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Royal Capital | Morgana Kingdom | World of Eris

 

“Slut!”

 

“Adulterer!”

 

“Murderer!”

 

“You should be jailed!”

 

One after another the townspeople of the Royal Capital of Morgana hurled insult after insult at the shackled woman being escorted nude down the decorative brick streets. As they verbally berated her, they hurled food, small stones, and various other projectiles in her direction.

 

Her bloodstained bald head had patches of what looked to have previously been blonde hair. Her body though emaciated and bruised, still had the beauty and curves of a just blossoming young woman of around 20 years of age.

 

As she walked forward globs of spit and boisterous commoners jeered and accosted her every footstep.

 

“Aye king killer, try me on for size!” screamed one bold gentleman as he vulgarly revealed himself before being pushed aside by the guards surrounding her.

 

“Repent…Repent…Repent”, repeated the expressionless handmaiden constantly pushing at her back as she walked towards Rosalire castle.

 

Though she was being thoroughly humiliated the woman did not falter once in her steps, and kept her head raised high.

 

‘Don’t let them see you flinch, you’re still a Queen!’ the young woman repeated to herself like a mantra.

 

 She’d hoped these words would keep her will strong for whatever was to come. Though she had not technically made it to her coronation, she figured it still counted. She had royalty in her blood.

 

But she believed her mantra less and less with each repetition and she could slowly but surely feel her conviction fading.

 

‘Come on! Chin up Lucy! This beats being starved in that wretched tower at least.’

 

Lucy tried to keep her spirits up but she knew she was only lying to herself. The memories of her time in that place were welcome compared to this.

 

At least in Bailor tower Lucy wasn’t being paraded around nude for a crime she didn’t commit. Throughout her trial and jailing she had been driven to the very edges of her sanity. Forced to drink water from the dungeon floor, relieve herself in buckets, and showers were once a week with water Lucy swore came from a pig trough or the sewer. Lack of sleep and hunger were her only constant visitors.

 

But even with all that bad, at least Lucy had her dignity.

 

But this…

 

After this, Lucy wasn’t sure she would have a shred of dignity or sanity left.

 

“Whore!” screamed a particularly angry gentleman as he broke through the encirclement of guards and knocked Lucy down.

 

As she fell to her knees, Lucy noticed her feet under her were now bloody and mangled.

 

“I-I didn’t even notice…” Lucy whispered brokenly and dazed as she was roughly dragged back up to her feet.

 

“Repent” repeated the pushy handmaiden over the cacophonous jeering crowd of commoners.

 

Looking through the haze of tears blurring her vision while swallowing the dry sobs in her throat, Lucy noticed she was just a few feet away from the gates that led to her previous home of Rosalire Castle. Her destination. She could also see the familiar faces of knights, scholars, and officials that had watched her grow up.

 

With renewed vigor Lucy shuffled her bloody feet and kept on dodging the projectiles hurled at her. After a few more steps she could now recognize the face of the man she now hated more than anything. Her ex-fiancé and the now king of Morgana.

 

“Bastard. You’re the reason I’m here. We were…betrothed… and you still… framed me.” Lucy’s dry throat barely crackled out as she was forced to her knees before the castle gates and the royal onlookers.

 

Lucy could barely recognize her own voice, but she knew the King had heard her. Yet all he did was raise his nose as if he smelled something revolting.

 

“Oh, High Priest can we please get this show on the road. I have a wedding to make.” the young and handsome king said as he flashed a smile to a young girl who shared a striking resemblance to Lucy.

 

‘I gave him all of me! I cannot believe I- And that whore actually betrayed blood?! They deserve each other’ Lucy was incensed and struggling to fight back sobs on her scraped knees.

 

“Of course, your majesty” said the strangely happy High Priest, “Ahem, citizens and royal court of Morgana. A sinner has come forth, Lucy Morgana Nyx, our former Queen to be and our King’s former fiancé. She has committed and confessed to the sins of conspiracy to murder, adultery, high treason, murder, and witchcraft.-”

 

As the High Priest continued his condemnation of Lucy yells of approval from commoners and choked sobs from Lucy were all that could be heard.

 

“I’m innocent! I swear before God I am! ” Lucy screamed in interruption, “I’m innocent and all of you know it! My royal parents look down from the Heavens in shame at what this kingdom has become!”

 

Sadly, her cries fell on deaf ears as the High Priest continued right where he left off.

 

“-To show her shame, she has cast aside her name. Her hair. Her jewels. Her title and all her clothing to stand before you, the good and righteous citizens of Morgana, as God hath made her. In her nakedness we have seen her heart. And it is a guilty and ugly one. Truly unfit for Eris and our kingdom, -”

 

‘N-No it can’t be. They would not. They cannot I’m innocent!’ Lucy panicked as she recognized this speech the High Priest was giving.

 

“-as such by the power vested in me by the royal court of Morgana and his majesty King Sebastian Archibald Nyx I, I hereby sentence you Lucy Nyx to death”

 

“No!” Lucy screamed over the cheering crowd.

 

Wasting no time Sir Robert, her once beloved god father and the head knight of Morgana, grabbed his sword and swiftly chopped off her head.

 

“Sorry princess you should have stayed in a woman’s place.” said King Sebastian with a self-satisfied serpentine smirk.

 

As her blood spurted along the steps she played on as a child, and her head soared through the air before her former people, Lucy could feel nothing but chasm deep regret. She had hoped this was a nightmare, she’d wake up from. Or something she could fix with some miraculous pill from an alchemist. But sadly, this was no dream and there was no pill for regret or death.

 

‘If I had become Queen…things would have been different…’ Lucy’s decapitated head had one final thought before oblivion swallowed her consciousness whole...

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