She walks with a back straightened, like metal pipe, never bending. She takes exactly 2 seconds before the next foot hits the ground. When she turns her path, she lifts her heels, uses her toes to switch sides, then both her heels hit the ground at the same time. Her face was always set in stone. Her words bland, as if she had no interest in anything. Her arms were always tucked behind her, crossed. Her only goal pounded in her head, “You are a machine built to protect”. She always heard the whispers,” Someone needs to fix her”, or, “She’s more machine then human”. She needed not fixing, her walls were up, her body ready to protect her. Her feet carried her to her Queen, ready to give her life if something happened. “Why don’t you ever smile.” She turned to see the beautiful teal eyes of her Queen. “I am a machine built to protect, your majesty”. The Queen laughed, she loved it when she did, her eyes twinkled like stars, “Fine if you’re a machine”, She whispered the next part, so her fellow guards wouldn’t hear, “You Are My Machine”. Her stone face cracked, for the first time in her life, a smile lit up her face. One stone fell off her wall, her wall surrounding her still beating heart. “Now that’s better”, the Queen’s whisper was drowned out by the terrible noise of a blade cutting across a neck, a body thumping to the floor. A man in black rushed in, with a blade dripping with fresh blood. The two guards rushed to the man, while she pushed her body in front of her Queen. With one swift movement, she pulled out her sword. She turned back to the newly entered man, to see a smirk covering his horribly scarred face, and the bodies of two guards in front of him, their eyes still open, and glazed over. She advanced to him, her blade held high, it was an extension of her body. Parries, and strikes hit skin, she could hardly feel anything but adrenaline. She struck, and her sword hit air, then was flying far away from the battle. She heard a cry of battle, and saw a sword come at her, but she felt no pain. She looked down and saw her Queen with a sword embedded through her dress straight through her heart. She considered the eyes of her killer, and rage moved through her body into her hands around his neck, the light left his eyes. “I am a broken machine… I am a broken machine”, she whispered into her hands, even her cries of madness had an unbroken rhythm.