be had. The dirt around the palace was nothing like the dirt of a plain or forest. Too many footsteps for any springiness to be left.\n Shouts came from the other side of the wall, agitated and confused. The man that had led them to the palace was dead and, now, an officer of little skill was in charge. The officer was easy to hear over the others, trying his best to reel the men in so that they could go after her. He was either ignored or unheard. The commotion gave Lyra all the time she needed to get up and dust, or rather wipe, herself off. Her bottom hurt and so did her lower back. For the first few steps, those and many more being downhill, she limped. Her limp turned into what was, essentially, a power walk as she moved into the small “forest” that separated the palace from the rest of the city. It was nothing more than about ten trees in width, but it was something to break her trail and she’d take it.\n She could feel the heat of the burning city getting closer and closer. She used this time of relative silence to think on what to do next. The first thing she should do would be to find some sort of clothes, a man’s shirt and britches would be fine, so that she may seek help in relative decency. Some remaining military men must still be within the city, so maybe she could rally them and escort her. She was unarmed and truly at the mercy of those around her now. The feeling was not particularly good judging by the knot in her stomach.\n She came to a stop at the end of the forest, a cobbled path before her running lengthwise, and burnt homes were before her. Much of the fire had died down here but smoldering embers still filled the remains. The radiating warmth was comforting as she stared out over the nearly leveled remains at the fires not-so-distant now. It would have been tragically beautiful if not for the situation.\n The glow of the fires caused her fur to shine some, highlighting her form. She stood with the grace of royalty. Her bare form was even dirtier now, the man’s blood having dried on her collarbone and right breast into a flakey mess. The dew on her fur gleamed in the firelight, the dirt that had been on the outer lip of her loins wiped off into nothing more than a slight smudge. There was something thrilling about standing like this, free and open, but the shame of it overpowered that feeling and caused her to slink behind a tree.\n Distant pops and cracks were heard, gunfire still being had. Voices speaking her language and of her accent could be heard, barely, but she could not make out the words. Her chest ached in excitement at the prospect of her own people still fighting, still being near, and she forgot her nakedness as she carefully ran into the cobbled street and down an alleyway so suffocating in heat and smoke that it nearly killed her.\n Her luck was beginning to catch up with her again as her long legs carried her into the backyard of a burnt away house, untouched by the blaze for some strange reason, as a clothesline held a man’s dark brown britches. She yanked them off, forgoing the underclothes on the line, before pulling them up and over her legs. The pants were short, enough so that it only extended about half a foot above her ankles like a pair of capris, but it would do. She then yanked for a cream, originally white, shirt and pulled it on as well. Her nipples, still solid and erect from the cold, poked through. She did not care.\n Lyra was clothed, the lingering sense of embarrassment no longer over her, and now confidence wafted through her. She had survived the first trial and there were many more to come. She was to not let her guard down, though, and that was okay. She and her people would survive this. She would either lead or help lead this country, depending on if her brother lived through her escape, and drive these impatient invaders from her lands.\n Yes, she would do just that.\n No longer ashamed, she ran. She ran towards her people.", "writing_bbcode_parsed": "        Lyra was not a worker of the fields, a Man At Arms after a day’s training, or even a merchant who spent his days nose deep in paper and spending the rest of his time swindling those about him. No, Lyra arguably had the easiest job out of anybody else in the whole Kingdom: a princess.
        Of course, anybody could look at those above them and see how much easier it was. A regular peasant might see a soldier standing guard and think about how good it must be to stand around doing nothing all day. A soldier might look at a merchant, or a noble, and think about how good it is to sit around all day doing nothing but writing and talking. That chain of thought continued all the way to the top of the hierarchy and, once at the very top, that thought turned into a “woe is me” attitude.
        Of course her father, the King, thought he did more work than anybody else. He was their leader, the most important person in these lands, and as such he was tasked with the most important work. He was the one who imposed the taxes, negotiated trade and treaty, and took care of many other strifes that his Kingdom took on. Of course, he was held to the highest standard by his court and his people but he was still the most powerful of them all. He had enough “yes men” to execute any order, or any person, that he so pleased. All by doing little more than lifting a finger or opening his mouth.
        Her father was a smart man, that much she knew. You had to be smart to run a Kingdom successfully. Intelligence had to run in the blood for a Kingdom to work. What good was a foolish king surrounded by those more intelligent than him? He was no more than a puppet. That much could be said for Lyra, too, as she was no more than a puppet.
        Being a puppet was tiring, the most tiring of all. Maybe her bones did not ache at the end of the day, maybe her lack of physical work would keep her youthful appearance around longer than most, but the mental strain that it took was such a burden upon her shoulders that she often wished she had taken up a hoe instead of a quill. Tending to the fields was an honest day’s work, that work directly feeding yourself and those around you, but sitting at her father’s side while he babbled about imposing higher taxes to fund an upcoming expedition into an unknown land? Sitting and listening to all of that while being unable to give one’s input? It was tiring.
        Lyra was part of the family enough to listen but not enough to learn. She could not point out the faults in whatever plans she saw and heard, whether from her father or those below her, and it was her inability to voice those points that she never got to learn what was or wasn’t a good idea. Each and every one of her unvoiced opinions came from the books she had read and what she had overheard. To keep all those thoughts inside of her head was maddening.
        She felt like a slave, which was rather insensitive to actual slaves, but she did not know in what better term to put her feelings. From the moment she left her room to the moment she went back in her life was all planned out. What she ate, what she said, what she was to do, all of it. She had no life of her own outside of her room, where she spent her time reading, but it was still “easy.” All she had to do was stand and look pretty most of the time, which was not hard for someone like her.
        Lyra was young, nineteen bordering on twenty years of age, and tall. Her family came from a long line of maned wolves, about as pure in their blood as could be without divulging into too much (but still some, sadly) incestuous activities. Height, as a maned wolf, was a valuable thing and she had been blessed with her father’s side of that scale. While her father stood at around 200 centimeters in height, she was about 180 centimeters. She towered over every woman she knew, even her mother who was 140 centimeters, and she knew of the imposing sense of presence that it gave others.
        Every time a new guard was brought into the palace, weathered by years of battle and unwavered by just about anything, they were taken aback by her height. Their family was the only maned wolves of this land and, as such, folks were not used to the heights that their species brought them to. Lyra guessed that it fit their status as royalty, too.
        Lyra felt that she was getting off track in her mind and delved back into her thoughts on her “enslavement.”Her life was physically easy, but mentally straining without much input of her own. She was doomed to a life of servitude as, like many slaves, she was to be sold off one day. Instead of coin, though, she was to be sold off for political gain. A neighboring Kingdom had been warring with them for longer than she had been alive and, just a year ago, they had begun treaty talks as they feared that the recent introduction of marksmen into her father’s ranks would begin to turn the tide of battle. They were correct.
        As such, they had arranged a meeting and had decided on a fairly simple trade: in exchange for stopping all hostilities and giving back the lands that they had taken, Princess Lyra was to be married off to the Prince of their ailing Queen. The King had died of pneumonia many years back and the Queen had proven herself to be a strong leader, but untrained in the knowledge of war. As such, it was her who had decided on this treaty.
        Lyra’s father agreed to this treaty under one condition: Lyra was to not be wed until she was twenty-one years of age. Her father was notorious for making his kin wait for a long, long time before marriage. Fifteen, even fourteen, was the common age in which royal children (and even noble) around the world were married off for the gain of their family. Her father, funnily progressive in his thinking, thought that as way too early of an age to marry. That was one of the few things she had thanked her father for. To be sold off into a marriage barely a year after her “monthlies” came into effect? She found it barbaric and her books agreed!
