Insanity Blossoms - SHORT STORY

The Queen lay upon a kingdom of fear and death. A crown of blood jewels graced her head as the woman sat in her throne room, not a soul to oppose her. The bodies of her enemies lay face down in pools of crimson blood. 
A ruler without their people is nothing.
The Queen scoffed. Fools. She was not nothing! She was feared! 
But the Queen, exempt from the outside world, holding herself within her castle, driven mad, was nothing but a tyrannic woman who had driven her kingdom to destruction through her greed and yearning for glory. 
The once prosperous kingdom lay rotting, held by the grasp of an isolated Queen - if she could even be called that.
Dagger in one hand; crown in the other. That was her motto. What she thought clung her to sanity. 
But oh, the Queen was wrong.
She had already fallen into insanity.
For as the once-powerful Queen rested on her throne of blood, she felt only the sweet taste of glory and power upon her tongue. 
But to the people outside, they saw a kingdom.
And a Queen.
Dead.
_____ ⁺˚⋆ ｡_____
Nivia looked up absent-mindedly, stirring the pot of gruel in a clockwise direction. The shouting of her younger brothers almost shook the walls as they scrambled about in the children’s room. Nivia heaved a sigh; she’d probably crawl into bed tonight to find a t-shirt tangled in her bedsheets. 
Lifting the spoon, Nivia took a pinch of sugar and sprinkled it into the breakfast. Honestly, why her mother couldn’t do this herself, she didn’t know! But a part of Nivia - a small part albeit - admittedly enjoyed being in charge. It felt almost good. Powerful.
“Albert! Thomas!”
Nivia cleared her throat, chuckling softly as she heard her brothers fall silent – and then burst out of the bedroom. Craning her neck, the girl visibly drooped as if she were a wilted flower. Her brothers were a mess; one leg out of their shirt; one arm out of their trousers; and school began in a few minutes, for goodness’ sake!
“Hello Nivia,” Albert said sweetly, beaming up. His soft hazel eyes glimmered like stars against the backdrop of a night sky. His twin brother, Thomas, butted him like a goat.
“I’m hungry!” he thundered, and Nivia blinked a few times, dazed – before she pulled herself together and nodded, motioning towards the rickety dining table.
“Yes, yes, but you took such a long time getting changed I dare say you’ll have to take your food on the way to school.”
Thomas whooped; Albert nodded. Out of the two, Albert - or Albie, as the family had fondly nicknamed him - was certainly far more organised out of the two brothers. Despite this, he still wore his shirt inside out.
Laughing softly, Nivia set the bowls down, glancing warily at the bouquet of flowers spread across the table. Thomas poked them.
“Ugh! Girly and pink!” he pouted, but Nivia knew that he didn’t mind it, not really. She glanced over, and a small smile graced her lips.
“I think they’re quite pretty,” she mused, her voice hushed. “I think I shall take them to school with me, and hand them out to all the children - and a very pink one for you, Thomas.”
“He can put it in his hair!” Albie giggled, his voice like ringing bells. Nivia laughed along, and even Thomas broke his irritation and flashed a smile. 
With a quick sweep of her arm, Nivia took the bouquet of flowers. 
They were truly an image of beauty.
_____ ⁺˚⋆ ｡_____
After wrangling her two brothers into their proper clothes, Nivia strode down the mud path, her two brothers in tail. The School was below the house, drooping off the edge of a slope, half-dipped in a swamp of churned mud and grass. 
As she held the bouquet close to her chest, Nivia traced her finger around a petal as her brothers dragged their feet behind her. 
“Oh, come on, don’t look so… grumpy,” she cooed, giggling slightly. It’s as if the flowers had intoxicated her; she felt pleasure, happiness… raw, pure, joy. It was, to say the least, like she had been ripped free of shackles holding her down.
She felt free.
“Nivia?”
The girl seemed to snap back into reality at the soft voice of Albie.
“Mm?” she mused, hugging the flowers to her chest and tucking them neatly under her chin.
“Where are you going?”
It was only, at this moment, that Nivia realised she had fallen astray from the path; her footsteps were visible in the mud. She was treading towards a thicket of bushes.
“Oh-” Nivia found herself lost for words, but laughed softly, almost nervously. “Uhm…”
She didn’t want to follow the path. She didn’t want to go where everybody else went; to fall into mundane life, escape futile, death imminent… she wanted more… she wanted more… and she wanted to hold the flowers to her chest every second of that time, never letting go.
“Continue down to the school,” she said sternly; “I… I’m going this way.”
Thomas went to reach out. Nivia flinched away, and felt anger wash over her, as if cleansing any sympathy. She glared down bitterly at her brothers.
“Go! I’ll come back soon!”
Her brothers, their hazel eyes glistening with raw emotion, bit back a retort, and sloped in the direction of the house. Nivia felt herself smiling. They had listened.
Stepping forward, still clutching the bouquet to her chest, the young girl took a deep inhale of breath, reaching over the thicket and into the forest.
_____ ⁺˚⋆ ｡_____
The queen rocked back and forth on her throne, shivering as the snow blanketed outside, leaving the world unblemished. 
Her skin sagged, yellowing, her hair long gone, fallen out in quick clumps many moons ago. Her bony hands were like the Grim Reapers; skeletal, cold, aching the warm flesh of a fellow human.
The Queen had long forgotten and left the world she once knew behind, though. Driven insane. Lead by an intoxicating item of beauty. 
The wilted flowers lay in her hands; drooping, dying. 
Just like her.
Nivia trembled violently, looked up, took one, final, sharp gasp of air, and fell limp against the back of her throne.
As she lay there, a bag of flesh, blood and bones, the flowers began to blossom, anew. Their colours, once faded, brightened, until they were restored to the beauty they once were.
Ready. Ready to find a new victim. A new human to lead to the grave. A fresh grave. A fresh grave that the bouquet would never be laid upon.
After all, the flowers did not exist. 
Not really.
They had died long before Nivia.
It was simply the insanity they had led her to that kept them alive to her.