AN: I love you guys' reviews. It really does warm my heart, y'all. Btw, Vincent is not the vigilante in this, in case you hadn't already noticed.

Vincent and the princess didn't speak to each other for the rest of the day, save the times when the princess gave him orders or instructions. He complied with her whims, but on the inside, he was quietly plotting ways to get out of protecting her for much longer. She wasn't particularly cruel, especially compared to her father, but the fact that she hadn't spoken up at all during any of the sentencing at the hearings that morning made her just as evil in his eyes.

While the princess had expressed some remorse for her abused, future subjects, she didn't really show it. She carried on throughout her day with smiles for everyone she passed. She had even sent Vincent to get measured for new tunics and trousers, a gift that he had accepted begrudgingly. When the princess had sat down with her father for supper that evening, she made no mention of that morning's events, and made no appeal for any of the extremely harsh punishments against the King's subjects. The princess even joked lightly with her sister (as bitter as Duchess Heather was, she still had a certain amount of affection for the princess) over poached chicken and candied pears.

People like her were enablers: looking out for themselves and only helping others when it suited them. Vincent was sure that hated her as much as he hated the King. At least, he told himself that he hated her. There was something about her that was alluring to him, something he couldn't quite get a handle on. His Beast certainly enjoyed her aesthetic features, but his normal-self longed for her to be someone else, someone he fantasized about. She cannot honestly be as uncaring as she acts, he thought to himself, but quickly shook it out of his head. People like the princess never changed.

The woman Vincent wanted her to be: strong, fierce, yet still kind and genial to those in need. Sometimes, that woman appeared when she whispered her thanks to the servant who served her supper, something only Vincent and the servant could hear. She even slipped Magnus an extra cookie when she passed the court scribe/castle guide in the halls after supper. The minute she caught Vincent looking at her during any of those moments of kindness, she quickly disappeared back behind her mask of dutiful princess. Magnus' words echoed inside of his head from the night before, as he had Vincent vow to protect the woman that Magnus had described. Vincent would have gratefully taken Magnus' perception of the princess over this.

The only logical way of getting himself out of his protection detail (save from killing her), was to do exactly what he was being punished for: capture the vigilante and bring his head to Joe so that Vincent may be reinstated into the ranks. It would not be easy, for the vigilante was as swift as the wind and deadlier than the sharpest of swords. Vincent formulated a plan to get out of the castle at night and still be back in time before the princess awoke. He would patrol in the valley below each night until he had his nemesis' head on a pike.

What terrified him slightly was the prospect of using the Beast to accomplish such a task. He hadn't let loose in years; even on the battlefield he remained human, mostly because his fellow soldiers were always beside him. The Beast was the only thing that could possibly get down to the village and return to the castle with enough time to patrol for a few hours, so that was his only choice. However, it did not make his decision any easier.

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The moon had just risen from its daylight home to sit upon its throne in the night sky when Vincent left the castle. The princess assumed he had gone to the dining hall for his supper, and she would be in bed long before he was supposed to return his room. He didn't wear any of his insipid, dented, clanging armor, nor did he bring his sword, as they both would encumber the Beast's movements as he sped down the mountain. Instead, Vincent wore his only cloak which was as dark as the surrounding night and had a hood to cover his head with.

The Beast was well suited for running at night, the moonlight reflecting off of the onyx stones in the mountainside to provide what little light he needed. His reflexes were much sharper than any other being's, hopping over boulders and jumping off of small cliffs to land on the road periodically as it snaked its way down the mountain. Instead of just running on the castle's road, which would take an hour, he sped straight down the eastern mountain face. Luckily for him, no one was looking up from the village or down from the castle as he ran, so he wasn't spotted.

His veiny, scarred visage was fearsome enough to any ordinary human. His claws were much sharper than his sword or his various other weapons, his teeth gleamed pearly white (an after effect of his chewing of peppermint leaves after every meal to keep mouth infections away), and his demonic-looking eyes shone yellow in the abyss of the dark night. What was most noticeable, however, wasn't really something tangible. His strength rolled off of his gigantic frame like waves of glory from the gods.

