Kind and wise and magnanimous King Nydon's daughter has run off with a bard. Obviously she was tricked, as his castle is a happy place.
“Wraithvine is the name? Yes, you’ll do. Take along anyone you need. Here’s the princess's picture. Ignore any of her pleas, they’ll be the man’s magic. Just drop her off with the gate guards when you bring her back…” -- Anon Guest
Something was rotten in the nation of Bevuran. The key was in His Majesty's instructions to "just drop the Princess off" with the guards at the gate. That was not the action of a loving and concerned father. That was the negligent dismissal of a controlling parent.
The king insisted that the castle was a happy place. Certainly, everyone inside it smiled... but none of those smiles reached their eyes.
The streets were clean, nobody lacked for work, and everything looked so pretty. Everyone in view looked happy. There was nothing immediately wrong with Bevuran. And that was what stank about it. Everywhere had its little flaws. This level of forced glee and beauty had to have a corrupt underbelly of fascistic control.
Honestly, it was a wonder that the wandering minstrel hadn't lured anyone else the hell out of Bevuran. Then again, the people living there didn't have as many resources as a Princess. From what Wraithvine could gather, even she had to play a shell game with a maid wearing her dress and walking visibly along the parapets whilst the lady herself absconded in the maid's clothing.
A typical, almost storybook ruse.
If it's silly and it works, it's not that silly.
"I will find her," said Wraithvine. "And obey her true will." A carefully-worded phrase that would allow the king to believe what he liked while Wraithvine knew exactly what ze meant.
Then ze went about finding the Princess Regintrude. Gods. Her father had to hate her. No wonder she got out of there at the first opportunity.
It didn't take long to track down Pricess Regintrude and the Hellkin Bard, Madrigal. The Princess didn't escape in her maid's clothes. She escaped in a Paige's clothes. Replete with the short-cut hair.
Wraithvine began to have a suspicion of what truly encouraged Regintrude to escape. Ze decided to take a gamble on that. "Ah good," ze said. "The Prince has not come to harm."
That look of shock and elation nailed it. Bevuran was one of those freak polities that didn't tolerate those with a soul-body mismatch.
This was going to take some intense planning and a lot of good work. Changing the body to match the inner truth was relatively easy for a pure-blooded Elf. Not so much for anyone else. That said, there were ways to help the others with that.
But first... to give the king what he thought he wanted.
. . o * o . .
"There was an unfortunate mishap," said Wraithvine, bearing a rather large cage covered with a red cloth. "A curse I cannot undo. The princess has been... transformed." Ze put the cage down and used magic to move the cloth aside.
There was a goose in the cage. "That's odd," said the king. "Princesses are usually transformed into swans."
"You know your daughter is a Princess like no other, sire." Wraithvine took another strategic step away from the cage as the guards attempted to approach a hostile goose.
They might find out that they had been fooled. Honestly, Bevuran deserved to have an angry goose[1] loose in the palace. Meanwhile, the Prince seeking his new name was going to have every help Wraithvine could offer.
[1] Not that there's very many other kinds.
[Photo by Hussain Badshah on Unsplash]
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