The Crown Prince Thinks I'm a Guy

Relaxation: Dwindling

There were rare moments of peace, when my body would simply go into a state of relaxation, enough so that I would finally realize how tense I had been the whole day. My muscles would ease itself from its contraction, my breaths would become more even, and my eyes would shut close, ever so slowly.

Inside the bathing room owned by my royal brother, I finally felt safe. It was one of my few havens inside the Academy, if not the only one. The magic that wards off intruders would probably be intimidating for most people, but I saw its almost stifling presence as a sign of comfort, rather than intimidation. Here, not even the Order could barge through the walls so easily.

I sunk deeper into the tub, the water long gone cool from its initial warmth. This was the only indication of the time I had spent covered in its liquid embrace.

To me, time was at a standstill. My thoughts refused to be anything but hazy nothings and my limbs did not work to do any cleaning at all.

'This is my haven,' my mind jumbled out loopily. 'Here I am safe.'

I knew that soon enough, the little time pocket I owned would be broken. My brother would knock softly against the door, whispering his worries at me. But for now, I still had time.

Humming mindlessly until I no longer could, I sunk even lower. The water was soon up to my chin, my mouth, my nose, and then finally I was completely submerged. It had been no trouble to fit inside the porcelain tub, what with my body being that of a child's. This must be what a baby, younger than a neonate, would feel like, cradled inside a mother's womb.

I tried to find my mother in it. But somehow, my memories of her face were murky, like the state of my mind right now.

Instead, I felt a presence warmer than that distant image.

She had gloves, but she never did wear them. She didn't wear them when she received disapproving looks. She didn't wear them when her own name was taken away from her. But like a coward, she wore them in the pretense of saving me.

She must be a mother, because who else would act so stupidly as she did?

Now, thoughts of a flame, so brightly red, so young and pure, came inside the tub with me. But quickly, the red flame dwindled into a spark when it, too, lost its anchor. Its fuel. A tall, thin-faced woman, with hair as fiery as her deep-set eyes. Now gone. Lost.

Where? No one knows.

Perhaps to a whole new world, a world beset with creatures of the dark, their howls as screeching as they were ominously silent.

Perhaps.

Perhaps.

But now, in the sight of dark beings, I am reminded of death. It looms all over us, like a satin drape, thinly covering the shoulders of the young and robust, and mercilessly pushing against the sick and old, crushing the drooping shoulders down until bones crunched and static hearts met with the ever-swallowing ground.

In the halls so filled with youth, death favored a man: too old to be born sickly, too young to die of natural age. Yet it followed after him, taunting him in quiet motions, its hundred hands whipping unorderly around him, ready to pounce...

Death hung over him, in the guise of a babe, her snow-white hair turned black in her mission, her puckered lips as silent as her footsteps. She didn't breathe, as though her own profession forced her own body towards the other side, and when she moved, it came as a surprise to all who saw her.

She would do it, as swiftly as death could. A mere touch was all she needed and the man would crumble into dust.

A single step, just a single more-

A knock came through, and my ears barely registered the sounds, muddily whispering through the bathwater I hid beneath.

Time's up.

My moment of peace was gone.