Poll 006. September 4 2020 – Austrigusa Wheel of Fate or Crotchety Horse (Patreon)

 Poll 006. September 4 2020 – Austrigusa Wheel of Fate or Crotchety Horse
 

Like the stinging of wasps the tales emanating from the north about Wend attacks grow more and more irritating. However for now they are not your problem. You have instead chosen to march to the south, to the Bosphoran Greaci cities that yet linger, perched over a dark sea. There amongst the smattering of Bosporans and Pontic Greeks that dwell there lives a pretender princess. She is a charlatan, a fraud, and by all accounts, vouched to you by your spymaster Teodsinda, quite a looker.
 

This would be princess has cast her covetous gaze upon your crown, but it could be yet that you have a more fitting piece of jewelry waiting for her.
 

Already now your party camps in the wilderness past the outskirts of Yamboli. It wouldn’t be wise to rush into battle after three days of forced marching and the natural beauty of these hinterlands were so seductive.
 

A roaring bonfire blazed in front of you, from which cooked whatever the bountiful woodlands would provide. Behind you, near where your tent overlooked a pond, came the gentle tumult of a seasonal waterfall.
 

Every man ate what was on his skewer, with non having to share any one small beast, and you yourself, showing an ounce of temperament, chose only to devour the entire hindquarters of a pig. Laughter and boasting about the next day’s battle mingled in the air with the rising smoke, and in time you went to enjoy the company provided by the bear skin pelts that formed your bedding.
 

Hours went by, but not too many. You thought you could hear something over the embers of the satiated bonfire and the gentle whispering of secrets issued by the waterfall nearby.
 

Birds, you thought, trying to satisfy yourself, but with a minor crunch and the occasional crack you knew all too well, that birds don’t snap twigs… Nor do they often make the sounds of a knife cutting through fabric.
 

Your “Sword”, a twisted braid of iron that you affectionately refer to as “Whomp stick” is in your hand before you rise, and it leads the way out of your tent.
 

It was but an hours time short for bird song, the night was still thick and mist was rising from the ground.
 

A sneer fills your face and in the hand less filled with whomp stick you find a torch.
 

“AWAKE” you scream to your subordinates.
 

“What will it be today boys?” you yell, still working to rouse yourself from the lingering clutches of pleasant dreams. Forest spirits, Ghosts, Wends, treachery, and even Dynamis thin band of mead poisoned rogues crossed your mind.
 

Your men begin to rise but already a silhouette stands out in the mist before you. Illuminated by a sconce placed at a great distance this figure did not have the drunken over built stagger-swagger that you’ve come to expect from your men. Rather than move with a waddle and a belch it seemed to be svelte, tidy and knew exactly what it was doing.
 

It appeared to be harassing one of your horses, nearest to your limited wagon train!
 

With a snarl you run directly towards the shape, it reacts to the thudding of your boots upon the wet morning earth correctly and that is to say with a yelp of terror and a hop backwards.  
 

Careening through the murky miasma that separates you from your foe, you see the figure recoup from their fear and attempt to mount the horse.
 

The effort was one terrified yelp and a hop too late.
 

Throwing your torch forward into the felt your hand reaches out towards the figures nearest limb and clutches something soft and spry.
 

Illuminated in blues and yellows, the horse comes into view first. Its face as filled with ambivalence as its mouth was filled with grass. What you hold in the palms of your hands is an ankle. It’s attached to a girl of laughable height, but only for a moment. Momentum and adrenaline built up in equal measure, you twist your body as you move forward, yanking ankle and tossing the girl like a discus towards the nearby lake. She skips like a stone over the wet grass and then takes two bounces once more across the water’s surface, before tumbling under its surface with a yelp and a clamor.
 

“Men”, you scream, concerned that this assailant might escape to the far shore before your party had yet roused. Spears and shields and the necessary human elements attached to them form ranks about you, all eyeing the murky pool suspiciously.
 

The girl as it turned out, could not swim. She couldn’t quite sink either, but she definitely couldn’t swim. She simply trashed in the lake as the sun rose over the campsite.
 

