A/N: Inspired by a line I'd read. Set post-curse, FtL. A tad darker than normal.
There is a part of her that knows she should be sad.
The air was heavier now. The light was too harsh, too bright. Not at all comforting as it seeped from the windows into the endless hallways made of stone and wood. Birds had stopped singing their morning songs months ago as the news had travelled throughout the kingdom.
She had buried her parents today.
They looked so peaceful; as though they were merely sleeping. They lay there side by side. Forever separated by polished, decorated wood and glass. There would be no True Love's kiss to wake them.
She had insured that herself.
Standing on the balcony that overlooked the main courtyard, she looked on as the remaining mourners milled about. They probably had the naïve notion in their heads that their presence and condolences were welcome.
Fools, all of them.
They were so hung up on magic, and the idea that it was the end all of what you could do to a person. But she knew better though. Twenty-eight years, reared in that world where there was no magic. The thought of True Love was a laughable joke at best and a cruel taunt of what would never be at its most terrible. She had lived through the worst of what that world had to offer.
A gift, what she had learned there, given to the parents who had birthed her and abandoned her to walk that road.
A sneer curled over her lip for a moment before she wiped her face of the emotion. Giving a nod of acknowledgment as some of the people looked up to her with either a wave or look of condolence, she played the grieving daughter.
She liked her new clothes.
The dark garments they had clothed her in for the funeral ceremony. All the black and the leather seemed to fit her mood more than the light colored dresses and gowns that she had worn when her parents were alive. The Savior, the White Knight, the gallant hero. What a laugh.
She was too broken to be any of those.
Their beloved Princess turned from the balcony. That was enough 'bonding time' with the masses. The smirk that crept over her face matched the cruel curl at the mouth of the other woman waiting in her chambers.
Her reign would begin tomorrow when the crown was placed on her head. And so the Dark Princess made her way to the Evil Queen who was lounging in her bed.
She knows she should be sad. But she really wasn't.