        It did not mean that she was safe, though, as her time within her father’s kingdom was short. She had a year of relative, if not stressful, comfort before she became the “property” of another Kingdom. She didn’t even know the name of the prince she was to be married off to but she feared that he was likely not the best person. She had heard some stories from the servants.
        Alas, she felt as though her brain was about to explode from all this worry. It was getting late in the day, the sun about an hour from setting, and she was desperate for a nice rest in bed. Maybe even a book in her hand, a hot cup of tea brought to her, before she delved into sleep. Sleep was the one place in which turmoil never entered her mind.


        Through the labyrinth of hallways that made up her family’s palace, Lyra walked at a leisurely pace. The walls were cream in color, a bronze trim lining the bottoms of said walls. The floors were of oak, dark and pristine, and all of this was lit up by lanterns hung on the walls every fifteen yards or so. Paintings were liberally splattered on the walls, gifts from artists near and far, and some of them were even portraits of the royal family. Mainly of her father and his son, her brother, but there were a few of her mother and even herself.
        The main portrait of herself stood above her room’s door, heavy and made of the same oak as the floor, and detailed a solo portrait of her. Her hair, a reddish orange, was freely open as its curls went down to her shoulders. Her hair contrasted, rather prettily, with her reddish-brown and gold fur with black accents around the tips of her ears and hands.
        This portrait differed from her usual state of dress, which was currently a flowing dress of light blue with golden trim and other golden accents, by portraying her in armor. The painting was from the torso up and, in said painting, she wore a black gambeson. This gambeson, with orange trim around her neck and sleeves, was covered with a breastplate. The breastplate was made of blackened, spring steel and had been made specifically for her. It was not an overtly feminine piece of armor, for it did not hug her like a corset and did not accentuate her bosom, but it had still been forged and fitted with her in mind.
        Between the gambeson and breastplate was a chainmail neck guard. This neck guard was to go with a chainmail shirt worn underneath her breastplate, covering her arms and all the way down to her upper thighs, but the artist found it to be “too ugly for such a pretty woman”. She had rolled her eyes at that, but obliged in removing it.
        She was sitting in the painting, face serious, but not as dangerous-looking as she hoped. She hoped that the sword, held sheathed in her arms and before her body, helped to make her look menacing. It was a Side Sword, the blade 83 centimeters in length, with a cord-wrapped wooden handle. The blade was straight and held within a deep purple leather sheath, the family crest in gold at the tip of the sheath and near the entrance where it stopped at the curving crossguard. Her family crest was also engraved into the blade itself and was also upon the pommel.
        Lyra stared at this painting for a hot minute before she entered her room. She had spent many, many hours practicing with that sword. Her father had never allowed her to spar with a living person, though. All of her training was theoretical, unproven, but she hoped that her knowledge of proper stance, swing, and guard were enough to throw off any would-be attackers. Not that she ever planned on needing to defend herself. A life surrounded by guardsmen damn near guaranteed that.
        Waiting within her room were two servants, female and of rabbit kin. They bowed to her at a slight angle and Lyra bowed back to them, having always respected them. Servants had essentially raised her and she always held a respect for them. She held a respect for everyone, really, but those who put the lives of others before themselves were the most respectful of all. Servants, soldiers, workers dedicated to their craft. All worked so that others may do what they needed or wanted in relative comfort.
        “Lords above, please undo the strings of this dress before I suffocate!”, Lyra called to them, extending her arms out into the pose of an A.
        The servants got to work quickly as one worked on the black leather belt she wore around her waist, which held the sheathed sword in her painting, while the other moved at the laces of her dress along her lower back and collar bone.
        Her sword was removed from its sheath and leaned against the wall for Lyra to put away while her belt was carefully wrapped and stored in a drawer not too far away. Her dress was left on after the laces were undone, the servant stepping away.
        “You may go, I can handle the rest myself.”, she smiled at them, nodding them farewell. The two servants bowed and left the room, off to do whatever they did when not serving her.
        She did not try to be different from those around her but it seemed to come naturally. She wore a sword, unlike most royal and noble women, and she undressed herself instead of a servant doing so for her. She could go on and on in her mind about her reasonings for both of those and more. Did she really need to establish her own reasoning to herself, though? No, no she did not.
        No longer feeling constrained in the laces of her dress, she moved to pick up her sword before making her way over to her bed. It was by the bed that two wooden dowels stuck out from the wall, placed far enough apart for her sword to hang by both sides of its crossguard. Aside from ceremonial purposes, it was the backup for the flintlock pistol stored within her bedside table. It was a fickle thing and, even when it worked, she was a terrible shot.
        She moved to remove her dress, rather ungracefully might one add, in one fell swoop. She struggled as she bent over the bed but, eventually, she made it out. She wore a bright white, cotton shirt now as she folded up her dress and put it on the bed for her to put away. She then easily took off her white shirt and folded it up, leaving her in nothing more than her underwear.
        She was of slim body, inevitable with her tall frame and lack of manual labor. Her small bosom was held in a black bra, lacing around the top of both cups. This bra matched her lowers, plain black panties being worn. Lacy black garters were worn with black straps going down and hooking into her black stockings. Such underthings were rather unbecoming of a woman of her status but they made her feel pretty. They were for nobody's viewing, not even her future husband, but herself.
        She unclasped her bra and removed it, leaving her chest bare, before moving to remove herself of the stockings, garter, and then panties. These were all neatly folded into a pile with her dress before she carried them over to a small wooden door within the wall. It was by this wooden door that she knelt on one knee, opening it up to reveal a chute of sorts. She threw her clothes down into it, an echoey thud being heard before she shut the door. This chute went down to the basement, where servants cooked and cleaned unnoticed. It was a rather simple, yet amazing, contraption.
        She stood up and stretched before rubbing her fingers over her eyes. She was ready for bed, not even feeling as though she had the energy for even a paragraph of reading or half a mug of tea. She turned to walk towards her bed but not before she stopped at the singular window of her room. Her room was three stories off the ground, high enough for no angle to ever be had on her. She was comfortable in her nakedness, arms crossed beneath her chest, as she stared out at the town below. It was more of a city, really.
        Buildings of stone and wood were expertly planned out into a grid pattern for miles upon miles. It was the densest and largest urban area in the world, that she was aware of, and she loved it. It held every niche, every item, that a person could ever dream to want. The best part? The harbor at the foot of the city. Trade was a massive moneymaker for their people and such easy access to shops not a few minutes walk from the harbor made business boom.
        She stood there for about five or so minutes, growing more and more tired, as she watched a large merchant ship in the distance sinking into the horizon. The sun was about gone now with that distant ship right in the middle of its golden haze. Lyra felt as if she could sleep from sundown to sunup and, as such, she planned to do just that.
        The bed was soft as silk, thanks to the silk (lol), as she laid down upon it. Her body quickly became swaddled in both the sheets and the comforter as, within seconds, she fell fast asleep. Her book, unread past the first chapter and a half, laid on her nightstand. She’d get to it in the morning. Maybe.


        Unbeknownst to her, something was brewing in the distance. The ship that had been sailing out into the sea didn’t even get to disappear beneath the horizon before its mast came toppling down. A new mast rose from a different ship carrying the family crest of a different Kingdom. More and more ships with that same crest began to come over the horizon.
        The treaty, in fact, had not gone well with such an impatient bunch. They wanted the princess now and, by God(s), they were going to get her.


