A Railgun in Fairy Tail Book 4: Royal Bloodlines

What Freedom Is Like

Mikoto slept badly again that night. Nightmares constantly ran around in her head like rabbid badgers on a rampage. Some of her more frightening dreams involved reliving that brief spite in which she had gone level 6. The weirder ones involved a 200 ft Happy attacking Tokyo with eyebeams. (That one really made Mikoto uneasy about what she ate last night.)

When she finally woke up in the morning, the only thing that actually kept her sain, was Elli who always hugged her whenever she woke up.

"Morning Mikoto! Are you okay?" said Elli as she gugged Mikoto.

"Been better......but otherwise I'm alive." said Mikoto. "These dreams have been totally eating at me..."

"Did you have the 200 ft Happy dream again?"

"Maybe I shouldn't watch those old Godzilla movies anymore.." muttered Mikoto. "It's like everything's messing with my head."

There was a knock on the door. Knowing that it was still around 6:00 in the morning and the maids couldn't possibly be coming yet, Mikoto sat up, stretched a little and walked towards the door. "Yeah, yeah.....I'm coming...."

Mikoto opened the door to find Hope Ellendiel standing there wearing ordinary striped pink pajamas. "Hope? What are you doing here so early?"

"I-I decided that..." Hope closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "Well.......I'm not going to any of the appointments that Constantine has set up for us......not today at least."

"Huh?" said Mikoto. "But wouldn't you get into huge trouble!?"

"I don't care!" said Hope. "I'm tired of being cooped up in here all the time....I want to be able to walk among the ones I'm destined to govern as any normal person would........I-I........"

Hope took another deep breath. "I wanna see what it's like to be you.... to be free..."

"Well I'm not so free right now...." said Mikoto. "But I don't mind breaking the rules in the slightest."

Hope held Mikoto's hands in her own. "Th-then please!! Just for today! Can we......?"

"Sneak out and go see what it's like to be a normal tourist in your own home town?" Mikoto finished with a grin. "To be honest, I was thinking of asking you if we could do that today."

"R-really!?"

"Yep." said Mikoto. "But we're going to have find some way to sneak past the gaurds..."

Mikoto suddenly had a mischievious glint in her eyes as she came up with the perfect plan. "Now this one is going to be a doozy....."

Captain Rufus was always one who was devoted to his duty. In his opinion, one who would run from a fight, even if it was someone who severely outmatched himself, was the highest dishonor. Recognizing this, the late king had enlisted him, and entrusted him to the most sacred duty imaginable, gaurding the princess.

However his duties had expanded a bit in the last few days. Thanks to orders from Constantine, he was now keeping an eye on both the newly discovered heir and Hope. Two princesses meant that he would have to keep a sharper eye then ever.  So in order to make sure the two of them never left without the permission of the steward, Rufus was standing in front of the door that led to the 3 halls that seperated to the 3 royal bedrooms....two of which, the princesses were staying in.

"I will not leave this spot." muttered Rufus. "I must not fail the king...."

"Then again..." Rufus muttered to himself. "Constantine has grown rather hard of heart lately....ever since he took stewardship of the throne.....is it really right for me to devote myself to his orders?"