Better as Bones

doe - XII

Briar

The room is large. A bed sits to my left. A window streams light through the haze of woven curtains. It is nearest to her quarters. A table sits opposite the bed, thick-laid books stacked on either side. The chair there sits squat, cushioned with deepening blue.

The walls close in around me, their blinding white turning bone all too fast. The floors dig me down into the soil, their warm brown suffocating me six feet.

"You will train," Avalynn says, her dark dress heavy away from her legs as she walks through the room. Her hands yank away the curtains. I go blind against the light. Her silver hair gleams a halo in the light. "You will accompany me in social settings such as official meetings for my coronation and political meetings regarding Maylea. You will also study Maylean government. In trade you will live here and be an advisor and a guard-in-training. Got it?" Avery taps the stacks of books. I nod slowly.

Everything is slow. Her steps. The echoes of them in my head. The way Avalynn skirts move as she steps out of the door.

The slam of the door is not slow. It snaps me back into my body. My brain stays slowed.

"Okay," I mumble to the empty room. How will I do all of this? I can hardly see my hands? My knees scrape the ground.

* * *

Knocks echo through my room just after the sun slips into my room. The blaze of yellow light pierces my eyes.

Avalynn walks in, her face pulled up in it's usual furrow. She turns to my bed as I sit up, pressing into my elbows. Her hair is tied up at the base of her neck. I have no idea what mine looks like. She woke me up.

"We have a crown viewing in ten," She says, crossing her arms. I rub my face.

"Minutes?" Avalynn sighs from the end of the bed.

"No, ten days. Get up and get presentable, quick." She leaves the room. I blink as the door closes. My body hits back in the pillows with a thump. I slept all night restless. I'm exhausted from just laying here.

I rise, pulling on a black dress that was left for me last night. I zip up my boots, never leaving the bed. My sweaty palms smooth down my hair as I glare at the floor. I have to get up. I have to get up.

It repeats in my head over and over and yet my limbs stay heavy. Someone pounds on the door. I jump, my legs slipping over the edge. I walk over, my legs shaking as I open the door. Avalynn stands there, arms still crossed.

"It hasn't been ten minutes," I say, my eyes going dry with tiredness as she rolls her eyes.

"I said we have to be there in ten. Now we have to move fast," She says, taking my arm in her grasp. She pulls me along, her fingerprints pressing into my wrist. I stumble over myself to keep up. Avalynn walks fast in heavy boots. I don't know how. I always found my feet heavier than the rest of my body. And I am submerged under the entire ocean itself.

The palace stays silent as we hurry through. I catch glimpses of studies and rooms for servants, each as big as my own. We only pass one person in the hall, a servant with a child.

"Goodmorning, Ophelia, Qia," Avalynn speaks quickly, brushing past them. The child looks up, her face alight with joy. The woman nods, smiling back at the child's quick glances between her mother and Avalynn.

Avalynn turns a corner before a question can form in my mind. She stops, her feet planted as she juts to a door. Her hands grip the front of her dress. Carefully, my eyes trace the lines pressed into her stomach, the creases of skin pulled taut on her knuckles.