It had been an hour since Anne left and I was roaming around the garden to clear my thoughts and to come up with a survival plan. I was walking around where a flower caught my attention so I went near to take a closer look.
"It's a Red Peony. It's very pretty and it smells nice too...wait a sec! Red Peony does not have a scent normally, so why does this one have a scent and that too so aromatic?...Well, it's a novel world so anything is possible here...hahh...Anyways, what was the meaning of this flower?" I said and started thinking.
"Oh right! it symbolizes love, passion, honour, and respect. Tomorrow when I'll meet Ann I'll give it to her. It reminds me of her" I said while smiling.
I always had an interest in flowers so I studied them whenever I had free time after training so you can say I know a little bit about them.
"Yes, it sure does."
A voice came from behind startling me. I turned around and saw Fannie smiling fondly.
When did she come? I never noticed. Did she hear everything? I hope not or else she will get suspicious of how I know so much about a flower.
"Fannie? When did you come? I didn't notice you." I asked.
"I was always behind you but at a distance, since I didn't want to disturb your walk. I came closer when I saw you sitting on the ground. When I came, you were mentioning Lady Anne. You were so engrossed in your thoughts that you didn't notice me." she said, still smiling at me.
"Oh..." I said
Yes, she didn't hear anything. I let out a sigh of relief
"It is a very rare flower. It grows once every 200 years and when it last grew, the father of your great-grandfather planted it for the mother of your great-grandfather as a sign of his love because the meaning of this flower is 'Pure love'. She was really happy since she has always had an extreme admiration for flowers and this flower meant very much to her." she explained.
"Aw...such a sweet love story. By the way, is it that old and rare?" I asked, curiously since it was not that rare back in my world and also the meaning is different but not that different.
"Yes and every flower present here is special, some are very old and some are new because the current duchess also has a great love for flowers and it seems you also take after her," She said and smiled sweetly at me. I smiled back and diverted my attention back to the flower.
"It is called The Devil's Tears" she suddenly said.
"Yes. The Red p-, w-what? The dev-...the devil's t-tears?" I asked, looking at her, trying to grasp the unique name.
"Yes. It was named after its colour and rareness," she said innocently.
The Devil's tears? What kind of name is that? Oh right, ancient people don't name scientifically instead they name things after stupid things. The devil's tears...seriously? I must say I wasn't prepared for that.
"Yeah right. Devil's tears, what a...devilry rare name, hahaha" I laughed at my own joke while Fannie was standing there smiling awkwardly.
"Ahem...I told Mommy that I would be visiting them so let's go" I said and walked fast from there to escape the awkwardness.
-Inside the Duke's Office-
"My love, you don't have to stay here. I'm perfectly fine, look." The Duke stood up and started doing exercise. Like daughter, like father. "Look, I'm fine. My fever also went down so you should go and rest dear, stress is not good for your and the baby's health," he said.
"Don't try to fool me. I know you're not okay. You are just doing that to make me worry less. See, you still have a fever so stop working." the Duchess said, placing her hand on his forehead. Soon after, a hand slipped to her waist.
"You worry too much, my love. Okay, I won't do any more work, happy? But now, can I get a reward?" he asked, showing his puppy eyes.
"Aish...why are you so cheesy even when you're sick?" she said, smiling helplessly at her husband's actions.
"It's only for you, my Duchess," he said and leaned in for his reward but little did they know there was someone on the other side of the door eavesdropping on their conversation and smirking devilishly.
"MOMMY!! DADDY!!! I'M HEREEEE!!!"
Sabrina exclaimed after slamming open the door making the Duchess push the duke in panic as he crash-landed on the floor.
'Hahaha! Do you think you can do romance in peace?...Not in my presence! You all have fractured my poor door so I will get my revenge for it MUAHAHAHA!! Now that I'm part of your family you think I won't follow the 'Make the door regret its whole existence' tradition? Oh no no, I sure will, ha ha ha!' I laughed evilly in my thoughts.
"Daddy? Why are you on the floor? Mommy, why did you push him? Did he do something bad?" I asked, playing innocent.
