Royal

We All Fall Down

I close my eyes and take a deep breath through my nose, Pete lays on the ground blood trickling from his mouth and the man is getting more and more aggravated with him. I can't take it any longer and slide down from the tree, I take a deep breath but my hands shake. I close my eyes and walk into the clearing.

"Back the hell up." I yell and there is a moment where everything seems to pause, the man turns and looks at me a grin spreading across his lips and I see Pete raise his head off the forest floor and the look of complete devastation on his face makes my guts clench. 

"Glad you finally showed up." The guy smirks and the other men chuckle as a rough hand grabs my shoulder and twists my wrist up behind my back. 

"I will come with you peacefully just let him go." I spit and the guy's grin turns into a sarcastic pout.

"Awh it is really cute how you think you can be making demands right now." I glare at him I want to spit on his shoes and kick him in the nether regions but I am being held back. Just as I go to open my mouth a sack is shoved over my head. I squeak in surprise and hear the guy chuckle. 

As I am being dragged backward I can hear Peter whisper "Patrick no." so quietly and heartbroken that I can feel my own heart-shattering in my chest. I never wanted it to come to something like this, Peter deserved a happy life and all I have ever done is cause him pain and suffering, how many times has he got hurt from being with me?

I can feel my body being jostled, shoved, and pushed along some never-ending journey. I can hear the horses before I am thrown over the top of one like a sack of flour. I groan as the horse trots along the path my ribs feel like they are slowly getting bruised as we continue. All I can worry about is Peter, did they bring him with us? Or is he laying on the forest floor in pain? The latter seems to be the better option because at least that way he will not be murdered.... unless of course they. No. I cut off that train of thought immediately Peter has to be alive, even if we are both slowly being carried to our deaths. 

I know what capture means, and I close my eyes and pray that all will be alright but deep down I know exactly what they will do to me. I am now an enemy, a threat to the new rising government system and there is only one way they treat people like me. I sentenced very few me to this myself,  I found it too gruesome and cruel instead I did public shaming, imprisonment anything to avoid sending them to Paris to face death. 

Of course, others were never as kind, my father must have sent hundreds if not much more than I did not know of to their deaths. 

I want to cry, but there is no point to sink into sadness, I did nothing to really deserve this except being part of the royal family. Horseback turns into a carriage bumping along dirt roads, then gravel and I clutch my hands together and bow my head just hoping that there is a better way for this to end, a way to escape from all of this and just escape. After hours, or possibly days of drifting in and out of sleep, bumping along roads, I am shaken awake and the bag is ripped from my head. 

I blink as light floods my eyes, I squint as the sunlight is a bit blinding. I can already see people gathering outside of the carriage. I am pulled out and the people whisper amongst themselves. I crane my neck backward to try and see any sign of Peter, any ray of hope that he is still here waiting to swoop in and rescue me. I don't see him and I feel my hope slowly fade as we walk further into the city, the crowd builds and I cringe as shouts sound out and things begin to fly across my path. 

We enter the city square and I can see the blade shining in the sunlight and fear runs through me like a cold ice. The citizens are gathering around and I begin looking around frantically for any means of escape, this can't be how this ends I need to get away right now but as hundreds of people flood into the square I know there is no way for me to get out of this. 

I stop walking all together and begin to get dragged up to the platform. "Please, where is your humanity! I am not even eighteen years of life on this earth, let me go I did not do anything!" 

"Your father deserved this more than you kid, but someone has to pay for his crimes." One of the men dragging me along comments and I have never felt more hatred for the man that raised me then in that moment.

"What happened to the man from the forest? Peter, tell me please what you did to him." I beg and I receive a cold stare from one man and a sigh from the other. "Please, my last wish is to know what happened to him! Tell me please!" I shout kicking and flailing trying to break loose of the grip as they drag me up the stairs of the platform. 

The men remain silent as someone begins reading something out to the public I don't pay attention, but from what I catch it is my apparent crimes against the country. Treason, that is my sentence for a crime I did not commit. 

"Please just tell me about Peter," I whisper to the man still within earshot.  He glares at me and sighs. 

"I do not know alright? I think he was killed, or possibly brought along in a later carriage but seeing he was nothing more than a peasant I wouldn't be surprised if they killed him on the spot. He was of no more use to us, why would they keep him alive except to come kill him here." 

I had kept the tears in until that moment but now they come rolling down my chin. I sniffle and I get a look. "Keep it together and at least die with your dignity with you." The guy quips and I wipe my nose against my sleeve. 

"I am about to die, you just said the man I love is either dead or about to die and you want me to keep it together? You can go burn in hell." I huff and the guy looks gobsmacked, I stare at the ground and sigh. 

So this is it I suppose, definitely not the way I wanted to go.