The girl's rose gold hair curled in the cold night air, her head hung as the coach slowed to a stop. She sniffled and looked up at the nobleman who glared, half interested.
"Thank you for stopping, kind sir." The thin shawl fell off of her shoulder, and she slowly put it back onto her body, the nobleman noticing, in the moonlight, that her skin was the color of fresh cream, her breasts young and proud. "I'm afraid I've been abandoned by my husband, sir. I find myself without much, but I am a hard worker, and an excellent laundress. I can cook some, and sew a little..." She looked up at him shyly, her eyes sparkling softly as the wind whistled down the road.
The nobleman opened his carriage door and beckoned her inside. "Miss, I believe we can work something to both our benefits, don't you?"
She sat down across from him on the plush velvet seating, looking around at the finery inside the carriage, sweets and drink and fine blankets. Even a fur. She must have looked so dingy and dirty there against the brilliant colors of finery.
He put a hand on her knee, and she flinched. "All alone in the world, you say?" He voice had the texture of an undercooked eel pie as his hand drew further up her leg.
She nodded, but there were tears in her eyes. "Sir, I am a virtuous girl-"
He laughed. "Whoever heard of a virtuous towngirl? Be not proud, underling." He began to remove her shawl, and then heard a thunk on the roof of his carriage, and his servants shouting. He moved toward the coach window, only to find the young maid holding a knife to his neck.
"Oops." She giggled. "Seems you were right."
He sat down, backed up by the point of her dagger. She slowly started to cut the gold buttons off of his jacket, and put them in her front pocket. "You see," she took another button. "You men, you're so used to taking what you want. But now, we are the ones-"
"Ho, Mina." The nobleman looked up to see his carriage door swing open and shut, and a tall, lanky girl with short hair, dressed in men's breeches and an archer's hat, sat down next to the small blonde girl. She held a bow in her hand, and the quiver across her back was full, only a few small holes where she had fired off some of her arsenal.
His eyes grew wide with the painful realization of a man who has made a terrible error in judgment. "Ruka Hood."
"And Little Mina! Why do they always remember you, but they never remember me? I need to speak to the bards at the tavern, this is ridiculous." Mina indicated wildly with her dagger, the nobleman staying flattened against the back of the carriage as she finished cutting off his buttons. "Get up."
He stood up, and she shoved him out of the carriage door, the other girls pouncing upon him and tying his arms behind his back. There was no point in murder, Mina often said, most of the fun was in the lead up anyhow, when men begged for their lives and pissed themselves, and so the general law of the Merry Maids was to leave them alive if at all possible. Mina was more inclined to leave those alive that remembered her name.
Ruka flipped up the seat. "Ooooh, port." She took the cork out of the bottle and swallowed a glug, and then handed it to Mina. "I wonder if there's any candied fruit." She looked in the cab of the carriage. "Ah yes!" She stuffed the honey covered plum in her mouth, but did not bother to stop talking. "Mina, oo reawy-"
"Oh, swallow the candy, Ruka. You and your damnable sweet tooth." She took a pull out of the bottle. "Grab the gold, we shouldn't tarry here if we can help it." She swung the heavy fur over her shoulder.
Ruka nodded, filling her pockets with the pilfered sweets so that were such a rare delight, even for nobles. The gold coins she shoveled into the small bag at her hip, smiling all the while. It had been 6 years since they had run from Mother Mary's, when the threat had come that they would send Ruka away to one of the laundries. How they had managed to escape with the small group of girls, made it to Nottingham, and survived in the forest that first winter was one of the greater mysteries of our universe. If you asked Rei, it was the hand of God, if you asked Mina, it was the hand of the log that broke the leg of one of the Prince's deer. If you asked Ruka, it didn't matter at all. All that mattered was that they had lived. She was responsible for these girls, had offered to protect them, and she had not lost a single one.
The poor nobleman looked dumbfounded, tied up by the side of the road, as the girls made off with his gold and his wine.
