Michael S. Atkinson's Blog, page 43

A Stressful Situation

This story was written for Trifecta’s weekly prompt. It expands on my previous stories, here and here, involving the all too brief life of Constance Magenta, treasure-hunter. Enjoy!

Constance Magenta was not the sort of person who used expletives lightly. She had been brought up to believe that those sorts of words should be used only in appropriate situations, when one was under extreme stress. Her archeological career, to date, had not been terribly stressful. Constance’s most exciting discovery had a Babylonian pottery shard that had reincarnated Ben, her loathsome squid ex-boyfriend. Other than that, she hadn’t had much call for profanity. But now, plummeting towards certain death in an underground cavern, Constance had time for only one last exclamation. “That stupid shiny-ass Crown!”

Instantly the thought flashed into her mind of her disapproving mother. Juliet Magenta wouldn’t have stood for that sort of thing. She also wouldn’t have approved of Constance’s disheveled appearance, particularly her undergarments. “Always wear clean underwear,” Juliet had admonished her wayward daughter. “Suppose you get into an accident on one of your…digging…things.”  Juliet had never quite approved or understood Constance’s chosen career.

Constance, of course, hadn’t changed her underwear or anything else for three days, so intent had she been on uncovering the famed Angelus Crown, treasure of kings, find of the century, guaranteed to get her a spot on the History Channel. But a second thought went through her mind then: would her body ever be recovered? If she rotted away and future explorers found only her skeleton, all well and good; the underwear problem would be moot by then. But suppose someone found her lifeless remains before that? Suppose it was that Bracken idiot from America? If that arrogant snotty-nosed pompous stuffed-shirt toadbrain found her corpse bedecked in soiled underwear, she would just die.

Constance had only one more second to reflect on the irony of that last statement before she hit ground. The very last thing that went through her mind was an unforgiving spur of rock.

 

Fates

This weekend’s Trifecta challenge was to write 33 words about a famous trio, from literature, history, or pop culture. I decided to go with mythology. Because mythology’s fun, right? Of course, right.

“Lachie! Thread!”

“You know, Clotho says zippers are big nowadays….”

“I’m not using zippers, Lachie. Thread works just fine.”

“You have no imagination.”

“Whatever. Just hand me the flippin’ thread, will you? Oy.”

 

 

The Inner Frog

This story was written for Trifecta’s weekly prompt, and continues the saga of the Third Little Pig. For those new to the story, basically the Third Little Pig was investigating the murder of Snow White. With the debatable assistance of Prince Evinrude of House Charming, the pig’s investigation led to the discovery that Aurora, aka Sleeping Beauty, was responsible for the murder, as she had figured out how to manifest herself in the physical world as opposed to the dream world. Worse, by murdering Snow White, she had gained the power to transform herself into a giant snake. She then chased after Evinrude, the pig, and the Lady Eulalie who had wandered in by mistake. And now, back to our story….

Prince Evinrude didn’t have any more time to reflect on his situation, ponder his backstory, or bemoan the lifestyle choices that had brought him to this point. He had about two seconds before the giant snake was upon him. That, of course, led to a dilemma, Should he whack at the thing straight on, or leap heroically and try to cut its head off as it passed him? Evinrude would have liked to give both of these options thorough consideration, but he was clean out of time. The snake lurched towards him, and-

He didn’t go to the side, or even stand in his place and flail about wildly with the sword. He went straight up. Then he did a neat backflip and found  himself standing on the musty ceiling, looking down at the startled snake as it rolled past. Aurora checked herself, couldn’t stop in time, and wound up in a sudden awkward pile of snakey coils. She tried to untangle and come at Evinrude again, but he leapt to a side wall, balanced on it for one incredible second, then flipped away as Aurora shot at him again. She hissed something that was probably snakish for “Stand still, will you?”

Evinrude wasn’t about to stand still. He didn’t know what inner animal he had unleashed, but he loved it. He did a final backflip, perched on the ceiling again, and then struck dramatically with the sword. The shining blade slashed through Aurora’s snake-form like paper. Light flashed, the snake howled, and suddenly it wasn’t there anymore. In its place was a young woman wearing a pink ball gown, who appeared to be napping. She stirred, sat up, blinked a moment, and then yawned prodigiously. “Goodness,” she said. “I feel like I’ve slept for a hundred years!”

