Calla looked out onto the still lawns surrounding the palace, deep-blue shadows obscuring the scene as she stared out her window with a nervous sort of resolve on her face. She'd thought of running away before, of racing past the curtained windows as her siblings and parents slept on, her dark hair, unbound, flying behind her in slow motion as she made her break for freedom, but never before had she ever put such a plan in motion. Now that it had come to it, it seemed a lot less glamorous than it had in her mind: she was dead tired, jittery and she was beginning to suspect that she should have come up with a plan as to what to do after she reached the hills outside the outer walls. "Never mind", she said to no one in particular as she gracefully raised one foot to the windowsill, then pulled herself up. She looked down. It was a longer drop than she remembered it being. Struggling to squash the panic that had been trying to claw its way up from somewhere around her middle for almost four days, she took a deep breath and slid her legs off of the ledge, hoping very much that the sudden weight on her hands wouldn't drag her off, especially as there was nothing to break her fall at this particular spot.

She dangled there for half a minute, waiting to see if anyone had heard something suspect, but there she was greeted by a very welcome stillness and decided to press on. Just like she had practiced dozens of times before, her foot found a small space between stones, her hands dug into the think vines that had started to take over the more elderly turrets and she began a painfully careful descent. After what seemed like several eternities, although it was probably only five minutes, she reached a small ledge that marked where the original roof of the palace had been and began carefully treading the narrow way, one foot planted precisely in front of the other until she had worked her over to where the back gardens were. She loved the gardens, if only because she could escape from Piece and Jonathan, her older brothers, by hiding in the spaces under the thornier roses, and from her sisters, Elizabeth and Marianne, because their pale skin would be darkened undesirably by careless exposure to sunlight. Personally, Calla didn't see what the fuss was about, but she had never had a creamy white complexion to maintain in the first place, so it didn't matter if she saw the light of day every now and then. In fact, the tree she was now climbing down was one of her favorite retreats from the world, an old maple that none of her siblings seemed to suspect she was even capable of climbing, although the fact they never guessed that was why she never filed down her claws seemed to hint that it was out of their general unwillingness to even acknowledge that she existed as a person. Even her own parents had always tried to find excuses to avoid running into her, or to introduce her at balls, banquets, hunts etc. etc. That was, she reflected bitterly, until last night when her father sent a message to her room, not wanting to personally venture into the servants' quarters:

"To my youngest daughter,
While you have perhaps not have had the natural advantages of your sisters, or even the grace and humility one would expect from even the lowliest chambermaid, I bring good news to you at last. With the engagement of dear Marianne, my thoughts turned to the subject of finding a suitable match for my remaining daughters, Elizabeth and yourself. For Elizabeth, this was a mere trifle, as she was much sought-after by many appropriate gentlemen. You, however, no one seems to have a single recollection of, so it was only after much hard effort that I managed to procure for you a fitting mate. He comes from a very respectable lineage, and has sat on the Justice Council for over twenty years now, as well as having a sizable fortune. You should show your new husband-to-be your greatest gratitude when you meet him at the introduction ball, which we have arranged for tomorrow. The rest of the family implores you to put your best face forward and not to ruin what may be your last chance for a long time."

Her father had enclosed a small portrait of her prospective husband--a corpulent, seedy old goat if she ever saw one--and sealed it with the official stamp. They were serious about getting rid of her this time, just as they had been the previous five, but Calla always got her way in the end, although never before had the candidate made her acquaintance beforehand. The suitor in question this time went by the name Expugnacius Decimer Halvan and they had met several occasions, most of the time after she had spent the better part of a feast or ball trying very hard to avoid him. Perhaps he found her exotic, or maybe he just assumed that a girl unmatched by eighteen would be getting desperate; in any case, she had had more than enough of his sleazy advances without him becoming her husband, and on top of that he was more than double her age. It was strange, though, this sudden action on the part of her father, considering that her parents had been hoping the world would forget about the second-youngest princess so they could go on ignoring her existence. Every time before they had sort of half-heartedly shoved some brat she didn't know in her general direction in a crowded room, which obviously never had very impressive results. But for the manner the message was delivered, she might have assumed herself safe, but something about it being committed to paper and ink combined with the seal frightened her. Thus motivated, she had immediately decided to escape.

