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Ruby's heels wobble on the dirt road. Her lungs ache and she stops running and bends over, trying desperately to catch her breath.
She wants to look behind her at her home, the palace in all of its finery, still lit with bright lanterns. Instead, she makes her hands into fists.
I can't.
Ruby's heart hurts more than her lungs or her sore feet. She doesn't want to think about what Dad and Yang said, even if they really do have her best interests in mind. They don't get it!
"Don't get what?" a voice asks, and Ruby suddenly realizes that she must have said that out loud.
"Um," she replies, "nothing!"
"It doesn't sound like nothing," the voice resolves into another girl, with green hair and red eyes that almost glow in the night and oh no she's really really pretty and Ruby doesn't need to be alone with a pretty stranger away from home in the middle of the night.
"Really," the pretty girl says, "is something wrong?"
Ruby's gone too long without saying anything, but no words come to her mind. She makes a noise, then gives up and looks down. Her eyes are kind of itchy and dry-feeling.
"Your Highness?" the girl says, and she takes Ruby's hand.
"You're, uh, really not supposed to—" Ruby starts to say, because her whole entire life Dad and Yang have been telling her to be careful around strangers, but then she remembers Dad and Yang have been totally definitely completely wrong at least once, and if they've been wrong once then who's to say how many other times they've actually been wrong and Ruby didn't even realize, and oh her hand is warm and soft and her eyes are so pretty...
"Not supposed to what?" the girl asks, her eyes wide and wondering, and Ruby kind of stutters a little bit and then gives up. It's okay, though, because the girl laughs, and her laugh is almost as pretty as she is.
"Do you want any help, your Highness?"
Ruby almost says yes, but then she remembers help will probably mean Dad and Yang and a dozen of the kingdom's finest knights, and she shakes her head instead.
"It's okay," the girl says, "we don't have to tell the whole kingdom. My friends and I have a place right nearby. I can take you there."
Ruby squeezes her hand.