The Royal Princess, Dorothy Gayle of the First House of Gale of the Outer Zone was her style. Her family and what few friends she'd earned over the years called her DG. Sadly, those friends were few in number and spaced out all across the realm or just plain gone. It hurt her heart to think of that, of all the faces she'd never see again, of those she missed painfully and wasn't likely to see any time in the foreseeable future.

Raw, the seer, had returned with Kalm to the forests of the east, near the land of the Munchkins and the fields of the Papay soon after the double eclipse that had nearly destroyed their world. Ambrose, or Glitch as he'd been called them, hadn't been the same man once his brain was restored and in it's rightful place in his cranium. Gone was the sweet, if clumsy and forgetful, man who always had a smile, or words of optimism and encouragement. In his place, she was left with a man who was ambitious to a fault, and conniving, a man who hung on each and every word that passed her mother's lips like he would die without them. DG often thought that they were a couple, more than her parents were. He attended the Queen more like a lover than an employer or a friend.

And Cain...

DG hadn't seen Wyatt Cain, restored Tin Man, for ten years. He'd left to find his son almost immediately after the battle and she hadn't seen hide nor hair since. She'd heard, through Ambrose and, before he passed on, Tutor, that Jeb and Wyatt Cain were doing well, that they'd moved to Central City, that they'd both become Tin Men and were working to restore the city to what it should be... But every time she had an appearance there, he was no where to be found. No address to visit, no phone to call. He was alive, she knew he was, because she would have known immediately if it were otherwise. But nothing. Not so much as a goodbye.

She'd cried at first, once Glitch and Raw were gone. Her heart had ached so for her friends, men that she considered family more than those related to her by blood, and as she lay, night after night in her bedroom, she longed for the adventures they'd had, their time on the road, as dirty as they were.

Those dreams were long dead, stomped out of existence by her station and her training.

She sat perfectly still as her personal maids dressed her in what she privately referred to as 'the fancy get up', a long, emerald green gown that showed just the right amount of cleavage and absolutely no leg. The stiff white lace at the collar was torture, and she hated it with a passion... But as the official representative of the royal family, reading a speech prepared by the queen herself, DG just did as she was told. She let herself be pushed and prodded and strapped into the gown, let the maids first curl her hair and then pile it high on her head. She allowed the simple silver tiara sparkling with diamonds and emeralds and rubies to be nestled atop it and, as she looked at her reflection in the mirror, even she had to approve. She looked good... for a corpse.

Even DG could see that, under the powder and rouge and garish red lipstick, the fire that had once burned bright in her cornflower eyes was gone. Not even a few embers remained and, oddly, she couldn't gather up enough energy to be more than mildly interested in that fact. This was her world, her place, and nothing she did or said would change that.

Ten years in captivity is a long time for someone who longs to be free. After that long, even the strongest spirits will break.

That afternoon, at the conclusion of her speech about a New Era of grandeur for the O.Z. and Central City, with the applause of the crowd still roaring in her ears, DG let herself be escorted off the dais with a firm, almost too firm, grip. She was spending the night in the City, in a large suite at the top of the tallest hotel in the city, a place where access could be easily and she could be protected. In the morning, she'd attend to a few other pieces of business for her mother and then, the morning after that, she'd go home. DG enjoyed these little outings but, truthfully, she'd rather be in her own apartments in the palace, with her books and her dogs and the memories of what she'd once been. Being in the publics eye like this was painful, because it threw into sharp relief everything that she didn't have and everything that she was not.

The ride to the hotel was short, and DG sat patiently in the car while her security team, comfortably padded with Tin Men, did a sweep of the lobby, the halls and anywhere else someone with nefarious plans may be hiding. After ten minutes, her security chief was given the all-clear and DG was escorted at a brisk pace through the building to her rooms, where she could rest and relax and get the hell out of the clown suit she was wearing.

As she was descending a small flight of steps, heading to the elevator bank, DG stumbled and careened into a Tin Man standing at attention. She didn't expect to recognize the face when she looked back up.

"I'm so sorry," she said as the man helped to right her, her security chief hovering over her as well. "I didn't hurt you did I..." Her mouth gaped open as his cerulean eyes came into focus, the sun-kissed skin and the white-blond hair.

"No, princess, you didn't," Wyatt Cain said quietly, a faint flush filling his cheeks.

Part of DG was happy to see him, finally, after all this time. Another part of her was angry, because he'd dared show his face after a decade of nothing. Another part still just wanted to cry.

In the end, she got to do none of the above as she was whisked away to her room, glancing over her shoulder all the while.