The village in the valley was less of a village and more of a dense, sprawling city. It was a maelstrom of poverty and lawlessness: the King held no real authority there, even if it was mere miles from the castle of House Chandler. The city was formed like a target (with a bulls-eye in the center). The center buildings were either stone or clay, whilst the buildings and houses sprawling outward were made of wood, sod, or canvas. The streets were muddy, it having rained the day before, causing some buildings to have dried mud splashed in spattered striations on their exteriors. Candles sat in windowsills and the firelight from certain houses' hearths spilled through cracks onto the streets. Otherwise, the city was almost completed dark to regular human eyes.

To Vincent, the village was lit up like a candelabra, whatever light was available was immediately picked up by his night vision. It was a mile long in diameter, and it would take most investigators weeks to sweep for whatever they were looking for, but not Vincent. He stood atop a thirty-foot high boulder which allowed him a vantage point to look over the entire city. He closed his eyes and allowed his other senses to look for him.

His sharp canines bared themselves so the Beast could taste the night's warm air as his ears pricked upwards to muddle through the various noises emanating from the city. Whores shrieked drunkenly in the streets and alleyways, hanging loosely off of prospective clients. Men brawled in pubs and children cried like wailing sirens. Indeed, this village was a den of iniquity.

What he could smell was a whole other matter. Besides the other human fragrances, one other very distinct, very familiar scent lingered beneath the surface: Blood. It wafted over the breeze with its copper tendrils snaking out towards Vincent. Something within the Beast's magnificence thrummed happily, perhaps leftover from whatever created it, perhaps merely the suppressed demon licking its chops inside of Vincent's heart.

Like a moth to a flame, Vincent was drawn towards the scent which was in the center of the outer ring of the city. The houses in that particular section of the city were made of wooden slats nailed together and thatched roofs. If it were dry (which it wasn't) it wouldn't take very much to set the entire city ablaze. Vincent pulled the hood of his cloak over his still-bestial visage and kept his head down so no one who spared him more than a glance would see his golden eyes or his veined face.

People passed him by in the streets, some ambling around drunkenly, and others hurrying along as if they were running from something. The smell of blood grew stronger as he wandered deeper into the outer ring of the city. Something else drifted toward him upon the winter's breeze: the sound of a woman's gut-wrenching sobs. The cries emanated from a wooden shack just ahead of him.

Vincent snuck out of the street, away from the prying eyes of the villagers as he possibly could get before he peered into the cracks of the wooden slats to get a look at what was going on inside of the cabin. To his surprise, it was the last woman to appear before the King in court earlier that day. Her daughters stood, as if in shock, emotionally distant against the farthest wall away from Vincent. Their mother howled and sobbed in pain as someone (whose back was to Vincent) dressed the torn flesh on her backside.

The man tending to the woman was rather short, a black hood pulled over their head with a string secured around the back of it, a black cloak covering the rest of his body. What alarmed Vincent slightly was the fact that two blades rested together in their sheaths on his back, both light enough to be wielded with one hand (a style no one Vincent knew had mastered). The shanty's fire crackled with an ironic merriment from its place in the hearth, casting an amber glow over the crying woman and the man washing the blood and excess tissue from her back.

The man then rubbed an herbed poultice on the woman's back and the guardsmens' whip lashes seemed to lose their sting as it dried on her frayed skin. She no longer cried as, to Vincent and her daughters' amazement, her skin began to slowly knit itself back together. Whatever the man had brought with him was no ordinary poultice.

"By the gods," Vincent growled in amazement through the Beast's sharp canines. Instantly, he knew that he had made a mistake by saying anything at all as the man whipped around at the sound of the Beast's voice. Vincent saw that what the man had secured behind his hood was actually a mask of a lion's face, its fake jaws open in a carved roar. He knew instantly that this man was the vigilante he had been searching for.

The vigilante fled the shanty (as the woman cried her thanks after him) out of the door opposite Vincent, who immediately gave chase. This endeavor turned out to be not as easy as Vincent thought it would be: although the vigilante was (from what he could assess) human, he jumped atop the roof of the nearest house. Vincent could only zoom alongside, his black cloak billowing out behind him like a river of night, as he figured he was much too heavy to be able to run atop the weak roofs on the houses.

