Serenity

The Dark Queen castle gates loomed ahead, massive and black, carved from stone that seemed to drink the light. Serenity walked at the hero's side, her boots quiet against the cracked cobblestone path, her tail still behind her despite everything pulling at her chest. She had chosen to walk. Her own two feet. Her own form instead of being carried as object. It had felt important, though she hadn't examined why. Maybe I should... No. Don't. Not now. The thought cut through cleanly. A sudden need to break the silence, to explain, to try to figure it out before reaching the destination, quickly silenced by cold logic solidity of which settled on her mind for days now. There's nothing to figure out. You already know what needs to happen. She did know. The clarity of it was almost a relief. The only path that kept the hero breathing, was this one. This was the only shelter that was real. She just needed them to understand that. Tell him. Explain it now, before... NO. Her jaw set. Her eyes tracked the way ahead, the open doors bleeding dim torchlight into the dark. Words would only complicate things. She knew the hero after countless adventures, knew exactly how this conversation ended if she started it here. She needed their inside now, contained and forced to listen to what she has to say. It's fine. You'll explain after, they will understand. The thought settled in as she crossed the threshold beneath her feet, the internal doubts she had before suddenly all gone, only clarity of what needs to be done left behind. Her arm moved. It was fast. It was precise. It was, she told herself, kind, as her strike caught the hero cleanly from behind giving no opportunity to react, with a sound she refused to feel anything about. She caught their body as it crumpled, lowering them to the cold stone floor with a gentleness that contradicted the violence of the act. "Take a nap," Her voice came out steadier than she felt. Her eyes shifted, yellow bleeding into something deeper, redder and wrong, fixed on his unconscious face.. "You'll thank me later. You'll understand later. I'll make you understand." Hours later, Serenity was sitting on a stone bench in one of the castle's lower dungeons, dressed now in the court attire the Dark Queen had provided. Dark leather and a cloak draped across her shoulders bearing Soliana's mark. She looked, for all intents and purposes, exactly like what she had become. In her hand, she held a chain, fine-linked and silver. It ran from her fingers to the collar at the hero's throat, a clean piece of enchantment work, nothing more. Power-dampening, yes. Uncomfortable, perhaps. Temporary, certainly. She turned it once in her grip. "It's for their own good," she whispered to herself, watching their chest rise and fall in the torchlight. So hero doesn't do something stupid the moment they wake up. Which, based on centuries she knew them, they probably would. Her tail curled once against the bench, slow and almost involuntary. This was protecting them. That was the entire and complete fact of the matter. it will come off the moment they agrees. Just temporary solution. Her ears twitched at distant sounds echoing through the castle corridors. In last few hours she had been introduced to the court already. Phelone, with her honeyed words and evaluating gaze, had studied Serenity with unsettling fascination. Mirelle had taken her hands and spoken of shared suffering with genuine warmth that made Serenity's skin crawl for reasons she refused to examine. And Vash... Vash had simply watched with patient, knowing eyes that promised things Serenity didn't want to contemplate. Alex has to understand before anyone else gets involved. The thought came with an urgency that bordered on desperate. She needed them to hear her first, to accept her logic the way they had accepted her counsel across so many lifetimes. If they just listened, if they trusted her the way they always did... none of the others will need to take an interest. When they wakes, she will explain. Calmly. Clearly. She will lay it out in terms even someone inclined toward heroic self-destruction could not reasonably argue with. "Wake up soon, you idiot." she murmured, her tail curling around her leg. "And for once in your cursed existences, just listen to me so I can keep you safe."