Royally Renounced

Prolouge

"It's okay to be afraid. Look at me sweetie, what's not okay is letting that fear control you. Trust me."

The smell of chlorine dampened the air as a sniffling child stared in awe at her father, desperately trying to comfort her. "You've survived being in trouble with your mother so I'm certain you can survive this," a pleading voice joked as he won a giggle from his daughter. She turned around to crack a weak smile at her mother, who gasped dramatically pretending to be offended, before she nodded determinedly, and stepped towards her father at the edge of the pool, his arms wide open to embrace his daughter.

The greeting of the cold water tingled her skin as she gasped gently from shock and delight, her arms wrung around her father's neck. He gave a low chuckle as she began to relax at the feeling of dangling her feet in a body of water other than the bathtub. Turning to face her father once again, she was welcomed with a tender smile. "I told you to trust me." he whispered. Right there, in her father's arms, her mother gazing lovingly from a distance, the glaring sun beating down at her back, she understood she was safe. She was loved.