The Zodiac Kingdom

3

Cancer looked down at the floor as she was patrolling the dungeons. She hated doing this, she'd rather her time being spent in a library somewhere, doing things quietly.

Cancer is a shy and sweet person by nature, and she really did not like when people were wrongful in terms of the law. On the other hand, she did not like the punishments that were handed out for said crimes. She only once sat in on one of the borderline punishments, she passed out a minute into it.

~

Cancer was required to attend one of the punishment sessions before her 16th birthday. She then decided to do it as fast as possible so she didn't have to do it again.

She was 13 at the time.

An escort came and got her on the monthly scheduled punishment day. She was lead down to the dungeons, where the queen, Capricorn, was waiting.

The man, a repeated sex offender, was scheduled to be whipped 20 times that day.

The man, with his hands tied around a pole leaving his back exposed, chuckled silently.

"Hey little flower," the man cat called Cancer, "Let's say you let me out of here and we go find some place secluded."

A guard promptly stepped on his back, forcing the prisoner to kneel. Cancer flushed bright red from embarrassment and whimpered from the unwanted attention.

"Are you really that shameless to flirt with the princess?!" The guard yelled, "Your punishment is now doubled because of that act!"

He looked at the queen, who gave a curtain nod, and looked back at the prisoner. He then proceed to whip the criminal with 10 second intervals in between each.

Cancer went pale. Her face visibly drained of color as she watched blood oozing down and dripping onto the floor. Her hands started to shake, her vision became cloudy. Before she knew it, the room was black and the sound no longer reached her ears.

When she came to a few hours later, she saw the queen, who had become a mother figure to her when she was announced to princess-ship.

"Your highness," She said in a soft voice, "I'm very sorry and-"

The queen silenced her, "It isn't your fault, my dear. You never have to go to another one again. I promise."

A ghost of a smile appeared on both of their lips as they sat in a comfortable silence.

~

Cancer shuddered at the memory. Every time she thought about it, she couldn't help but feel totally different.

It seemed to her like she didn't belong here, that everything that she did was wrong.

That notion in her head was fleeting, as there was a loud bang that came from the very back of the dungeons.

Due to her paranoia from her reading horror stories all night, she stood frozen in debate of primitive flight or fight.

Eventually, she calmed down enough and deduced it as noise from a prisoner. She then decided to fulfill her duties by keeping "everyone in line." Hesitantly, she walked to the place where the noise was heard.

"H-hey!" She said in a soft voice, "Please stop making noise or I'll have to-" She trailed off as she saw an ominous glow coming from the very last cell.