Assassanna's Creed Act II: Revelations

“To my dear student, Princess Anna of Arendelle, if you are reading this, I am likely gone from this world and have left you incomplete in your training. Enclosed are my final lessons to you.”

 

The redhead went over the letter quietly to herself on the ship to DunBroch, the first few times her hands shook, tears nearly ruined the paper, and her throat seized as these opening words alone reminded her of everything she had lost.

 

“First: regard my lifeless body. The stillness, the deathly pallor, the warmthless feel of my flesh, and recall my form upon my death. Whether you are reading this because of enemies of your country, personal enemies of mine or my guild, poison, a cold, or even an accident, know that death is a constant in the world that you will have to face, whether you continue this path or not. Know it can come at any time, in any form, and while we all might pretend a higher fate might guide us, or ironhearts and idealistic heroes can overcome what fells mortal men, death simply happens.

But remember that is what makes life so important and precious, and why the taking of life is a somber act.”

 

She read over the letter again, no more tears this time, the final words helping her keep her resolve. No matter what Elsa or Kristoff thought of her, they were her family, the most important people in the world to her. Even if it cost her her own life, she would make sure theirs would be long and happy.

 

“Second: Remember what I have taught you, but also remember how little you know. There is still much you will need to learn, and so learn all you can. The wiseman is the one who asks the questions. To help you with this, I have written up a list of safe houses, caches, contacts, and libraries you may consider visiting enclosed in this letter.”

 

Anna mentally reflected on this part during her trip while putting pieces of stained glass to her lantern to try to find the hidden message. When she finally did she nearly smacked herself. Of course he wrote it in a cipher too. And the key clue was written on the inside of his hood.

 

“The third lesson I impart to you, is the creed of my guild and order: when other men blindly follow the so-called truths of false prophets, of clergy, and other charlatans, we know.”

 

“Nothing is true.” The Princess whispered to herself as she recited the letter from heart in her mind while stepping out from her cabin and onto the deck of the ship.

 

“When other men bind themselves in laws founded on failing logic, on greed, and self-gain of politicians and deceivers, we unshackle ourselves by remembering”

 

“Everything is permitted.” She whispered while stepping off the gangplank and onto the docks, only once discreetly flicking the hidden blade open then back to close, fast enough for anyone who might have seen to blame their imagination.

 

DunBroch was an ancient kingdom which flourished under the rule of King Fergus when he united three other clans under him to fend off the enemies of Scotland, and continued to flourish under his familie’s dynasty until the political union roughly a hundred years ago. That’s what everyone knew. What few knew or wanted to discuss was the family’s “obsessive” interest with the occult after an alleged encounter by Fergus’ daughter, Merida with sorcery. And from there, they joined the Seelie, an order of lorekeepers who fought in shadows to keep the traditions of the highlands alive.

 

But none of this applied to Anna. She had a mission and time was running short. She had wasted two weeks on a boat from Arendelle and needed to reach the Weselton Duchy. Purchasing a horse while trying (and failing) to remain as inconspicuous as possible, she left from DunBroch on the night of her arrival, down the roads and towards Weselton, unflinching against the cold.

 

It was less than a quarter of a mile out of town when a the report of a rifle went off and in the blackness of the trees Anna saw the flash of a musket and felt the sting of a bullet whizz by her. She spurred her steed forward but a second shot hit the horse, sending it rearing and the princess onto the dirt road while her new steed staggered off into the night.

 

She lay on the clay, partially calm and rational, feigning unconsciousness as she heard her attackers begin to approach. The other half laid there, petrified with fear while she experienced flashbacks to the cold, dark, and lonely room she had been condemned to not long ago.

 

Through the veil of memories she heard something that made her heart nearly sink. An echoing clatter she had been all too familiar with from days of play in the castle’s halls, now taking a darker definition as she could hear the metallic noises now attached to bodies. A chanced glance and she saw at least two people approaching clad in impervious fullplate, and the gleam of more metal alerted her these thugs were as heavily armed as her.

 

“You wasted two shots on some pretty bint?” She heard one say while continuing to play possum. “The Duke’s payments ain’t gonna mean much if we blow all our supplies on locals!” The drawling voice scolded when another one argued:

 

“‘Some pretty bint’? Have you gone blind! Look at her! She’s armed to the teeth as us!”

