The Woman Of a Thousand Faces
3.It's Not a Question of Trust

Before the attacks, Fenelle was considered to be one of the most beautiful cities on the entire continent; and from a Mauvorian point of view, it was certainly the most exotic. But when Alexandra and Seven got off the train after arriving in Mirielle, Alex was absolutely astonished by the sight of it.

It wasn't a huge city, but it was certainly a proper city; up until that point, the only places in Mauvoria that she'd been in had been poor villages. On one side of the railroad tracks, the architecture looked entirely familiar, filled with wooden houses and a few two-storey buildings. The kind of peasant buildings she'd come to expect from seeing the small villages. The other side of the tracks, however, were an entirely different story.

She couldn't tell what most of the buildings on that side were made of--brick, perhaps-- but they were all adorned with glass windows. She gazed down the cobblestone-paved street, noticing that every so often, stood a lamp post with flowers hanging underneath. But what amazed her wasn't the lamps or the brick buildings, but several extraordinarily tall buildings-- she counted four. She'd heard that the Mauvorians had buildings that reached as high as the sky, but she'd figured that was just an exaggeration; but with several of the incredibly skyscrapers in front of her, she realized that there was nothing exaggerated about what she'd heard. They seemed to go as far as the eye could see, with shiny glass windows glinting in the sun; to the point where the buildings seemed to be made entirely out of windows, held together by God-knows-what. Her palace in Fenelle had many glass windows, but not nearly as many as were in even one of the skyscrapers. Not quite as incredibly, but certainly eye-catching, were several huge brick buildings, which while not even coming close to touching the sky, were several floors tall. The streets seemed busy enough, with people hurrying down one side, with an occasional loud thing on black wheels speeding past-- she couldn't tell what they could possibly be, other than they were huge and were faster than even the fastest carriage she'd seen.

"...my God," she finally managed to say at last, still standing on the platform.

"So I take it you've never seen a Mauvorian city before," Seven said, shaking his head. "That's the so-called 'good' part of town-- there's plenty of humans who live there, but most of them are soldiers. But mostly... it's Mauvorians-- and I don't mean like, humans who live in Mauvoria, I mean trolls."

"I've... never actually seen one before," she answered quietly. The word troll didn't mean much to her-- she'd heard of them, and seen some drawings before, but she'd never actually seen a real member of human-like species that lived in Mauvoria.

"Well, I guess you're in for some luck, then," he told her. "At least, if you can consider dealing with trolls lucky."

He stood there beside her for a moment. "So what was your plan once you got here?"

"We're going to scout out the whole city," she answered, barely louder than a whisper. "Find the jail, and see if we don't find anything interesting on the way. And then we're going to think of a plan."

Alex certainly didn't have any big ideas in mind at that moment, but she'd gotten this far on determination so far, and wasn't about to let that get in her way. From the moment she escaped from the prisoner transport, she only had two things that she wanted to do: rescue her dear Isabella, and find out what had happened to her parents. But the second goal was merely denial at work; she'd already heard from the soldiers what had happened to her parents, and even the scared little girl was far too clever to be able to trick herself. So saving Isabella had turned into her one motivation for continuing onwards.

They set off down the cobblestone street, looking around for anything worth noting. Alexandra was certainly amazed to see the trolls, while looking a whole lot more human-like than she had expected-- she was more surprised by how they seemed to have far more expensive looking clothes than compared to any of the humans in Mauvoria she'd seen.

The two got enough stares passing down the street.

"It's because we're humans in this part of town," Seven muttered quietly to her, "and we're not wearing uniforms."

Alex nodded, relaxing slightly; she was trying to be discreet, and so many eyes on her weren't reassuring at all. Alex was still extremely anxious, and even after having being escaped and unnoticed for long enough, she wasn't particularly confident in things remaining that way. She was still extremely suspicious and most certainly on the edge; but she tried to ease up a bit when he explained why they were getting attention.

Eventually they passed by a storefront with large glass windows, with a large sign overhead indicating "TAILOR OF THE ARMY" in a rather bold font. Through the window, she could see uniforms hanging off the back wall, with an odd looking man working at an odd looking machine. At second glance, she realized that it wasn't a man; he was really a troll.

