[i]Bella found her, because of course Bella found her. It was impossible to hide from Bella in a place that her best friend couldn’t sniff out. And that hurt, too.

Not because she wanted Bella not to find her, but because the two of them knew every single hiding place in the Princess’s Estate. There would never be more. All it took was for Bella to go through a process of elimination, one after another. No more mysteries, no more discoveries together, and they were even too big now to get into the air ducts.

So Bella found her there, curled up on the gantry in the garden, head on her knees, shoulder on the hard metal, impossible to see from below. Redana deliberately didn’t look up at her best friend, trying desperately to cling to her hurt instead of feeling like a silly girl with silly dreams.

Then Bella tucked in her skirts, shuffled down next to her, and fit herself into the small space between railing and princess. Her forehead hit the back of Redana’s head and stayed there, warm and unrelenting in its gentle pressure.

And then the purring started. A quiet rumble, like the engines of a starship, farther away than she’d ever see. The purr that made the warmth tingle through her body, the one that always made Bella look down and away, ears twitching.

“Will you always be with me?”

“Yes, my princess.”

“Do you promise? Really promise, Bella?”

“I promise.”

And Redana believed her, and that’s what broke everything.[/i]

***

Redana crumples her face against one hand and starts crying, because the softness isn’t right. Because it’s not her Bella, back when she was silly enough to think that Bella cared. Because she’s missing that embarrassed purr that should be there. Because Dolce feels like wool blankets and pillows (for hitting Bella with) and home, home, the home she can’t go back to anymore, the home she gave up everything to get away from, the home where she was safe in gentle illusions as long as she broke herself, over and over, in the arena of logistics and essays and memorization. The home where her prowess meant nothing but medals and trophies on display in an empty hall, and her deficiencies meant everything.

The home where none of her decisions meant anything, given up for a world where they meant everything.

“Fuck,” she says, almost incomprehensibly, as she pushes Dolce away, her other hand sunk into his floof. “Why did I think I was ready for this? [i]Idiot.[/i]” That last, at least, is understandable, hissed with an uncharacteristic venom. But it’s clear, too, who she means.