Accidentally becoming friends with Peggle was inevitable. The guard was as talkative as he was grumpy. Though, the only time he really smiled was around Katie. She’d take notice how he wouldn’t to those prisoners who’d stayed quiet or when someone from the outside would come visit. Which happened frequently since she was imprisoned in it. The first to come running down the cobblestone steps, creating a ruckus and alerting Peggle from his nap, was Keith. His face was pale and he looked disoriented.

“I leave you alone for an hour and you’ve already gotten yourself in prison!? There was a misunderstanding, right? It was that prince, wasn’t it! You got caught being all chummy with him and now they’ve done this to you. I warned you. I-,” the boy would’ve went on into a nonsensical rambling if Katie hadn’t grabbed him by the cheeks. His now duck-like face peered down at her, question in his eyes.

She let go and turned around, facing the small compartment that was supposed to be the cell’s window. “Keith, look, I got myself here for something I have done. Nothing with the involvement of Shiro. I am at fault here. Not anyone else,” she explained in a low voice. Her eyes were trained on the moonlit everlastingness of the outdoor sky. She dared not to look back and meet Keith’s eyes. Not to let him know or see.

Peggle stepped up, she could tell by the rustling of his attire and the clanks of his metal-tipped boots meeting the floor. “Ma’am, do you want him here? It seems to me as if your conversation is over,” the guard asked, voice firm unlike all the other times they spoke. That’s when Katie spared a look over her shoulder, glimpsing Keith’s devastated face. He’d been one of the people she was force to lie to. There was no scapegoat for this one. The witch had walked towards her own demise. Not that she regretted it.

“Do it,” she muttered, hoping Keith didn’t catch the way she choked. Her best friend would be left in the dark as she was in this cell, unaware of the surface’s doings and events. After he had long gone, she cried for the first time since her mother’s death - well, murder. Peggle gave her her space, but would check up every now and then. He also refused any requests to come down there until her eyes were dry.

This time was Shay, Hunk, and Lance. “We heard from Keith that you were here! Why did this happen to you?” Shay inquired, eyeing Katie’s back. Hunk reached past the bars and laid a hand on her shoulder. Katie refused to speak because she knew she’d break down and confess what she’d kept hidden for years. Spill something she’d been sworn to secrecy for. How could she add that to her punishment?

“Pidge, just know that we’re here for you,” the baker remarked, not speaking again for the next fifteen minutes they stood at her cell. Lance, on the other hand, said not one word during that time frame and she never looked behind her to see his expression. They had left by time Katie felt the first sign of sleepiness. It washed over her like a dream, causing her eyes to drift close without command and her to slip into a world of fantasy and happy endings.

It was days before she had gotten another visitor. The next one caused the feelings in her guts to rile up and the need to puke. She’d been given stale bread as breakfast every morning, stew for lunch, and nothing for dinner over the past three days. So it wasn’t like she had much to throw up in the first place. She had heard his royally-groomed boots hit the stairs first.

She might have assumed it to be Keith for another visit, but the steps were heavier and much farther apart than the boy’s. Not short enough to be Hunk’s and definitely not a girl’s or Lance’s. It was when a deep cough broke the prison’s silence, that she knew who it was. The last person she wanted to see.

Shiro.

It just had to be him. She was a disgrace. Even if he had known about her origins, he had not known about her betrayal. No matter what it was for, it was still the breaking of her word. Not something she can simply make up for. Honestly, she rather it be the king or queen who had come to tell her. Anything but the words falling out of his mouth.

She used to wander about her death and when it would happen. Only if she had known she’d be this young. “Your burning… will be tomorrow,” the prince croaked out, voice soft and raw. Katie had been the once to suggest it. The words had fallen out of her mouth, but it wasn’t until that moment that the reality had hit her. She was going to die. Die the way her mother had. Whatever she’d done in her past life must have been awful for her to have this type of karma. Her stomach turned and she felt sick to her core. She wanted him to leave.

Shiro did not leave. He did not move from where he stood on the ground, leaning against the bars with his forehead. His breaths came in sharp inhales as he gasped for air, tears rolling down his perfectly chiseled face. That’s when she broke down for the second time, wallowing in self-pity. They cried together, yet separate. The bars between them separating them with a clean slice. If Shiro reached out for her now, she’d buckle. So, as she cried her heart out, she scooted away until she could reach for the window and touch it. The witch stayed there, grovelling on the ground, the prince’s own breakdown loud behind her. It stayed that way for hours.

It was when their eyes had became fully out of water, their sources banked dry. Katie didn’t know when Shiro left or when Peggle had taken his place, but it somehow transitioned to that way while she was lost in her own miserable thoughts. “Hey, Peggle…,” she whispered, face closed to the ground, “Do you think- Do you think I can escape?”

Heyo! Back for an update. :D Surprised? Thought I should write after my panic attack Friday, you know? Imma fail my Biology test tomorrow. Ha.
-ThatOneServant, the bi author, out!