Finale

Death, Arabella found, was not at all the poetic descriptions and flowery language she had read. It was not peaceful.

It was maddening.

Her memories, sharpened by years of deprivation in her cell, clawed against the encroaching numbness. They rebelled, screamed to remain tethered to the living world.

Dreams came and went. A memory of sitting in her father's lap, making up tales of the grandeur that her life would become, of all that she wanted to accomplish. He beamed down at her then but remained silent, a small furrow in his deeply creased brow. She understood that sorry expression only when she turned old enough to comprehend the world around her.

Needless to say, as the word 'Illegitimate' entered her lexicon as she grew older, she much preferred being called a bastard child to her face. Less pretence that way.

She'd spent hours skimming history books detailing the tales of her ancestors, small fingers tracing the Lockhart tree and stopping where 'Arabella' should have been engraved. Her name was the one she shared with those who had fought beside, dined and danced with Kings and Queens. It was the same blood running through her veins, even if society failed to acknowledge it.

Her father had never turned her away or denied her. Not when he had fallen for the opera singer who comforted him in his grief over his wife's death, not when that same woman had died birthing her, not when his mother rebuked him and not on his deathbed as he bid a final goodbye when she turned fourteen. For that, she would forever be grateful.

Her mind flashed back to nights standing barefoot against the filthy, damp stone of her cell and glimpsing longingly at the sliver of moonlight that barely grazed her frostbitten fingertips. She relied upon 'what ifs' to open her eyes, face the next morning, and the next taunt from Cecil. All the things she would have done differently, all the things she would have said...

But here she was, dangling at the edge of existence, forgotten. Reduced to nothing but a villainess in a story written by someone else.

'No.'

It echoed within her dying mind, the only legible thought in the blurred noise.

She wasn't ready. She had barely lived.

'My death meant nothing.'

Each protest died with the noise and with her. Each moment felt like centuries as she felt herself slip away.

A harsh lightning strike pulled Arabella out of her stupor.

She remained deathly still, afraid to move as she faced the large floor-to-ceiling window that appeared from thin air. The heavy battering of rain filled the room with overwhelming white noise.

Why could she hear the rain?

This was not her prison cell, certainly not the gallows. This view, the Lockhart estate's sprawling grounds beneath her balcony, the distant town and the stretch of the ocean were sights she had not seen in years. This was the Lockhat manor. Her old room.

She was either dreaming... or truly dead.

Arabella raised a delicate touch to her neck and flinched away as she made contact on instinct. Smooth. No rope burn. Her neck wasn't broken.

Sweat began to gather upon her brow.

But she had felt the snap. She had heard it- each lingering second afterwards, deeply ingrained in her mind. The agony of it all.

Another lightning strike illuminated the room in stark white light, and Arabella was once more ripped out of her trance. She had stopped breathing, she realised, and it took an active effort to force her lungs to work once more.

"...It was a dream." She breathed out into the still air, not to anyone in particular.

The words left her throat softly and without strain. Did she feel... energised? No, that wasn't the right word. She felt the slight lull of exhaustion from a sudden awakening, her eyes foggy from the darkness of her room. Her throat ached, and her eyes felt sore. She felt alive. The natural sensations that had once been inconveniences, before learning what true exhaustion felt like in a cold cell.

Arabella rested her forehead on the cool glass with her eyes squeezed shut as the rain drummed against the pane. Her brows furrowed as she focused on the noise, begging silently for it to drown out her thoughts. She had fallen asleep. There was no other explanation but a cruel and painful nightmare. One that seemed to last for years.

Padding her feet across the plush carpet, Arabella traversed the layout of her bedroom like the back of her hand and buried herself deep in the soft white blankets of her bed. With trembling hands, she reached out for a pillow and hugged it tight to her chest, a childish gesture she hadn't indulged in since she was a child. Regardless, she buried her face in the cushion until nothing but the rainfall filled her mind. Arabella allowed herself to rest for what felt like the first time in a while without the burden of thoughts.

Everything was fine...

_____________________________________________________

...Until she had spared one glance at her reflection in clear daylight, come morning.

"...Huh?"

Arabella froze to a halt as she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the early morning sunlight. She furrowed her brows and approached the standing mirror, ice-blue eyes glued to the face of the girl staring back at her. Something wasn't right. She raised a small hand to her cheek, bewildered as the reflection followed suit.

This was not the body of a twenty-year-old.