--There was only a gentle breeze through the air. It moved the leaves bringing forth their song. Lilia was hidden among the leaves wearing the useful and deadly attire of an experienced rogue. A lone traveler was making his way down the lonely dirt road. The man was cleanly shaven and tall. A little gleam of metal on his hand indicated he was married. He might have been a tailor or something similar. Heavens knows why he was traveling on this road. He ought to know tha- Suddenly a large burly man came from a concealed spot in the ditch and pinned the traveler against a tree.

--The startled man yelled and stammered "What do you want?"

--Another man, unshaven, leaner, and slightly taller than the first, stepped out from the woods behind them. The man held a knife to the traveler's throat and growled, "What do you think we want?"

--Sweat dripped from the traveler's brow as his eyes looked at the two men. Their faces showed neither mercy nor patience. "Take it. Take anything and everything. Just don't hurt me." He stammered. The traveler brushed back his robe revealing the coin pouch on his belt. From her position, crouching upon a branch, all of this was taking place below her.

The taller man lowered the knife and bent over, bringing the knife to the belt to cut the whole thing off. The traveler was still pinned to the tree under the muscular arm of the burly man. This was her chance. As quiet as a bird taking off, she leapt from her perch. She fell upon the back of the bandit quickly bringing him down. The gauntlets on her fists drove the impact of her fall deep into his body. Immediately after his legs gave out from underneath him, several audible crunches emanated from his spine breaking beneath her gauntlets and boots. The noise was invigorating to Lilia as it told her she had executed the landing with deadly perfection. The burly one, and now the only remaining one of the bandits, was stricken with terror and shock. He took a quick glance at his fallen partner and the mysterious figure who had taken him down so easily. He let go of the traveler and took a few step back. "Slick, are you okay?" he said in a worried voice that also sounded like he had been out here without much water to drink. There was no response.

--Lilia stepped off of the body and carefully observed the remaining thief. His muscles stiffened as his face took on an expression of intense anger. His fists tightened and he was about to charge. Suddenly he reached into his shirt and pulled a large dagger out of a leather sleeve on his belt. "I don't know who you think you are, lady, but you're gonna regret that," he growled.

--She gave no response, but remained silent. The man charged at her with the knife. Just before he was close enough to stab, she darted out of the way and cut his right side with a small blade she had taken off of a strap on her leg. He winced as he felt the blade cut through his side. While Lilia distanced herself for the next attack, he clutched the wound. His eyes shrank into angry slits when they fell upon the blood covered hand he held the wound with. He charged at her again with escalated rage. She agilely stepped aside and grabbed his hand that clutched the knife. Using his forward momentum, she pushed him past her and pulled his arm behind his back. He tried to grab her with his other arm, but the muscles on his arm limited dexterity when he tried reaching behind his back. She grabbed the blade of his knife with her gauntlet and twisted it out of his hand quick enough that it probably broke his wrist. Before he could think of how to fight back, she jammed his knife into the back of his neck. The blade was pushed deep between two vertebrae with sheer force and cut apart the spinal cord. The heavy body slumped forward. She pulled the knife out of the neck and added it to the collection strapped around her body. She let the bulky corpse fall into the dirt. The traveler was now slouched down on the ground, staring at her with wide eyes and a pale face. He was petrified with fear as her gaze met his. She walked over to him and helped him to his feet.

--"Th-thank you for saving me," he uttered weakly. He recovered from shock and dusted off his clothes. "Is there any way I can repay you?"

--After a moment of silence she replied, "Stay safe on your journey."

--"That was very brave of you. I shall." The traveler whistled and a black horse galloped to them from around the corner. He climbed on and wished her good day. She watched as the horse trotted off slowly. It turned its head back to look at her. The head no longer was one of a horse. Instead of a horse head on the horse's body, the black head of Marco looked back at her with a gloomy expression and said, "I'm sorry." He turned away and galloped off with the traveler.

