Little Lights

A Villain's Ever After

The realms were closing. Glasslike walls of energy crashing closed around us. Two guards held me back by my arms as I screamed from the very depths of my soul.

Wind whipped my white hair and salty tears stained my freckled cheeks.

My everything was on the other side of the room and between us had grown a wall. Our dimensions had about sixty more seconds of alignment until they slipped apart forever.

I crashed to my knees and sobbed when my black eyes met his blue. My chipped black nails darkened the promise ring on my left hand and only made me cry harder when I saw the word, 'forever' engraved under the opal.

"Ryder why does it have to be this way!?" I sobbed, "I don't understand why they won't let us be together!"

Ryder approached the crystalline wall until he knelt in front of me, only the barrier and a few inches of cruel space between us.

He placed his hand on the glass and looked at me from under his bangs with those soft puppy eyes.

"This isn't goodbye, love." he whispered, sending shivers down my spine, "I will find a way back to you, my alien princess."

I brushed the tears from my lavender skin, "If you don't I will find you and kill you." I threatened through my hiccups.

He chuckled, "That's sounds so adorable it's almost human."

"I hate you." I laughed through two more tears, "But I love you more."

"Love-hate relationships aren't supposed to be healthy." he said seriously, "But I love you too."

I placed my hand over his with the glass between us and mustered up a smile with his brave, kind eyes supporting me.

Then colors shifted through the walls and his face started to fade as the color swept his image away. The glass swirled and the wind whipped and I saw his eyes one more time before they were dashed away and the wall disappeared.

My hand fell through as the glasslike surface I was touching vaporized.

I collapsed to the floor. My sobs frozen in my throat as I struggled to breath.

It was quiet...

...suffocatingly quiet.

I laid there for several minutes, my breath finally becoming less and less shallow. When I finally took a deep breath, my expression hardened.

I looked up at the guards, fury boiling my blood slowing but surely.

My dark heart had broken, and hell would ring loose.

My ear-splitting scream shattered the windows of the room and the guards dropped dead even as they ran for the exit.

The walls cracked and the chandelier sent showers of crystals everywhere as it fell not far to my right. Ceiling rubble crumbled around me and the very earth beneath this stone cold marble trembled at the sound of my sorrow.

My screaming stopped and in the distance you could hear children crying and people yelling in alarm.

"That's what it sounds like to lose everything." I growled at the outside world, my eyes going completely black, "Now it's your turn."

•<>•

"I heard someone loved her once." a whispering gossip revealed to their companion.

"Was he mad!?" their companion gasped, "She's the very embodiment of evil!"

"I heard she wasn't always," the first speaker replied, "Back when we were babes and the queen was only seventeen."

"You mean when the eternal winter started." the second shuddered, "What was she like when it was warm?"

"I've heard rumors from our mothers, but they sound too heavenly to be real. I almost am starting to believe it's all a fairytale and nothing was ever warm."

"I hate the queen."

"Shh! Are you daft!? What if someone heard you!?"

"There's no one around. Besides, I am just saying what everyone is thinking!"

"I'm not so sure."

"What are you talking about?"

The first companion was silent for a minute, staring at the horizon to the West, wondering if there was still a young man out there searching for their icy queen.

"I don't know," she continued, "I just think that maybe the queen is a princess who never got saved. Like a fairytale that didn't have a 'happily ever after.' I mean, haven't you ever wondered what the tales would be like if the prince charming never saved his princess?"