Halberds parted at every gateway as Armes led the way into the palace, every soldier knowing her at a glance – by her reputation if not personal acquaintance. The story of the Realm’s own war-devil was known to anyone who carried a weapon.

They had departed in the dark through a side door the year prior, and would have returned the same way had Alysia not insisted otherwise. The princess kept her hood up and fan upraised to reveal only her eyes as her only concession to the knight’s insistence on secrecy, and they had walked in boldly through the front gates in full midday sun. Only one soldier had had the strength of nerve to demand Alysia reveal her face – but that strength abandoned him when Armes turned her hard eyes on him, her lip curling in a way that made the scars on her face twist in awful ways. The man had paled and stepped back swiftly, calling for a squire who had ushered them to the king’s private chambers. The girl was struck almost speechless, barely managing to squeak out, “Lady Knight Armes and her noble c-companion,” opening the doors at the King’s assent. As soon as the doors shut behind Alysia and her knight protector, the squire could be heard breaking into a frantic run down the hall.

Alysia’s father didn’t look up from the parchments he was reading as Armes entered and knelt silently, his dark brow furrowed. He paid no regard to Alysia, who knelt at Armes’ right hand. She folded her fan, but kept her face lowered. If her wooden face could smile, it would be hard to contain her grin, but if this wooden body she puppeted about had any advantages over her old flesh body, it was that it never betrayed her emotions. Finally, her father sighed, scrawling a few lines on the parchment and setting it aside. “A year without word is a long time, Albrecht. Especially when you’re meant to have my daughter with you. A long, long time for you to simply walk in through the front door as if you’d simply popped off for an errand.”

“You ordered discretion, Sire. And silence is the greatest discretion of all. No one can intercept a messenger who isn’t sent.”

King Goldenseal’s voice was low with restrained anger. “Don’t you dare talk to me about discretion – I’ve had plenty of news of your… exploits, around the Realm! Are you a demon in more than just name? You’ve-“ He finally looked up, and his words cut off. “Alysia?” He rose to his feet, staring. “Is that you? Rise.”

Alysia’s wooden joints knocked and rattled softly as she rose to her feet, and swept her skirts out wide in a respectful curtsy. She was unable to hold in her laughter any longer, however. “Hello, Papa! It’s wonderful to see you again – have you missed me?” Her father rushed from his table towards her, but stopped abruptly short of her outstretched arms. “Armes.” His voice was low and dangerous. “Explain this. Immediately.”

“Oh Father, you should see your face right now-”

“On pain of death, you will produce my daughter, Armes.” The king’s hand gripped the hilt of his ceremonial sword tight enough to make his bones creak. “Immediately.”

“Father, please, listen to me for just a moment-“

“She stands before you, Sire. In truth. She is Alysia Goldenseal.” Armes didn’t blink or flinch as the blade was drawn, the tip pressed to her throat with enough pressure to draw forth a thin stream of blood. Her expression was nothing but respectful deference, and in any other knight the king would have thought it madness or mockery.

“You dare. You dare to present this… this thing to me,” He whipped his hand, finger pointing directly at Alysia’s face, ”-and expect me to believe it my Alysia? I’ll have you flayed, Albrecht, I’ll make your death a veritable damned inspiration for the Hell that finally takes you! I’ll-“ Alysia’s wooden hand took him by the wrist, grasping forcefully and yanking him off balance. He raised his sword to chop at her.

“Don’t be tiresome, Father,” Alysia said, her voice this time thinner, smaller. From under the hood crawled the small stuffed bear she had spent most of the last year inhabiting, and it brushed past the dark dolls-hair curls to stand on her wooden body’s shoulder, before carefully hopping to her father’s trapped, trembling hand and balancing neatly on his arm. “The situation obviously isn’t ideal, but an improvement is an improvement, wouldn’t you agree? Put that stupid thing away.”

King Goldenseal still held his blade in a deathgrip, but slowly lowered it, his breath shaking. “Release my hand.”

“And not even a hello for your poor, bewitched daughter, who-“ She was interrupted by the king’s enraged shout as he hurled the sword across the room, the guards outside entering immediately, halberds lowered, before retreating just as fast before his roared dismissal. Alysia stepped back, startled, her wooden hands raised before her. Her bear-body tumbled to the floor, landing with a soft thud before scrambling away as well to hide behind her puppet-body’s skirts.

