Snippet #2766048

Nellie rolled painfully as she tried to account for all of her limbs. Well, at least none of them were missing. It had been a long time since she had jumped into a pile of hay, and never from that height. She forced herself into a sitting position, sliding down the stack as she kept her left arm braced against her chest. Must have twisted something.

What had just happened? Nellie was so busy being shocked by the whirlwind of events that anger hadn't had time to seep into her mind's stage. Now a particularly strong flavor of annoyance overtook her. The prince had just treated her as some sort of rag doll, dragging her out of the palace and throwing her off a bridge! So what if he said he was "sorry"? That was like the cliché tradebeast saying, "it's nothing personal," right before they pull the barker's trigger. It doesn't mean a whole lot in the context of the action. From what she could tell, the prince must do these idiotic things quite often, for it seemed like the guards were trying to stop him from doing it again. At least this silly cadet wasn't the heir to the throne!

Nellie resolved to get out of here. She could hear shouting from the bridge above. Probably the sentries just making bets whether their loony prince bit the dust this time. The cheetah half considered waiting around for the guards to come retrieve their royal oaf just so that she could receive an apology from one of them. His Highness the Prince certainly wasn't going to give her one. In the end, she resolved just to head back to the station. She could complain about it to Mr. Kosovo on the train ride back. Whenever he chose showed up, that was.

Brushing herself off with her good arm, the cheetah turned to leave. She couldn't resist making a snarky comment to a nearby shewolf, a rather uncharacteristic move of her. But then again, she had just had a very uncharacteristic experience. "'opefully that ain't a family passtime, eh? Otherwise we'll be runnin' shorta royalty soon."