<span style="font-style: italic">"Ride sidesaddle, like a proper lady!"</span>Gran had said.<br/><br/>She still rode like a man. Celia (<span style="font-style: italic">LADY Celia, thank you very much</span>wasn't one to be told what to do. She was an impish, disobedient girl of eighteen years old. She came from a well to do family, low in the aristocracy, but there all the same. As such, she'd been quite a spoiled child, and her parents now had no idea how to deal with her frank manner of speaking and disregard for rules and propriety. Celia hated being told what to do, that was her problem. And most times, she'd do the opposite of whatever she was told, just out of spite. Thus, when her parents forbade her from hanging around the local tavern, the first thing she'd done was get a job there. She actually liked working as a barmaid-- taking orders wasn't so bad if you got paid for it. And the stories she'd hear... THAT was what made her job so enjoyable. But, like all good things, her parents put a swift end to it, and sent her off to live with her grandparents for a few months. The idea was to teach her the values hard work and obedience, or some other such nonsense. It was dreadfully boring, taking supplies to the mill, then back to the cottage, then to the smithy, and back to the cottage.<br/><br/>Celia yawned, the old horse she was on moving too slow for her liking. Absently, she tugged on the coarse fabric of the dress she'd been forced into. It didn't show anything (not that Celia was particularly well endowed, but she could be mistaken for a child in these rags... Honestly.), and her soft, flaxen hair was braided down her back and hidden by a hooded shawl that Gran insisted she wear. The impudent girl huffed, blowing a tuft of her fringe out of her bright emerald eyes. It was about at this time that the horse decided it didn't want her on it anymore.<br/><br/>Celia landed hard, but had enough training with horses to know to roll and avoid severe damage. She stared and the forest canopy for a moment, hands splayed out at her sides, before a man's face came into view.<br/><br/>"Hands where I can see 'em," He'd said.<br/><br/>Celia felt a vein tick in her forehead. Ignoring the sword pointed at her entirely, she flapped her hands around, "They ARE where you can see them! What, are you blind? Or just daft? And what in Hell do you think you're doing? I'm unarmed; put your stupid toy away."