“I didn’t send you away for you to return as this… plaything! Do you think you can fulfil your responsibilities in this way? Hold court? This is worse than before – you can’t even hide away and listen, in that thing. And now the word will spread of your return to the Realm from your studies abroad – you’ve walked right in through the front door! What in the seven Hells am I to do now? Every action our family takes is watched by the nobility – the scheming mongrels are always looking for some thing they can twist to their advantage. The bear thing was bad enough!” His dark skin was darkened even further with anger, and he rubbed his temples before groaning with frustration. “Armes. Take Alysia to her chambers. Use that horrid face of yours to scare away any gawking simpletons who might see. I will call on you tonight, Alysia. I need time to think of what to do with you. Now go.”

Armes rose and bowed deeply, a few drops of blood running to her chin and spattering on the floor. “Of course, Sire.”

Alysia blinked with shock, her eyes the only part of her face expressing her dismay. “What to DO with me? I’ve returned home to you, and this is how I’m to be treated? It’s been a YEAR, Father!”

“Now, Armes.” The king stalked back to his table, scowling as he took a seat with his back to his daughter and her knight protector. Armes scooped the bear from the floor as she firmly began to guide the puppet with her to the doors, an irresistible force.  

“And put that… that homunculus in a closet, or something. I won’t see a mockery of Alysia’s face.”

“I won’t be ignored, Father! Speak to me, right this moment! Damn you!!” Her indignant scream echoed in the hall as Armes forcefully shut the door, before Alysia snatched her bear-self from the knight and whirled away to stalk down the halls, each step clacking loudly on the stone floor. Armes took a step to follow, but paused, glancing at the two guards. “If so much as a whisper comes out about this, I won’t stop ‘til your very family names are stamped out of memory. Am I understood?” The two men nodded, sweat beading their foreheads. “Y-yes, Knight Albrecht!”

“Your discretion speaks to your noble character, guardsmen. Resume your duties.” She departed swiftly, long legs eating the distance as she raced after the princess.

 ---

The King didn’t come to Alysia’s room that night or the following one, or the following. The only company Alysia had was the silent servant who delivered meals to her, and then retrieved them uneaten an hour later without remark. It was a week before he finally arrived, in the dead of night. He entered without announcing himself, accompanied by Armes. Alysia’s puppet body sat directly before the door, eyes fixed on him, expressionless as always. “You honor me with your presence, Father. Thank you for finding a few minutes for your pitiable daughter in your desperately busy schedule.”

The king regarded it for a moment. “I told you to get that out of my sight, Armes.” He walked past it. “Come out, Alysia. We need to speak.”

Her bear-body crawled out from under the bed, and she glared with as close to haughty disdain as the plush toy allowed, climbing clumsily up onto her sheets to face her father. “Oh, do we? You’ll forgive me – I thought if we needed to speak urgently, you would have spoken to me days ago.”  

“Your time with this affliction has made you more childish than you were. I expected more of you.” He sighed, and briefly removed his golden circle, rubbing his temples before pushing his dark curls back and reseating it. He took a heavy seat beside the bear, his large hand resting across both of her shoulders in an awkward gesture of fatherly affection. “Perhaps I haven’t set the best example, but I did my best to teach you patience, did I not?”

She turned away from him with a sniff, her little arms folded across her chest. “Did you? I don’t recall. Mostly I remember being pushed out of the servant’s entrance the moment my presence might have become embarrassing.” Her father sighed again. “I recall you seemed quite excited for your ‘adventure,’” he said, firmly turning her to face him. “It was all I could do to make you accept a guardian. I would have kept you here and sent a knight alone to find a cure, if I had my way.”

“So you could keep me locked in this chamber? Out of sight, forgotten?”

“To keep you safe, Alysia! Safe! Armes has delivered her report to me, of your misadventures – bandits! Hounds! The witch! You could have died at any time. You could have been taken and used against the Realm! What do you think our enemies would do, if you fell into their hands? What would they try to wring from me?”