________________




        How long had she been able to sleep? Two? Three hours? Her sense of time was all off but she did know that the amount of sleep she had gotten was not enough. She felt dizzy, along with groggy, as she sat up in her bed. Something had awoken her, but what?
        Her room was dark, candles not exactly being needed in one’s sleep. In such a state the only light coming into the room should have been moonlight, usually, but tonight there was a warm glow to the light. What in the world was that all about?
        Lyra sat in her bed for a few seconds, her blankets resting upon her lap, as she worked to get the energy to stand. She felt a hundred pounds heavier as she put her bare feet upon the wooden floor and brought herself to a stand. Hands going above her head, she stretched until she was on the tips of her toes. Her arms went limp to her sides afterwards as she began to make her way over to the window to peer outside.
        Right before she could get to the window, a loud boom echoed throughout the entirety of her room. The entire palace seemed to shake as she fell to the floor, the glass of the window shattering and falling outside onto a stone path below where the sharp shards scattered into millions of pieces. She had to lay on the floor for a few moments, dazed and wide awake, before she pushed herself to her feet. It was after doing that in which she moved to the broken window, her unfiltered gaze staring at miles upon miles of fire.
        From the harbor to only a few hundred yards away, fire engulfed the city. The blaze was so hot that she could feel it wafting over her as if she was sitting in front of a hearth. Lyra was made stone still at the sight, her mind hardly able to comprehend what in the world was going on. Had someone let a fireplace get out of control? There were measures to control such a thing! How could a fire spread so much from such a simple thing?
        Sounds like fireworks, distant thuds and cracks, could be heard coming from the blaze. She squinted, putting her hand on the windowsill where no broken glass was, and leaned forward to see what in the world was going on. Just barely, she could make out the muzzle flashes and smoke of firing muskets in the streets. Unseen men were firing off their guns in the blaze and the thought of it made her ponder if this was some sort of uprising, rebellion, or an act of a tavern getting so drunk they turned treacherous.
        The blaze of the fire lowered enough for just a moment, long enough for her to see out to the harbor. It was there that her legs became weak. She held her ground as she stared at the family crest of the family she was supposed to be married into within a year. Their ships were lit up with lanterns, candles, and cannon blasts. Her father’s ships, merchant and navy alike, were lit up in blazes of fire that caught onto the sails like tinder. One ship was even belly up in the water.
        What had her father done?
        That was her first thought. How had her father screwed up the treaty so badly that it had led to a full frontal invasion of their main city? A city that was supposed to be well guarded, for it had to be with it being so close to the sea while also housing the royal family. It wasn’t until seconds later that she recalled the impatient nature of the other kingdom. They weren’t happy with the wait of her marriage, likely used to getting their “wives” as soon as the treaty was signed. Was that it? Was that the reasoning? Had they gone against the treaty because they couldn’t wait a year?
        Whatever the reasoning was didn’t matter. Her home was being invaded, here and now, and she had to get the hell out if she wanted to not end up either tied by a noose or forced into servitude as a trophy wife. That was quite the common thing when it came to the fall of nobles and royals. Women of higher standing didn’t get to die with dignity, no. They were forced to become shells of their former selves, sat beside or even on the laps of those who “wed” them. Noblewomen, princesses, even queens. It was a devilish sign of power, one that made her skin crawl and her fur tingle into bristling.
        She brought her body away from the window, disappearing to the side of her bed. The first thing she did was pull her sword off of the wall, putting it upon her bed. She then moved to open her bedside drawer where her pistol sat on a white handkerchief, the wood engraved with skilled designs of images of her father’s kingdom. The bronze bands and accents were shined to a near mirror sheen and the locking mechanism for the flint hadn’t sparked more than five shots.
        She, too, put the pistol onto the bed after bringing the stiff hammer back into a full-cock. It took both of her hands to do and it reminded her that carrying it in “half-cock” would not do for something likely needed to be used as soon as someone was spotted. Why risk her life trying to get it to full-cock if it took too long for her to do so before she could defend herself? Safety be damned, she’d just put her finger behind the trigger.
        She slammed the drawer shut, peering at her unfinished book for a moment as if pondering whether she should take it, but decided to not do so. The next step was to get herself dressed as hastily as she could. Turning around and beginning to make her way to the wardrobe, she didn’t get to even take two steps before another boom echoed throughout the room. This time it was right beside her.
        Something slammed into the side of her ribcage, knocking the wind out of her, and sent her rolling across the bed. She landed on the floor opposite of where she had been, blinking in and out of consciousness for a solid minute before she stirred. She moved to stand as she brought her arm up onto the side of the bed and used that as leverage to pull herself up. Her head came over the side of the bed and it was there that she saw a gaping hole in the side of her room. A cannonball, either aimed or by accident, had slammed right into her room.
        If that cannonball hadn’t hit her, then what did? She looked at the splinters scattered across the bed and floor, blocks of stone laying on the floor as well. Had she been hit by a stone brick? A support beam? She didn’t know and, frankly, she didn’t care too much. Whatever she had been hit by didn’t even leave a bruise as she felt of her side, now pushing herself to her feet.
        The pistol likely wasn’t far, but it wasn’t in her sights. Wherever it was, she left it behind as she snatched up her sword and stumbled away from the fresh hole in the side of her room. The fear of another cannonball kept her from getting close to that wall again, the same wall which her wardrobe had been pressed up against. The wardrobe had fallen face first, its contents (including every ounce of her clothes) inaccessible.
        A wave of despair came over her as she pinched the bridge of her nose, trying to think on what to do. How long had that fire been burning outside? Why had nobody woken her up whenever the first blazes started? The first sights of that family crest? It made no sense to her. It truly didn’t.
        With the sword held by the sheath, her hand just beneath the crossguard, she backed up towards the wall that stood between her and the hallway outside. It wasn’t like servants hadn’t seen her naked before, despite how much she disliked it, so she could track one down and get something on her to at least make her decent. That was the plan, anyways, but as she creeped her way to her door and placed her hand upon the handle she heard something that sent chills down her spine.
        Male voices speaking a dialect that she was not familiar with. The prose and structure of the words were completely unfamiliar to her, but there was another voice. This voice was more feminine and spoke her language. It sounded like a servant girl.
        “T-There! There, in that room! That’s where she sleeps! I swear it!”, the servant woman cried.
        The unknown man spoke some more, his tone questioning, and Lyra felt as if she could feel the servant’s head nodding as if silently confirming her location. Then there was the sound of flesh meeting blade and all was silent from the servant woman. Heavy clunks began to advance towards her door. Although beginning to go into a panic, she had enough sense to lock her door before silently scrambling away from it. She needed a place to hide and fast. Where?
        
        There was a murmur from behind the door as the man attempted to open it, finding it locked, and then a meaty kick was delivered to the door as it splintered open in surprising fashion. Either the door had been built weakly, unlikely, or the man that had kicked it possessed damn near superhuman strength.
        Lyra had scrambled beneath her bed right before the door had been kicked down, her legs and arms moving pieces of wood and stone out of the way. Metallic clinking could be heard as the man entered the room and, although she could not see his body, she knew he was wearing a full plate of armor. His feet and calves were covered in the stuff, part of a full set, and every movement he made that she could not see caused the rattling of his armor. The buttstock of a rather heavy-looking musket rested on the ground.
        If one were to have a view from behind Lyra, say through a peephole in the wall or through a device that did not even exist yet, then one would’ve had a mighty view. Her right leg was straight back, foot almost touching the wall, while her left leg was bent outwards. With her tail perked up against the bottom of the bed, one would’ve gotten a full view of her loins. Her outer lips were closed, slightly asymmetrical in shape, and hid her inner lips along with all the other goodies inside. The position of her legs even allowed this fictitious view to even get a slight view of her anus.