She hurried through the rosebush maze, the cold dew numbing her feet through thin slippers, until she reached the hedge bordering the garden and, ducking into a hollow beneath the think branches, proceeded to quickly remove her nightclothes and shoes, replacing them with some rough hunting clothes and worn boots she'd liberated from the locker of one of the younger guards on her usual nighttime strolls through the empty corridors. With her hair tucked under the hood, she could pass for a boy fairly easily as long as she didn't make eye contact. Besides, they were more suited to escaping than her sister's old silk nightgown anyway. She buried the discarded garments in beneath the hedge and then peered out at the path beyond to see if the morning guard had begun her rounds and, thinking they had passed, began to crawl out of her hiding-place. Just as she was about to make a break for the wall, some twenty metres away, she heard a voice coming down the path.

"And I young lad and she a young lass,
We both set to see
If such a love were meant to last,
But yet she would stay free"

Just in time she darted back under the cover of her leafy cover, although she worried he may have glimpsed her tail as she rolled into the depression near the roots. He certainly paused in his singing for a moment, although he soon resumed his song and continued walking. Calla supposed he must have been a little late, or else he was sent to get food from the kitchens, although lack of hurry in his footsteps suggested the latter. His voice sounded familiar, but she couldn't quite place where she'd heard it before, although it might have been in connection with a young man who sometimes peeled potatoes below her window, although she had never heard that boy sing. Whoever it was, he certainly had a beautiful tenor. She listened until his voice and footsteps faded before hurtling out of the hedge and running full-tilt to a bushy spot at a corner of the wall and diving into the rather limited cover offered by the sparse leaves. Taking a small knife from a pouch around her neck, she began to work at prying the edge of a small, rusty grate from the entrance to a narrow drainage tunnel through the wall, the corroded nails coming out of the decaying mortal surprisingly easy. Once she had removed it, she carefully laid it in the bush in front of the small hole and crawled in.

The inside was dank and dark and smelled strangely of pickles, which Calla could see no reason for at all; the slimy coating covering the walls gave off a slightly sour odor, which might have given her that strange impression, though. It was a good thing she'd tied back her hair and tucked it under the hood, especially given the unidentified goo that quickly coated her knees, b front and hands, as the slightly sticky consistency might have made it hard to remove. It reminded her of the time Piece, two years her senior, had pushed her into an old (and fortunately dry) well, although there was no bucket landing on her head this time, so at least this was an improvement in that respect. Actually, once she got used to it, it was nearly tolerable. Nearly, of course, being the operative word here. Fortunately, the wall was only ten metres of cramped, smelly, squish tunnel thick, and she reached the end after only five minutes of crawling on her belly, arriving at the opening just in time to see the first feeble rays of dawn coming though the second screen, this barrier giving way even more easily than the first without even having to use any sort of tool. As she pulled herself out it occurred to her that the castle defenses really were remarkably pathetic. Honestly, if anyone wanted to invade they'd have a wide variety of ways to sneak in without the guards even batting an eye. She was distracted somewhat from these musings, however, as she finally squeezed through the opening and landed in the marsh at the edge of a large lake, scaring the pants off of several perfectly innocent frogs in the process. As she watched the terrified amphibians scatter, she took her first breath of free air as a brilliant grin lit up her face. At long last, she could leave! She made her way along the wall to a wooded area near the lake shore and rested beneath a tree, reflecting on the events of the past night. It was very peaceful out here, and yet very wild to her eye. In the grounds, where she had grown up, nearly everything--within the confines of the garden and the main house, at least--was laid out according to plan, and even the innocuous wildflowers on the ground out here would have been plucked and burned, lest they spread, had they appeared along the pathways. Here, they grew everywhere completely at random, bright spots of orange and yellow peeking out from the shadows that still lay thick amongst the trees. Inhaling the smell of water and trees and earth, Calla sat down on the roots of what she thought must be a willow, judging from the pictures she'd seen and rested her back against the trunk, perfectly relaxed...only to sit bolt upright ten seconds later. Something had moved.

Her eyes darted quickly about, hastily scanning for the source of the rustling noise she'd heard, but could not find it. She cautiously rose to her feet and began backing into the trees; if whoever (or whatever) it was hadn't seen her she could hide, and if not...well, she wasn't prepared to go back quietly. Looking around for a hiding place, or even a weapon, she saw a wild rose bush and ducked behind it. Someone wearing a hooded cloak was coming closer. Dark boots left large footprints in the mud by the shoreline as he--no woman was built like that--stopped to examine something on the ground, and Calla suddenly was hit with the distinct possibility that she might have been followed. To make her discovery even surer, there was a single, clear print she'd left even though she had tried to stay to the rocky areas to avoid leaving prints in the mud. Obviously the mark had been spotted, as the tall man made his way over to the trees, every step bringing him closer to Calla. Desperately searching with her hand in the nearby leaves, Calla managed to find a branch with decent heft and waited, stick in hand, for the worst.

"Good morning, Princess. I don't suppose you also were out for a nice walk, too?"