“Yeah, you kinda have,” the Third Little Pig said, from his position in the corridor shadows. “Way to go, Evinrude. Guess being descended from a frog came in handy after all.”

“What?” said Evinrude.

 

L is for Little Fibs that Couldn’t Hurt Anybody

Last time in the Catrina Chronicles, the Yellow Fairy was about to fight a wizard’s duel with Peter Mordred so she could turn Catrina’s consort Perry back from a bear into a human person. Meanwhile, back at the castle…

Catrina was very much perturbed. It was one thing to decree that two people should settle their problems by a jousting match. It was quite another thing to actually organize it. There were a hundred logistical details to consider. She had to decide where the match was going to be; one couldn’t just hold these things on any old strip of lawn, after all. Catering had to be arranged. Javelins had to be provided. Seating charts had to be drawn up. She had to arrange for minstrels to play stirring tunes as the knights charged at each other with their pointed sticks. And that, of course, led to the issue of which knight should represent which family in the dispute. It was all so maddening. Even more so when she had to look after her newly born twins into the bargain.

Catrina had never been one for administrative detail. Perry, now, Perry had a head for these sorts of things, being a librarian’s assistant and all. But where in Character Hell was he? Abruptly, when the minstrels’ representative approached her in the castle throne room and asked if she could arrange to buy new harp strings as the old ones really were too frayed, all as Tamalyn and Timothy were howling for simultaneous diaper changes, Catrina snapped. Before she decided anything else, she was going to blasted find Perry. “And he had better have a sufficient explanation!” she exclaimed to the astonished minstrels’ representative.

Finding Perry was, of course, easier said than done. She searched the whole castle thoroughly. No one had seen him. No one, that is, except for his cousin the librarian. When Catrina got to him, at first he hesitated, shuffling awkwardly about and staring at the floor. Catrina glared hard. “Clearly, sir, you know something about where my husband has got to. I’d very much like for you to tell me as well. Please.”

“Well…” the old librarian said, trying to determine the right words to say. Then he decided that there really were no right words under the circumstances, and so he blurted it out in one great rush. “He touched the magical trousers of Merlin, and got turned into a bear. Then he fled the castle.”

“A bear,” Catrina said. She had heard rumors, but had dismissed them as idle gossip. Now she suddenly felt like she had to sit down. She plopped dazedly on a conveniently placed ottoman.  “Perry. Bear. Trousers. Bear. I…I don’t understand.”

The librarian was not looking forward to this next part at all. “Well, it seems that the trousers of Merlin are magically warded, so that if anyone who’s under an enchantment themselves touches them, the power of the trousers reacts. Perry was under some sort of enchantment, obviously, and therefore…”

“So…what, he was a bear all along and got turned into a human by mistake? He’s a prince in disguise? What? What sort of enchantment would he be under?”

Here the librarian had a choice. He had done some research after his poor cousin got turned into a bear. A bear was such an oddly specific thing to be transmogrified into, you see. After hours of dusty toiling in the castle archives, he had finally found an ancient magical text that listed all sorts of transmogrifications, and why they came about. There he had learned what Perry must have been, that would have caused him to turn into a bear. But if he told that to Catrina…he knew her heart would break. And she had the twins too. What would they think? And so, he made a swift ethical decision. “I don’t think it’s anything terrible. Didn’t you say that he had become Santa Claus in another time?”

Catrina sighed with relief. “Oh, right, yes. I had forgotten.” (This was no surprise, as her author kept forgetting that too).  “Well,” she went on, “I had worried that he was really a spotted toad gone wrong.”

“Oh, no,” the librarian said rather too hastily. “He is definitely not a spotted toad.”

She might have questioned the way he said that, had she thought of it, but at that moment there was a sudden loud crash, followed by more crashes, people yelling in shocked voices, and a flurry of alarm bells. Catrina ran into the corridor and bolted for the castle walls, her eyes blazing in irritation. All the things she had to do that day, and now her castle was under attack, again. This was completely unacceptable! The nerve of those people, whoever they were! Couldn’t they have picked a more convenient time to attack?

She scrambled up a flight of steps and burst out onto the east wall of Shmirmingard. There she stopped in her tracks in complete amazement. These weren’t ordinary attackers, oh no. She had expected a troll army maybe, or even a standard human army from a rival kingdom. She had some experience with modern warfare, what with her time-traveling and all. But this…this was completely beyond her ken.

