Illyasviel Royale [D6]

She feels the dragon's scales beneath her fingertips, the wind's cool breaths against her flushed cheeks and the weight of the sword like an anchor in her grasp. She is with the clouds now, soaring above castles, forests and villages with no destination in mind. The air is crisp and unpolluted to her steel lungs, and where she plans to fly there are no cripples, no diseases, no ailments and no problems that she cannot solve with her magical hands. She is a knight, she is their hero, and there is nothing that can stop her.

Until she wakes up.

Her brown hair is tangled above her pillow case. Hazel eyes stare at a white ceiling, blinking away stray fragments of the dream that had once been her world. A "coma world", the people call it; the place where the comatose exist in their minds, a fabricated reality where one could roam while their bodies withered away in real life. In Illya's world she is not the weak, frail stick with shriveled lungs and a bleak future; she is a greatest hero in the realm, fighting off monsters and criminals with her magic and her steel blade. In this world she mounts a mighty dragon and conquers the skies with a blazing heart. Everyone - peasants, jesters, lovers, creatures, kings, queens, princes, princesses - adore her and admire her for her strength and bravery. There, she is an invincible warrior destined for greatness.

She wishes that dreams could become a reality, because in the true life of Illyasviel Royale she is all but extraordinary.

In reality, she is an asthmatic only child of divorced parents with little to look forward to. After her mother moved away taking half of the family income with her, father was forced to work two jobs in order to feed both mouths and afford Illya's medication. She was prone to asthma attacks due to allergies, especially during the spring and summer seasons when the flowers and insects roamed free, and forced to carry an inhaler with her at all times. At the ripe age of fifteen, this all changed when her father was shipped off to be Avoxed after having been arrested for sexually assaulting one of her younger classmates (to this day, she can't help but wonder why? Was it the stress? Did he miss mom?). After that, she moved back in with her mother.

And then all of her friends betrayed her.

They called her a creep. They called her a "sick pervert" like her father. They avoided her, gossiped about her in school, and turned every eye against her until she was standing in solitude. They insisted that she would follow in her father's footsteps and assault a fellow classmate because "the creep gene is always passed on to the first-born." District six, always trying to be scientific. But these are children, and Illya didn't see the logic. All she saw was hatred and vengeance. All she saw was her father, handcuffed and weeping. She never knew that he would become a disgrace. She never knew that he would become her social demise. She didn't know anything, for someone who had once earned high scores in every science the education system had to offer.

Living with mother wasn't any easier. She always kept secrets and turned a blind eye away from her daughter's torment, as if she knew something about her jailed husband that Illya didn't. Was this the reason why they had divorced? If so, why leave Illya in his untrustworthy hands?

She knows why, now. It's because mother doesn't love her. She doesn't understand why; she has done nothing wrong. She has never done anything wrong. But that didn't stop anyone.

She was sixteen when it happened. It was allergy season, and her former friends had been feeling particularly ruthless that day. Illya had been assigned a partner for her latest science project; a girl her "friends" happened to know. "Stay away from her, creep!" they had screeched, but how could she? They were project partners, there was nothing she could do without risking her grades and this was the only thing keeping her stable. But you never say no to bullies, Illya learned that the hard way. In an outrage they threatened to hit her, and although she had never anticipated such an idea she refused to risk the pain. So she ran, and they gave chase into the nearest alley.

She was gasping for breath by the time she reached the dead end. It wasn't a girl's usual panting; allergy season was taking its toll, and the excessive running was wearing her lungs out quickly. She could feel the burning between spasms in her chest as she wheezed and silently screamed for a breath of fresh air. When she reached into her back pocket for her inhaler, she dropped it onto the concrete. By the time she paused to look back the bullies had already confiscated it, laughing when they realized she was helpless without it. That's when they cornered her, all smirks and glimmering eyes as she fell to the ground and clutched her chest desperately, eyes begging them to please, stop, I can't breathe, please, my inhaler! PLEASE! But her silent cries weren't enough, and the attack continued. They watched, knowing full well that they didn't need to throw punches to destroy her.

A few minutes later she blacked out, and then they panicked. Fortunately for them she did not die, but unfortunately for her she fell into a coma. She was thrust into a perfect dreamworld and wrenched out of it a year later. She misses the dragons and the heroics; she misses the admiration, the fresh air, and she misses leaving her people breathless rather than the other way around. Now she sits miserably in her bed, bound by her ailment to a world of weakness and disability. She desperately wishes to return to that dreamworld because in that beautiful place, she knows she can't suffocate.

~