        Lyra’s heart beated in her chest rapidly as she stared out at this foreign man’s legs. He stood for a solid ten seconds, likely scanning the room, before an agitated grunt escaped his mouth. He picked up his musket before turning around, exiting her room. Putting her chin against the ground, she got to see a little more of him before he left. An empty sheath, long and straight, hung on his hip. The sword that belonged to that sheath was attached to his musket, essentially making it glaive or spear. It was a mean-looking thing.
        Her door had been shut the best it could behind the man, more foreign words being spoken as he walked down the hallway. Her pounding chest combined worked with her thoughts to push her out from beneath the bed, sword still grasped tightly, as she stood up. After quickly dusting herself off, she made her way over to the door. She pressed her back against the wall beside it, on the side of which the wood was splintered, and waited.
        She pressed the cool grip of the blade against her left breast, squishing it slightly, as she willed her heart to slow down. All the while, her perked ears listened as clanking footsteps came and went in the hallway. There had been a point in time where armor had fizzled out for about a hundred years before the techniques used in its manufacture began to make it reliably block or glance off shots from even the most powerful rifles. There were stories of officers on horseback, clad in armor, much like the Knights of centuries ago, leading charges as musket balls bounced off of them harmlessly. Now, of course, a well placed shot from a marksman was sure to put any man down.
        What was her plan? She didn’t know. As she listened to the voices and footsteps outside, she thought of her escape plan. It was fair enough to assume that the entire palace had been invaded and that she was, essentially, on her own. That much was a dire situation for someone like her. Where was her father? Killed? Captured? What about the guards of this palace? If these foreign men were coming and going with such ease then had every single guard been taken out of the fight?
        It ached to think about being on her lonesome after relying on others for so much of her life. She had to actually think, weigh her options, and live through the consequences of her own actions. This was all exacerbated by her state of undress, her own pride and embarrassment driving her to think even harder. To be captured in such a state of undress, or even killed, was a humiliation that she did not want to endure. Would it drive these men to do more to her? Would they touch her? Force her? Make her do things?
        The thoughts made her sick. Lyra had to force herself to push them out of her mind as she restarted her thoughts, going back to square one.
        She was on the third floor, so going through the broken window or out the hole in the wall was not something she was able to do. Her only escape was through this door. She briefly pondered the chute down to the basement, but deemed the hole too small and the fall too far to be safe. She had to risk going through her door and either to another room or down the hallway. Both options were risky as the invaders could be in any of these rooms and they could pop up into the hallway at a moment’s notice.
        She thought of the rooms to her right and pondered on whether or not they led anywhere. She knew that her father loved the look of vines creeping up the sides of their palace, although kept within reason, and the corners of the palace had the vines extending all the way to the roof. If she could get to a room with access to the corner of the house, would the vines be able to hold her? Could she climb down, or up, without being spotted?
        She pondered for a moment and, eventually, decided that it was possible. She had seen the servants climbing on the vines before to trim at some weary branches and flowers. If they could hold those servants up then they could certainly hold her up. She was certainly fit enough for a good climb so that wasn’t a worry. The only thing she had to worry about now was being spotted during her descent. If she was spotted, she couldn’t go anywhere but into either the arms of the enemy or onto a roof that she could not escape from.
        Despite not liking it, she knew it was the safest option. Gripping tightly onto the sword’s sheath, she used her free hand to gingerly open up the door. Peering out into the dim hallway, she looked left and then right. There were two bodies of servants to her left and the body of the servant that had pointed out her room to her left. All had stab marks into their backs, clean and precise. The sight made her stomach curl, but she fought back her sickness and pushed out.
        She was in the open now, naked and open for viewing for anyone that looked her way, and nobody looked her way. She silently ran to the end of the hallway, passing multiple doors that had been smashed in before she made it to the last door in the hallway. She could choose to go down the stairs before her, circular in their design, but she stuck to her plan and carefully pushed into the room.
        The door had been smashed and not much else. The room was for nothing more than the storage of banquet and party supplies, tablecloths and the finest silverware, plates, and cups kept in here. It was stuffy, dusty even, and the smell of it was akin to that of an unwashed body lathered in perfume. She wasn’t eager to stay in this room for long. So, making her way to one of the two windows, she peered outside.
        It was dark on the cobbled road below aside from the torches carried by armored men running to and fro, all in light metal armor with the family crest on their black shirts and muskets in their arms. None of them looked up as they went in and out of the home, searching and plundering. This was terribly risky, but she had to get to an area with more avenues of escape. She could run into the gardens and plan her way from there.
        Calming her nerves beforehand, she turned the handle on the window’s side and opened it like a door. It silently caught on a latch and stayed open, allowing the now chilly air to brush against her face and her chest. Her nipples reacted to the cool air, becoming a little stiff.
        “Lords above, if I survive this then each and every coin I have saved is going to the church..”


________________


        This was, by far, the most dangerous thing that Lyra had ever done. She never had much of a chance to get up to mischief in her younger years, so maybe her own bar wasn’t all that high, but climbing out of a window and barely holding one’s self from falling off a three-story high ledge seemed pretty high on the list of dangerous things.
        Her heart was pounding, her slim figure being the only reason there wasn’t enough leverage for her to start tilting back. A few more cakes and she might’ve not been able to suck in her stomach enough to balance herself. A lip extended all the way around the palace beneath each window on each floor. She didn’t know the reason for its existence, it looked kinda ugly to her, but she was silently thankful for the person that had either built or organized the building of this place.
        She was facing the wall, her tail and rear end facing outward, as her breasts pressed the rough wall. Her nipples rubbed uncomfortably against it as she carefully shimmied the few steps needed before she could grasp onto the vines. All the while, her ears were perked as she listened for approaching footsteps. If she could just get down from this ledge and onto solid ground, she felt pretty confident in her means of escape. She did have a bit of a worry, though, and that was how she was going to climb down with this sword in one of her hands.
        The sword was too large for her to grab the vine at the same time as holding it. She had no belt to wear it on and no strap on it to sling it over her shoulder. The idea of just dropping her sword down onto the path beneath her didn’t sit right with her. Damaging, or even destroying, the blade seemed like a real possibility. The sound of it falling could draw unwanted attention, too, and she didn’t think she’d have enough time to climb down and pick up her sword before hiding. What was she to do?
        Out of the corner of her eye, having difficulty seeing through it due to the cool air that pushed against it, she looked down at what exactly was below her. There was the stone path she had seen, maybe a meter and a half in width, and after that was a line of shrubs. Grass extended out past those shrubs to a stone wall. The wall was the first, and really only, line of defense for the palace. Its walls were smooth, climbing it being impossible, and the tops of it were just wide enough to hold a man.
        Going out by climbing the walls wasn’t going to work out, but maybe she could toss her sword into the shrubbery or on the grass beyond it? Like most blades, it was flexible enough to not snap in half at the merest pressure, so maybe that would work? The sound shouldn’t be loud enough to draw any attention and, if she were to get it in the grass, nobody should see it after it landed. The plan seemed like a good one.
        The only thing she needed to watch out for was guards. As she shimmied her last few steps and took hold of the vine, dewey and cold in her grasp, she looked out to her left and down the stone pathway. She saw nobody, although she could certainly hear the occasional thudding of gunfire and footsteps from the inside. She shuddered, carefully leaning to the right to peak around the corner. It was there she saw three guards, halfway down the path, and walking away from her. Too far to hear her sword.
