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Syalis knew something must be wrong with her. Wrong with her mind, wrong with her reactions and views of the world. She knows this. Something must be wrong for her to feel as though her freedom was being taken from her at the loss of her captivity.
Dawner keeps staring at her. He stopped giving her words of comfort and while ago, when it was clear she wouldn’t be responding.
The castle sat in ruins behind them. Syalis should have been ecstatic at being freed. Instead, the princess only felt the heavy weight of dread.
She doesn’t remember what had happened. Red had woken her up… or was it Twilight… one of the Guardians… Trying to remember clearly makes her head hurt. It doesn’t matter, all she knows is that she had been crabby at being awoken so rudely and tried complaining about such upset to her routine…
“We’re under attack.”
The panic Syalis had felt in that moment didn’t feel fake, even if she was to be convinced otherwise by the heroes later.
The rest was a blur of fighting and yelling and screaming and pain and blood- so much blood.
The worst part was, she hadn’t even helped. The moment she had seen the heroes it’s as though her world had stopped on that single moment. She had her weapon, she could have done something to prevent this. She hadn’t moved.
She wasn’t moving now, sitting on the seat of the carriage the group had somehow planned ahead enough to take when coming to her rescue.
“Princess we have retrieved your crown, no longer must you bear such shame of that unsightly headband.” Sunrise said, a smile bright enough to blind on her face. “Go on.”
Syalis had once imagined what it would be like to have Sunrise visit her. She hadn’t heard the news that the idol had joined in the heroes search party until recently. It had been almost amusing to find the rest of the castle so jealous over her supposed ‘celebrity crush.’ This was not how she had imagined their meeting to go.
What did it matter that her idol was here, offering back her crown when Syalis couldn’t lift her arms high enough to take it?
“You won’t imagine what disgusting monster had taken your crown. Don’t worry dear princess, I made personally sure that it will never happen again.” Sunrise said, her smile now strained slightly when the princess didn’t move. Sunrise must have noticed that Syalis would not be taking her crown back, though assuming the princess to be in a weakened state, simply placed the crown onto her head.
“You killed him.” Syalis asked, though it was no real question.
Her crown weighed heavy on her head and heavier on her heart. She hadn’t worn it in… she can’t remember how long. Weeks…months… years…? She had exchanged it one of the first days after she had arrived. She never intended to get it back.
She never intended to be rescued.
The hero glanced towards the rest of her party members.
Syalis knew the answer of course without needing to be told.
“You needn’t worry princess. We did what we needed to protect you.” Dawner proclaimed.
It did very little to raise her spirits, if anything it only made her feel sicker the longer he talked. “Of course we didn’t realize at first they had a monster was responsible of resurrecting their fallen. But once he was taken care of it was easier after that.”
Leo.
Syalis sobbed. She had cried foolishly. Over a lack of sleep, over small fights and bickering. This was different. Gut wrenching sobs came bubbling from her chest and she couldn’t do a thing to stop it.
Someone had always soothed her tears, kept the sadness at bay whether they knew what they were doing or not.
No one was here to do that now. The realization only made her cry harder.
“Why does she keep crying?”
“Shock probably.”
“Poor thing.”
That was what the ‘heroes’ were mumbling around her. She wanted to stop long enough to yell at them. To scream and shout and beg them to go back- to undo everything, even though she knew it to be impossible.
Had she been told sooner of their advances, if she had known what the outcome would be, she would have pleaded with them to never come in the first place.
But she hadn’t, and an empty castle would always stand as the reminder of all her failures for the friends and family she had found and had grown to love.
They were not heroes to her.
These were the people who had ruined everything.
When her tears finally did run dry she sat in muted silence. She was sickened with grief that none of them could understand. She didn’t even sleep, couldn’t even pretend to when the hearses suggested she get some rest after the trying day she’d had. She’s not sure if she’ll ever be able to manage to rest again. Not without the memories of the night playing over and over again in her mind.
She wants to go back home. Back to the demon castle, back to her room, back anywhere in Twilights domain. She’s never going to be able to again…
The princess finds for the second time in her life her world being shattered, only this time she knows it will not be for the better.