Princess

***Author's note*** Ok, please nobody kill me! I know I'm prolly driving a few readers crazy with all the new stories I keep starting when you want more chapters on ones already posted. I promise I'm not abandoning any of my stories.
I've finally figured out the issue that was keeping me writer's blocked on Faery What the Fuck. And I am totally obsessed with my "gaming" story. (And you better believe if there was a real online game like that out there, I'd be standing in line to sign up for it!) I was off line for about a week-that's my story...and it's true actually, lol.
The problem is that I have way too much brain-not-required time on my hands. And so to keep the insanity at bay, I write stories in my head. Unfortunatly I usually decide "I totally have to write this story!" And there you go. But I promise, eventually I will deliver!

"Get ready to run princess." Kia elbowed me none to gently. "She's about to do it."
"Huh?" I mumbled, not taking my eyes off Teal or the extremely large street punk she was trading insults with. I couldn't believe she was standing off against this guy, literally toe to toe! I mean he was huge.
Teal's not some dainty five foot two muppet, although her eyes ARE blue, or teal actually, hence the nick. She's about five ten, and lusiciously hard bodied. Half the recruits are secretly in love with her, and I'm not talking just the male recruits. I'll never admit this to a soul, but even I've found myself drooling a time or two, and I play strictly with the boys. She spends half of her free time lifting weights or sparring with the other Guard recruits who're into boxing.
Unfortunatly, she seems to spend most of the remaining extra time trying to get a rise out of me.
She's the one, who after one look at me, three minutes into my first day, gave me the mocking nick princess. I'm not sure anyone even knows my real name. I never got a chance to say it.
Kia is basically her second. They both come from the same hard scrabble, hard life mining planet, and I guess they resent the fact that I'm from Taos, which is basically a recreational planet where rich people go and live off their trust funds or the yearly profits of their multiplanetal companies.
They don't know my story. And I'm not telling it to anyone.
It's nobodies fucking business. I'm used to being the outsider. I'm here because I don't ever want to go back there, and Daddy's people would never think to look for me amongst Guard recruits.
I didn't want to trail along on this "traditional" Friday night off base excursion. I knew it was going to be a miserable night for me.
No one talks to me, and the insults are always just a little meaner and less subtle when there's only the recruits around. But if I stayed back it would just give them an extra reason to hate me and justify it by thinking me nothing but a wealthy dilettante.
So here I am. And yes I'm having a horrible time. And now on top of that...
"Why am I getting ready to run?" I demanded, not really expecting an answer.
"Teal's getting to the meltdown phrase."
I had to admit she did look a little ready to lose it-in marked contrast to the looming mountain of a man who was even now throwing back his head and laughing at her.
He didn't look bothered at all. He was calm, cool, mocking...and obviously pissing the hell outta Teal.
"You could write a script to this." Kia continued. "Shit you could prolly time it down to the second. In a minute he's gonna pat her on the head and say something about how cute she looks when she's trying to be tough, she'll deck him, and then all hell will break lose and it's Battle Royale time."
Oh great. This was just what I needed to make a bad night worse.
"So why are you warning me?"
Kia gave me a contemptuous smile, and I got it-just another chance to insult "princess."
"Well I didn't figure you'd have the guts to stay and help our side so I'm just giving you an advanced warning to get ready to run off with your tail between your legs."
Bitch. Fucking, hateful bitch.
"So why doesn't someone derail Teal?" I demanded.
Kia sneered at me. "Hey feel free to try. I'm sure she'd love a lesson in how you superior Taos autocrats practice the delicate art of compromise."
Well I guess it was a night meant for "losing" it.
Except I don't think anyone was expecting me to be the one to lose it.
"Damnit, I can't run!" I wailed. "I'm not fast, and it doesn't matter how many hours I put in training. Back home I'd run all day sometimes, I just don't get any quicker!"
"So then how'd you pass the entrance tests?" Kia asked, looking genuinely interested in my answer. It was the first time she'd looked at me with anything besides barely concealed dislike but I was too upset to do more then passingly notice.
"Because I was good at everything else. I never had the chance to just run away so I had to be good! But I almost lost everything because I can't run. I passed with three seconds to spare, three seconds!" I yelled furiously into Kia's startled face.
"Hey princess, you wanna pipe down back there? I'm trying to have a conversation here."
Teal. The thorn in my side from day one. And now she was gonna do this to me on top of every fucking thing else?
