Princess Adalaide Dela Von Belecrate, first daughter to the Storm King Charles William Von Belecrate III and the Elven Queen Valicia Andoria Von Belecrate. Adalai looked at herself in the mirror and sighed. Her eyes, green as the emeralds that adorned her hair and bodice, were her fathers eyes. Her hair, long and silky blond which was so pale that it was said that in the moonlight it glowed a pale and silvery blue, was her mothers. Of course her hair didn't really glow, but many rumors of such would always surround the royalty, especially one such as herself, locked away from the world, destined to never see any of it. Gently she wiped a tear from her eye and sighed again.

Tonight they were to have a masquerade ball in honor of her birthday. The entire day had been spent prepping her for the special moment when she would be revealed to the world which she had been so cleverly locked away from for oh so long. Her father wanted to wait until the moment was just right, until the year that Adalaide Dela turned 16 but the Lethgorian calendar. The year that she was suitable to be married off to some rich prince from far away and secure her fathers alliance with them.

The best tailor in all of the twelve realms that made up her fathers kingdom had been called, and a gown befitting the occasion was made for her. It was made from the finest silks in Emerald green with real gold and silver thread entwined in the bodice and skirts. Real Emeralds from her fathers collection where brought forward to bring ornament to her gown. Then there was the hair. Six hand maidens had spent no less then four hours doing nothing but designing her hair into an elegant up do, adorned with more emeralds.

To her the whole thing was arbitrarily silly. Princes from all over the world didn't care whether she had emeralds in her hair which matched her eyes or if she had worn one of her older gowns. The princes where flocking to this location for two reasons. They wanted a chance to marry the Storm King's daughter and secure his allegiance with them. They also wanted to see the Storm kings daughter, the one that the world had deemed the most beautiful girl in all of the Twelve kingdoms, but then none of them had ever seen her.

She picked up her mask and sighed once more. She merely needed to make it through this night and then it was all over. She wouldn't need to deal with the glamour and the secrets that where her entire life. Her father had intentionally kept her from the public eye save for those that worked in the palace. Intentionally waited until this day to reveal her to the world, or at least to the only world that he knew personally or truly even cared about. The world of nobility.

But I intended to keep my mask on that night. To continue to hide my face from those prying princes. After all it could never be a clean getaway if everyone knew what I looked like. I had spent that night checking and double checking that everything was all in place and ready to go that night. After that night I would no longer be Princess Adalaide Dela Von Belecrate, instead she would adopt a new name, Addie Carpenter. Her servant Marie, was going to help her with her daring escape. Yes, after that night she would be princess no more. She would be an ordinary girl who would fall in love with an ordinary boy and live a very ordinary life. Deep in her soul she wasn't meant for all of this high life, she was meant for the freedom outside those walls.

She went to her door, with some difficulty owing to the tight corset her mother had insisted she wear, and smiled at the team of servants just outside her door, "I do believe it is just about time, let us head to mother's chambers, I believe we are to enter together"

Quentin Martin was nicknamed Q in his early years. It stuck and for that, he was thankful. What sort of name was Quentin anyway? His parents, being a ditcher and a gardener, helped dig the moats and keep the castle looking neat and clean from the outside. What he wanted to do was work on the inside. Any work for the King. He wanted to be respected and make a good wage for his future family, and outside the walls, it seemed impossible. Even from a young age, he knew that being being behind those walls meant a better life.

The raven-haired boy began training with any weapon he could carve himself instead of farming with his grandparents or helping his parents with their jobs, trying to make a better future for himself and possibly his family. After a few years of training and doing odd jobs around the Kingdom, Captain Durand of the King's Guard noticed him. Taking the only opportunity that was thrown his way, Quentin left his family to train under the guard at the castle, eventually working his way up over the years to a higher position. Now eighteen, he was told to stand in and make sure Princess Adalaide's birthday went as planned.