"So what does it say? I strike quite a portrait, if I do say so myself." She held up the inky reward poster next to her face. "I don't think they really captured my inner light, or the way the moon illuminates my milky skin, but I suppose they did a fair enough job. C'mon Rei, what does it say?"
"That's Sister Rei, Mina."
"Sister, aunt, second cousin twice removed, I don't really have a care."
Rei had been swept from the Mother Mary's at the age of ten, known there for her deep sense of spirituality and quickness to learn. It was not that Rei felt the need to join the convent to be closer to God- in her observation, to know God was only to doubt him further, to realize that the relationship between man and God was not that of a parent to child, but that of two turbulent lovers in constant conflict. But she enjoyed the study, and the fact that there was food and a warm bed assured.
With the Crusades, she had found most of the men of her church called away to the Holy Land, and however ill-advised she found the Crusades on a personal and intellectual level, she was not going to squander the opportunity she now had. Sister Rei had been put in charge of the small church at Nottingham, and with the men away she found herself more able to direct the tithe money the nobles gave to assuage their guilt before God to its truest purpose-serving the poor. The vow of poverty she had taken, she felt, did not include meat every night for supper.
But she had never lost her link to the girls from Mother Mary's, and had often served as a go between when the Merry Maids had needed to offload some purloined jewelry or perfume, and Sister Rei took a cut of the transaction for the poor box. She was rather proud of how she managed the church, and her one penitent, and hoped to someday surpass the Mother Superior, who she felt was too in Prince John's pocket. Rei served God, she did not serve men.
In addition to her many other services, Sister Rei had also learned to read.
Mina shoved the poster into her hands. "Read it to us! You may be waiting for the second coming, but some us aren't."
Rei grumpily accepted the poster, and sighed. "Well, the large letters say wanted, as I'm sure you know."
Mina called over to where Ruka sat, leaning forward on the back of the wood pew in front of her, chin in her hand, studying the light as it moved through the stained glass and painted the church in watercolor. "You hear that, Ruka? Someone wants us!"
Ruka chuckled. "Well, that certainly is a first."
Rei continued, walking across the back of her churchly domain, mostly ignoring Mina's commentary. "In the letters directly underneath, it says 'Ruka Hood', and then in the smaller ones under that it says, 'and Little Mi-"
Mina grabbed at the braid on her back. "Why am I always second billed?! Are they any less likely to hang me?" She drew the braid across her neck and pulled, gagging dramatically. "And you-what good are you anyway without me? Who died and made you leader?"
Ruka did not seem to hear her, staring dreamily into the air, quietly humming to herself. The purples of the glass reminded her of that girl from so long ago, and the purple violets she had braided into her hair. She was undoubtedly married to some royal by now, a beautiful Lady with an appointed household and servants to manage. Ruka had simply been lucky to escape the home with her life, and for that she'd been grateful, but being in the church always reminded her of being in the holy presence of Maid Michiru, of the moment an angel dared to love her back before being whisked away heavenward. She might have continued in this vein of thought for hours if the delicately painted wooden carving of Saint Leofwynn hadn't struck her on the back of the head and clattered to the floor.
She rubbed the quickly-developing knot on the back of her head and turned to see Rei trying to wrest another Ruka-bound saint from Mina's hands. "What was that for?"
Mina tugged on the wooden saint in Rei's hands. "You're ruining my life, you blonde boyish idiot!"
Rei kicked Mina in the shin and replaced the rescued saint into his small altar at the back of the church. "I don't believe Ruka makes the posters, Mina."
The squeal of the heavy door stopped the three, all turning toward the hall where the unknown would enter. Ruka saw him first, and dove under the pew, immediately cursing Rei's name. She had strong feelings about the sanctity of the church, and several of those feelings involved the surrender of her bow and arrow at the door, along with Mina's sword.
"Glory be to God!" The Sheriff's voice echoed through the church, his boots clattering against the stone floor.
Rei's voice was strong and clear. "Sheriff, I must ask that you remove your sword in the house of the Lord. This is a place of sanctuary."
