When Your Feathers Flutter Down to Me

Chapter Two: The Princess And The Outskirts

"Former princess," the first guard corrected his partner. "As of today, the girl is nothing more than a simple commoner. How does that feel, princess? Does it make you mad to know you're not so important anymore?" The only response he got was a death glare.

"Please stop taunting her," the other guard sighed.

"Alright, alright," the first guard said. For a while after that, it was silent aside from the clacking of horse hooves and carriage wheels. Curiously, the other guard looked down at Elisia.

"I'm surprised she's so quiet," he commented.

"Maybe she finally understands how bad her situation is," the first guard said.

In truth, that wasn't entirely off the mark. Being a princess, Elisia had had access to all sorts of lessons in combat and magic, along with any of the arts, but she had scoffed at most of them. Other than being trained up to high-level magic and some lessons in basic swordsmanship, she had dismissed anything having to do with fighting. "The people with me will do all of my fighting, so why should I dirty my own hands?" she had said. Among those lessons that she disregarded was surely something along the lines of self-defense or escapism. Looking back, a tinge of regret seeped into Elisia's heart. "If I hadn't been so arrogant, perhaps I wouldn't be tied up like this," she thought. "I could escape these restraints and subdue the guards, then..."

Then what? Even if she did have such capabilities, it wasn't as if she had somewhere to go. She had been thrown out of the royal palace and stripped of her title. Most of the commoners loathed her, so it was highly unlikely any would open their homes if she asked. There were small settlements outside of the capital walls, but even the people living there would know who Elisia was and would refuse to lend a helping hand. That was the price she paid for making sure everyone in the kingdom knew who she was.

High atop her pedestal, Elisia never would've dreamed of a day when she'd be knocked down from it. She believed she was the epitome of royalty, and because of that, she believed that there should be none in her kingdom who didn't know who she was or what she stood for. Far and wide her words had carried, until eventually, it was true. If one claimed to be a citizen of Endrelta and didn't know who First Princess Elisia Felbrun was, then it was assumed they weren't a citizen at all.

But, now those efforts were coming back to haunt Elisia. Her silence had been for several reasons. The first was the most obvious, as there was a gag in her mouth. The second was due to her knowing that any sort of struggling or muffled shouting could make her situation worse (and potentially more painful). The third however, was the most concerning.

The carriage was headed to the outskirts of Endrelta, the very edges of the kingdom. It was there that not even humans lived, out of fear of being attacked or picking up a disease. If someone was told to go to the outskirts, it was either treated as a joke or an insult.

So why was there such a bad association attached to the outskirts? The answer was simple. While the humans got to live their lives in the comforts of towns and cities or even small settlements, the ones they ostracized, demeaned, degraded and spat on were the ones that lived out on the fringes of civilization.

For on the outskirts lived demi-humans and monster people.

It was true some of them made their way into towns, but most were chased out, and the ones that did manage to stay often ended up on the streets. If one was lucky enough to make a living, it tended to not last long, as a customer or client would find some reason to have them fired. One of the fiercest offenders of this practice was Elisia.

And now, she was being sent out to spend the rest of her days with the people who she had classified as less than living. Surely, out of everyone in Endrelta, it was the demi-humans and monster people that despised her the most. Knowing that, a fear had begun to take root in Elisia, which was the biggest reason for why she had been so quiet.