The wolf-thing was still whimpering, whining, but its one good eye was scanning the clearing once more, about to take notice of the wounded girl right in front of it.

Mai hauled herself up, leaning heavily against a tree, and knocked an arrow in her bow, drawing it all the way back with the last vestiges of her energy.

The worrying part of her mind decided to claw its way through her pain to start bothering her again.

You haven't done this in years, it reminded her, You do realize that there is a very low chance of you actually making this shot?

Shut up, she shot back, that being the only response she had to actually make it stop.

You're an idiot.

Shut UUUUUP-

The wolf-thing had seen her while she was arguing with herself.

LOOK WHAT YOU DID!

Now both voices in her brain were yelling at the same time and Mai was going insane.

The thing staggered closer and closer, still in pain but not about to give up on revenge and a meal. Mai's hands trembled, locked in place.

Her mind froze until something inside the deepest, darkest corners of her mind; an old, primal instinct, screamed: NOW!

Mai's fingers slipped for half a moment before she truly let go, the backlash nearly knocking her over. Her arrow flew, rocking a tiny, tiny bit, before thudding straight into the ever-nearing wolf-thing that was still across the clearing but was already tensing its hind legs to jump, piercing the tough, skin-burning fur around its clavicle, dangerously close to its neck.

I was aiming for its other eye-

Now is NOT the time to be complaining!

It didn't look like a killing shot to Mai, but the other arrow that suddenly rocketed out of the trees to the left of her and stabbed it in the skull certainly was.

Mai exhaled slowly, still increasingly aware of the pain along her entire leg as she watched the wolf creature give a final twitch of its back foot and then fall limp. Mai pulled her leg in, wincing at the effort, and peered at the bite that had thankfully seemed to have stopped bleeding. She almost passed out from the sting it gave her when she tried to slide her jeans up to reveal the wound. She cut the bloody part of her pants off in sections, all the way up to her mid-thigh, so she could get a good look at it.

She very nearly regretted it.

It was ugly and inflamed, the saliva of this weird beast clearly causing the same type of burn its fur did because the bite was red and swollen and basically a bloody, mangled mess.

The only good thing about it was that it wasn't as deep as it had originally seemed and the bleeding had stopped.

But, judging from the pool of blood beneath her calf, she had lost a lot of that red liquid that she incidentally needed to survive.

Mai took the soft fabric of the ruined jean that she had cut off and discarded it after a careful examination. It was too mangled and blood-soaked to do any good. Mai cut the other side off so her jeans-turned shorts were symmetrical and began to slice it into strips.

"That's going to be infected if I don't wash it," Mai said aloud, realizing that very important detail before digging around in her backpack and thanking whatever god was up there that Yuki had been an asshole and also bought her a water bottle (that he had filled up; inside joke) because she was always losing hers.

And she said asshole because this water bottle had a note taped on it, saying: 'Lose this one and you're officially an idiot, Queen'.

Mai rolled her eyes before tipping the water out onto the wound, wincing but braving through it. The instant she was satisfied, she stopped the flow and took a deep breath, slowly wrapping and tying the strips around her leg. Now, she was wearing some very odd shorts and she was cold, and exhausted and very literally half-dead, but she was alive. She took a few more deep, gasping breaths and stood up, hands grabbing at the tree behind her for support. She leaned heavily on her right leg, eyes narrowing in irritation as she felt spikes of pain in her left one when she tried to put weight on it.

But hey, she was alive.

Wait-

Her eyes flicked to the huge carcass in front of her, two arrows sticking out of its already-rotting body.

"Who the hell-"

"I think the proper words to say are 'thank you',"

Mai's head turned so fast, it felt like she may have broken it.

The man in front of her was smirking so wide, Mai wanted to punch him in the nose for no apparent reason at all. He was wearing light armour, a large broadsword strapped to his back. He looked to be about Mai's age and had cotton-candy pink hair, which made Mai want to burst out laughing. His face was handsome, she supposed, if you were willing to overlook the insane amount of cockiness displayed on it. He had crescent-shaped eyes, plump lips, tan-ish skin, a narrow nose, and a defined jawline. His eyes were startlingly blue-gray. Mai scowled.

"I think I had it covered," she narrowed her eyes at him, shifting warily. She had never particularly trusted pretty boys, and now did not seem like a time to start.

"Maybe," he shrugged, "but I certainly helped. Nice shot, by the way, although it would have been a bit better if you had hit it in the skull. Like I, coincidentally, did."

He looked so insufferably smug Mai was basically willing to risk making her wound bleed again just so she could punch him.