The Sheriff laughed and clapped her on the shoulder. "Little Sister, you are so good and pure, you cannot imagine the underhanded deeds that the low scum of this world might try. Even in a church, I must protect myself." He smiled and grabbed the pommel of his sword. Rei loathed him and his over familiarity, his sense that he owned the world and could do whatever he liked. All men were that way, by her reckoning. The Fathers she was forced to serve under, Prince John who ruled this kingdom into the ground, the Sheriff who took pleasure in the hardest and most cruel of his duties. No man was ever deserving of the power foisted upon him just because some damn fool girl listened to a snake all those years ago. Men, in their superiority, seem to have failed to realize they had become the snake.
Rei simply arched her brow. "Do you not believe in the protection of our Lord, for those that are deserving?"
Ruka slowly crawled on her belly under the pews, her eye carefully locked on the bow and quiver leaned up against the stone hallway, her archer's hat laid on top of them. If the Sheriff saw her, he would cut her down with a nary a thought and display her head on a pike in the market square. And you can be sure he would leave out the detail of how she had been unarmed on a church floor when her life ended. It would become some great and powerful battle, and nothing anyone else had to say would change how the story would be written in the books, no matter how loud Mina-. Mina. Where was she? Ruka squinted over to where she had been standing with Rei when the Sheriff had entered. She was barely squeezed behind the altar. The Sheriff was almost on top of her, and if he saw her...well, Ruka began to wiggle across the floor just a little faster.
"Sweet Sister, I am the protection of the Lord." He stroked his beard thoughtfully as he looked at the small altar that had previously held Saint Loefwynn, before her miraculous flight across the sanctuary. "You seem to be missing something."
"Sheriff, may I ask if you are here to seek my counsel or for another matter? I do have duties, Holy Mother Church being as bereft of people as she is."
He turned away from the altar and looked at Rei. "Well, your taxes, of course."
She walked over toward the small room where she kept the church's coffer. "Of course. Why endanger simply the alimentary good of the poor when we can deprive them of spiritual sustenance as well?"
"Now Sister, you know it takes money to keep a kingdom." He held his finger out as one might scold a child, and Rei seethed with rage.
She spoke through gritted teeth. "Money, I note, that affords some wonderful parties at court."
"Prince John does so much to-"
She shoved a bag of coins into his hand. "Your thirty pieces of silver."
He frowned heavily. "The tariff due on this building is-"
She walked away, toward the stained glass at the front of the church. "Count it, good Sheriff, and perhaps listen a bit more closely whenever it is you receive your spiritual instruction."
He counted it and nodded, still frowning. "You know, the Mother Superior is a close friend of Prince John's, Sister Rei."
She did not look away from the candles she was lighting at the front. "For all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God."
"I do not appreciate your tone, woman! I am the law and you will respect me!" He laid a hand on his sword and walked toward her.
She turned around, but did not move, as immoveable and immense as the stone statue of Jesus behind her, watching all. "The laws of men are nothing to me."
He drew his sword. "I believe Prince John would like that gold circlet over there on the Virgin." he indicated to the statue to the side of the altar with his sword. "She'll understand. For the kingdom."
"I have paid the tax. I will gladly render unto Caesar what is Caesar's. But I must insist that what is God's remain God's" Even as he pointed his sword at her, she did not move, or even flinch. There were always many compliments paid about the great and detailed statuary of her church, how they were so lifelike and heavenly, all at the once, but many people forgot to include the cold and fearless statue that was Sister Rei.
His sword drew ever closer, and then there was a yell from the back of the sanctuary, and an arrow whistled by his head so quickly it seemed as if an avenging angel had come out the skies. He whirled around to see Little Mina, her sword nearly half her size and an angry and indelicate expression on her face, stomping up the aisle.
Ruka Hood stood at the back, her bow drawn and a smirk on her face. "I only missed on account of Sister Rei's distaste for blood other than Christ's."
Little Mina stuck the end of her sword in his back, and before she even asked, his sword clattered to the floor, echoing through the stone church in the most beautiful hymn of triumph Mina had ever heard.
