[elowen]

   Blood.

   There was blood on her paws and on her face and in her mouth, the taste of flesh and copper fresh on her tongue as she ran. There had been so much blood, too much blood. What had she'd done? She'd killed someone, that's what she did. She was a fool and a coward, incorrigibly horrid and imperfect and she had killed someone. She had taken a life and now there was blood on her paws and her face and in her mouth and now on the ground as it dripped from her jaw. Her lungs heaved in her chest, the claw marks that scored her hindquarters from her long-gone pursuers beginning to cease their gentle weeping of her once-royal blood.

   (Some part of her was relieved to know that she did bleed crimson. So long had she spent, treated like porcelain. They told her she bled the golden ichor that , told her she was a treasure. They lied. But she had known that, hadn't she?)

   Her paws ached, unused to the sudden exertion. How long had she been hiding? How many months had she spent in a cave with only her wretched father to keep her company? The man who had worked alongside her mother to make her completely unprepared for the world ahead. (A world she was never meant to lay her eyes of ichor upon. Although, that plan seemed to have failed.) The man whose body she had buried, whose grave was now soaked with the blood of a stranger he hadn't known but had once ruled over. Some part of her whispered that he deserved the disgrace and desecration of his grave, that he deserved to have his bones stained by the blood of someone he had hurt. Someone felled by his porcelain princess.

   (She had no right to complain or bemoan her situation, did she? She had killed someone, someone with a family-)

   (Had they not tried to kill her first?)

   Her mind was a war zone, thoughts arguing as she tried to focus on the beat of her paws against soil that wasn't soaked with a dead man's blood and the heave of her chest. Much of her was marveling at the fact that she was alone in the wilderness, no guard for miles or family to be had. Gone, gone. All she had ever known was gone and some part of her was thankful.

   (Ungrateful. She was so ungrateful. Had her parents not provided the best life they could give? Had she not lived a life meant for kings and queens, for heirs of wealth and land far greater than she? How could she resent that? She was ungrateful, surely. She had been given a world far kinder than reality.)

   Mid-stride, the twilight-toned wolf crumbled to the ground, her legs giving out beneath her as she had ran. She went down hard and quick, choking on dust and blood and tears (when did she start crying?) and her own breath. Everything hurt and she felt horrible, some of her dark fur, once so lovely, matted with the blood of a man who she killed and whose name she didn't even know. Was this what it felt like to lose everything? To lose her siblings, her kingdom, her life, her parents, her "love," her world. Everything except for a pair of thick bands of rose gold on two thin silver chains around her neck, each with an elegant script on the inside to serve as a reminder. A reminder of the promises she made, of the oaths that her lying lips swore.

   (She'd already broken so many. How would her mother feel if she knew her daughter saw the plague and famine of their lands? Or that said daughter had stolen away in the night, leaving behind the bodies of those she had loved after they had been slaughtered. That she had taken a life?)

   But her mother had taken plenty of lives as well, hadn't she?

   Her mother, who had raised her an sang to her. Who had mourned the death of her dead pups but embraced the lives of those who survived. Who never let a mournful sorrow leave her delicate features. Who told her that her golden eyes were a blessing, a blessing from their gods that swore that she was a gift, a good omen. So long had the royal line strived for golden eyes, a tradition of not naming royal children until their eyes began to shift color. And hers had been gold. Gold, earning a name that she didn't want to belong to her anymore. Gold like the blessings of their god.

   Lying in the dirt with blood in her fur and on her teeth and a weight on her soul, she began to wonder if her eyes--if her name--were a blessing. How much pain and suffering had they brought, how many painful reminders and how many times had she had to look at herself and whisper, "I am not my father." Maybe she was becoming him, though. Had she not already taken a life so early on in her own? Had she not caused so much pain and misfortune?

   Golden eyes were no blessing. For her, they were only a curse.