Prologue:
"What do you mean, you can't contact her?!" Garel screamed into the mobile next to her long, upward-pointing ear. "She is literally the most important person on this entire continent and we managed to LOSE her?! What the fu-"
"Taifun, we are all concerned about this development, but you know quite well how limited our surveillance resources in Maranurr are." the voice on the other side of the connection tried to calm her.
"Concerned my ass!" Garel shouted hysterically. "We are literally failing the prophecy if she dies! And not only that, I lose any protection against the authorities of this shithole country!"
The person on the other side had hung up, obviously no longer willing to deal with Garel's panic. With a loud, uncontrolled scream she threw the mobile at the wall. It miraculously survived the impact and left a surprisingly large dent in the wall. On the other hand, were these surveillance-proof cold-war mobiles not designed to specifically withstand such impacts?
Garel sat down on her large, queen-sized bed with silk sheets, wrapped her arms around her knees and started to cry. Her personal and emotional investment into this whole affair was too big.
This was the literal worst case scenario.
She had been tasked with protecting the person who was destined to destroy this country and had managed to LOSE her. Maybe the single greatest fuck-up in the entirety of Elfish history was entirely her fault.
Sitting on a bed and crying quickly wasn't enough for her anymore and she jumped up to demolish her furniture. An expensive, old mahogany-table? What did it even matter anymore without the princess? She punched it once, twice, and then kicked it over with all the force in her small body. Paintings of her producers, band members and friends? What did they matter if everything was bound to fall apart now? She tore them off the walls and threw them violently into a corner. Garel took a chair and hurled it at a window, but unfortunately that one was shatterproof. After all, she was on the 23rd story of a high-rise apartment building. For a brief moment, she stood in her room, looking for the next victim to panic-fuelled rage as the mobile phone rang again in a corner.
Garel turned to it again, seriously considering to destroy it completely as a next step, but then her self-preservation instincts kicked in again and she picked it up from the ground.
"Agent Taifun here." she said, wiping the tears from the edge of her eyes.
"This is Ryolloran Ni Balmor, 2nd Prince of the Elfish State of Balmor", a stern, yet calm voice from the other side of the line answered.
Garel had the feeling of suddenly freezing from the inside out as she responded with a shaking voice: "Y-your highness... I... didn't expect..."
"Irrelevant.", the Prince responded. "News has reached us that the Princess of Balmor has gone missing on a special Class A mission under your protection. Are these reports correct?"
Garel had to swallow a huge, painful lump in her throat very hard. Just when she thought the day could not get any worse, it took the only possible route to actually do.
"Yes..." she finally responded. "They are true."
A short silence ensued between her and her conversation partner, and the Prince said: "You are aware this is a crisis that threatens the very integrity of our country and might cause a nuclear war with the USA, which we cannot win?"
Again, more lumps to swallow.
"Y-yes.", she said with a increasingly shaky voice.
"Good." the Prince said. "We expect this situation to improve within less than a week. Otherwise we are forced to apply drastic measures against everyone involved."
"Y-You mean... nuclear war?" Garel asked into the phone, but at this point the Prince had already hung up on her.
For about two minutes Garel did nothing but stand in the room, listening to the rhythmic beep-beep-beep coming from the mobile, as if neither her body nor her mind could comprehend what was happening to her currently.
Then another desperate scream escaped her mouth and she threw the phone against the wall.
She HAD to find her.
She HAD to find the princess.
And if the price was a bloodbath, then it was a low price compared to what might happen if she didn't.