Vincent fought back a roar as the vigilante leapt over the spaces between houses, flipping to quickly change direction, and almost managed to shake the Beast at his heels. Almost. As Vincent ran next to the vigilante, the cloak flapped away from the man's legs, allowing for Vincent to see the row of knife holsters running down the man's outer thighs. Vincent couldn't see much else before the vigilante unsheathed one of his dozen knives and hurtled it at Vincent.

The Beast was unable to contain a howl of pain as the knife slammed into his side, forcing him back into an alleyway between two tenement buildings. The vigilante did not look back to see if his knife blow had landed on his intended target, and instead sprinted off into the night as Vincent phased back into his human form. He lay there for an agonizing moment before inhaling sharply and pulling the knife from his side. He squeezed his eyes shut and gritted his teeth as he howled again.

Unlike the woman the vigilante had been treating, Vincent did not need poultice to heal quickly. His wound was deeper than her whip lashes had been, so it would take until tomorrow to completely heal, but the blood flow began to slow. He lay there for another ten minutes before changing back into the Beast and fast-limped up the mountain, wary of the fast-approaching dawn.

When he had finally climbed back over the castle walls and mounted the staircase into the princess' bedchambers, Vincent could feel the extra energy he needed to heal begin to ebb from the rest of his body. He stumbled into her room, the pain in his side still excruciating, and was relieved to find the princess fast asleep in her bed. Part of him wanted to push his luck and take a look at whatever was underneath her bed (which still reeked of blood), but the other parts of him screamed for food and rest.

Vincent trudged into his room, shut the door behind him, and made sure to hide his cloak and the vigilante's bloody blade in his bag just as the edges of his vision began to grow darker. He collapsed from the pain and exhaustion in a crumpled heap soon after that, inches away from his cot and knocked out completely cold.

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He awoke a couple of hours later to a wave of cold water splashing into his scarred face. He started upward with a yelp, which quickly turned to a groan of pain as his still-sore knife wound smarted angrily. His face and shirt were dirty from having fallen asleep upon the stone floor. He gritted out a groan of pain as he held his side, before looking up to realize who had cast water over his face.

The princess loomed over him, already completely dressed, an only recently emptied chalice in her hand. "Rise, brave sir Knight," she commanded, in a mockery of the ceremonial words recited to usher a man into knighthood. "We have a guest coming to visit the castle today, so it's all hands on deck." She scowled at the word 'guest'.

"'All hands on deck'? Isn't that a sailor's idiom, m'lady?" Vincent ground out as he staggered to his feet.

The princess glared furiously at him. "Oh my gods, are you drunk?"

Vincent squinted at her as sunlight flooded her room beyond his. "No, m'lady. Old war injury," he patted his side for effect as it finished healing underneath his fingertips. It would be a little tender for the rest of the day, but that was manageable compared to the agony of serving under the princess whilst he had been so close to freedom the night before.

"Try not to let it get in the way of your duties, will you?" She commanded, and threw a bundle of clothing at him. "You will wear your new clothes to be presentable in front of Lord Marks during his visit today." Vincent assessed her facial expression as she said 'Lord Marks', the name of her betrothed. She didn't even begin to attempt to hide her contempt of the man from Vincent.

He dressed as quickly as he could, trying to not bend his torso as much as he could. Most of the day was spent getting the castle ready for Princess Catherine's future husband. Servants bustled about, arms laden with things ranging from polished silver to baskets of bread or fruit. Every torch in the castle was lit, every passageway and entrance hall were swept and washed. Every panel of stained glass was cleaned until it shone brighter than the best cut of diamond in the radiance of the sunlight.

The princess was forced to sit in her chambers whilst the women the King hired to 'beautify' her primped her for her fiancé's arrival as Vincent was made to watch from up against the wall. He was forced out for a little while as they bathed her and washed her hair. He glowered at the women coiling and piling her glossy hair into a strange style he had never heard of before. It was outlandishly hideous, the way that her hair was micro-braided into loops on top of her head and stuck out in all directions. They slathered green makeup onto her eyelids and bright-pink rouge upon her cheeks, only after they had painted her with a pale white foundation that covered her tanned skin.

To top it all off, they smashed some sort of red paste onto her lips, as if to entice Lord Marks into kissing her. The green dress she wore (which was the color of House Marks) was tightly corseted and pushed her breasts upward. It was a southern style dress, the South being her fiancé's place of origin, and it was designed to keep women from speaking by restricting her breathing.