"If that's the tailor... that could be useful," Alexandra whispered, knowing full well how crazy she'd have to be to try impersonating an officer.

"Why does it matter? You can look like whatever you want to," he answered quietly.

"I can't do vastly different clothes well. But I stole a uniform when I escaped, I didn't mean for me," she whispered back.

"That's insane," he said half-seriously.

"So's you following me around," she responded in entire seriousness. "It's just something to think about," she quickly added.

They continued walking, and after a while, they came across a large brick building that was several storeys tall. A large sign in front announced it as being The Mirielle Prison for Disruptors of the Peace and Public Good; not far away was a steel gallows, that Alexandra didn't doubt they still used. The prison itself stood tall, but mostly extremely wide, spanning a whole large city block. The size, the battered brick, and the gallows in front all contributed to the general ominous appearance of the building; it certainly looked far more intimidating than it ought to, the idea of climbing the stairs up to the front doors of the prison seeming downright frightening.

"That's one damn scary looking building," Seven said quietly to her, echoing her thoughts.

"I'll say," she answered, staring up at the seemingly-huge complex. "I-i-imagine what it's like inside."

Alex decided that the tavern at the far side of the human half of town-- rather than the inn near the train station-- was a safer bet; and certainly seeming much cheaper. She noticed several wanted posters pinned to the wall of the tavern as she walked inside, one with her own face being the most prominent.

"You're a regular celebrity, huh?" Seven joked.

"Shut up."

While far from crowded, there were a few people in the pub-like common area of the tavern, and a quiet, uncomfortable chatter could be heard between them. Alex went up to the man who appeared to be running the place behind the bar, and asked about a room.

"No, wait, two rooms," she added, looking at Seven.

"Oh... yeah, sure," he answered, a bit surprised. "We don't usually get many travellers around here. I've got one room ready, but it'll take a couple hours to get the second ready. Got a problem with that?"

Alex shook her head.

"Okay, that'll be fifty rens."

"Christ," she muttered to herself, pulling out her coin pouch. Staying at inns was starting to get expensive-- she made a note to herself that she'd have to get some more money soon. Alex was trying very hard to spend as little money as she could, since odd, paying jobs were impossible to find; she only had one thing to do about money, and she felt really bad about having to steal.

Not that she was very good with saving money. Being the only princess, she was quite well educated in things that most might find trivial; but budgeting was never one of things. Basic trigonometry? No problem. But saving enough money to buy food for a week? Hopeless.

"I'm not paying for your room, Seven," she said quietly, but quite sharply.

"Fine, fine...," he reached into his pocket, taking out a few coins, adding with a grin, "Are you sure it wouldn't just be easier to share one?"

Alex responded with the nastiest glare Seven'd ever seen in his life.

"Just joking," he muttered, putting a few coins onto the bar.

"Okay, I'll go get it cleaned up for you," he said, taking the money from both of them, putting it into a pouch in his apron. "Hey! Ku-rong, get over here and earn your damn keep!"

He walked off, and a man who was sitting in the corner of the room, came up and attended the bar. Alex glanced over at the table he was sitting at, noticing that it was in front of a door. Weird, she thought to herself.

The two took seats at a table in the far corner, far away from everyone. Seven leaned in close to Alex.

"Sooo," he said, "what's your plan?"

"I don't know," she said, edging away from him on her chair. "I haven't thought of one yet, and I'm not sure that I'd tell you even if I did."

"Why not?" he asked, moving closer.

"I don't trust you," she said flatly, sticking to her policy of telling the truth whenever possible.

"It's not a question of trust," he answered. "It's like I said, what's the worst that's going to happen? If I tell the army that a shapeshifting twelve year old with magic powers is planning on breaking people out of the prison, I'm just going to get my ass kicked for wasting their time."

He smiled at her.

Alex sighed; she normally tried to be cautious, but Seven seemed convincing enough.

"Well, okay...," she said quietly, "this would be the part where I figure something out."

"This would be a good time to figure out what you have abo--" he started to advise her, getting cut off.

