a/n | Thank you for anyone who read, alerted, or reviewed c:

Another thing: the introduction was a bit short, and not the most described, but this is still in the introduction. The chapters will be longer after I have introduced the characters, so the first three or four chapters will be something of a long introduction.

Disclaimer | I do not own Bloodlines.

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"Have I gone mad?"

— Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland.

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Jill ran her small hands over the walls of the large room, much too big for a single person—though she had learned from her older sister that royalty included luxuries being thrown at you, she couldn't see any sense in having such a large room for only one girl.

Though the room was large, it had quickly grown boring to her. It was simply a room, after all—what sort of person would be able to find amusement in four walls and a ceiling? No matter high the ceiling was or how tight or open the walls were, it was a room all the same, and she missed her small room with Adrian.

Though she hadn't known Adrian personally when the both of them were in court, he knew her sister well, and that was enough for Jill to welcome Adrian as a mobile home. He was the closest thing to familiarity she would see, and she accepted his spirit-induced madness as some strange normal.

As compared to the people of the institute, Adrian was completely sane—he had his mind, save moments of randomly strung words due to the darkness, and he had the same personality he did when Jill had met him: sarcastic, sadistic, amused, and bright. He was much like Christian Ozera, the fire-user that Jill had known for much longer than she had known Adrian, but she was fairly sure Adrian wouldn't want to hear it.

Jill was the only one in the institution who was completely sane, but she was much too trusting. When she was written off as insane, she believed it. She believed that she had lost her mind when they told her she had, and she believed that she was going insane whenever she had a strange thought.

She chalked everything down to insanity simply because she was unlike Adrian, and she couldn't bring herself to believe that she was sent to as mental institution simply because she was unsafe.

There were plenty of people much more dangerous in the institution than there were at court, in Jill's opinion—she could remember Avery Lazar attempting to stab her with a fork only a few days ago, but she was protected by the man who was both her guardian and her doctor.

Still, Adrian's words stayed in her mind. When she roomed with him, he would repeat the truth to her each day so that it would drill into her mind and so that she would have a stronger desire to run away from the institution.

He believed that she would be able to manipulate her way into returning to court if she believed him, but she never did—she didn't believe someone would lock her away purely because they were unsure how to protect her otherwise, and trusted the judgment of her uppers.

She was innocent, gullible, and naive; she was a girl.

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"How have you been?"

This was a question uttered to Jill every day, but the question was different than the one asked to the other patients. The question was for the doctor's sake for he wanted to know how she was, how happy she was, how safe she was. He wanted to know if she was afraid or hurt so that he could shield her from the institution, and frankly? He wanted to know everything about her.

She saw the question as routine, but each time he asked her how she had been, his hazel eyes whispered, "I love you."

She was gullible to the way that the young doctor, not even eighteen, loved her, and she was innocent to the nature of his love. She was small, and she was unexposed. She didn't have a clue what love was, how to fall in love, or how to distinguish the obvious look of love in a man's eyes when he was in love with her.

Or perhaps this was because this doctor was the only man who had fallen in love with the jade-eyed water user, and the only man who would take a thousand bullets simply so she could smile.

His name was Edison Castile, but she knew him as Eddie.

"I've been the same," Jill offered him a bright smile, and Eddie smiled in turn from the contagious optimism the look held, "I used the chalk you gave me to try and draw on the walls like you said, but I don't like drawing very much—Adrian might appreciate them more, but I get frustrated when I draw. Because I draw badly."

Eddie chuckled softly at the rambling girl, answering questions he hadn't yet asked, "Have you encountered Avery recently?"

Jill shook her head quickly, accidentally bringing curls of brown hair to fall in her eyes. She frowned, trying to smooth the wavy curls behind her ear, obviously distracted by her hair. Eddie felt the urge to brush the hair aside for her, but he wouldn't give himself the liberties of touching her porcelain skin or glossy hair.

"Who?"

"Avery Lazar—surely you remember her?" His voice was teasing, and he had to keep himself from laughing when the look of annoyance crossed Jill's lovely features.

"I didn't hear you," Jill murmured, then brightened, "I haven't seen Avery in the last week—is she still here?"

Eddie responded with a short nod, then elaborated, "She's being put in isolation at the moment, and when she is finished with her punishment, she will be put in a therapeutic session."

"I don't understand you when you talk like that, Eddie."

"Maybe because the information is supposed to be confidential." Eddie glanced back down at Jill, watching as she blinked her eyes in a begging way, looking to him innocently. He groaned—the look always got him, and he was always talking before he knew what he was saying, "Avery's being put into complete isolation. It's a different level of isolation than routine—she only receives food through a small window, and gets a small bag of old blood each day as food for a week or two. Then, she'll be taken into therapy."

Jill frowned at the thought—she wasn't as particular about her source of blood like Adrian was, she was still revolted by the thought. Like any moroi, she tried to drink from the source, and was grateful the institution provided a line of feeders at lunch as they had at school. Blood mixed into drinks was sickening, but the thought of drinking stale blood left a sickening taste of copper in her mouth.

"That sounds disgusting."

"It is." Eddie stood up, sitting on the table by Jill in an unprofessional way, but he wasn't much of a professional when it came to Jill. He spoke to her easily, and rarely took notes on her behavior because he knew she was perfectly sane. He loathed the fact that the angelic girl had to be trapped in such a place, and though he knew it would make no difference, he wrote short notes each day of Jill's progression.

Though it was 'safe' for Jill in the institution, it wasn't right in his mind—she wasn't half-mad, but she blindly believed the lie that she was with each passing day. She listened to her superiors telling her that she was losing her mind, but she would easily be cured, and Eddie was terrified that the thought of being insane would drive true insanities into her mind.

She was too lovely to fall under the grip of darkness, and she was too pure to believe that she was going to lose her mind. The thought drove nightmares into her mind, and the descriptions of the nightmares shook Eddie when she spoke them to him the next day.

"You're not crazy, Jill." Jill looked up to him, confused, and Eddie held up a hand to quiet her so that he could finish his train of thought, "You don't truly believe you are, right?"

"I don't know," Jill said slowly, letting her green eyes flicker down to the ground, "How can you define someone as insane? Isn't everyone both crazy and sane in their own right? It's a matter of perspective, not what you write on a paper."

Eddie chuckled softly, "You're sounding like Ivashkov with your poeticism, Jill." He had never thought of Adrian's spirit-induced ramblings as insanity as others had diagnosed it as. Though Adrian wasn't completely sane, Eddie thought of Adrian's nonsensical words as a different form of artwork. The green-eyed moroi was an artist in more ways than one, and even with his moments of 'insanity' he managed to paint a haunting picture with his words.

"Is that an insult or a compliment?"

"It's a compliment, Jill." Eddie's hazel eyes drifted to the clock, signaling him that he only had a few more minutes with her. He hastily picked up his clipboard and pen, putting down some random notes to make it seem as though he had been observing her like she was some animal for the past half hour.

No bad dreams. Afraid of patient Lazar after attack (rational). Extremely calm. Happy. Feeling claustrophobic in this building. Misses her sister.

He wrote something of the sort each day—though the positive notes would never be enough, he saw it as all he could to help save Jill from what he called a prison.

"Goodbye, Jill. I'll see you tomorrow."

Though it tortured him, at the end of the day, he knew that he could do nothing to save the fragile girl.

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question of the day:

What's your favorite Disney movie? Mine is Frozen after watching it countless times c:

Leave a review, and tell me what you thought c: