It was prudent before, a necessary caution. Assassination attempts were par the course of things and the castle's windows and doors were barred to protect those who might one day salvage Lorule from the devastation they caused. It was sensible and she had always been so very sensible, even as a young girl. She never found herself overcome with wordless longing, lingering by windows and wondering what it would be like to see one stretched open, to let the world in for once rather than shutting it out. The windows with their curtains tightly drawn around them would always be left behind in her long stride. And if occasionally there were a whisper in the back of her mind of it's not as if there is any sunlight to let in, well, the important thing was that she never allowed her steps to falter.
There was sunlight now, though, and Hilda opened a window for the first time in her life to meet it. Dust dirtied the fingers of her gloves where they rested against the windowsill but that was inconsequential. She tipped her head back so the sun could kiss her face and thought this is what matters - how the sun warmed her as it never had before, she who been so cold for so, so long. She was smiling and she was unaccustomed to that too, to smile for reasons other than mockery. So much had changed and Hilda found herself most changed of all.
Much needed to be done still - for all that she had already proven herself a fool she was not so much of one as to believe generations of pain and misfortune can be undone in one night - but the longer she stood there, watching dust dance in the sunlight, the more certainty took root in the depths of her being: certainty that hearts and homes, too, will mend and that warmth and hope and the shape of happiness will be things Lorule will grow to know well.
One day, Hilda thought, and in this world reborn one day didn't seem so very far at all.