The sight before her made her snarl. One from deep in her chest. Like a feral animal. No one harms a child on her watch. If there was one thing that was sacred in her lands, it was the children. They were the future.
Her tiny braids, blonde and black mixed, hid her face. Her porcelain skin, marred from past battles, could be seen moving as her muscles flexed below as her fists clenched and released.
"Uh, oh."
Eyes landed on the young woman before them. Those same eyes widened. Not in shock or surprise, but out of fear of what was to come next. The fire in her blood red eyes made those standing with her shake with fear. Even the most hardened Pyrokyn shook.
"Raluca, get the lapsi out of here."
Raluca Oprescu nodded and got the other Pyrokyne to help her guard the child out. Leading her away from the fight that was to come. Meike Herr would make sure of that, Raluca was sure.
Meike grasped the hilt of the sword she carried, one that had been in the Herr family for generations. Her knuckles were white with the force she held onto it with.
"Nothing is more sacred than a child!"
Meike jumped into battle, her foes meeting her with the same ferocity as she.
The child was in good hands now, Meike was sure. As sure as she had been of anything.
One head.
Two heads.
Three heads.
Four.
The heads rolling, blood spurting. The Sovereign Nation of Stars Princess was covered from head to toe in the thick, sticky liquid. She paid no mind to it. It was nothing new to her.
The lone survivor of the group fell onto his ass, scrambling backwards to get away from her. Just as Raluca walked back up.
The black eyes of the Eriynan widened as he saw the two Pyrokyne standing there. The darker skinned Raluca and the fair skinned Meike. The fair skin belonging to only the ruling house.
"Who contracted you?" Raluca asked as she knelt down, grabbing him by the collar of his blood soaked shirt. Lifting him up off the ground.
"I-I don't know his name," he stuttered out, afraid of the Pyrokyn holding him up. "All I know is that he said he wanted a Pyrokyn dead or alive."
"Raluca."
"Yes, Your Highness?"
The Pyrokyn Major threw him to the ground, "Tie him up and bring him," she ordered, a glare set on the Eriynan on the ground in front of them. "I believe the abazali will want to deal with him themselves."
Raluca nodded as she and two other Pyrokyne tied him up, dragging him behind them as they followed their Princess back to the shuttle.
The leather covering her body was like a second skin. It showed every curve she had.
Once on their own shuttle, the Erissa, the Pyrokyne roughly shoved him into a holding cell.
"Crew of the Erissa, come in."
Meike and Raluca walked up to the huge monitor that was in the control room. Seeing the Empress of the Sovereign Nation of Stars.
"Yes, Ma'hom?" Meike questioned as she started her own flight measures.
"The Voratian President is to arrive in five universal hours," the Empress told her. "He and his son are to be here to negotiate a treaty. Your father and I want you here to oversee the negotiations as well."
Meike nodded to her mother before they launched the shuttle into the vast unknown of space.
"I shall arrive soon, Ma'hom," she told her. "We have recovered the lapsi and are enroute to the bay. We have a Eriynan prisoner as well."
Empress Klára Horthy-Herr nodded, "Very well," she stated. "The abazali will deal with the prisoner as the laws state."
Meike nodded before Klára cut the transmission.
"Whatever shall you do? Everyone knows that the Pyrokyne and Vorats do not get along."
Meike nodded before she pressed a button on the console for the mic, "Listen up, we have a clear route so far," she told her crew. "Prepare hyperdrive."
"Yes, Princess," Sampo Tirkonnen, one of the Royal guards, stated as he engaged the hyperdrive from the rear engine bay.
The shuttle was a Pyrokyn creation. A prototype for the Princess. On her request.
Meike was one of a kind, Raluca thought as she watched her Princess fly through the controls of the ship.
"Your Highness, forgive my ignorance, but why is it that your kansa and the Vorats despite each other?"
Meike looked to the only one of her crew that was not a Pyrokyn.
Saolas Bruneau. A Prafg from Grenushe IV in the Devolin System.
Meike gave a sad smile.
"It has been ingrained in us as children from the time that we are able to begin lessons," she explained to him as she kept an eye on her monitor, as did Raluca. "About six generations ago, the Voratian President nearly single-handedly eradicated our ruling house. Because my ancestor, Empress Sirrka Vehanen-Herr, refused the marriage proposal the then Voratian President, Liviu gave. After her marriage to Kaleva Herr."
"But, honestly, that time period was different from today," Raluca added, not glancing at the Prafg crew member.
