Initially confused about the invitation made by her sister as the elder girl opened the door to find the teary-eyed Danae standing at the threshold; the youngest Stravos wasn’t sure if she should accept it. After all, she had only come here to return the earrings so Chara wouldn’t add onto her pain in the morning by screaming at Danae to get them back. This was not at all the reaction that the sixteen-year-old expected. She had anticipated her sister being cold and uncaring to her little sister’s plight, so this deviation from the norm was hard to process. However, there was a quiet part of Danae that was more than grateful that her sister had offered to let her into the elder girl’s space. She would never admit it, but after what happened today, Danae really didn’t want to be alone.

Danae glanced about the room, making note of how different this space was to her own bedroom on the other side of the wall. Where the younger girl’s room was sparse, favoring practicality over luxury, Chara more than made up for it here. Everywhere she looked, Danny could see an overflow of jewels and fabrics. Shoes were practically scattered everywhere and if there wasn’t a clear color scheme in what was displayed where; Danae would have sworn that there was no method to the clutter. This was certainly a far cry from the bare trappings that Danae preferred. There was no vanity piled high with makeup products, instead the younger girl had a desk that was overflowing with books and papers. All the clothes Danae owned and preferred to wear were neatly tucked away in a single, ornate wardrobe. Her sanctuary in this massive house would never take on the appearance that defined Chara’s chamber and if that didn’t speak to the massive differences between the two girl’s personalities, Danae wasn’t sure what will.

In truth, she was a little off-put by the atmosphere of the whole space. Danae instinctively knew that she did not belong in a place like this and the sheer fact that the rooms were physically similar to each other was a little more than disconcerting, to say the least. As awkwardly made her way over to an empty chair, Danae couldn’t help, but feel that this was some sort of look into an alternate reality. Had she not been born with this fantastic, self-sabotaging brain of hers or had she never been encouraged to follow her own pursuits, this could have very easily been her own reality. She was not going to shy away from the fact that this was the kind of bedroom that the world expected hers to be -- given her station in life and all. The mere thought of it all was vile enough that it made her stomach churn. She could understand wanting to flaunt money, this was the lifestyle that she had been raised in after all, but she just couldn’t fathom building an entire personality around this sort of thing. Danae would never be able to tolerate only caring about fashion and makeup. Never in a thousand years.

She knew that Chara was more than well-aware of this and the younger girl did not have her doubts that she was thinking about this was a space that Danae did not belong in as well. However, given that her little sister was not in the best mental state, she could imagine that Chara’s inner thoughts were not kind. The sixteen-year-old had already been on the receiving end of one too many of Chara’s mean-spirited jabs to fool herself into thinking that whatever this was, her sister was doing this purely out of the kindness of her heart. Danae had rarely, if ever, seen that side of the woman who was a decade older than her. She had no faith that this was going to change.

That was likely why the youngest Stravos was so visibly on edge as Chara settled in for this sister-to-sister discussion -- whatever that was going to look like. She had already been humiliated by one sibling tonight, the poor girl didn’t know if she could take a verbal barrage from another. Danae’s eyes drifted warily over to the older girl, waiting for her to speak and just get this over with. There was absolutely no reason in Danae’s mind why her elder sister wasn’t going to take this opportunity to rub it in that Danae was just a stupid, little girl who knew nothing. How she was the family embarrassment and that it was a disgrace that the two of them had the same bloodline. Not to mention a hundred other nasty, terrible things that Chara would rub into this wound that already cut Danae fairly deep if the tear tracks on her face were anything to go by. Her own anxieties were already hard at work telling her that this was not going to end well.

But the silence told a different story.

Chara had every opportunity to fill the silence with insults, but instead, she remained eerily silent as Danae braced herself. That was a bit strange to the girl as she had never known her older sister to hold her tongue in this sort of situation. Now that she was doing it, Danae didn’t know what to think of it. Some quiet part of her told her that she should also keep her trap shut and just let Chara eventually speak so she could quickly escape when her barrage of insults was done… but this whole situation was just too unnerving. She couldn’t stand the silence. Not in this room. Not in the wake of what Elias did.

Maybe that’s why Danae finally blurted out after a quiet moment that seemed to stretch on for an eternity, “His plan would have ruin Athenia. I had to stop it. You don’t even know the damage that would have been done.” Her weak defense was barely louder than a murmur. However, the space was so deathly still that she might as well shouted. That’s how loud it seemed to be in the tense awkward air. The younger girl knew what her sister was likely to say as Circenia had already defended her son at the moment when Elias had called attention to Danae. However, it wasn’t exactly her fault that her brother had always been dumb enough that his younger sister hadn’t questioned the validity of his statements. She firmly believed that he was serious in his plan and knowing the long-term dangers that could come with the removal of import taxes, that she had to stop him. At that moment, she truly believed that she had been doing what was right for her kingdom. How was she supposed to know that it was all a farce?

As these thoughts swirled in her head, an unsightly hiccup began to form in her chest. If Elias wanted to wear Danae down enough that she would never try this sort of thing again, he had succeeded. Her trust in him was ruined and her faith that he could make capable decisions was absolutely shattered. He had known that being made fun of like that in front of the court was one of her greatest fears. He knew how physically anxious she got in those moments. He knew and he exploited that because Elias didn’t like what she was doing. His own sister. Elias did that to his own flesh and blood without a second thought. It was so callous and cruel that Danae didn’t even know how to process it.

