The question is, "Can she?"

"B-b-bu-but, I... I-I-I-I-"

"Cease your blubbering, Miss Brandt!" Rey the Knight yelled, pointing her sword at the naked girl's nose. "Despite shirking your attire, I'm allowing you to complete your final examination. If you test my patience any further, I'll make you into my personal riding horse for the remainder of the term. Need I remind you what uniform our horses wear?"

Tina knew none of this was real, that it was all a terrible vision brought on by those loathsome fairies. But it wasn't that simple; she'd seen these images in her mind many times before. Her fear was real because she'd felt it long before stepping into this nightmare, long before she'd been shrunk, kidnapped by pirates twice, abandoned by her lover, and even before she'd confidently strode into a world she knew nothing about with only the clothes on her back (clothes that she quickly lost).

It was the fear that everyone who'd ever mocked her was right; that she wasn't suited to be a knight, or anything else of merit. She had been a failure before she'd even started.

The knightly vision of Rey grabbed Tina by the jaw, pulling the nude girl's face close to her own. "I've allowed your pathetic behavior long enough, brat." The faux poshness and bravado that she'd held before was gone, replaced with a vicious growl, dripping with venom. Tina's eyes went wide as the fairy's expression shifted to that of a feral beast, nearly foaming at the mouth. "Now, I'm going to hurt you. It's what the weak deserve, after all."

Tina wrenched herself out of the fairy's grip and stumbled away. Rey groaned in frustration, and Tina could hear violent, visceral sounds coming from beneath her armor. Her hands shifted to gigantic claws, and her back stretched and bent until she was towering over the naked woman. It was enough to remind Tina how small she was in the real world, both in her literal stature and in her worth as a knight. The monster before her would be insurmountable even to proper knights like her parents; what could someone like her possibly do?

"I told you to pick up your sword." The beastly visage of her instructor pointed to the ground in front of Tina. The nude knight's gaze turned down to see her broadsword lying on the ground, looking very, very small in the shadow of the monster. Her bare toes curled inwards, every instinct telling her to inch away from Monster Rey. To ignore the sword. To get up and run away as fast as her legs could carry her.

Why? A whisper in the back of her head broke through the cacophony of screams. Why so eager to run? She didn't recognize the voice, or at least she couldn't hear it well enough to recognize it. Yet, the simple question had her attention. Her senses had created a thick miasma that she couldn't see past, and the only point of clarity she could find was that single question.

"I'm going to die if I don't." She told herself. "I've lost everything already: I've been stripped, humiliated, shrunk, violated, and abandoned by the person I thought I loved. That's why I have to run away; I'm no good for anything else."

If you've got nothing left, the voice replied, doesn't that just mean you've got nothing to lose? Tina paused, unable to think of a response. The voice chuckled as it continued. You didn't choose your path because someone else told you to do it. You did it because it was your dream. This was what you wanted to be.

"But I can't be a knight. I'm a failure, just like everyone said."

Who says you've failed? Your classmates who hated you? The pirates who wanted your money? Who are they to decide where your path ends? Tina looked up at the dark silhouette of Monster Rey and the cavalcade of laughing faces standing around her. They all seemed to be frozen in place, staring down at her coldly. Nobody gets to decide where your journey ends except for you, Tina. And you get to make that decision right now. Her broadsword took on a faint glow, like a campfire warming Tina's frigid body. She reached toward it, feeling returning to her fingers and toes. So what do you choose?