Annette lead me to a small house, one that, just like Faylorn's, blended into the other buildings. As we walked in, I looked around, not seeing anyone else.

"Who do you live with, Annette? Are your parents simply not here?" Annette looked at me oddly, as though my questions were not reasonable.

"I live alone. My parents are..." She trailed off, but I hadn't really heard anything past her living alone.

"But how can you live alone? How will anyone marry you after you've lived alone?" Annette rolled her eyes.

"Living alone is the least of my worries for getting married. But that is not here nor there, we have other things to discuss," She sat in a nearby chair, gesturing for me to take a seat at the chair opposite her. I did as suggested and sat.

"So, I suppose it's time to begin. Honestly, I'm the worst at telling this story, Cedric does a much better job than me..." She sighed and leaned back. "Well, I guess I'll just start at the beginning. Cedric and I were born in another country. Though we are not siblings, we grew up very close to each other, both in distance and in friendship. Our home... it was a beautiful place. We lived in the country, where the rules were... less and things were easier. It was the summer of my tenth year when the attacks started. I'm sure you don't know, but your King fights dirty. He wanted to take over our country and instead of declaring war officially, he just began taking over the countryside, where we lived."

"It took a while before he got to our homes, thankfully. Enough time for us to prepare, for what I'm not sure. I don't know what we thought we were doing, a few spears and swords in untrained hands versus an army of knights. My parents fought hard, even my mother but I... I listened as the knights sliced them open and I hid in the kitchen under the dining table. I don't know how Cedric's family did, but he says they were the same as us. I tried to run, but the knights were faster than a young girl, even when she knows the land better than them. I was captured, alongside Cedric. I had hoped he had escaped, but I saw him on the same carriage as me as we were carted back to the castle. You probably don't remember, I can't imagine that you were any older than 5 or so when all that happened."

"We were all evaluated for our skills and given a position in the castle. The youngest boys were sent to be knights and the older boys were mostly sent to the stables or directly to the king. Cedric was one of the former and I honestly don't know what happened to the people who were the latter. Personally, I was sent to the kitchen for cooking. we saw the princesses a few times when we were there, that's how Cedric recognized you. It's that hair of yours," Annette leaned forward and stroked a strand of my hair that fell between a color of blonde and brown. "You and your sisters all have it."

"Anyway, we only spent a bit there and I always listened to your older sister's singing lessons, that's how I learned. Cedric found out that the guards had a blank moment in their changing, though he never told me how he found out, seeing as the stables are in the back and the gates are in the front, but when he snuck into my room in the servant's quarters I didn't question his sources. I just trusted him. We stole a horse and rode together out of the gates. I'm sure it caused quite a ruckus. We rode for horse, we didn't stop in town, we just kept going. We went back home only to discover that our armies had been defeated by your king's. We didn't know what else to do but come back. Faylorn's father found us, two young kids, and got us set up in the town. We both had a talent for singing so we took up jobs in the pub. Cedric is the one who started the rebellion. I just joined because I trusted him, again. We used our singing to join together the people who had been from the same place as us."

Soon, people from other groups joined us and we became a much larger organization than we had intended. Cedric tries to incite them, but they're scared to do anything against the knights. That's why he wants you, if a princess is leading them, they'll feel safer, what knight is willing to slay a princess." Annette leaned forwards again, this time to look directly in my eyes. "Please, Orla or whatever your real name is. We need you to help us. We were just children and we were stripped of our parents and our homes. Why won't you see that we much get your father off the throne?" I stood up, suddenly aware that a decision had to be made and that I wasn't ready to make it. I paced around Annette's home, aware of her eyes following me.

"What should I do Annette? I can't join a rebellion, I don't want to go up against my family. My sister's would join my parent's side without knowing what was actually happening. I can't lead people, I was never meant to be a ruler, I was only ever taught how to look pretty and marry properly," I sat back down in the chair I was seated in before, cradling my face in my hands. I felt a hand pat me on the back of the head.

"You should go, I won't force you to make a decision, but Cedric is probably on his way here and he will. Please understand him, he is still hurting from the pain of his parent's death. I moved on, mostly. He didn't," I nodded solemnly and left, turning quickly from her door and heading in a direction undetermined. I needed time to think about what Annette had said.

I gasped, suddenly remembering my other plan from this morning, to convince the rebels not to kill my father. I turned for a moment, before Annette's warning rang through my head. I couldn't face Cedric and ask him, I would have to have another chance with Annette. For what felt like the millionth time since I'd left the wall, I had no idea what to do or even how to get back to Faylorn's home. I sighed, sitting down. I needed to start paying attention to where people were dragging me off to when they did that. In fact, I needed to stop letting people drag me off. I sighed, leaning against a wall.

"Princess?" I stiffened and groaned internally. Externally, I looked up with a blank expression, trying to show no displeasure at the man behind the voice. Cedric gazed down at me, his dark green eyes piercing me. "I knew it was you, even if you try to look as simple as possible. It's that hair you know, I've never seen anything like it before." He grabbed a strand just as Annette had, but this time I was getting flashes of his outburst before, blaming me of being like my father. I stepped back and his face turned apologetic. "You're thinking of last time aren't you. I'm sorry about that, really. Nette got on me something fierce about that."

"It's not really that big of a thing. I'm still not joining the rebellion though, you know. I can't, it's my father you're going up against and I can't just-"

"Do you know what he did to me?" Cedric turned to me, suddenly his expression and voice cold. I stood still for a moment, unsure of whether to tell the truth or not.

