Chapter one: She'd be there

"But father it's not fair!" the pink haired princess yelled out and ripped off her tiara, which until then was beautifully placed on top of head.

Tears nearly fell from her emerald eyes when her father didn't even twitch from her pain, did he really not care? Sakura was a simple girl who never asked anything from her parents, who did everything she was told and who rarely wanted anything in the world, but to ask, no - demand, her to do this? No, that's where she drew the line.

"You are stripping me of my birthright." Sakura's eyes were full of hatred and her voice was colder than it had ever been. She could feel tears welling in her eyes but she wouldn't let herself cry. She wanted to, though. She wanted to cry and shout, let all of her emotions run wild for once. But not right now, not in front of her father.

"Your birthright is to protect this kingdom!" Her father's voice rumbled through the room like thunder.

"The oracle gave us one last chance to unite our kingdoms against the dark side, you can't fight that," Her father spoke out, his voice calmer than before. Sakura stared at her father, who didn't seem to care much for her distress. Even with his voice calm, she could see the coldness in his eyes. For the first time in her life she realized that he truly didn't care.

She felt a tightness in her chest, as if her dress was getting smaller by the second. Soon she wouldn't be able to breathe when looking at her father's emotionless face. But then something in her just snapped.

'Can't fight that?' the princess thought as she bit her lip to the point where she could taste the warm red liquid in her mouth.

"We'll see about that," she muttered as with her last look she glared at her own father. She was holding back immense rage that was boiling inside her. There was no way she was going to let anyone do this to her.

Quifilia. That was the world of the two kingdoms. Or, well, actually more like eight but that's not really the point here. There was a time once when everyone lived together in peace, without sides or differences dividing them. The legends say that the gods themselves created Quifilia for the chosen people, a beautiful land where people could live happily and in peace with each other. And for centuries, even millennia, Quifilia wasn't ruled by anyone, people were each other's equals, and the world was at peace. That era is now only a legend, a ghost of the past.

It all ended when the war started. A war that severed Quifilia and the people living in it in half, forming the two sides that were named the light side and the dark side. People became angered with each other, soon the equality of all was gone and people were at war with each other. And that war nearly destroyed everyone. The gods were not happy of the destruction of their paradise and saw that people could not live without hierarchy. The war ended with no winners, Quifilia's former glory was gone.

After the war ended with mutual destruction, the two sides of Quifilia were formed. From the scattered survivors a few were chosen to be given a gift. The gift would make those individuals different from everyone else, but those people were to also be the ones that were to bring peace. But peace wasn't achieved to the point were Quifilia was a unified land once again. The hostility of the war remained and Quifilia settled into two parts, two sides of the world that were still not at peace with one another, even though the parts themselves had peace.

And for a long time there was peace among the light side of Quifilia, which the gifted had divided into four kingdoms. For centuries all of the four kingdoms were happy, helpful and most importantly at peace with each other. But after the war, the light and the dark had nothing to do with one another. Talking about the other side of the world was forbidden. It was almost like everyone liked to think that the other side didn't exist. Sakura didn't know much of the dark side, only what she'd been told, and from those small little things she'd come to the conclusion that it was a bad place that nobody wanted to talk about.

A while back the four kingdoms of the light side came together and started planning an attack to the dark side. The plan was to conquer it and turn Quifilia back into what it once was and to restore it into its former glory.

Yeah, that didn't go as planned. The four kingdoms started fighting over petty little details and ended up ruining the peace they had. They were on the brink of war when some sacred whatnot oracle announced to the rulers of the four kingdoms that the only way to restore peace to the light side was for every kingdom to send a princess, an heir to the throne of each kingdom, to another kingdom for marriage to act as a bond that would pull all the kingdoms together again.

"Bullshit I say.." Sakura muttered when slouching towards her bedroom or 'her quarters' as the servants (and everyone else for that matter) liked to call it.

The history of Quifilia had always interested the pink haired princess, but whenever she was faced with the kingdoms' inability to work together, she wanted to vomit. Now the latest stunt that they were trying to pull off to achieve peace was to exchange her life for it. To take her place, the place she had sworn to protect until her dying breath. She was supposed to become the queen to their kingdom. Not a queen consort. A queen. To have that taken away from her because some oracle said so shattered everything she lived up to be. No man, not even her own father, would ever understand what meant. To her and to every single woman in their kingdom. She wasn't going to be a pawn in this game that she knew wasn't going to be fixed with easy solutions and trade-offs. There was a lot she could handle, what she would endure for her kingdom, but this absurd plan wasn't one of those things.

If there was one thing that this had proven to her, it was that in the grand scheme of things, she didn't matter much in this palace. She was a pawn to be traded, nothing more. Her father was much too quick to accept the trade, much too quick to send his heir, the heir to his throne away.

She knew that there was no great prophecy or divine words of the oracle. This was all pure strategy. From an early point she'd guessed that the point of the trade was to make sure that no kingdoms if a member of their own royal family was sitting on the throne.

