Disclaimer: The Hetalia characters and their personifications belong to Hidekaz Himaruya. 日丸屋 秀和

What Not to do if You are a Knight by Gilbert Beilschmidt:

10.) Do not fall asleep at a slumber party. Do not fall asleep in the presence of your enemies. Do not fall asleep around two sly and sadistic young women... It has been my experience that in all of these situations, you will wake up bound with ropes and not in a fun way.

Into the Forest

"Hey... Hey!"

After Lovina had roused Kitty, the two girls struggled to pull themselves from the tilted chariot cart. They climbed out through the side door with more than a little difficulty and walked to the rear of the carriage.

"Well, we're not riding in this for the rest of the way," Lovina noted. "The canvass is ripped, the frame is smashed and we're down to three wheels! Well... two and a half... What is that? I think one of the swords they dropped got jammed in the spindle of our back wheel." Lovina removed the blade and presented it to Kitty, but her servant did not respond.

Kitty went to unharness the carriage horses from the front. "At least the rain stopped," she said with a monotone voice.

"Are you okay?" Lovina asked. "You're not hurt, are you?"

"No," Kitty answered firmly and quickly, "we just... have to keep moving. You were great knocking them out like that, but they might wake up soon. We have to take what we can and get away now. I think we can find the fortress before nightfall." She finally worked the animals free from the disabled contraption.

Lovina was surprised at the soldierly tone her servant had adopted. Apparently, Kitty thought surprisingly quick in emergency situations.

In silence, Lovina began pulling essentials from the back of the carriage and loading them on the animals' backs.

Kitty began pulling the three unconscious men from the overturned cart.

She heaved a breath as she tried to pull the first limp body on to her shoulders.

"Oof! You know, this was a lot easier back when-"

"Back when what?" Kitty heard Lovina's questioning voice as the latter came to observe the struggle.

"Back when... I worked in the fields... when I was young."

"What are you doing with them?" Lovina persisted.

Kitty dropped the man and sighed, clapping her hands together. Then, a mischievous kind of smile appeared on her face. "Slowing them down," was her answer.

After struggling together to heave the three out-cold sacks of bones from the carriage, the criminals were lain on the ground and bound tightly with the rope.

"Come on!" Lovina insisted impatiently when they decided their work was sufficient.

The carriage was disabled beyond use, the assassins-turned-prisoners were securely bound by the wrists and ankles and the two horses were loaded and ready to ride.

Kitty, however, lingered at the scene.

She looked at the three sleeping forms:

they all appeared in their late teens to early twenties, wearing similar styled uniforms - dark, hooded cloaks with the same black and white cross insignia adorning the material.

The first boy had tanned skin from a southern sun; short, chestnut hair and a blissful expression on his bruised face.

The second had shoulder-length blond locks, stubble on his young chin, but looked altogether remarkably clean for his line of work.

The last figure, with his head hanging down and a disgruntled expression on his face, had broad, brutish shoulders, platinum hair, and fair northern skin.

She stared at all of them.

Just stared.

Lovina couldn't make heads or tails of her servant's internal thoughts. It was not fear, nor was it recognition... just... shocked silence. Like she was looking at a flying elephant; something that was just so beyond the realm of possibility that she couldn't comprehend it was actually there.

She gently approached her friend, "Kitty? Let's go..."

Kitty nodded her head suddenly, broken out of her daze.

With a deep breath, she accompanied her mistress to the horses and they departed.

But still, she couldn't keep her mind from wandering...

Historical Notes

* Many regions in Europe often had both serfs and slaves simultaneously. The implications held for both a serf and a slave are blurry at some points; slaves worked full-time for their masters and operated under a negative incentive structure [Engerman, Stanley. "Slavery, Serfdom, and Other Forms of Coerced Labour: Similarities and Differences". Serfdom and Slavery: Studies in Legal Bondage. London: Addison Wesley Longman Limited. pp. 31–32.]. Slaves were employed in heavy labor as well as in domestic contexts [IV:3, XXIII:6; XXXIII:50-52; LXX:30]; serfs owned plots of their own land, which was essentially a form of "payment" that the lord offered in exchange for service. [Bush, Michael (1996). "Introduction". Serfdom and Slavery: Studies in Legal Bondage. London: Addison Wesley Longman Limited. p. 3.]. Both could be used as field laborers. Elizaveta chose the most common means of labor for her explanation because she was likely to have done it given her current social position.

*The slave trade was thrivent in Europe more so before 1000 CE, but undoubtedly still existed after that era as it was difficult to regulate. Laws discouraged slaves from being white and Christian, so most were non-European, but again, this did not mean white Christians were never sold into slavery. The Crusader states also inherited many slaves and, interestingly enough, many crusaders' wives were captured and sold into slavery. [Christopher Tyerman, God's War, A new History of the Crusades, p. 230.]