        Willing herself to calm, she awkwardly contorted herself to whatever was safe. Not having much leverage, she used what strength she had to awkwardly toss the sword. It swung in the air with a circular motion and, with a sound that she almost didn’t hear, landed in the grass behind the shrubs. It took a lot for her to not become giddy at the success in that. She could save any and all celebrations for when she was safe, clothed, and warm. Her fingers felt a little numb and, at this point, her nipples had been exposed to the cool air to become erect and hard to the touch.
        Lyra looked at the vines for a moment, pondering how she was going to go about this, but decided that overthinking it was not going to be the wisest decision. So, she just prayed to the higher powers above before grasping both hands with it and locking her feet onto either side of it. The only thing keeping her from falling was her strength, which seemed sufficient enough to keep her from descending too fast. Going back up, though? She’d need some adrenaline before she did that.
        Climbing down was a slow and tense affair, the dew of the vine wetting her forearms and the inner parts of her legs and thighs. A leaf extended out at just the right angle for it to ride up between her legs, the soft yet stiff leaf riding against her “slit” before she climbed down far enough for it to break downwards. The feeling was nowhere near pleasureful. In fact, it was the coldest thing her loins had ever felt and that's saying something considering how cold her own hands got in the winter.
        Either by divine intervention or pure luck, she made it all the way down to the stone path without seeing a single person. The sound of approaching boots, clunking with metal, made her act fast as she silently dashed to the other side of the stone path and towards the bush. She took a desperate dive across the bushes, falling hard onto the grass on the other side. She bit back any pain she felt from the bruises as she rolled onto her stomach, crawling towards her sword and grabbing it by the sheath. She then pushed herself closer to the bush, seeing just enough through the branches to see who was approaching from around the corner.
        It was the same man that had entered her room except, this time, she could see his full set of armor. Not a single ounce of skin was visible, not even his face, as he walked around the building’s corner and past the vines she had just climbed. She squinted, paying attention to the joints of his armor. Where skin or gambeson might’ve been exposed, such as in his joints and especially his armpits, chainmail covered. From what she knew of chainmail, it was weak to thrusting blows. You could slash your sword all day on chainmail, but a powerful thrust into the links was enough to break them apart. Of course, there was more than simply shoving a spear or sword into that gap. She felt she got the gist of it, although she wasn’t going to try it for herself. Even if she was armed with a musket as big and mean as his, she likely couldn’t do much.
        Lyra didn’t plan to fight the man anyways. Not only did she not want to be seen in this state of undress but she didn’t want to get caught up in a fight at all! Best case scenario, she won but caused a lot of noise. Worst case scenario her broken body would be strewn across the courtyard for all to see. Even the best case scenario looked as though it would lead to that worst case eventually. There was no way she could take on more than one guy and, even then, that was pushing it. These were trained soldiers, she was just a woman who trained in her bedroom sometimes.
        Aside from the man’s armor, he walked silently down the pathway and towards some soldiers who spoke to him in that unfamiliar language of theirs. They sounded tired and the armored man sounded agitated, either at himself or them, and then the soldiers sounded puzzled before agreeing to something. She wasn’t going to stick around for whatever it was.
        As she laid prone, stomach and chest becoming soaked in the dew of the grass, she pondered on her next move. Moving to the gardens was still the wisest choice and, from there, she could maybe find a way to scale the wall. She knew of the servants growing certain foods on vines that required lattices to be attached to the side of the wall. If those lattices were sturdy enough then maybe she could make it across the wall. From there? She could jump, if needed, but the chance of a sprain or even a broken bone seemed high. She needed to be sure she could jump onto something before climbing the wall, making herself a target with her tall silhouette, but how could she do that without first climbing the wall?
        The entrances and exits were a no-go, surely guarded by men ordered to shoot anyone who even dared come close to those doorways. As far as she was aware, any secret passages were either unknown to her or simply did not exist. Her family lived in so many different palaces at different times that she never did feel like she knew any of them. She felt underprepared in more than her state of dress.
        Laying here and getting ticks on her wasn’t going to do any good. Action led to results while pondering led to nothing. So, when she felt it was safe, she pulled herself across the ground in a crawl. It was a quiet crawl, the only noise being her fur rubbing against grass, and that was not loud enough to drown out the sounds of any approaching footsteps. Didn’t make the whole thing any less uncomfortable, though, as the cold ground numbed her nipples and brought uncomfortable wetness to areas that she didn’t want wet at the moment.
        As she crawled, knowing she would have to stand and run across another path before delving back behind some bushes, she pondered on what she would do after escaping. She could not fit into the peasant population by stealing some clothes, no. Her mannerisms would give her away immediately and, if not that, then likely the fact that her family were the only maned wolves of this country. She would stand out in a crowd, even with her face covered, and she’d never make it far. Would she have to stealth her way all across the city? Miles upon miles of burnt buildings wouldn’t hide her bright fur well. What if she couldn’t find clothes? That seemed to be the most worrisome part of her mind.
        After a few minutes of crawling, she came to where the hedges blocked her path. The stone path split off from the one that went all the way around the palace. The path itself went nowhere as it ended at the wall, a planned entryway having never been built past the path. On one hand, the lack of an entryway meant that there were no guards stationed here. On the other, she had to risk being spotted traveling that meter and a half of space. It agitated her to no end but, even worse, the sounds of footsteps were approaching.
        A regular soldier was walking down the path but, instead of going on, he turned onto the path and stood in the middle of it. He wore the uniform of the invading country, a black cloak with gold edges and a white undershirt, while a steel breastplate was worn and a helmet atop his head. The helmet came down over his nose and flared at the back like curly hair from beneath a hat. The smell of tobacco smoke began to fill the area.
        Lyra silently cursed, fingernails curling into the dirt. Why, out of all places, had this man come here for his little smoke? She pressed her face down into the grass to get a better angle at him. A wooden pipe was extending from his mouth and, with disgust, she recognized the pipe as belonging to the head chef of the household. Blood splattered the man’s breastplate. It was likely related to the pipe.
        A swell of anger began to build in her that wished to take revenge. She was in the shadows, unseen. She could draw her sword and strike the man down in the same swipe before he even heard the sound of steel clearing leather. Could she bring herself to do that, though? She practiced on still targets, imaginary and real alike. She would just have to superimpose her targets onto the man and strike, but a lack of willpower also overcame her. The thought of driving her blade into someone, or even cutting him, made her nauseous. She was never shy to the sight of blood, but a fresh wound gaping with it? The screams of a man as he garbled and drowned in it? She didn’t think she could do that. Bludgeon? Yes, she felt she could do that, but she did not have the strength to make the light blade’s hilt do any more damage than a knot on the head.
        There was also his body. She could not leave his body out in the open, but she knew damn well she hadn’t the strength to drag him behind the bushes. She was beginning to think about just passing by this man and leaving him be, but the smell of that tobacco and the sight of that blood brought a fresh rage back into her. She peered at his waist belt and the sidearm that he had on it, a flanged mace, and grinned a near sadistic grin. She had an idea.
        The sound of her sword rustling the brush and then thudding against the ground brought the guard’s attention, a confused “huh?” coming from his mouth. It seemed that some noises came across language barriers. He thought it to maybe be a squirrel or even a loose domestic rabbit, if these people even kept rabbits, but felt bored enough to check it out anyways. Lazily, he made his way over to the brush and held his musket in both hands. His ears, canine, perked when he saw the sword. He didn’t have much time to figure out why the sword was there.