“I exist as more than a bargaining chip, Father. I am not simply a potential weakness for the kingdom – I’m a living and breathing – well, living, at least – person. If I can’t be trusted to take care of myself while accompanied by the mightiest knight who ever served the Realm, how will you trust me to rule? Will you set some scheming Vizier beside me, to plot and scheme as they ‘advise’ me? I’ve read enough stories – I know how that sort of story ends!”

“I trusted you to know that your actions have consequences for others besides yourself – the whole kingdom can be effected!  Crushing the rumors of what happened in that village where you were kidnapped took weeks – it took gold to buy silence, and blood when the silence couldn’t be bought! Do you accept that responsibility?”

Alysia stiffened at the memory of that horrible night. “I never asked for that.” she said, her voice thin.

“Of course you didn’t. But it’s your lot, regardless. Every decision we make carries the weight of lives. And if you treat it as a game, more are lost than ever needed to be.” His hand on her shoulders felt so terribly heavy.

Silence lingered for a while before he took a deep breath, patting her and rising. “In any case. In the meanwhile, what can be done? You’ve come home to me. Not as I had hoped, but in one piece, which is good enough for now. Remain here. I will find some retainers who can be trusted not to wag their idiot tongues, and you won’t have to bide your time alone. I can send a cadre of knights to seek a cure. Knights start getting depressed if you don’t give them a quest now and then, it’ll be good for their health. And that way I can keep this one,” he jerked his chin towards Armes, who nodded deferentially, “ here in my sight, where I don’t have to fear I’ll wake up and discover she’s obliterated the entire family line of some petty baron god knows where.”

“Only if it were of the utmost necessity, Sire,” the knight murmured agreeably.

“I – we did not intend to stay, Father! I only wanted to show you that I was well, and that we had made progress – I meant to return to the road days ago, in fact!”

“Absolutely not. Out of the question. Armes, come. I want to discuss possible candidates with you.”

“Father!”

“That will be all, Alysia. Remember. Patience.”

He departed as quickly as he had arrived, Armes following behind, and the door shut and locked as tightly as any of the chambers in the castle dungeon, muffling her outraged scream

"Princess who begs the kidnappers to release her because she knows what her knight protector will do to them and can't handle seeing that happen to anyone again." - Making Up Adventurers, Cohost, 2024

"Forest and fields, you weren't kidding, it really does talk!"

The burglars were gathered around the traveler's pack they'd stolen, which had belonged to some sword-swinging giantess that had stumped into town earlier in the week. Something about her had smelled like money, so Eightfingers had his boys watch out, and if she went far enough from the inn they could sidle up to the room and see what there was to see. A few coins slipped to the innkeep made sure that he didn't see anything, and the whole operation went off nice and smooth. They had come back with a fairytale. Standing there in the pack was a wealthy child's toy, a beautifully sewn stuffed brown bear, wearing a perfect little replica of a noblewoman's gown and a little silver tiara. It was holding on to the edge of the bag tightly, squirming away when one of the lads reached out to grab it.

"Let me go! Please, please let me go!"

"Talks a bit too much, if you were asking me," grumbled Jughead, who had been carrying the pack till they reached their hideaway in the wood. "It's been carrying on like this since we nabbed it."

"Magic toy for some noble brat, you reckon?" asked Nimble, who finally managed to catch the bear in his hands, holding her up into the afternoon light. "Pretty little thing. Must have cost a fortune for whatever fool had it made."

"You're going to regret this! Just leave the bag and go!"

"It'll cost another fortune to whoever buys it," Eightfingers said, rubbing his chin. "I know a fellow who deals magic bits and bobs, and doesn't ask silly questions about how one came by it... He can set us up with a buyer. Put it in the old birdcage if it wants to sing so much."

"Pretty little bird gets a pretty little cage," agreed Nimble, tossing the bear to Jughead as he pulled the cage from a heap of other stolen pieces of junk and hung it from a tree limb. Fetching her back, he placed her lightly into the cage, giving a buffoonish imitation of a courtly bow after placing a rusty old padlock on it. "I hope it serves, humble as it is, Your Majesty-ness."

The little bear rattled the bars of the cage uselessly, continuing to plead for release as the gang set about making camp, getting a little fire going and starting supper.

"You don't understand! You don't know what she'll do to you!!!"