"On your knees, pigshit." Mina buried the point deeper into his back, and the Sheriff found himself with a desire to comply to a woman's wishes that had never before seemed so alluring. Mina raised her sword to strike a killing blow, but both Rei and Ruka cried out.
"This is a house of God!"
"He's unarmed and on his knees!"
"This is sacrilege!"
"This is dishonorable!"
Mina put the point of her sword on the floor and leaned against the tall steel. "Now, listen, you two. This isn't a matter of honor or godliness, this is a matter of survival. You two can talk all you care to about your precious ideals, but I tell you what, this fool here would happily murder you both on Jesus' own lap while you slept."
Ruka put her arrow back in the quiver and walked toward where the Sheriff kneeled, the sweat of stress on his brow. "The point is that we're not him." She adjusted her hat and looked down at him. "If I so much as hear that you've tried anything against the Sister again, I'll let Mina have her way, you understand?"
The Sheriff nodded, meek as a mouse, kneeling in the circle of these Three Fates deciding whether he would live or die, discussing the issue as if he weren't even present.
Ruka began to walk away, but took his sword with her. "Little Mina, come, we've food to deliver the people."
Mina scowled, but then sighed. "No one ever lets me have any fun." She went to follow, but then turned around, her sword at his throat. "Put me first on the posters, do you hear me?"
"There's nothing of interest for me in Nottingham. I don't wish to join the court, it's all lies and deceit and ermine furs." Michiru pouted delicately on the end of her bed as Setsuna folded dresses into a chest.
"My Lady, did you think they would let you stay here and tend the gardens with me forever?" Setsuna gave her a playful smile. "And you so long without finding a suitor, it was bound to happen."
"There was someone, once." She played with the edge of her sleeve. Her very own knight. It almost seemed a dream, now, the girl that she had fallen in love with all those years, before she even really knew to call it love. The way she gently laid her head in her lap, how tenderly she braided violets into Michiru's hair, her bravery and her soul of goodness. Her equal could not, and never would be, found among those pampered lapdogs at court, those who had never known a moment of struggle, who had nothing against which to test their mettle. It was only in darkness that those with true light could be found, and the court was a loud, harsh place where nothing of noble character might survive. That was why they all called themselves nobles, she imagined. They could buy everything else, why not buy a pretension to good moral character? But not one of them had even a sliver of the gentility and goodness contained in Ruka Hood's soft grey eyes.
"We shall make a good go of it at court, you'll see." Setsuna. Setsuna had meant so much to her, in the long, bitter nights here at Tollwood Hall. She had not only been teacher and nursemaid, but she was the only person Michiru felt she could truly call friend. Setsuna asked nothing of her other than to be herself, and took pleasure in teaching her all the small things of the world, over and above the talents she was meant to accumulate as a lady. She was always comforting and kind, Setsuna, and it was because of her that Michiru had not withered away for lack of love all these years.
"I am at least grateful they let you come with me. If I had to be without you, I would surely die." She took her books of poetry and quietly concealed them in the dresses Setsuna packed. "I feel as if my entire life has been decided for me, Setsuna. Well, that is the way of it, I suppose"
Setsuna touched her leg reassuringly. She loved her little maid, but her general attitude of fatalism could be trying, no matter how much it had been earned. "Well, we never do know what life will bring us in Nottingham, my dear."
Michiru threw her arms around Setsuna, grateful at least for the one thing that was truly hers.
They peeked through the brush and saw a gilded coach, so much like the one Ruka sometimes saw in her dreams, coming down the road, a complement of guards on horseback surrounding it, adorned with carved creatures and laden with chests, what they were filled with Ruka could only guess, but they were all worth more than her bounty, she figured. A moment of realization hit her as Mina excitedly threw her arms around her neck.
"Oh Lord in heaven, today is the day." Mina practically jumped with excitement as she released Ruka. "Would you look at that, I never imagined we'd get so lucky."
"We can't rob them, that's the royal coach, are you completely mad?" Ruka grabbed Mina by the shoulder. "That's more than robbery, there, that's treason, Mina."