 

“So maybe she was gonna sign up for the Duke as well? So you now just tried to kill backup. Genius!”

 

“Well then…” She could feel one of them moving closer. “Maybe we should instead induct her into the Band of Hawk?” grimey, hands, covered in a filth she could feel through her thick robes ran under her back and held her up. She felt his booze heavy breath on her face. “Maybe we can dress her up all in feathers and make her our mascot?”

 

He didn’t see the fist slam into his face until it was buried partially in his eye socket.

 

Sweeping out the molester’s legs and bringing herself up, Anna rose to face her startled attackers.

 

Five others. She had apparently punched one of the ones who shot at her, the two on full plate readied their massive arms, a heavy halberd and massive zweihander, the other rifleman discarded his gun and drew a boarding sword, and the last two were carrying spears stepped back, tensed.

 

“Don’t just stand there! Kill this wench!” The rifleman from the ground shouted and earned a hard stomp from Anna, signalling the fight to begin.

 

In a flash she broke through the circle that had formed around her, between the two armored mercenaries, easily evading their cumbersome weapons and tripping one over.

 

When the second one made a back swing with his pole axe Anna smiled with elation when she caught it and with a hard punch, dislocated the man’s arm, and a stomp to his knee took him out of the fight.

 

The two footsoldiers came at the assassin-trainee with their spears, each one worked in tandem to flank her and trust, but a deft side step and hard twist, Anna had driven their own spears into one another.

 

From her now prone position, she heard both soldier’s let out wet, gurgling whimpers and mewls of pain as blood spilled from their wounds or flooded their punctured lungs. Looking up, the redhead froze and went pale as crimson fluid spill on her face and into her eyes.

 

She barely noticed the rifleman swing down at her and nearly take her arm off.

 

Startled back to reality with a yelp, with shaking hand Anna drew a pistol with her uninjured arm. “Stay back! Stay back or I’ll shoot!” She half-warned, half-pleaded, but the marksman just drew out his own pistol.

 

“Then a duel it is!” he proclaimed. “Three paces and fire!” With deliberate steps that pursued Anna’s retreat, he counted down. “One…”

 

She couldn’t stop shaking, the blood on her face had lost the body heat but felt like they burned.

 

“Two…”

 

She stepped back, her mind racing as her opponent leveled his gun on her.

 

“Thr-”

 

Bang!

 

She cut him off and fired her pistol, her eyes averted and shut, for fear of what she might see. With great trepidation, she saw the man staring at her in disbelief.

 

Bang!

 

He fired his pistol, Anna falling backwards at the moment of the attack and feeling a piercing pain, shooting through her already wounded shoulder.

 

Attempting to focus through the pain, Anna drew the shaska with her and parried the marksman before kicking him onto him hard in the stomach to join her on the ground. She rolled herself up and began to ran but a towering shadow, gleaming in moonlight warned her she would not escape so easily.

 

She turned and raised her arm to block the zweihander’s downward arc and felt the shock go through her bracer, into the her arm, straight her bones and send her tumbling back to the earth. The Marksmen had recovered and with their armored friend, advanced on her to seal her fate.

 

Her breathing was hard, tears from pain and fear began to well in her eyes and roll down her cheeks, distantly letting her eyes wander to the fleeting silhouette of a bird against the moon.

 

“Would ya look at that, the little bint is in tears!” The first marksman, his face derformed from Anna’s earlier stomp on her suddenly grabbed the redhead by her braids and roughly jerked her up to meet his eyes. “Well, hush , little red and don’t say a word, daddy’s gonna fix you up nice and good. Cato, Felix, let’s drag this wench back to camp and get her some something minimal to dress in.” Silence was his response.

 

“Cato? Felix?” Anna and the marksman’s eyes turned in time to notice the two other mercenaries fall over, revealing a backside riddled with arrows.

 

The mercenary released Anna and began to nervously look around, when she took her own glance she saw the other three mercenaries now with a gratuitous amount of arrows buried in their bodies.

 

From somewhere in the darkness, a thick Scottish brogue taunted “In me ancestor’s day, we had a little means of dealing with unwanted Romans in our land.” The twang of a bow put an arrow through the Mecenary’s foot.

 

A sadistic side of Anna took some small pleasure in watching her would-be molester begin sobbing and pleading. It vanished when she watched another arrow go through his knee.

