Silence has fallen over the tavern after witnessing Tori stand up to Baron Houndsvale, his wheezing on the ground as he tries to compose himself is the only sound that can be heard.
“Maybe this will teach you to behave, baron.” Tori says with a confident smirk as she looms over him.
“You… You bitch!” He yells as he suddenly lunges in her direction, but his attack is met with a swift knee to the face, and he finds himself on his back with a broken nose. Elise could swear she saw Tori grinning as the hit connected.
“Not a good look for a member of the council to be going around harassing innocent people now, is it? I hear a fancy job like yours comes with a lotta benefits at the expense of the townspeople, showing them some respect seems like the least you could do. If you wanna keep that job, anyway.”
“F-Fuck you…!” He groans as blood trickles from his nose, the blow to the head has clearly left him a little dazed, but he’s present enough to take a fancy handkerchief out of his pocket in order to try and handle the blood streaming from his nose. “You really think you can k-kick me off the bloody council!?”
“Maybe not tonight I can’t, but give it a week and we’ll be telling a very different story, my friend.”
“Eh? The hell are you…” he trails off as he takes a good look at his opponent for the first time since entering the tavern, and after several seconds his eyes go wide with fear and shock.
“Fuck me! Yer the bloody princess!?” A number of gasps and murmurs can be heard throughout the tavern in reaction to this information.
“That’s right!” She proudly proclaims so that the other patrons can hear. “Princess Tori, future queen of this land, at your service!” She turns away from the baron to give an exaggerated bow to her audience.
The murmurs grow louder as they discuss this revelation, word had yet to spread regarding her return, nor about her new appearance. Tori seems to be basking in the attention, but the baron has managed to get back on his feet and has taken her showboating as an opportunity to go for another punch with his free hand.
Elise sees what he’s doing and is about to scream, when Tori swiftly turns back and grabs his fist before it has a chance to connect. The baron tries to shake free of her grasp, but he finds himself unable to budge his hand at all as he struggles, even after dropping the handkerchief to pull with his other hand. The princess merely returns his efforts by tightening her grip on his fist to an ever more painful degree.
“F-Fuck! This… This ain’t what the queen said’d happen! The princess was just meant to-”
She pulls him close, staring him dead in the eyes at an angle where the rest of the tavern can’t see her face.
“Take this as a warning, Baron.” She whispers as he starts to sweat. “Even if I can’t boot you off the council until my coronation, if you try to pull something like this again you’ll come out of it with a lot more than just a bloody nose. Can’t say I trust a bastard like you to behave yourself though, so consider this your last chance to cut your losses and run before it’s too late.” She gives him an intense grin that can’t be seen by anyone else, and brings him even closer. “Your queen can’t protect you from me, Baron. Don’t pick fights you can’t win.”
The princess finally lets him go, and he almost falls over as he stumbles back in retreat. “S-S-Son of a bitch…” is all he can say as he scrambles for the exit, disappearing into the night.
Tori takes a deep breath after watching him leave, and then turns back to the table where the woman the baron had been harassing is seated.
“Hey.” She says, leaning on the table. “Are you okay?”
“Y-Yes. I’m okay, thank you.” The woman replies timidly.
“Good to hear, can’t let my future subjects get pushed around like that.”
“...It’s true then? You really are Princess Vic-”
“Ah!” Tori interrupts. “It’s Princess Tori now, but yes. I’m her, in the flesh.”
“W-Well… you certainly have my thanks, your highness. How on earth did you convince the baron to leave?”
“Oh that? I just told him that he’d be stripped of his title and have his wealth confiscated if I caught him doing something like this again. Seemed to shut him up pretty quick.”
“I’m glad then, it’s about time someone did something about him.”
Tori raises an eyebrow. “I take it he’s an ongoing problem ‘round here?”
“Oh yeah, he and his boys have half the town on edge when they go out at night.”
“There certainly seem to be some nasty rumours surrounding him, if what the barkeep told me is correct. The knights aren’t doing anything about this?”
“No, they say they don’t have the authority to stop him.”
“So even they won’t touch him…” Tori says, intrigued by what she’s heard tonight. “Seems pretty clear I’ve got a lot to look into, thank you for the information, miss. I’ll organise an escort for the next few days to make sure they don’t go after you again, so I hope you can still enjoy the rest of your night.”
“Thank you, your highness.”
Tori stands up straight again, and begins to address the entire tavern.
“Attention everyone! To apologise for your nights being rudely interrupted, drinks are on me tonight, courtesy of the baron!” She holds up a pouch filled with gold that she swiped off him during the earlier altercation, and the entire tavern cheers as a small crowd forms around the princess.
Tori spends the night talking with the patrons, about the fact that it really is her, her upcoming coronation, as well as listening to them talk about their lives, and how they’re getting by. It’s a very different kind of attention compared to what she’s gotten used to as a mercenary, but she takes it in stride, positioning herself to these people as a future ruler they can rely on.
Meanwhile, Elise sits quietly at the bar, the earlier events running through her head on loop. Despite her previous statement about disliking violence, she found herself completely unable to look away when her princess attacked the baron. Sure, she flinched when the knee connected with his face and she saw the blood streaming out of his nose, but even then she found herself strangely transfixed on the scene.
A number of complicated feelings she can’t quite place started to affect her after witnessing the event. There was definitely some amount of fear, but there’s something else that continued to linger, long after the other feelings wore off. It somehow feels strangely familiar, but she’s been sitting at the bar trying to place it for quite a while without any success. Perhaps it was just because the woman she loved could have been in danger, as well as the potential consequences of treating a council member like that, but she found herself getting worked up despite not being directly involved in the fight, and it wasn’t until several minutes after the situation had been resolved that her heart rate started to return to normal.
“Hard to believe it’s really her, isn’t it?” The bartender says, causing Elise to flinch as she’s brought back to the present. “Never saw her myself back in the day, but I always heard the princess was some scrawny thing. Who’d’ve thought she’d ever turn out like this?”
“Oh, indeed.” She replies, still trying to compose herself. “It was just as much of a shock for everyone at the castle as well. I don’t believe anyone could have seen this change coming.”
“Aye, I can imagine. If you don’t mind me askin’, do you know how she got… y’know, like that?” He gestures to Tori, who has been asked to demonstrate her strength by lifting a couple of patrons in her arms.
Elise softly smiles as she remembers the request made of her earlier in the day.
“Well, I doubt I could tell it the way she does, but earlier today she told me the story of the time she found a dragon egg…”
