My father of this world… is a real psycho, and a baby’s life is monotonous. Eat, sleep, eat, sleep, and repeat. Yeah, that was really the end of the day.
I find myself dumbfounded, still cannot believe what just happened to me a few days ago, at the end he spared me just because of my name!?
My rattle slipped out of my grip when I shook it too hard in annoyance. It makes quite a loud noise when it hits the ground.
“Ugh, what the heck. Why does she keep dropping it?”
A woman that had been soundly sleeping was startled up by the noise, and she started to curse. Of course, I was baffled.
To be honest, I don’t know how I moved here after my first encounter with my ruthless father, but for sure, I get treated by a few maids who also survived along with me on that day. The maids who are very irresponsible at that, you know, I still remember how they decided left me alone in front of them.
What is it for? So that I could be killed faster?
“Please be quite and play with this, miss.” She said nonchalantly, giving the rattle back to me even without wiping it.
See, what an irresponsible adult!
I purposely shook my rattle hard and fast, so it made a loud noise. The maid furrowed her brows and started to put on a look full of frustration, she complained as she walked out and slammed the door so hard it closed tightly, leaving me all alone in this spacious room.
Huff…
I sighed.
Oh well, she probably went to the head maid to complain about my behavior.
I quickly lowered the rattle and stopped all the annoying behavior I was displaying earlier.
In this silence, my mind is filled with various things, but there is one that catches my attention. According to what I overheard from the maids gossiping, my mother, Jeremiah Henyscira, is a foster daughter of Count Henyscira’s. The maids said that their first meeting was when she was invited to an Imperial Victory Ball, which was held to celebrate Kieran’s return after seven years on the battlefield along with his achievements and victories as well as his late debut in social circle.
When Kieran won the coup war against the former emperor, his older stepbrother, Arius Eilam Elaine, she entered the palace as Kieran’s woman. She drew the emperor’s attention and was deflowered by him, but then she was forgotten… and died, leaving an infant behind, who is me.
Some say that she threw herself into Kieran, and others say that she’s a former dancer who was invited to the Imperial Ball. But actually, no one really knows their true story, right? Except themselves, of course. Yet, they keep spreading bullshits to satisfy their own imaginations.
I was born when Kieran won another coup war brought by his younger stepbrother, the third prince, Kendrick Eilam Elaine, the only imperial family that survived from the heartless massacre Kieran had brought three years ago.
It’s hard to believe, but a few days ago when I was just born and still could not open my eyes, a coup war was still ongoing, and once that madman won the war, he immediately rampaged and eradicated his own palaces.
Even born as an emperor’s daughter, I didn’t get to be lucky… what if he suddenly goes cuckoo again and tries to kill me? That was what I thought, which resulted with me kept on glancing at the door for these past few days whenever I opened my eyes in fear that madman was going to storm in.
I lifted my hand into the air covering the spinning mobile that was hanging in my crib, then observed it carefully.
What a light and chubby hand, was what I thought.
I still couldn’t get used to it, the clasped small hands that full of fat, and the soft smooth skin without any fine lines and calluses that covering the palms.
Anyway, the name I got in this life is given to me by my birth mother,
“Keisha”
That meant princess or a blessing from God, blessed with an everlasting life. Such an extravagant name for an ‘outcast’ like me, and the meaning of the name that didn’t match the reality make my heart cry.
I suppose my mother wished for me to live long and prosperously under the emperor’s care. But unfortunately, she didn’t know that her daughter would face a tragic death at the age of sixteenth by her own father, the emperor himself, no less.
That’s why after he let me live, I was determined to survive and not met the same tragic end as the stupid original Keisha.
But why would she do such a stupid thing? I asked myself.
I just need to run away from the palace, right? Never met the emperor or his concubine. I made a resolution, a declaration. I can feel a strong will to live running through my entire body filling up my guts.
Anyway, I have never really thought about this before, but leaving a baby like me here, where he committed such a cruel massacre in this place… I keep thinking about this and since then I’ve been having nightmares, and like a person with paranoid, I keep feeling like there’s a black shadow moving around pass right outside the window every night, watching me.
The first time I realized the black shadow thing, I cried so hard that the maids were annoyed by my presence, now they seem to really hate me to the point I feel like I will die before I even turn one year old from being poisoned or strangled by one of them.
Geez! Why on earth did this kind of thing happen to me!
Somehow everything about this place and its contents feel horror to me. The cold wind blows over me, and I can feel the hairs on my neck stand on end.
Oh my life…
Well, despite all of these misfortunes, I need to get a hold of myself because there are more crucial things to do, which is to conclude everything based on my limited knowledge that I got from my dream…
First, the original Keisha died at the age of sixteen years old, so I need to try not to die until then. Second–
I fell deep into my thoughts, thinking about how to sort out this mess I’m in, but I snapped right away back to reality because of the knocking sound on the door that was soon followed by a sound made by the door being pushed open.
Did she come back?
She opened the door slowly that the creaking hinge echoed all over the room.
I got confused and found myself starting to wonder because something felt different. If that maid really came back, then she wouldn’t open the door so cautiously like that, but rather it would be like…
“Miss!”
