She’s not exactly sure what she was expecting. Prisons are prisons after all. But Trilana is still royal. She had visited her mother’s cell once in her life, and that room had been gilded in gold with silks lining every surface. In the back of her mind, she had expected the same treatment.

The little girl should have known better. Her mother had provided the king with an heir, a rather useless one at that, but still. What had Trilana done for the king? Nothing. So, it seems she is to be treated like every other prisoner here.

She’s shoved into her cell, and watches as her guard is tossed into the one just across from her. Three of the walls that hold her are made of some kind of crystal. She remembers reading about it. Rediline. Named after the sourcer that discovered it. His was found dead days after the discovery had been publicized, and every article with his name on it was burned to ashes.

The crown had monopolized the minerals soon after.

Something within the strange crystals was said to weaken sourcer chi. Luckily for Trilana, she has very little of it to neutralize. The same cannot be said for her guard, though. As soon as he’s forced within his cell, he falls to his knees, his back arching as he dry heaves.

She watches as he places his forehead to the ground, his eyes squeezed closed. Timidly, the princess crawls to the bars of her cell, her fingers wrapping around them. “Are you alright? Mr Hendrix?” His gasps answer for him. He is not alright. “Is anyone there?! He needs help!”

Her screams echo through the hallway joining the many others, but she knows that those who escorted them are long gone. “No one… is comin’… just give me a moment… princess.” He’s fallen to his back, his hands on his chest that’s struggling to rise.

Trilana sits on her knees as she waits for him to come to his senses. Her cell has nothing but a small cot, a dirty wooden bucket, and a tiny pile of hay. What it’s to be used for, she can’t quite figure out. The shackles that hold her wrists painfully together falls away with a soft clink.

Try as she might, the young girl can no longer keep her tears at bay. They slide down her burning cheek, which still stung from the backhand she had received only thirty minutes prior. A ragged sob attempts to leave her, but she presses the back of her hand against her mouth, muffling it. She swallows, the lump in her throat more painful than the burning in her eyes.

The young girl isn’t sure how much time passes before the hollow flow of the stale air is interrupted. “Do you know the story of the pixie and the boar, princess?” She works her jaw as she shakes her head. Trilana knows many stories, but this is not one of them. Hendrix pulls his upper half up and leans to rest against the bars of his cell. “They say in the forests that line Draxedia, there’s a pixie colony the size of a small village. I donna’ know if I believe that, since the tiny bastards are known to be feral to even their own kind.” He pauses to catch his breath, or to think. She isn’t sure of which.

“Pardon my language, princess.” A small hysterical giggle escapes her. How absurd she would be to take offense to a single curse word when she’s current sitting in the basement of the royal manor. “Well, the pixies in these lands were smart. They had an hierarchy… a way of doin’ things. And for a while, everyone was content with that. The pixie princess had been the same way, until her curiosity got the best of her.”

Trilana lays her head against the wall beside her, her eyes closing as she listens to his story. It’s the first time she’s heard her guard speak more than a single monotonous responsive sentence. “She went searchin’ through the forests, past the boundaries of their home. She saw structures she had never seen before, smelled flowers unknown to her. Magic was runnin’ through her veins, propellin’ her, forcin’ her to search more.

“And she did. The pixie princess, carried by her excitement, flew through a shrub and fell right into a fight between two creatures three times her size. One of them was a boar, no more than a foot and a half tall. A gash covered its eye, and a piece of its tail could be found a few feet away. It fought against a creature that… despite its size, looked just like the pixie princess. It had eyes like hers, five fingers on each hand, and hair that only grew on its head.

“Never in her life had she seen a pixie of that size. At first, she was astonished. But fear soon took over her. Fear for that large pixie’s life. Cuts and scrapes and dirt covered the poor creature from head to toe, and it shook like the branches of a tree. Before the little pixie could comprehend what was happenin’, she was throwin’ herself between the pair, her little palms extended to stop the boar from attackin’.

“Seconds turned to minute turned to what seemed like hours. Frozen in time, the pixie princess couldn’t discern what was happenin’, but by the time the pieces began to fall, she was already dyin’, a sword slidin’ straight through her heart.”

Trilana’s back straightens. “You couldn’t have told me a story with a happy ending? Really, Mr Hendrix?”

Her guard’s head lolls to the side, his eyes scrunched again. “Happy endin’s donna’ have messages, princess.”

“And what was this message? Help people and you die?” She crosses her arms after wiping her eyes, painfully aware of how grimy her beautiful dress has gotten. This entire situation has made her tired. She crawls to her cot.

“No, princess. The message is: we sometimes see things through blurred eyes. Remember to wipe yours when judgment day comes.” Silence falls, the meaning of Mr Hendrix’s words clawing accusations behind her eyelids.