Apocalypse | BTS ✓

2

The conscious world comes back in a haze as Reine's senses return to her.

For a moment - a fleeting, wonderful moment - she thinks the entirety of the morning was nothing but a hellish nightmare fueled by the nerves of her coronation. She feels even more certain it was a dream as her hazy, swollen eyes come to notice the familiar cream-colored bed sheets surrounding her. The smell of her bed comforts her as she rubs her face, trying to become more aware of her surroundings.

Her body is dressed in a nightgown she doesn't remember putting on, hair still damp from a bath she doesn't remember taking. She realizes she is laying on her side, curled into a tight ball. She guesses the nightmare must have bothered her so wholly, her body reacted physically, trying to curl into a ball to protect itself from shattering.

Reine turns in her bed, wondering why she seems to have had a recent bath. Her heart and mind will the thought of her soaked in her parents' blood to remain at the edge of her conscious mind.

Because it was a nightmare, Reine assures herself in her mind over and over again like a mantra, but the sentence stops in her head when she sees her mother's crown placed on her bedside table, freshly polished as it gleams in its beauty.

Reine feels her heart stutter in its movements the moment she realizes everything did happen; it was no dream.

She has recently had a bath because she was indeed covered in her parents' blood. The shock and the trauma of her parents' deaths must have pulled her into an unrelenting unconsciousness, her body determined not to wake and face the truth.

Not only is she the Queen of Cendres now, but she is an orphan. She is alone.

"Oh, Your Highness," a voice sounds from her bedroom door, and her eyes drag from the crown to the woman she recognizes as her mother's personal maid. "You're awake. You've been asleep for hours. I was getting worried about you."

"Genevieve," Reine croaks, her voice broken and foreign as it slips between her lips. "Where is Claire? I..."

She trails off, wondering what she should do. What can she do?

Reine sits, trying to ignore the soreness in her body, attributing it to her father's body falling on her, and also her collapsing as she fainted. She can't handle the details of the morning, so she pushes them away in her mind, deciding to think of the smallest, most mundane thing she can focus on at this moment.

She wipes her idle tears away and turns back to Genevieve. "I need Claire to brush my hair. I can't imagine the state it's in since I have lain with it wet. It needs to be brushed, perhaps put into a braid to keep it out of my face."

"Your Highness, I'm so sorry," Genevieve whispers, taking tentative steps towards her Queen and kneeling in front of Reine. She is sitting at the side of her bed with her bare feet dangling off, staring at the wall as her eyes flood with tears. She continues to will herself not to blink so the tears remain unshed. If they fall, this becomes real to her all over again and she will crumble all over again. "Claire heard the noise of what happened and rushed to help you. She ran into the rebels and they did not let her survive as she had seen their faces."

Claire.

The sixteen-year-old girl who had dreams as big as Reine's - the girl who grew alongside Claire, caring for her and listening patiently as Reine told tales of how her reign as Queen would be something moral and light.

Memories flood Reine's mind, one of those being the first time she ever met the girl she grew to call a friend.

"Reine, this is Claire. She is training with Miss Genevieve to become your little helper," Reine's mother said as she knelt beside Reine, her hand resting delicately on the young girl's back as she stared wide-eyed at the blonde-haired, brown-eyed girl a bit younger than her.