[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/H0jWy99h.png[/img][/center] [color=gray] [color=slateblue]Time:[/color] Morning [color=slateblue]Location:[/color]The Woods > Drunkards day event [color=slateblue]Mention:[/color] Callum [@helo] [color=slateblue]Interactions:[/color] [color=slateblue]Appearance[/color]: Light blue summer dress, Hair wild and curled. No shoes. Ari had been sitting there for hours, glaring at the sealed box as if sheer will might force it open. It didn’t move. The morning light broke through the trees, catching on the ornate lines of the magic etched across it. She didn’t blink. Her chin stayed tucked against her knees, arms wound tight around herself, like letting go might unravel her entirely. Her eyes flicked, just once, to the stack of journals set neatly to the side. Untouched. They looked smug somehow, like they knew she was too much of a coward to open them. Afraid of what might be waiting inside. Afraid that maybe her parents had taken her memories to protect her. Maybe it had been for her own good. Her stomach knotted at the thought. No. That was the story she refused to swallow. They hadn’t protected her. They had stolen from her. Her memories. Her voice. Everything that belonged only to her. Her hand shot forward before she could second-guess herself, dragging one of the journals into her lap. Her fingers hovered on the cover. Breath caught. Then she opened it. The handwriting was hers. And yet it wasn’t. Neater. Sharper. Forced into tidy lines as though someone had tried to train her pen the same way they trained her smile. Familiar, but wrong. Her throat tightened. She dropped her eyes to the page. [b][center][i]They think I trip because I’m clumsy. That I knock over glasses, bump into lords, speak out of turn, and forget my place because I’m foolish. It’s almost charming to them, I imagine. Poor Ariella, such a mess. Such a wayward thing. But it’s all a lie. I’ve built this image carefully. Like a spider builds her web, strand by calculated strand. They laugh. They dismiss. They look away. And all the while, I watch. I listen. I wait. Every spilled drink, every crooked curtsy, every “accidental” insult to one of Mother’s beloved friends,it’s a blade in her side. Embarrassment, shame, whispers… let her choke on them. Let her squirm in her silks, clutching at the legacy she worships. They all deserve to suffer for pretending this cage is a home.[/i][/center][/b] Her breath stuck in her lungs. She should have flinched at the venom in the words, recoiled from the malice. Instead, a shiver rippled through her, something sharp and familiar. She remembered the clumsy bows, the wine slipping from her grip, the sideways words that cut deeper than they should have. She had always told herself it was chance, nerves, a curse of being wrong-footed in the wrong world. But the words on the page, her own words, said it had never been an accident at all. Her hand pressed flat against the ink, holding it steady, holding herself steady. It felt like looking into a mirror and finding a stranger’s face staring back. A stranger she recognized. She turned a few pages with trembling fingers. [b][center][i]…Locked up again. Mother shrieking through the halls that I’ll be the death of her. She swears she saw me using magic in the courtyard. Magic. As if she’d even know what real magic looks like. As if I’d waste it on her. She bolts the door like wood and iron could keep me in. As if I’m not already free. She lives every day convinced I’m waiting to slit her throat. What a life to live, it's pathetic. Sometimes I almost pity her. Then I remember how much she hates me. How badly she wants me small, obedient, to be nothing. She doesn’t even fear me because she knows me. She fears me because she refuses to. One day, I should show her. Show her what real power looks like. Watch her face when she realizes the lock was never what kept me inside.[/i][/center][/b] Her pulse thudded in her ears. She read on. [b][i][center]The king parades again, drunk on jewels and borrowed power. They call it law, order. Rules bent to keep thrones standing. Chains dressed in gold. But power doesn’t sit in chairs, doesn’t shine in crowns. It hums in roots, in storms, in silence just before blood is spilled. That’s where it lives. That’s where it waits. They cannot cage it, cannot buy it, cannot bend it to their will. The earth sings to me. Life, death, bloom, decay. All the songs they pretend not to hear. But I hear it. I feel it. The wildness in my veins, the truth their decrees can’t touch. Let the king rot on his throne. Let his courtiers smile with sharpened teeth. Their power is borrowed. Mine is real. Mine is eternal. And when the earth swallows their kingdoms whole, I will laugh as their jewels scatter in the dirt where they belong.[/center][/i][/b] Ariella closed her eyes. Her breath trembled in her throat. The last words clung to her like smoke, heavy and unshakable. She didn’t recoil. She didn’t want to. It felt like recognition. Like something buried deep had stirred awake. Her hand slid over the page, slow, deliberate, as though she were touching the hand of a friend she had once known. Closing the book, she held it tight to her chest. Above her, the morning light cut through the leaves. She lifted her gaze to the canopy, emerald eyes catching the sun. She wasn’t sure if the journals scared her or if they made her feel whole, but a smile spread to her face. —--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Arriving late, Ariella slipped into the edge of the gathering just as the bidding was reaching its crescendo. Voices collided with one another in the air, a drunken chorus of shouting and applause, the attention of every eye pulled toward a single figure at the center of it all. [color=00F8FE]“Three-hundered!”[/color] Prince Callum bellowed, his voice carrying over the noise as he waved his arm high. [color=00F8FE]“You. Me. Team-up. [b]TRIANGLE DATE!"[/b][/color] His grin split wider, almost feral in its delight, and he flourished his whiskey as though it were a royal scepter. [color=00F8FE]“And we give a big ol’ pile o’ gold to feed the people!”[/color] The crowd erupted in laughter and hollers, some cheering, others pounding their mugs on tables until ale sloshed over the rims. Ariella’s gaze fixed on him, her brow creasing. His arms stretched wide, crown askew on his head, the glittering metal nearly tumbling free with every movement. It wasn’t his familiar mocking grin that unsettled her; it was the crown. Callum, who cursed its weight, who swore he’d never wear the thing, now wore it as if it were nothing more than a party trick. That image gnawed at her. She stayed in the back, pressed against the shifting sea of bodies. The air was thick with sour ale and sweat, every breath steeped in the stench of beer. Slurred voices cracked and broke like waves against her ears, drunken songs about the sea spilling from broad-chested men who stumbled into her as if she were part of the ground, nearly missing her exposed toes with their large boots. Their laughter rolled heavy, careless, echoing through her bones. For a heartbeat, she wanted to cut through the crowd, seize Callum by the arm, and tell him what she had found in her journals. The words were a weight inside her throat, begging release. But she held back. It was his day, his chaos, his crown teetering at a dangerous angle. So she watched, silent, the swell of the crowd rising and falling like a tide around her. Her eyes drifted away from the prince, combing the gathering. Every unfamiliar face etched itself into her mind, the sharp smiles, the glassy stares, the shifting shadows between them. With so many gathered in one place, the day was a maze of opportunities. Reaching for a drink that was offered to her, she took it with little thought, smiling before taking a long drink of the ale as she continued to watch the auction. [/color]