Clay Eight

"Tonight, we run."
Her father's unexpected words changed Hina's life.
She was 18. It was summer, the final days of school.

Pursued by men in black, her father came to this small island of Canon
many years ago, and married the imperial family in what was called the Rite of Koka.
Hina was a princess.

She watched her father die by public execution.
This too was the Rite of Koka, a ceremony 18 years in the making.

"Will you become the queen of this country?"

Hina felt swallowed in a vortex, entangled in expectations.

Little by little, a distance widened between herself and him. The one who supported her.
He was her elder brother, by the Rite.

She was Hina, the princess of Canon. She is you.
With feelings in your heart that cannot bridge the distance,
you step into that expanding place, in a dress of lily white.

What will become of the island? What of your answer?

Can you, and he, disentangle from the clutches of this country?

[From DLsite English]