"What are they going to do?" Mina scoffed. "Hang us twice? Ruka, this the chance. Our greatest take, our greatest stage, we may never get a chance like this again. They will write about us in the history books!" She adjusted her skirts and hit her sword underneath.
"We can't even read."
"Oh, you have no sense of drama at all." She started to tie a scarf around her head. "Let's do the fortuneteller. That's one of my favorites."
Ruka shook her head. "It'll never go off. Price John and his men have to know about us, they're the ones that's put a kings ransom on our heads."
Mina shook her head. "Ah, ah, my friend. A prince's ransom. Once King Richard comes back, everything will be different. You were the one who taught me that, among the many lies you've told."
She hissed at Mina. "It's not a lie! Everything will get better again, you'll see."
"Well." She finished applying her costume. "For the moment, what we have is what's in front of us." She grabbed both of Ruka's hands. "Now come! My brave friend, on this day, we show the Prince what happens to those that cross Nottingham, and Sherwood Forest, and leave us orphans, and tax on the poor, and undermine-"
"Mina, the coach is going to pass by if you don't stop with your speeches."
Mina popped out of the bushes and stood by the side of the road, a silk scarf in her hand, waving down the coach with a smooth and graceful movement, her eyes turned soft and dreamlike.
A voice came from inside the carriage. "Oh, it's been so long since I've seen a soothsayer! What fun, stop the coach."
Another voice followed. "Sire, this is near Sherwood Forest, and there could be bandits."
A laugh. "That little thing? A bandit? Oh come now, whoever heard of a female bandit?"
"Sire, the Merry Maids of Sherwood Forest-"
"Are a myth! Told by townspeople to frighten us off, I'm sure, one or two packs of young boys stealing a thing or two, and they want to fill our heads with these fairytales. Stop now, driver."
Mina looked up at the coach, her lids fluttering, her voice otherworldly as she twisted an arm into the air. "Prince John, the ruler of the realm, sovereign of all you see and do not see, the other world opens to you and bows to your crown! I your humble servant, here as messenger to the spirits and the stars, lay myself at your feet," She fell to her knees on the ground and threw her head back. "And ask only that I may carry a message to your majesty's noble ears! Oh hear my plea! The outer world is calling, calling, calling…"
Haruka rolled her eyes as she knelt in the bushes. "For the love of God…"
Prince John stood at the open door of the coach. "Girl, you may indeed, be graced with that task, as you wish. Rise."
Mina bowed her head and rose slowly. These were the moments she lived for, the con. The gold was nice, and not starving was a decent benefit, but what really kept her going was the look in their eyes when they realized they had been taken by Mina's pageantry. It was her gift- all the girls had something useful, something real. Hotaru the barber's daughter had a rudimentary understanding of medicine, Mako Scarlett could hunt and cook in a way that kept them all alive even in the coldest winter, Ami A Dale had a gift for remembering routes and layouts, Ruka was the archer, and Mina, she was the con. She could admit that mostly she and Ruka came up with the plans together, but it was always her who carried them off- Ruka was a terrible liar. And she seemed to born to live in lies.
"So gracious are you, Prince John. I trust this will be a message you will not soon forget." She swanned dramatically into the coach and sat herself on a plush velvet pillow. The king's advisor looked at her with narrowed eyes, as if he were trying to remember where he might have seen her before.
She hummed to herself and threw her head back, arms flung out to the sides. "I call upon the spirits! HEAR ME!" She let out a loud, shrieking cry, which caused Prince John to jump back and Ruka took as opportunity to get under the carriage and stick a knife into the bottom, slowly working her way into the box under the carriage seat.
"I see...I see..." Mina slumped dramatically to one side of the carriage, and then the other. "Oh! The throne held for years by a noble king!"
Prince John smiled proudly, chest puffed out, as, below him, Ruka began quietly storing gold coins into her bag, the guards around not even hearing her, Mina was screaming so loud. Let it never be said that Mina's god-given capacity to outwail even the most terrifying banshee had never come useful.
