Rating: T+ for hints at abuse (Yeah, I'm just being careful)
A/N: I think the only thing I love more than Minerva Orland is family angst~ Especially when it features my empress herself~
Fear.
It was an emotion Minerva hated to admit that she was familiar with, but after years under her father's thumb, she had quite the experience with it. Thankfully, few had shown the ability to inspire it in her, allowing the woman to hide behind a façade of control. No, she would never admit to being terrified for her life. Not when she had the power to instill that very feeling in those she faced.
No one would know of the girl who could be reduced to shaking by a mere twitch of her father's eye. No one could be allowed to see how she had spent many a night crying herself to sleep. No one was permitted to understand why she felt so damn alone all the time.
Family mattered to the lady, despite the dysfunction that marked the Orland name. Even though her brother had abandoned her, and Minerva hated him for that, she still desired his love. Jiemma's approval was the only thing worth living for at times, and she would do anything for it.
Even kill.
But nothing was good enough.
Nothing was ever good enough for him.
And now, as Minerva looked down at his body, an odd disconnect between reality and what she had always known coloring her gaze, she wondered if she was finally able to feel. To be able to discover who she was without his disapproving gaze, without his hand gripping her wrist to make sure that she was doing what was right in his opinion.
Somehow, she doubted that. He was far too ingrained in her mind, the fear of his anger coloring so many of her actions to be pushed aside easily. Sanity, was that ever something she could say that she fully possessed? Minerva didn't know anymore.
She didn't know a lot of things anymore.
So she disappeared, taking advantage of the chaos that reigned after her guild's loss, after such a humiliation that she just would not stand for, to slip away. To find a place where she could try and learn once more.
And darkness claimed her once more.