The sky hummed with floating ships. That was the only way she could describe them. They looked like ordinary ships, from their glimmering sails to their prows carved in the shapes of mythical beasties, but they were floating. She could see birds ducking under their hulls. Then suddenly light flashed from their oaken sides (at least, she assumed they were made of oak; Catrina wasn’t too keen on biology), and the ground below erupted in plumes of earth. A squidge of mud splattered across Catrina’s cheek. “Oh dear,” she said. “This is bad.”

Shmirmingard’s knights rushed to the defense, sending up volley after volley of arrows. The arrows burst into splinters before they got anywhere near the floating ships. “Magic,” Catrina said quickly. “It has to be. Well, I’ve got a few magical tricks of my own!”

She knew exactly how to handle these people. Her trademark slow smile lit her face, even as she pelted back down the steps and towards her bedroom. Floating ships, her eye. Just wait till they encountered what she’d picked up on her last time-travel run. She’d show them. She’d-

Catrina tore into her bedroom, flung wide the doors of a particular wardrobe, and stopped dead in her tracks. It was gone. Mlrning. The Shovel of Thor. The most powerful weapon she possessed, even above her Sporksaber. It should have been there. Why wasn’t it there?

The answer to her question came with a sudden bolt of piercing white light that slammed her right into her own wardrobe. Catrina bounced off the back wall and landed in a pile of mothballs, but she sprang up quickly and started to rush out again. She came face to face with a solid wall of clear blue ice, encasing the wardrobe entirely, and her inside it. Catrina banged her fists on the ice, but to no avail. She could just see outside it, though. Standing calmly before the frozen wardrobe was a collection of blue-uniformed officers, their leader holding the Shovel of Thor in her gloved hand. Catrina was so upset by the sight of this invaders in her own room, holding her hard-won Shovel no less, that she couldn’t fire off a challenge more stirring than “You give that back!”

“No,” said the leader in clipped tones. “This Shovel is now the property of the Atlantean Expeditionary Fleet. As are you. As is all this land. I, Admiral Lucia, claim it for Atlantis.”

“You have no right to claim anything here,” Catrina shot back. “I’m Catrina, lawful princess of-”

“We do have right. Among other things, right by marriage. Your prince consort. He isn’t really yours. He’s ours.”

Catrina went very pale. “What?”

The officer sighed, as if she had better things to do than explain all this. “We magically shielded him so he could infiltrate your country and report back. Didn’t even know he was doing it. But he’s your prince now, so we claim the throne.”

“He was working for you,” Catrina said, in a voice that was small and quiet. “All the time. His name isn’t even Perry, is it.”

“No. Real name’s classified. Now, you’ll remain there for the present. My lieutenant will be along to collect you. Resist: you die. Surrender: you live. Simple as that.”

Admiral Lucia turned and marched away. Catrina slid to her knees in the cold wardrobe. She couldn’t fathom it. She just couldn’t. It wasn’t right. And then she wondered if anything would ever be right again.

This has been another exciting episode of the Catrina Chronicles. For previous episodes, go here. You can also visit my Amazon page, where I’ve got something new now; you can buy a paperback copy of all the Catrina stories from the first year of the Catrina Chronicles. Because if comic strips can do collections, why can’t I, right? Of course, right. 

Late Cretaceous Payback

This weekend’s Trifecta challenge was to write a 33-word time travel story.  This was what my muse gave me. Enjoy.

Marsha wanted to meet Newton. Cindy wanted to see dinosaurs. Cindy’s wealth funded their research. She got her way, like always. But Marsha knew how to set the chronometer. Pity about that comet…

The Origins of Evinrude

This story was written for Trifecta’s weekly prompt, and also continues the saga of the Third Little Pig, which has now involved Prince Evinrude and the Lady Eulalie and several other people. Stories are tricksy like that. Enjoy!

Evinrude hadn’t really wanted to be a prince. He particularly didn’t want to be one now, considering that he was stuck in a clammy corridor with a giant snake barreling towards him, his only defense a magical sword of unknown properties. How had he gotten into this? His family, House Charming, hadn’t always ruled their small kingdom, had it? Evinrude’s history tutors, curiously enough, had never told him about House Charming’s origins. Evinrude didn’t even know who the first Charming king was. He assumed the man had been some heroic prince who’d married the right princess. The real story was a bit more complicated.