"OH PRINCE!" She threw herself across his lap, and he jumped back, not even realizing that two of his three rings were now missing. "I see your divine mercy, oh mercy, oh mercy." She threw her arms around his horrified neck, and then a necklace was gone, along with all the gold and an entire box of honeyed walnuts that Ruka felt fell into the category of important items to purloin.
"Oh my, yes, yes, I am filled with mercy." He tried delicately to push her off his lap, but her eyes flung open wide and she pressed her forehead to his.
She brought her voice low and calm, suddenly. "There will be a great struggle for your kingdom, sire. It is coming. It is coming soon."
Prince John scowled angrily and shoved her off. "What do you mean by that, girl!? Such insolence!"
She cackled and flung wide the door, and Prince John looked out to see his guards fallen, shaking their heads. She pushed down his advisor into the mud and stood on his back, throwing a royal robe over her shoulders. "I'd wager you didn't see this!"
Prince John stomped his feet and cried out as Ruka fled into the woods, arms laden with various treasures. "Seize them! KILL THEM!"
Mina grinned devlishly and pulled Prince John over the end of the carriage, tugging down his robe over his face and exposing his bare butt to all the guards and footmen. She laughed merrily as she jumped into a tree, turning back just one moment to yell over the bustling mom trying to right Prince John.
"Long live King Richard!" She ducked back into the treetop just as several arrows followed her jumping from one limb to another. These trees had given her so much. Ruka occasionally called her a squirrel, she spent enough time in them. But the knit spiderwebs of the treetops kept them from harm and fed them on more than one occasion, and now she used them to quickly lose the incompetent guard that Prince John called his own.
She seemed to have lost them, after a little while, but so had she seemed to have lost Ruka. There was always a worry, in the very corners of her mind, that she would be captured. They were already wanted for general robbery in the shire, and Ruka had not been wrong- this would be treason, and for treason you hang without nary a word.
"Ah well, a short life and a merry one." She said to no one in particular. She whistled the clear, high notes that marked the Merry Maids' signal to one another, and listened for the response. It had been so long, it seemed, since they all had fled to the woods, assured that at least if they died, they would die as creatures in control of their own fates. Now they owned these woods. A kingdom of their own creation, where it truly was for the good of all. The whistle returned, and Mina lit up. They deserved a drink, she thought.
They popped back a few too many ales in the tavern, girls sitting around them and listening to their increasingly exciting tale of the royal coach and how they managed to take down the most heavily guarded entourage in the kingdom.
Mina, particularly, became a bit more swashbuckling as the night went on, and to hear her tell it to the group of girls who surrounded her, she had single-handedly taken down every single guard, made Prince John cry, and charmed the horses into thinking that they were goats. If they thought she was lying, they did not seem to say so, but such as it was, she was buying drinks for the entire tavern, so it may not have been in their best interest to do so.
They did not always come to town- it was dangerous to be seen out so soon after the robbery. But Prince John was likely gathering himself after such a humiliation. He would want to keep this quiet, to not let his subjects know that he was powerless before a couple of orphan girls who had no military training and yet could outwit every one of his guards.
Ruka danced with the pretty barmaid she favored when she came to town, a lively tune inspiring her, the sweet scent of the girl intoxicating even as she blushed when the girl kissed her cheek. The balladeer started up another tune, this one new but already loved deeply by the people of Nottingham, the story of their own personal guardian angels.
"Oh, there's a tale we live to tell, in all these tavern halls, of Ruka Hood and Little Mina."
"LITTLE MINA AND RUKA HOOD!"
Tucked behind their robes, Mina and Ruka sat as the parade of horses and lords went past, Mina bored and gnawing on an apple, Ruka barely paying attention to the pageantry, but enjoying the looks of fear on the nobles' faces as they rode by. Yes, this was her domain, and nobody could take that from her.
