It had been almost two years since Princess Harriet left the castle to adopt her new identity as Miss Edda, the young magician. She hadn't expected anyone to really care, and for those two years, no one really did.
Nothing lasts forever though.
An R...
AN: Quick heads up that there is mentions of MILD blood loss and (relatively mild, I think?) violence in this chapter. It's NOT especially graphic or gory, but I thought I should mention it anyway, just in case.
———
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
"Edda!"
So, turns out it really hurts to have metal teeth dig into your arm. A lesson Edda had to learn the hard way as she threw herself in front of the Metal lion that had pounced at them, her arm held up as the lions maw closed around it. The only reason she hadn't ended up under the large metal creature was that she had scrambled back the moment the lions mouth was about to chomp down.
And said mouth was still biting her really hard. Oh fuck it hurt a lot. She should have just pulled Arthur out of the way! Why didn't she just do that?
She knew very well why. The image of the lion being so close to chomping down of Arthur's head was burned into her retinas, one rarely did anything logical during such critical moments. At least Arthur was safe for the moment, and she hadn't noticed the claws digging into her... Yet. But hey! Silver lining.
"Let her go you monster!" Arthur exclaimed, throwing himself at the head of the lion, and on top of the two overlapping shapes of metal that made up the lions mane. He dug his fingers into the sides of it's mouth, and with a sharp tug he tore it open. The lion roared, it's jaw limply flopping down to hang against it's mane.
Edda instinctively pulled her now free arm close to herself, not sure whether she should be happy that she could still feel it. Stumbling back she shot a quick worried look at the other lion... which wasn't moving, to preoccupied nosing at the message-in-a-bottle that she had dropped to the ground as the first lion had bit down.
The lion with the broken jaw shook its head aggressively, throwing Arthur to the side, just as he was about to let out a triumphant cheer, and stopping Edda from wondering about the other lion.
"Arthur!" She turned to rush to him, but the lion, it's maw still hanging open, jumped in front of her, blocking her path to Arthur, and started advancing in her direction threateningly. A roar erupted from it as it's jaw flipped back up into place, the noise alerting the other lion, who looked up from the bottle and also started moving towards her.
Edda reached to grab her dagger, only to be reminded by the state her dominant arm was in by a sharp flash of pain. She gritted her teeth and reached for the dagger with her left hand instead.
There was a shout as Arthur rammed into the side of the lion, this time with his sword drawn, taking a slice out of it's side. The lion let out a roar, it's metal tail swatting at him and hitting him in the face, sending him tumbling towards Edda.
He just managed to regain his footing in front of her, quickly turning to face the lions and still grasping his sword tightly in his hand.
"Are you ok!?" Edda exclaimed, probably a stupid question to ask considering what she just witnessed, but her brain was hardly working in it's full capacity at the moment, especially as she tried to reach for his shoulder with her right hand and just got more pain in return.