        Lyra had come up behind the man, plucking the mace from its basic sheath soundlessly as he walked. The only thing keeping him from gazing upon her slim, nude body was his curiosity of the sound. He would get a glimpse of that body later, just for a moment, as she used all her strength to shove him from behind. The man yelped, falling forward through the bush and onto the grass on the other side. He fell onto his side, dazed and confused, before a kick met his stomach and caused him to lay on his back. It was there that his eyes looked up at the tallest woman he had ever seen, beautiful and naked, as she sat upon the cup that covered his loins. He watched as his mace slammed down into the top of his head, knocking him out with the image of that beautiful body vivid in his mind. He did not last much longer as continued blows led to him becoming comatose, brain dead, and then just plain ol’ dead. All without a single drop of blood spilling from his helmet.
        Lyra was on her back now, panting and crying after she had gotten off her mounted position on the now dead man. She didn’t know whether he had seen her long enough to take her in, that didn’t bother her as much as she thought, but she did know that taking a life was not as easy as she thought. Her hands trembled as she brought her hands up to her eyes, fighting back a gutteral sob. Man was not supposed to kill man, even moreso woman killing man, and yet here she was laying next to a man who had hopes and dreams. Maybe even a family, but now he was dead.
        Lyra laid there for longer than was safe, five minutes being stolen by her to wallow in her guilt and shame. This man had likely killed that chef and, if not, then he had killed someone who did not deserve killing. A guard? All of them were good men. A servant? Gooder men and women than maybe even the guards. Her father? Brother? Then the sorry sack of shit certainly deserved it, but that didn’t make her feel much better.
        By the time she had gotten ahold of herself, tears had stained her cheeks and rolled down onto the grass beneath her. She needed to move, now, and no amount of laying in the brush would keep her safe forever. Sooner or later, someone would realize the man was missing. Sooner or later, they would start peering behind the brush. Sooner or later, they would find the man dead and her with him if she didn’t get her sorry ass moving.
        She put the man’s mace back in its sheath, she wasn’t sure why, before she grabbed her sword and its dirtied sheath. Crawling back onto her stomach, she forced herself to shut up and began crawling again. She needed to get to the garden and out of here before she killed anybody else.
        
________________




        Lyra was beginning to get a little tired, her lack of sleep beginning to catch up with her. She must’ve gotten nothing more than two or three hours, likely the former. She could feel that lack of sleep as her crawling became more and more sluggish, her usually pristine fur dirtied by the grass and dew beneath her. She was beginning to fear that she might not have enough energy to actually climb the wall. What would she do if she became unable to do that?
        Every time a pair of boots came past the bushes, she stopped and held her breath. The shooting had stopped at this point but she could still hear the distant pops and cracks in the city below. Even the occasional boom of a cannon, although at this point she didn’t see much use in them. If all their ships were taken out and nobody was on the offensive then they felt a bit pointless. A lot of this felt rather pointless, in fact.
        They had burned the city, a city of riches, and not had enough time to take anything of wealth. Whether one was a brigand or the richest army in the world you always had to plunder to fund what you spent on battle. Were they being spiteful? Were they essentially saying that they weren’t even worth the trouble of plunder? It felt childish and something that didn’t befit any king or lord that she knew, even the prince that she was to be married off to. Was she ignorant? She had done plenty of listening, heard plenty of reasons for invasion, but was this lack of plundering for a reason she hadn’t thought of? Was it over her?
        No, it had to be something else. Why cut off political ties with a country because a year couldn’t be waited for a woman to be deemed “old enough” for marriage? There was impatience and then there was that. The thoughts were driving her mad and she had to drive them away. It was not her job to think like this but, then again, what if it was her job now? What if her father and brother were dead? What if her mother, in a different palace, had become ill or had been killed? What if she was the last of her bloodline and, like it or not, was the rightful ruler of these lands?
        Would anyone take her and accept her as queen after such a disgraceful defeat?
        The thoughts only worked to make her more sluggish but, eventually, she made her way to the gardens. It was a grand place, the stone path separating it from the house. It was a large garden that extended from wall to wall of, well, the wall on the southern side. Every single vegetable that could be grown in this climate was here and there were even a few fruits. Grapevines for winemaking, too. That was what the lattices were for. Nobody she knew of ever ate grapes, only drank it.
        She peered through the bushes, watching as three separate men walked around the gardens in a marching stance. Their muskets were held up by the buttstock, their bayoneted tips pointed towards the night sky, and they looked downright mean. Maybe some of them were decent folks but in that armor and with those muskets? It could turn any family man into a feller not worth trifling with. She wished she knew the training of the rank and file of the invading country, try and figure out what she was dealing with, but she hardly knew the training of those around her let alone another country.
        Behind her, distant but loud, a loud voice called out. The three men in the garden, one eating on a cucumber, immediately ran. Alarm was on their faces and, judging by the direction they were running, the body had been discovered.
        Her fur stood on end as one of the men came mere inches from looking down and seeing her tall and lithe body filthied by stealth and murder. She was spared the humiliation as he kept on running, musket now in both arms. They might start checking behind the hedges now so she needed to make a proper dash for the garden and work her happy ass onto the lattices. Sprained ankle be damned, she’d have a better chance in the chaos of the burning city then she would here.
        Deeming it safe, she stood and dashed for a shed at the edge of the garden. She did not go in it, for that would be a death trap if she were to get stuck in there, but outside of it and away from view. Nobody could view her from where she was, the only thing in front of her being some plants and the wall, and it was here that she could figure out on what to do next.
        There was nobody to view her and that was a sad sight. The lack of any holes in the walls or far flung devices of the future could not capture the beauty of her sight right then and there. Her back was pressed against that shed, standing tall and almost looking proud. Her curly hair had turned into a mess at this point, a leaf from a hedge sticking out of it, and some of it had even drooped down into her face that she used her hand to push away. Aside from her height, her body was damn near perfect for all this stealthing around. Slim form with a bosom small enough to fit into any man’s armor, said bosom having a dirty hand print on it from where she had put her hand on her chest.
        Her midriff and hips were wet with dew and dirty with, well,  dirt. Her loins would’ve been on full display for said imaginary person to see, a little dirt on the left outer lip, but otherwise pristine and untouched. Her inner thighs were wet from the dew and so were her long and slender legs all the way down to her bare feet. Some might akin her to a certain white-faced, suit wearing feller from the far distant future of horror and despair.
        Her sword was held in her left hand, ready to be drawn by her right if need be. She looked like a warrior of some far off land, charging into battle naked and unafraid, but she was neither a warrior or unafraid. She was terrified, fearful of the consequences of a fucked up action, and it showed on her face behind a mask of thought. This exact pose belonged on the wall above her room, not the one of her in that armor with a fake sense of righteousness and masculinity. She was no warrior, but she was intelligent.
        Lyra suddenly felt a little exposed, looking around as if expecting eyes to be upon her, but she saw nothing. It was just nerves, that was all. Who wouldn’t have nerves in a situation such as this? Even the strongest Knight of her stories would feel a little, well, naked in a situation like this. The connection made more sense in her mind.
        Peering at the wall, she caught sight of the wooden lattice with the grapevine laced through it. The lattice was black in color, contrasting with the gray stone of the wall, and the wonderful greenery of the plants mixed well with the berries to make quite a picturesque scene. She wished she could paint it, despite never having picked up a paintbrush in her life, but that would have to wait for another day. The day would come where she could do as she pleased. She might need to rule this kingdom first and bring it out of its strife, but the day would come when a son or daughter could take the forefront while she retired. Yes, that would be nice.
