(or, the queer barbie retelling we've all been waiting for.)
Nerymatha was once promised the world, and is realizing there's nothing but dirt and smoke under the stones of her Palace - and in order to save her Empire, she must marry the next kingdom...
(You might not know it. You might not even have noticed it. But it's here, always.)
It has different names, depending upon who you may ask. Prison. School. Fortress. Institute.
But if you ask the right person (and you always will, eventually), they will look at you in the eyes and say "Arephiza". They will not say what it is, nor explain what it means, but deep in your bones, deep in your heart, you will feel the ageless fear that only comes from the unknown.
And fear, for terrifying this place is.
-
EARLIEST MEMORIES OF joining The Academy - infamous Arephiza - are always the same: threadbare sheets on rotting beds in endless cold and windy dorms.
(The Academy is not a happy place. It was never meant to be.)
(It is a place as unhappy as a lonely rock in the middle of the seas. It is a place of solitude, forced redemption, and hatred.)
(It is a place where no love can take its roots.)
-
THE GIRL THIS story is about realizes this as soon as she's taken there.
Introduction ceremonies at The Academy aren't pretty things. When hers takes place, she's old enough to understand that whatever comes next won't be like the life she's lived before — silverlined plates and gold candelabras, and above all: unconditional motherly love.
When hers takes place, it goes like this: she has to swear on her heart that her parents were criminals, dangerous threats to the peace of the Empire, and thus must live her life in seclusion, in redemption, to pay back for her parents' deeds.
(Long after, long after, once she will be freed of that place and tasted love and sunshine, she will still remember; the pain, the humiliation, the loneliness. Of course, one of her first action as ruler of the new world will be to ensure the safety and caring of all children.)
(She will also, with the most eminent scholars, search what was the crime her parents had committed. She will never find out about them. She will never find them. Up until the day when she will look in the other girl's eyes and know she has found true love, and sobs from the crowd will draw her in, and she'll finally stare into eyes she once knew but never forgot.)
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