• Amelia giggled as her mother poked her nose and kissed her cheek.

    "But why, mommy? Why can't daddy know that he isn't--"

    She was shushed by her mother's fingers pressing against her small lips.

    "Shh...My baby, no one must ever know..." The Queen whispered as she tucked the blankets in around Amelia. She placed a kiss on the child's forehead, and brushed her fingertips over her eyelids, running them down her cheek lovingly.

    "Sleep my baby...Just sleep..." The Queen stood up gracefully, and stepped out of the room, wiping away the tears brimming her bottom eyelids, and closed the door softly, with a distinct click. She turned around, and gasped, surprised to see herr husband standing not two inches from her face. His normally warm, grey eyes stared back into hers, cold, harsh, and seemingly judgmental.

    She smiled, her lips quivering in fear of why he seemed so upset.

    "Hello, dear. How are you this ev-"

    "Follow me, now." He cut her off, turned on his heel, and entered the office that was down the hall.

    The Queen followed him, bewildered. He had never used such an...evil tone in his voice with her before, in all five years that she had been married to him. Though, deep down, she knew, she knew damn good and well what was wrong with him. He had heard exactly what her dear daughter had, and he was not happy about what he heard.

    She entered the room, and observed her surroundings. The room was freezing, despite the blaze flickering form within the marble fireplace, and each candle placed on pedestals in each corner of the room. The walls were cement, the furniture either slate grey, or pitch black. The room itself had an eerie glow to it, as all of the shadows were caused by the room itself--there were no windows, and the only exit was the door they entered from. The only other people in the room were two guards, on the far side of the room, standing with their backs towards the entrance.

    "What's wrong, dear? What ails you so terribly?" She asked, hoping that her assumptions weren't correct, and that it was something completely different.

    The King sighed, extremely aggravated, with her, and with himself for even believing what he had heard.

    "There have been whispers, Lenne...The whispers have been going on for some time now, but it seems their volume escalated until what it was today. I ignored them at first, but they are loud, Lenne. They are loud, persistent whispers, that I simply can no longer ignore, and so I am confronting you. Not even my wonderful, peaceful gardens are safe from their whispers, Lenne. The maids, the townsfolk...Everyone whispers now-a-days. Why, Lenne? Have you heard them, my love? Surely you have? They might as well be whispering in your ear, with how frequent and loud as they are." The King stared into her eyes, trying to read the emotions and thoughts that hid behind her sparkling deep blue eyes.

    The queen shook her head. "No, my King. I haven't heard such rumors. Remus...I don't listen to things such as that. They are to be put out with the next weeks garbage, love. You should know that."

    The King punched the desk to his right. "Damnit, Lenne. How can you not listen? They are about me, you, and our daughter? How can you stand there, and hear them, without setting them straight. Lenne...They say..The whispers, that is...They say that Amelia..that she is not my child. That I am clean, that I can not produce an heir, and I panicked, and sent you to some man, in my leave. I did no such thing, I know...But you- The guards informed me that you had left, and arrive the night I returned, mere hour prior to myself. Why, Lenne? Where were you?"

    Lenne smiled sadly at her husband, and placed a gentle palm atop his cheek, and almost brought herself to the brink of crying as he jerked away as if she had melted the flesh that resided there.

    "No, my dear. I pushed them out, so that I didn't hear them at all. I merely went to visit my bed-ridden mother, who--"

    "No, Lenne." He broke off her words.

    "She died two months prior. You were with someone...A man, no doubt. Who, Lenne? Tell this King, so that I may know." He massaged his temples, upset, infuriated, and on the brink of tears.

    "I-- I-- Why? What would you do with him?" She stood there, denying the King.

    "Lenne! You will tell me who you spend four months with, unaccompanied, and why!"

    She glared. "He is my love, unlike you. He cares for me. I will never tell you his name--You would have him murdered!" She was in tears now, she hated him seeing her weak, but she couldn't push them back any longer.

    The King, infuriated, spat in a goblet on his desk. "I should toss you out with the next weeks wastes, as if you were this cup. You are the lowest of low, to go behind my back...My Queen, my wife..."

    His voice grew to deeper lengths. "You will soon see, just how clean I am..."

    The Queen's eyes widened, shocked. "You wouldn't dare..."

    "GUARDS!" He ordered their attention.

    "Please go patrol the front gates until I call for your presence to be returned to my side."

    "Yes sir!" They nodded, and walked in step, out of the door.

    The King took large deliberate steps, pushing the door closed, with a small opening, and then turned heading towards his wife.

    She gasped, and backed up, but he caught her before she could take more than three steps.

    "We'll now see who's clean and who's not."


    Amelia sat up in her bed, clutching the bedsheets with a death grip.

    "Mommy.....? Mommy...?!?" The little girl cried out into the night.
    She heard noises down the hall, and so she scampered towards them, her tiny feet making little pattering noises as she ran, looking for her mother. Once she reached the room where the noises were coming from, she peeked through the cracked open door, and gasped. Her daddy was...Her mother.... She closed her eyes and fell down, beginning to cry silently, the tears pouring down her rosy cheeks.

    He glared at her naked body lying on the ground, shuddering as she cried.

    "I can't birth a child? I don't have an heir? The heir I had, is a b*****d? Lenne, you [not gaia appropriate]! How could you do this to me? Eh? EH? Answer me, [not gaia appropriate]!"

    He pulled her body halfway off of the ground by her hair.

    "I didn't break your jaw, [not gaia appropriate]. Speak!"

    When she still didn't break, he threw her into the desk.

    Amelia, once she heard the screaming begin again, pushed open the door, and ran over to her mother's broken body. She was pale, covered in bruises, and abrasions. small cuts covering her slender form. She threw herself over her mother, crying.

    "No, daddy! Don't hurt mommy! I'll fix it, daddy. I'll make it all better! I love you daddy! Please don't hurt mommy!" She tried to plead.

    Her mother's weak hand managed to stroke her hair once, before falling down to her side, as she saw black, and her breathing became ragged.

    "Mommy!" She shrieked, turning back to her mother.

    She cried out as she was slung into the back of the door to the room, the last thing she witnessed was her mother being choked of what little oxygen she could manage to get to her lungs. She then saw black, and she prayed that it stayed that way, but things never go how you want them to.