So suddenly, there was a surge of protectiveness, as fierce as fire washing over her. Eden suddenly wants to… to wrap her arms around her mistress’ shoulders, wants to hug her tight to her chest–to shield the child away from a woman who was supposedly the girl’s mother.
 
But Eden remembers, she remembers what she had witnessed from last night, about the Princess not wanting to be touched.
 
She remembers how badly the girl had writhed and clawed at the Queen’s outstretched hands just to be let go don’t touch me DON’T YOU DARE TOUCH ME.
 
“Princess Aria… what did she do?”
 
“Please,” the Princess answered, lips barely moving to form the words. She still wasn’t looking at her handmaiden and she was still shaking.
 
Eden ignored the way her heart drops, not liking what her mind is coming to nor the way her very breath trembled at the very thought as she pushed the words out; they were like knives stuck in her throat, but they had to be said, she has to know:
 
“What did she do to you?”
 
“S-Stop…” the Princess’ hands suddenly flew wildly to her face, fingers digging at her cheeks; her breath was hitching loudly, turning into an ugly, strangled sob, “Stop talking. PLEASE JUST STOP TALKING!”
 
 
“Did she hurt you?”
 
 
Her highness stilled.
 
One second, two, three, four, five, six, seven seconds…
 
Then, there it was.
 
Eden can hear it now.
 
There was a whimper, a dry, hitching sob.
 
Oh God. 
 
“Your highness…”
 
Oh God… no…
 
Like a puppet torn of its strings, her knees suddenly fall to the floor with a loud thud as a long, drawn-out wail bursted forth from her lips, nails desperately digging and…
 
And clawing at her face.
 
Eden can already see the angry marks, the thin lines of blood from where her fingernails are desperately burying themselves deep as though wanting to tear off her skin.
 
This time, instinct won over any reservations and the handmaiden all but threw herself down next to her mistress on the floor, on her knees, urgently grabbing and wrapping her hands around each thin wrist to keep the girl from scratching herself raw.
 
“Stop… p-please, stop doing that!”
 
But the Princess continued to cry, continued to scream and recoil away from Eden’s touch as if she was being burned, as if she couldn’t hear the screams other than her own, could no longer find it in her to care if she somehow skinned herself alive there and then. But Eden managed to clumsily pry her hands off of the girl’s face, forcing them right next to where the handmaiden’s heart is beating so madly in her chest before the girl could even do so much attempt to gouge her own eyes out, “Princess Aria, for the love of all that is pure and holy, please stop hurting yourself right this–!”
 
The Princess is frantically trying to pull her hands away from her handmaiden’s grip, but with little strength she has right now, it was all in vain.
 
Her pale face twists.
 
And she looks so furious, stricken.
 
There was a thin trail of blood, sweat and tears running down on each side of her pale face that was already dripping down on her dress, staining it a ghastly red.
 
“I WILL DO WHATEVER THE HELL I WANT WITH THIS BODY!” the Princess finally screams, a roar of rage and fear that shook the very walls and Eden’s heart, “If I wanted to starve myself or carve my face right off then that is my choice–no one else’s! Why does anyone think they can do whatever the hell they want with me? Why does anyone think they can dictate what I should do or not do?  This is my body. This is my life! If I wanted to hurt myself, to die then that is my choice! At least if my face is horribly disfigured no one would want to have me, they would be too disgusted to look, let alone touch me!”
 
A powerful tremor rocked through Eden’s frame.
 
Suddenly, those eyes, a bright, hateful hellfire zeroed in on Eden’s, teeth gnashing, “AT THE VERY LEAST I CAN STILL PRETEND THAT I STILL HAVE MY DIGNITY LEFT WHEN THEY…–!”
 
And Eden’s heart practically stops when those eyes… those glassy eyes of red suddenly dimmed down, the roaring hellfire in the girl’s gaze turning into dying embers.
 
The Princess’ frantic movements suddenly started to grow sluggish, weaker as her voice all but broke off and turned into hiccupping sobs as if all the fight left her just as unbidden as it came out of nowhere.
 
“W-Why…? I can… I can still see them,” the Princess manages to choke out past her sobs, her voice raw and hurt, her tiny hands desperately grabbing and fisting on the front of Eden’s dress as she all but buried her face on the side of the older girl’s neck, the fresh round of tears damping and running down Eden’s skin are cold rivulets as the child in her lap all but begged: “Please, please, I don’t want this, I don’t want any of this, Eden help me. MAKE THEM GO AWAY!”
 
And Eden knows what her next question is, but she doesn't want to ask it, she doesn’t want to know anymore because she is not ready. God, she’s not ready for… for this, she doesn’t want to hear the answer because she knows, and she actually might break down too–
 
“What did they do to you?”
 
Eden feels more than sees the girl shuddering in front of her, breathe hitching with one lone, choking sob then another and for a moment, Eden thinks the Princess doesn't even understand what she asked.
 
 
Very gently, Eden cups the girl’s face with two hands and looks down at her… only to see that the girl’s eyes were glazed, gaze completely unfocused as they stared at her, past her, through her–as though she's not here with her handmaiden right now, as though she is somewhere else and far from where she was.
 
She was as still as a statue.
 
And…
 
And was she even breathing?
 
“Princess…? Aria–”
 
Before Eden could blink, the Princess suddenly flinches away from her grasp; a howling, pained wail bursting forth from her mouth–
 
 
–and those were the screams of a person being torn apart, of a person losing everything they had left or worked hard for, of someone watching their most precious person being taken away, when you watch your parents leave you behind, of a little girl being hurt in ways that should have never been–
 
While Eden could do absolutely nothing but watch. Watch as the prideful little girl she had cared and watched over after all these years all but broke down and shattered right before her very eyes as though the Princess was nothing but made of millions of pieces of glass…. as though her heart was being clawed and ripped right out of her chest.
 
 
 
Eden sees more than feels her body moving again without thinking as she instinctively lurches forward to grab the little girl into a crushing, possibly painful embrace, fingers gripping the back of that too-long, too-dark hair that Eden personally had brushed every single night without fail while the other arm was wrapping around a small, thin body, keeping the Princess mostly upright as Eden all but buried the girl’s face in her chest as if to hide this child away, as if to shield her mistress from the rest of the world.
 
For a moment, Eden thinks she’s going to be pushed away; that the Princess might react so badly at being squeezed like this–or worse–than she did with the Queen.
 
However, the Princess just… melts against her.
 
The Princess all but sinks into her handmaiden’s arms, settles her face further into where Eden’s heart was beating so loudly in her chest as if hoping to hide or bury herself there, the sound of Eden’s heart was probably deafening to the ears, but the Princess just wraps her thin arms around her handmaiden as though not wanting to let go as well, as though intending to drown herself with the noise of a beating heart.
 
Eden holds the girl tighter, her sight instantly blurring with tears, and she blinks to will them away, “I am not going anywhere, I…. I won’t leave you. Shhh, it’s going to be okay. You’re going to be okay.”
 
Her only response is a broken whimper.
 
And Eden has never felt more of a liar.