"So." Camilla set down her fresh cup of tea and relaxed in her seat. "I suggest we have another round."

Hinoka looked up, somewhat relieved her friend finally broke the silence. "All right?"

"We are restrained at the same time. The one who escapes first has proven her point."

She nodded and took a short sip herself, before voicing her concern. "And if neither of us escapes?"

"Getting cold feet?" Camilla smirked teasingly over the edge of her cup. "Beruka will get us out if anything goes wrong."

Hinoka nodded again. Her confidence had already taken a blow earlier and she wasn't sure if she could actually back up her stubborn claims. This was exactly the kind of thing that tended to get her into trouble. But retreating wasn't a real option any more.

"All right, let's get it over with."

The two women got back up from the table and Hinoka gathered up the rope, while Camilla asked Beruka back inside to instruct her. She eventually came back over, while the quiet retainer waited in the corner.

"This time...", Hinoka began awkwardly, "I need you to take off the dress. The skirt will get in the way."

Camilla gave her another short smirk, before opening the laces by her back and letting the dress fall off of her form, before picking it up and laying it over her chair, taking off her heeled shoes while she was at it. Her underwear was black and fancy and looked soft and welcoming, even from where Hinoka was standing.

The redhead cleared her throat again and stepped behind the exposed princess, starting on a tie much similar to what she had put her in before, binding her forearms parallel and winding plenty of rope around her chest, shoulders and arms in a harness.

However, if she wanted to win this round, or at least force a draw, she needed to step it up a little more. She took a rope and tied it around Camilla's waist, making sure it sat well, before taking the slack and leading it through her legs, from the front to the back, doing her best to stay focussed.

Hinoka pulled the rope through the back of the waist rope and led it up to Camilla's tightly secured arms, pulling the rope up to the anchor tie between her shoulder blades and pulling it through, finally tying it off around her forearms.

"Ah.", Camilla gasped softly, her body briefly tensing up as the rope pulled taught by her crotch. Her cheeks flushed just slightly before she managed to compose herself.

Hinoka guided her to sit down on the edge of the bed, then crouched in front of her and took more of the available rope to start tying up her legs as well. She could feel the eyes of not only her temporary prisoner but also her retainer on her, but did her best to ignore it and stay focussed.

She securely tied Camilla's ankles together and tied more rope above and below her knees, keeping her legs tightly together. "Okay. Next, lie down on your front."

"You're still not done?" Camilla sounded amused, apparently intrigued by how much rope her friend was going to use on her. She managed to lie down and stretch out on the bed, then started to nudge herself to the side and finally rolled onto her front, with some gentle assistance by Hinoka.

"Almost there." The Hoshidan princess took one final length of rope and tied it around Camilla's ankles, doubling up on the restraint, before bending her legs and connecting the rope to the anchor knot, forcing her to keep her legs bent.

Hinoka stood back and looked down at her friend, stripped and all roped up. She quickly looked away when she felt her temperature rise again. She just needed one more thing for the final touch. Looking around, she quickly found a decorative silk scarf on Camilla's mirror. She took it down and rolled it up, tying a thick knot into the middle of it.

"Wait. One more thing.", Camilla interjected, when she realized the purpose of the scarf. "If I'm going to be struggling in my underwear, it's only fair for you to do the same. Wouldn't you agree?"

Hinoka paused. There was that teasing smirk again she liked to put on. She nodded and held out the improvised gag in front of her, for which Camilla readily opened her mouth. She tied off the scarf in the back and sighed, now done with her part of the work.

She couldn't actually hear her, but she just knew that Beruka had started moving towards her. And sure enough, when she looked over, she had gotten closer, already holding the bag with the Nohrian restraints.

No backing out now. She slipped out of her footwear and removed her clothes, putting them down by the bedside. Her own undergarments weren't as fancy as Camilla's, not by a long shot. They were comfortable, but very simple and plain.

As soon as she was done disrobing, Beruka already roughly grabbed her arms and started fastening the leather bands around her wrists and upper arms. The locks went on right away, already pinning her arms together behind her back. The retainer then retrieved longer bands from the bag, like slim leather belts, with rings by the buckle to secure it with another lock. Two of them she laid around Hinoka's torso, above and below her breasts, making her average bust more pronounced and pinning her arms to her back.

Hinoka's cheeks were flushed and she instinctively tucked a bit at the strict restraints already. Surrendering herself to this was humiliating. She had come to deeply trust Camilla and she in turn had Beruka's unquestioned loyalty, so she was sure she would be safe here and none of this would reach anyone's ears, but letting herself be readily stripped and securely restrained by someone she once regarded as her enemy still put her on edge.

