#(( miranda has some scars but even she doesnt know theyre there

[royalreef]

(( Miranda has no scars that she can remember.

This is not to say she doesn’t remember the circumstances that would lead themselves to having scars.

She remembers her hands, slipping, the first time she tried to learn how to duel. She remembers scrapes and bruises and open cuts that made her cry. She remembers failed assassination attempts, skin peeled back, broken bones, remembers the panic that bloomed in her chest like an animal hunted. She remembers medical assistance, problems that were created that needed her to be opened up to be fixed. She remembers frustration, taking it out on herself, biting herself, dragging her claws along her own scales. She remembers others’ teeth and claws, sinking into her shoulders, her hips, striking long gashes along her thighs as they arched against her.

But there’s nothing left behind, nothing to tell of this history other than Miranda’s memory of it. Memory with no physical evidence it happened, not anymore.

Part of this is logistical. Miranda’s covered in scales. If their bony cores aren’t damaged, they do wonders in growing back and not revealing where the old wound was, where it hurt her. Sure, it might be visible for a time, but once the wound itself is gone her scales tell little of what might have happened to her and her body. Merfolk are hardy, and abyssals too, even if Miranda’s hardly in the best health as a specimen of either.

But part of this is that it would simply be unseemly to have a royal be marked up by scars, especially one in a position like the Crown Princess. People might ask questions, then. They might doubt that the throne could keep them safe, if it couldn’t even keep its own heir safe. It’s easier to sweep the assassination attempts under the rug if no one can see the evidence written across Miranda’s chest and neck, and it only makes sense that someone of her position in life would have nothing to worry about, be unmarked by life’s toils. What would other royals say, if they saw that Miranda had been chewing at herself? If someone else had broken her skin with their teeth? It’s easier to hide it away, to keep her prim and proper and perfectly polished, and the Merkingdom has more than enough medical advances to ensure that no amount of scrutiny would ever find a scar on Miranda.

Unfortunately, this just adds a further reminder to Miranda herself that her body is not her own. She’s loaning it from the Merkingdom, it’s an asset that she was trusted with but all the same does not belong to her. She has no control over it. She has no say in what happens to it. It is to be damaged and repaired at the crown’s leisure, everything done to it done in service of the almighty goals of the Merkingdom and no lesser authority can change that. They determine what happens to her. They determine what state her body and mind should belong in, and have full power to change it as it suits them.

She is a tool, an organ of empire, before she is ever herself. And the part of her that is herself is so small that it might not exist at all. It might not have ever existed in the first place. Miranda is an object, a means to an end, a sharpened sword with all the needless parts of her removed so that she can do her job with ultimate efficiency. Nothing else matters. Her being something, someone, means nothing to the Merkingdom, is no use to the future of the crown.

It makes her throat burn and ache.

Not all scars are so easy to see, after all.