prisoners of fate

"You're excused."

My dArlin' estella,
Sweetheart, your father and i miss your smile.

Is everything going well at the castle? you aren't Hiding away from your royal duties. right baby?

Under stand that you are our only hope. The house needs repairing for Protection before the winter hits us. Of course we have the money for it, don't you worry sweetie. just focus on being a good queen. we got a new boy. Michael is a sweet lad and helps us with our chores. he plays a lot of games though, says his alias to be Knightblood. looking at him i realize, childhood really doesn't ever come back. In all The time he's worked for us, we've never had any Real trouble coming our way. his dream is to work at the Aningmoon Castle one day. The boy reminds me of you. so much.

Shadow is doing quite fine as well. your father and i took her out on a walk around the Empire. her tail was wagging all day.

Is there something that you need from the county market? i bought a model of Waning moons last week. your father had it down with a
Strike! Now, what am i supposed to do with him?! he loiters around all day playing ball with the county folks, humans that is.  i hope he does not Repent Later.

we miss you.
we love you.
we are here for you.
love, papa <3

Her fingers trace over the heart scribble as her lips phase into a soft smile.

Estella creased the letter into multiple folds and tore it along the lines. Having seven horizontal strips of paper in her hand she folded them into origami stars and dropped them inside  the hollow holes of the decaying basement wall. Letting the fungus feast over it.

Then, she sprawled herself on the basement floor and closed her eyes shut. All the capitalised words from the letter chronologically displayed themselves over the cover of her closed eyelids. Her head processed the information thoroughly.

With newfound knowledge in her system, Edith sighed a breath of contentment.

                                <3

Julius pulled at his hair in borderline madness. At this rate he would be bald before thirty! Well, that is, if he magically happens to survive the hounds today and live to tell the tale.

There is no way Czar would let him out alive with his limbs and freedom intact.

Absolutely none. Not until Julius finds the paper that has disappeared from the very face of their blessed Earth.

"Did the moons consume you or did the hell fire devour you, paper dear, paper dear, where are you?" Julius sings with a tone of misery, staring at the clean cold ground and trying not to re-live the horrors that the morning had brought him.

The trees flutter merrily with the wind, possibly conspiring against Julius. He knew, for sure, that the wind was the culprit. It must have lured the paper away from his grasp.

"I miss you when the sun is about to rise, never a man existed so wise, paper dear, paper dear, paper dear, I shall call upon you thrice, come to me when the weather is nice?"

You know Julius was a man befallen into the pits of depression when he was making trash poetry to keep his brain from imagining his overtly detailed death scenarios.

With the crestfallen expression of a lass lorn lover, he rounds another tree, rubbing his back against its bark, eyes staring longingly at the cobbled ground.

It stares back with visions of horror: The smiling face of Toril Maley saying, "It's a deal", the vengeful face of Edith cursing at him, the aggravated face of his brother choking him.