Marianne had been setting her bugs to attack the frontliners of the skaven army, keeping her attention on them. Thus, she didn't see the backliners grabbing some dwarven crossbows and firing off a flurry of bolts towards her direction until it was a little too late.

"F-gods darn it!" Marianne shouted, changing her expletive to a more proper one as befitting of a lady raised in a good family. She just had the shameful habit of cursing rudely when bad things took her by surprise. She suspected she got that from her sailor uncle. He often visited and he would play with her, or, to be more accurate, tease her. He loved riling her up, and as a child she used to have quite a temper. He said she was adorable if she was mad, so he wanted to see that mad face of her every time he came by, which didn't stand well with her at all, as she wanted to be viewed as a mature lady, not an adorable little child.

She always chuckled when she remembered her young self. She was such a hot-tempered tomboy. It was a miracle that she ended up becoming a fine lady like she was now.

Her uncle would also tell stories about his adventures at the sea. Being a naive child she was, she just trusted all of it, no matter how outlandish they were. And the uncle would tell his stories uncensored, with crude sailor expletives and the like, which her young self thought was really cool. Marianne's father was okay with it, but once her mother heard her cute daughter cursing like a sailor, she blew her fuse and lectured the poor uncle for hours. She really wanted her daughter to be a proper lady, it seemed.

And so Marianne grew up with two conflicting teachings, ending up making the person she was now. A lady, for sure, but with some rough streaks inside that you would never find out if you were not her close acquintance. Quite similar to her mother, in retrospect. Perhaps that little contrast was how her mother ended up charming her father.

Back to the battle, Marianne realized that she couldn't move fast enough to dodge all the bolts raining down towards her. So she ordered her beetles to concentrate on her upper body including her head. It was quite a sight to see as a swarm of beetles covered her pretty face entirely, making her look like someone out of a horror novel.

And sure enough, just as she had predicted, one bolt managed to land on her left shoulder, eliciting a cry of pain from her mouth. It was nothing fatal however, as the bolt's force was mostly blocked by the beetles, who had nobly sacrificed themselves to protect their owner.

[i]I must... pull it out...![/i]

With her entire body trembling, not being used to this kind of pain as she had never been wounded in a battle to this level, she pulled out the bolt from her shoulder, letting out another cry of pain in the process. She looked at the healer of the group, Ayse, and she saw how she was dodging her own sets of bolts. She couldn't possibly ask for her healing at this moment.

So she decided to retreat for now, entering one of the nearby side rooms. She couldn't be too far from the fight or else she would lose her link with her bees. And at this distance, she could already feel the link weakening so she could only give general directions to them.

She could feel her blood pouring out of her wound, soaking the sleeve of her dress. Some of it also trickled down across her exposed skin, seeping through the white underclothes that covered her chest, turning it dark red. She quickly ripped apart some of the frilly garments on the hem of the skirt, to be used as a makeshift bandage. For now, she just had to stop the bleeding. It was one of the basics of adventuring her father taught her.