She woke up groggy and aching, in a comfortable bed. Her head was pounding and moving was as annoyingly painful as the light shining in the room. It was a square room, traditional elven decorations donning the walls of the otherwise pretty bland bedchamber. Struggling to get up, she sat at the edge of the bed. She was wearing a light shirt and shorts that weren’t hers, which confused her slightly but she disregarded it. She headed for the door and opened it sheepishly, peeking outside. The corridor had seemingly similar rooms, hers sitting at the end. She opened the door fully and walked out, taking in her surroundings. She was barefoot but she liked the feeling of the carved wood under her feet. Strolling through, she noticed someone at the end of the corridor, carrying blankets. She strutted closer at a slow pace, being forgiving to her body.

“Excuse me?” she called out, doing a hand gesture to catch their attention.

The blankets scattered on the floor and the person, who was an elf, immediately kneeled in front of her, forehead to the ground.

“I’m sorry! I hadn’t noticed you!” they said, apologizing profusely.

“I… what are you doing?” replied Keela, slightly confused.

“I meant no disrespect princess! I was simply looking away!”

“Princess? Who are you talking to?”

The poor servant looked up, confused. Keela crouched down next to them, patting their head.

“Come on, get up, I don’t know what you’re so flustered about. Name’s Keela. I was hoping you’d point me to where I could find my travel companion”, she said, mustering a kind look despite her aching muscles.

“Y-yes of course”, said the servant, quickly getting up.

Keela went around picking up the scattered blankets, making the servant fall into another series of apologetic rambling. She stacked them neatly, putting them on a table nearby. She then followed the servant who led her down a series of corridors, up to a guarded door. The guards quickly stood to attention when they noticed Keela, looking straight ahead. The servant opened the door onto a large room with hanging lanterns over a table at which sat three figures, eating. One of them was Bertaut, who looked surprised as he noticed her. She ran towards him and jumped on him, making his chair fall back. She hugged him profusely, crying tears of joy.

“I’m so glad you’re okay!” she screamed, holding him tight.

The two other figures looked confusedly but simply averted their gaze.

“Keela, dear, I’m glad you’re okay too but I can’t breathe”, replied Bertaut, patting her back awkwardly.

She immediately got up and grabbed a chair, sitting next to Bertaut. Looking around for the servant that had brought her here to thank them, she found them nowhere.

“Princess, you should’ve dressed yourself before you came in. That attire is not fit for your status”, said one of the figures, looking away.

“Well, I woke up in a room with just a bed. Also what’s this princess nonsense?” replied Keela, picking up a grape from the table and throwing it in her mouth.

“Oh dear, she forgot”, said Bertaut, grabbing the bridge of his nose.

“Princess Kalianore, surely you must--” started the other figure before Keela promptly interrupted him.

“Stop calling me princess. And Kalianore. Keela sounds better.”

“...Keela, surely you remember something from yesterday.”

“I remember Bertaut getting shot in the knee and then I blacked out.”

“N-not quite no.”

The figure gestured to the side and a servant brought a mirror, placing it in front of Keela. She looked in and gasped from surprise. She had scars running up her neck and on the bottom of her jawline where blood vessels had popped. Her hair was tied in a tight ponytail. Pulling on the band revealed that half the length was completely white. The most jarring thing however, was her irises. One of them still had the usual bright green coloration but the other one was completely white. She turned towards Bertaut and grabbed his dagger, grabbed a handful of her hair and cut off all the white parts, making the figures gasp. The white discoloration crept up and reconquered half her hair length under her fascinated eyes.

“You see this? That’s so weird!” she exclaimed, affairing herself to cut the rest of her hair.

Bertaut grabbed the dagger from her hand and started cutting her hair himself. She didn’t protest, letting him go to work with a gentle touch. She looked to the side to the two figures who were completely dumbfounded, looking at the handfuls of hair fall to the ground.

“Bertaut, explain yourself”, said one of the figures, anger and confusion distorting their expression.

