Slay the Prince. Save the Girl. Part 1

[I was feeling a bit of writer’s block on Lessons in Lesbianism, but wanted to make something that would be exclusive to patrons or paying customers while I was stuck… this has more of an Orchid of Edo tone, though. Probably only going to be about 10K words.]

Vengeance. Vengeance for the burning of her valley. That was what drove the young warrior as she entered the great city. While the city was filled with languages she’d never heard; people, goods, and animals she’d never seen; and spices and perfumes she’d never smelled… none of that mattered. It barely registered as she stalked the city streets, circling the palace of the elven king that filled the central half of the city’s diameter.

Unfortunately for the dark haired and wiry human woman, the walls were much too high to scale, and the few gates too well guarded for her to find a way in just yet. Lurking in an alleyway near one of the secondary entrances, she watched those coming and going patiently. Looking to work out who was able to pass, or when the guards might take a break.

And, as the sun began to dip low, the unshadowed upper portions of the tightly packed buildings turning golden, Huli realised there was only one way through. An option she would normally never accept, but… as a means to an end… she could bear the humiliation of servitude for a time.

-

Young Najmay Shuj hurried through the covered corridors of the Shuj company estate. An Elven prince was coming, looking for a wife. True, it was being demanded that the family give up a daughter to the royal line to make up for one of her uncles losing a royal trading ship to a cyclone, but that did not mean Najmay had any less reason to be excited about the prospect of being chosen. Elven men were renowned for their beauty, after all. So, surely… surely it would help her overcome her misaligned attractions.

It was obvious, as she arrived at the entrance hall, that most of the other women of the clan cared far less for the opportunity. She knew her elder sister considered Elven men too beautiful for her tastes. Too delicate in appearance. Others likely felt the same. There were also those who wished to stay within the mercantile families of the Dry Coast. It was what they knew, and they had ambitions to build fortunes that way. Perhaps, as well, others held disdain for the idea of being a secondary wife. Najmay could understand that. If she’d had an interest in a husband she’d have wanted him to see her as an individual, not part of a collection.

But, she did not.

With no guarantee she would love the touch of an Elven man the way she liked that of the maids or laundry girls, well… she’d prefer the option to fade into the background. To be forgotten as much as possible.

Though, if the prince did prove to draw her heart… she felt certain she could find a way to work her way up through the ranks of other wives. She was well educated and her tutors had always complimented her intellect.

Her thoughts on the matter were interrupted by the arrival of a number of guards through the door. Human soldiers went first, but they were followed shortly by Elven ones. Their faces were largely covered by their helmets, leaving her with little sense of their looks.

Any doubts, however, were erased by the prince himself strolling in. Her eyes locked on his impossibly beautiful face as he struck up conversation with her grandfather. His proportions were as perfect as any statue she’d seen, delicate in a way that she found herself envying as much as anything. His eyes, as well, were a sparkling sort of blue that reminded her of the ocean and was quite unlike any she’d seen before. They were beautiful, but she also had the impression they were as deep and unpredictable as the sea they reminded her of. That perfect face was framed by flowing crimson hair, two long sections falling loosely before his pointed eyes, down to his chest. Behind his head the rest was tied up on a braid that fell to the small of his back, swaying with his every motion.

The prince’s figure was somewhat disguised by the armour he wore, but it seemed androgynous enough to fit his beautiful face. Watching as he walked along, she was also struck by the grace at which he moved. As if weight did not apply to him the way it did to humans. It was truly a marvel to see.

Eventually, he reached her, stopping and making her heart skip.

“You look young,” he said in a soft and elegant voice.

“I am in my nineteenth year, fresh from my entry to adulthood, your grace,” she replied, keeping her eyes low with humility.

He gave a small ‘mhm’, before continuing down the line of women. Most were a bit older than her. Merchants’ daughters tended to spend some time in schooling and learning accounts before becoming wives, after all. No Dry Coast man wanted a wife who couldn’t keep his business steady while he was at sea, after all. So apprenticeships and experience in one’s family were necessary to prepare before marriage.

“Yes. The youngest one,” the prince said, once he’d finished walking past the assembled women. “Humans live such brief lives, I might as well get the extra couple years out of her.”

The last part of the prince’s words felt like a slice through the sails of Namjay’s spirits. That was his reasoning? Something so crass and… and possessive? As if she were a mousing cat for sale? What had happened to the poetry of Elves? She’d read they were great artists, lovers, and the epitome of chivalry… and that was how he talked of her?

Her grandfather was nodding furiously, telling the prince all of Namjay’s positive qualities, but she barely noticed his words as the world spun around her.

-

Huli had been forced to skulk about the city for a number of nights. She’d had little money and even less interest wasting any of it on shelter. It got colder here at night than back south in the hills, but it was still the last moon of summer. She could handle a few nights of this. Food was also easy enough to gain. There were enough creatures living in the alleys to get the meat she needed, and she was swift enough in the bazaars to grab a carrot here or an apple there. Finding somewhere quiet enough to start a fire and cook was trickier, but she managed it most nights.