The strangeness and novelty of their treasure soon wore off of the band, and they alternated between ignoring the bear, joking about her, or discussing stuffing her back into the bag and throwing it under a pile of blankets. One of the band seemed fascinated by the bear though, a gangly teenager just gazing at her from the tree he sat in.

"Moonstruck over a toy," the others laughed, making filthy jokes at his expense, but he ignored them. Late in the evening, he climbed down and walked over, holding her cage still when the tree branch swung with a breeze. The little princess-bear looked up at him with anxious eyes.

"Are you a..." he whispered, struggling to phrase a complicated thought. "Are you a thing? Or are you real. Alive." He waited in expectant silence for her answer.

"I'm alive, just like you. I wasn't always like this." She whispered back. "Please, please. You have to let me go. You have to let me go before she finds this place."

"Who? Before who finds us?"

Their discussion was interrupted as Snoops, on high lookout, called down from the tree.

"The inn's on fire!! I can see it from here, lit up like a bonfire!"

Other thieves climbed the trees for a better look, but the youth stayed with the bear, who wore a look of horror, her hands over her face.

"She's coming, she's coming! You have to run! She's going to kill you!"

"Why should we run? Who is she?"

"Armes Albrecht, my knight protector. Please, please go!"

Now it was the boy who began to tremble. Armes Albrecht, the King's Butcher, the Bloody Hand, Gorefiend Armes, War-Demon Albrecht. She was real? She was real?? She was a fairytale! But the boy had another fairytale in his hands before him now. So, maybe...

"What do they call you? Quickly!" The bear whispered.

"Trapper. C-cause I caught my foot in a snare once," the youth stammered.

"Trapper, you need to take me out of this cage, and run towards the town. As fast as you can! If we hurry, we can get there before she-"

A hideous shriek filled the trees, and there was a sound of cracking branches and a heavy, dull thud as the body of Snoops hit the ground beneath. The thieves began to shout in alarm. Far, far too late. A roar that could scarcely be human answered, along with shattering wood and charging through the brush.

"Oh god, she's here! ARMES, PLEASE! DON'T HURT THEM! THEY DIDN'T KNOW!"

It only took the knight a few minutes. She didn't even wear armor, her traveling clothes soaked in gore, face masked in red.

The clearing looked like it had been blasted apart by cannonfire. Trees were splintered, and the thieves had been scattered in all directions - in pieces. The ground was wet with blood, and Trapper clutched the crying bear to his chest as he hid in the hollow of a tree. He wanted to close his eyes, but was too afraid, and watched the heavy booted feet of the warrior as she strode slowly through the camp, and then very deliberately walked towards him.

"Come out here." Her voice was like iron, the command in it impossible to resist. He crawled out, trembling, gently setting the bear on the ground. The knight knelt and bowed her head.

"Have you been hurt, Princess?"

"Please, Armes. Please. He's just a boy. Please."

"Go back to the pack." The knight stood back up. "He's seen you." She raised her heavy blade, eyes burning with fury.

"I command you to stop!!"

Trapper whimpered as the edge of the blade halted inches from his neck.

"You will not harm him!" The bear spoke with a surprising amount of iron in her own voice. She placed her tiny form between the two, as if she would shield the boy herself, arms spread. "He will make amends! Won't you, Trapper!"

"Yes! Y-yes, I will!" He knelt and quickly began to draw the mark of the Redeemer in the bloody dirt with his finger tip. "I make my s-solemn vow, I won't say a word of this night! To anyone! Redeemer strike me down if I lie!!"

Armes held her blade ready for several long moments, the anger still burning in her eyes, before swiftly wiping it off on her shirt and slamming it back into the scabbard.

"We leave in two minutes. Others may come, and if you don't want a repeat of this evening, you'd be wise to stay hidden. Say your goodbyes."

The stuffed bear fell back onto her bottom with a gasp as the knight heeded her words, and took several deep breaths before turning back to the boy.

"I'm sorry. My father ordered her to protect me. I'm so sorry." She reached out and touched his hand with her soft little paw. "Run away from here and keep your oath. If she ever hears word of this, she will return, so.. please. Please. Be wise." With that, she quickly followed after the knight, crawling into the backpack before the War-Demon carried her away into the darkness.

Trapper knelt there a long while, till the fire died. Then he quietly rose, gathered his few belongings and began to walk in the opposite direction.