I charged up to Teal and the street punk who were proving to be the bane of an already shitty night.
"No I don't wanna pipe down you hell spawned cunt! If I'm gonna be getting my ass kicked because I can't fucking run then you're hearing this first! I hate your fucking guts bitch!" I screamed into her face.
"And YOU!" I spun and jabbed my finger into the rock hard chest of the man who'd been baiting Teal with almost indifferent ease. "Are you such a Neanderthal simpleminded numbnuts that you can't find anything more challenging to do then make Teal lose her temper?"
I think the entire group, theirs and those that should have been mine-but weren't-sucked in their collective breaths as one.
"Damn girl!" I heard Kia breath out in stunned awe. "Way to piss em BOTH off."
Shit. Just...shit.
"Oh what the hell." I sighed. "Always knew I was destined to die young."
And I drew back my fist then slammed it as hard as I could dead center into street punks face.
I'm a lot stronger then I look.
My bones might be streamlined rather then robust but everything that covers them is honed, hard, and built for the art of defense. I guess I've always been in training, from the first day my mother let me leave the house without her. I've never been allowed the luxury of just running away. I've always had to fight. And I know how to do it. I also learned something that bigger, stronger assailants rarely seem to grasp...
The game of war is often won by the better brain, not the biggest slab of brawn.
But I was still really, really surprised when the guy I hit actually went down!
"Hey, cool..." I mumbled, a bit dazed.
And then Teal let loose with a raucous yowl pretty much right next to my ear and smacked me exuberantly between the shoulder blades.
"All right princess! Now let's ROCK AND ROLL!" She screamed and flung herself over the still not yet moving body of the dude I'd downed to kick another guy in the balls.
I'd been planning on putting as many bodys between me and the guy I'd finally realized was called Grade anyhow but Teal's approving wallop to my back sent me rocketing forward...
"Fuck!" I yelped, ducking under the lazily looping fist aiming straight at my face then spun and shoved the guy Teal's way. Here bitch, kick these balls!
Awk! Now I had two punks trying to sandwhich me between them.
I slid to the side, and the punch meant for me landed instead straight in the gut of the second street punk-who took the attack personally and slugged back, both brawlers immediatly forgetting about me to commence beating the shit out of each other.
Hah hah, I cackled.
Whoops!
I threw myself into a tight somersault between the legs of the mountainous female slab reaching for my throat, and pushed off her ass to get the momentum to regain my feet. That did exactly as I'd calculated it would and propelled her at rocket speed into a Guard recruit with the highly appropriate nick of Ox. They both went crashing ass over tea kettle and continued rolling around trying to strangle each other, taking down other combatants left and right.
Oh yeah, I still had it!
I punched the air in cocky victory-then yeeped and grabbed the shoulder and hip of a compact little redhead who was charging me with more blood lust then brains and threw her headlong into Kia.
"Hey, bitch!" Kia bellowed, startled, but she was laughing at the same time.
"Pay attention you slacker!" I yipped, laughing back at her, then whirled to one-two punch-belly then jaw-some blond chick. She dropped like a brain hammered cow and I was thinking, this is kinda fun actually!
"Princess! Where are you bitch?"
Uh oh.
Damn, that man had a bellow that coulda parted the red sea. And there was NOTHING of the holy to it!
I hadn't expected him to stay down. Now I just had to stay out of his hands.
I darted to hide between a cute street boy who'd obviously listened to his momma's commands to always clean his plate, peeking around him to try and locate Grade, whom I could hear still yelling for me.
Why is it that every time I make an impression it's never one that's good for my health, happiness or odds on surviving to fight another day?
Eventually cute boy realized he had a shadow using him as a blind and spun around to face me.
The expression on his face was just as cute as he was. I had to assume though, sadly, that cute boy didn't have much going for him in the brains department because he couldn't seem to settle on an expression. His face kept shifting between virtue outraged, arousal and just simple cow eyed confusion.
I probably could have kept hiding behind him indefinatly as he doggedly slugged at anyone who came near him if I hadn't given in to the urge to goose his butt.
What can I say, he had a delicious ass.
"Sorry babe. My bad."
I kissed air and then shoved him back into the fray. But I was nice about it. I pushed him towards Kia rather then the nuts kicking prone Teal.
She squaked in surprise. "Damnit knock that off!" She yelled back at me, half choking on laughter as she tried to wrestle free.
