Rosalyn Lockhart should have known that befriending someone wasn't the easiest of tasks. Who was she to think that her relationship with Nicholas was better than her relationship with his two other friends? Better than his relationship with his friends? What difference was it—
"Your Majesty," Nicholas said.
But even he had no words to say, because he had feared her. There was no doubt about it. It was from his question, posture and even mannerisms. And that stung, she didn't knew it was possible to feel this way about someone she had hardly known.
The Queen of Hearts looked at Nicholas.
She was feared. And yet she wanted to be liked… by him? By his friends? By anyone she had met? That was folly, no doubt. But her heart longed for that. She didn't know it, but now it was clear in the broad light of rejection.
She wanted to be liked, loved and adored?
"It is much safer to be feared than loved because ...love is preserved by the link of obligation which, owing to the baseness of men, is broken at every opportunity for their advantage; but fear preserves you by a dread of punishment which never fails."
Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince
Other variation
“Upon this a question arises: whether it be better to be loved than feared or feared than loved? One should wish to be both, but, because it is difficult to unite them in one person, it is much safer to be feared than loved.”