 

“See, tha Romans were fond o’ torture, an’ we weren’ that different in that respect. But tha Romans made such big ceremonies ‘bout it, draggin’ people off to dungeons an’ other dark places.” The new attacker stepped into the light to reveal herself.

 

A clearly local woman in flowing white with wild, curling redhair like the fires of hell stocked out from the wood, one eye hidden behind a black patch, the other revealed stunning teal eyes and a glint of bloodthirsty madness, highlighted by the large axe she held in her hands which replaced the bow and arrow she seemed to have used before.

 

“‘course, I never paid too much attention to history, so I could be getting things wrong. The important thing is the future. Namely yours.” Callously, she ripped her arrows straight out of the mercenary and replaced them in her quiver. A blue flame appeared in her hands and with a touch, the marksman’s wounds healed.

 

“Y-You’re sparing me?”

 

She smiled sweetly. “Your future is important afterall.” Her exposed eye now burned with insanity while brandishing the axe. “Like how ya use the next few minutes!”

 

Scrambling to his feet, the marksman took off screaming at the top of his lungs and Anna’s blood froze in her veins she the crazed Scotswoman noticed her. “Oh! I didn’ see ya there. Gimme a moment, would you?” She asked with such politeness before giving chase with her axe raised, shouting: “Gus am bris an là, agus an teich na sgàilean!”

 

All Anna could do was sit there in silence and shock. The feeling of death overwhelming her. It became outright overpowering when at last the Scot had returned, covered in blood and wearing a broad smile.

 

She reached down and looked inside the hood of Anna’s (actually Orelov’s), reached into her pockets and stole Orelov’s will and glanced over it, glanced over Anna, and groaned in frustration.

 

“Heaven’s preserve me, what load of crap have I been given to work with!”

 

Confused, wounded, exhausted, and possibly scarred for life, Anna let unconsciousness take her and pray this was all some bad dream.

 

“Your majesty, I have failed you and I have failed the princess.” Orelov said kneeled before the nearly despondent queen several days before Anna made landfall.

 

After several moments of silence, staring out the window at the softly drifting snow fall secluded to within the castle’s walls, clutching the slowly healing stump of her arm, as she had for a week now, Elsa finally spoke “You did your best, Orelov.”

 

“She took my coat, correct?” The Russian asked, having awoken only a few hours before and recently being brought up to speed.

 

Kristoff just nodded and rubbed the back of his head. “Yeah, she took everything of yours related to assassiny stuff… Sorry about that, we can get you new stuff.”

 

Instead the assassin seemed elated and forced himself to rise on his crutches. “Don’t you see? Then there’s hope. We can still find where Anna has gone!”

 

“But we know she’s heading to Wesselton.” Elsa interjected dismally and watched Orelov only smile brighter.

 

“Perfect! I know exactly where she will be.”

 

The queen fully snapped from her depression, hope gleaming in her eyes. “Then what are you waiting for? Take us!” She nearly froze the iceman’s heart when she felt him stop her.

 

“Whoa, no. You can’t, you’ve got things to do here as Queen. Like formulate defense strategies.”

 

“When I left, Anna went after me.” Elsa protested, attempting to gesture with her missing hand.

 

“And left Hans in charge, how well did that work again?”

 

While Elsa struggled with some retort (she didn’t want to say “Hans actually didn’t handle himself so badly, conspiracy of usurping aside”) Orelov instead chose to intervene. “He is right, your majesty. You must remain here and coordinate the defenses.”

 

“And I’ll find Anna.” Kristoff immediately volunteered, he might have missed Elsa’s skin turning white with dread, but it did not elude the assassin.

 

Shaking his head, he put a calloused hand to stop him, though unable to help but smile at their enthusiasm. Truly, Anna was loved. “Do either of you even know how I know where Anna will likely be?”

 

They shook their own heads.

 

“Do you even know why her taking my coat was so important do you?” Orelov was now chuckling softly and watched them shake their heads again.

 

“Maybe you have some kind of… Magical ability to find your belongings?” The younger blonde ventured.

 

“Nyet, tovarishch. If Anna did take everything of mine, that means she has a copy of my will, which also means she will likely head to the list of contacts I recommended she meet with.”

