Why can't I breathe whenever I think about you?
---
Angel sighed, burying her face in her hands. I want to remember... I want to know who I am, where I came from... all the important parts of a person's psyche that almost everyone else in existence takes for granted.
Rubbing at her eyes, she glanced up at the star-studded night sky. It's so beautiful... and yet there's a war going on out there, even as I look at it. People fighting, killing, dying... at least, for now, those I actually know aren't out there. Yet.
Her breath caught in her throat at the idea of losing them... at losing him... I shouldn't think about him so much. He's so busy; he hardly has any time for me. For what he promised me.
The young amnesiac fell back against the grass and put her hands behind her head. It's better that I'm out here, not bothering anyone, staying out of everyone's way. I don't know anything, and I never will.
"Angel?" a voice called out softly.
She sat up and watched a figure walk toward her. "Hi, Diandre."
"What are you doing out here?"
"Just looking at the stars."
"Is that all?"
Angel's eyes hardened slightly. "Well, if you must know, I was thinking, too."
"May I ask what you were thinking about?" the princess queried, taking a seat next to the young woman.
"Sure, you can ask. I might not tell you, though."
Diandre stiffened briefly, then relaxed and chuckled softly.
"What brought you out here, anyway?"
"I was wondering where you went."
"Why?"
"Because I hadn't seen you for a while, stupid. By the Light, why do you diss yourself so much?"
"I have no place here, thus I feel that I don't belong here."
"And why don't you supposedly have a place here?"
"I can't do much to help you all," she replied, shrugging. "Everyone else has a place... I don't. I just kind of fell out of the sky, or something, and landed here. I don't even know what I'm doing here, or why I haven't run off."
"Where would you go?"
"I don't know." A heavy sigh escaped her lips. "I wish I did."
The princess nodded, then looked westward at the faintly glowing horizon as the last traces of the sun's presence faded away. "I used to have no place either, Angel. I knew who I was, and where I had come from, but still, I had no place. Not in my own home, that is."
Angel blinked. "What do you mean?"
"My father blamed me for my mother's death, and that attitude leaked to my two eldest brothers. Gavin was the only one who was nice to me, and that only happened when no one else was around. He didn't want me to be alone, but he didn't want everyone else to be mad at him, so he tried to please both. If it hadn't been for him, and some of my extended family members... I don't think I'd be alive right now."
"Why?"
Diandre turned and held Angel's gaze. "I would have killed myself."
She flinched back from the steel in the younger girl's eyes. "Oh. ... Are you glad you didn't?"
"I wouldn't have met you if I had, right?" The princess stood and dusted a few blades of grass off her pantleg before walking back toward the palace.
Angel watched her leave, shocked into silence. Did she mean that she was actually glad she had met me? "Wait," she called out.
Diandre stopped and turned, a smile turning up one corner of her mouth. "Yes?"
"Can I, uh... well... what can I do to help?"
"You can follow me, for starters. There are just some things around here that I can't do on my own. However," she continued, a twinkle in her eye barely noticeable, "the last one there is a pile of pond scum!"
"Hey!" Angel exclaimed as the younger girl took off for the nearby building at a dead run. Laughing, she dashed after her down the hill.