Duris woke up early, as soon as the first glimpses of the dawn were visible from her hideout in the tree. Her back hurt. Sleeping while tied to a branch is not recommendable. But at least they hadn’t found her yet. They would soon though. She was prancing around in a gold dressed, albeit a little smudged, and golden high heels. Also, the circlet in her hair was a dead giveaway on her being the princess that probably every dwarf in the region would be looking for by now. There was nowhere for her to go but back home.

Or die.

Death wasn’t a bad idea, they’d stop looking for her. As long as she wasn’t actually deceased, she’d be quite alright being dead. With that in mind she circled around carefully through the Kû forest, which was mostly made up of large pine trees rooting almost horizontaly on large rocks, and found a nice ravine. She chucked her circlet in, wincing at the thought of throwing away actual 24 carat gold. Then she ripped a hole in her dress and stuck the fabric on a root sticking out two feet down. She put one shoe on the ground and thew the other in the ravine for good measure. There. Dead.

Now what?

Now she had caused her parents the worst fucking heartbreak anyone could ever imagine.

They didn’t deserve this. They really didn’t. She could see in her mind’s eye the faces of her parents when someone would tell them the news. A tear welled up in her eye and she considered going back home after all. But only a second, because going home would mean a scolding and then having to marry one of those four leftover idiots.

No fucking way.

“Sorry mum, sorry dad.” She mumbled, staring down the ravine for a minute. The sheer depth of it made her heart race. She leaned down and felt the adrenaline grab a hold of her legs. Now she was ready.

Fully energised she started running. Within minutes her feet hurt. The rocky mossy ground wasn’t steady at all and Duris wasn’t used to going outside barefoot. She was a princess after all. Well not anymore she wasn’t. She bit through the pain and pressed on.

Running through the lush forest that decorated the sides of the mountain, she tried to think of a plan. First, she needed to lose the dress, but she’d need something else to wear. So new clothing was number one. Then she’d need a bow, to hunt for food and defend herself. Third, she needed transport to get her as far away from home as possible as soon as possible. But she could only fix that if no one recognised her. So first things first: where to get new clothes?

‘And shoes!’ a voice in the back of her head screamed. Yeah, some fucking shoes too.

Knowing the dwarven trade routes by heart (she had spent months of memorising them, since as a princess it was her duty to know these things for political talks with human diplomats) she decided to take off in the direction of a lesser used route. That way she knew where she was going, but she wouldn’t meet a lot of dwarves along the way. Which was good, since most dwarfs would recognise her immediately in that fucking dress.

Duris walked for what felt like hours, her feet nagging her the entire time. It was what she had started and now her damn feet just needed to listen to her command. Mind over matter she thought, then wondered where she had learned something like that. Definitely not from her father, she smiled and then quickly pushed the upcoming guilty feeling down to her feet, that had started to go numb.

Slowly descending the overgrown mountain ridges, she crossed a small stream and realised she was extremely thirsty. Hungry too, but the rill couldn’t help with that. Unless she could catch a trout with her bare hands, but what princess could? She wasn’t even going to try. Drinking the cold clear mountain water the feeling started to come back to her feet. She looked at the soles, which turned out to be one bloody mess. Well, what did she expect?

Navigating the sun she tried to figure out how far it would be to the first village. If she wasn’t alone, she would have tried to be a smart-ass about it, bluffing that she knew that is was exactly a one and a half hour walk downhill from here. Her mind came up with the words, but since she could only tell herself, there wasn’t much use in bluffing. Honestly, she had no fucking clue where she was right now. She could only hope the smart-ass bluffing part of her brain had some information she didn’t and got back on track.

The landscape slowly changed from open ridges, mountain streams and lush trees sticking out from the green sides of the mountain, to a less rocky valley. It was still mostly forest, but Duris could clearly see a valley in the distance. Valley meant people. People meant clothing.

‘AND SHOES!’ The brain part in charge of managing pain yelled at her.

With renewed courage she almost trotted downhill, which was a mistake, because her numb feet slide on a patch of moss, which made her lose her footing. Duris curled up, protecting her head as she rolled downhill like a golden armadillo. She prayed to the god of the mountain she was rolling down from that he’d spare her the embarrassment of being spotted by anyone.

The god of the mountain obeyed, and as she came to a standstill in the middle of a large patch of mud, she immediately noticed there were no spectators. Also, she was fine, which was a bonus.