Beruka quietly and sharply instructed her to sit down, before strapping leather bands around her ankles and locking them together and laying a thicker belt around her thighs, locking it up as well. It occurred to Hinoka that the short woman was probably a professional in this field as well.

She grabbed two more things from the bag. One was another band, thicker than the others, which went around Hinoka's neck, for a purpose she didn't quite understand, but she began to understand as soon as she saw the other item. It was a gag, that was for sure. A massive ball, made of an unfamiliar material, held between two straps, which were, of course, buckled and locked in the back. Beruka shoved it behind her teeth and pulled he straps taught as soon as Hinoka had started opening her mouth, without waiting to see if she was giving her okay or trying to say something.

Her jaw started aching almost right away. The Nohrian gag was much bigger than the knotted scarf she had used on Camilla. It filled her mouth completely, forcing her to keep it open and tugging at the corners of her mouth. It dawned on her that both the gag and the collar likely served the purpose of humiliating the prisoner, on top of just restraining them. Considering these were made for high-profile captives, such as she herself would have been, it would make sense to use humiliation to punish them or break their will to fight back.

Beruka pushed Hinoka to lie down on the bed, facing Camilla, and headed for the door. "Two hours.", she said plainly, before closing the door behind her, the key turning in the lock.

Two hours!? The meaning of those words rung back in Hinoka's mind. Having just her arms trapped for a few minutes had been frustrating. Being completely strapped down for that long sounded more than just awful. She glanced at Camilla, to try and catch her reaction, but the curvy woman just winked at her and started twisting her hands, beginning her attempts at finding a way out of her strict ropework.

Hinoka took a deep breath through her nose, trying to concentrate. She agreed to this, she had to do her best to at least try.



She had no idea how much time had passed. Time had become some sort of nebulous concept. The bands and belts were digging into her skin, Beruka sure did not go easy on her. She could wriggle about a little, she could at least bend her legs, but that hardly did her any good. On top of that, the massive gag made it impossible to swallow, forcing her to drool all over the pillow her head was bedded on.

Camilla meanwhile had no real freedom of movement at all, her arms were boxed up and her legs forcibly bent. Hinoka would have felt sorry, she might have even gone a little easier on her, had she been informed about the time limit, but Camilla didn't even seem uncomfortable at all. She was trapped, sure, but her expression was calm and sometimes she thought to detect a smile.

The two of them had been lying next to each other the entire time, struggling and occasionally grunting or huffing at the strict bindings, accompanied by a soft moan or gasp from Camilla, every time the rope dug into her crotch during her struggles. She seemed eager to keep trying, while Hinoka had already lost hope.

Even if she could reach and open one of the buckles with her fingers, which she couldn't, they were locked in place. Without the keys, they wouldn't open, so she didn't really have a chance to get the belts off of her in the first place, let alone the awful gag and collar. And Beruka had taken the keys with her for sure.

So she was condemned to watch Camilla struggle and listen to her gasps for two hours, until she would finally be let out. She'd be forced to admit that Camilla was right, that Nohrian restraints were inescapable, once they were secured.

Suddenly, something popped into the back of her head. Maybe she didn't need the key after all. She tugged at her wrist bands, then tried to bend her legs in such a way that she could turn her head and see the lock on her ankles. Maybe this could work. And if there was a chance, she wouldn't give up yet.

She took another deep breath and started nudging herself over, to turn on her other side, facing the room instead. It took a little effort, but she got there. Next, she started nudging herself over to the edge of the bed, grunting quietly behind the thick gag. She could feel her own drool on her shoulder but ignore the feeling. It was all over her chin and cheek now anyway.

Getting precariously close to the edge, she raised her legs and moved them off the bed, managing to sit up. Part one of her escape plan was complete. Honestly, she felt like and idiot for not trying this earlier.

After a short break, she carefully got up, facing the table. She failed to notice that the sounds of Camilla's struggling had ceased, as she was now curiously watching her instead.

The room was awfully big. Sure, Camilla was a princess, but there was such a thing as too much space, even for her. The table, at least was way further from the bed than Hinoka recalled. It was probably because she had to hop the entire way.

She had to hop a small step, then carefully regain her balance, then repeat. It was an awful method of transport, but she got the hang of it pretty quickly. She didn't ride a Pegasus for half her life for nothing, compared to that, keeping her balance doing this was a dead cinch.

She finally made her way over and surveyed the table and spotted what she came over for: The sewing needles. Just one more hop and she was in a good position. Getting to the right part of the table, she hopped a little to turn her body around and carefully lowered herself to start feeling around the table with her hands. After a little searching, she found one, pricking herself.