--She closed her eyes and let everything fade away. When she opened them up she was on her balcony at the castle. She was wearing one of her royal dresses. Birds were perched around the balcony railing looking up at her. Each one awaited to hear her sing for them again. Her mind searched for a song but was interrupted at the sight of something in the sky. A single black cloud floated in the sky. Even though the weather was bright and sunny outside, the single cloud was black as night. The cloud began to grow and cast a shadow over the scenery before her. She saw that it wouldn't take long for the shadow to cover Anovia. Before she could dwell on it much longer a voice cried out from inside. --"Lilia, your presence has been requested by her Royal Highness Queen April." She turned to see who it was. It was one of the messengers of the castle. They were only young boys but did their job well. Lilia liked them. They were polite, unlike most of the men and women of the castle. Lilia still thought they used too many formalities. He could have simply said, "Lilia, your mother wants to see you." She thanked the messenger and made her way inside to find her mother.

--She heard the voice of her mother coming from the dressing room. Upon entering the dressing room she saw the queen's feet and ankles, but that was all she could see because they were giant. Lilia strained her neck to see the face of her mother. The queen was now a giant standing beneath the mind bogglingly high ceiling. The enormous face peered down at her, and a mighty voice boomed, "You look horrible. We need to get you fixed and looking proper. We have company and I won't stand for the royal princess to look like that." Lilia glanced down at what she was wearing. It was a simple trim dress that almost touched the floor. She didn't see anything wrong with it and she certainly wasn't dirty. But she had no choice in the matter.

--At that moment the doors of many cabinets flew open. Brushes, clothes, perfume, and many other types of beauty products flew out as if they had a life of their own. "I hope you weren't near those filthy birds again" the queen's voice resounded loudly through the room. The brushes flew at her head like angry needle flies. Before she could react, the brushes were upon her. They jammed their teeth and bristles into her hair and pulled back. Some made it through their motions easily while others ran into knots. They yanked through her hair with brute force. Locks of her hair were torn out in their mad brushing rampage. She cried out wishing it would stop, but they pulling and brushing persisted. Now wet rags flew into her face and scrubbed against her skin. She managed to tear them off in time to see brushes of makeup swoop in. Attempts to swat them away were futile, although she tried. "Hold still child! Stop making a fuss about it." The queen thundered. Lilia closed her eyes and let the brushes cover her face. As unpleasant as it was, it was nothing compared to the unpleasant surprise that was now squeezing around her waist. She already knew what it was and felt her breathing become more difficult. If she ever found out the idiot who invented these infernal corsets, she would personally strangle them in one until they stopped breathing. --The laces squeezed and tied themselves just as a large decorative dress fought its way over her body. She didn't even get a chance to put the shoes on herself since the drapes also came to life and grabbed her. She kicked and struggled but the drapes held her up in the air until the shoes found their way on her feet. The drapes laid her back on the floor and everything seemed to be back to normal until Lilia saw herself in the mirror. She was a child again and everything around her seemed to be growing bigger.

--The room went dark. "Oh good the guests are here," said the loud voice of the queen who was not in the room anymore and seemed to have disappeared. A black smoke poured into the room and filled the ceiling with the black cloud. The walls and furniture of the room seemed to no longer exist. Instead there was just an infinite expanse of carpet floor and black cloud for the sky. A loud thunder boomed and it started to rain. Large red droplets of liquid fell from the cloud and formed puddles on the floor. The puddles grew in size quickly. The situation became even more frightful when mice began crawling from these red puddles. The red liquid dripped off the mice revealing white fur underneath soon after they emerged. At first there were only a few mice. One would occasionally crawl out of a puddle randomly. But after a short time rows of mice were crawling from the puddles. The rows grew into swarms of mice that crawled in endless numbers from the red puddles. The floor looked like it was growing white veins as the rows moved along and covered the floor. The swarms scampered to her feet. She backed away, but more were behind her. The number of mice grew until the floor was white. The mice rushed her moved like a wave of white fur. She was pushed back into the mass of writhing white rodents. The mass of them acted as one and carried her across the floor. "What are you doing?" she cried in confusion and fear. Before them was a large hole in the wooden floor. The mice took no time at all carrying the princess to the hole with them. They dove in one after another. The mass poured into the hole like water down a drain. Lilia was swept into the hole as well. Blackness fell over her eyes.

