A/N ;; Not once in this chapter do I mention "the girl's" name. I just couldn't find a place where I could fit it in that it would flow nicely with the rest of the sentence/paragraph/whatever. I didn't give her much of description, either. But that's just because I'm saving both of those for the next chapter.
Anyway, the people who review get... Triple Chocolate Cake. (Mmmm... Yum.)
So, tell me what you think?
She felt like she was drowning.
She was falling, spiraling down into an endless eternal pit. She felt like she was being consumed, like she was struggling for air, struggling to escape. She tried to keep her knees from shaking, from collapsing onto the floor. She wanted to try to defend herself, but her voice seemed to have left her the moment she stepped into the throne room.
Her breaths were quick and ragged, and her heart was pounding inside her chest.
It was that choked feeling that one gets when tears fill their eyes, eventually spilling over their cheeks. She wanted the lump that had formed in her throat to leave her, because it reminded her of the accusation that had caused it to lodge itself there in the first place, as comfortable as could be.
It was all of those small, uncomfortable feelings, the stares, and the words that were being whispered that contributed to the one big feeling. She wouldn't be able to save herself. There was no way. It was the queen's word against her own.
She desperately looked around the room, looking for someone – anyone – that could speak for her, come to her defense. As her eyes met each of the people that she used to be able to call her friends, gazes were pointedly turned away. They avoided her stare, however brief it was. There wasn't a single drop of remorse, only anger and blatant disgust.
To them, it didn't matter what she had said or done in the past. All that mattered to them was the present, what she was being accused of.
Finally, she looked back up at the queen, who simply frowned at her.
"I..." she finally spoke through her lump, her voice shaky and barely above a whisper. "I... didn't do it..."
The fear of convicting herself controlled her actions. Whatever she did she had to think of consequences and weigh the options. If she performed even one wrong move, it would be over. The game would end. She would lose.
A barrage of murmurs broke out among the maidens. Pieces of "But I saw her..." and "She's lying..." and "The Queen said..." reached the girl's ears and she squeezed her eyes shut, trying her best to shut out the words.
The emperor, the large man that he was, took a wobbly step forward, the necklace of Demon Fangs he wore swinging with his movements. He looked her over, surveying her. "The Queen has told me that she so very clearly saw you," he said, his voice calm, but laced with an intense undertone of anger.
She met the emperor's eyes and tried to keep her feelings in check. She didn't want to sob. She didn't want to cry. If anything, she wanted to leave the room with the small bit of dignity that she had left.
He motioned towards the girl. "Guards."
Instantaneously, two guards stepped forward from their places in the foreground and seized both the girl's arms, making her let out a low breath of pain. She didn't bother to struggle, but still kept her gaze trained on the queen, who looked back at her unwaveringly.
"Q-Queen Himiko..." she stuttered. She was already beginning to break apart. She was losing. "I-I–"
The emperor quickly stopped her from speaking, interrupting her with, "You know what to do." He stepped back, coming to stand beside Himiko, while the queen's eyes lingered on the girl's face.
The guards began to nudge her back, and she unsuccessfully tried to pull back from their grasps, though it only proved to make them grip harder.
As one last attempt at keeping herself in the throne room, she tried to press her heels into the floor. "Queen..." she muttered, louder than she had before. She was still struggling to speak over her lump. "Please, listen to me..."
She was slipping.
Her eyes were watering.
"Walk!" one of the guards barked in her ear.
It was a single, fluent movement orchestrated by a pale, slender hand, and just for a small moment, the world seemed to stop moving. There was silence among the room. Himiko stood from her throne, the tail of her kimono dragging across the ground as she approached the girl, flanked by two handmaidens.
She made a small signal to the guards and the girl's arms were released.
The girl was, as she should be, tangled in her own emotions. She felt immensely relieved that her request to speak to the queen had gotten through, yet she felt so betrayed by the people that surrounded her. She felt grateful to the queen for stopping the guards, yet angry that her ruler would make the mistake of confusing her with someone else.
As the girl looked up into the deep brown eyes of the queen, she could feel a single tear spill over her eye and fall down her cheek to the bottom of her chin. Her shoulders relaxed ever-so-slightly and her breathing slowed down to quiet, deep breaths. "My queen..." she murmured.
"Why would you do such a thing?" Himiko asked, her voice soft and feathery compared to the harsh whispers that the girl had been hearing since entering the throne room. "Just answer me that."
"I didn't... I wouldn't..." the girl answered slowly. "I couldn't do that..."
The queen's expression was like a blank canvas, emotionless, unreadable. Her eyes closed for a moment, then opened again, revealing an emotion that she had never seen the queen wear before. She didn't know what it was, but it was new.
The next words that came out of the queen's mouth put the girl into a state of shock. Her eyes widened, her breathing seemed to stop completely, her knees shook and her hands clutched at her kimono.
She thought she had had a chance.
She thought she had made it through.
The queen raised a slender arm and pointed towards the door, giving an unvoiced command. "Banned," she said simply. "Leave this city, and do not return under any circumstances. You are no longer welcome here."
A/N ;; This was a bit rushed at the end, but it could have turned out worse, right?