It had all begun with a frog. A frog named Herbert, specifically.  Herbert rmembered exactly the day he had achieved consciousness. The wizard had no idea what he was doing, just mucking about with his wand. Herbert had been just sitting there thinking froggy thoughts, when suddenly, bam! He knew things. He knew, specifically, how locks worked. And so he escaped that very night, seeking a quiet place where he could be happy. Eventually he splashed down in a lovely little pond with flies and water lilies everywhere. “Finally,” Herbert thought. “I can settle in peace and-”

“Oooh! A frog!” cried a nearby princess. “I can kiss it and make it a prince and live happily ever after!”

“Er, half a minute,” Herbert protested as the princess grabbed for him. “I’d really rather not-”

Smerp went the princess. Flash went Herbert. He tried changing back, but a second kiss didn’t reverse the magic, and it only made the princess think he really liked her. Herbert spent the rest of his days chasing the rainbow of frogginess, but he never succeeded. He and the princess decided not to tell their children that their father was a frog, for obvious reasons. And so Evinrude didn’t know a thing about his froggy backstory. Nor could he explain why he, every so often, had an inexplicable desire to go jump in a pond.

K is for Killer Tomato Wizards

Last time in the Catrina Chronicles, our heroine had just decided to settle a legal dispute by having the parties engage in a jousting match. Meanwhile, the diabolical Susan was making her way into Character Hell, and Katrina and Ermingard were still garden gnomes. Before we continue with their storylines, however, let’s go back to the Yellow Fairy’s attempt to change Catrina’s consort Perry back from being a bear….

The Yellow Fairy raised her wand for the third time. She hadn’t turned Perry back from being a bear yet, though she had given consciousness to a random flower and turned a bush into a glorious display of fireworks. This time, though, she was bound and determined to get it right. “On the count of three,” she began. “One, two, thr-”

At that moment a tomato flew out of nowhere and hit her in the head, rebounding squishily and plopping on the ground. “What on earth?” the Yellow Fairy exclaimed. She’d had tomatoes flung at her before, after a disastrous New Year’s Eve speech in her village, but she wasn’t giving a speech now, and there weren’t any of Ewokington’s citizens around either. There was no cause for anyone to be throwing tomatoes about.  Not unless…..and suddenly she realized what was about to happen. “Perry, run,” she said quickly to the startled bear. “RUN!”

The bear grunted stodgily. It clearly had no intention of running; after all, it was a really large bear. There wasn’t much around that could harm it, right? The human Perry would’ve taken to his heels long since, but the bear-Perry didn’t see the need. The bear-Perry was wrong. Really wrong. How wrong was demonstrated the next instant when the tomato exploded. The massive bloom of red power knocked the bear clean off its paws, and flung the Yellow Fairy right back into her cottage. She staggered out, clutching her wand, just in time to see a man advance dramatically from the trees, a black cloak swirling about him. “RUN, YOU SAY?” he boomed. “NO ONE CAN RUN FROM ME! I AM INESCAPABLE!”

“Oh, stuff it, Peter, dear,” the Yellow Fairy said, rolling her eyes. Of course. It had to be him. He just had to show up now, didn’t he? Honestly.

“STUFF IT?” roared the man in a towering rage. “I AM PETER MORDRED, SON OF MORGANA, THE MOST POWERFUL WIZARD IN THE LAND! I DO NOT STUFF IT FOR ANYONE!”

The Yellow Fairy could have made several sarcastic rejoinders, such as pointing out that making a tomato explode wasn’t exactly magic on the scale of, say, defeating a Balrog or bringing a roomful of buckets and brooms to life, but sarcastic rejoinders were more Princess Catrina’s line. So she tried a different tack. “Yes, yes, of course you don’t,” she said soothingly. “Now, why don’t you go back to your castle and let me change this nice bear back into a nice human, all right?”

Peter Mordred was not dissuaded. “NO,” he grumped. “I WON’T RETURN TO MY CASTLE. MY MOTHER KEEPS ASKING ME TO HELP CATALOG HER GARDEN GNOMES. I HATE GARDEN GNOMES. PEOPLE LIKE US SHOULD BE OUT IN THE WORLD DOING EVIL, NOT SHUT UP BEHIND OUR WALLS MUCKING ABOUT WITH GARDEN GNOMES!”