"I escaped from being captured by Mauvorian troops a year ago," she quickly interrupted, exaggerating for the sake of her point. "I think I've got a pretty good idea of what I'm doing." A touch of indignation filled her voice; in retrospect, she'd realize it was completely unjustified.

"Right. I'm sorry," he apologized; but she could tell that he wasn't being sincere in the slightest. It was the same feeling that she got from everything he said, now that she thought about it.

"I can't exactly win any fights with the army, soldiers are really well trained... and they're not stupid, either," she said quietly, trying not to underestimate her the Mauvorian army. Her father had made the same mistake, and it led to the ruin of Fenelle.

"But," she continued, naive pride filling her voice, "I'm a Princess. They may be tactically smart, but I'm actually educated. And that goes a whole long way."

"So how is that going to help, Princess?" he asked, humouring her.

"Don't call me that," she told him, glancing around to see if anyone was looking at them. Nobody was. "It's going to help, because... I'm going to approach this scientifically. It's how you solve math problems, and it works with most others, too: to get to a solution, you take the variables that you do know, figure out how they work with eachother, and estimate the ones you don't."

"Sounds like a smart way to handle things," he said with a smirk.

"Okay, so... what I do know...," she said to herself, thinking. "Well, to start off, they definitely don't seem to know that I can change my appearance. So they're not even going to suspect that."

"How do you figure?" Seven asked.

"The wanted posters only show my face. They wouldn't even bother if they knew what I could do," she answered, feeling somewhat proud that she'd managed to deduct that.

"Maybe they just don't want the public at large to know about it. Maybe the army does know."

"I don't think so. I saw at the train station, they keep posters there of wanted criminals. I don't think the army's very well co-ordinated across the continent, so they don't want fugitives getting very far. Didn't seem to know there, either, or it'd be a lot harder to travel," she answered, happy to be right.

"Could be," he said with a nod.

"And another thing is... after seeing a troll, I'm pretty sure I can imitate one. They don't seem that different looking from humans," she added. "So I should be able to get into the jail by pretending to be a troll in the army... that would carry a lot of authority."

He nodded again.

"Problem is, I can't pretend to know all sorts of regulations and how they operate the jail...," Alex thought out loud, quickly differing to her source of pride: her royal education. "But... one of the things I was taught about war is, nobody reacts well in a panic. Get the enemy too worried to be organized, and none of that matters."

"How do you plan on doing that?" he asked.

"I don't know yet."

"And my other big question is, how can I help?"

"What?" she asked. "You shouldn't get involved, this is serious. Majorly serious."

"Don't you worry about me," he said with a grin.

"No, really," she answered, "it's really damn serious. If anyone so much as sees you being involved with a jailbreak... the military's going to be after you. You don't want to live your whole life on the run from them; especially now that there's no safe haven to turn to anymore." Alex sighed; it hurt whenever she realized that Fenelle was gone, forever. Deeply.

"Ahh, well, let me put it this way," he said, leaning in closer to Alex, "I'm not exactly in the army's good books as it stands. I'm sure you're considered a very bad girl by them already, but you're not going to make them think less of me. Trust me on this one."

Alex rolled her eyes. "Right, tell me that when it's your face on the wanted posters."

"I've got lots, I assure you. But you said it yourself: the army isn't very well co-ordinated across the whole continent. Posters for my capture just haven't made it this far west yet," he answered with a large grin.

She stared at him with a worried look; not sure what to think of what he'd just told her. She hardly thought the judgment of the Mauvorian army was something to base her opinion of someone on; on the other hand, they actually did go after real criminals along with people like her.

She did, however, edge away from him, not for the first time.

"If you say so...," she murmured, both her face and her tone of voice filled with alarm.

The next day, Alex found herself walking alongside Seven down the eerie cobblestone road; and it occured to her, and not for the first time, that this may not be the best of ideas. It was Seven's idea; after he had seen that the uniform she'd stolen was in fact, clearly a man's uniform, meant for someone much larger than she was, he had insisted that she acquire a proper one. His exact words were "if you're going to pretend to be an officer, you're going to have to dress the part as well as acting it," which she supposed was indeed true.