Though he had only seen her a handful of times, they had only spoken pleasantries to one another and nothing more. The King and Queen kept her hidden away in the castle and though Quentin was sure it was for good reason, it seemed like an awful existence. He had spent a good part of his life trying to get in while he was sure all she wanted was out. The times he had seen her, she hadn't looked very happy and that worried him. If she and her future King were to be ruling him, he wanted her to be at her best health and at her happiest. Hopefully, the celebration tonight would change that. He stood near the door, dressed in his most expensive clothing and waited for the arrival of the royals.

The night went exactly as she had expected it to go. An extravagant dinner where she was seated in the highest place of honor and all her suitors looked up to her with already love struck eyes. Of course her half mask never left her face so she knew the look that was in the eyes of the men that all looked on her. None of them had spoken with her, none of them had looked into her eyes and read her emotions there. No these men where not in love with her, they where in love with what she represented, what a marriage with her would mean.

She ate in silence, carefully pretending to not notice the stares and the looks that each of them was giving her, and certainly remaining stubbornly quiet. To occupy her mind she thought of the clothing and supplies she had had Marie gather for her in the days leading up to the fateful night of the party. She thought about the way the air would taste and feel, the way the men and women out there would not recognize her. Escape should hardly be a problem, but she knew she would need to get far far away if she was to stay missing.

After the dinner was the dance itself. One after another her suitors would ask to dance with her, and one after another under her fathers careful eye she would agree to a dance, but she was still careful never to remove her emerald green mask from her face, careful to mask her looks, though more then one of the prince's hinted at it. But still she could tell by the eagerness in there voices that they did not care about what she wanted, what she felt. They only wanted her power and what she could give them. It was a sickening sight for her to bear.

Finally after many hours of excruciating torture the party was over and she escaped to her rooms. Marie was already there waiting for her. As soon as she shut the door to her chamber the undressing began. First they started with the hair, pulling the emerald ornaments out of her hair until her hair fell down her back in the unruly curls that where normal of her, although she was careful to slip an emerald or two into her bag for leverage later if she needed it.

Next came the undoing of the bodice and the skirts, tonight she would not be needing those extravagant clothing. No, after today she would never again be adorning those clothes that where made for those of false wishes and careless worlds devoid of love. She laid the clothing, as well as any spare emeralds that she would not be keeping on the bed for her maids to retrieve in the morning. She dressed herself in the clothing of a traveler. It was a pair of plain pants, A loose fitting cotton blouse, and a hooded cloak.

Marie had gathered her shoe polish which she took the time to carefully pull through her hair, to give her hair a grungy dirty look. She was careful to wipe a thin layer across her face and hands as well, so that by the time she was finished, she was hardly recognizable. She pulled her hair back into a pony tale with a simple ribbon before looking once more in her bag of things, she had a small pouch of gold coins and emeralds, soap which she knew was quite a luxury that simple folks could rarely afford, but still she would pay for some lesser man's soap in the upcoming weeks, and also a small ration of food. It was the basics but at least it would get her through until she could devise the next stage of the plan.

Creeping out the back window and crawling down some lattice she carefully made her way to the stables. Here she took the time to saddle her horse and hop on. Careful to secure her bag to the horse she rode. She pulled her hood over her head to hide her face and rode for the front gates. Q would have seen her ride past the front doors towards the front gate, nearly only a blur, she was trying to get out of there faster then anything, because if they stopped her they she would fail. She did briefly glance in his direction knowing that he was there, but she continued on. She pulled out a gold coin, bribed the gatekeeper and gave him a false name, the name of one of the princes, and after he opened the gate she left, and rode as fast as her horse would carry her.

It wasn't until about an hour later that Quentin realized that it was her horse he had seen leaving, with her astride. Her family was aware she had runaway and gathered only a few guardsmen to go after her - Quentin included. The less people to go looking, the better. No one was to know that the princess had left for the princes would return to their kingdoms. No one would wish to marry a troublesome princess, only wanting those of gentle, kind, and obedient nature.

