Royal Disaster

the disastrous edits

I hated surprised. Hated them, hated them, hated them. If they were good, bad, I didn't give one flying fuck because I hated them. But they'd never scared me. They'd never made me feel so unprotected, so frightened. I didn't think it'd ever go past pissed off, but it did.

Even though the vault was a good ten feet away from me, I took a slow step back up the staircase, holding my breath. My eyes stayed focus on the box, fearing something popping up or out of it, or even a head popping through the vault from the outside.

I could picture it clearly in my head and it had my heart kick starting, jumping out of my stomach and up my throat. Tears welled up at the corners of my eyes and I knew I'd had enough. I didn't want to see what was in it.

Turning around, scared out of my wits, I ran back up the stairs, not bothering to grab my clothes. I barged out of my room and headed upstairs, ready to borrow something of North's.

But my suspicions from earlier were confirmed. Outside of my door, a few feet away, were Arthur and North, heads bowed low in deep conversation. Both of their faces looked stormy, their lips spitting out responses in near hisses. And they were close enough to hear. For once, I was thankful for the blood rushing in my ears and the terror clouding up my mind because I really didn't want to know.

For the moment, I wanted to remain naïve to everything.

Without even letting them get a chance to see whatever horrified expression on my face, I ran past them, up the stairs and into North's room. I slammed the door shut behind me, leaning back and sliding down. A breeze blew by, whipping my hair about and my panic spiked once again, reminded of the fact that someone had been in the house, in my room. Quickly, I pushed myself up and ran to the window, pulling it shut with a slam and clicking the lock. I dragged the curtains together, shutting out everything.

I'd never felt so scared in my life, and it was just based on a feeling.

There was a knock on the door that made me jump, only to sigh in relief when Kurt called out.

"Yeah?" I answered back in a somewhat shaky voice.

"Are you okay? Is everything alright? I saw you running up the stairs."

My hands were balled up into tight fists as I bit my lip, hesitant. To my right, I caught sight of my reflection in the vanity mirror. In the shadows of the night with only pale moonlight filtering through the curtains, the paleness of my face was increasingly apparent. The expression on my face was stricken and I knew it wouldn't be a good idea for anyone to see my like that.

"I'm- Everything's all right. I just really needed to use the bathroom," I lied after taking a deep breath to steady my voice.

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah."

Kurt didn't believe me, and I could feel his hesitation through the door. So, to reassure him, I approached the door, keeping my face hidden. "I'm fine, seriously."

His lips pursed together, hazel eyes narrowing suspiciously.

For his benefit, I rolled my eyes and drawled, "Or do you want me to give you a doctor's note?"

It worked. Giving me a deadpanned look, he sighed, "Whatever. I'll be downstairs if you need me."

"Where else would you be?"

"I could go home if you want me to."

"No!" I protested a little too quickly. Kurt had been heading back down, but at the sound of my high pitched voice, he slowly turned back, brows drawn further. "I mean, you said- we haven't had a sleepover in a while and our tradition."