Her problem stemmed from the idea of walking down the road in the "better" part of the city, alongside Seven-- who was wearing that same uniform now. So far, she'd gotten by without the army noticing her by carefully sneaking around in disguise; pretending to be soldiers came across to her as parading defiance, and rather the opposite of what she'd been trying to do up until now.

But as they approached the tailor--Alex ducking out of the way of one of the monstrously loud wheeled machines going the other way-- she realized that all of the stares from yesterday were gone.

It's still a crazy plan... but maybe it's not so bad afterall, she thought to herself.

They stopped in front of the doorway of the storefront building announcing itself as the army's tailor. She doubled back into an alleyway beside the store, hiding her bag behind a large metal box-- she'd seen them in several alleys in this part of the town, and wondered what their purpose could be; this one smelled rather unpleasantly.

"Are you ready?" Seven asked her when she came back.

Wrong question to ask, she thought to herself, nervous at the prospect. "Yeah, let's go."

The two entered the small store, the troll at the counter not looking up from his strange white machine. There was a piece of fabric underneath the machine, and it made a strange tapping noise; behind him, various completed parts of uniforms adorned the back wall, which only Seven recognized as being made of plywood. The room seemed awfully small; a door in the wooden wall revealed that the bulk of the building had been partitioned off for some reason.

Seven walked over to the side farthest from the person working, leaning against the wall. "Make it fast, Miss James," he told her, trying to sound impatient.

Alex nodded, not needing to feign seeming frantic at all; she walked up to the tall counter, looking at the busy troll as if she was trying to figure out what to say.

"...what do you want?" he finally demanded at last.

"I... er...," she stammered, acting as if she was in a panic with her heart racing; it was, after all. "You see, I... uh... I was just deployed here, this is my first assignment... and... um... well, you see, I thought the train ride from Fai Rol would be really hot, so I put my uniform in my bag... and uh...

"Well," she mumbled, looking away as if embarassed, forcing the slightest of nervous chuckles, "I guess it must have fallen from the luggage in transit, because... my bag was gone when I arrived here. So I... uh... I need a new uniform quickly... please, I don't want to be seen as a screw-up like this on my first assignment."

He laughed enthusiastically, smiling at her alleged predicament. "Well, I'm sorry, Miss, but I don't give away individual uniforms just because someone comes in with a sad story."

"Look...," she said, trying to sound desperate, "I can pay you, it's just..."

"No," he said bluntly.

"W-what? Why not?" she pleaded, sobbing. "Please, I can give you as much as you want... just don't make me go back to my CO with a lost uniform..."

"No," he said again. "Now please, both of you get out of here. It was a nice try, but you're both full of shit; get out."

"What?" she asked again. Seven looked somewhat alarmed.

"I'm not telling you where you screwed up," he said, laughing. "Now leave. I don't take bribes from ratty looking humans, let alone help someone impersonate a soldier."

"Hey now," Seven said, stepping in and approaching the tailor. He stood in front of him, muttering something under his breath. "You caught onto our act, good for you. I guess we weren't clever enough for trickery. But she was serious about paying; how much does one of those cost to make? A hundren rens?"

"More like two hundred," he answered.

"Okay. How about a thousand rens?" Seven replied.

"Wha--," he started to say, thinking at first that Seven was mocking the number he had told him; then he realized it was an offer. "A thousand rens?"

"Too low? Alright, twelve hundred rens," he said with the slightest of smiles.

"Are you serious?" he asked, in spite of himself; maybe it wouldn't be so bad after all, he told himself. Twelve hundred rens was a whole lot of money. Even Alex was impressed.

Seven reached into his pocket and dumped out quite a few large sized coins onto the counter, counting them out for him.

"I guess I could 'lose' one, for that price," he said after staring at the coins for a moment.

Seven smiled. "Great."

The tailor started to walk into the back area, but Seven stopped him.

"Hey!" he said, "one more thing. Make sure she has the rank pins of a Major, alright?"

The tailor laughed, and told Seven he would; then he disappeared behind the partition door, reassuring himself that what he was doing was fine. It took a minute for him to return, giving Alex a chance to collect herself and evaluate what had just happened.