Though she had her doubts that Chara truly cared about how betrayed Danae felt by this whole disaster. After all, the girl was a big part of the reason why her younger sister had these anxieties in the first place with the impossibly high bar that the twenty-six-year-old had set up for the girl who came after her. However, there was still a chance that Chara could surprise her…

If Chara had thought that her method of calming Danae would impart some sort of wisdom onto the upset girl, she was sorely mistaken. That was made more than clear once her elder sister had finished her so-called ‘lesson’ and the young girl made her opinion on what her sister had said crystal clear for both of them to hear.

“I was certain!” Danae suddenly snapped back, breaking through the insecurities that held her down when it came to Chara’s cruelty for so many years. Her head quickly whipped around to face her sister as the tears of embarrassment turned quickly into a waterfall of anger, Danae having finally had enough of being treated like a child who knew nothing and who could not be trusted with the simplest things. “Everyone else seemed to have known that it was a farce, yet no one bothered to inform me? The only one out all of us who would see how much of a spectacular failure it would be?! Did you all think I was too dumb, too childish, to understand basic economics?!” The angry words tumbled quickly from her mouth as she spat back Chara’s pathetic attempt to be nice to the little sister who was tired of being treated as if she was still some toddler in diapers.

That’s all she was in Chara’s eyes, wasn’t she? Danae had thought that maybe something might have changed earlier that evening when she had been sitting in front of her sister’s vanity, allowing the elder woman to do whatever she desired with the makeup that Danny didn’t know how to use. She had allowed herself to feel that slight glimmer of hope that maybe the rest of the family was finally starting to see how that she wasn’t some silly child anymore and how she should be included in whatever happened behind the scenes within this secretive family. However, the way that Chara was speaking to her made it clear to Danny that this was not going to be the case. More than likely, this would never going to happen. The age difference between her and the rest of the Stravos siblings was just too great to allow for them to ever see her as more than just the baby of the family. Danny somehow always knew it as such thoughts had always been internalized due to her anxiety, but the events of that evening had forced such things to the front of her mind.

Now she couldn’t ignore the truth that was staring her right in the face.

The mere fact that there wasn’t an ounce of sympathy in the things that Chara was saying. There was no admission that maybe the family should have done a better job at ensuring that Danae knew what was going on. No promises that Danny would never be put in this situation again. Instead, it was just seemingly a tirade about Danae was the one at fault here for daring to have a spine. How could Chara sit here and fault Danae for having enough of a brain to recognize a faulty plan when she saw one and tried to stop it as best as she could. Seven hades, as far as the girl was concerned, her efforts may have been misguided with hindsight, but they should at least be commended as had this occurred just a few short months ago, Danae wouldn’t have bothered trying to undermine the plan through whispers. She would have directly confronted her brother. If Chara wanted to speak about embarrassing the Stravos family, she should have at least considered that as the likely alternative that Danae would have taken. Not this nonsense about the girl needing to just roll over and die when it came to anything with Elias.

“How can you sit here and call me the embarrassment when he put us here in the first place?! He’s the one who lost our nobility and the one who is dumb enough to make a plan like this believable? Why am I the one being chastised like this when clearly he knows nothing about what he’s doing if he keeps fucking up so badly?” Danae practically screeched as the unfair nature of this entire situation overwhelmed her, leaving poor Chara who had really done nothing wrong caught in the crosshairs of this tantrum. It didn’t matter that Danae already knew the answer, Elias was their precious male heir and she was just the black sheep of the family -- a girl who acted like a boy in spite of being a world that would never accept such a thing -- making everything that her brother did seem like an edict from Zeus himself. It didn’t matter that he was an incapable dumbass who couldn’t find his way out of a barrel if left to his own devices. He was the Stravos’s precious, golden boy. She was just the spare daughter. It didn’t matter that Danae had her father’s mind. It was worthless while she had the body of a woman. That was why all of this was happening, why she was being ignored.

After all, Danae had no doubts in her mind that if she had been born a boy, Elias would have never been the son who was pushed so close to the crown.

However, there was nothing that she could do about that. She had been cursed with this body just as the rest of them were stuck with Elias as the heir. That did not mean though that Danae had to sit here and listen to this nonsense about how she was supposed to be spineless. After all, the girl was sick of being everyone else’s pawn. Someone who none of them ever thought of when it came to creating these elaborate schemes, but expected to be happy with the outcome anyway. It was bad enough that Danae had to suffer it with her parents, but she was not going to take it from Chara too.

That was why Danae quickly stood up and tossed the earrings onto Chara’s bed before storming towards the door, slamming it shut behind her with such ferocity that it rattled the wall surrounding it. She was not going to sit here and be told to be a good puppet. That was not who Danae was and it didn’t matter how much her family wanted this to be her, she was not going to do it. Not now, not ever.

However, that would have to be a fight for another day as for now Danae didn’t have the strength to do anything else, but turn the lock to her own room. That way Chara couldn’t follow her in as Danae threw herself onto her bed and pulled the covers up and over her; hoping fruitlessly that it might drown out the noise of her sobs as she was confronted with just how little she meant to her family as a whole. Her cry for comfort had gone unanswered and poor Danae would be left to tend to her own broken heart as she slowly cried herself to sleep, not knowing how to fix this unfair situation that she had been born into.