It wasn't often that one was given the opportunity to deliver their manifesto. There was a whole potential rant there in some corner of her mind; a diatribe about injustice and political convenience, how the Capital was as much a nest of vipers as everyone had always said it would be, how somehow the people there had interpreted [i]Speak Not[/i] as [i]Lie Constantly[/i]. She felt the scales on her neck tense and a bitterness come to her mind. She could let it all out in that moment. The grudge and the pain and the broken heart.

She resisted the urge. Why feed the speculation with all the juicy details about who was kissing who and why? Why let herself be cut by the distant blade? Why even think about the girl who for whom she had conquered worlds? The girl who could not speak, the girl who could not tell the truth, and the girl who could not communicate...

Why not stay in this brighter place? It certainly wasn't the worst thing she'd been called, and not the worst thing she'd called herself. The Knight who betrayed the world for love. Couldn't she live in that legend? 

[i]That's correct[/i], she said, and grinned. [i]For love. Now, and always.[/i]

She wished some part of her didn't hope that word of that did not get back to the Empress.