Sakura smiled bittersweetly. If his father was to make the choice that quickly, she knew that there was little to no chance he would hesitate to attack, even if she was sitting on the throne. Her blood would be a sacrifice for the greater good.

"My birthright."

When Sakura finally got to her bedroom after walking in circles around the castle, she slammed the dark wood door shut so hard that the loud noise echoed throughout the empty corridors. Nobody in their sane mind would even consider entering her room now.

The pink haired princess collapsed on her soft bed filled with silky pillows. Sakura grabbed the nearest one and pushed her face against it, letting out the loudest scream she could. After screaming almost all the air out of her lungs, she could finally properly breathe again. She hadn't realized she'd been holding back.

She felt like crying, but she didn't want to, so she didn't. This wasn't something she was going to cry over and just blindly oblige to throwing her whole future away. Of course, restoring the peace was one of the most important things she could do for their kingdom. It wasn't as if Sakura didn't know that. It was something that she knew she should've done without hesitation, but to know that this was a last ditch effort to avoid war kind of took all the nobility out of her actions. To know that she was sold off in exchange for peace that wouldn't last long made her blood boil. After seeing the look on her father's face she knew that her own father wouldn't hesitate attacking a kingdom, even if his own daughter was on the throne. Had nobody really argued for her future? Why was it her that had to be sacrificed?

"UGH!" she growled and threw her tiara on the floor. It had a few strands of hair still stuck to it from before when she ripped it off her head. She hadn't even noticed it catching on any hairs. Sakura turned to lay on her side, staring out of the large window she had in her room. Breathing in, sorting things out in her mind and breathing out.

"And this is supposed to be the light side?" Sakura mumbled to herself. "Whoever came up with that was definitely wrong."

The night had fallen to the southern kingdom but Sakura still wasn't asleep. Her wedding was only a fortnight away and she wouldn't eat or sleep until that horrible day. Maybe, if she was lucky, she'd die of exhaustion before that. She stared at the sparkling tiara on the floor with large green eyes. The tiara was beautiful, there was no doubt about it. It was a symbol of her high status as a princess, but at the same time it reminded her of the fact that she was to be sent away to marry someone she didn't know in the name of achieving peace.

And that meant that she could never ascend to the throne of her own kingdom. She could never fulfill her birthright as a princess, meaning she could never rule her people like she'd been destined to. During her life that was all she'd been taught, it was everything she'd ever prepared for. And now it was taken away from her because an oracle nobody had ever heard of before said it would bring peace? How could her marrying someone else create peace? An alliance, maybe, but it wouldn't create peace. That was where everyone was wrong.

Sakura's eyes glimmered with tears as she continued to stare at her tiara. She didn't even want to touch it so she sure as hell wouldn't pick it up from the floor. The tiara had lost it's meaning in her eyes. Once it had symbolized her path to becoming the ruler of her land. Now it symbolized her future that had been taken away from her. It was almost painful to think about it.

That's when she heard a noise. "For fucks sake.." the princess growled, wiping tears from her eyes. Who was idiotic enough to dare bother her at this hour

Slowly her head was lifted from the pillows and she glared at her door. Who would be bothering her after midnight? She rose to her feet and walked to the door, not bothering to put her tiara back on. It was going to stay on the floor, where she would leave it. But when she checked, nobody was at the door. A fleeting feeling of annoyance ran through her, bringing up the boiling anger inside her again. Was someone playing games with her?

But when she turned her head, a beautiful white dove was quietly sitting on her windowsill. It was the bird who'd knocked on her window to gain her attention. The whole thing was bizarre, she rarely got anything from anyone - and when she did it sure wasn't delivered by birds. Sakura didn't recognize the dove, it was an ordinary bird so who would, but she still opened her window. That's when she saw the flash of the symbol of the eastern kingdom on the bird's neck. There was only one person in the eastern kingdom she knew that would think of something like this.

"Hello there.." she whispered to the bird as she carefully slipped off the note tied to the bird's leg. Once the paper was removed, the bird instantly flew away. Sakura was then left alone in silence. She watched the bird disappear into the darkness of the night and wouldn't open the tightly wrapped piece of paper before she lost the sight of it.

"Dear Sakura," Sakura read out loud, but quietly as if someone was listening. She clung to the words as if someone was there to take them way from her, tightly holding on to the small piece of paper in her hands.

"Meet me in the great forest at the border of the four tomorrow after the sun has gone down. Be careful."

It was signed by you know who and had a small hand-drawn picture of a cloud. A small smile rose to the princess' lips as she turned to look at the moon lighting up the darkened sky. She did indeed knew who it was and she sure as hell would be there. There was no doubt about it, nothing could stop her now.

She'd be there.

Phew, now that that's done, hello!

This is the first chapter adventure of a life time and I hope you enjoyed it! Maybe a little too short for my liking but but I can assure you - it only gets better from here.

❧ Goddess of glam