It all started when Elizabeth turned fourteen, when her body slowly grew out of its girlish state and was making its way towards womanhood (or something like it), when all those confusing sensations started flowing through her, especially around the opposite sex. Suddenly, those boys and Knights she often found cute and sweet became so much more. More, as in the sweet gazes she'd direct their way became a little more coy. Her cheeks would flush a little bit more at the sight of muscles and boyish grins. The blue eye that peeked out from her silver bangs would darken at the sight of a duel, or some other show of a Knight's strength—holding a confused, sort of innocent hunger only a newly turned teen could feel.

Veronica was the first to notice the change in Elizabeth and, with a little smirk, she pulled her younger sister under her wing.

"Yep, I knew it," she said to a flustered Elizabeth, who still hadn't figured out what these tense feelings meant, and she grinned wide, "You're going through puberty, Ellie!"

"P-puberty?" Elizabeth stammered, her face going ashen. "That sounds...am I sick?"

Veronica giggled, her cheeks flushing. "No, no, it's not an illness, though it might feel like that a lot—it's a good thing. It means you're growing up."

"...W-when does it stop?"

"Oh, uh. That's...that's a good question." Veronica turned to look across the room, where their older sister sat on a chair, reading a thick book. "Margaret?"

"Typically, puberty lasts until one has fully reached adulthood," Margaret said, rather sagely, "However, considering how long it takes for one's brain to develop—especially when considering a person's gender, physiology, and environment—the truth is, puberty lasts well into one's mid-twenties, if not at thirty."

That led Veronica to turn back to grin at Elizabeth, who looked rather horrified. "And there you have it!"

This is the worst day of my life, Elizabeth nearly sobbed to herself.


It wasn't long before Elizabeth realized that she'd spoken too soon.

Despite all that Veronica and Margaret had told her, Elizabeth took to the realization of puberty rather well. She learned what sort of material she should use during her monthly cycle. She learned how to compose herself around boys and put some distance between them and her, especially when they started flirting with her. She even learned a way to cope with her...feelings.

"This is the first book my mother let me read," Margaret said as she handed Elizabeth a leather bound book. She smiled softly at it, as if it was an old friend.

"It helped me when I started developing crushes, especially—" She broke off, her cheeks flushing dark in thought, no doubt of a certain Holy Knight in training. "Let's just say it helped me to realize that, despite what I'd been taught as a princess, all my feelings were natural—that I should embrace them, even."

Elizabeth swallowed and stared down at the book in her hands. It was small and thin, compared to all the books that were held in the royal library; something that she could probably fit in a purse. How could something so simple help her?

That night, when she was resting in her chambers, Elizabeth shakily opened the book and found out.

It was a romance (of a sort) about a noble lady and a deadly pirate captain. On the night before the Lady was to meet with her betrothed for the first time, the Captain led a small group from his crew to infiltrate her family's estate and stole her away, leaving only a note addressed to her father. The plan had been to kidnap the Lady and blackmail her father into giving the crew money—however, the plan failed.

The truth was that the Lady's father was a corrupt Noble of the land's kingdom, and cared little for the Lady's wellbeing; after all, he had other children. If she and her possible progeny couldn't be there to help him elevate into the King's court, then he would make do with the others. Heartbroken and disillusioned, the Lady realized how unsure her future was as a captive to the Captain.

However, the Lady was fortunate. Despite the reputation he carried across the oceans, and his own irritation with the rather spoiled Lady, the Pirate Captain felt disgusted with the Lady's father. How could a parent abandon their child so callously? And to pirates, of all people?

But what could he do with her? Even if he and his crew left the Lady on the next island, there would be no guarantee that she'd even survive on her own. After all, any noblewoman coming from a pirate ship would be assumed to be ruined; no one would want her around. And while he had his own reservations about her, he couldn't just let her go with that on his conscience (well, what was left of it). That only left one option: To make her part of the crew.

And so began the adventures of the Lady and her Captain, and their motley crew of criminals and degenerates.