I was kinda in a quiet no battle zone for the moment, and I zoned out just a little watching Kia and cute boy, who seemed more horny then combative. Yep, there was definatly more groping then grappling going on.
And then he was looming up over me.
Oh FUCK!
"Payback is a bit..."
I didn't let him finish. I head butted him in the belly, propelling us both forward right into Helga the Viking wench, and the aptly named Ox, who were still obsessively trying to throttle each other. Ox, bless his bovine brained soul, happily let go of Helga and latched onto Grade instead. You gotta lose those ADHD types!
Me, I made haste and crawled my ass outta there, not caring who the hell I kneed or where.
I danced my way back out to the fringes of the Battle Royale. I wasn't gonna run away for home, but hey if I could just kinda hover here on the outskirts-I could live with that.
Ah rats! Helga and Ox were back at their who's gonna choke the other unconscious first game, and my bad boy was...?
Wrapping strong, long fingered hands around my neck, that's where!
I didn't even try and break the grip, I just let myself fold and went down.
And oof! Bastard weighed a fucking ton!
Somehow I managed to bring my knees up between our bodies-happily for me I'd also managed to locate the grudge holding Teal-and alley oop!-flipped him off me and right into Teal!
I bounced to my feet with a happy lil yip. "Hah hah, I win again!"
He didn't even bother to attempt any damage to Teal, just flung her off and lunged to his feet, his eyes glued to mine.
Ok damnit now this wasn't working the way it normally did! I couldn't seem to distract the son of a bitch! Every one else, yeah, but NOT HIM!
I high tailed it into the middle of the roiling mess of bodies-oh goody, an unoccupied Guard, and he's a big boy-snuck behind the guy, and as Grade thundered towards me, shoved the kid in his path.
Unfortunatly, Grade seemed to be tiring of the game. He punched the confused kid unconscious-wince, sorry dude-and stopped in his tracks to stare at me.
"You're doing this deliberatly."
"Doing what?" I asked innocently, tripping a Guard/punk combo that thrashed too close to me his way.
He batted them aside almost indifferently, his ebony eyes still pinned on me.
"You fight-but only if you can't redirect your oppenent towards another battle."
Ok now I didn't like this one bit.
Nobody ever catches on to the way I fight.
Back home it was me against basically every one else. I'd learned that the best way to walk away with the least bruises and shed blood was to set off as many little mini battles as I could. Somebody was always mad at somebody else. And I used that. I studied the art of conflict escalation so that eventually, all but forgotten in the chaos I'd orchestrated, I could just quietly slink away.
Bastard.
I shrugged. "Those that fight and run away..."
"Live to fight another day?" He purred.
Gods, how had he moved so fast? His hand was around my throat again, but in a different way, almost gentle, caressing, his fingertips stroking the pulse that was hammering beneath my ear.
"You're amazing princess." He rasped, his face lowering to mine, breath hot and sweet against my cheek. "Chaos and subtle destruction, cloaked in silky skin. Green gold eyes and golden Rapunzal hair. What are you, little one? Who are you?"
"I'm no one." I whispered, hating how tear choked my voice sounded. "I just want to be-nobody."
"I want you, little nobody. It would be so good. You know, don't you? That I see you? Little precious, little pet, I SEE you."
I wouldn't have given in to the achingly sweet seduction of that velvet voice. I can't ever give in. I can't ever love, or trust, or believe. I can never. Never belong. Never love or be loved.
I should have taken my own life the day I learned. I know this. But I didn't want to die. I still don't.
Instead I took on the indentity of my little maid, the only love my life ever had, the gentle voice and the tender hands that wiped blood away and salved bruises.
The one that they tortured and killed trying to find me.
I buried her deep where no one will ever find her and I took her name and her identity card and the money that my beautiful, naive mother showered upon me for no real reason ever, and I bought a one way ticket off Taos and I ran.
I'm not stupid. When I got here, I applied to take the Guard tests under my real name. Because they're much more likely to still be looking for me under the name of Annabelle Lee.
So you see, I wouldn't have given in.
But his silken spider web whispers of seduction were rent asunder...
"Get the fuck off my girl!"
It was Teal bellowing that, and ripping me free to shove me towards Kia.
"Time to head back princess". (And strangely the name was no longer spoken as an insult.) "The town's Guard really hate it when they have to arrest their own recruits." She laughed, and then we were flying, running, back to the cars waiting to carry us safely home.