Ningyō no Ohimesama (The Doll Princess)

Distress and Repression

{MIHO'S POV}
The maid pants for oxygen, holding her throat and crying silently. Whenever I move, she flinches.

I look down at my trembling hands and back up at my almost-victim, who inches away.

"Sorry." I manage, before scrambling back into the security of my room. I flick on the lights, and grab my rapier from the chair I nonchalantly tossed it on last night, thinking I wouldn't need it.

I curl into a ball on top of the covers, wrapping myself around my sword for comfort.

Whenever I close my eyes for longer than 10 seconds, images from the battlefield flash in front of my eyes and I open them in a cold sweat.

After that first catastrophic night, two changes occur around me: 1) I begin forcing myself to stay awake at night, lest the nightmares return and I hurt people; 2) the maids avoid me, making as wide circle around me as possible when they need to pass at all.

A month passes, and we head back to the north. It's became time for Dad to return to his duties in Wilant castle. My nightmares only get worse.

I'm isolated from all except my family, and they don't seem to notice my suffering. In fact, with Akegi especially, it seems those around me want to press a reset button, pretending that the last five years of my life straight up didn't happen.

A week later, I'm following Akegi from the library again when I yawn, rubbing my eyes discreetly. In vain, since Akegi notices.

"Miho, you're a young woman now. You need to take care of your body. You can't go back to staying up all night reading those books you always tried to hide from us. Remember?"

I remember. Those were the war strategy books that probably saved my life.

I yawn again. "I wasn't... up reading Ane-sama... I couldn't sleep...because... I had nightmares... of all the people... I killed."

The mood in the hallway drops like a brick. I'm aware of all the guards stationed within earshot shuffling further away from me. A maid heading towards us turns on her heel around and practically runs in the opposite direction.

"O-Oh." Akegi squeaks. "Well, just try to forget that, okay? You're home now. Things are finally back to the way they've always been."

She tries for a smile and grabs my hands, clasping them between us.

I allow my big sister to drag me off, but I can't help but think. If she knew the things I've done, she wouldn't be able to say that.

There are dark things in war that can never be unseen or forgotten.

I shake my head to clear it. I don't want to burden her unnecessarily. If repressing my memories of the past five years will help me mend my broken relationships, then I'll allow Akegi to trivialize what I've experienced, even though it's not what I want.

This isn't about me. It's about us, and sometimes the good of the many outweighs the good of the one.

Akegi drags me to a fairly secluded area and turns on me scoldingly. "Miho! You can't go around saying things like that!"

"You... want me to... gloss it over?" I ask.

"Well, no." Akegi frowns. "It sounds worse than it was when you talk so blatantly."

I smile sadly, whispering, "And how... do you know... how bad it was?"

"Did you say something?" Akegi tilts her head.

I shake mine. Akegi's avoiding the truth because she doesn't want to imagine me, her baby sister, fighting and killing others for my own life. She wants to return to five years ago, 'the way it's always been.'

I force the memories to the back of my head. Aoi's face pops into my mind's eye. I wince, repressing that too. All for the sake of Akegi and family.

The more I minimize the details, the more persistent the nightmares become. I get flashbacks to the war. Battlefields permeate my peripheral vision.

At night, leathery-skinned mummies crawl out from beneath the floorboards and reach for me with long, clawed hands. Blood seeps from their cavernous black eye sockets, even though I'm awake.

I draw my sword and cut them down again. All I manage to slice are the wooden posts on the four corners of the bed. This causes the canopy above me to fall, trapping me beneath it.

All I know is that I can't escape.

That's how Mom finds me in the morning, shrieking hoarsely and thrashing in panic, having been trapped for hours underneath the layers of fabric of the canopy because the maids outside my door were too anxious to enter my room.

My nails are raw and bloody from trying futilely to claw my way out. A few are still stuck in the fabric where they got caught and I tore them out.

Mom carries me to the pharmacy where Ryuu checks my condition. He wraps my hands in giant mitts. During the evaluation, he notes the black bags under my eyes and the dozens of small purple bruises on my calf, where I pinched to keep myself awake.

He also diagnoses that my vocal cords have been strained from overuse, since I was screaming my lungs out while no one bothered to check on me.

Ryuu purses his lips, looking pained, before pulling Mom away. I don't eavesdrop, but I still catch one word of their conversation. Or rather, an acronym.

{THIRD PERSON POV}
"PTSD." Ryuu told Shirayuki. "Many symptoms are there. The re-experiencing of events, the hyper-vigilance. Difficulty sleeping, aggression or violence, seeming detached, trouble with affection, depression. I'm certain that she has PTSD."

Shirayuki winced. "What should we do?"

"There's no miracle herb or medicine that can cure trauma. I've noticed that talking about your experiences is one of the best solutions to approach unprocessed trauma. Get her to open up to you. Be supportive and take everything she says seriously."

"Zen and I want to talk to Miho about the war. But Miho's very closed off, we get the feeling she doesn't want to talk about it. Worse traumatic memories might surface if we pry too deep." Shirayuki sighed.

Ryuu sighed too, unsure of the best solution. Thus, their conversation was left at that.

Miho's true thoughts were quite the opposite. She desperately wanted to talk and share with her family, but felt that she wouldn't be heard.

And so, through mutual misunderstanding, both sides ignored the problem and it steadily grew worse. All their denial was about to culminate in a way nobody could've expected.

The nobles and citizens of Wolkitra and the surrounding territories had heard of Miho Wistaria's homecoming with the delegation from Zoral. A huge night ball was planned to welcome her back.

But Miho never had the best public image, and running away had only made it worse. Welcoming home was merely an excuse for some gossip-lovers.