One day, when she would be older and pushing romance to the back of her mind, Elizabeth would look back on this little story and laugh. Because truly, it was such a cliché—but her young self ate it up like it was cake. She lost sleep over the tension that grew between the Captain and the Lady. She often giggled at the quirks of other crewmembers, and was amazed to find how much more there was to them all. She just about died when that tension ultimately came to a boil, leading to heated kisses and sliding skin—scenes that left her feeling hot and squeezing her thighs together. Her heart lurched when the feelings (Love, she kept thinking, it must be love.) remained unsaid, only to soar when they both finally confessed.

Yes, it was a cheesy love story, written clearly for those with pure rose tinted visions; but it led Elizabeth to a whole new world of possibilities and questions. And so, she decided to read more books of this type, of which Margaret had a surprisingly abundance. Some books featured the same characters, but most featured different men and women, and different tales. Some were more...intense than others, but none could sate the hunger that grew within Elizabeth, even as she found herself more flustered with each night. If anything, the more intense a scene was, the more Elizabeth found herself longing for her own love, her own growth.

That was when Elizabeth began to dream of the blonde young man with green eyes.

At first, he was faceless, practically a shadow; simply something her mind constructed to compensate for what she lacked in real life. He would often be dressed in armor, very similar to her father's Holy Knights. He'd gently grasp her hand, as if it was the most precious jewel in the realm, and lay a soft kiss on it. A simple gesture, but also rather sweet; whenever she woke from such dreams, Elizabeth always found her heart fluttering.

But the dreams didn't stop there. In fact, the more she read the erotic novels, the more structured her dreams with the stranger became—and the more structured they became, the more her stranger began to take shape.

Soon, he wasn't just some faceless shadow that bestowed soft kisses to her person—before Elizabeth realized it, her stranger had wild blond hair. From the shadows of his bangs popped eyes as green as freshly grown grass. Then, on his face, he grew a little smile that held warmth and some mischief; like he knew some big secret that would take her forever to piece together.

And then, he started speaking to her, in a boyish voice that was low, varying between playful and absolutely wicked; that was when the dreams really began to change.

No longer was Elizabeth's stranger just sweet and charming; now, he was utterly ravenous for her. Sweet kisses to her hand became deep, searing kisses to her mouth. Soft touches to her shoulders became possessive bites and hungry kisses that spread to her throat. Deft fingers found their way to intimate places Elizabeth only touched in real life, driving her higher with white hot sensations she wished her own hand could imitate. That voice, which had only spoken sweet nothings up until that point, would now whisper dark promises into her ear, promises of aches, release, and possession.

Then those hands were ripping off her dress—or whatever clothing her dream self decided to wear—and laying claim to her body in ways she'd one day hoped to experience with someone she loved.

But oh, even Elizabeth had enough sense to know that what she and her stranger did was not lovemaking—no, it was fucking. Brutal, cock-in-pussy, her nails raking into his back, skin bruising, grinding, riding, biting, and screaming until voice gone raw fucking.

At first, Elizabeth wasn't sure how to handle these dreams. Sure, she acted as usual to her family and her kingdom; never hinting the turmoil that racked through her body or her mind. But she still often thought of the dreams, especially when they became more bizarre. Did it make sense to have such detailed dreams, of someone you'd never met before?

(...As far as you know, Princess.)

Some of them didn't even feel like dreams at times, such as that time when she'd dreamed that she and her stranger were arguing—it had been one of those odd dreams, where she was taller and had short, red hair, for some odd reason—and they continued arguing until they were kissing each other and pulling at each other's clothes, hungry, still angry, but somehow full of love too. What was even the point of that? Elizabeth used to wonder at that dream, sometimes feeling a little poke deep in the back of her mind. Do these dreams even have a point...?

Elizabeth contemplated this for a while, even as she grew older and became distracted enough with her duties as third Princess of Liones that she began to forget the details in each dream, even the finer details of her dear stranger, whom she'd secretly search for, in every man she'd meet.

And then, the Holy Knights' uprising happened. Her father, the King, and Margaret imprisoned. Her running from Liones until her muscles grew sore, running towards hope, even if it was a false one. The moment she answered her kingdom's need was the moment Elizabeth threw out romance, lust, and the hot dreams that had haunted her, and instead, turned her focus onto more important matters—finding the criminals known as the Seven Deadly Sins and saving her Kingdom.

And then, she met Meliodas.