When the 'beautifying' women left to ready Duchess Heather, Vincent and the princess were alone in her bedchamber. She stared, horrified, at her 'new and improved' look in the mirror.

She could scarcely squeeze out a jest from her constricted lungs. "Aren't you…going to tell me…how beautiful I look?"

Vincent scowled at her reflection as he stood behind her in the floor-length mirror. "M'lady, this is the only time that I can honestly say that you are not beautiful. They've painted you like a clown and stuck you in a dress too small even for you."

The princess clenched her jaw. "I can hardly stand this now, when he's just visiting." She took a second to catch her breath before continuing. "I'll jump off of the mountain before I'll become his wife."

Vincent's expression darkened. "You'll do no such thing, m'lady. I will jump before you so that you may land on my broken body instead of let you commit suicide."

The princess nodded and smirked at him. "You may be incompetent, but even the gods know that you're loyal." The lack of oxygen going to her head must've caused her to go mad already, because she never joked with him like this before. He sent another silent prayer to the gods, pleading for them to gift him with the patience to last through supper.

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Lord Marks insisted that he sit next to his betrothed, the slowly suffocating Princess Catherine. The white makeup plastered over all of her exposed skin clogged her pores and caused her to sweat in the confines of her prison of a dress. He was rather handsome, with a southern accent that made girls swoon (except for the princess), and wore rather fine robes. He obviously came from an extremely wealthy family, judging from how many rings he had on and the state of his shoes (which indicated he didn't have to walk where it was available to be carried). Lord Marks was pleased with his fiancé's womanly, complacent state.

"You see, this southern fashion is very popular with all the officials' wives and daughters ," Marks boasted. "Keeps the women enjoyable to look at, but it also keeps their mouths shut so the men can carry on with business." Vincent's fists were clenched so hard that his fingernails drew blood from the calloused skin of his palms.

The King looked like he wanted to take his daughter's place as the Lord's betrothed, constantly asking questions about the Lord's adventures and life in the south. Marks went on and on about his various hunting trips and exotic kills, as well as going so far in saying that he went to battle once.

"It was nothing, really. There were five of us and three dozen of them, so I suppose that they were sent after me by my enemies. Assassins, I'm sure," he said, with a wink at the princess, who made an attempt to smile back but it ended up being a grimace instead.

Duchess Heather wouldn't stop making eyes at him, willing to show her sister's betrothed how much better she would be as his wife and queen. The only person who seemed to not notice how much the princess disliked her future husband was Lord Marks himself. He grabbed her hand and looked pointedly at the King. "May I take my fiancé for a turnabout the castle?" Vincent nearly growled at the fact that Marks asked the King, not the princess, for permission.

The King nodded and smiled his fake, cold smile that made bile rise up in Vincent's throat. Marks helped the princess stand and made his way out of the dining hall with her on his arm. Vincent began to follow before the King called him back.

"Your protection is not needed at this time, Knight," the King commanded, not even facing Vincent when he talked to him.

"My apologies, Your Grace," Vincent replied and stood back behind Catherine's empty chair. Duchess Heather eyed him greedily without Lord Marks and her sister in her line of vision. Just out of spite for her, Vincent made sure no one else was looking when he flashed his eyes to their catlike, yellow glow for a moment. The duchess let out a surprised squeak, suddenly horrified of her sister's guardsman, and startled the King as he was taking a sip of wine.

"Dammit, woman!" The King swore, having spilled wine on himself. Vincent wore no expression as Heather continued to stare at him, mouth agape.

Before the King could say anything else to his youngest, his eldest strode into the room. "Lord Marks…has decided to leave before nightfall...father. He said that the mountain road…gets treacherous in the moonlight during our winter. I agreed for the sake of the safety of my future husband." The princess seemed to be having some trouble breathing as she said this, and blatantly ignored the scowl her wine-sodden father shot her way.

"Come, Knight," she called to Vincent, who obediently followed after her. Once they exited the dining hall, he became very aware of how shallow her breathing was getting inside of the confines of her dress. They started their way up the spiral staircase to her bedchamber before the princess had to rest on a step, panting heavily. She was sweating so profusely that the white foundation she had slathered on began to slide off. Without any prompting from her, Vincent picked her up, bridal-style, and ran with her up the stairs.

