note: edited the ending so it's not as vague.
dragon's heart
—
With a final breath, it is over, and she stands on top of the glass pedestal with her Pokémon clustered by her side. The marble pillars around her, the glittering gold dragon statue that towers before her (carved to commemorate the receiving of her new title), and her new pink dress billowing in the wind all conspire to make her feel like someone that she isn't, someone important and regal and grand like a real princess.
Iris does not like this new feeling.
She leans back and stretches her arms out, grasping for a feeling of triumph. Reaching high, higher to the sky, to the crystal chandeliers that hang above her and the twinkling lights overhead. Her throne is behind her, waiting patiently for her to sit in the velvet- and gold-adorned seat, but she would rather not. Instead, her mind wanders. She is brave; she is strong, and her new title proves it, but now she has to showcase her perfection, her "heroism" to the rest of Unova. She has become, basically, a mannequin in a clothing store. The finality of her situation makes her feel uneasy.
Hall of "Fame?" Is that what they called it? Well, Iris does not want to be famous.
She is restrained, suffocated by this glass room at the edge of the sky, and when her high heels click hollowly across the floor—so clear she can see her own reflection, but not that she needs it with all the mirrors surrounding her—she feels grown-up and yet still a child at the same time, just an ordinary girl who should not be here.
A commoner does not belong in a palace; only a princess does, and she is far from one.
After slight hesitation, Iris looks into one of the mirrors. She is usually not one for vanity, but the reflection in the mirror catches her eye and holds it—a girl with eyes of fire. The flames are burning in the depths of her eyes, blazing out from the bleak landscape around her. Flashing a challenge, full of passion, full of the determination that had driven her up, higher and higher, among every single Pokémon Trainer in the world, until she reached the top. But it also looks trapped, like a bird in a cage, fluttering to escape. Fire cannot spread if it is contained, like she is now.
Here is where legends are made and, she now realizes, destroyed. Her nails dig into her hands as she clenches them into fists, wondering what is left for her now. To...sit here, and wait for another Trainer who dwarfs her in power to arrive and free her from this hall.
No, this will not do at all.
She turns around and calls a single name, her voice echoing through empty corridors, until it might reach the ears of the former champion.
Alder.
And in the silence that ensues, Iris has only one thought: A real princess would never give up her throne, not for anything.
But a laugh escapes from her lips anyway, ringing across the spacious champion's hall, reverberating off the glass walls and high, arching ceiling, flowing through the balcony on which she can see the stars, if she stands there and looks hard enough.
After all, Iris has never been, and never will be, a true princess.