He came out with a thick looking black uniform jacket and pants, both folded up neatly. Aside from the colour and pins attached to the sleeves, it otherwise looked similar to the blue one that Seven was wearing. He put it down on the counter and swooped up the coins still laying there, counting them twice to make sure they totalled 1200 rens. They did.

"Thank you so much for understanding," Seven said with a slightly creepy smile. The tailor said nothing, and the two turned away to leave.

Alex stopped when she got to the doorway, an idea coming to mind.

"Oh... and by the way?" she told the tailor, looking back. "If I were you, I wouldn't want to be around this part of town tonight."

Then they both walked out the door.

"Jesus Christ," Alex cursed with a huge sigh, "that was a disaster."

"What the hell was that last bit about?" Seven demanded, clearly annoyed. "Now he's going to tip off the army and they'll be expecting us."

"You're probably right about the first part," Alex hastily explained, walking into the alley to fetch her bag, stuffing the new uniform inside it. "If anyone believes him, they will be expecting something to happen. But they don't know what."

Seven gave her an odd look; the two started walking down the street in the other way.

"At best, we'll have them worrying about what's going to happen tonight. They're not going to be prepared; they'll just be edgy," she explained. "Worst case scenario... nobody listens to him. He's gonna think that there'll be trouble around here, not somewhere like the jail, otherwise why would we warn him?"

"Clever," he said, a bit surprised when he realized she was right.

"That was really bad, though. I told you this whole plan was a bad idea. The only reason we managed to even get the uniform, and not get caught, is because we got really lucky."

"Well, what can I say," Seven replied with a shrug, "I'm just a very lucky guy."

Alex shook her head, both worried and shocked at his lack of concern.

"Seriously. We fucked up badly and that can't happen again," she said.

"I was being serious, too," he replied, grinning.

It wasn't until that evening--just when it was starting to get dark out-- as the two walked past the train tracks into the "good" part of the city, both Alex and Seven wearing full uniform, that they found out what the odd boxes mounted on top of some of the streetside lamp posts were for.

"Good evening, Mirielle, this is the Voice of Mauvoria, reminding you that curfew for Peris starts in 15 minutes, so all Peris not on military duty should return inside now. Again, this is your 15 minute reminder, all Peris not on military duty, return to your homes now," a voice announced from inside the box. It echoed through the streets, seemingly coming from others nearby at the same time.

Alex knew that "Peri" was a Mauvorian slur for humans; but she had never actually heard anyone say the word before, being that it was considered extraordinarily offensive in Fenelle. But she was currently more amazed at the voice from the box.

"Is that a...," she struggled for the word, "radio?"

"Yep," Seven answered. "You see them all the time in large cities, so the government can talk to the people. There's a little machine inside that box; it gets signals that we can't see or hear, and then turns them into sound."

"Wow," Alex said with amazement. And it frightened her a little; just one more reminder of how powerful the Mauvorian's technology could be. Countless boxes that repeat one person's voice, large vehicles on wheels that could cross a city in an hour, flying machines that dropped fire from the air, lamps that light up on their own without any flame; all technological wonders that seemed far too fantastic and impossible to be real, and all at their disposal.

"But now... is not the time to worry about their machines," Seven went on. "Machines are only as good as the people who use them; and that's what we're going to be dealing with here."

Alex nodded, although not quite reassured. She was trying her hardest not to listen to her heart beating frantically in her chest, already excited before she even put her plan into motion.

Walking down the dark city street didn't calm her any, her heart's pounding still as loud as ever. At last the two of them arrived at the street corner they decided they'd start at, only a few city blocks from the prison. The two slipped into the nearby alley-- the real reason why they decided to start at this block-- and made sure that it was entirely empty.

It was.

"Okay," Seven said, appallingly calmly, "this is it. Are you ready?"

"H-hang on," Alex replied, taking a moment to try slowing her breathing. "One thing before we start..."

Seven looked at her, wondering what it could possibly be.

Alex thought for a second, making sure she wouldn't slip up on the words, and started to recite an old, traditional prayer that Isabella had taught her. She didn't know the language that it was in, but even before she heard the translation of it, she knew how powerful the words were. She started with a soft, panicked voice, but her accent turned sharp and deliberate by the last words.

