He thought he was going to die.

Sally walked through the glass tunnels of the palace terrarium. Tendrils of hair fell loose from the circlet and brushed her cheek and neck. Her skirts trailed on the stone and dirt beneath her feet.

At the end of the tunnel, Queen Alicia took her place on a glass bench, her gown pooling around her.

Sally stared, her eyes distant.

Strands of gold draped around her mother's body like trickles of water. Sunlight filtered through the windows to fall on her slight form, her head bowed. She fingered the pommel of an elegant sword hanging from her hip.

Sally's gaze locked on the sword. Carved from one solid piece of blur ore. It illuminated by night and frosted by day. The one her father had once used.

The queen looked up and the two met each other's eyes.

Down the tunnel, the doors to the terrarium shut and Sally's entourage began to take their positions around the dome, their backs to the glass. This was the one public place where only the royal family could enter and have privacy and solitude. Queen Alicia spent hours there.

Sally bowed her head. The Queen rose.

"Dear Sally…" Queen Alicia said. Her voice was gentle, soft. But the whole room seemed to vibrate with fear.

Sally blinked. She waited.

"I...I don't even approve of him," the queen tried. "…and yet…"

Sally lifted her eyes. She brushed her thumb along the leaf of an ornate tree at her side.

The queen never finished.

"He is insufferable," Sally agreed, her tone as light as she could make it. "But he is brave."

The queen's shoulders heaved as she rose to her feet. She walked to her daughter.

She took Sally's shoulders. Sally stared up at her and Alicia began to brush Sally's unruly hair back behind her ear into her circlet. "Your father is coming back, dear," she whispered. "Giving Sonic to the Doctor could buy us a little more time, even a few more months…surely we can hold out a few more months."

Sally stared up at her.

The Queen averted her gaze.

"Mama," Sally breathed. "We cannot-" her voice turned hard. "-Hide behind him."

Queen Alicia's color paled beneath her fur.

"He is our servant and subject and he is faithful," Sally almost snarled the words. "If our family was anything like father said the Royal Family of Aero should be, I would be the one standing in chains in that audience room every month, not him."

For a moment, neither one spoke. The queen did not look at her.

"Please don't," Queen Alicia whispered, finally.

Sally's eyes widened.

"I know you are here to tell me… Sally," Alicia said. "You are the heir to the throne and the hope of our people. If you…if something happened to you…" she could not continue.

"Mother," Sally said, "We may not have months."

Queen Alicia pinched her lips harder.

"Every night, I lay awake," Sally said, "Waiting, trying to guess which day it is going to be. I eat and walk and breathe with the stench of dread and ruin hovering over me…everywhere. Sonic is right. If I must die, I must die fighting and free. It is to the point where I have thought about it for so long, that facing them means almost nothing to me now. I cannot live waiting another moment, not now that that he plans to take Sonic." Sally lowered her voice. "You…you know what he, I and Bunnie and—and the others do. If we lost his speed and Ringweilding…I can't even think how we could…I don't know…" Sally shook her head to herself. "But more importantly than that, it's wrong. Father would not let this happen to him. I have to—"

The Queen raised her hands to her face and her shoulders began to shake. "Oh, Sally."

Sally stopped.

She stared, her eyes filling with grief.

Inside, she cracked open, the part of her that had to be strong. She would have given anything to take her mother away. She never should have had to be ruling queen. She was a healer, not a politician.

Why wasn't her father here?

Sally flung her arms around her mother and hugged her as hard as she could. "Mama-" she gritted out.

"I am sorry," the Queen gasped. "I never should have let that human come here." She closed her eyes and barely mouthed the words. "Do what you must, Sally…and may there be mercy for me," she added. "So I can do…" she heaved back the tears, clutching the hilt of the sword at her side. "…what I must as well."


Finally got a spare moment to upload some more chapters! I'd upload more, but they need some editing first. Thank you again so much for taking time to read! X]

Merry Christmas again! Only ten more days!

~Connie