#he picked the fairy born changeling off the streets and now she's using her power for slightly evil good

[ionoreo]

Quite a few people had said that the Lady was strange. Her father has never been seen alone with a woman in his life, though they tended to approach him in droves during parties or other social gatherings— and yet, out of the blue, she had appeared, held firmly in his arms. He had cherished the child despite the rumors (her mother was a fairy, she's a changeling, maybe he picked the child off the streets) until she had murdered a man in the street.

The Lady was convicted for the murder at the ripe age of seventeen, fighting and kicking and screaming that it was well within her rights to do so. Yes, the man was a vampire and these sort of people often claimed to be vampire hunters; regardless, she murdered him as a man. There was no way she could have known his true nature, not when he had approached her in broad daylight and she had knocked his lights out.

And then the Lady learned that was the King's cousin. Blood related, not adopted, and when she raised this point to the judge they simply shrugged and said "oh dear, perhaps your father can get the courts on it after you're dead."

The Lady did not plan to leave her father to die with a bloodthirsty vampire maniac alone.

The first knight to go down promptly had his sword stolen. The second knight to go down was used as a shield in lieu of actual shields, though his armor certainly did the trick, and the third and fourth all the way to the fiftieth didn't fare much better. There were thousands of knights in the kingdom, impossible for a single woman- a girl!- to hold off properly, with a glorified baseball bat and an oversized sword, but there were only about twenty left in the immediate area and she didn't seem to be slowing down.

Her father watched with a glint in his eye. Tears or mischievousness? Several people in the stands were placing their bets on it. Many more had already placed theirs on her winning. After all, she was small and fast and kept tripping them before banging them in the head, and the dead body of the second knight she'd killed that she kept dragging around even after the first few bodies were gone certainly didn't help with the aura of fear she was able to emit.

In fact, news had reached the arena that several knights had suddenly retired after news of the carnage began to spread. Someone tossed the girl a rose. More people began to throw things— flowers, money, someone even threw a piece of bread. As germy as it was now that it had been on the dusty floor, the Lady ripped it apart and shoved it into her mouth quickly. Twenty-four hours without food leaves one very hungry, especially when you are making the most of your suspiciously good fighting skill.

The Lady waves at the crowd as the next round of knights step into the arena. Five in fighting shape and one of them is shaking so badly his armor clanks. The Lady waves at them too.

The knights surrender. Several of the King's workers exit the stands calling for backup (as if it'll come) and the kid just stands there, eventually picking up her corpse and carting it away, probably to pick it clean and preserve the skeleton.

"How does she do it?" one of the women besides her father asks. "Are the rumors true?"

"Yeah," her father replies, "they are."

"What?"

"Huh?"

A noble sentenced to die is allowed to choose their execution method. They ask to die in honourable combat against the king's knights, armed with a wooden sword while the knights have real weapons. It's been 24 hours since the execution started and the king is running out of knights.