The Royalty gets a Bodyguard.

Wrung rolled his eyes. "We have different methods, I know that may be hard for you to understand, but that's how it is." He finally entered the castle, excited to drop the brat in the room and guard outside it so he didn't have to deal with them.

Alice snorted. "Your methods are ineffective and foolish." She said. "And they've put Their Majesty in further dangers, because you're a hotheaded babe panting at the heels of your prince." Alice slammed the castle doors closed behind them and locked them.

Wrung ignored her and continued to walk, quickening his pace to get rid of both pains in the ass. He opened the door to their room, and dumped them on the bed. "You can stay in here and watch the princess, I'll be outside the door."

Alice ignored him completely save to glare at him viciously for a brief moment before he left and shut the door behind him. Once Wrung left the room her face softened into neutrality and watched Taryn in concern; they'd just watched their father get murdered. She couldn't imagine they were anything other than a mess of pain and grief. "I'm sorry for your loss." Alice said quietly.

Taryn had just kind of let him drop them onto the bed. They hadn't really moved much, other than pulling some hair out of their face, which was streaked with tears. "Why didn't you let me go to him?" they asked, the hoarseness in their voice clear.

"You'd have been killed, Your Majesty. My job is to protect you. When things like that happen, my job is to get you out of harm's way to safety. I could not let you go to him. It'd have been your death." Alice said softly.

Taryn said nothing for a moment, Alice was completely right, but they couldn't help but disagree rather foolishly. "My mother...is she alive?" Taryn honestly didn't know if they could handle the potential to that answer, but needed to know anyway.

Alice shook her head regretfully. "I'm sorry, Your Majesty." She said quietly. "I don't know. There likely won't be any confirmation until the riots have calmed down."

"I-I have to do something,"They said, a hollowness in their voice. They needed to lead, somehow help, but had no idea how. They quite honestly didn't know if they could manage to stand right now, let alone begin giving orders to an entire country.

"You need to remain here until the crowds have cleared, Your Majesty." Alice said gently. It was too chaotic outside, too easy for someone to slip a knife between Taryn's ribs or snap their neck before Alice could get to them.

Taryn said nothing for a moment, sitting up slightly, trying to control their shaking. The beautiful dress has ripped from when Wrung had thrown them over his shoulder and the thrashing to get away made it worse. "I wrecked my dress."

"One of the seamstresses can repair it later, Your Majesty." Alice murmured. She grabbed a thick blanket from the wardrobe and tucked it around their shoulders.

Taryn tried to smile at her, but failed to do so. They reached out one hand, trying to catch Alice's. They wanted Alice close, trying to hold onto someone they cared about. The prince hadn't even crossed their mind,except a small hope, which faded quickly, that he wouldn't come back.

Alice allowed them to grab onto her hand, cautiously sitting on the bed next to them. It was understandable they were rattled, probably in shock, and if they seemed to want her near, she could do that for them. She squeezed their hand lightly and left it to rest on their shoulder.

Taryn scooted closer to her, trying to be close to at least someone. "Are you hurt?"they asked hesitantly, unsure if Alice had been injured getting them to safety, because honestly they didn't remember.

Alice shook her head. "No, Your Majesty, I'm fine. Don't worry about me." It was, strictly speaking, a lie, given the lurid blue-black bruising starting to spread across her cheek and the swollen skin of her split lip, but Alice assumed they weren't asking her about that.

"Please just drop the fucking formalities," said Taryn, not able to censor themselves at the moment. They looked over at Alice, beginning to see the effects of Vandyke's anger. They were having an incredibly hard time processing this however.

The swearing didn't faze Alice; she just nodded. "If that's what you would like, Taryn." Now didn't strike her as the time to insist upon professionalism and proper protocol.

Taryn nodded, resting their head on Alice's shoulder, feeling rather clingy, which was not a feeling they had ever really experienced before. They just wanted closeness with someone they didn't want to lose. Everything seemed to be just crashing over them in waves, bits from the joust to their father's death, to Vandyke's anger, although it all felt like it happened at once.

Alice let out a soft breath, curled her arm around them and rested it on the nape of their neck. The king was dead and the queen too, most likely. Nobody had been quick enough to stop it and the entire kingdom had devolved into a massive riot. Their wedding would be moved up infinitely sooner, Vandyke would ascend the throne. And though she hated to admit it, Alice felt uneasy. A cloying sense of worry seeped into her, sticky and choking like a syrup. The recent assassination attempts on Taryn and the sudden murder of the king- Alice didn't think either of those was coincidence.

Taryn sighed deeply, although it was caught by themselves and sounded rather strange. They couldn't get past thinking about everything that had happened, and anger and fear and resentment was beginning to well up in their chest. Before they knew it, angry tears were seeping out of their eyes. They wanted revenge on the people who had begun to wreck and destroy their family.

Alice kept her face neutral when she heard them start to cry, although internally she wanted nothing more than to edge away. She didn't know what to do for tears, had no training or experience comforting someone. Usually, Alice was the one destroying someone's life, not attempting to give comfort after the fact. The most she knew to do was to keep her arm around them and let them cry on her shoulder.

"I'm going to kill them," They gasped finally, regaining enough composure to speak again. They didn't know where this anger was coming from, but it was there and it made the pain a little easier to deal with. "I want to kill them."

She blinked, only barely stopping her jaw from dropping. It was one of the last things she'd have expected to hear them say. "Are you sure?" She asked. "Because you can't generally come back from that sort of thing, Taryn." Alice understood the desire for revenge, wanting to hurt and kill and make someone else suffer, and- were she in their position- she'd most certainly want to kill the people who'd murdered her parents.

But not everyone really wanted that. In the moments immediately following that kind of loss, Alice had seen and heard people do a lot of things. Most of the time, they regretted it later on, wished they'd never done it. So while she was in full support of Taryn killing the assassin that'd cost them their family, she had to check that they were sure.

Taryn didn't answer, unsure of what to say to that. They weren't sure, but the anger wasn't going away and nor was the pain. These people, connected or not to each other, had attacked them numerous times, and now had destroyed their family. They just sat there silent, letting the anger bubble and build. "I want those who destroyed my family to suffer," was all they said, unsure of what that meant in regards to actually committing murder or not.