Princess of the Monsters Ch. 01

Author's Note: So here's a story I had been working on for a long while now...I decided to bring it to this website. This is the first chapter but I already have work on the second chapter. I don't know how long this will be, but I'm having fun writing it.)

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Princess Chrodia was by far the most beautiful thing to ever grace the kingdom of Gehendia: She had the soft facial features of an Elvin princess, eyes that were the color of fresh ice, and hair which cascaded down her back like water but was the color of faded gold. In terms of her shape, Princess Chrodia was quite healthy. She was of an average body-type, neither appearing malnourished nor over-fed, and her skin was the color of creamy milk.

Of all the things that were admired of the princess was her chest: Princess Chrodia was among one of the very few women in the kingdom of Gehendia who was blessed by the gods to have a well-developed chest that was perfect for nurturing offspring, should that life-changing moment ever occur for her. Many had gone so far as to compare the size of her chest to the size of ripe, large watermelons.

Princess Chrodia had awakened early in the middle of the night on one Sunday when the smell of smoke roused her from her slumber when it passed by her nose. She was greeted not only by the smoke but brilliant flames that she almost had mistaken for rays of sunlight flashing through the glass-less bedroom window of her chamber.

The initial thought that she was that their cook, Rainsworth, who was old and senile, had finally lost all sense he had and ended up ruining whatever meal it was that he was preparing for her father and mother or the other guests they were having that night, and as a result, ended up setting the whole castle on fire.

Despite the drowsiness that she was experiencing then when she rose from the bed, rubbing her ice blue eyes and letting out the faintest of little yawns, she had shifted her eyes towards the door of her chamber and almost uttered a silent prayer when she saw that the bookcase of her bedroom, which was key to her survival from the roaring flames, was untouched by the fires.

She seized the opportunity. And barefooted and clad in nothing more than her silky soft nightgown, she released one of the books from the shelf, resulting in the bookshelf spinning open with her at its side, then closing again upon leading her into a hidden passageway.

When she arrived from the old, musky passageway that was covered in cobwebs and dust, Princess Chrodia had arrived at the royal throne room where her father could usually be found sitting on his throne with a book in one hand, and his queen's in the other. But she had noticed upon arrival that his seat was empty as was her mother's. This led her to the conclusion that Rainsworth was most likely not preparing a late-night meal for the king...And as the heat started to grow greater in the castle, Princess Chrodia began to think maybe the fire wasn't started by Rainsworth at all.

Lifting up her nightgown she took off running as part of the castle collapsed directly onto the two thrones. She was lucky to have escaped its range in that short moment and had she dawdled another moment in her self-thinking, she surely would have been caught and trapped underneath where she would have burned to death.

Her heart pounding against her chest, Princess Chrodia felt anxiety grow within her as she began to worry further about the well-being of her parents and siblings as well as all the many knights who had served under their royal family since she was just a tiny little baby who couldn't even speak a word.

Her race again time, against the soon to collapse of the castle, eventually drew to a conclusion in the ballroom where she heard the sound of vehement yelling and the sound of metallic footsteps marching together in unison and the clashing of steel against steel. It was at that moment that Princess Chrodia knew, without even needing to see what lied on the other side of the ballroom, what exactly had happened to the castle. But even so, even as her heart seemed to sink deeper into her, she had to see with her own eyes just to shun away the denial that she was experiencing. She pushed the doors open with both arms. And then, her mouth gaped open and her eyes dilated.

Her conclusion was indeed correct.

The very castle that her father had built in his prime before he had ever even crossed paths with her mother, was under enemy fire. And there was not a doubt in the princess' mind that it was the very people she saw fighting her father and her older brother in the ballroom that were responsible for setting the castle ablaze.

Her father, the king, turned to see her standing there in shock. He was caught in the middle of a duel against a rather fierce-looking knight who was clad in black armor with red around the helmet and two demonic-looking horns that protruded from the temples of the helmet.

