I was never meant to rule. It did not matter that I was older, calmer, and could sit for countless hours with a stoic face which made it impossible to read me. I didn't have the backbone for it. Ignis on the other hand was fire.

And it was more than the color of her hair that gave the illusion of flames wildly licking down her pale face, blue eyes sharp and so full of passion that took people's breath away and her smile that split the world in two with a mischievousness that left you wondering if she would save or destroy you. It was the fact that she could swallow my father's cruelty. The cruelty I was supposed to emulate, to copy for the good of our world.

I could see my father's disappointment at an ill-timed wince as he destroyed servants' lives with a few words. My shudders as blood was shed in the name of peace. A silent breath of pain as eyes pleaded with me to intercede. To them, I looked like a daughter of stone. The girl who felt nothing. But on the inside, I was dying. Decaying with each act I blessed by standing silent.

For no one went against my father. Those that did, wished they died, but never quite got their wish... Death was too easy. It removed the possibility for later torture. To become a pawn in a poetic act that would be used to tear apart those who dared to question his methods. My father took to using others like an artform. Weaving pain into the tapestry of life with such precision that you were cornered before you even knew you were playing the game.

Where my sister was fire, passion, light, and strength, I was shy, silent, and terrified. Her bright hair made my night-black hair feel like shadows, unimpressive and a mere copy of the true beauty that she was. Her blue eyes looked like they were woven straight from the sky itself, where my green ones felt dull and void of promise.

She loved our father. Something I couldn't bring myself to do. I knew that if I laid my heart at his feet, he would turn it into something unrecognizable. With furrowed brows and sharp blue eyes, brimming with disapproval, my father would try to tattoo a lesson onto my soul. A daily chant demanding rectification of a fatal flaw I possessed. "Your heart will be your downfall if you don't learn to ignore it Prim."

I swallowed his words, hoping that with each day's onset of demands that my heart numb itself. Die due to the inconvenience of it existing with such a powerful desire to love, the words would fill me up, bury my heart's cries that I ignore his demand. That I fight back. That I charge in and save the lives that he was so bent on destroying.

I was a walking contradiction. If I did as he asked, I would no longer care if he lived or died. I would no longer care about my sister. Why would he want such coldness from his own daughter? The truth was, I knew deep down there was no point in trying to change. My heart was too full of the need to love and be loved in return.

And I did love. I loved my sister fiercely. I loved her deeply. I ached when she hurt. I celebrated her victories. But even my love for her wasn't enough to keep me in the cage my father was building for me. It didn't matter that he was grooming me to become the most powerful person in the world. A cage covered in all the jewels of the world was still a cage. I refused to be trapped inside, emulating my father like a bird that had spent its whole life listening and repeating the lessons it had been taught. I was going to escape before the lock was set.

So I began to lie. To weave a tale in my own mind that would be used to destroy both my and my sister, Ignis.

Ignis doesn't need me. She would be better off if I ran. If I left everything to her. Father will treat her better. Will love her more. She will be happy. She is meant to rule. She has the strength that I so clearly Iack.

And with that single, terrible lie, I sealed her to my fate. Locking her in a cage that was meant to be mine.