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Escape, Camilla, escape!
Such is what always screeched inside her skull when destiny threaded another tragedy into the tapestry of her fate. Day after day, night after night, she heard that echoing cry. Escape, Camilla, escape. Try as she might, she had yet to discover an escape route from this destructive path life placed her on. No, not just her. Somehow, the entirety of her twisted family affair had been thrown into the whirlwind, this twister tearing them to and fro as its winds wished. Now was no different. Why should she believe it would have been? Fortune favored families far more functional then theirs. Besides, no need to think that luck should come so late in her life when it had never shown its cards to her beforehand. No, Camilla knew never to hope for help.
How quick the lock clicked into place as she pressed her spine against the rigid door. Still could she discern the stifled whispers of awestruck roommates, spitting on her sacred name. Camilla, queen of chaos, princess of strife. The title suited her, didn't it?
Their threats, empty yet, scarcely come across through her sighs of grief and the wavering of the door's wood. Wait, the door. What caused it to quiver so? Was...was it her? Was she shaking? By the gods, she hadn't even noticed. How long, she wondered, had her flesh shivered atop her skeleton? Had Oboro noticed her being breaking as she planted a dagger besides her pretty, impassioned expression? Oh, how she hoped not. She couldn't afford to falter, not in front of her family, let alone her fiercest foe. She was not weak, she could not let Oboro believe so. She could not let herself believe a lie.
Slowly, she stripped away the straps of her dress. A petty assumption, to presume herself so privileged as to show off her figure in an outfit such as this without consequence. This little black cocktail dress, her cleavage overtly pronounced by a plunging neckline, seemed so easily discarded. Just like Camilla - tossed aside as soon as one disposed of her, once they'd taken their portion of pleasure in parties at her expense. She supposed she should save her dress - perhaps someone would notice it, notice her, were she to wear it a second time.
Soon enough, amethyst earrings and sterling silver bracelets and rings all too big to fit on one finger found themselves settled amongst the rest of the fabric. Next, the stilettos. Shame, she wished she'd had the chance to utilize her towering height against those Hoshidans. Takumi couldn't stand to stare straight ahead when all his eyes met with were a heaping helping of plump flesh. She wished she'd seen that flushed face at least once tonight. Blushes were better than tears that smeared mascara across her cheeks.
Mascara. Yes, her mascara smudged, hadn't it? Somewhere amidst the undressing, between the bracelets and the stilettos, more than her makeup came undone. So too had Camilla herself. Get it together, girl. No time for tears now. Wipe away the tears, wash away the eyeshadow, mask your marred mascara. Princesses never shatter. Camilla cannot cry...not anymore. Instead, the princess pushes aside her distress and stares straight into the mirror, her reflection welcoming her company.
Mirror, mirror on the wall - who is the wickedest of them all? The mirror stays silent. That's okay - Camilla already knew its answer. Sweeping her fingertip against her lips, she starts removing the maroon. She picked the perfect color hadn't she? Poison Apple Purple - appropriate for poisoning siblings, no? Come close and kiss me, they sing their siren song, I promise you peaceful sleep. Press your lips to mine and let the sweetness suffocate the stinging sensation numbing your soul. It will all be over soon. She supposed she poisoned anyone she pursed her lips at.
Without the gloss to disguise them, one could see the cuts and crevices etched into chapped lips. Should anyone have seen her then, surely they should be shocked, disgusted even! What princess walked about with a mouth as dry as a dragon's scales? Only the ones who whisper over and over in their sleep. "Kamui...Ka...mui...Kai...". No one ever responds to her sleep-spawned pleas.
Step by step, she slips herself into the bathtub, allowing her corpse to plunge as deep as she could bury it. She likes the water as she likes her men - scalding hot; the kind that purified polluted flesh, and seared her skin as the water rushed through wine-washed locks, and branded its burn into her body until the scarring sensation has overtaken the throbbing in her brain and numbed the ache of her heart. The faucet stays untouched.
Camilla claims the soap and scrubs, scrubs, scrubs her sins away. She scrubs until she cannot see the scars from her father's hands slapping against fledgling flesh, the prints of strangers' fingertips prying at her hips for entrance, the impression of her sister's hand as it desperately clasps her own for comfort amidst another celebration gone awry. Camilla cannot stand to picture Elise's expression as she releases her sibling from her grasp. Camilla cannot stand to disappoint darling little Elise ever again. More than anything, Camilla cannot stand to spend another second in precious Kamui's presence when she knows she can no longer be considered his sibling.
This war had already taken more than her energy.
This war had already taken more than her time.
This war had already taken more than her family.
This violence stole her soul.
She exists as a hollow shell of a former life, a reminder of a royal lost to sorrow. When her heels hit the floor, the sound carries across the corridor but no one notices its source, for she has become naught but a ghost haunting her own home. Her voice shivers as it speaks, her unspoken prayers a faithless swan song, the echo of a love song long lost.
For what was Camilla without Kamui?