"What are you doing here?" Her father tersely inquired.

"F--father!"

"Damn it, Chrodia, you shouldn't be in here right now, child! If you had just escaped instead of coming in here then they would no have seen you. We're at war right now, and no one in this castle is safe from these evil men! And so that's why you must run away and escape while you still have the chance! You aren't fit to fight like your brothers or my faithful knights; you're but a dainty child who cannot tell the front end of the sword from the back of the sword."

"B—but," she stepped forward, her eyes taking in the sight of the flames that burned around her father and those that he was fighting both against, as well alongside. "There must be something that I can do, Father; I cannot just leave you, Edward, and the knights to fight these men all by yourselves."

"For Gods sake, Chrodia! Do what father says and get out of this bloody castle before you end up getting caught in this, too."

Princess Chrodia didn't want to accept the fact that the words of her father rang true: She knew she wouldn't be much help in this situation and would be more of a burden to both her father, brother and the ones who swore to protect them, than anything else. There really was nothing that she could do and that was one thing that hurt the most.

"Please...Chrodia, I ask of you; escape from this castle so that your life may be spared in case this battle goes in the opposite direction."

"..Y—yes." she nodded.

"G—good. Now, hurry and go, Chrodia, I cannot hold this fiend in place."

The last words said by her father chilled her to the bone. She backed away from the ballroom the moment she saw a few knights walking past her father and her brother Edward, very clearly making their approach towards her.

She took off running again as she lifted up her gown and took about thirteen steps away from the ballroom when she heard a loud cry that signaled that the reaper had come to collect yet another victim. She stopped dead in her tracks before her foot touched the next checker-patterned floor, her knees nearly going weak, and her hand subconsciously moving towards her racing heart.

That voice...The cry that she heard right then, that was the voice of her father; they finally beat him.

She realized there wasn't much time to sit there and mourn him, and she forced herself to snap out of the traumatic trance she found herself falling into and once again began her escape towards the drawbridge. She had to live, for her father's sake.

Princess Chrodia soon came towards the drawbridge but halted in place when she saw those vivid burning flames blocking her path yet again, mocking her futile attempts of escaping the castle with her hide intact on her body. There was no way to get to the drawbridge.

"W--what...What do I do now?" she muttered to herself in panic.

She looked around every which direction frantically. Hoping for some kind of means of escape from the impending fiery collapse. And she knew from how the ceiling was falling just a few steps behind her, that if she didn't hatch up a plan on how to escape then her father's wishes would go to waste.

"Where?" she tightened her hand into a fist. "Where do I go to get out?"

It was there, staring into the flames of the drawbridge that Princess Chrodia remembered about the second only other secret passage that lied in the castle: When she was a little girl she had once been going on an 'adventure' with her brother Edward, and the two ended up in the dining room area where Edward proceeded to chase her around the tables until both, screaming gleefully as all children do, ended up stopping in their own tracks after spotting an image of their rather frightening looking ancestor, Argenoq Ramethias of the Misty War.

Edward was compelled to touch the painting for reasons he could never quite fully explain to Chrodia, and the result of this was that the painting of the sinister-looking man, lifted up from its place and revealed to them both a long stairway room that not even their mother and father knew about.

This stairway would be perfect for her escape given that both she and Edward had found out the day they discovered its hidden existence that the stair room actually led outside of the castle.

She again heard the heart-pounding sound of debris falling from above. Something deep inside telling her that the castle only had moments left before she would be buried along with everyone else who didn't make it out...Buried with the corpse of her father, and possibly those opposing knights who had invaded their peaceful abode and started this fiery carnage in the first place.

