Stone received no pain from the Arrow in his right leg since the platinum blonde bathing in the waterfall shot him in his prosthesis. He had seen plenty, but Stone could not move since his false leg was stuck to a tree by the arrow. The woman was deadly accurate, for he saw her shivering as if with the palsy, and she had got him good! And before he could look back up (for he was thinking with the wrong head), his left arm was pinned to the tree behind him, and the mystery girl in the Fjords had slivered into her shimmering silver armour.
"Forgive me," Stone told the Viking who drew her regal cutlass on Stone quick enough to draw blood right beneath his mask.
Before he could say he just wanted to look around, which would not have been a lie, she replied, "I forgive you only if you aim to fight." Her hair was so blonde, it was almost white. And her eyes were a metallic steel-blue. The Sun hit her armour and blinded him. "I shot you in the false limbs to paralyse you, Nobleman. You have desecrated my honour by being the only person in my life to view me bathing. I want to fight you in your prime."
"You knew I was noble?"
"By your uniform and sash."
She grabbed for the leather mask covering the left side of his face, but his honour refused, and he grabbed her hand by the gauntlet.
"I wear the mask to cover a shameful scar," said Stone. "Honour my pride, and we shall fight for your honour." She relinquished and Stone let go. "My name is Stone the Lion, the Prince of Scandinavia, as you could probably tell by the prosthetics and hair." His right leg was that of an actual lion as was his left arm. A taxidermist had preserved them to where the claws were fully extended.
"Charlotte the Silver Soldier is what I am called, of Vik, Norway," she replied acidically still angry at him and not going to cool down no matter how cold she was.
Awkwardly, Charlotte wrapped a scarf around Stone's eyes and grabbed her clothes and leathers. There was no way she was fighting with nothing between her cold, wet skin and the silver armour plating. She had already chafed her skin raw in the sensitive spots.
Stone asked her what she was doing, and she responded that she was replacing her dignity and covering her shame. After drying off and getting into proper wool clothes and leather gear and armour, Charlotte ripped the scarf off Stone's face. She was immaculate. He had never seen such muscles before. He was definitely at a disadvantage. He had already lost an arm and a leg to a lion in Africa. He certainly did not want to lose his short-arm and third leg.
She pulled the arrows from his false appendages and eyed bloody scratch at his neck. She then, with metal gauntlets on, slapped the shit out of Stone's cheek enough to make him cry two tears … and he had been attacked by a killer lion without much fear of dying!
"I was destined to be seen like this by the one who would be my first lover, Stone the Lion, Prince of Scandinavia," she said, mocking his nickname and title. "But not by someone who lost to me in a fight." With this, Charlotte broke Stone's Nose with a left jab and gave him a black left eye with a right hook, knocking him unconscious.
When Stone came around, the fire that had attracted his attention had gotten much stronger and intense, and Charlotte was eating some fish she had caught with her net.
"I set your nose, but that does not count as our fight, Sir Stone," she told him without looking up.
"Good, because I aim to fight you but not with my fists," he said boldly enough for someone who got bested by the most feared European woman since Goth Queen Jaimie I conquered Normandy.
"You talk a lot … and you look a lot," she quipped. "You can use your eyes and mouth, but how about the rest of you?" She spun up and tossed his rapier at him.