--The next thing she knew, she was in the spacious parlor. The room was empty and quiet. The only light was coming from the gentle flames in the fireplace. She checked to see if she was still a little girl in hopes things were going back to normal. She was let down upon the discovery that she was still small. The dark room made her nervous, so she walked the floor hoping to find some element of safety. She didn't notice that the fireplace grew bigger with every step she took as she shrank. Something was lying on the floor in her path. The flicking light of the fire cast a soft light upon the object. It was a wooden soldier with an ornate blue uniform painted on it. It had an eerie appearance lying on the floor of the dark room. What surprised Lilia is that it was a bit bigger than her. She slowly figured out her change of size and was relieved that it had stopped.

--Just then, the loud ringing of a clock filled the room with noise. Lilia jumped a little at the loud noise. But an even bigger shock came when the wooden soldier turned his head to look at her. It blinked and moved its arms to sit up. She gave a shriek and ran as fast as she could. Her heart pounded as she looked back to see the wooden figure rise to its feet. Just as she began to turn her head back to see what was in front of her, she ran into something soft and stumbled backwards, landing on the hardwood floor. When she sat up, she saw a mouse standing before her. It was bigger than her and covered in white fur. This must have been one of the mice from earlier but it was standing on its hind legs. Behind it was an army of these mice. The mouse peered down and her and gave a wicked grin. The situation was getting more terrifying by the minute.

--She started backing up and climbed to her feet. Luckily for her the mice halted and seemed to be distracted by something among them. The group parted to make way for something walking out. At first it appeared to be another mouse, but this one was huge. Its fur was a pinkish purple color and it wore a gold belt with a large saber in it. This was obviously the leader of the other mice since it wore a gold crown on its head and a purple robe over its back. The huge mouse marched to Lilia and looked down at her with an evil sneer. Its teeth were huge and sharp. It lowered its head until it was at her eye level. The mouse's eyes were narrow with malice and had a yellow glow about them. With a gruff voice that made the words seem to drip from its teeth, it uttered "Hello ma'am."

--Lilia wanted to scream but it seemed to be stuck in her throat. The mice approached her grinning at the thought of tearing her apart. But before the mice could reach her, two tin soldiers ran up and started fighting them off. Soon more of the metallic soldiers joined in the fight until there was a full army of shiny, silver colored soldiers fighting the mice army. The large king fought through the tin soldiers as if they were still inanimate toys. Just as he fought his way out of the crowd and approached Lilia again, another soldier appeared and drew out a sword. This soldier was much different; it was not made the silver color of the others and was wearing a blue uniform. At first Lilia feared it was the wooden soldier from earlier. It appeared to be; except for this one was real and not made of wood. The new arrival and the large mouse began sword fighting. It was only when she saw the soldier's face, did she recognize it.

--"Marco?" she asked.

--Marco only has time to look at her briefly and nod as he clashed swords with the leader of the mice. Marco was in his human form again. She had almost forgotten it. Even in the chaos of battle she couldn't help but admire how handsome he looked. The uniform gave him a formal, dashing appearance. There was little time for her to admire him, because at that moment the two armies brought out canons and started firing on one another. Smoke and loud booms filled the air. The last thing she could get a glimpse of when the smoke faded for a bit, was Marco pulling his sword out the chest of the giant mouse. She coughed as the smoke thickened and clouded her vision once again. Moments later she felt herself being picked up and carried away. The hands felt like those of a human. Once she was out of the smoke she was set down to her feet. She looked back to see Marco. His sword was covered in blood and his uniform had deep cut in it. He was bleeding in some places.

--"Marco, are you okay?"

--"I'm fine. Don't worry about it."

--"There must be something I can do to help those wounds."

--"There is one thing."

--"What is it?"

--"Wake up."