Selene squeezed her eyes shut, driving out the memories of Prince Kai that dwelt behind her eyelids. She couldn't drive away the feeling that something bad was going to happen soon, though. It ate away at her thoughts. Maybe it had something to do with Prince Kai. He obviously had some kind of crush on her, even though he'd only just met her in person the previous day, which led her to believe that he didn't really. Nobody who knew Selene's true self liked her after she revealed it to them, the darkness inside. No one except Winter, that is, but Winter had the same kind of darkness. They were both lost, abandoned when they were small. The world hadn't nurtured and cared for the real them; just their royal personalities that were going to grow up to be important people that had the fate of Luna resting in their hands. Kai didn't know what Selene was really like. Kai didn't have any idea of the darkness resting inside her. And he would never know.

"Your Majesty. We will be injecting the drugs now." Selene slitted her eyes open. Her arm was laying out from under the blanket to the side, the bandages around her stub hand unwrapped. Selene nodded once.

 "Do it quick."

The doctor pressed a syringe against Selene's arm, and her eyes quickly started to weigh down with forced fatigue. She could see the doctors exchange worried glances as she started to go under, and although she wanted nothing more than to sit up and ask them what the hell was wrong this time, the drugs fought against her will and pulled her back into a dark, dreamless sleep. 

•

Selene's brain turned over and the first thing she registered was a weight on her left arm. There was a dull throb coming from it, and turning her head slightly and slitting her eyes open revealed a shiny steel hand where her stub had once been. Obviously state of the art and very expensive, with durable and shiny plating and freshly oiled and treated joints. Selene sat up and lifted it up to her face in awe. She could move it just like her old hand, with no resistance at all from the metal. It was slightly heavier than her old hand, although that was to be expected. Overall, Selene was very impressed.

"I guess Earthens aren't all good-for-nothings after all." She muttered, admiring her new hand a few moments more before dropping it onto her sheets and staring out the window.

Sixteen years. Sixteen years full of assassination attempts and this was all Levana would get from it. The only harm that had been done was a missing hand, and even that had been easily replaced. Selene had thought she knew for sure exactly how much damage Levana had caused her through it all.

But now she was questioning it all. Had she really gotten off practically unscathed like she thought before? Surely, externally she had. But Selene was starting to question just how much she had been broken on the inside as well.