"Come on, just tell me." I pleaded.

"No." Skip was busy rolling up the leather tent. "Now stop asking." 

I'd been trying to get answers from her all night about how she'd been able to persuade those Paladins to just leave. She finally threatened to have Mog breathe on me again if I didn't shut up and let her get some sleep.  The massive ogre had given me a crooked smile with his gravestone-sized teeth, eager to comply with his friend's request. So I'd dropped it... until we woke up again this morning and broke camp.

"How about just a hint?" I asked.

She dropped the bundled-up tent and threw her hands in the air. "All right, if it will shut you up, I'll tell you, OK? But after this, no more questions. I want to be out of here and on our way by eight."

"Deal!" I shouted. She sat down on the tent roll and gestured for me to take a seat nearby. Even Mog stopped lifting boxes  and sacks of goods and putting them in the big harness strapped to his back. Who needed a pack mule when an ogre can carry fifty times the weight without even straining?

"Look, you can't tell anyone this," she started with a heavy sigh. "But I was born a princess." My jaw dropped, and I let out an involuntary gasp.  She just rolled her eyes at me. "See, this is why I don't tell anyone. As soon as they find out, they treat me completely differently. Instead of 'Hi Skip,' suddenly it's 'Good evening, your excellency! What can I do for you?'" She shook her head. "I just want to be Skip. Plain old Skip. And the only person I've found who doesn't freak out about my lineage is good old Mog." She gestured to the grinning ogre.

"GOOD," Mog concurred with a thump on his chest that would have shattered stones.

"I'm sorry," I told her, biting back the urge to end that sentence with 'Your Majesty. "I'm sorry, Skip. Please, continue."

"My parents are King Gregor Halberot and Lady Alisande Halberot, lords of Naitha." I'd heard of the country, but knew basically nothing about it. Geography wasn't a subject in the Necromancer Academy. More and more, I realized that school hadn't prepared me for life at all. "I am their only child, and so naturally they gave me anything that I wanted. I had minstrels sing me to sleep every night. I had whole rooms just for my toys. I had tutors in ever subject you could ever imagine. But I was just... I never had any friends. My parents didn't deem any of the peasant children 'worthy' of my company, and visits from other nobles were few and far between. The ones that did  make it to the palace with children my age were only after one thing."

Mog let out a rumbling giggle that sounded like a landslide.

Skip kind of kicked at the dirt in a bashful way. "I was too young for courtship, of course, but everyone that I met was already sizing me up, determining which of their kin could reasonably be considered a good enough match for me. They all asked how my studies were going: astronomy and medicine with my father's advisers, sewing and dancing with the ladies in waiting, manners and etiquette from Ms. Attesk... everything I'd need to be a proper queen and serve my husband-to-be. They didn't care one jot about what I thought of my lessons, they were only trying to judge which of their sons to put forth. These weren't friendly social calls: it was a meat market. And that was when I decided to run off."

"Then what?" I asked, maybe a bit too eagerly.

"Well, I was a 15-year-old girl, traveling alone with a purse full of gold stolen from my father's treasury. So naturally the first thing to happen on my voyage was getting robbed by bandits just a few miles from the palace walls. Some of them wanted to kill me, but the leader took a liking to me immediately, and when I told her that I was a runaway with nowhere to go, she invited me to join." She patted the bow on her back almost lovingly. "In addition to imbuing me with a love of ale and revelry, they taught me everything I know about archery and other forms of fighting. I can still hit a bug through the eye from a hundred yards away. But then we tried robbing a nobleman from my father's court, and he recognized me. As soon as the other bandits realized that I was the king's daughter, they decided that I made a better hostage than companion, and made plans to ransom me back to my father for a hefty sum. So, I ran away yet again. Those bastards hunted me for the better part of a year."

God, what an exciting life! I was on the edge of my seat.

"Eventually, I found my way into a troop of traveling performers from Polisra. Back at the palace I'd had a singing teacher, learned to play a number of musical instruments, and I knew all of the classic plays. And mother and father often hired troops of actors to come entertain me. So it wasn't too hard to convince most of them that I'd had training as a Bard. But old Jurane saw right through me. See, one thing about the Voice is that it not only allows you to lie to anyone about anything, it also allows you to spot a lie. But luckily the old man took a shining to me and decided to take me under his wing. I traveled from town to town with them for years, and he taught me the power of persuasion, among other things. Hell, we even played at my parent's court, and no one recognized me! The troop became like a second family to me."

She gave a heavy sigh. "Then we were attacked. I still don't even know what they were; my best guess is some sort of demon. They murdered half the camp before I even awoke. And they would have gotten me too if it weren't for Mog here." She gestured to the massive ogre whose chest swelled with pride. "He came storming into the camp, smacking the demons with a big tree trunk and sending them flying into the air where they evaporated into puffs of smoke. I was the only survivor. And I vowed to track down whoever had summoned those beasts to attack us." Her face remained calm and somber, but in her eyes I could see flashes of rage.

"And that's why you're going to Milotia?" I asked, desperately craving more. "You found some clue that led you there? What was it??"

She looked me deep in the eyes with her solemn frown... and then burst out laughing. The heavy mood in the camp evaporated in a split second. Mog also burst out laughing, a hearty roar that  thundered through the forest and sent flocks of birds fleeing into the skies. "Good Gods, you're gullible!" She exclaimed. "I didn't even have to use the Voice on you for that." Her words were punctuated by little giggles of laughter. "Me... princess of Naitha! HA!"

"GULLIBLE!" Mog agreed, slapping the ground so hard that he uprooted a tree and sent it toppling into another nearby.

"So... it wasn't real?" I asked. "You weren't..." But I could picture it all so clearly!

"Oh, Winston," she said with a pitying head shake. "You really think I'm going to tell my whole life story to a prisoner? Please!"

Oh, right. In my excitement over everything that had happened with the Paladins and hearing about her 'life,' I'd forgotten why I was really here. We weren't friends or traveling companions: I was a captive, and they'd be selling me off to the Paladins as soon as they got a chance. "Of course not," I said. "Why tell me anything?"

Skip looked almost regretful for just a second. "Winston..." 

I just glared in response.

"Never mind, then." She stood up from the log with a sigh and brushed dust off her pants. "Come on, let's get moving. Here, Mog." She handed him the tent roll, which he tossed over his shoulder like it was lighter than a blade of grass. We finished packing up everything in the camp and filling the water jugs for our journey.

I picked up the last remaining box in the clearing and handed it to Mog, but he wouldn't take it.

"Not that one," she said, snatching it from my hands. "I'll carry that one."

"Why? Mog has plenty of room left."

Mog shook his head. "SKIP'S," he answered.

"What is it?" I asked. Upon closer inspection, it did seem particularly ornate. The rest of them were just standard wooden crates, but this one was smaller and made of rich red wood with a delicate inlay of blue stone. Along the rim, there seemed to be carved runes. I leaned closer for a better look, but Skip just turned away and stuffed the box into her knapsack.  

"It's nothing," she answered fiercely. "Come on; I told you I wanted to be out of here by eight. Get moving." She stalked off into the forest with the outline of the mystery box still visible through the canvas of her bag.

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