They leaned against the wall in shadow, watching the parade of nobles pass by. Mina enjoyed watching them, making mental lists of what they must carry with them, wondering how easy it would be to get them alone, wondering what they were particularly weak for. Everybody had a weakness, she figured, and it was her job to exploit it. Rich people had their senses dulled by a life of getting everything they needed anyhow. Men were doubly so. She didn't really care for either.
Haruka pulled the apple out of her bag and began to cut off chunks with her knife, occasionally sticking one on the point of the blade and passing it over to her small blonde compatriot. These sort of things more or less bored her, important though they were. She preferred the action of the steal, the feel of the bow in her hands. But the apple was sweet and good, and the day was pleasant, and in any case, Ruka was well aware of the utter futility of arguing with Mina.
The last of the nobles began to ride by, and Ruka began to turn toward the hamlet, grateful that the line of polished tree stumps they called the leaders of this country were coming to a close. But then something caught her eye. At first she thought she was imagining things, as she had a thousand times before, her own personal fata morgana designed before her very eyes.
But then she looked closer, stepping out into the sunlight, ignorant to the danger in this moment, a moth following into the candle. It was her. Maid Michiru. The years had turned her from the bud of a girl into a bloom so verdant, Ruka felt she might never see a woman like that again. All the garden of every love she'd ever known wilted and died in the light of her love for this one girl, thundering back into her heart like the king's horses coursing after game. It was then, she realized, it have never really left. It had simply waited.
No noble sat by her side, simply her handmaiden. Was it too much to hope that such a beautiful creature had remained a Maid for so long? She continued to walk toward where she was riding, drawing back her hood, her face soaking up the sunlight of her-
Small hands clutched the back of her coat and pulled her into the blacksmith's shop. She was slammed against the wall and moved to protest her treatment, but her mouth was covered by a hand tasting vaguely of apple.
"Are you out of your gourd?" Mina hissed angrily. "We are wanted for TREASON AGAINST THE KING, and you are going to wander into the street, face uncovered, into a passel of nobles? If you've grown tired of living, I'll happily relieve you of the burden!"
Haruka smiled brightly and hugged Mina tightly, lifting her off of the ground. "Maid Michiru is here! And I suspect she's unmarried! This is a wonderful day!"
Mina wiggled out of her arms like a greased pig. "Yes, I'll be sure to tell the chambermaid to stoke up the fires and have cookie make an extra special meat pie for the banquet. Tell the stableboy to get your white horse to go romance the high-born Lady, I'll call the tailor to outfit you in your finest silks, and AM I GETTING THROUGH TO YOU AT ALL, RUKA HOOD?" Ruka's face fell, crushed like a dried violet under the reality of Mina's words. The blacksmith stared at them, and Mina threw him a gold coin. "For your discretion. Ruka, someday you have to let this go. She may as well be dead, for the likelihood you have of marrying the likes of her."
She tugged Ruka's hand as they walked away from the spectacle.
"It's been so many years, she can't possibly remember me, Setsuna." Michiru gazed out the window and down at the courtyard. "I feel as if I've spent the whole of my life as a decoration. A painting, shut away in a room, something ornamental for a forgotten corner of the castle." She frowned and sighed deeply.
Setsuna braided Michiru's hair in her comforting, motherly way. "They say that love goes on for centuries. What is ten years, my small lady?"
"We were so very young." She turned to the handmaiden who had been her only friend in the ensuing years and smiled. "And I'm no longer so small, dear Setsuna."
"Yes." Setsuna looked down and touched Michiru's hand. "Prince John has told me such things as well. He says you are too old to still be a maid."
The smile dropped from Michiru's face as he she rose from the window seat. And walked over to the cedar chest, not bothering to comment on Setsuna's warning. She picked up the poster, purloined by a young boy they had convinced to deliver it for several gold pieces. Michiru lovingly touched the inky drawing on the parchment. "To know she is alive, to know she's here- Setsuna, I have never felt such a passionate hope for anything. "
Setsuna looked at her young charge. She still remembered that first painful night, Michiru's tears falling quietly, without so much as a whimper, as the blonde girl fell into the road, cracked by the whip in a way the driver would not have dared touch a horse. The trust had been slowly won between them. Michiru had not spoken all that night, or indeed, for a week. She was so stubborn. Setsuna liked that instantly. And she was not willful in the way men are so used to looking for- She did not yell, she did not scream, but she was silent and immoveable, noble and graceful even as she denied men the pleasure of her conversation, a statue for veneration but untouchable and unknowable.