 

Kristoff looked incredulous. “Whoa, a list of all your contacts? Isn’t that pretty careless, especially since Anna’s- well. She’s a novice, let’s be blunt! She thinks she’s a full fledged assassin right now, but do any of us here think she’s ready to kill anyone? Even the Duke of Wesselton if he had a gun to Elsa’s head right now?”

 

Silence filled the room as that terrifying new reality settled in for all but the Russian who just shook his head and turned to leave.

 

“You should have more faith in her. If she were truly as weak as you believe, then I would have never done this.” He turned once more, and on his crutched bowed. “I swear to you, Queen Elsa of Arendelle, your sister will be returned to you, whether by my hands, by her own merit then.”

 

There was a resounding din as the door to Elsa’s room was closed behind the assassin.

 

“Well, if we can’t have faith in Anna, maybe we could try having faith in Nikolai then?” The ice miner suggested, placing a reassuring hand on Elsa’s shoulder and taken aback as the queen threw herself into his chest and wept.

 

Though initially shocked he didn’t find himself as uncomfortable as usual with physical contact and choose to embrace the older royal sister for all she was worth and all she was not. “Hey, Elsa, it’s gonna be okay. Nikolai was right, Anna’s done well for herself so far, and once he catches up to her, she’ll be home by Christmas-”

 

“It’s my fault! Don’t you get it? This my fault, I pushed her away and slammed the door!”

 

“Elsa, we all say things we don’t mean or make mistakes when we’re angry and scared. You were afraid of losing Anna.” Kristoff comforted with words of wisdom from his surrogate family.

 

“I don’t just mean banishing her! I mean my whole life! Everything! All of this because I- Because I can’t control myself, even if I didn’t have these- stupid!” Elsa howled in frustration, tearing from Kristoff as fury and frustration took her words and unleashed her rage on the walls and windows until the crystalline structures overlapped and ripped eachother apart as they battled one another as a perfect metaphor for their maker’s mind.

 

The storm was now filling the room, flurrying around the Queen.

 

It only calmed down when she felt strong arms wrap around her lithe frame. What truly shocked her was that instead of telling her to stop, instead of pleading her to calm down, she could hear him whisper to her: “It’s okay, let it out, Else. Let it go.”

 

Despite his enabling words to unleash the storm in her mind, they instead quelled it, returning Elsa’s sense of self to her powers.

 

“Now I know I said you need to help formulate defenses, but after seeing all this…” Kristoff gestured around the room and the destruction. “I think you just need to get out. Come on, I’ll grab Sven and Olaf and we’ll do…” He trailed off uncertainly. “Something, I don’t know, I’m sort of a working man so besides playing lute with my reindeer I don’t have much in the way of hobbies. But I swear, we’ll figure something out.”

 

Roughly two hours later, Kristoff was feeling like an idiot. When he had promised something fun and soothing for the Ice Queen’s mind, they ended up where Kristoff usually went to take his mind off of things: work. He was only saved from total humiliation by Olaf’s idea to bring food and have a picnic with Elsa and Sven while he set to his symphony of labor.

 

“You know, while I loved summertime, I think I am enjoying have these lunches during the winter, no ants to eat all the food. Unless you decide to have your picnic with ants but they’re never good company.” The snowman rambled cheerfully, oblivious to Sven not paying attention (his muzzle instead buried in the remains of a pie), the hot tea he was drinking kept putting holes in his body (only to thankfully regenerate), and Elsa was still mostly lost in her depression, staring distantly at the icy castle near the mountain peak.

 

Over Olaf’s inane musings (“I mean ants like to talk but they don’t have much to say, it’s always ‘for the swarm’ or ‘for the hive’! I think they might be fascists or even socialists.”), Kristoff worked to the rhythm of his saw as it plunged through the sheet of ice, the tempo was soon joined when he heard Sven tapping his hooves to the same beat, watching his old friend.

 

It started as a hum, swelled into a whisper, and song, his powerful voice was carrying through frozen lake clearing:

 

“Born of cold, and winter air,

and mountain rain combining!”

 

The ice queen took notice, taken aback that the stoic iceman of all people could sing so well.

 

“This icy force both foul and fair

Has a frozen heart worth mining!”

 

“Oh! I love this song!” Olaf cheered and grabbed a button box concertina from the sleigh.

 

“So cut through the heart, cold and clear,

Strike for love and strike for fear

See the beauty, sharp and sheer.