"O Herr, Schöpfer aller Dinge, gewähre mir das Glück, die Stärke und den Mut, diese Aufgabe durschzustehen; geleite mich auf diesem schwierigen Pfad." Alex finished the prayer, and made the sign of the cross; she then realized that while her heart was still racing, she was no longer shivering.

"What was that?" he asked.

"I'm ready," the little girl answered, ignoring his question. "It's time to start."

Then, without prompting, she raised her arm in the right direction, both her arm and a few circles in the air in front of her face glowing brightly in the night. When the light faded, she had the face of a troll, looking eerily similar to her normal face, completing the disguise that started with the officer's uniform.

"How does it look?" she asked.

"My god," he answered. "I think you're the only person in the world who can actually make a troll look beautiful."

She stopped for a moment, uncertain of how to react; then she took out the page from her notebook that she'd shoved into her jacket. It had a hasty four quadrant grid drawn on it, with lines and circles intersecting symetrically on it. She took note of the pattern, making sure she did remember it right-- since she had never had any use of it before.

"I'm starting now," she announced to him. Suddenly, she was starting to have second thoughts about going through with this; it'd be much harder to run away and turn back once she started.

Shut up, she told herself. It's going to work and we're going to save Isabella. I'm not a little girl, so stop acting like one!

Seven nodded. She wasn't waiting for his confirmation.

She raised the same arm again, pointing it in the same direction; this time lifting her other arm slightly, aiming it out towards the street. Suddenly the same pattern that she had been looking at appeared in the air directly in front of her second palm, much larger than it had been on paper.

Nearly instantly afterward, a sound that seemed like a cross between pottery being smashed and a drum being hit filled the night. It was just as loud as the explosions from the attack on Fenelle; both Alex and Seven's ears were ringing, and they were both sure that it could be heard throughout the city. Alex imagined that not even the footsteps of a giant or the collapse of a mountain would've been that loud.

Seven said something to her; what he said, she couldn't tell, with the crash still echoing in her ears, but it didn't matter. He started off to the next point they agreed on, and she followed quickly afterwards, moving a couple city blocks to the next location, but not moving any closer to the jail.

And the nearly deafening noise was heard through the city again; nobody could possibly dismiss it this time. By the time that they had gotten to the fifth point, Alex and Seven couldn't find any shelter for her to cast the spell in again. But instead of worrying that their plan had failed, Seven just smiled.

The reason they couldn't find shelter was that by that point, the streets were now busy, in sharp contrast to their emptiness just ten minutes ago. Soldiers of all sorts of ranks were scrambling through the streets, all operating on the same confused orders: find out what the hell caused those noises.

Mauvoria had never been attacked by surprise before; even when faced with revolutions to quash, the army had never been caught off guard. And none of the soldiers currently stationed in the town had ever had to deal with the unexpected before; and so they did the only thing they could do, panic. Soldiers scrambled through the streets, trying to figure out what caused such collosal noise. And they were all puzzled by the fact that there was no explosions, no damage. Surely it must have been an attack on something, everyone assumed, but in the chaos, nobody could figure out what.

And through that chaos, nobody found it unusual that a troll officer and a human soldier were running as fast as they could towards the jail, nor did anybody even notice.

"To all residents of Mirielle," the radio voice echoed through the streets, heard by sore ears, "please do not be alarmed. There has been an industrial accident; the army is currently investigating this matter to the best of its abilities--"

At that point, Seven couldn't help but laugh. Alex didn't.

"-- so please do not violate curfew. Details are forthcoming, and will be revealed in the morning. Please to back to bed and don't worry; everything is under control. Repeat, all residents of Mirielle..."

"Nice damage control," Seven muttered as they approached the jail.

"Will it work?" Alex asked, starting to worry.

"Who cares? The army's busy. The rest doesn't affect us," he replied, staying cool.

They finally arrived at the jail doors. Neither said anything when they did; they'd already gone over what they would do, what would happen, and didn't need to confirm anything with each other. The whole thing would rest in how Alex improvised the next five minutes; she tried not to think about that. They both glanced at eachother, nodding.