But she could be very charming, when she wished it, and so Prince John had found himself much aggrieved on a number of occasions at the disappointed suitors walking away from the castle. It was something he intended to make right, no matter how many times Setsuna had tried to tell him to be patient and wait for her to find her love.
But there was no reason to dampen the excitement of Maid Michiru's- life would do that soon enough. "She is handsome, isn't she?"
Michiru gazed at the poster. "When I see her, I shall paint her, just as I've always hoped. She looks so different now."
Setsuna put an arm around her. "Children do grow up, my Lady."
"Yes." She rolled up the poster and hid it away in her trunk. "Setsuna, we must find her. I can't wait for my destiny to find me for the rest of my life."
Setsuna smiled. "This certainly is a change in you." She had never seen Maid Michiru so alight for anything in the whole of her life.
But, of course, fire can burn.
It was not very long before fate, or God, or whatever you happen to believe in, intervened in our young lovers' story.
"Mina, they are having an archery contest, and the whole kingdom is invited." She jumped about excitedly. "The prize is a new bow, and 50 gold pieces!"
"I'm certainly glad this doesn't sound like an obvious trap." She shook her head and continued sharpening her sword. Ruka was the greatest friend she had, and the closest thing she posessed to anything resembling family, but her lack of foresight was somewhere between tiring and disturbing at times. And to think, she was the one to lecture Mina whenever she felt something was too dangerous.
"But you haven't heard the most wonderful part! There will be Maids and Ladies from the kingdom there, and you can pledge for their favor, and Maid Michiru has been called up from Tollwood, Mina, Maid Michiru will be there, after all these years." She knelt down in front of Mina, refusing to be ignored, and set Mina's sword aside. "I can pledge her favor, be the archer for my Lady." She smiled dreamily and began to fantasize about seeing her, touching her hand, hearing the musical tone of her voice. Was it took very much to hope for that she might favor Ruka with a kiss? On the cheek or the head of course, Ruka did not want to ask for so very much at first, Michiru was a Lady and deserving of fine courtship.
Mina took Ruka's head in her hands. "Wonderful. She can toss you a handkerchief before Prince John strings you up and she can see how lovely you look in a shade of blue."
Ruka stood up and took her bow, undaunted by Mina's discouragement. "I'll wear a disguise. And I will pledge her favor, and win the tournament, and then I will, in secret, reveal myself to her." She danced with her bow for a moment, waltzing it around the forest. "I will tell her how I love her, how I have always loved her, and if she merely tolerates my presence, I will serve her forever. She could be my Lady for all time, and I will make her so happy!" She giggled like a child, and Mina's frustrations broke through.
"Lady of what? A cobbled together forest camp? She may find our grand gardens a little disappointing, and you'll have to tell Mako Scarlett that stew's off the menu because her Ladyship is used to pheasant pie."
Ruka's face fell. How could she be so foolish? "You're right, of course." She slumped down onto a rock near the stream. "Fine Ladies don't marry orphans." She closed her eyes, her face downcast, and tossed her bow to the forest floor.
Mina walked away from her for a minute, tugging on her long rose gold braid, mumbling to herself. "Ignore the sad face, ignore the sad face, ignore the sad face- GODDAMNIT" She whirled around, stormed back to where Ruka sat, and laid a hand on her shoulder. "I've a plan. We'll get you in that tournament. We'll get you to Maid Michiru. Who knows? Maybe she'll fall in love and come be a Merry Maid. I'm sure she has some useful skill, like reading poetry or playing the damn har-"
Ruka scooped her up in a tight hug. "I know it'll work! And while we're there we'll best the Sheriff! Give hope to the people!"