[i]The rain beats down.[/i] Adila has been here before. She's holding Princess Hornet's hand still but it's cold and limp and it feels like they couldn't be further apart. [i]I don't know the way home[/i]. She's watching a heart freeze over, a despair that has been growing for years and years beneath a mask that's finally slipped. [i]There's no place for me in Hyperborea anyway[/i]. She didn't know - nobody knew, nobody cared to look. [i]There is something wrong with me for wanting what I can't have.[/i] And worst of all, Princess Hornet doesn't even have a little light to guide her through the storm. [i]This is how it was always going to happen.[/i] Her vision flashes with blinding silver. [b]BE HER LIGHT.[/b] Their fingers had been drifting apart - so close to being lost. And then Adila's grip tightens, full of determination. +I have been a terrible friend,+ thought Adila. +I've always been so lost in my own head and my own problems that I haven't noticed anyone around me. I wanted friends so badly while somehow not ever seeing that I was blessed enough to have a best friend besides me all along. I've been selfish, Princess Hornet, and distant, and mean - and the worst of all the princesses. I thought I had a [i]duty[/i] and that meant putting rules above people...+ She finally picks the silver Watch badge off her cloak. She holds it for a second, looking at it - all the emotions, the ambitions, the striving for a piece of metal that didn't mean anything any more. She held it like she might crush it - but instead she gently lowered it down and put it in Princess Hornet's other hand. +I don't know what I'm going to do now that I'm free of it all. But I know that I want to be a better friend to you, if you can forgive me.+