• • •

The persistent sound of high heels on marble carried down the corridor towards her bedroom as Fiona slipped in through the balcony door, grabbing her wand to instantly clean the mud stains from the hems of her skirts. She turned to the full-length mirror, noticing the leaves and twigs that had gathered in her hair, picking them out in haste just as the door to her bedroom was pushed open.

“Your mother requests your presence in the throne room” Blue’s voice. Fiona rolled her eyes. She was sure that her hatred of Blue practically radiated from her pores. Not that Blue would notice, always too far up her mother’s backside to care about what anyone else thought of her.

“I believe it’s customary to knock before entering a Princess’ bed chambers” she responded eventually. Protocol wasn’t exactly something cared for, but Blue did, so Fiona did enjoy throwing it in her face when she could do so.
“Immediately, Fiona.” The tone of her voice made the princess turn with an arched eyebrow. Blue was often impatient with her, but this tone was snappier than she’d experienced before.

She felt almost timid as she stepped into the throne room, but she didn’t let it show. She was used to her mother’s disappointment by this point, and Clarion certainly looked disappointed as Fiona moved towards the throne.

“You called for me, mother?” Fiona asked, her tone one of impatience. Her mother’s gaze fixed on her, the undertone of rage still residing there, as it had since the day that Fiona had practically caused a war to break out by defending herself.

“You stole Pixie Dust from the vault.” Was it a question? Fiona couldn’t decide. It didn’t seem like one, so she didn’t answer. Clarion said nothing but simply stared at her daughter. A silent stalemate between the two until she eventually broke the silence once more. “Is it true?”

Fiona watched as Blue joined her mother, sitting on a small stool at her side.

“Fiona” her mother’s voice broke her train of thought and her dark eyes moved back onto the woman who had once been her whole world. There had been warmth in Clarion once, she had been Fiona’s home. Now that warmth was gone, and Fiona didn’t know where home was anymore.

“Yes..”

There was an odd murmuring among the fairies behind her, her mother’s court erupting in whispers. It was one of the Fairy’s core rules that Pixie Dust was restricted stealing of such from the Sacred Fairy Vault was punishable with banishment. The news that the Queen’s daughter had broken such a rule was quite the scandal.

“Fiona.. you know our laws. You’ve studied them endlessly. You know the punishment for this..” Clarion began, rising to her feet. Fiona knew the punishment, but she also knew that fairies were meant to protect children. She had taken the dust to do just that, to free the children of one village from an ogre, but her mother wouldn’t care. None of them would. Fairies didn’t really protect children. They simply acted like they did, as long as that protection lay within their own ridiculous laws.

“However... I’m willing to forgive your theft should you agree to apologise to Lord Zephyr.” The Queen’s words seemed to cause a stir in the room, and Blue jumped up to her feet.
“Your Grace... The law..”
“I’m aware of the law, thank you..” Clarion brushed Blue aside as she fixed her gaze back on her daughter. Fiona shot Blue a look. The banishment process removed a fairy’s wings and was said to be so painful that very few actually survived the full de-winging, and yet this woman who had been around her since she was a child was here, reminding her mother that their laws meant that Fiona should be put through such a process. “Well?”

Fiona shook her head. The things Lord Zephyr had done to her were, frankly, unforgivable. She couldn’t, she wouldn’t, apologise for removing the fingers that had entered her against her will, no matter the cost.

“I won’t apologise, mother. He—“

Clarion raised her hand to silence her, stepping down from the dais. She looked over her daughter for a moment, a look in her eyes that Fiona hadn’t seen before. Was it regret? Perhaps. But if so, it was most certainly not regret that she was having to do this. Rather regret that she had not done it sooner, she was sure.

“One last chance..”
“Mother..”
“Agree to apologise..” their eyes met, and Fiona almost heard the silent 'please' that lingered in the air, but she couldn’t subject herself to an apology, to pleading for forgiveness from the most arrogant man she had ever met, and seeing him get away with abusing her without so much as a raised word. Her stubbornness rose within her once more. The audacity of even being asked to consider such a thing. What did she care if the Kingdom was at war? It should be. Her own kingdom should have declared war on Zephyr’s the moment he had dared to rip the delicate material of the dress she had worn that night. She hoped war made every fairy here suffer the pain she had been forced to suffer for the last few weeks.

“No, mother.” the defiance in her voice spoke volumes, though the sound had barely been a squeak. Clarion would not be defied again. She had offered what she believed to be a generous route out of what was about to happen, only to have it thrown in her face by a headstrong teenager.

“So be it,” she said simply, raising her wand towards her sixteen-year-old daughter, flicking her wrist. Almost instantly, the heat of a thousand suns was burning on Fiona’s back, her eyes squeezing closed as she tried to deal with the pain without crying out. She wouldn’t show weakness in front of her mother, or Blue if she could help it. Invisible talons of pure fire dug into her back, gripping her wings at the base and pulling and tearing them off her back and Fiona suddenly felt more pain than she had ever felt as her nerves screamed at the sensation. The princess fell to her knees, a scream of pain leaving her for the first time, her breath catching in her chest as her nails clawed the throne room floor hard enough to leave grooves in the hardwood.

“Mother...”

Tear-filled eyes looked up at her mother, but she saw no love or kindness in her mother’s eyes, only something that looked like relief. Scream after scream left her until her throat was raw from the sound, she could barely breathe as the pain overwhelmed her body, burning and tugging followed by searing agony.

Cheeks damp with tears, Fiona looked to her mother once more, her voice trembling

“Mama.. please..”

Her voice was as small and soft as it had been in her youth as she begged. Begged for the pain to stop. Begged for her mother to end it one way or another.

Clarion turned her back and headed back towards her throne. As she sat down upon it, she flicked her wand at Fiona once more, sending her away from her home to some overgrown forest within another realm.