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Retreating back to my sleeping mat in what feels like defeat, I hide from the prying eyes of the camp. They all know what has happened to me. They know the king has claimed me, and they will be expecting his seed to take. They’re going to be disappointed.
“Blaire…” he stays to speak to me, though this time there is a literal wall between us.
“Shut up!” I hiss. “Don’t use my name.”
“You will learn in time that your temper will get you nowhere. If you are offended because I wish to breed you, perhaps you are offended by nature itself. Did you not come to my world to seek beasts to breed?”
“Yes. I know. Irony and hypocrisy. I get it.”
“You enjoyed the mating. You gave yourself to me willingly. It was only when I again expressed the hope for conception that you became incensed. But you knew what I wanted. I told you.”
I did know. I guess I was just stupid enough to think that the sex meant something else too, like real romance, and like actual love, wasn’t I fucking stupid to think that. I’ve known this king for all of a week. I’ve submitted to his animal training and I’ve given him my body though in truth we barely know each other at all. Expecting him to love me was too stupid for me to even bring myself to express.
He waits until he realizes that I am done talking, and then he leaves. I know he will be back. It is inevitable.
Six
Blaire
AAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEE!
I am woken in the middle of the night by a sound like the babbling of a very angry brook which grows louder and angrier by the moment. At first, I think it must be the remnants of a dream, it is so strange. But as it grows louder and the fires in King Equs’ camp are lit, I realize that it is real.
There is a small thunder on the horizon. A bunch of tiny lights is coming over the nearest rolling hill, little pinpricks, like the stars themselves, are angry. There are chariots coming too. I can hear the squeaking of wheels and the thundering of hooves, and the shouting of fierce warriors.
I stand and I stare as Equs’ men start screaming around, running for weapons, arming themselves. But it is too late. We are already being overrun. I assumed because everything was small it was far away. But it wasn’t. It was just small.
The thundering hooves belong to very small horses, stocky wee beasts attached to carts and driven by small people, none of them taller than four feet high and many of them far smaller.
This is the kind of weirdness I was hoping for when I came to Epona Prime. Not the kind of weirdness that has seen me seduced and caged, awaiting the inevitable failure of my birth control at some point in the distant future.
The people in the chariots are basically absolutely people. They look like short humans with fully adult faces and bodies, perfectly proportioned in every way. They have a variety of colors of skin, some pale, others darker. Their hair is likewise eclectic, I see flowing blonde locks, not unlike my own, and wild ginger curls. They are wearing a variety of animal skins, feathers, and dyed robes. It’s like being attacked by a tiny, furious rainbow.
There is no doubt in my mind that this is a war party, some kind of guerrilla warfare unit. The little horses move with speed akin to a larger beast, but they are far more nimble even with the carts on. Their drivers direct them around the camp, while archers stand at the back of each cart, twanging arrows into everything.
I don’t know what the fuck is happening, but I love it. The sheer chaos gives me joy, knowing that Equs didn’t see this coming and is now on the back foot. Let’s see how he likes it, being at the mercy of a sudden onslaught he doesn't know how to battle.
By rights, his larger and perhaps more vicious warriors should be absolutely decimating these charioteers, but they're not. Because his warriors are brutes who rely on superior strength, and the attackers are nimble and fast as hell. They’re there one moment and gone the next, losing their arrows, catching targets, and moving onto the next one. Several arrows even manage to come through the walls of the pen and go scooting by me, leaving nothing but light scratches by some grace of God. I throw myself on the ground because that’s what you do in a gunfight. I don’t know if it applies in an arrow war.
War in movies goes on for ages and has all sorts of cool fights and brave acts and all sorts of things. War in real life is quick, and though it could be brutal and bloody, on this occasion, it’s not really either of those last two things. That’s because I am seeing something I never imagined I’d see… Equs and his troops are fleeing. Like cowards, they are mounting up and riding out. And they’re leaving me behind. Typical. I’m not even surprised.
