Everything was a blur to him as he collapsed on the ground. Roxanne was screaming and pressing heavily on his bleeding wound. Tears ruined her pretty makeup and she ripped off a sleeve of her dress to help her slow the blood flow. He tried to wave her back weakly, still stupidly thinking of her pretty white dress. When he realized she wasn't going anywhere until someone forced her to, he fumbled in his jacket pocket for her necklace. No one was going to keep him from giving her this necklace today. It took several seconds for her to see what he was trying to give her, and her sobs began again with renewed strength. She kept one hand pressing on his wound with all of her weight as she reached into the hidden pocket of her dress. By that time, the guards had come back with a stretcher and heavier hands replaced hers. She took the opportunity to fasten his necklace about his thin neck and kissed him sweetly.

"Don't you dare leave me, Syx," she growled. The sixteen year old smiled weakly and replied,

"I wouldn't dream of it," just before the guards ran the stretcher out of the ball room. The guests were talking loudly amongst themselves but went silent as the princess, her dress now stained with her fiancé's blood, stood with all the elegance a proper princess should have, and fastened her own betrothal necklace. Her face was grim and tear streaked yet still somehow lovely. She strode from the room with her head held high but broke into a run as soon as the doors were shut behind her.

She burst into her room and closed and locked the door behind her, her chest heaving. She was pissed. How dare someone try to ruin her betrothal? How dare someone try to take Syx away from her? She practically ripped her dress off and struggled to free her hair from it. She scowled and roughly tied her long hair back into a ponytail. She rifled through the drawers of her vanity, as naked as the day she was born besides her undies, and cheered when she found what she was looking for: scissors. They were sharp enough that they glided through her hair in one swift motion, before she had time to think about what she was doing. She threw her ponytail, now unattached to her head, on top of her vanity and sheared through the front part of her hair which was still a bit long. What the hell, she decided. She gave herself bangs.

Next, she cleaned her face of the black streaks on either cheek and reapplied her black eyeliner. Then she ripped open her wardrobe and yanked out a skin tight black kevlar bodysuit. She had not worn one since her body began to fill out, but this was best for the warpath she was about to stomp down. After she zipped up the back (which was much easier without her long, heavy hair) she stuffed her feet into black boots and moved her necklace to sit on top of the suit. She looked at it in the mirror and nearly started crying again. It was so beautiful.

She wouldn't let the bastard who shot Syx get away with it. She scowled and threw her bedroom door open. Ninea was standing out in the hall, looking very worried. Her eyes widened.

"Roxanne?" She whispered, as if it couldn't really be her. Ninea touched the girl's shorn locks in shock.

"Yeah, who else has hair here?" She tried to joke. "Has anyone been arrested yet?" Ninea shook herself out of it.

"Yes. The man is a glaupunk who wasn't pleased about Syx ditching their snooty little bitch of a princess." Roxanne was only a bit surprised at Ninea's language. She scowled again, making a tight fist.

"When I get my hands on him I swear I will wrong his pompous short neck." Ninea chuckled and shook her head before she noticed that Roxanne was wearing her necklace. She brushed it with her fingertips and smiled.

"Nothing stops Syx, not even a metal projectile piercing his hip bone," she commented wistfully. Roxanne nodded absentmindedly.

"I put his on him as well," she told the woman who raised her. "Neither of us wanted that jackal to succeed."

Ninea and Roxanne were driven to the hospital after the queen made the princess put on the small tiara she'd gotten for her birthday. Syx was in stable condition, but it would be a couple of weeks before he could walk.

"His left hip bone was shattered by the projectile," the doctor explained. Roxanne was jealous of every one else's ability to heal ten times faster than she could. A small cut that would take ten days to heal on her would be completely gone by the end of the day for Syx. Now, she was thankful for his ability to heal quickly.

He was unconscious when the two women were led into the bulletproof glass room surrounded by guards- both blue and glaupunk. Ninea explained to Roxanne that once the king of the glaupunks had heard what had happened, he dispatched a squad of super strong soldiers to beef up their security and promised that should they decide to ship the assassin back to their planet, the royal family would all get positions on the jury (although, he privately said to Ninea, the trial would be a joke and the man would be convicted of treason, attempted murder and trying to incite a war and the penalty would be death).

Roxanne stayed by Syx's bedside, much like what he had done for her when she fell ill, until he woke up. She was very tempted to crush him into a fierce hug, but decided it would be best not to move him much and settled for squeezing his hand in the mean time.

"C-can you get me a mirror?" He asked weakly. Roxanne wasn't sure why, but asked the guards to fetch him a mirror. A few minutes later, Syx was using a hand mirror to look at the necklace Roxanne had made for him. He loved it and how different it was. Each piece stood for a different memory. The tree was a reminder of both the day they met and the summer she had sprained her wrist from falling from that very tree. The octopus, well, that was quite obvious. His purple octopus had been his favourite toy as a baby and Roxanne was the only one he let touch the squeaky thing. The lightning bolt was for his eleventh birthday. The last two, however, he couldn't quite figure out. Roxanne noticed the confusion on his face.

"The one next to the lightning bolt was supposed to be for today." She blushed deeply at her cheesiness. "The day I promised my heart to you. Then the last one... Well I'll let you wait for that one," she finished with a wink. Syx finally turned his head to get a good look at her and nearly jumped out of his bed in shock.

"Your hair!" He shouted. Roxanne blushed and tucked her bangs behind her ear.

"I was angry and my hair kinda took the brunt of it," she explained. Syx reached out and ran his fingers through her hair.

"It's still just as soft," he commented while his lips began to curl upward at the corners. "And it suits you."

"You think so?" Roxanne asked as he took the tiara out of her hair and set it on the table next to his bed. He nodded and unconsciously licked his lips. Roxanne giggled until he used his hand in her hair to bring her much closer to his face with a surprising amount of strength. They both blushed deeply, so close to each other that they could feel the heat rising on their faces until Syx bravely jumped the gap and pressed his lips to hers. It was different now, and they could both feel it. Roxanne cradled the side of his face with her right hand and kissed him with a bit more pressure and her lips just a bit parted. Before they really knew what they were doing, they were pressing open mouthed kisses over and over before it got too warm for them and they needed air. Roxanne sat back in her chair but kept her left hand in Syx's.

"Whoa," they both said in unison just before Ninea came back in.