"Dhmm!", she cursed out loud, flexing her hand and then carefully feeling around again. Finally, she managed to take one without hurting herself. Staring straight ahead, a focussed expression on her face, she turned the needle in her fingers and carefully poked for the lock. It took a lot of time and patience was in short supply at the moment.

Grumbling, Hinoka turned her body again and sat down on one of the chairs, giving her legs a little rest, before continuing to try and pick the lock. Eventually, finding it became easy, actually picking it was a different task. She had never been very good at it, though she did receive some instruction on it, a long time ago.



Camilla had watched with amusement as the short-haired tomboy had hopped her way across the room, paying careful attention to the way she shifted and moved, half expecting her to fall flat on her face at any moment. But she made it across and even started working on the locks now. It was impressive, actually. At this rate, she was going to win.

Camilla hadn't really expected either of them to escape. She had been fully prepared to spend two hours like this and share a drink at the end of the day, with both of them admitting defeat and have a laugh about it. But now she actually had to pick up the pace. Hinoka could very well escape and leave her to be at her mercy. As exciting as that would be, she wasn't going to just watch.

She stretched out her fingers and bent her legs as well as she could. Her ankles were easily out of reach, due to the way her arms were tied. But maybe she could do something about it anyway. Taking a quick breath, she started bending her legs back a little further. One of the things she had always been proud of was her flexibility. If she could bring her feet over a little and raise her arms just slightly--

Raising er arms made the crotch rope dig in and she moaned involuntarily. Now was not the time for this, she had to focus!

--then she could get at the knot! She could feel it just at her fingertips and managed to get a weak hold on it. The rope had slacked a little bit, though she wasn't sure if Hinoka's work had been sloppy after all or if she had managed to loosen something, allowing her to raise her arms a little more.

Not the time! Focus!

She managed to work her index finger between the ropes and tugged, feeling something come loose.



"Nnhh!" The needle fell out of her grasp and to the floor. With a frustrated grunt, Hinoka got up again and turned slightly to pick up another. This could work, she knew it! She managed to find another one and take it between her fingers and carefully, blindly, worked it into the lock.

Then, finally, something clicked and the weight shifted. Hinoka stopped and thought carefully. Slowly, she tried to raise one hand, while pulling the other down. And sure enough, her right wrist slipped out of the lock! It wasn't much, but she could bend her elbows now. Quickly, she looked over at Camilla. She was still struggling, her front now turned towards her, and their eyes met across the room.



She's getting free. Nice work. Camilla was excited, but at the same frustrated. She enjoyed all this, but she didn't want to lose, either. Not to mention the times she had been harshly restrained by leather herself and didn't manage to open any locks, even when given a needle from the start.

Luckily, her work on the ropes started to bear fruit. With another tug, she managed to slip open the knot and stretch out her legs. A small triumph, but finding the next knot would be difficult. Plus, Hinoka now knew that she was making progress as well.



Beruka looked out the window of the hallway. It was time. She turned and unlocked the door, heading inside and closing it behind her. Lady Camilla was still lying on the bed, panting slightly. Some of the ropes were loose, but her arms were still has tightly restrained as before. Princess Hinoka was sitting on the ground by the table, the locks on her wrists and ankles were open, but with just that, she wasn't getting anywhere either. She should have taken the needles away. A slight oversight on her part. She would fix that next time.

Both of them looked at Beruka as she came into the room and started heading for the bed. Hinoka groaned and slumped against the chair behind her. She carefully removed Lady Camilla's gag and helped her sit up.

"Thank you, Beruka." She took a deep breath through her freed mouth. "What do you say, Hinoka? Do we call it a draw?"

Hinoka sighed audibly and nodded, mumbling something unintelligible. Camilla nodded her head towards the other princess and Beruka headed over with the keys to let her out first.



The night always seemed so cold in Nohr. Maybe it was the atmosphere as a whole. Hinoka sighed as she sat at the small balcony table, across from Camilla. They had both taken some time to recover, to clean themselves up and get dressed.

She set down a bottle on the table, which Camilla eagerly reached for and opened. There was silence between them for a few minutes, as they sipped Hoshidan sake from Nohrian cups under the stars.

"That was fun.", Camilla finally said. "We should do that again."

"You can't be serious."

"Oh, but I am. You have to teach me. We may have good materials, but the way you tie knots is almost like an art. Besides..." She lowered her voice just slightly. "...I know you enjoyed watching me."

Hinoka's cheeks flushed almost as red as her hair and she drank her alcohol silently, keeping her eyes on the sky. She could feel Camilla winking at her.