Haha! try me, you door hunters. I smirked without them noticing.
"Uh...y-yeah h-he was bullying me! Yes! He was bullying which is why I punished him." Mother tried to cover up the whole situation whereas the father's eyes were wide opened by the excuse mother made and on the other side I was trying to hold my laughter.
"Hey! Why are you making me look like a bad person?" Father whispered to Mother but it was audible enough for me to hear.
"Honey, I was not bullying your mother I was just trying to get a ki- ack" Daddy got cut off by Mommy elbowing him in his stomach.
"Shut up! She's just seven years old, it's too early for her to know!" Mommy whisper-yelled at him, making shivers run down his spine as he slightly nodded.
They're such a cute couple. I was in awe as I looked at their cute argument.
Oh, I didn't mention this before but Mommy is currently eight months pregnant with my cute little baby brother, well they don't know it yet that it's a boy. I always wanted a little brother since I was the youngest in my agency and the ones younger than me were still in training and I was always busy so I never got to meet them.
But now that I have gotten a chance I will cherish him with my full heart. Also, I never had parents in my last life, Chief was a father figure to me but due to his duties, we didn't get that close like father and daughter. Now that I have this blessing I will cherish it to the fullest and live the moments I never experienced.
"Anyway baby, why didn't you come yesterday? I was waiting for you but you never came, I was so sad..." Father said with a pout, who would have thought that the most feared person in the whole empire would be such a softy for his family.
Father and Mother, both are famous in the whole empire as the beauty with brains couple. The Duke is famous for his handsome face and monstrous strength while the Duchess is famous for her beauty and intelligence. Duke has silver hair a little similar to mine with greenish blue eyes while the Duchess has beautiful brown hair with pink eyes, a rare characteristic as well.
Pink eyes were not that common and my eyes are extremely rare, the last one who had the same eye colour as mine died 500 years ago which is also a reason that I was selected as an empress candidate because they thought I could bring glory or something, well, not me but the original Sabrina because this is not gonna happen to me!
"I'm sorry. I was tired yesterday so I slept early. But I won't skip again, okay?" I said and went to hug him, he hugged me back and carried me in his arms.
"Oh, my Daughter is so cute!! I am so lucky to have you!" he said and started tickling me.
"Hahahaha stop Daddy hahaha," I said, trying to make him stop, he laughed and then put me down. Then I ran towards Mother and hugged her leg.
"Mommy *fake sniff* Daddy is bullying me," I said and showed my tongue to Daddy.
"Really? I'm going to beat his ass for bullying my daughter" she said and took the pillow that was on the sofa and threw it at him and he acted like he was severely hurt and here I was dying of laughter.
"Oh right mommy, how is my baby brother or sister? Your belly is so big now." I asked.
"The baby is fine. He or she is just waiting to be born and play with his or her sweet elder sister," she said, booping my nose and making me giggle.
"Mommy I really want to sleep with you and daddy tonight but I don't want to hurt the baby because I toss and turn around too much" I pouted, making them giggle.
"It's okay baby, you cannot sleep with Mommy but you can sleep with Daddy, can't you?" Daddy said, making me jump in excitement. I know it's childish but I don't care.
"Are you ditching me? You traitor!!!" Mommy said and threw another pillow at him but this time he was running around the office and Mommy was constantly throwing pillows and I was just laughing at their cute fight.
After that, Daddy still ended up sleeping with me because Mommy kicked him out of the room but even if she didn't kick him out he'd still sleep with me because he just needed a chance to sleep with his daughter since he is extremely daughter biased, he wants another daughter but oh well, it will be a boy, I kinda feel bad for my baby brother.
Mother was so jealous that she couldn't sleep with me which is also one of the reasons she kicked him out and she said after the baby was born she would sleep with me every day and make Daddy sleep alone as punishment for betraying her. Her childish side is so cute no doubt Daddy fell for her.
Anyway, me and Dad talked till late at night, had fun, sneaked into the kitchen, got caught by Mom, got scolded by her for eating late at night, and then eventually went into a deep slumber.