Split the ice apart

And break the frozen heart!”

 

Sven had now risen and begun to stomp his hooves harder to create the tempo, Olaf played semi-instrumental while joining with Kristoff as he chanted “Hyup! Ho! Watch your step! Let it go!”. The royalty present sat and stared almost blankly.

 

“Beautiful!

Powerful!”

“Dangerous!

Cold!”

 

Kristoff had finished his cuts in the ice and now caught the claw Sven had tossed to him.

 

“Ice has a magic, can’t be controlled

Stronger than one! Strong than ten!

Stronger than a hundred men! Hyup!”

 

The miner continued to calmly sing, even as an unexpected ice float rose with sharp and jagged points, nearly impaling him only for him to blunt it with a mighty backhand and resuming his work and his song.

 

“Born of cold, and winter air,

And mountain rain combining!

This icy force both foul and fair

Has a frozen heart worth mining!”

 

His movements were quick and effortless, pulling up enormous chunks of the queen’s element onto more stable surface. He was lost his work and she was lost in the music.

 

“Cut through the heart, cold and clear

Strike for love and strike for fear!

There’s beauty and there’s danger here!

Split the ice apart!

Beware the frozen heart…”

 

The song finally trailed off as Kristoff looked back at Elsa’s inscrutable expression and turned beet red. “I’m really sorry about that. It’s just an old work song I learned as a kid. I sort of sing it all the time while I, well, do this.” He gestured to his work.

 

Another moment of silence and he added: “That was the worse song in the world to sing in front of you, wasn’t?”

 

Instead, Elsa just smiled softly, her own cheeks becoming warm. “Beautiful, powerful, dangerous, and cold, is that right, Kristoff?”

 

“Well, I mean I don’t think you’re dangerous. Or cold, really.”

 

She was starting to grin a little bit now. “So, you do think I’m beautiful then?”

 

The ice miner was red to his ears now and wholly too distracted to notice his reindeer friend having gagged Olaf with a mouthful of carrots and dragged the construct closer to the sleigh.

 

“I- Well.. Uhh…” Kristoff stumbled over his words, coughed several times, and finally threw up his arms in frustration. “Yes, you’re gorgeous! Yeeesh! Why did I make that so difficult for myself.” A cleansing breath later he gave an earnest smile to match her own.

 

“Feeling better, your majesty?” He asked her and extended a hand to help her up.

 

Rising up with his help, the contact lingering the queen joked: “Well, I’m still missing an arm, missing a sister, and my country is about to be invaded by a man who thinks he’s a British Napoleon.

 

“Can’t you do something about the arm with your ice powers?”

 

Elsa paused a bit and frowned. “Well, I could but…” Around the stump, a layer of frost formed and became a sheet of ice. From the ice, crystalline bones created a skeletal hand and sheathed it with snow. The end result was something notably shorter than her real arm and missing the thumb.

 

“Never mind how off putting this must look.” The winter witch finished while Kristoff gave a critical gaze.

 

“I think I can help you with that. I know a thing or two about carving.” He muttered while looking between the magical prosthesis and her left arm.

 

“I’m not sure my right hand will be any more useful as a series of ice blocks than deformed.” The queen teased, unconsciously dismissing the fake arm and letting her cloak conceal the stump in a fit of self-consciousness.

 

“Are you doubting the talents of the royal iceman?”

 

“It was Anna’s decision to get you that position because she wanted to keep you around”

 

“Yeah, you need to listen to Orelov’s advice and put more faith in your sister. Ice is my life.”

 

“And I am ice, so does that make me your life?”

 

When Elsa pondered for the split second it took to understand the implications of her words, her pale complexion turned bright red along her her companion’s, but she went simply from flushed to, literally, steaming, when after a moment, he told her: “Maybe.”

 

In and out, consciousness swam before her, light flickering in her vision. Faintly, she could hear the voices near and distant at the same time. Fragments, pieces. The scattered phantasmagoria of the waking world danced just out of reach.

 

“...-oken up-...”

 

“...-eeds her re-...”

 

“...-oin’ ta-... ...-ke ‘er lazy as-...”

 

Faintly, she heard a scuffle and the sounds of clattering furniture.

 

“...-no don’t!”

