The Rightful Heir

☁︎︎ 10

• 10 • why •
➪

Please don't hurt them.

I've been running. Ever since the situation, all the situations, I've been running away.

Why?

Why don't I just walk up to the royal guards and let them take me to, wherever the queen wanted me.

Why didn't I just let the people who attacked my home just take me, or do whatever they wanted with me. Then maybe I wouldn't be here, and my older sister wouldn't be wherever she is now.

I thought it was self defense, but maybe it was just me being selfish.

Maybe fear held me back. Every horrifying thought, every 'what if' scenario, held me back from giving myself up.

The underlying reason that we feel like running away from problems, people, places, and life is that the stress and anxiety of the situation have gotten too intense. Our minds, my mind, made me think and feel like I needed to run. My gut knew something bad was going to happen.

Different thoughts scrambled through my head and drowned me whole.

I hadn't notice that the guards had entered the room.

Footsteps. Multiple footsteps all over the small house. When I heard the door open and footsteps enter this room, I turned invisible, watched and waited anxiously.

I didn't hear Leia or Lunelle, only the voices of the guards scanning and searching each room.

They had a scanner. An expensive and rare tool used to make invisibles, visible. I saw the black light scan the room and pass the bed.

The guard opened the closet door, right next to the bed. His feet next to my body. I steadied my breathing and stayed still.

He then crouched down and looked under the bed.

I stared at him

and he stared back.

I hold my necklace anxiously.

I didn't know if he could see me, I assumed not. But I knew if he turned the black light on he would see me very clear and I'd be yanked from under the bed and taken to who knows where.

My luck, he stands back up and walks out the room. I see Leia's boots by the door and then walk back down the hall.

I here more footsteps near, in another room. Finally I hear them all walk away but their voices still linger from the front of the house.

"Thank you," I hear Leia say and the door closes. I don't get out from under the bed until Leia comes in the room and tells me so.

We walk down the hall back into the living space and she begins talking. "What are you gonna do?" She ask her twin brother.

"I'm not really sure," he responds.

"Your not sure? Didn't you say you wanted to keep her here!"

"Don't talk about me like some pet." I intervene. "No keeping me."

As much information about what's going on in the kingdom I want to know and ask, I refuse to stay here any longer. The presence of the royal guards still linger in the air and still make me anxious.

"Thank you, truly, for your hospitallity and assistance but I'll be leaving." Lunelle says something inaudible but I don't mind it and walks towards the front door.

"Your ridiculous if your gonna leave like that." Leia says.

"What?"

"You have no shoes. Your wearing the same dirty and bloody clothes as when my brother found you, and your wanted in the kingdom. You can't just go into town and show yourself thinking nobody will say anything."

She's right. I already knew though, but her saying it out loud made it more real. I didn't want to come to terms with it.

"We'll help you." She says.

"What?"

"Really?" Lunelle exclaims.

"Let's go." She cocks her head to the side and walks down the hall. "Come on Athena."

Athena.

The name rings in my ears, not sounding so pleasurable anymore.

Lunelle steps aside, indicating for me to follow her. Hesitantly, I follow. Not knowing,

Why.