Fabrian immediately noticed the armed detail following her outside of the castle walls. And as grand as the palace was, the tail made her quickly lose interest in investigating the architecture. She kept track of them as they lurked after her. 

They did a very poor job at keeping their presence hidden, and she wondered if that was a testament to Hector's subordinates’ abilities or their low opinion regarding the intellect of her body's previous owner. From the corner of her eye, she counted three figures as they flitted in and out of her sight. Well, this is a banishment and since they just basically dumped me on the streets, I suppose they want to make sure I leave their kingdom or whatever. Fabrian ducked into an alley that opened up between the castle walls and a few shops on the opposite side. These guys are soldiers. I'm pretty sure I can get what I need from them. 

It didn't take long for a masked face to peer out from the edge of the wall. 

Fabrian dropped the carpet bag. “Alright, stop skulking. Come over here for a minute.” 

The guard's eyes flashed something, maybe anger, and drew his sword. Fabrian crossed her arms. “There's no need for that. I’m leaving, so the faster you want me outta here, the faster we do this. Get your buddies too, I know there were three of you.”

Two more men peeked out from behind the first.

“We don’t have all day. Fall in line, now. ” Fabrian snapped. 

The three of them startled, protested, then approached the alley cautiously. 

“We have nothing to say to you, witch,” the first guard said cautiously as he sheathed his sword.

“All of you have the same damn personality.” Fabrian pinched the bridge of her nose. “I just want information—”

“We won't betray His Majesty The Crown Prince,” the third guard piped up angrily. 

“I'm not asking you to, so actually listen,” Fabrian snapped. “I just want to know, what does the currency rate look like?”

“Hah! Leave it to the snob of the queen to not know!”

“Haha, it's hilarious, isn't it?” Fabrian rolled her eyes before pulling out the jeweled pins in her hair. “Here. Let’s do an exchange. You can even tell Hemisphere about it, I'm sure he'd be thrilled to have some of his family's wealth back. Or, you can pocket these yourself. I won't be here long enough to know either way.”

“What…what trick is this?” the first guard asked slowly.

“Don’t be an idiot, there's no trick. I'm literally handing over my emergency funds to you.”

The second guard, who'd been quiet this whole time, stared intently at Fabrian. “There's something different about you.”

“Call it the beginning of my self-reflection. I have no issues with exile as repentance for my ‘cruelty’.”

After a pause, the second guard ignored the other two’s exclamations and took the jeweled pins. “Just one of these would sell easily for two or three  kroner, as you know, gold coins. You can break a single kroner down into fifteen kroka, silver coins. And the kroka can be broken into thirty ro, brass coins.”

“So ro are the least valuable?”

“That's all I'm willing to impart.”

“Fine then. My last request, which I think will be reasonable given the amount of jewels I just handed you. I need a map.”

“Absolutely not!” The first guard protested. 

“Don't shout when I'm speaking, understood?” Fabrian raised her hand to stop him. “I don't want to accidentally stumble back into these borders and violate my exile. A map of the country or even the continent would be helpful.”

“That's…actually reasonable of you.” The second guard muttered.

“Why are you taking this so well?” The first guard demanded. 

If this is all actually real, and not some LSD-trip of a dream, I don't actually want to be a villain in this story, I'm going to live and make it back to my sister somehow. Fabrian thought but instead said, “Because I have the feeling you three will kill me otherwise.”

The third guard's eyes darkened. He reached into his jacket and Fabrian braced herself for a weapon to be pulled. Instead, it was a folded piece of beige paper. The guard handed it to her.

“Never, not once, did you treat us as anything more than dirt. And yet here you are, talking to us like equals. I've never seen you so adept or perceptive.” He clenched his fist. “You hated us more than anything. All of us. So if we help you here, I want you to know that we were the ones who did so. Poor common folk who you'd snivel down on.”

Fabrian frowned, what kind of woman was this queen? “It was wrong of me. I'll work the rest of my life to make sure that I won’t do it again.”

The three guards observed her for a long time, before stepping back into the shadows of the building and disappearing into the crowd on the main walkway. Fabrian did not see them again, even as she left the city outside the castle walls, and their presence only disappeared once she reached the town borders. 

After about an hour of wandering, a dense pine forest stretched before her. Fabrian frowned—of course, what fantasy world wouldn’t have a forest? Maybe it would be enchanted and grant her some sort of magical weapon. 

Or was that the wrong genre for her sister's show?

Fabrian pulled out the map the guard had given her and calculated where she was. The dim light of sunset made it difficult to see, but she puzzled out the directions. Based on the shading, it looked like the forest (Avantharine Woods, according to the map) surrounded the north of Natalez in a crescent shape. Further north, there was an indication of a river splitting the map into a “Y” shape. On the left, the forest continued on; on the right, the woods faded into what looked like flatlands; and at the center of the Y and eating away the rest of the map, was the desert kingdom, Agan.

