"Surrender, and live." she said loudly, the words echoing. "Or wish you had."

Her sister might have once played with her in a secret garden, might have once tricked the village children with her, might have once loved her, but those days were gone. She stood before her sister now with nothing but hate in her eyes and a sword in her hand.

My sword, she thought, My kingdom.

"Never, Dalieha." her sister said, eyes blazing. "We fight."

And so it began. Dalieha wondered what would have happened if she had never come back to her home. But she had come back, and she'd found nothing but pain and misery and a broken sister.

She drew her own sword, but, like the coward she was, her sister had left, heading behind her army. I have an army now, too, Dalieha thought with satisfaction. But if I must go through yours to kill you, then so be it.

Her army was of silver and blue, armed with flimsy swords and half shattered weapons. Yet they were strong as they pushed against the people who had once been Dalieha's. Shattered weapons into hearts, flimsy swords against throats. Her sister might have the advantage- strong weapons, stronger shields, but that changed nothing.

Just like nothing changed the blood-spill.

There was so much blood.

Blue and silver and red and gold. It spilled like a waterfall- from her friends, from her foes. It wasn't supposed to be like this. She watched as a girl broke her sword over someone's head, the metal digging into their skin as they fell to the ground. Why are we doing this?

Still, making her way through the area, Dalieha killed without conscience or thought or feeling.

No one mattered. No one could change what had happened. Her hands were slick with blood. She nearly dropped her sword as another foe was upon her again, cutting hard and steady.

They couldn't have been older than fifteen. She felled the young boy easily, but the blood had started to stain her vision. She couldn't think. She couldn't feel. She couldn't see.

He was the last one. It seemed as if the world was holding it's breath as she stood in front of her sister. Red and gold.

But Dalieha's sister was one step ahead of her. She knocked Dalieha to the ground with the hilt of her sword.

"Such a pretty face." She said slowly, as if savouring the words, "It really is a shame."

Dalieha closed her eyes. "This doesn't have to happen."

"Hm, but it does. And it will." The sword was closer now. Close enough that Dalieha could see the blood that soaked it's once-beautiful blade. The hilt was carved to look like a dragon. Fierce. Red and gold.

A drop of blood fell onto Dalieha's face, in place of the tears she wanted to cry for her sister. Her sister, who had once been brave and beautiful and strong but had been crippled under the weight of a thousand wars. Her sister, who had been first and would always be first.

Until the day she died.

"I'm sorry, Liliren." Dalieha said, "But no matter how pretty I am, I will never fight pretty."

With that, she wrenched the sword up and into her sister's heart.

Blood that was red as roses fell onto Dalieha's lips, tasting of iron and heartbreak and irredeemable mistakes. She shakily stood up, letting her sister's body fall against the dirt.

"I am your queen now." Dalieha said to the world, to the blue and gold and silver and red. To the people who she had left once. "Nothing will change that."

Until the day I die.