Queen's Light

The Reflection

It was their castle, but it...wasn't their castle.

There were the grounds, the courtyard, all their chambers and the ballrooms and the grand hall and the throne room, but it was all so...different.

She sat at the vanity in her powder room, candlelight flickering off the silver of her circlet. She ran her hands through her hair, freshly combed, only extending just past her collarbone. There were bruises along the creases in her hands and arms and chafe marks where armor straps had likely rubbed in the wrong direction. Her wrist ached, and she rolled it out a few times, gently stretching the tendons. Glancing into the mirror, she noticed the darkened smudges beneath her eyes. Even with powder, it would be immensely difficult to cover them. Still, she did her best. Hopefully the others wouldn't take too much notice.

She wore her dress of purple, the one with sleeves of organza, lighter than gossamer. The sensation of a dress brushing by her legs was a soft and surprisingly comforting feeling, as though she hadn't worn one in some time. There were only two rings on her fingers now, as opposed to her original four.

Outside her window, the world was melting. Or at least, the snow was, though it wasn't quite warm enough yet for the flowers to bloom once again. They would, in time. When the world had warmed itself once more, the roses would peek their tiny buds out of the soil and coax the others to follow suit, filling the world with color and vibrancy.

But they wouldn't be the same flowers as the flowers that had grown in their place the year before, or the year before that. No, these flowers were of a different sort. They grew in different circumstances, with new patterns to form and new arrangements to create.

She sighed, exiting her quarters as her maids entered to tidy things up.

Rhiannon woke with a jolt. She must have dozed off again.

The physician that had been treating her after the horrid affair of her injury had done a marvelous job of ensuring her return to health. Though, as per her natural inclinations, she hadn't exactly been the most model patient. Despite the physician's insistence that he had never seen anyone recover at such a rapid rate from such a deeply inflicting wound, she was still confined to bed. That hadn't kept her from visiting the greenhouses, where she'd stumbled across the alchemist. It was proving to be difficult to comprehend the strange feeling she'd had while talking to them—as though she were having a pleasant conversation with someone she'd known for years, despite being barely acquainted with them.

After her absence had been noticed upon her return to the infirmary, the healer had allowed her to stay within her own chambers. For her comfort, he had said. But being confined to her own bed wasn't much better than being confined to another's. Which explained why she was now seated at her desk with her head in her arms, where she had originally planned to write a bit. Evidently she'd either gotten tired or bored and had closed her eyes for just a moment too long.

From where it sat before her on the corner of her desk, the carved candle Prongs had given her flickered in the slight draft. The dove's black eyes were piercing. Her hand drifted towards the bandage beneath her dress, where her wound ached. The shadows cast by the wavering of the candlelight creeped into her periphery. She stood with the sudden need to get away from them.

Taking a woolen shawl with her, she headed out of her chambers. If anyone discovered she wasn't in bed as she was supposed to be she would earn herself a good scolding, but if it meant that she wasn't trapped like a bird in a cage, she could endure anything. But she couldn't venture outside. Even her little escapade into the greenhouses the other day had been extremely dangerous.

So she wandered into the kitchens, a place she hadn't visited in some time. The head cook there was one of the first to make her feel welcome in the castle when she'd moved there just before her coronation. She'd made a habit of escaping into the kitchens for a morsel whenever she felt that courtly life had become too much.