 

Two faint shadows fighting on a far off horizon then a sharp pain exploded in Anna’s chest. Her breath stolen as her senses were jolted into a clarity. She could see the redheaded woman from the previous night looming over her with another man nearby in her periphery. But what her blue gaze focused on first and foremost was the large broadsword buried into her heart. Another jolt of pain and the blade was pulled out by the Scotswoman whose hand lit with a blue fire.

 

“See? She’s awake now!” She said in the most chipper of tones while touching the burning hand to Anna’s near wound.

 

The princess’s swimming vision returned to normal and she watched the blood seep back into the hold in her chest before it sealed itself in some surreal display, almost like time itself turning back. Once Anna’s heart rate returned to normal the only evidence that she had been stabbed to begin with was the hole in her clothing, she turned and looked at her assailant briefly and scrambled from the bed she was on, ending up tangled in the covers and falling to the floor.

 

“You not only scared her, you ruined the bedsheets and her clothes!” A male voice said and calmly walked to the tangled mess the redheaded princess was trying to free herself from.

 

“I wouldn’ do that if I were you.” She could hear the Scot warn, when Anna felt the man was close enough she lashed out with her legs and felt her foot hit a mark (while making her wince with pain). There was a ‘thud’ on hardwood as she heard the man whimper.

 

“I was trying to be friendly!” Anna heard him cry until she was finally free from her confines.

 

She was in a fairly small room, it looked like a mill, sunlight streamed from the outside and on the otherside of the bed was the Scotswoman, and right next to Anna herself was a crumpled heap of a man, scrawny, knobby, and made sounds that reminded Anna of herself when she was six years old and hurt.

 

Finding her voice, the princess dropped into a fighting stance as she realized none of her weapons were available. “Who are you people? What do you want?” Anna demanded in English, there was a look of surprise on the Scotswoman’s face.

 

It was soon replaced with a mischievous look and she replied in Norwegian: “So our prisoner knows our language. It’ll make secret keeping that much harder. But escape is impossible, you will talk.”

 

“Moira?! What are you talking about?” The man on the floor screamed once he processed his companion’s words. “She’s not-”

 

But before he could make an attempt at diplomacy, Anna had already leapt over him and darted towards the stairs only to be cut off, almost literally, by the older redhead who swung her sword down in an arc.

 

The princess didn’t lose momentum, but her moment of hesitation combined with the stinging in her leg meant she still felt the initial sting of the blade on her unwounded shoulder. Unminding of that, she went an uppercut straight into the Scots’ jaw. Anna’s fist burying itself into flesh and pressing hard against the bone until her opponent’s neck stretched and her body began to fall back.

 

The emerald eyed native then caught herself and shook out her head. “Oh, thank ye, I’ve been tryin’ to work out that crick in me neck fer ages.”

 

That was Anna’s cue to make a second dash for the stairs, narrowly avoiding something that had whizzed past her head.

 

“Moira! Have you gone crazy?” The man’s shouting sounded distant while the princess descended the stairs, nearly entire flights in single bounds. She had almost reached the bottom floor when a small she noticed a small child on the well, his eyes going saucer-sized as he watched the incoming redhead who barely avoided him and nearly crashed until she felt his small hands seize hers.

 

“Great, now he has decent reflexes.” Anna mused the moment a shadow loomed over both of them. It was, perhaps, maternal instincts that made the one redhead shield the boy from the other. It didn’t matter when the woman named Moira was suddenly bound in a strange net that seized tight around her body.

 

“Gawdammit Shaun, it was a joke! A joke!” She protested until the older woman lost her balance and tumbled down the remaining stairs, landing in a heap of tangled cords, red hair, and swearing. Above Anna on the stairwell, the scrawny man had apparently recovered and sighed with some relief, putting away what seemed like an enormous blunderbuss.

 

“Terribly sorry, ‘bout that, miss. Moira’s a bit of a nasty piece of work she is. I see you went and met my apprentice.” The man greeted Anna with rather audacious friendliness. “Say ‘ello to Princess Anna of Arendelle, Willie.”

 

The boy in the standing redhead’s arms turned and gave a great smile. “You’re really a princess?” His response was a slow nod. “I knew a girl as pretty as you had to be!”

 

Seeing her confused look, Shaun gently pulled ‘Willie’ away from the assassin-trainee. “Why don’t you go down into the basement workshop a bit?”