"Yes. Annette told me-"

"She doesn't know!" He turned to me, his eyes flashing with anger. I drew back, my heart in my throat. His voice was low and harsh, like a scream that was yet to be released. "She doesn't know how I watched as the knights violated my mother, as they sliced her open when they were done, like barbarians. How my father was forced to watch as he bleed out on the floor. And worst of all, how I now know that those angry men had been forced to be that way. How they had been perverted by the unbeatable power of a king," He spit out the last word, slowly getting closer to me. "She doesn't know how I had to hear the stable boys wish they had been chosen to be knights, like it was some honor."

"Stop, please, you're scaring me."

"Well, Princess. Sometimes you should be afraid," He turned from my sharply, his face still contorted in anger. I watch his back as he breathed heavily. He cast me a cold look over his shoulder.

"If you decide to join the rebellion, maybe I'll forgive you for your ignorance, but otherwise, go back to your palace, Princess. We peasants are not your play things." He began to storm off but I quickly grabbed his arm.

"Cedric, stop," He grabbed my hand, pulling it off. "Cedric, listen to me. I can't understand unless you explain it. How can you blame me for my ignorance when half of the things you tell me about, actually, over half the things you tell me about, I have only ever read in novels that I was never supposed to read in the first place. Please, tell me all of it," He turned to me, his eyes still blazing. I knew that he should scare me, but honestly, the only thing that scared me was the idea that he would convince me to do the unthinkable and I would end up a rebel.

"Come to the pub tonight. I can tell you about it after the show. I'll give you some time to take in what you already know." He gave me a mildly apologetic look, but it mostly held contempt. It was a fairly complicated expression. He turned towards Annette's home and walked away from me. I turned in the opposite direction and headed that way, though unaware of the way to Faylorn's I knew that I could find it if I could find the central area.

As it turned out, it wasn't actually that hard to find. I had been weaving through alleys earlier, but I had mostly been moving alongside the plaza. I pulled on Faylorn's door only to discover it was locked. I slumped by the door, my mind swirling. I didn't really want to go to the pub with Faylorn, he would ask me questions and I know he would disapprove of me talking to Cedric about his past, but it wasn't his decision to make. I'm sure he would go to see Annette, like usual, so I would just follow him. It seemed reasonable enough and so I settled on my decision and waited.

It wasn't a fairly long time before they came back, to my luck, and Faylorn was among them. I was afraid he would do as he had done last night and go straight to the pub. He seemed in good spirits and I was suddenly struck with something the woman running the hotel had mentioned, the fact that coin meant nothing to them. If it meant so little, why did all of them work? I would ask Faylorn or Mirin later. We all walked in together, Mirin making fun of me for just sitting outside but I quickly informed them that I had worked at the hotel earlier.

"Good job, Orla. Ya wanna get a drink with me ta celebrate?" Faylorn turned, towards me, his cloak already on his back, ready to head out. This seemed to be a much more reasonable solution to my previous plan, thus I nodded eagerly and we headed off.

"Faylorn, do you get paid for your work?" I asked quietly as we walked to one of the pub's entrances. He glanced down at me, quizzically.

"We get paid in food. We work, we get ta eat. It's simple," He shrugged. I looked down, watching our feet as we walked. I knew that I had to change things, but I wasn't sure how to go about it. Would joining the rebellion help people like Faylorn? Or would it just vindicate people like Cedric? I sighed quietly.

"This is impossible," My mutterings were swallowed by the noise of the pub as we stepped through the door. Annette and Cedric had already begun singing and Faylorn swore mildly. He quietly ordered at the bar and I felt the music take over me. Faylorn lead me to a table in the corner and I leaned forward in my seat, my eyes shut, appreciating the music. I heard Faylorn chuckle, as he had last time. The music came to a conclusion all too soon and I was faced, again, with reality. Annette and Cedric came to us directly and I quickly realized that this was the table they had been sitting at last time.

"Antoinette-"

"Annette."

"That was a beautiful performance, as always," Faylorn continued, ignoring Annette's correction of her name. Cedric grabbed my arm and took me to another table.

"Should we really leave them alone like that?" I asked, sitting down at the table he had lead me to. Cedric scoffed.

"Please, Faylorn couldn't be happier. I, at least, owe him this," He looked at the two of them laughing together, a small smile on his face. Suddenly, his face hardened and he turned to me. "Anyway, you want to know why I hate the king. Why I started building this rebellion in the first place?" He leaned back in his seat, his arms crossed. I sat still, waiting.

"Do you know, I have only seen the king twice since I escaped his slavery? Once for each wedding. He gives an address before the people, we are all required to go. I never listen to his words, I only think 'If all of us went at once, there would not be enough knights to stop us'. Sadly, I can't arrange that kind of uprising. You could though. If you went up in front of people, you could empower them enough," I shook my head, but he wasn't paying attention.

He kept talking, explaining the exact feeling of his hatred, but I wasn't listening anymore. All I could see was a fragile man who had build a mental wall around himself, a wall made of hatred. Thinking about it, everyone in this town had build a wall around themselves. While I had escaped my very real and physical wall, all of these people were still living within their own personal walls, carrying them around with them. Getting a job and joining these people in their grey lives would not help them. No, if I wanted to break down those walls, I needed to break down the one between my father and them. If I was to help them, I needed to join the rebellion. 

*****

A/N: I know, I'm late, again. I'm trying to get a new story ready to post and the first chapter is interrupting this. My timing is off, but it will settle again. 

The dedication is for one of the people who helped me when writing this (Cedric and Annette's backstory never would have happened without this person's help!)

Let me know what you all think will happen next! Thank you for reading!