        Without too much thinking, she made for the lattice. Her thighs were cut by the thorns of plants and the uncomfortable fuzziness of others tickled her feet, but eventually she made her way over to the lattice. She got ready to hoist her sword right up to the top of the wall, her right hand already on the lattice, but…
        Crack!
        …a shot rang out, the smell of gunpowder filling the air. Lyra felt splinters of wood and fragments of rock shatter against her inner thighs and legs, searing hot panic spreading within her. It took a lot of effort to not piss herself right then and there. It was the closest brush with death, or severe injury, that she had ever had in her life. She knew how bad leg wounds could get.
        “Mmm…”, rang a voice, the clattering of metal being heard along with it. “...Princess..Lyra.”
        She froze, backside facing the foreign voice, but she recognized the sound of that clanging armor and the voice associated with it. It was the first time she had heard the voice speak her tongue, practiced and well-versed, and it was terrifying. It humanized him. He was not a walking mass of steel plate and chainmail, but a person.
        The distant sound of running boots could be heard, but a sharp foreign tongue filled the air. No man exited the house and none came from around the corners of the buildings. She had a feeling that none were looking through the windows, but she could not be sure, and that egged at her a bit.
        Orders were spoken, yelled out with deafening practice, and the sounds of footsteps echoing further away were heard. He had called his men back.
        “You’re…rather slippery. I had thought that wench had lied about your quarters but I can see she was telling the truth. Not as faithful as I thought. My own would die before speaking a word to, well, an unwelcome guest.”
        Lyra began to feel her blood boiling beneath her skin, anger and embarrassment working together to create a cocktail that did not fare well in keeping a cool head. She turned to face this man, this walking mass of armor, against what her body told her. She was defiant, her posture confident, with a grip on her sheath as strong as death’s grip. A death grip, if you will.
        “Anybody can crack under enough pressure. I hold nothing against her or any of those who spoke.”, she retorted with a quavering voice, every ounce of her body working to not make her snap or attack in a rage befitting a brute.
        “Such a civilized comment for someone so…uncivilized in their dress…”, the man said, his voice echoey behind his mask of armor, as his free hand vaguely waved in her direction. “...not that I mind, perhaps. It is a rare sight to see a woman of raw, unfiltered beauty.”
        The comment made her skin crawl, her face deeping in a red hue. Men like him were splattered throughout almost every single book she read. No shame hidden behind a wall of manners and “proper talk.” Fake. That was a good word for people like him: fake.
        “You talk of civility as if you do not attack in the dead of night until the guidance of impatience!”, she spat. “Let me tell you something. I do not care what your Prince, or your King, wish to do with me. I will sooner die with my guts strewn about the palace than allow you, or them for that matter, to take me. I am not a-”
        “Oho! Woah, lass. Now hold on there a moment!”, the man said as he lifted up his face shield, revealing the gray fur of a lynx and his tufts along with it. His eyes shone like honey.
        “You talk as if we are here to enslave you! No, no no my good woman. Your father, may God rest his soul, wrote out the treaty we agreed to and proceeded to not follow through with said treaty! We sent a messenger asking for your whereabouts and we never saw the messenger again!”, he said as he rested his musket against his side, a solid thunk coming from it as it clattered against him. “Simply put, your father broke the treaty and we are here to see it through! Your brother is still alive to serve this kingdom, we have no wish of demolishing you, but you were promised to us at the signing! We were told, then and there, that you were to be brought to banquet and the wedding would be held soon after!”
        Lyra had forgotten about her nakedness for now, her form on full display before this man, as she thought over what he said. He was a fake, that much she had demised, but even fakes had the choice of being honest. The words came out of his mouth so smoothly, and without practice, that it did not sound like a fabrication to her. The tone was similar to that of the honest merchants who came to pay their taxes, going into spontaneous detail about their sales that lined up with their papers. She was untrained in politics, but she knew what he said was fact. At least, he believed it to be fact.
        “Maybe my father said that to you, maybe he did not, but your claim of my father’s death has nullified this treaty has it not? Each and every treaty, every agreement, my family has signed has been written with the disclaimer of all parties are to be in good health for the duration of said agreement. Your treaty is null and void, I am not yours to take!”, she said confidently, beginning to feel like she could actually be a Queen of some sort.
        The man’s face darkened, grip tightening on his musket. His free hand moved for the sword attached to his rifle. He detached it and sheathed it at his side, where it sat opposite to a dagger meant for going between the gaps of armor, before picking up his rifle and holding it much like a club with his hands gripping the barrel while the stock acted as the “mean end” of it all.
        “And your father is not here now to testify against or for this treaty. Maybe that is what the treaty said, maybe it is not. I have not read it, I will be honest with you my good and beautiful maiden, but I have orders of hauling you back to the ship. There were no specifics to this order. I can bring you back battered and bruised, drooling like an idiot, and ruined beyond repair…”, he said as his shoulders softened a bit, the musket still held in both hands. “...OR I can bring you back on your own two feet, decent in clothes befitting of your status, and you have my word that no man will gaze upon you, but myself, until you are decent and no man will touch you aside from the Prince himself.”
        This was not a bargaining game, that much Lyra knew. It was either go with this man in good health or know nothing else but delerium for the rest of her life as he smashed his musket against her head. Neither was a way to live and she gave her, vocally, silent answer as she unsheathed her sword. The sheath fell to the ground silently as she took a stance with her sword. Her right foot went forward, her left behind her, as she twisted her right hand and pointed the blade behind her. Her right hand went behind her back.
        “A fencer and spunky? Oh, how I like that…”, the man said as he took a defensive position, his musket gripped as he positioned himself for an overhand swing “...oh, how fun it will be to watch that form dance.”
        He wasted little time in making his move, swinging the musket down at her. Her right hand came up in an upper hand motion, defecting his blow just barely before she twisted her hand and thrusted forward. The tip of her blade deflected harmlessly off of his breastplate. For the first time in her life, she was in a real fight, and she felt a little proud of herself for her theoretical practice working out. If it hadn’t been for his armor, she would have gotten a good jab in and maybe a finishing blow.
        The man laughed as he swung underhand now, the brass of his musket’s stock brushing against her hip as she moved to the left and away from him. Her legs carried her towards the shed now, trembling with fright and tiredness. She brought her sword out in front of her and kept her free hand behind her back, trying to keep him at bay as she figured out what she was to do.
        “C’mon, girl! Strike! Give me some fun so I don’t feel like a brigand clubbing a defenseless lass! I already feel bad trying to fight you while eyefuckin’ ya’, the least you could do is just hurry up and get this over with!”
        He swung from his left shoulder, deflecting her blade before jabbing forward and smashing her in the stomach. She coughed and gagged, stumbling backwards behind the shed. Her bottom didn’t cushion much, for there was little to cushion, as she fell. She was beside the open door of the shed now and, on the floor just about ready to fall out and onto the ground, was a leather glove. A thick leather glove, meant for fending off briars instead of warriors. Maybe, just maybe, it was strong enough to survive a grip around a blade.
        The man was tired. Not from the fight, mind you, but mentally. This whole thing had been planned for a week and he had hardly gotten any rest over it. Everything was going nice and proper, kill the king and leave the prince, but he was agitated by this princess. He had expected her to roll over quite easily. Hell, he had expected her to be dressed whenever they arrived and yet here she was buck naked. He wasn’t her type, far too slim, but he wouldn’t say no to any naked woman before him of high standing. He was not a rapist, he would not touch her, but he couldn’t promise her protection from his men if she continued on like this. He really didn’t want to mess her up bad, he was holding back considerably, but sometimes women just needed a good hit or two. He hoped his jab to the gut hadn’t been too bad for her and that it wouldn’t ruin her womanhood. If he was careful, he could whack her upside the head and carry her on to the ship himself. That would do. Just had to get to her first.