You were eager to pass the time watching the spectacle but Teodsinda, the enemy of fun, reminded you that there was more than one matter to settle this day. Attempts to fish the vagrant out of the deluge began in earnest.
 

Pole arms with nooses tied to their ends were applied and for a time it seemed that the hapless girl could ward them off with her two petite daggers but as she tired your spymaster joined the frey, and expertly seized one of the girls ankles reeling her in with a jerk and keeping her armed knife hands far from any tethers that she might cut.
 

With a staves loop bound around each wrist, each ankle and her neck the girl was first to kneel before you. Each stave was nailed into the wet earth and secured from every angle she was a threat to no one.
 

She was an adult and mature, though scarcely five feet tall.  Her wardrobe was similarly underdeveloped. Her outfit was cut from a burlap sack. What covered her chest and shoulders was a rectangular strip of cloth not quite a hand span and a half wide. What passed for a miniskirt was of similar measurement.
 

She wore gloves though, grieves on her wrists, and buck skin boots of suspiciously high quality.
 

A mop of pretty blonde hair that might have been shoulder length had it not been matted, and held up wards and outwards by mixtures of twigs, mud, and whatever clay she had managed to dredge up from the lakes wet floor. It was pretty in so far as what color could be seen was as radiant as the sun rising over her.
 

Finally under that she wore a glare. Her big brown eyes bore into you as though enticing you to feel guilt.
 

Looking at your horse Nixx, her intents were clear. Two thick bags of grain sat slumped over its back and a saddle, not really fit for a wagon drawing horse was half applied.
 

The sound you had heard in the stillness of a night was a cut purses knife tearing into a bag of grain to examine its contents.
 

Far from a woodpecker, this girl had come to their camp in the night, inspected their wares and sought to make off with both horse and enough bushels of wheat to feed a hundred people for a week. Or in her case you imagine, a single increasingly plump thief girl for a year.
 

She continued scowling at you, her lips forming a near pout.
 

You gesture for your spymaster to come over and make as if to rise.
 

“WAIT!” The girl cries, sounding more like an order than a plea.
 

“I am the Gepid princess Austrigusa and if you let me go I’ll!...”
 

“NOPE” you bellow, startling the girl. “I’m all done up with princesses for the time being! One pretender at a time is enough for me thank you!”
 

“But… but….” The girl stammers, chest heaving inside its tiny crop top.
 

You swish your hands in a way that neatly indicates “gag her” to anyone with a bolt of cloth within damsel grabbing distance and your order is quickly fulfilled
 

“But I actually awmmmmmmugkphhh…”
 

the gag is half way in her mouth when her exposed belly quivers and grumbles in hunger.
 

“hahaha” you laugh, before grabbing a fist full of raw wheat and slap it into her mouth, ahead of the coming gag.
 

She rages into her gag, then begins to chew in quick measure.
 

“Some princess you are grumbling princess”, you say looking down at her exposred kneeling form.
 

In spite of her size, her dress and her temperament she did have ornamentation value though.
 

If presented correctly she could really present an accurate image of how the fake princess versus Thundering Gothic Thiudans panegyric usually ends.
 

“hmmm” you think, staring at the form before you.
 

Teodsinda appears once again, a pained look on her face explaining once again that the ideal hours to seize Yamboli and the pretender queen inside.
 

Looking around, you have rope, wood workers and nails….
 

What else could anyone ever need?

(PS: I'm aware that I'm running a little late but I'm catching up! The wheels are rolling and the saddles are blazing. I hope you like this months poll!)
 

Option 1
Life is Like a wheel! – Tie “””princess””” Austrigusa of the Gepids to a wagon wheel so that she may be near both horse and grain. Later on she can be attached to a water mills wheel so that she may process as much wheat as she could ever want, and simultaneously maintain a healthy bath schedule!
 

Option 2
My Kingdom for a Horse! – Mount “””princess””” Austrigusa of the Gepids onto a wooden horse, leave her outside the city gates,  then enter the city when the gates open and parade her through the city publicly so that all may see the fate of a pretender queen.