A/N: Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, a63 - write about a major character
The Name of Murder Princess
She kills her brother.
It's her first kill and she can't bring herself to regret it. In fact, she's glad. He's not really her brother by the time she grabs the knife and drives it through his throat. He's just a monster warped beyond recognition.
The first kill is justified.
Maybe the second one is as well, because it's on the battlefield, in a war.
She's not quite sure who says it, that as Queen Alita's handmaiden she should be on the battlefield as well, protecting her mistress. She knows who says she's worthy though: Alita herself. Or Falis, truthfully. Still Falis in the body of Alita and named queen. And she is one Alita, now Milano. They were then yet to find the secret that would unravel their forms.
And while Queen Alita is no stranger to the sword or to the battlefield, her handmaiden is. She is when she kills her second person, and her third, and her fourth – and then she loses count. Too many bodies on the battlefield. Few hers. Most the Queen's, or her army's.
And she doesn't even start counting in the battles thereafter.
It's a good thing, in the end. Between battles and wars and assassination attempts they search for a way to switch their bodies again, to back to their previous lives. Falis always complains she's tired of it. She can fight and rule but even after all these years she can't be happy as queen.
But when they finally discover it, five years later after Grandel has vanished from the map and Milano is head of the Royal Guard as well as the Queen's handmaiden. It's fine for Falis. The head of the Royal Guard vanishes from the pages of Forland and is replaced by a woman who can match Queen Alita in strength. But Alita has to say goodbye to Milano once again and stand at the forefront of the battlefield – because Forland and they have all come too far to turn away from this path. Queen Alita is a fighter. She is a fighter now, taught by Falis and her brother's monstrous change. The meek little princess is a thing of the past and she knows it. She knew it the moment Falis killed for the throne. She knew it the moment she killed – killed her brother, the first of them all.
It was for Falis the name began. But it is because of Alita – the Alita in soul as well as body – that it stays.
