Princess
"Meh, I'm just a princess" the others began to laugh, but you remained silent… serious. “I really am!” you demanded, yet their laughter continued to ring out louder than your meager little voice could.
“Yeah. Right!” the old lady teased.
“Then what’re ya doin out here lil lady.” the muscular middle aged man said.
“Well..” you didn’t know how to fully explain what happened. So you steeled your mind for your explanation. “See, I did something really bad.” at this point they began to quite down, once again their eyes fell upon you. “I gave a speech and failed. I did some studying… but it just… didn’t work out.” Your eyes sank to the floor in shame.
“I believe you. Sorry to hear about that.” the tiny little creature shouted up at you. “Sorry to hear that.” For the first time, you began to sense his sympathy.
Not long after, the guard returned and began to line your little foursome against the wall. Everyone was silent as you were led into a small forest filled with trees. The instructions were simple enough: pick up the leaves so that forest fires wouldn’t happen.
“Alright you new workers, all you have to do is rake up these leaves to prevent forest fires.” wait a minute, that didn’t make much sense to you. It seemed like the others were quite confused as well.
You all began to work along with the others. The only sound resonating out into the vast wilderness was the crumpling sounds of the leaves as they crunched beneath your rakes. It took a moment for the silence to be broken, but when it did, it was the old lady.
“I don’t even understand what you’re doing here, someone so charismatic and highborn as a princess?” You listened attentively, despite remaining focused on your job. “I bet this is the most work you’ve ever done in your life, isn’t it?” She continued.
“Yeah.” You replied, and you realized she was right, but for some reason it came easy to you. The way your taur body carried on; your large stature helped you rake more leaves than all the other anthros around you.
“You clearly LOOK different.” your focus was broken, looking up at the old woman in confusion. It wasn’t clear if it was an insult to your species, or if it was a compliment for your hard work. “Still quite hard to believe.” she said before getting back to her own work.
“Yeah I agree.” the large man added. “If you’re a princess then ya must be real smart.” he jested. You remembered the science you had read in the library, and your mind began to race with all the knowledge you took up throughout your life here. “Why don’t you give us some ideas to get outta here.”
“What.” once again, your focus was broken. Yet he was right, with everything you had learned, you finally realized that you most likely had the skill set to plan an actual escape. “Hmmm.” you thought for a while, and let the time pass you until everyone was finally finished with the work they were assigned.
“Alright everyone, time to go to sleep.” the guard had returned as the sun began to set, you didn’t even realize it until your racing mind was interrupted by the hulking presence of your ‘employers’.
That night you were sectioned off with the same group you were imported with. Suddenly an idea began to culminate from all of the hard work and thinking you had done that day.
“That’s it!” you whispered quietly. The others began to blink their eyes open in response, though some of them were still half asleep.
Written by Driftingdragon on 11 October 2020