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As she sits down to help sort the legislature papers while doing a bit of volunteering work in the embassy’s offices, her Mismagius watches her trainer while the well-dressed woman writes with her pen. Mana looks over to her trainer’s phone’s screen which showed a picture of the woman’s family back in Ecruteak City placed as the lock screen wallpaper when the royal stops writing to ask the ghost. “Are you looking at one of the pictures of my parents and little sister?” [break][break]

Mana nods and looks over the papers the woman was working on.[break][break]

The princess remembered the name calling and the insults thrown at her by the other children in Ecruteak City’s primary school when she was a child...for being born half Johtonian and Galarian in a homogeneous society. Whispers from the others about her mother still made her worry whether her mother was staying strong through the scrutiny of her mother marrying a foreign prince from the royal family of Calcifet. Her mother's Mismagius came to her protection and it changed to her being shunned from their circles due to them being afraid to go near her and risk the wrath of her mother's Mismagius.[break][break]

All the prejudice and rejection from the other peers at school had made her scared, afraid, and alone. She was all alone in a world where she was hurt terribly.[break][break]

The child she was back then was so shy and reclusive and even that still remained with her in the present.

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Opening her eyes to the dark bedroom that she was sleeping in, the woman rubbed her eyes to find the digital clock at her nightstand showing the time being 2:00 AM. Getting off the bed after putting her blanket neatly on top of the bed sheets, the full moon would be the only light that gave her bedroom a quiet atmosphere in the dark. As she makes her way out of the master bedroom to go downstairs to the kitchen from the opulently decorated staircase belonging to her two story Victorian house, the shadows stir a bit.[break][break]

The royal doesn’t notice the shadows follow her down to the last set of stairs before she takes a right to the kitchen and turns on the light. Getting a glass of water to drink, her sips finish the glass and washes it in the sink. Sighing to herself, Elise goes up the stairs once she turns off the kitchen light as the shadows begin to take the form of black hands reaching out for her…[break][break]

Noticing now that the stairs had gotten longer and longer, she tries to go up when she sees the hands try to grab at her. Thoughts of the attack on the gym where the deaths occurred with the head of security, Shawn, and the two new hires being in the same class clouds her mind as the princess tried to escape the shadowy hands grabbing at her arms and legs.[break][break]

By now, the four spirits of Nathan, Brad, Alicia, and Shawn surrounded her with empty eye sockets and gaping mouths of agony along with the three others being bloodied and Shawn appearing as a charred corpse. Her terrified screams were drowned out by the shadowy black hands dragging her down to the hole of her own guilt as the ghosts voice their own tortured words of why she didn’t help them and hammer in her guilt of leaving them to die while she was all helpless and scared.[break][break]

In reality, Elise wakes up from her bed in a colder sweat as she pulls the covers around her, shaking in terror from the nightmare she experienced.[break][break]

Her Mismagius comes to comfort her while the royal takes several shaky breaths to calm herself down.[break][break]

Elise's survivor’s guilt still dragged her down.

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The children of her mother’s friends were always happy to see her when they came by her home in Ecruteak, their happy faces light up when they talked about how much they looked up to the dark magenta-haired young woman. Purple orbs look over to the dark-haired younger boy as he talks with her while they sit together on her house’s porch with his smile becoming wide. The teenage girl knows that most of the other children were pushing him away, not letting him into their games and that they thought of him as meek with the boys giving him a harder time with shoving him on the ground and biting words. Hiro tells her about one of the boys mistreating him at school.[break][break]

“I’m sorry you had to hear that from him. Did he hurt you, Hiro?” Her pale hand brushes over the young boy’s hair and tries to find any bruise he may have suffered from his fall on his legs and arms.

Hiro shakes his head and replies back with a smile. “No, I wasn’t hurt anywhere. Don’t worry about me, Elise.”
[break][break]

Still, she keeps looking over the boy’s figure since there may be some bruises that weren’t seen. Both of her brows furrow with concern when she finds a bruise on the bottom of his right arm.[break][break]

“Hiro, do not lie to me like that.” Her voice becomes a little stern like a big sister talking with her little brother. The Mismagius belonging to her mother floats over to check on the injury. “I worry for you since you say that you are fine, but you’re clearly not.”[break][break]

“I-I’m sorry, Elise…” His head lowers when he speaks to her though he still gets a little ruffle on his hair from her.[break][break]

A sigh comes from the teenage Galarian princess as she replied gently. “I understand what you are going through. When I was younger, I wasn’t…really liked much by the other children.” Her voice becomes sorrowful as she remembered those memories, not helped by the fact that visits to the Calcifet Palace as a child made her see the worst in the rest of the royal family through her aunt. “My classmates in school weren’t much better either. I kept myself guarded for a long time, hoping that I could make a semblance of a friendship with others.”[break][break]

Hiro listens to the regal teenager while giving her some nods here and there, he feels sorry for her since they were alike in the same situation.[break][break]

“I apologize if you have to hear me ramble.” She chuckles and gives Hiro a small smile. “Let’s talk with your mother, I’m sure she will have your bruise feel better.” Since her mother’s Mismagius finishes looking over the bruise, Touka makes his bruise hurt less with words that sounded like a happy blessing.[break][break]

Elise takes Hiro to his mother after their talk in the house a little block away from hers and tells the older lady that they had a good talk with each other.

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