A Level She Was Never Prepared For

9/10

( Player Pov )

"No!" I knew as soon as they called me inside it was him who wanted to see me. I had been having a good time, playing with some of the new children who came to live here. Apparently they had passed a right of passage, so now they came to see the king then train before possibly being given a role of their own. Some looked like adults, but a small group appeared to be actual children. I didn't have it in me to ignore them, so I joined in playing with them. Now here I was in my room after being locked in, with Si standing arms crossed watching me like he had not just said what he did. "I have been patient enough, you can not avoid this forever" Running a hand over my hair I had to stop myself from growling at him. 

He told me this was my room until I was ready to share with him, now he was claiming I was ready and this was now our room. He said it like it made complete sense too, when it didn't! "It's bad enough you've cut me off from my home, my family and everything I knew. Now you want to take away my one safe space too?!" He didn't look upset when I raised my voice, instead he simply continued watching me in silence. The lack of answer was irritating but I was trying to stay calm, getting mad and saying something stupid wouldn't be good for me. When he began slowly moving closer my gut dropped. Once upon a time I would have been confident, knowing I could defend myself here but now I have no idea how it works. If my health drops to zero do I just die, or will I somehow revive still? My back suddenly hit wall making me jump, I hadn't even realised I had been backing away from him.

 Slowly his hand came up brushing some of my hair back over my ear, the action was so gentle it threw me off. "My brave little Huntress, I have told you so many times yet I will tell you again. You have no reason to fear me, I will never allow anything to harm you. Not even my own touch" As much as part of me believed that, I couldn't risk letting my guard down. There might not be a way out of game, which means I had no way of knowing just how much I could take before I died. He wouldn't even give me my bag back, so I couldn't buy or use any of my supplies in an emergency. My menu which used to give me access to it even if I took it off, now wouldn't connect to it. So I could only guess it was an online feature.

"Then let me go" His eyes shifted, a burning colour change I had only seen once before. It was always so fast I could not name the colour, all I knew was it scared me. The hand that still lingered close to my face went to my chin, pinching it between his fingers gently as his now back to normal eyes bore down into mine. "I have taken control of this world to have you at my side Huntress, I can not and will not release you. You are safest at my side, the day you make peace with that is the day you will realise you are already free" He said those words as if they were the most logical thing in the world, but it made no sense at all. He let go of me moving back a few steps, and despite myself my head dropped heavily to sit on my chest. "From today on this will be our room as it was always intended. I can see you need time to collect yourself, so I will send one of our children to bring you to dinner" I heard rather than saw him leave the room. How long I stood there I don't know, but I wracked my brain again and again as I did. 

Trying to think of a way out of this, an excuse or reason to make him give me more space and time. Nothing came. Looking around at the room which I had, while reluctantly accepted as my safe space I realized it never would have lasted. From day one he said he's do this, so if at least I couldn't say he was a liar. At times I wish he was, it would have given me false hope but he never did. Letting my heavy feet drag me to the bed I fell down on it, screaming into the material venting my frustrations. It was one of the things I had done before I got trapped here, this was the first time I'd done it since then. Tears pricked my eyes at the familiar feeling of emptiness in my chest. I missed fighting with my parents, I even missed stupid school assignments that made me learn seemingly useless things. "Mother? You are upset, is there anything that I can do to help comfort you?" I missed not having people popping up out of no where at me. "No Malki, I really just want to be alone until dinner please. Thank you for checking on me though" I didn't need to look to know he just blended back into the shadows, but it was all I was going to get. So for now I settled for burying myself into the bed and pretending I was anywhere but here.