She didn't protest, knowing full well that she would lose consciousness if she didn't get that dress and corset off sooner rather than later. She gasped through gritted teeth as Vincent used his foot to open and slam the door of her bedchambers. He set her down on her feet facing her bed, and had her bend over with her palms against the bedspread. Had this been any other situation, he would've made some crass, lewd remark about her submissive position, but he didn't feel as if he were in a joking mood as he grabbed one of his daggers.

"Don't move," he instructed, and sliced through the laces on the back of her dress and corset in one long stroke. He peeled the dress and the corset partially off of her so her lungs could be free. She gasped, as if she had been resuscitated from drowning, and dragged in long, deep breaths.

"Fucking southern fashion," she spat, surprising him with her boldness and coarse language. Her underdress was thick enough for Vincent to no feel uncomfortable as she practically tore off her dress and corset. The princess then strode over to the bucket of drinking water and proceeded to wash her arms, chest, neck, and face of the horrible make-up that was smothering her.

"Why don't you go and get yourself something to eat, eh? That way you're not just standing there like a buffoon watching me rid myself of this filth," the princess suggested without turning back to face him, makeup running off of her in goops and into the water. As he grabbed something from his bag and made his way out, she called after him: "I will be in bed by the time you return. Try not to wake me when you stumble in, drunk again."

Vincent seethed at her accusation, but rather than insist again that his groggy state earlier that morning was due to pain rather than drink, he ignored her and decided to do another patrol of the village. What he really needed to calm himself was a little face-to-face with the little vigilante shit that stabbed him. The things he had grabbed from his bag before he left were his cloak and the dagger covered in his blood.

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Vincent had been in the valley for an hour already before deciding to circle back to the woman's cabin, where he had found the vigilante at the night before. He hadn't checked that particular location earlier because he hadn't figured the vigilante would be stupid enough to show his face there again. He was right, but only partially so, as he spotted someone else walking by: Tomas, the woman's rapist. That man was the reason both she and her family would never feel safe in their home, or anywhere else for that matter. The King had given Tomas even more power by showing him that he would not be punished for treating women like property, to be taken and used on a whim.

Before Vincent was about to tear his throat out, however, another cloaked figure swooped in from one of the rooftops across the narrow street and kicked Tomas into a secluded spot behind his victims' house. He followed, making sure to make as little noise as possible so he could let the vigilante carry out his own brand of justice. Tomas was on his knees in front of the vigilante, his face bloody from the kick he had received that launched him into the alley. The vigilante had one of his swords pointed at his victim's throat.

"P-please," Tomas pleaded, urine leaking through the seat of his trousers and onto the ground close to the masked man's shoes.

"Disgusting," the vigilante whispered, not loud enough for Vincent to be able to tell anything definitive from it. Before Vincent scarcely had time to blink, the man had cut off Tomas' head, the blood spilling out from the severed neck wound as fast as a swollen river during the rainy season. The Beast fought its way to the surface, growling in a twisted appreciation for the vigilante's violence. But Vincent was the one that wanted some violence for himself.

The vigilante unsheathed the other sword from his back sheath, his lion mask still twisted in a roar. Vincent pulled the dagger from beneath the folds of his cloak and hurled it at the vigilante at full force. The man swatted the dagger aside in mid-air before spinning in a complete circle to arc the blades in close to the Beast's scarred, veiny face. The only reason Vincent wasn't sliced by the man's swords was because of his superhuman speed, which allowed him to duck underneath the man's swinging blades and tackle him to the ground not ten feet from the vigilante's latest victim.

Vincent had used his right shoulder to dig into the man's stomach, but on his way down to the ground, he realized that some of what he slammed into felt oddly like a woman's breasts.

"G-Girl?" Vincent spat, suddenly feeling rather emasculated. He straddled her and pinned her hands above her head, sword-free, with one hand in the blink of an eye. Even though she was extremely fast for a human, she was still human, and stood no chance against the Beast. She strained against his weight, panting desperately before Vincent ripped her mask off.

"Princess?"

"Knight Keller?"

I know y'all pretty much knew who the vigilante was from the get-go, so the big reveal wasn't so big after all. Oh well. As you can imagine, Vincent's ego won't be doing so well after he finds out that his precious princess was the person who managed to hit him with a throwing knife.