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The screams of rage are heard all the way from the balcony, Riliane’s hair fluttering in the wind. It was a simple revolt, she was sure, and she could suppress them rather easily. Her pale hand loops around the tea cup and lifts it, her lips connecting with the brim. It was warm, with some honey and sugar, just how she liked it. She rests it down, the clank of china in her ears as she gazed out upon the rippling mass of peasants, their throats raw and tearing them apart from all that screaming. This was more of a frenzy, people scrambling and shoving, clawing and biting at the guards, their noises a shrill sound in the once still air.
Allen runs in, throwing the door open with a panicked expression on his features. Riliane turns towards him; a unnatural wave of calm floods her body, she’s suppressed the masses before, who was to say she couldn’t again. However, the wave of madness wasn’t being pushed back - instead, they were slipping in, some guards letting them inside her grand castle. “They- they’re soiling my castle!” Riliane cries out, the once calm ocean inside her being replaced with boiling anger. “Milady.” Allen firmly says, “You must escape.” A bit of silence. “What? Are you stupid? This is just a revolt,” Riliane scrambles, “We can-“
“This is no revolt.” Allen straightens his posture, refined, hands folded. A look of dread, and a shifty gaze, “This is a revolution.”
Downright horror slips onto her face, and Riliane breathes in and out, “No-! No-! It can’t be- I- this! This isn’t a revolution, I-“ She will be executed, her head will roll, peasants will cheer merrily as she goes down with anything but honor. Her hands sweat, even if they are gloved with the finest material, and her legs quiver. She will die.
“Hurry. I’ll buy you some time.” Allen instructs, “We’ll switch out - we’re twins, no one will notice at all.” She thinks of this, and in her dizzy mind filled with paranoid thoughts, she almost listens to him. But the inner tyrant in her screams at her to face her dirty country. And... if Allen had to die... no, she wouldn’t let it happen. Riliane is a queen, god damn it, and if she can’t face her own country, then all her dirty deeds were simply the works of a hollow-hearted coward.
“No.” She forces out, more calm than she thought it would come out. “This is my country. And if they want a new queen,” Riliane straightens up now, facing the glass window again, “then they have to pry this crown from my dead hands.” He’s shocked, and worried, his protests ringing in her stubborn ears. But she waves them off, turning back to him after a moment or so. “Leave, Allen. Run, and never look back. If you are to live, abandon this castle, now. Forget I ever existed.” When he stands there, Riliane shouts, “Or I’ll kill you myself!” Allen runs, eventually, and she sighs in something like relief. The door that Allen just exited through is thrown open, the wood splintering into pieces.
All the people she had wronged stand before her, their faces lit with the fury she possessed even without her crown. Riliane, with dignified posture, gathers some of her dress in her clothed hands and walks over, slow steps. When a sword is pulled out, the tip of the silver blade inches away from the taut skin of her throat, Riliane scoffs. “Arrest me, you dirty pigs!” She spits out, right into the blade. When she has been restrained, Riliane steps on their feet with her heels, barely fighting yet still causing pain.
She is thrown in a dirty cell, reeking with fresh and dry blood. Riliane sits up, her fingers grazing the ground. She stands up and dusts off her dress, sitting down on the rickety old bed. No tears sting her eyes, despite the awaiting execution, despite the fact that the age of fifteen will forever be a day and a dream away, the shining blade of a guillotine singing her happy birthday. A relief is that Allen will still live, he will still prosper, even if he is to sink in the shadows. She doesn’t care, as long as he makes it out with his head and that same endearing smile, as long as that happens, she’ll be fine. The bed creaks from under her.
Her heels click against the ground as she stands, pacing around the room, her thoughts a bubbling cauldron. Riliane, for the first time in her life, kneels, clasping her gloved hands together. She breathes, softly, and says in a quiet voice, “Dear Heavenly Father, I don’t know if you’re there. I don’t know if you’ll listen to a tyrant’s prayer... but, this tyrant, would like to pray, for the first time in her life. Please help Allen - show him kindness he will never find on earth... so many are so much luckier than him, and yet he deserves the world. Pardon me if I sound selfish, I but, my lord,” Riliane hiccups out, her icy mask cracking into millions of pieces as she continues. “Please! Spare Allen! Make sure... he survives, and that he may prosper, and forget about the tyrant that abandoned him! Please, oh, God, if you’re there... only slay the beast instead... only slay me. I know I should speak to you, but... please- if I am to be sent to Hell after, gladly. If I am to bathe in fire, I do not care, as long as he lives. I will kneel to Satan if I must. I will go through eternal torture, I’ll- please!” She cries out, “I’ve killed so many of the innocent... you, even if you never make mistakes, you don’t want to do the same...”
A icy tear rolls down her cheek, and she chokes out, “Amen.”
Riliane’s hands cover her face as she screams, her throat ripping. It feels so raw and sore as she shouts, she shouts Allen’s name, shouts nonsense that came to her mind, ripping at golden hair, tears pushing out of her blue eyes. Her uncharacteristic prayer to God hangs in the air, her bloodcurdling screams bouncing off the walls of the chamber. They can’t hear her. No one can hear her - this cell was deep under the castle locked off by a heavy door. A cacophony of endless noise devours the cell, and she’s left there, kneeling on the dirty floor with dirty tears in her dirty eyes.
Eventually, she passes out, the screaming too much for her throat. Riliane wakes up, her head aching and her throat even worse as she stands up, dirt smudged on her cheek as she looks around. Her ankle is in agony, but she ignores it, walking over to the bed and laying in the disgusting sheets. She rests her head on a pillow that should just be iron instead, and attempts to sleep. But her cell door is opened up, Kyle standing there, hate shining in his eyes. “Get up.” He demands, and she lays there for five minutes before he drags her out.
“You are to be executed now.” He hisses at her, and she spits on his shoes. “Consider it my highest honor.” Riliane shoots back and steps in front of him, guiding herself to the guillotine. When she faces the crowd, she spits at a random peasant, their face contorting with disgust. She gets on her knees on her own damn terms, and searches for Allen’s face in the crowd.
She finds him, and he is pushing himself to the front, worry clear in his gaze and maybe even some tears. Riliane thinks it’s funny - why is he crying? He’s free from her and her evil acts. Even so, regret courses through her veins, and she... she wishes she could apologize to the world for what she’s done. She’s so terrible, and disgusting, and the grand tyrant. Riliane hears the blade being pulled up, and she focuses on his face, flashing him one last smile full of pearly whites before death.
Blood sprays, and her head drops into the basket underneath her.
Riliane, Lucifer’s daughter, or whoever she was now, was nothing but a corpse.