 

“I was just in there!” The boy childishly whined but didn’t even continue to stand his ground before heading back downstairs.

 

“I’ll make it up to him.” Shaun muttered and shook his head before regarding the princess. “Now, you have questions, so allow me to answer a few of the ones you asked already. Firstly, we are friends of Orelov, and thus, friends of yours.”

 

“Says you!” Moira shouted, still caught in her net. Her laughed was promptly silenced when the scrawny man kicked in her.

 

“Alright, then I am your friend at least. I won’t ask you to forgive Moira, because I never will myself.” his expression brightened. “Ah! Forgive me! Introductions. My name is Shaun, I’m a clockmaker by trade but… I also make quite a few marvels for the Seelie.” He told this to her like some sly secret to be kept from everyone in the room. But unless he really spoke of the court of Celtic fey, then perhaps his word as an ally were true. Despite his partner’s actions and words.

 

As if sensing where her mind went, he then gestured to the violent Scotswoman on the floor. “And, spitfire, is Moira McDonough, the Shame of DunBrouch’s former Royal Family.”

 

“Ah, stuff it, ya Sassenach.” The woman spat harshly. “Now let me outta this damn thing, I learned my lesson.”

 

Shaun threw up his arms in surrender. “Alright alright… After I answer the princess’ questions.” The Englishman ignored Moira’s frothing rage and guided Anna into the mill’s kitchen. “Now then, I believe I answered who we are. What was that second thing you asked?”

 

“What do you people want? Why did you bring me here?” Anna asked with some growing indignity now that the adrenaline rush was over. Shaun’s seemingly flippiant act of sorting through cupboards helped her mood not.

 

“Ah, yes! Thank you. Please, take a seat.” He offered while taking out a pot and filling it with some water. “To answer that, I don’t know about what Moira wants. Probably a fight since that’s what she normally is interested in. What my apprentice wants, well, he wants to be a master gunsmith and revolutionize the field. As for me, well that seagues into my own line of questioning, so I’ll answer any further questions first. Tea?” He politely offered with a smile.

 

The strawberry princess gave a skeptical look. “It’s not filled with truth serum or any other drugs, is it?” It seemed to earn a smirk and laugh from the British mechanic.

 

“Ha ha ha! No.” He cleared his throat. “Now, any other questions? Preferably ones that do not pertain to Moira since I have no idea how that woman’s mind works in the slightest.”

 

Relenting, Anna asked: “Alright…” she trailed off momentarily, somehow doubting her host would accept too many more questions, and she wanted real answers for her next one. “I want to know who or what are the Seelie and what is their connection to Orelov?”

 

Shaun smiled as though he had been waiting for this. “The best way to explain it is that we are those who bring change.” He let this hang in the air for a moment, either waiting for Anna to ask deeper into matters or genuinely believing this was the holy grail to the princess’ questions.

 

She decided to bite the lute dangling in front of her. “What kind of change?”

 

“Any change, the Seelie desires what the world is wanting. We want peace where there is war, we seek wisdom where there is ignorance, we demand patience when the masses hurry.” He explained with a level of grandiose theatrics and as wowing as it was, Anna was able to fill in the blanks in her mind.

 

These people were anarchists, chaosmongers, discordiants.

 

Was Orelov really in lot with these people? She asked about her mentor’s place amongst them.

 

“He’s been of some help to us.” Shaun answered and sipped his tea. “See, we’re not a singular, monolithic organization. We’re a loose and nebulous confederacy of groups with aligned goals. The Seelie’s closest allies are the Magistrate of the Magi, but our allies include The Marya of Egypt, the Assassins of Arabia, and even The Dragon of the Orient.”

 

“So, to what, if any of those groups does Orelov work with? I mean he’s Russian, do they have their own group?”

 

“They do, and he does belong to a organization, but to be perfectly truthful, beyond knowing he can be trusted, it’s not uncommon to know much more than everything I just told you about our secret societies. And then there’s the fact that all of the names I’ve listed are names which are given and assumed of each organization, we don’t pick our names, and few embrace them. Orelov’s primary connection is that he trained Moira and her siblings.” Shaun then regarded the cursing coming from the other room. “Unfortunately, there’s only so much any one can impart to another.” The cursing intensified.