The name distinctly rang a bell, and Fabrian recalled that Agan was the opposing kingdom in her sister's TV show. Amelia somehow convinces Hector that Agan is deserving of god’s wrath and they demand war from the barbarian king there. From what she could remember, the barbarian king was actually very mild-mannered and had tried to parley with Natalez. Instead, Hector and Amelia killed him before he could reach the capital, and declared that war was the sole solution to the situation with Agan—insistent that Lien commanded it. 

Why that was the case was a later plot point for season two, a very important one, her sister had said. And so the mystery of Lien's command was a major cliffhanger for season one. But the war caused the two countries to split into seven factions, which then turned into a civil war primarily against Hector and Amelia. 

Fabrian scratched her cheek. This story was dumb, but her sister followed the whims of the execs, so she supposed there was nothing she could do. For now, she would find shelter in the forest, take cover, and try to list out all the plot she could recall from her sister's show. The first season had twenty-four episodes, so while there was no way she'd remember everything, she was certain she could brief at least all the major events. 

It didn't take long to find a nice little spot off the main forest path suitable for camping. While her first instinct was to light a fire, Fabrian had no idea what sort of people or creatures lived in the forest—so she resisted the urge, so as not to give away her position. She surveyed the area, noting any tracks or droppings she found. So far, something deer-like had passed through, but that was it. 

Finding a nice, sturdy tree, Fabrian threw the carpet bag into one of the branches. It took a few tries, but she managed to wedge it securely between several of the boughs. Kicking off her stupid high heels, Fabrian gripped the trunk of the tree and hoisted herself up. It reminded her of Hell Week during the PT portion of her first year in officer school. They had spent 48 hours as trainees for two days and one night in muddy, damp uniforms, finding the worst of places to hide and take cover. It was terrible, especially if you were out of shape. The physical demands of it were beyond taxing, and it wasn't uncommon to find people passed out either in the middle or afterwards. Unlike before, though, this new body of hers was horribly weak. If it wasn't for her experience, there was no way for Fabrian to climb up the tree. But that same mindset that helped her survive Hell Week returned—she zeroed in on the carpet bag above her and all thoughts trained on the feeling of the bark beneath her fingertips. A stretch of her dress tore clean off, snagged on a green branch. Her toes and the balls of her feet bled against the bark, scraped raw. This body was too delicate, easy to tear apart at the slightest pressure. She closed off her mind—get up, one hand in front of the other.

Her hands clenched the largest branch holding her bag and she pulled herself up. Her breath scraped against her lungs, and the air burned as it moved past her ribs. Chest heaving, hair half strewn and sweaty from the braids at her temples, she settled onto the branch and sat back against the trunk. 

Fabrian winced as the pain in her feet hit and her spatial awareness returned. She tore off a clean strip of fabric from her already ruined dress and wrapped her feet and hands, sighing softly through the electric pangs. Not her smartest move but she'd rather be above the forest floor than on it once night fell. 

Sorting through the carpet bag she found a tube that looked like lipstick, an handful of jewels she'd stolen from the dresses in the closet, a few clean handkerchiefs with some sort of embroidery on the corners, and a little box that had needles and a spool of thread clipped to the front. There wasn't much to work with. 

But Fabrian took the lipstick and retrieved the map, and on the back began to shorthand the events she remembered from the tv drama. 

1. The nameless queen is banished before the story begins. 
2. Handbag and Amelia's wedding is the opening scene of the pilot episode.
3. The first episode introduces Hamburger and Amelia, and how they decide to go to war with Agan.
4. The king of Agan tries to parley and is instead ambushed. 
     4a. He is killed, and Agan and Natalez split into seven factions in the aftermath. 
5. Hydroplane and Amelia cannot control the nobles who take hold of the six other factions, and they rise against them for power.

Pausing, Fabrian added a sub note to number 1. 

1. The nameless queen is banished before the story begins. 
1a. It's mentioned in passing that she dies, but we don't know when in relation to Amelia and Houseplant's wedding and the war with Agan.

That was all she could currently remember for season one, which wasn't a lot, but Fabrian was also hungry and thirsty, so trying to fine-tune the details would have to come later. She folded the map back up, careful not to smear the lipstick, and tucked it along with the lipstick back into the carpet bag. 

For now, her first priority in this world would be to live past the point that the nameless queen did in the series. After that, she would look for a way home. 

Closing her eyes, Fabrian listened to the sounds of the forest as they echoed forlornly. The sound of crickets and rustling in the distance, the listlessness of leaves crinkling against one another, and the absolute absence of anything familiar. No sounds of drills being run, no constant hum of a fan, and no soldiers bantering past lights-out.

She exhaled shakily and played with her fingertips. 

The situation slowly started to seep into her bones. The silence of the night crept in around her, she could hear the ringing in her ears and the vicious tear of shrapnel through her body. Had the corporal made it? Had her parents been told that she was killed in action, or was she listed as MIA—was there anything even left of her? What happened to Fabrian Rio's body back in the real world while she was trapezing through the forest in the body of some gangly queen? 

She swallowed back the rising homesickness and forced herself to doze off. There was no point in panicking.