In her dream, it was silent. Quiet as death, not even her heartbeat penetrated the thick blanket of nothing that seemed so loud. It could be funny, the loudness that is silence, the echo that is nothing. Lavinia hated it like she hated many things... like she hated everything.
She hated the servants, who looked at her like she was nothing. Just some big to be stepped on and forgotten on the floor. Like she was a dropped crumb that would be swept and thrown away. Like she was less than they, a contemptuous child, lacking, too much of the wrong things in their eyes. Her smiles and sweetness we're things to be frowned upon and looked down on, 'No royal child should show so much', they mutter, 'no pure blood is so weak', they whisper.
She hated the knights who were supposed to protect her. Who looked down just the same. Who muttered just the same, scorned just the same. 'How is she a princess,' they ask, searching for the fairytale charm or cutting that exists in their beloved King and Queen. It is not there, she knows they do not find it, and so they look the other way as the servants stomp upon her spirit, what would have been kindness, what could have been a shine in her eyes and the courage to look up and see the world.
She hated her parents. She hated how they worked so long, couldn't see her pain, her suffering, her agony. She hated that they couldn't tell how much she missed seeing them more than once a week if that. She hated her father as King and her mother as Queen. Because someone can say they understand, she can say that she knows that duty must come before family matters or else the Kingdom and its people would suffer. But let them! Let them suffer injustice for once! Let the poor starve and the nobles become less noble if it means she can act like a normal child!
She hates this Kingdom and its shallow people. Hated the way they act like they are important when they would die without the nobles they badmouth and spit upon. Without rules to follow, they fall, they destroy each other more than those races they look down on, and without the nobles to uphold and take care of those rules... Everything would collapse. They don't want freedom, they simply want rulers.
So much hate.
She hated Ms. Taylor. Hated that girl who grew up knowing nothing but self-pity and self-loathing, who squandered her youth and her adulthood, before dying. Like her existence was nothing. Like she hadn't existed. Without a family, without friends, only herself in that hospital speaking to that little nurse who more likely pitied an old woman on her deathbed. She hated the memories, those stupid! Stupid memories! They detailed her death for doing nothing wrong but trying to live happily, her family's death for simply acting as a slight against someone who knew minor sadness. It was unfair.
Life is unfair.
She hated Lavinia. Hated that little girl, herself, with a passion. Because... Because... She could have changed it all, could have spoken to her parents, could have tried, because she wasn't an idiot she was a coward. But before that, she hated herself because she is a child. She was one before death, and now it's just been put right by having her in this body. She'd held on to all of her thoughts and bitterness towards a world she perceived as wronging her, damning her, aiding in her self-destruction but that wasn't true. She had done it all on her own, the blame was her own, and she couldn't point the finger at others like it was them.
She is a child, has always been a child, always crying and suffering alone. She just wants someone to acknowledge her, to hold her, to treat her like she should be treated.
'It's lonely.'
Yes, it is lonely here. She has no one here, she's never had, anyone.
'I'm cold.'
Yes, she can feel the seeping cold now. The kind that permeated her bones, her heart, her soul. It's a coldness that she's used to and she wants to become unfamiliar with it.
'It hurts.'
The pain wasn't a physical one. She didn't think even physical pain could hurt so much. The ache of her chest, of her entire body. This pain... It was what she thought happened if one held the world. Her world is filled with sadness and hatred, a lonely place, a dark place, empty, cold, painful.
A burst of heat appeared all around her.
It was sudden. There was no warning. There was no thought. A simple burst that surrounded her at all sides, like nothing she'd ever come to experience.
And it was nice.
It was so wonderful.
It didn't chase away her darkness, but it lessened it. It didn't lift all her weight, but it shouldered some. It didn't destroy her hatred, but it did make her think. It made her think deeply, it made her think hard. It made her wonder what she was doing, and who she was as a person.
Honestly speaking, she didn't necessarily know. Lavinia, the three-year-old version wasn't gone. She rested right where the newer version rested. And the newer version wasn't Ms. Taylor. Wasn't that old woman who had cared only for number one. Who refused everything.
She was simply Lavinia. At least she thought so. With a few added memories and thought processes, but still herself in the end.
She wasn't someone who hates the world still, who should wallow in her self pity, who should focus on herself and that alone. She wasn't in charge of changing everything simply because she knew, nor because it could lead to her death. Her job now was, to see her parents more often, and tell them that she loved them.
Her job was to get through rehab and play like other children. To learn. To go through her princess lessons and be taught her duty. To age and be someone her parents could look at and smile upon in later years.
She isn't just a minor villain who was used as a stepping stone. Nor just a reincarnation of Ms. Taylor and memories of unfortunate Lavinia strewn together. She claimed herself as Lavinia, just Lavinia Bellemare, not only the three-year-old child, nor something that is all-knowing and informed of everything. From the moment she opened her eyes in this world, she sparked a change no matter how small it may be.
She is someone who is living. Who wants to live. Who has made her promise, and who will stick to it when she can but also has the right to live as anyone else.
She took a breath, gathering her strength.
"My name is Lavinia Bellemare. I refuse to yield to everyone, even myself."