Princess Chrodia followed the checkered patterned floor and made her way as swiftly as possible to the dining room. Upon her arrival there though, she was once again at the mercy of her own emotions and slapped a hand over her mouth to halt the quickly approaching gasps and screams. Before her very eyes, rested the body of her mother, the Queen, who was lying on the floor with a horror-stricken gaping mouth. The poor woman's blue eyes were as wide as the red carpet of the castle. She had been struck down, as she was lying in a large puddle of her own blood with both her limbs sadistically cut off of her form, and her crown resting before her, ruined by the feet of their enemies and in loss of its beauty.

Princess Chrodia didn't want to assume the worse about her mother's death, but the fact both of the Queen's eyes appeared to be purple and bloody, as well as her once beautiful face was now covered in trails of blood and the same purple spots, she couldn't help but assume that the way her mother was killed was a horrible death indeed. Someone had enjoyed her beauty in a twisted and sickening way.

The thought of her mother's endurance at the hands of these sick, vile men made her freeze in place and just stare at the lifeless corpse.

"I think I heard one over here!" Spoke a voice somewhere within the near distance. That voice was enough to break Chrodia out of her trance and she bolted past the body of the Queen and raced towards the painting of her distant ancestor.

For a moment she stopped to gaze behind her as the sound of footsteps grew nearer and nearer, then she turned her head back to the painting and reached a hand up to it, touching the painting with her fingers pressing against the chin of Argenoq. The painting began to slide up onto the wall revealing the hidden staircase behind it and she quickly made her way to the stairs, the painting sliding back down as Argenoq once again offered her his protection from those wishing to find her.

The path of the stairway was quite a long one. But Princess Chrodia had little to worry about since she was the only one who knew anything about the secret behind Argenoq's portrait. The enemy knights who had invaded their home thought little of the portrait and just left the dining room when they saw that there was no sight of another human being in there. They had just shrugged off the sound of another being in there as nothing and then turned their murderous attention back to the others in the castle who had yet to fall to their blade.

Navigating through the mostly dimly torch-lit passage, she could see faint traces of daylight coming from the other side and a flourishing green path that was comprised of fresh pine all towering close together.

Princess Chrodia had successfully escaped from those who had murdered her father and mother. She was the only one to have made it out of that castle that day, while everyone else, the people who she had been around her whole life, friends who were like family to her, had lost their lives to the knights.

The castle burned to the ground and became nothing but desolate ruins.

The large-breasted Princess watched from the distance from the escape tunnel, the flames of the destroyed castle reflecting in her dilated eyes. Her knees gave in to heavy weakness that was in-tune with the sharp prongs of pain hitting her stomach and the princess collapsed to the ground, sobbing.

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It had been four months since the day that Princess Chrodia had awoken to the smell of fire and smoke. Four months, but she still couldn't quite banish the memories of all the things she had witnessed that day from her mind.

During the four months that had passed, Princess Chrodia made a vow to her deceased father that she would become as skillful with a weapon as he was. Revenge was on her mind, she simply couldn't allow what had happened to go unpunished. The people who were responsible for the death of the royal family and their subjects and friends, she would bring them to justice herself.

She realized that the only problem with that was she had no idea who the one was responsible for giving the knights the orders to carry out that act of violence in the first place. And without any leads on who the mastermind behind the plot was, her burning sense of justice was going to have to remain dormant.

Princess Chrodia's eyes drifted amongst the rows and rows of tall trees, whose leaves gently blew in the cool winds that offered her a temporary relief from her inner thoughts, her thoughts of the ones lost in the castle fire.

Smiling gently, she lowered her shapely bottom onto the remains of a cut tree and placed her hands on her legs, just focusing on the quiet rustling.

To her, the trees seemed far more beautiful than they had in the past. Perhaps it was that she had more of an appreciation for this life than she did when she was just a little girl, or even than she did when she was just a mere teenager. Somehow the trees just seemed more relaxing now, and the appeal that they offered in the minimum entertainment that they provided, to her, was almost as valuable as that of a romance book.

"Being out here," she reached a hand to brush her hair aside, "it seems to be more calming than the lute that Gregory used to play during those times when I was having a bad day."