“Could we use our inside voice, dear?” The Yellow Fairy said. “You’ll attract attention from the village, you know. I don’t think you want that.”

Peter Mordred smiled. “OH, DON’T I?”  Suddenly a wand flashed in his hand, a slim dark one, and thunder boomed in the distance. “I’VE BEEN PLANNING ALL SORTS OF DELIGHTFUL CURSES TO RAIN DOWN UPON PEOPLE. EWOKINGTON SEEMS LIKE A GOOD PLACE TO START.”

The bear had been watching these developments from the edge of the clearing before the Yellow Fairy’s house, where it had been thrown by the tomato. Now it decided the time had come to intervene. It lurched to its paws and rushed towards the sorcerer, roaring fiercely. But Peter Mordred’s wand flashed in his hand, and a blur of dark rushed towards the bear. “Wibbity wobbity woo!” cried the Yellow Fairy in a rush, and her own wand flashed. The blur of dark broke up in a spray of sparkles.

“YOU DARE OPPOSE ME?” Peter thundered.

“I’m not going to let you turn this poor bear into something even worse,” the Yellow Fairy said defiantly. “Which means, I suppose, that we’ll need to duel about it.”

Peter was smiling again, a sight not very pleasant at all. “A WIZARD’S DUEL. EXCELLENT. I HAVEN’T HAD ONE FOR AGES.”

“Yes, as I recall, you lost your last one to that Susan girl,” the Yellow Fairy remarked primly.

“SHE CHEATED. IT WASN’T FAIR!” Peter Mordred bellowed.

“Fair point. But you also lost the one before that to your own mother.”

“DON’T YOU BRING MY MOTHER INTO THIS. I’M NOT THE ONE OBSESSED WITH GARDEN GNOMES.”

The Yellow Fairy sighed. “Let’s just get on with it then, shall we?”

“VERY WELL. WHAT SORT OF DUEL WOULD YOU LIKE? MAGICAL ENERGY BOLTS? SHAPESHIFTING?”

“Oh dear. I had forgotten there was more than one sort of wizard’s duel. Wait a moment while I consult my rulebook, would you?”

She ducked back into the cottage, leaving Perry the bear and the evil wizard standing awkwardly outside. There was a long pause, while they hear sounds of rummaging inside the cottage. “SO….” said Peter. “HAVE YOU BEEN A BEAR LONG?”

The bear shrugged its beary shoulders.  As a matter of fact, it hadn’t been a bear very long at all, since it was only earlier that day that it had encountered the magical pants of Merlin and transformed, but it wasn’t about to communicate that to Peter Mordred.

“I HAD A COUSIN TURNED INTO A SALAMANDER ONCE,” Peter mused. “HE GOT EATEN BY A GARTER SNAKE. I LOATHE GARTER SNAKES.”

The bear made a gesture with its paws which it meant to indicate its puzzlement, as it assumed evil wizards such as Peter Mordred were by nature chummy with any member of the snake family. This sort of thing is hard to communicate by a gesture, though, and before the bear could try again, the Yellow Fairy returned, happily lugging a large book.

“Right,” she said. “We could do the standard shape-shifting wizard’s duel very nicely. There is the one about escalating curses and incantations, but I’d rather reduce the collateral damage, if it’s alright with you.”

“FINE,” Peter agreed unhappily. “SHAPE-SHIFTING IT IS. BUT NOT STANDARD. I DON’T WISH TO BE CONFINED ONLY TO ANIMALS. I WANT TO CHANGE INTO ANYTHING.”

“Oh,” said the Yellow Fairy, flipping through her rulebook. “Oh I see. You want the expanded duel, then. Oh dear. Hm. Ah, here it is. Yes. The rules state that in this particular duel, the participants may change into any living or unliving thing, and when they change into a thing not living, they are permitted to animate it in order to engage in the duel. Participants may not, however, change into more than one thing at a time, nor may they combine separate things. No changing into a hippobear, Peter,” she said sternly.

“HADN’T EVEN THOUGHT OF IT,” the evil wizard protested, though in fact he had been planning that very thing.

“Also, you can’t change into something that’s not in our time period. No machine guns, for instance.  If one participant breaks this rule, then the other may  do so as well. And no teleporting away into other time periods either. Teleporting automatically counts as forfeiting the duel.”