Alex and Seven burst through the doors, both trying to survey the entrance of the jail without making it look like it was unfamiliar. Both concluded the same thing quickly; the night shift guards were the two men standing behind a desk with a large glass panel that extended up to the ceiling. As the two ran towards it, they noticed the sets of doors, and several filing cabinets with weapons hanging above, filling the space.

Alex, looking about as scary as she was scared, in her troll officer disguise, slammed her hands down on the desk in front of the hole in the glass meant for talking through. The man behind it looked visibly frightened; wide eyed and twitching. He had no idea what was going on; just that there had been huge noises outside that sounded a lot like explosions. None of the soldiers scrambling around outside were nearly as scared as he was, since he knew even less about what was happening. As they approached, Seven muttered something incomprehensible under his breath.

"Soldier!" she yelled at the alarmed man, taking on the royal commanding tone of voice that she hadn't had a chance to use in a long time. "I need to interrogate a prisoner and it needs to be right now!"

She hoped that any of her visible worriedness would be seen as panic, not as her disguise failing her.

"Is... is th-this about what's... uh... those n-n-n-noises?" the soldier stammered.

"Yes!" she shouted, "Now stop dawdling!"

While he scrambled to open the doors, she turned to the other man.

"You," she ordered, "I need you to get me the location of all former Fenellian royal prisoners. Immediately!"

"Yes ma'am!" he answered quickly, not daring to question her; quickly scrambling through the files.

Alex and Seven entered through the door, waiting for the other soldier to give them the locations. It only took him a minute.

"Major," he reported quickly. It took Alex a moment to realize that he was addressing her. "Moritz Koertig was transferred from here last month, but William Tamra is located in C-5 and... some woman named Isabella Frei in B-2."

Of course, Koertig's gone... he was Dad's top military advisor, she thought to herself. But Will's here! She hadn't been expecting that, but she decided a change in plans was in order; she had to get Will out, too. Hopefully, Seven wouldn't have a problem with that.

"Okay. I need you to come with me to Will Tamra's cell, he's the one we're looking for," she ordered. "You two, find this Frei woman, see if you can't get anything out of her, too."

"But ma'am, that would leave the front unguarde--" the less nervous soldier started to protest.

"Would you rather have these suspects continue their plots?" she demanded, getting into the role now. She knew what to say. "What will I report when the capital gets bombed, all because you couldn't leave your post for a few minutes?! That's an order, soldier!"

Seven looked at her, more curious to her change in plans than worried. All four scrambled off, parting directions soon; but there were no more disobeyed orders after that.

Alex and the soldier ran down the cell block, past prisoners calling out at them; some jeering, but most just demanding. She ignored them all; after a minute they arrived at the right cell, a beaten and bruised man sitting on the floor behind the door of metal bars.

He didn't look quite so tough with his beard a mess and a scary amount of cuts and bruises visible on every bit of skin she could see on him; but she still recognized him instantly as Will.

"Tamra!" she yelled at him, trying hard to not give in and break the act-- at least, not yet. "Get on your feet!"

He slowly did, and limped towards the gate. She looked at him with pity-- and then as she stared closely at his leg, she realized that he was just feigning; he'd taught her how to fake an injury in the same way.

"I'm sure you don't recognize me," she started, knowing full well at that moment he'd reflexively take a good look at her face. "But..."

Oh, hell, that was awkward, she thought to herself. She was so preoccupied with thinking about how clever that line would be, she wasn't sure what to say next.

"...but I know that you know who's responsible for those noises," she said after a second. She knew she screwed that up and hoped that the soldier wouldn't suspect her from that, even though he had no good reason to.

"Ha! I wish I did," the beaten up man said with a bit of a forced chuckle, still trying to figure out why her face seemed familiar. "Just so I could withhold that from you."

"Don't make me get forceful with you, you son of a bitch." Alex winced inside as she cursed him. "I'll use whatever means I have at my disposal, and I assure you, you will talk."

Alex didn't doubt, that from his appearance, they hadn't already used whatever means they had at their disposal.

"C'mon, who did you conspire with to cause this? Your friend in the third division? The rebellion? Your niece? The Witch Princess?" she added, demanding. Or at least, that's what the soldier beside her intepretted her as saying. But what she had actually said was, "Your niece, the Witch Princess?"

