A Dove's Innocence

walls talk even if people don't

Stories of the war were always meant to stay unheard from Princess Milani Alastair's ears, but it seems as if the king and queen of the White Dove Kingdom had forgotten that walls could talk.

"Tell me more about it, Miss Rae?" Milani asked of the maid who was the closest thing Milani had for a mother. To Milani, Miss Rae was unlike all the other maids that showered her with their fake compliments and greeted her with plastic smiles.

"Lani, go back to reading. Nothing good will come out of your curiosity towards the battle that occurred tonight," Miss Rae replied. Milani closed her eyes as Miss Rae's hands ran through her hair, combing it out for the dinner that was to take place with the rest of the royals. All her life, Milani had been a princess but she never felt the connection she was "supposed to" with the people she called family. They felt as if they were in a different world from her, oceans away and she just couldn't bring herself to make an effort to cross it. She was able to ask for whatever she wanted, but she could not leave the Peristerá Castle. So she asked for books. Using her eyes as the key and pages as the door, she was able to enter entirely new worlds and they were accessible wherever, whenever. With a sigh,

"I just want to know more about the Raven King, is it really so bad?" Milani asked. Exactly three "tsks" came from Miss Rae,

"Better to not know about the devil." Milani wasn't sure how much longer she stayed seated, staring the mirror while Miss Rae was behind her. It was that sort of feeling a person got when they looked at the mirror and saw themselves, but they weren't quite sure if it was them. Most days, Milani didn't know who she was.

Milani Alastair was the name given to her.

Princess of the White Dove Kingdom was the life she lived.

Anything she could want, she could have.

Brightest of diamonds, softest of silks, a view of the sky from her room.

But what did it matter?

Diamonds didn't shine if there wasn't light, silk could be burned in a fire, and she couldn't fly.

"All the tortured birds are stuck in glass cages for the sake of being on display," Milani whispered to herself in a voice low enough that Miss Rae couldn't hear. It was something mom had told her once, but things have changed since then.

Milani Alastair was the name given to her.

Living in the glass cage of the Peristerá Castle was the life she lived.

The thing she wanted the most, she couldn't have.

At dinner, the chatters of her brothers and the king and queen were nothing but white noise. She was the youngest of three, the only daughter of the ruling family. She understood, it was for that reason they were so protective of her. She understood, it was for that reason she could not leave the castle. She understood, it was for that reason they didn't talk about the war when she was around.

"Y-your Majesty," a voice said, pulling Milani out of her thoughts. It was the captain of the knights, Fern? Ford? She didn't know which of the two was his name but it had to be one of them.

"You may speak," King Lexus, Milani's father, said to the knight. The knight whispered something that Milani could only hear parts of with her hearing.

"Escaped... unsure, perhaps— injured."

"Milani," her mother said to her. "You've finished dinner, right? It'd be best if you went back to your room and got some rest." Milani only nodded in response, getting up and walking back to her room. But walls could talk, even if her parents wouldn't. As she made her way back to her room, she heard whispers and chatters from the servants and knights. From what she had gathered, the Raven King had been injured in battle but his whereabouts were unknown. Milani's curiosity grew within her upon the news, she wondered how he had even been captured in the first place. She also wondered what this meant for the kingdoms, would the war develop further, or would it finally end with a truce? She had to keep this curiosity pressed down next to the growing seed of slight anxiousness as she re-entered her room, Miss Rae helping her undress.

"Miss Rae?" Milani said, though as more of a question than anything.

"Yes, dear?" came from Miss Rae's soft voice.

"If the war ended, what's the first thing you'd do?"

"Perhaps I'd return home." Those words sent a slightly unsettling feeling to the pit of Milani's stomach. Home. She knew of it. She had read about it in the books and heard stories from servants who also wished to return to their own. It was many things and she wondered how that was even possible. The scent of mom's cooking filling the house paired with dad's laughter that could be heard from the entrance. The scent of a lover's shampoo lingering on the fibers of one's pillowcase and holding each other in comfort and safety.

Milani knew what a home was.

She did not have one.

Nighttime neared and for Milani, her nights were spent reading books on her bed even when she should have been asleep. While there were guards outside her door, they wouldn't enter unless she called them. It's only when a thud paired with light scratches that made itself known to Milani's ears she looked away from her book and towards the direction of the window but from her bed, she couldn't see just what caused such sounds. She knew she should have stayed in bed and ignored it. Or maybe she should alert the guards of it, that was what the king and queen always told her to do if she was bothered by something. Perhaps this was even a sign for her to go to sleep instead of staying up reading books like she always did. She knew the things she should have done but couldn't bring herself to do them. It was so trivial, merely a thud onto the window, the sound gone within a matter of seconds. Had she not been up, she wouldn't have known of its existence. Yet despite this, she got out of bed, her hand reaching for the window notch before she even realized what she was doing.

[ author's note ]

if you've read the first chapter of this story and you've reached up until this point, hi !! most people who are reading this and who currently follow me probably found me from a comment section under a YouTube video titled "the villain is smitten but it's a playlist" where i wrote a short story :) this book, a dove's innocence is the longer and more thought-out version of that story. there will definitely be differences from the story i wrote in the youtube comments and this one, one of them being that this story will be written in third person pov (with my own main characters) whereas the one under the YouTube video was written in second person pov (basically an imagine). as with the series / stories that i write, i will try my best to update as often as i can !! i usually try to update every week.

it has been a while since i've written on Wattpad and the things that i did write i unpublished / deleted. earlier this year, i got back into writing on tumblr where i just write imagines for fandoms that i'm a part of. while i've had a wattpad account for a while i think that i may be younger than some of y'all think (anyone and everyone is free to guess my age if you want and i'll probably say it sometime in the future if people are curious !!) but anyways, i am aware that writing imagines and writing a story with my own ocs are two completely different things but i figured why not give it a shot again after all the feedback i got from the comment !! i'm not sure how many people will read this story (or if anyone will read it at all to be honest) but if you do decide to give my writing a chance, whether it's this one chapter or the rest of the story, then thank you in advance :D

also, i tend to write my most if not all of my author's notes in lowercase / not in the best grammar (unless it's about something serious) since i feel like that's how i communicate with my readers and i don't want things to sound too formal to the point where it's like i'm unapproachable !! messages are always open if anyone wants to talk <3