 

Finishing his tea, he stood up and shut the kitchen door, making Anna feel uneasy. “If I had to guess, given Orelov’s tendency to get around Europe, I would wager he may be part of the, as I’ve dubbed them ‘Order of Whispers’, self-understated ‘messenger boys’. As you can gather from Nikolai’s talents, they do a lot more than just that-” Shaun froze mid-speech as the door gave way and a sword tip tore through his chest.

 

The kitchen portal violently exploded into splinters and a red faced Scotswoman stood where the door had once been. Anna’s face paled but she still threw herself over to Shaun, trying to get him clear of the insane redhead.

 

Between the vulgarities and the rage making Moira lapse between an incredibly thick accent to full Scots Gaelic or some pidgin hybrid speech, the princess neither knew nor wanted to know what her opponent was saying.

 

Her hand blindly groped for something, anything she could use to defend herself from the raving Scotswoman. She felt her delicate hands seize around a handle and blindly threw it at Moira, her aim made only worse by a shooting pain in her shoulder.

 

Moira didn’t even acknowledge the butcher knife flying in her general direction until it bounced off the doorframe, hit the ceiling, and landed in the floorboards between Shaun’s legs. Both of them looked at Anna with pale expressions.

 

“The blood ‘ell was that?!” Shaun asked incredulously, just as Anna had grabbed and hurled a fork at Moira with her other arm.

 

To everyone’s surprise, including Anna’s, the utensil landed prongs first in Moira’s shoulder.

 

The silence hung in the room for several moments until Moira shattered every expectation Anna had developed about her from the moment she saw her hunt down and butcher the Italian mercenary in the woods and watched her beam a smile and applaud zealously. Before Anna knew it, she was swept into the arms of the Scotswoman and into bone crushing hug that Anna was sure drove the fork right into her fellow redhead’s bone.

 

“An’ here I was worryin’ you were jus’ a pretty face lookin’ fer a quickie adventure! If only you coulda seen the bloodlust in your eyes!” Moira cheered when Shaun coughed up some blood onto the floor.

 

“Moira… Could you please?” He asked with a disconcerting calm despite his right lung being punctured and no doubt flooding with any of the blood not seeping from his wound.

 

“Huh? Oh, right.” The bushy redhead released Anna, pulled the fork out and then swirled a blue fire on her fingertips which she then pushed into Shaun.

 

Once again Anna watched the alien sight of time seemingly reversing as the blood withdrew back into the wound and flesh seal itself, leaving only ripped clothing in its wake.

 

“There, gonna keep cryin’ like when ya came outta your mother’s loins ‘r ya gonna man up as much as you Brits can?” She asked her partner in harsh tones despite offering her hand to help pull him up.

 

All the while, Anna just stood there looking blankly.

 

“I think she still has more questions. Specifically about your gifts.” Shaun seemed to cue his Scottish peer with a tone that told her to atone for the poor first impressions.

 

The ginger returned to form and rolled her green eyes. “It’s magic, okay? No need to break out the torches and pitchforks, and I don’t gotta explain nothin’!” She flourished by making two small pillars of azure flames rise from each palm.

 

Anna still was staring blankly and Shaun palmed his face at the crassness of his contemporary.

 

“She can’t explain because she doesn’t understand herself. She was simply born with this gift for healing.”

 

Finally, Anna snapped out of her mild stupor but gained a quizzical look. “Why did you bother to bandage me up then? Why does my shoulder still hurt from the gunshot or why don’t you just heal your shoulder?”

 

Sighing dramatically as though she had to explain this a thousand times a day, Moira elaborated: “I can only heal wounds I’ve made. It’s more useful than you might think though. I’ve pulled convincing betrayals, allows me to go as rough on my sparring partners as I want, and it’s given me generous room fer mistakes when I tried to figure out how Shaun makes all those wonderful explosives.”

 

“Did you know you can apparently survive, though likely very briefly with two thirds of your head missing?” Shaun happily quipped. The mental image drained the color from Anna’s face a bit.

 

“Aye, also allowed me to put myself through some real torture to gain great levels of pain tolarance.” Moira decided to (inappropriately) demonstrate this by grabbing the fork from where she had set it and ram it into her own eye and the rest of what she did remains forever locked in Anna’s repressed memories.

 

But Anna and Moira were happy the princess avoided fainting, or emptying her stomach’s contents onto the kitchen floor.