No, no, bad idea.

"I don't know if you noticed," Mai raised her eyebrows, gesturing to her leg, "but my aim wasn't exactly at its best for a couple reasons. Would you like me to point them out for you, or can your brain figure that out on its own?"

Now, it was HIS turn to narrow his eyes.

"You really don't know who I am, do you?"

Mai almost scoffed in his face, but a small part of her worried that he actually might be someone important, which would be bad, seeing as she had already dissed him a bunch.

"No. Should I?" Mai made her voice as sarcastic as possible, which made his eyebrows furrow up.

He was quiet for a moment, taking in her bedraggled, blood-soaked appearance, then staring at her eyes as if something about them puzzled him. Which didn't make sense- they were ordinary, plain brown.

Just because YOU have weird eyes doesn't mean the rest of us do.

"What's a pretty girl like you doing so close to the Mistev border?" his tone was almost flirty, his smirk not making things better for him. Also, Mai had no idea what he was talking about. Mistev border? What was THAT? And who came up with that horrendous name?

"Can you MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS? I mean, thanks for your help, which I didn't really need, but why are you randomly just camping out here, creepily waiting to save random human beings?" Mai cocked an eyebrow at him, dodging the question because she actually didn't know what she was doing here either. A sharp flare of pain erupted from the dull ache in her leg and she winced slightly.

The man's eyes never left her face. "I mean, I didn't get why the king would send me so close to the border either, but he's a seer, so he must have known something was going to happen," he smirked at her. "A really pretty thing did."

Mai ignored his flirty jab in exchange for focusing on the strange words he was saying. A seer? The king? Far border? Who the hell was this person dressed like a medieval cosplayer?

The man clearly didn't notice this and continued. "I'm going to take you to the King, because it's pretty obvious that he wants me to-"

Mai had stopped listening to that. Going to see them already sounded like a bad idea. She did not want to get thrown in a dungeon for AT THE VERY LEAST breaking the dress code. "Oh no. No, no, I am NOT going to any KING-"

"But-" the pink-haired man peered at her in confusion. "You have to! He's the-"

"No WAY," Mai didn't need to be thrown in a dungeon on top of all her other problems, "go AWAY before I break your freaking nose."

The pink-haired boy drew himself up importantly, a flash of irritation flickering through his odd gray eyes.

"Is that any way to talk to a prince, woman?"

Mai stiffened. Well, brilliant. Whatever god was up there had sent her a prince to deal with?

Great going, world. Brilliant. Juuuuuust brilliant.

And this weird, pink-haired prince wasn't even done throwing assumptions out there. "You bear arms. And you obviously know how to mend wounds, at least makeshift ones-"

"I learned that in girl scouts when I was twelve. Very scary," Mai piped up dryly, but the prince ignored her.

"-AND you talk back to a prince like you have no respect or have no idea who I am and you use strange words and wear strange clothes," he suddenly gasped. "YOU'RE AN ASSASSIN!"

There was a moment of silence where the pink-haired, gray-eyed prince looked very proud of himself for figuring that out and Mai just let that accusation sink in.

"What?" Mai spluttered after a heartbeat of shocked silence, taken completely off-guard. "No! I don't even-"

"Alright, now you HAVE to come to the palace," he took another step forward, coming very close to invading Mai's personal space. She shoved him away, snarling.

"I'M NOT A-"

"Listen, if you weren't an assassin, I might actually ask you out on a date, but-" he was ignoring her protests and just coming closer, grabbing her wrist firmly. And that was when she realized how strong this flirty prince actually was.

Well, Mai panicked.

And then bad things happened.

Her body was moving before she could even think about it. She staggered back and shoved the palm of her hand into the pink-haired boy's nose. Apparently, though, he reacted rather than talked as well.

He moved back, clutching his nose, his sharp gray eyes gleaming with a sort of intensity as he took in her appearance again.

"I suspected you were going to make this difficult," he sighed, gingerly touching the wet tissue of his nose, wincing as it came away wet with blood.

Mai didn't remember what happened next, but she did know that the prince's gray eyes were the last thing she saw before everything went black.

A/N:

OOOH AN EXCITING CHAPTER HEHE

Hey, can you guess who the pink-haired prince is?

I mean, you're going to find out in the next chapter anyway, but I guess it might be fun to guess?

Whatever I guess I'm just really lame.

Alright anyway enjoooooy and love yourself hehe

OH and um, next chapter, I may actually add a picture! You'll have to see!

See ya Lovelies!

-MyOwnA.R.M.Y