William Tamra only had one sibling; and both had died before he ever had the chance to have kids. So of course, he had no biological nieces or nephews. The soldier didn't catch on to this, naturally, not having any reason to know any of that.

And what the soldier also didn't have reason to know, but Will did, was that one joke between the two was that he was jealous of Alex treating Isabella like an aunt; and that he'd call her his "niece" until she finally gave in.

It was much funnier when she was 8 years old.

But she saw a look of realization come over his eyes, finally understanding what had made the short troll woman standing in front of him seem so familiar.

"Okay, that's it," she said, faking a sigh. "Let him out, let me have at him."

The soldier didn't think that'd be a very good idea, since even beaten and bruised, Will looked tough; but he didn't want to object to another one of her orders. He pressed a few numbered buttons on the panel beside the cell's iron bars, and the door slowly slid open.

If given enough time, she could've thought of a million clever ways to have Will out of his cell and the soldier entirely embarassed, with her getting an elegant exit and trickery's equivalent of the last word in. But she didn't have enough time, and she was worried that it was taking too long; soon the scrambling soldiers outside might get organized, and it'd be harder to get out.

She was about to just use magic on the man, when she realized that she had taken several turns when finding the jail cell, and wasn't able to orient herself from inside. She didn't have any weapons on her, either; she had stolen a sword along with the uniform when she had escaped, but Seven had it right now. And then she saw the soldier's.

"Give me your sword," she ordered him.

"Yes, ma'am...," he replied, uneasily. He wondered why she didn't have one of her own; he tried rationalizing it to himself that she simply had been in a panic when arriving at the jail with her information. That must be it.

He handed it to her, and she took it, approaching Will, deliberately holding it improperly. She'd never been taught how to use a sword; Dad said that no princess should ever need to know that. But she had still heard Will's stories about how he'd managed to knock swords out from the hands of his sparring partners back when he was in the Mauvorian army, all because they held them wrong.

He saw her-- now nearly certain that it was Alex in disguise-- and took her hint, knocking the sword quickly out of her hands, just like in his stories. But he then grabbed it from the ground, and before the soldier had a chance to use any of his magic, the sword was at his neck.

Alex sighed in relief.

It didn't take long for them to shove him inside the jail cell, assured by the loud click of the cell door locking that he wouldn't be able to get out for a long time. Certainly long enough. Will, although clearly weaker than he used to be, didn't seem to have any problem running alongside Alex.

Will didn't say anything; he was never the most articulate of men, but especially now, he had no idea what to say. He was just too dumbfounded by the idea that he had just been rescued by the 12 year old princess, pretending to be a Major in the army. He knew that she hadn't been captured-- he knew that the only reason why he hadn't been executed was that the army thought he could provide information to her whereabouts-- but he had never imagined that she'd try something like this.

When they got back to the front, Seven and Isabella were already waiting for them.

"Isabella!" Alex cried, her troll disguise disappearing with a blink. She ran up to her, hugging her tightly.

"Alexandra...," she whispered, weakly hugging back.

And when they were done, Alex looked at her closely, and started to cry. Will was a tough man, the toughest she knew; even when starving and beaten, he still managed to look strong and be able to fight. Isabella, on the other hand... to say that she looked miserable was an understatement. It looked like she had lost half her weight, and scars covered her now frail looking arms.

"It's okay," the woman that Alex had worked so hard reassured her, whispering. "I'll be fine, you foolish, foolish little princess. It's not as bad as it looks."

Alex very much doubted that.

"Look, we need to run while we can," Seven interjected. And Alex nodded, raising her arm, adopting the disguise again, still in tears.

The four of them ran out, soldiers still scrambling around in just as much of a panic as it was before-- they had, after all, only been inside for less than half an hour. But it felt like longer for Alex, much longer; she had finally done what she'd set out to do, and she'd seen the closest person to her, her most amazing role model, in her weakest state.

She had a lot of things to think about when the four of them disappeared into the chaotic, skyscraper adorned streets in the pitch black night, their escape lit dimly by the street lamps.

Copyright © 2006, Chris Love