Eventually her listening and hiding paid off, as she learned two important matters: the empire always needed soldiers, and a sufficiently skilled woman would likely be sent to the palace. For all the guards within the palace proper were female. A precaution, it seemed, to protect the Prince’s collection of wives. Which served her well, as she lacked the skill to be a cook, nor the broken spirit to be a serving girl.

As such, Huli found her way to a recruitment office, knowing she looked rather worse for wear after all that had happened. The officers present watched her with judgemental eyes, but agreed to lead her back into the testing ground.

“Take one of those wooden swords. Gassick will spar with you, to test your value,” the officer said, pointing towards a younger man.

The man was larger than her, but not impressively so. He also lacked the sharpness about him that the soldiers who had come to her valley had had. He was better fed and less hardened.

And, well, she’d slain enough of them when they’d hunted her to know she had little to fear here. If the weeks of scraping by hadn’t taken too great a toll on her.

She grabbed the wooden blade and shifted into a stance.

“Experienced, I see,” the officer said as his underling squared off across from her.

“I have learned to defend myself,” she said, hoping her accent wasn’t too strong. Though she knew her dark skin showed her southern origin more readily than any accent.

Gassick charged and she redirected his blade (also wooden) away from the direction she dodged. She then gave a quick jab to his kidney as she passed him.

“Not bad, but possibly luck. Again,” the officer said.

Three more times she dealt with the younger soldier in similar efficiency. She had learned to fight in wars with the neighbouring clans, duels within her own clan, and by hunting beasts. A town guard who had likely never seen true battle was little threat to her.

The officer called in two more men as a further test. It took more wits to swerve around each of them, but it was feasible. They were drilled, and likely effective as a spear wall, but in a spar? She understood mobility in a way they likely never would.

“Where did you say you grew up again?” the recruiting officer asked after her second victory against the trio.

“Here and there,” she replied. “Hill folks burned our fields when I was young and we were forced into a city. I eventually made trouble with gangs and was forced to move again. Happened a few times. Never been one for the criminal element, but they were always interested in me.”

“Mhm,” the man said, giving her another once over. “Even without your fighting skill I could imagine why.”

She shivered slightly at the places his eyes lingered. She’d heard many stories of the way imperial soldiers viewed women. Behaviour she’d heard the Elven nobles were happy to support. She hoped that wouldn’t be an issue here.

“Are you clean, though?” he asked.

“Pardon?”

“No gutter diseases,” he replied. “Blessed by the gods like that, I wouldn’t judge you for using it to gain a bit of coin, but where we send you depends on if you’re clean.”

“I am not ill that I know of,” Huli said.

“Mhm. Been long since you’ve been with a man? Sometimes these things take time to fester.”

“I have not been with a man… A boy, when I was still a girl, yes, but I learned after a time or two it was not for me,” she said simply. “And so have not done so since.”

The officer nodded. “A shame, when one’s as blessed as you… but I suppose the disinterest helped sharpen your fighting skills, and the better for army. I’ll be sending you for assessment in the palace, then. Which I’m guessing is what you hoped for?”

She raised an eyebrow, a bit nervous that her goals had been too obvious.

“Figured you’d have signed up earlier if campaigning interested you,” the officer explained. “Can only guess you’d prefer the comfort of the palace.”

-

The sun seemed less hot here, but Najmay did her best to avoid the carriage’s window all the same as they rolled from the docks to the city proper. Both due to her upbringing in the Dry Coast, where women of good families worked to keep their skin far paler than the commoners in the fields and fishing vessels, and because she felt no desire to be seen by the world.

The Prince had taken her as his bride, and he had been such perfect beauty… until he’d touched her. Until he’d made it clear she was a prize and nothing more. A payment to cover her family’s blunder.

Worse, though, he’d seemed to have liked what he’d had. Mentioning that she ‘had potential’. For what, she couldn’t guess, but it was all so different from the notions of Elven politesse the stories had told.

And, perhaps worst of all… perhaps making her feel dirtier than the ownership with which he’d acted, was the way he’d been good at it. There was pleasure there, mixed in. If she’d simply hated it she could have felt clearer in her anger at the Prince, but, instead… she was left a thoroughly confused mess of emotions.

At least the Prince still had further business on the dry coast, so she would not have to see him again for some time.

-

The news had filled Huli with frustration. Even if she’d been assigned to patrol the apartments where Elves and other nobles stayed, far from the Prince’s own chambers, it was still frustrating to learn her target was a hundred yojae or more away.

She reminded herself, though, that it had taken her weeks of travel to get to this city. Weeks of barely eating as she scrounged for game in increasingly foreign and populated langs. She needed time to regain her strength if she was to kill the Prince and avenge what he’d done to her clan. To her mother, especially, before he’d burned the village. The pointless disgrace…

What he’d have likely done to her if she’d not been out on a hunt when the imperial forces had attacked. For she was not so proud to think she’d have changed the tide of battle. She’d barely escaped the pursuing parties that had chased her after seeing her in the hills.

Which was also, of course, why she had no expectation to leave this palace alive. She would slay the Prince, leaving the south of the Elven Empire in chaos without a clear ruler, and she would avenge her family. There was nothing else to worry about. Death could take her once her vengeance was had.