        He brought his musket into an overhand swing, ready for this to be over with, but he was met with a sight that he had not expected. There she was, crouching and ready to strike, with her bare hand on her blade. No, it was a leather glove. She was half swording. The technique came as a surprise to him, seeing as she seemed more adept at fencing than anything for the battlefield, and he moved to shield his gaps. He was too late, though, and she let out a yell before jabbing forward.
        Lyra’s legs pushed her upwards and towards him, the tip of her blade aimed right for his armpit. He had moved to protect himself, but was too slow. The tip of her blade plunged into the mail, splitting links in two, and went through his gambeson into the flesh beneath. She felt like vomiting as the smell of blood filled the air, she she delved deeper and deeper as him booming yells filled the air. Four inches of the blade had been pierced into him as her gloved hand left the blade, while her left stayed on the grip, and reached for his knife. It was cylindrical, not made for slashing, and it was just what she needed.
        She was fast, fencing fast, as she yanked out his knife and brought it down into his neck where the armor was weakest. She pierced through the gap and into his neck, his screams turning curdled as blood filled his windpipe. She pulled the knife out as a singular squirt of blood lept out and splattered onto her collarbone and right breast. Bile began to rise as she pulled back and kicked him in the sternum, sending him onto his back where he began dying. Her sword was still poking out of his armpit.
        Lyra stared at him, chest rising and falling with heavy breaths. Something didn’t sit right and it wasn’t the stench of blood. How had she pulled this off? This man should have been considerably more skilled than her, a thousandfold so, and yet here he was drowning in his own blood by her hand. Her thoughts raced as she stumbled to the other side of the shed and fought back vomiting. It was so anticlimactic, nothing like her books, and the stench was sickness inducing.
        She fell to a knee before pulling herself back up again, a distant shout being heard. The men knew that things had gone awry and, now, they were coming for her.
        
________________




        A shot rang out, a crack filling the air before splinters shattered from a hole in the side of the shed. She looked back at where the shot originated from, the silhouette of a man being fifty or so yards away with the majority of his body covered in the smokescreen of gunpowder. She did not believe that he could make out her body, her nakedness, but he had been able to see enough to try and get a shot out. She didn’t know whether the dark or his, likely, unrifled barrel was to blame for the near miss. She didn’t stick around long enough to find out, though.
        She scrambled towards the lattice, sword long forgotten in the armpit of the dead man and the leather glove yanked off of her hand, as more shots rang out and the sounds of heavy footsteps running towards her were heard. Leaves tore and stone chipped as the shots missed, Lyra was feeling as if her luck was beginning to run out with all of these missed shots. The lattice dug into her hands and feet as she scrambled up, surprised that it was able to hold her up, and towards the top of the wall. She didn’t even look over the other side as she brought her upper torso over, silhouetted in the night sky and the distant blazes, before she tumbled forward and down the other side of the wall. A musket ball went through her tail, hitting nothing but hair as pieces of hair floated in the air and fell onto the top of the wall.
        Lyra landed on her back with a thud that forced the air out of her lungs. Whatever she landed on, it was hard but with enough give to break her fall. She rolled off of whatever she had landed on and onto the grass below. She rolled for a good three yards before coming to a stop, body thoroughly soaked in dew, before she just laid there in mild pain. Had things gone better or worse than she expected? She didn’t truly know. She was alive and that was what counted, but what now?
        She turned her head to look at whatever she had landed on and saw a wooden hand cart, bowed inward and splintered in a few places. The side wall, she assumed that was what it was called, had been knocked off and had allowed her to roll out of the cart. Certainly not the most elegant, or painless, place to fall. It was probably better than the compacted dirt beneath it where little to no give was to be had. The dirt around the palace was nothing like the dirt of a plain or forest. Too many footsteps for any springiness to be left.
        Shouts came from the other side of the wall, agitated and confused. The man that had led them to the palace was dead and, now, an officer of little skill was in charge. The officer was easy to hear over the others, trying his best to reel the men in so that they could go after her. He was either ignored or unheard. The commotion gave Lyra all the time she needed to get up and dust, or rather wipe, herself off. Her bottom hurt and so did her lower back. For the first few steps, those and many more being downhill, she limped. Her limp turned into what was, essentially, a power walk as she moved into the small “forest” that separated the palace from the rest of the city. It was nothing more than about ten trees in width, but it was something to break her trail and she’d take it.
        She could feel the heat of the burning city getting closer and closer. She used this time of relative silence to think on what to do next. The first thing she should do would be to find some sort of clothes, a man’s shirt and britches would be fine, so that she may seek help in relative decency. Some remaining military men must still be within the city, so maybe she could rally them and escort her. She was unarmed and truly at the mercy of those around her now. The feeling was not particularly good judging by the knot in her stomach.
        She came to a stop at the end of the forest, a cobbled path before her running lengthwise, and burnt homes were before her. Much of the fire had died down here but smoldering embers still filled the remains. The radiating warmth was comforting as she stared out over the nearly leveled remains at the fires not-so-distant now. It would have been tragically beautiful if not for the situation.
        The glow of the fires caused her fur to shine some, highlighting her form. She stood with the grace of royalty. Her bare form was even dirtier now, the man’s blood having dried on her collarbone and right breast into a flakey mess. The dew on her fur gleamed in the firelight, the dirt that had been on the outer lip of her loins wiped off into nothing more than a slight smudge. There was something thrilling about standing like this, free and open, but the shame of it overpowered that feeling and caused her to slink behind a tree.
        Distant pops and cracks were heard, gunfire still being had. Voices speaking her language and of her accent could be heard, barely, but she could not make out the words. Her chest ached in excitement at the prospect of her own people still fighting, still being near, and she forgot her nakedness as she carefully ran into the cobbled street and down an alleyway so suffocating in heat and smoke that it nearly killed her.
        Her luck was beginning to catch up with her again as her long legs carried her into the backyard of a burnt away house, untouched by the blaze for some strange reason, as a clothesline held a man’s dark brown britches. She yanked them off, forgoing the underclothes on the line, before pulling them up and over her legs. The pants were short, enough so that it only extended about half a foot above her ankles like a pair of capris, but it would do. She then yanked for a cream, originally white, shirt and pulled it on as well. Her nipples, still solid and erect from the cold, poked through. She did not care.
        Lyra was clothed, the lingering sense of embarrassment no longer over her, and now confidence wafted through her. She had survived the first trial and there were many more to come. She was to not let her guard down, though, and that was okay. She and her people would survive this. She would either lead or help lead this country, depending on if her brother lived through her escape, and drive these impatient invaders from her lands.
        Yes, she would do just that.
        No longer ashamed, she ran. She ran towards her people.", "pools_count": 1, "title": "Lyra's Unclothed Escape - A Short, Original Fantasy Fic", "deleted": "f", "public": "t", "mimetype": "text/plain", "pagecount": "1", "rating_id": "2", "rating_name": "Adult", "ratings": [ { "content_tag_id": "4", "name": "Sexual Themes", "description": "Erotic imagery, sexual activity or arousal", "rating_id": "2" }, { "content_tag_id": "5", "name": "Strong Violence", "description": "Strong violence, blood, serious injury or death", "rating_id": "2" } ], "submission_type_id": "12", "type_name": "Writing - Document", "guest_block": "t", "friends_only": "f", "comments_count": "0", "views": "51" }