~~IIII~~
Young Ves is sitting on her bed in her favourite pyjamas eating a cookie, as she eats, she gets crumbs of the cookie all over her Pyjamas, knowing very well that Mother is going to be angry at her. But she doesn't care, Mother is always angry, the only time she isn't is when Ves isn't around.
The room of which she sleeps is decorated with nothing but the most expensive of decorations lining the walls, Her carpet is one of the most expensive and comfortable things you will ever feel in your life made from a special kind of material sources from a land fa far away, Her bed feels like it was made from only the softest of clouds with curtains of silk, with gold patterns sown onto them.
In her room lies a huge window looking over the snowy peaks of the nearby mountain tops, the snow glittering in the stary night.
She hears a crash from the bottom of the stairs two floors down; she doesn't make a sound even though she does worry about what happed she knows that if she does make a sound her mother who sleeps in the room over will hear.
She looks out the window once more seeing that snow is falling from the sky, she sighs knowing that there is no way it will last till morning.
She finishes her cookie in the silence as she looks out her window wanting nothing but to go out into the snow and play, but she can't with her training and lessons they take up her whole life just hours after hours of it with no end in sight.
It's been months since she was able to see her friend Safron, the princess, ever since last month that father was no longer able to stop her, her mother has been giving her so much more training than ever before in her life. All to become Safron's personal guard when she's old enough to do so at 16 years old, but when not just let them play together.
As Ves falls back onto her bed she looks up to the ceiling, the light up top of her room powered by magic gleaming in the room, making sure that it's nice and bright. Soon she will wake up to more loss and bruises from more brutal training, and she wishes to just once sleep easily and peacefully.
And not have nightmares that night about what happened one month ago.
~~IIII~~
10 years later
Ves wakes up from her nightmare in a flurry of sweat and gasping breaths like she had just ran a marathon. Her heart is beating in a wild fear as she tries to take deep breaths to control her breathing to help calm her down so she can think properly about what happened and that it's not happening now I happened a year ago.
Ves has changed a lot in these past few years, no longer the cookie loving 5-year-old she once was. Now a battle scared (from the training) 15-year-old, her mother is pushing her more than she ever was before. Her room has also changed, though not by much (Hah sarcasm go brrrrrr), Her room is now painted purple with the walls covered in purple paint. Her carpet is also bright blue as well as her bed.
Ves shivers as her mother knocks on her door and with a clear tone of anger in her voice shouts "Girl! Get your lazy ass up now! You have sword training in 20 minutes! If you're late you're spending a night in the dungeons!"
Ves grumbles to herself though making sure that she's quite enough that her mother won't hear through her door "Bitch,". Then goes to say in a normal tone of voice so that her mother can hear so she won't break down the door "Yes mother". She then gets up and dressed for the long and painful day of training she has no choice but to suffer through.
~~IIII~~
5 years later
Ves Blinks, her luscious eyelashes moving as she looks at what the hell the princess was just doing just before she walked in, Clothes are strung everywhere and the princess herself is just sitting on the ground and huffs. "Ves you could have warned me that you were about to walk in, look at all the mess you made me make just now."
Ves Looks at the princess before chuckling at how stupid she looks right now. "Princess, you always make a mess no matter what I do, now guess who's going to have to clean all of this up after you". Ves walks over and starts to help fold up the clothes to help put them in the old oak wardrobe, she also chucks one of the dresses at Safron so she can get dressed out of we underwear.
They have a lot planned for today, so Ves needs to get the princess up as soon as possible. Ves is currently wearing her standard royal guard armour for today as they need to go to the queen today for a petition to help the people of their lands because of the famine in her lands, she needs help desperately.
"I'll wait outside the door while I wait, we don't have much time we only have an hour till we really have to go" Ves says as she tries to get the princess to move faster. Ves then waits outside the door to stop anyone from trying to get into Safron's room as she's changing.
Some odd 20 minutes later the princess Safron finally is done so she exits her room out into the marble hallway. "Fine I'm ready to go now, are you happy now then." The princess is wearing a beautiful blue dress with star like dots of gold all over it to give the impression of a night's sky, also wearing some small heels to give her a little more hight, also wearing her small tiara.
Ves averts her gaze from Safron as she picks her rapier up from the place, she leaned it against, she nods to the princess and speaks to her before moving "Alrighty then princess we have only 40 mins now until we have to be gone so let's get moving, chop chop." I then start to speed walk through the palace towards the carriage depot already expecting her to follow behind me.