“PERISH THE THOUGHT.”

“Of course,” said the Yellow Fairy, who didn’t believe a word of his protestations. “Well. The duel shall continue until one overpowers or destroys the other. Are you prepared, then?”

“WHAT ARE THE TERMS OF VICTORY?” Peter demanded.

“Oh. Them. Yes. Well…I suppose if you win, I’ll let you do whatever you like to the village and the poor bear here. If I win, you have to go back to your castle, and not come out again for a hundred years.”

“FAIR ENOUGH,” Peter Mordred said, dramatically brandishing his wand. “I AM READY.”

“As per tradition,” the Yellow Fairy said formally, “we will each take ten paces away from each other, and begin on the tenth. On my count. One…two…”

Perry the bear kept a close watch on Peter, as he was certain the evil wizard would cheat and start early. For once, however, Mordred was as good as his word. He angrily marched off the ten paces, then spun on the tenth, wand flashing in his hand. The Yellow Fairy whirled to face him as well. The duel was on.

This has been another exciting episode of the Catrina Chronicles. Be sure to tune in next week for the dramatic duel. Also, I apologize as I’ve missed a few weeks, but I’ve been somewhat busy, personal-life wise. At any rate, for previous episodes go here. For my Amazon page go here. And as always, thanks for reading!

 

Falling

This story was written for Trifecta’s weekend prompt, which was to include an apostrophe: “A figure of speech in which some absent or nonexistent person or thing is addressed as if present and capable of understanding.”  I found myself returning to the story in last weekend’s prompt. Enjoy!

There were things Constance didn’t like. Carrots. Soccer. Ben, her loathsome squid ex-boyfriend. But she just hated gravity. “Darn you, gravity!” she screamed, plummeting towards the treasure chamber floor. “Darn you to heck!”

Contact

This story was written for this week’s Trifecta prompt, which was to use the word “mask”:  “a protective covering for the face; (b)  gas mask; (c) a device covering the mouth and nose to facilitate inhalation; (d) a comparable device to prevent exhalation of infective material; (e) a cosmetic preparation for the skin of the face that produces a tightening effect as it dries.”

Roll film!

K’Pid would have loved to send someone else down to investigate the situation on the planet, but she couldn’t spare anyone. It wasn’t like she had a massive star cruiser where you couldn’t throw a tribble without hitting an ensign lolling about. Sadly, she had to go herself. She squirmed into the cramped spacesuit and adjusted her breathing mask. Sure, the planet looked civilized and inhabitable, but you never knew. K’pid was taking no chances.

Her transport had only the one shuttle, and it was as rickety as its parent ship, but nonetheless K’pid managed to pilot it down to a bumpy landing in a lonely grey field. She clambered out awkwardly and began setting up her atmo scanner. Just as it whirred to life, K’Pid heard a frightened gasp. She whirled about, laser pistol flying to her hand.

“You came from the sky,” whispered an awed alien, clinging to a nearby tree. He looked humanoid, as they often did. K’pid had never heard why humanoid aliens were so prevalent. Some complicated science-y reason she wouldn’t have understood anyway, most like.

“Yep, I did. Landed in my spaceship two minutes ago. There’s other life in the universe, fella. Lots of ‘em.”

“What?”

“Oh, hey, atmo scanner just blipped. You’ve got a supervolcano eruption about to happen. Don’t worry; I’ll drop a cryo-bomb in there and clear that mess right up.”

“The volcano? Mountain of the great god Arklesneizure?”

“Yeah. Only it’s just a volcano. Rock and lava. No Arklewhatever.”

The alien made a gleep sort of noise. K’pid ignored it. She climbed back in her shuttle and tore off into the sky. She vaguely recalled that Fleet Command had issued a pamphlet about these sorts of things. K’Pid had tossed it down the refresher. She decided to ask her first officer about it when she regained the ship. Then she changed her mind and decided to forget the whole thing. She couldn’t have mucked things up too badly, right? Of course, right.

Treasure

This story was written for Trifecta’s weekend prompt. We were supposed to use “tether”, “loft”, and “crown” in a 33-word story. For some reason my muse went serious this week….

Constance’s breath quickened as she climbed. The Angelus Crown. She could leave her tiny loft, live anywhere, do anything-

Then her tether snapped.

The uncaring Crown flashed in her eyes as she fell.