Fear crept through Ariella as she sat near her father, listening as they discussed the state of affairs, the deaths, the weakening of their kingdom, and considered their options. Of course, using the term options was somewhat misleading, as it implied the existence of more than one, whereas their current situation left them with precious few, and among those only one was a truly viable course of action. As reality set around her, the fear was slowly replaced by a feeling of icy cold numbness.<br/><br/>“I’ll do it,” she heard her own voice, barely audible even to herself over the other voices in the room. As the icy cold numbness became cold determination, she clenched her hands tightly into fists and rose from her seat as she steeled herself for what was to come. “I will do it,” her voice rang loud and clear this time, commanding an immediate silence in the room. She felt all eyes on her, expressions of surprise and shock colored most of the faces as silence hung thick in the air for too long before the faintest murmurs could be heard, followed by more, getting louder until the room had filled with the steady buzz of chatter.<br/><br/>There was one expression, though, that seemed unreadable to all except Ariella, who had spent years studying those kingly features. To everyone else, his expression probably looked the same as it had throughout the meeting, but Ariella could see the hard set in his jaw that told her that he hadn’t wanted this, the barely noticeable release of tension in his shoulders that told her he was relieved to have a solution without having to force this upon her, and the faintest glimmer of pride in his eyes. “You’re sure?” he asked, getting a resolute nod in response.<br/><br/>“Yes,” she told him, doing her best to maintain this facade of certainty, to hold back the fears that had begun to creep back up. “You aren’t afraid to marry one of them?” someone asked, but if it surprised the young princess, she didn’t show it. Instead, she looked down at her slightly trembling hand for a moment before clenching it into a fist. “Irrelevant. I will not allow people to continue suffering and dying if there is something I can do to stop it. This is more important than fear—more important than me,” she said without a hint of detectable doubt.<br/><br/>-<br/><br/>That was what she’d said, and it had been true, but it was harder to keep up that brave facade when she was alone. Everything since that meeting had felt like a blur; it was as if time had sped up and the world moved quickly all around her while she stood there unmoving as the weight of reality came crashing down upon her. In truth, she was afraid. How could she not be? She had just agreed to a political marriage with a vampire who she had never met and whose country had been at war with her own for so long now. It didn’t matter, though, because this was something that had to be decided based on reason and logic, not on emotions. She had to do what was best for her country, even if it wasn’t what she wanted.<br/><br/>Still, knowing that as a fact and accepting it as reality were two very different things. Even if her mind had made such a decision and accepted the rationality of it, that didn’t mean that her heart had come to terms with the fact that she had just given up any hope she might have clung to that she could experience true love. It also didn’t make it any easier to cope with the likelihood that she had just forfeited her dream of true freedom.<br/><br/>It might mean giving up on that dream, but it might be the very thing that led to the realization of others, so she tried to have some hope, at least. She wanted to show other humans that the vampires weren’t all bad, that there were those who could be good just like with humans, and that even those who were not good by nature were not without redeeming qualities. She loved her people, but she also knew that humans were complicated and that they tended to fear or even hate those who were different from themselves.<br/><br/>Beyond that, she would also finally bring an end to this conflict and get to see their world at peace for the first time in a long time. It might be a fragile peace for now, but she had hopes that she could find a way to make it last, to help humans and vampires come to understand one another, or at least live alongside one another in peace. Perhaps it was naïve to believe that such a thing was possible, that such a world could exist, but she wanted to believe that it could happen, so she would fight for that dream as long as she could.<br/><br/>In the meantime, she decided that she didn’t particularly feel like facing this reality, so she decided that she would get out of this place for a little while and find a distraction. It was dark out, but she couldn’t really sleep, and dawn wasn’t far off. She dressed in something relatively inconspicuous and far more practical than the gowns she was usually forced to wear, briefly wondering if she would have to continue to dress that way when she was married. She didn’t have it in her to hope for such a thing, nor did she wish to dwell on the marriage idea, so she brushed the thoughts aside. She opted to leave her long white hair down, the way she preferred it, cascading freely over her shoulders and down her back, taming it to make it look presentable, although for who, she didn't know.<br/><br/>Once she was ready, she slipped out onto the balcony, glancing around the courtyard for any guards, servants, or others who might be awake at this hour. The moon was high in the sky, casting the world in a faint silver light. She climbed down from the balcony, leaping down once she was close enough to the ground to do so without risking hurting herself. As soon as her feet touched the ground, she was slipping off to the shadows cast over the edges of the courtyard by the walls that surrounded it, skirting the edge until she found an area where she could scale the wall and hop over, landing gracefully on the other side. From there, she headed off towards the town with no particular destination or goal in mind.<br/><br/>As she walked along the tree line towards the town, she came to a sudden stop as the faint sound of music in the distance drew her attention towards the forest. Without hesitation, she headed off towards the sound, and soon the melody became clear, as did the voice that sang along. She had intended to hide behind a tree or something to listen without disturbing the song, but it seemed that the young man playing the lute by the lake had become aware of her presence.<br/><br/>Rather than linger in the shadows of the trees, she stepped out into the clearing, her white hair shimmering in the faint light of the moon as the breeze lifted it lightly from her shoulders. Her deep purple eyes were fixed on the young man as she stopped, tilting her head to the side just a bit with a curious look in her eyes before a light smile tugged at the corners of her lips. “You don’t have to stop on my account,” she told him, her voice soft, light, almost airy, nothing like the way she tended to speak when she was within the walls of the castle.<br/><br/>"Do you make a habit of playing alone in the forest in the middle of the night?" she wondered, her head tilting a little further to the side as her eyes took in the scene. Despite what she said, though, she couldn't deny that, mysterious though it may be, there was something intriguing about about it, or perhaps him. Still, intriguing though it may be, she resisted the impulse to continue forward, at least for the moment; she could be naïve at times, but she was not entirely without caution.