Admiring the beauty of the nature area she was at, Princess Chrodia's eyes began to go around every feature of the forest: The mystical purple mist, the shrubs that bore left-over dew from when it had showered during her training within its fields, the leaves that had coated the ground, the clouds that were lazily drifting by in the blueness that seemed to stay perfectly still. The entire beautiful scene had whisked her mind away and she closed her eyes as the corners of her lips begin to lift upwards and curve at the cheeks.

But then her smile began to fade from her face. "I wish that I could have come here with Edward. He always loved nature so much...I am quite positive that he would be basking in the beauty of such a scene."

Part of her believed her brother to be dead. She didn't take any enjoyment in assuming the worse about him, but she just couldn't stop thinking about the groups and groups of knights that she saw battling against her father along with him and the other knights. How could anyone survive such a large number of foes? Princess Chrodia wiped the thought from her mind and her attention was returned to the scene of nature before her. The sights of the trees and the beautiful, wide variety of flowers of many different shapes and sizes, calming her thoughts and once again granting her peace of mind.

Princess Chrodia lifted her plump rear from the stump and stretched her arms out forward. She went to bend over to lift up the sword that was leaning against the side of the stump, partially covered by pieces of tall grass that hid its golden hilt.

She had spent an abundant amount of her time in the forest while she trained herself by the sword, something that Princess Chrodia would never have once thought of doing years ago before the attack on her castle had started. But now it was time to put the forest behind her. She was now going to head to the town that lied at the end of the woods and try to seek out some possible leads on anyone that matched the description of the black knight who she saw fighting against her father, and, who she presumed, was the very one who took his life back in that ballroom.

The trek back to the town wasn't a very long one.

The town was very modest in size compared to the one that housed her fallen-kingdom; and it was a rather coarse-looking place; the people she saw cavorting around outside only further helped paint this image as half of them were mud and grime-ridden, appearing as if a bath was something they hadn't had the luxury of experiencing in months. And the smell, the smell that accompanied this town was something most foul, so much so, that Princess Chrodia pinched her nose to try to ward off the nauseating smell.

If there had been any wiser alternative, she would have just left this place an unmarked objective. But, not only did she need to find a place to rest and stock up on supplies for an adventure that she was certain would be a grueling one, but she remembered that her father had told her stories of a woman he had befriended her many years ago in his youth who had grown up to become a seer. If she could find this seer, she could acquire information regarding her family's murderer.

Avoiding eye contact was something she was practicing because some of the people were quite the shady bunch and gave off a very discomforting air; the smiles on their faces spoke wonders of misdeeds they had partaken in the past...And it was all the more unsettling the glances she noticed she was receiving from a few of the grubby and hairy fellows.

The buildings were few and in between; it was astounding how few in number they were. She had never seen such a low amount of mingling areas, but then the perception she had of this place was it was a sanctuary for those who barely had a piece of gold to put on their name.

Her eyes wandered from crumbling to crumbling building, and as Princess Chrodia passed by another building, she jumped in place, causing her plump breasts to jiggle visibly. She turned to look at the item shop which had very crudely carved bold letters above the entrance and noticed that the board that acted as a sign had fallen down and so had the front shade that lingered above.

"It seems this place is worse off than I feared," Princess Chrodia placed a hand against her breast to still her pounding heart that was stirred by the unsuspected collapse.

After a moment of recomposing herself, she resumed her walk through the dust-ridden town and saw the weapon shop which was conjoined with the armory. The weapon shop standing out from the other buildings with a somewhat passable drawing of a sword and ax, and the armory bearing a drawing of a Templar shield and a closed helm, no doubt drawn by the same brave artist.

Eventually, her eyes stopped on a building that was half-standing and was filled with holes on the foundation along with in-grown and out-grown vines with only the faintest of lighting that could be seen from the glass-less windows.