Quentin left in a hurry, taking only the essentials in his saddlebag. His sword strapped to his side, he straddled Mischief and headed North; the other two in opposite directions. North seemed just a good a direction as any but it was unlikely they would find her without showing the people who to keep an eye out for. Hopefully, they could find her quickly and return her to the castle so her family could figure out the wedding arrangements and make plans for the Kingdoms' alliance. He could guess how she must be feeling but at the same time, it was the way things were meant to be.

Eventually, he reached another Kingdom and had to stop riding for the night so he could get some rest and wake up early to go looking again. Stopping at an Inn, he paid for a room and settled down to try and sleep.

Quentin did have good instincts, for it was true that Princess Adelai had headed north into the kingdom of Kathoria. She had as time would tell taken off in the spur of the night, and had had a good hours head start on the man, but she hadn't stopped and she had ridden like the wind. She had stopped only twice, the first time was to relieve her bladder in the middle of the woods, the second time was to eat lunch in the very inn that Q had stopped at for the night.

By the time that Q stopped there Adalai was long gone. What wasn't gone however where the stories of her having been there. If he would have listened to the people who worked in the tavern they would have heard the stories of how a girl dressed in mans clothing had come through the tavern and had ordered some food. She had become the talk of the tavern over the course of the past 4 hours.

"Did you hear about the girl?"

"The Elven girl?"

"Who else would I be talking about? They say she was the most beautiful girl they had ever seen, and yet she traveled alone?"

"I hear she paid in the Storm King's currency. And paid a heavy sum...."

Adalai by this point was in the next town over just barely reaching the inn. She had stabled her horse for the night and taken up a room at the local inn. She may be wild for leaving, and uneducated in the ways of the world, but she wasn't stupid. She knew that once darkness fell the night was dangerous to a single girl traveling alone.

That night she rested uneasy and wondered if her father had sent men out after her yet.

Quentin had been laying there, trying to sleep for what felt like ages but his brain wouldn't be quiet. He was worried about the princess being out on her own. What if he was unable to return her home to her family? Bad things happened to good people all the time. Sighing, he stood and went back downstairs, towards the tavern. Maybe if he drank a bit, he'd be able to sleep.

It was in the tavern that he overheard conversation about a beautiful Elven girl. Feeling that it was her, he approached the men. "A girl rode through here? Do you know which way she went?" If they wanted to know why or suspected she was the princess, he would have to lie to protect her. On the spot, he went ahead and came up with a simple back story about his sister running away from home because her mother wanted to marry her off in exchange for a few farm animals.

The Kingdom of Kathoria was a predominantly Human Kingdom. The two men in question were also both human, therefore the men looked up at Quentin in a leery manner, skeptical at first. Who was this Elf that was approaching them after listening in on their conversation. After a few moments silence and after hearing the story of the runaway bride the humans relented. After all Elves and Humans were not exactly on bad terms and these two in question could gossip more than most women in the area, which was saying something about their nature.

The men after a moment called for some more drinks and offered one to Quentin as well, the men relished in the moment to gossip happily away. One of the men, who introduced himself as Jon, was the first to speak of the incident. “I wasn’t here at the time that your sister came through, but from the sound of things she was dressed in a man’s garb. From what I hear told she was fidgety and jumped at small noises. She wanted people to think she was a man I think, by the blackened hair and skin as well as the man’s clothing. But she was a gorgeous little thing both face and body. You best be catching her quick before anything happens to the traveling maiden. Roads not safe for those traveling alone, but especially the naïve and womanly type.”

The other man, this one named Richard, had remained silent for the time, but when the other man was done talking he spoke carefully, clearly still suspicious of Quentin. “I was here at the time, mate. She was gorgeous, but also sad. There was something clearly botherin’ the lass. But she paid the inn keeper in the Storm Kings currency. I’d be worried about that purse of hers. I believe she headed out the west gate, in the direction of Dorth”