Yeah, like that. She would have barged in without knocking and started screaming.
Then, soon an unfamiliar yet familiar woman appeared beside of my crib, the hazelnut-colored hair she has sparkling in my eyes, she approached me with a beautiful, elegant, yet cheerful expression painted all over her face, and then she smiled at me gently.
In the blurry of muzzy memory from the dream, a scary glitch, a cut-of a scene, like a prologue of a novel—something that not clear—appeared in my mind. A woman with brown hair sat on the floor, she looked shabby and messy, very different from how she looked now in front of me, and her eyes looked heavy and hazy. She kneeled on the floor, blocking the path of a man with her entire body who was none other than Kieran.
I couldn’t hear their conversation, but when our eyes met, I couldn’t help but be startled.
Huh? What was that…?
She looked deep into my eyes, and the blurry image from earlier started to become clearer.
Y-you!
“Greetings to the princess, my name is Estelle Edgar. I promise I will take good care of the princess and will always be by your side.” She greeted me, bowing in a very elegant courtesy, her voice just like a calm lake water, it sounded so clear that it felt like we could see what was at the bottom of the lake.
“Pftt. ‘Princess’ she said.”
Suddenly, the maid from earlier sneered while twisting her dull old bronze-colored hair with her index finger, her chin is up and her arms crossed, she displayed a smug arrogance that showed as if she was in power, while leaning on the left side of the door.
I couldn’t help but snort at her words.
“Her mother is a concubine, so she is the young miss of the Henyscira Household, not a princess. She will be returned to that household once she reaches adulthood.” Another maid added, who leaned against the right side of the door, while giving a dead glare.
“Oh! But what should we do? Henyscira Household has been annihilated. I doubt they aren’t any different to the dust on the ground I step on right now.”
“Maybe we should prepare ourselves to throw her on the streets fourteen years from now.”
“You need to start the countdown.”
A loud wicked laugh filled the entire room and echoed through the long corridor behind them, they cannot hide their excitement to mock a noblewoman, and the satisfaction of successfully accomplished their mission.
A child of a concubine would never be looked upon or treated with respect because the child is considered illegitimate, so they are not allowed to use the imperial family name, ‘Elaine’
Although, they are an illegitimate children they still have an opportunity to use the imperial family name, with the exception that: as long as they have the Emperor’s grace–either their mother is loved, or they have an outstanding talent that catches the Emperor’s attention–and the Emperor wish to recognize them as one of their descendants.
However, for that reason don’t even mention an illegitimate child who doesn’t get the emperor’s acknowledgment and forget about the other possibility, especially for those like this girl, Keisha—or now me—an outcast child because only children recognized by the emperor, or children of spouse legally married to the emperor could be bestowed the title of prince or princess, the rest would only be considered as young masters or young ladies of the household their mother belonged to.
“Maybe there’s something wrong with her brain.”
The maid said while circling her index finger beside her temple.
They keep saying insulting words and giggling while walking away from my room. They openly insult and humiliate her in the worst possible way, with those mocking words. They act as if the peerage that the woman in front of them holds has no meaning at all, as if she is no different from those of the commoners, such as themselves. On the other hand, I think Estelle is really good at ignoring. She remained calm, while slowly approaching me, and began to hold me in her arms, lifting me up in the gentlest way.
Keisha has someone who takes care of her, a very close maid. Her unofficial nanny, whom she considered as her own family, someone who never leaves her side until the very end of that person’s life. Estelle Edgar, she was the person who was willing to sacrifice her life to save this girl, and while others ignoring and treating her badly in this wide and big palace, she boldly stepped forward and begged the emperor to allow her to take care of the poor Keisha.
I look straight to Estelle’s clear green eyes and feels like there is this indescribable tingling sensation that starts soaring from the corner of my heart. I can feel my eyes start to heat up, but I cannot afford to mess our first meeting, so instead of crying and making our angel misunderstood that I don’t like her, I will smile at her very brightly, cheerfully, and gratefully.
Hey, Keisha the troublesome girl, I’m doing this for you… so you better be grateful, and kowtow to me if we meet one day. I know you never had chance to say this before, and you would never be able to say this even if you want to, so I will do it on your behalf and for myself because she will be the only one who without reluctance stays by our side until the very end.
“Waw baw waa~”
I opened my mouth and irregular words started flowing out, I also reached out my hand towards her. I smiled and simultaneously let out a small, cute laugh, and without realizing it… yeah, without even realizing it I shed tears in the corner of my eye.
Our angel, the kindest and gentlest lady on this earth that is covered with darkness, it’s really nice to have finally met you. I promise I’ll protect you this time, your honor, your happiness, even your precious life.
Thank you, and I am sorry, Estelle.
I’m sorry because it seems like in this life you will also be a little bit in an inconvenience because I might bother you a little and I might depend on you more than I imagine. For now, until I’m old enough to take care of myself, let me take shelter under your majestic and great white wings, and when I become strong enough, please let me protect you when that time comes under my newly bloomed wings.
……………
[A/N] Sometimes, our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from someone else. When memory is stored in the heart and not in the mind, each of us will start to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.
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