~~IIII~~
"Princess, come on you know I'm not allowed to eat at the same time as you." I complain as the Safron drags me to eat at the main dining table with her. The dining table is made of the oak of an ancient tree that has been growing for 300 years. I struggle against her grip lightly, so I don't hurt her accidentally, but she forces me into one of the seats next to her anyway,
She shakes her head as she sits into the seat next to me, "Nah Ves, we do this every day. You know I'm not able to eat all of this food for breakfast." She gestures around to the table filled to the brim with food "And I'm well aware you haven't eaten in a while so eat" She then filles a plate for me and forces it right in front of me.
Ves groans at her blatant disregard of the rules that the queen set out for the princess well aware that if the queen found out she would probably be punished. Really princess? Like every morning, I tell you I'm fine, I'm not hungry." Ves instantly contradicts her own words by starting to eat right away, chowing down on the food in front of her.
Safron smirks knowingly, "Ha told you, you were hungry. Now eat up. 'cause like you said, we have a long day ahead of us" Safron sighs, she has always hated when they have to visit her mother. She has always been extremely strict for her entire life, not unloving but very strict.
~~IIII~~
The royal carriage rolls on the dirt road, pulled by two strong and fast far horses. Ves sits on the front of the carriage driving Safron to her mother, the queen. It's a two day carriage ride away, so they have a long way to go.
Safron herself has gone back to sleep in the carriage, Safron has always been a very tired person and never really likes staying awake for too long, especially since there is literally nothing to do on such a long carriage ride in a dark forest. They've been on the road for an hour now, just driving away from the safety of Safron's manor.
Bandits have always roamed these roads, but with the latest famine they've been attacking merchants specifically to try gain control over the area through starvation of all the guards and sending prices sky high.
Bandits have never attacked the royal carriage before though, too risky. But now they have gained confidence, believing that all the guards have been starving with all their efforts and well they're not wrong nearly all the guards are much weaker with the lack of food to go around.
So it's not surprising when they ran into a bandit blockage, the bandits with their swords raised high threatening Ves to stand down. "Hey guard-ass stand down or we will gut you as well, once we've had our fun with the princess first maybe, if you're lucky" One of disgusting looking bandits threatened and then laughed with some of his fellow bandits.
Of course, that option didn't appeal to Ves at all, so she held her rapier high, preparing to guard the princess with her life. "Bandits, stand the fuck down. I can and will kill you where you stand." Knowing that there isn't any chance of that from the bandits she raises her rapier high and prepares to attack.
(Sorry, this is my first ever attempt at writing a combat scene so it might be a little crap)
The bandits charge first their rundown long swords posing no risk to Ves's armour other then cutting at the cloth, of course Ves doesn't allow them to attack unopposed deflecting their attacks with her rapier.
She doesn't stay on the defensive either, she stabs and slices at them with her rapier Taking a couple of the 15 bandits down with speed and accuracy, taking one down one after another.
Of course, one starving girl alone is not enough to defeat 10 grown strong men, so they slowly start to ware her down with constant attacks, she gets slower while they continue to be relentless. The battle has been going on for half an hour now, with Ves protecting the princess with everything she has.
One of the bandits gets a lucky Hit on Ves, right across the back sending her sprawling to the ground with pain as it feels like she being ripped apart from the back in complete and utter pain. She screams aloud with pain as the bandits laugh and leave her bleeding on the ground.
The bandits walk towards the carriage laughing with each other along the way preparing to have their disgusting fun with the princess. Ves crawls toward them, still in immense pain but still not giving up on defending the princess. But with how injured she is there is nothing she can do to stop them as they pick up her rapier and stick her back into the ground with it then knock her out.
~~IIII~~
She awakens hours later, the carriage is still there. Her eyes widen in hope, and she stupidly pulls the rapier out of her back and leans on it as she stumbles towards the carriage hoping to see the princess alright.
But when she pulls open the carriage door she drops to her knees at what she sees, Safron in a state (that I do not wish to describe too deeply because I will not be able to handle it) of extreme undress, blood strung everywhere. The bandits, once they had their fun had killed her brutally and took everything they could from her body.
A Ves lay on the ground with tears at her best friend of her entire life, just dead killed without mercy and she screams in anguish and vows with all her heart to kill every last one of those bandits.
As she vows and her mind is filled with nothing but complete and utter rage at every last bandit, and sadness at the death of her friend she doesn't notice the illithid ship appearing, nor does she notice it's tentacle dusting her inside on of the ships tad-poling pods.
Nor does she notice the hooded figure in the distance, watching everything that just happened, her blank eyes showing nothing but apathy at this.
~~IIII~~
Authors note
So yeah, that just happened. So let me tell ya' I did not actually expect this chapter to turn out like this, I just started the first place I could think of then the words just kept flowing out.