"I don't see why we're at war with them now," Vilmos Fehér gave his two cents before there was a strong blast that had struck them in the back.
Where the engines were.
"Sampo!" Meike shouted, pressing a button on the console. "Is everyone alright down there?"
"We're fine, Your Highness," he replied shakily. "The pups are shaking as we speak."
"Get the pups to guard the Lapsi," she ordered. "I fear the Eriynans are not done with us now."
"Yes, Your Highness."
The communication was cut just before another strike landed.
Raluca ran to the turrets. Assuming her position. As did Saolas.
The two blasted their way back to the safety of their own airspace. Continuing to use the hyperdrive to get back quickly.
Too easy, Meike thought suspiciously.
The Eriynans weren't known to surrender just because of airspace limits.
Once docked in the bay, the crew led the lapsi out of the shuttle, followed by the Eriynan. Flanked by Raluca and Saolas and Meike behind them.
Guards rushed up and dragged the prisoner away roughly. While the others led the lapsi to her waiting abazali.
"Come with me, Your Highness."
Meike was rushed to her mother's chambers. When she was shoved inside, her blood red eyes landed on her mother.
A woman who appeared to be no older than thirty five years of age. She looked just like her daughter. No wonder where the heiress got her looks.
"Come, Meike," she told her daughter as she stood. Her silken robe flowing behind her like a royal blue waterfall.
Meike followed her mother to the dining hall, meeting her father on the way.
"You are still in your battlesuit, Meike?" Emperor Fabian Herr asked her as they walked.
"Yes Foahom," she replied curtly, she was an army of one to two word answers around her parents. Her father at least.
Her mother shook her head as they entered the room.
"The Voratian President has already arrived and is being escorted to the dining hall, Your Majesties," a guard informed them as they entered the room.
"Very well, bring the prisoner and the abazali," the emperor ordered as he sat at his seat. "To make it more interesting, strip the prisoner of his clothes. Prepare the arena."
The guard nodded before heading out to do as he was instructed.
"Your Majesties, may I present to you, the Voratian President Vigen Szulc and his son, Emrys."
"Welcome to the Sovereign Nation of Stars, President Szulc," Klára greeted as she stood. "It is an honor to have you here."
"The honor is all mine, Your Majesty," President Vigen stated as he bowed his head to them.
"Please, take a seat," Fabian told the President and his son. "The entertainment is to begin shortly as dinner is about to be served."
Fabian was at one end of the long, rectangular table with Klára seated to his left. Meike was to her left. Vigen was at the opposite end as the Emperor, Emrys to his father's right. Next to Meike.
Just as the Eriynan prisoner was dragged to the arena below, the meal was brought out.
"Please enjoy," Klára told them. "It is the meal of champions! Agaval with seadragon tails, eggplant, and onion."
The President nodded as he and his son began to eat. Only after the ruling house began.
The abazali, or parents of the child that had been kidnapped, were escorted into the area with swords in hand.
"What is going on, Father?" Emrys asked his father, confused.
Emrys had no clue as to the laws and punishments for the Sovereign Nation of Stars.
"The prisoner had kidnapped one of the children of this empire," Meike answered for her parents. As the way to deal with the children of foreign diplomats in her lands. "Our laws state that the abazali are to have their way with the offender. They may do what they feel needs done."
Emrys nodded before looking back to the scene before them. It was foreign to him, their laws.
He also found it strange that a Princess, a future Empress no less, to be dressed in a battlesuit to meet with them.
Then again, he always found the ways of the foreign nations strange.
A huge grin spread across Fabian's face as the child's mother took the sword and plunged it deep into the heart of the Eriynan, the one responsible for taking her child.
"Justice has been served," Klára stated as she continued to eat.
"Saolas!"
"Yes, Your Majesty?" The young Prafg asked, bowing to the Emperor.
"Gather the cleaners and have them clean the arena."
Saolas nodded before doing as the Emperor ordered.
"Ma'hom," Meike started, getting her mother's attention.
"Yes, Meike?"
"Word just came over my comm that Grenushe IV's northern most outpost has been attacked," Meike informed her as she stood, grabbing her helmet from Sampo, her personal guard appointed by her mother.
He was to follow her everywhere.
"Gather your crew and head out," Fabian told her.
Meike nodded before she followed Sampo out of the dining hall.
Emrys decided to follow her, despite his father's protests that he stay.
"Let me help you."
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