She did notice however, a wooden structure nearby. It was made of large wooden logs stacked up neatly to form some sort of hut. Duris sneaked up to it. From up close she could discern that it was human size, had a roof and a door that was closed. There were large openings on at least one side that were about one log high and covered almost the entire width of the hut.

Duris sneaked closer and noticed no sounds coming from the hut. When she had reached the building, she flattened herself against the wall and shimmied along the side of the building to the opening. She looked inside. It seemed like no one was there.

Entering the hut was easy, to Duris surprise it wasn’t even locked. It was quite dark inside, but being a dwarf, this had no significant effect on her vision. Duris closed the door behind her and scanned the room. It was a bit dusty and some leaves had been blown in through the open sides. Brown leaves. It seemed that no one had been cleaning here for a while. Pelts, stuffed animal heads and antlers decorated the wall opposite the slits and in the corner sat a fireplace. It had two leftover logs sitting besides it and the inside was a mess of soot. Two wooden chairs and a very small table stood against another wall, but as exited as sitting and chilling out for a minute seemed, there was something of more interest on this side of the cabin. There were bows.

Duris’ heart leaped as she eyed them. They were extremely bland in comparison with the bow she had lost, also, they were bigger, but this didn’t dilute her happiness one bit. What luck! Duris picked them up one by one and tried them out, shooting out from the slit in the side of the building. The first one was slightly large to handle, but she proved strong enough to shoot with it. The second one was too large, the point would hit the ground of she kept the arrow at eye level, so that wasn’t working out. The third bow was a crossbow. It was a little too heavy for her, but she tried shooting it all the same. It hit her in the face as she fired, sending the bolt into the ceiling.

“Damnit!” she cursed as she clasped her forehead where the bow had struck. It was bleeding only a little. This made her grin.

It was exciting.

She tried it again, this time not hitting her own face, but the bolt crammed itself in the wall all the same. Maybe this wasn’t her thing. Or maybe it was, but this human sized equipment just wasn’t her.

“Fuck it.” She said and tried a third time. This time the bolt almost made it out of the slit. She knew she should put it away and go with the first one, but this ting was exciting. Too bad it took a shitload of time to reload, otherwise she’d definitely stick with this one.

With a heavy heart she put the crossbow back on the wall and practiced a bit more with the oversized first bow. She did a lot better, but didn’t have one pebble of the excitement that the crossbow had brought her. The adrenaline of handling a weapon that exceeded her strength and skillset died down and Duris suddenly became very aware of her hurting feet.

Oh yes. Clothing and shoes.

No clothing nor shoes were anywhere to be found, but she did find a small box next to the fireplace that contained a hunting knife and a first aid kit. Brilliant.

Duris knew what to do with needle and thread and with all the pelts in the room, she could surely make herself an outfit. It would take a while, but it didn’t seem like someone was using this hut frequently, so she felt like she could take the chance of staying. Besides, if someone did show up in the meantime, she was armed and dangerous.

Armed and dangerous. Duris smiled at her own thoughts. Armed and dangerous and on the lam. Like a proper bandit. Not like a princess at all. Ok well, she was sewing clothing, which was a little princessish, but still. In defiance she decided to sew herself pants. It was harder than a dress, but she decided on it anyway. A bandit wouldn’t wear a dress, now would she?

Sewing took time. Duris decided she needed water and something to eat if she was going to get everything together. With only the shoes finished (priorities) she took the bow, a few arrows and a bucket and set out into the forest in her torn and stained dress.

In an hour and a half Duris managed to find water and shoot a large red squirrel. She had also found some mushrooms, but she had no idea as to how to identify them. Curiosity and excitement for the idea of taking a risk battled her intelligence for a while, but the latter won. Duris ended up back in the house with enough to drink, chugging the two leftover logs in the fireplace and roasting the squirrel for dinner. It tasted like shit, but she was too hungry to be picky at this point. At least her feet were cosy in the new shoes.

After sewing through one half of the night and sleeping through the other, Duris got up, set fire to her dress, took some large gulps of water and set out with her newfound bow and a quiver of arrows. She had also sewn herself a little bag, which contained the two pairs of earrings and the one thing she could never let go: her ceremonial axe. Her furry pants felt so good she had to contain herself not to start skipping through the forest like a little girl. Two objectives down, one to go. And for this last one she needed to find a town.

Duris was in luck. Even before she found a town, she found something else: dwarven traders.