“I know, she’s marginally different than she used to be”, replied Bertaut, combing the hair with his fingers, causing Keela to smile.

“What could’ve possibly caused this? Where did you find her?”

“In the slums of Wul, at a bar, getting in trouble while downing a beer.”

“We had arranged that she would--”

Bertaut’s hands crisped in Keela’s hair, pulling a knot a little too strongly, getting a small yelp out of her. His gaze was fixated on the figures with anger burning in his eyes.

“The only thing you arranged is to abandon her. You left her to the wolves”, he said, pulling the knot apart by extending his fingers.

“You shouldn’t question us, we did what we had to do”, replied the figure, making a quick motion of the finger.

A guard came closer, putting his pike towards Bertaut.

“We appreciate you bringing her back, but this is akin to high treason”, said the figure, looking at him in disappointment.

Keela tapped Bertaut’s thigh softly, who stopped touching her hair. As quick as a flash, Keela jumped up to the guard’s head level, wrapping her leg around their head and pulling it down to the ground with force, knocking them out clean. Dashing out and grabbing a kitchen knife from the table, she stopped sharp with the blade drawing a pearl of blood from the neck of the figure. She stared into their eyes menacingly, crouched on the table, making every guard in the vicinity tense up.

“I don’t know who you are but you have a lot of explaining to do before you can throw your authority around and put a pike to his neck”, she said, her grip steady on the knife’s handle.

Sweating, the figure called off the guards and asked her to sit down politely. She did, sitting back in front of Bertaut, humming a song softly.

“You should introduce yourselves before doing anything threatening”, she said, pulling her legs up to sit cross legged.

“M-my name is Haryk Daran, I used to be advisor to the crown, which was you”, said the first figure, stuttering from the shock of what had just transpired.

“I am Feno Virqen, treasurer to the crown”, said the second figure who tried to stay stoic but had a drop of cold sweat pearling from their forehead.

“Good, good. Now then, Bertaut, I know you, but I feel a new introduction is in order”, said Keela, smirking at him in the mirror.

“I am Bertaut Rokian, former leader of the 2nd special operations squadron who operated directly under you, the Lowshifters”, said Bertaut reluctantly with a sigh.

“Alright! Now does someone mind telling me who I am?” she said, looking around to all of them.

A silence weighed down on the room, every single soul too afraid to speak. Bertaut sighed again and broke the silence.

“You are Kalianore Aekian, princess and heir to the throne of the kingdom of Noclye, also known as ‘The Cruel Princess’ and ‘The Thunder Demon’ due to your efforts in the war”, he said, looking away.

Silence settled in once again, Keela’s hair fell over her eyes, covering her expression as she processed the information that was just given to her. She looked back up with a smile, moving her hair out of the way.

“Well, living in the slums for twenty years did change me so we’re going to rewrite that reputation! I am now Keela Norra Aekian. And I don’t particularly want to lead a country but if I have to, I will”, she said, mustering all the confidence she had.

As soon as those words escaped her mouth, a group entered the room, talking as they walked in.

“Haryk, we heard that the princess was sleeping? Should we--”

The sentence got caught in their throat as they noticed Bertaut and Keela sitting at the table, the last bit of hair that was long being cut off by Bertaut’s dagger. Keela recognized them immediately as the group that tried to kill them. Rage filling her head again, she vanished from her seat, grabbing one by the throat and slamming them in the ground with such force that the ceramic shattered from the impact. Bertaut ran up to her and pulled her off, making her abruptly come back to her senses. The leader who she had slammed into the ground sat up, coughing.

“Keela, may I present you the Lowshifters”, said Bertaut, dreading the worse.

“I wanna spar with him”, said Keela, freeing herself from Bertaut.

“You.. what?”

“I want to spar with him. We have some things to settle.”

“You can’t just spar with people like that…”

“But I can. And I will. Do you accept?” she asked the leader, extending a hand to help him get up.

He grabbed it and pulled himself up, massaging his throat. He stood a full head taller than her.

“Why of course princess. It would be an honor.”