Kurtis was incapable of deciding whether to cry, be jealous of Ruben and Victor or be angry. So instead he decided to focus on the maid carrying him.
As stated on her name tag just above her breast pocket, the Young maid was called Viera and even at such a young age she was beautiful. She had a slim face, pale White skin, dark blue eyes and long black and dark blue hair that reached her waist. She had slim lips and White teeth that made her smile as dazzling as she was beautiful. Kurtis noticed that she was quiet tall for her age at around 5 ft 4 and despite her still lacking female assets had quiet a feminine dominant aura about her.
She wore a black dress with a full skirt and a white smock apron and would often look down at him in her arms and flash him an apologetic little smile. Contrary to the effect she hoped her smile would have on the child, it only served to push him further into the depths of despair.
'If even this maid is feeling bad for me, I can't imagine what is in store for me' he thought.
Viera had only been in this job for a month but she already loved it. There were few things she wouldn't do to keep her job, working for the Royal family was like a dream to her, a privilege she never could've imagined she would receive. It gave her access to good food, clean water and clothes, a spacious and warm living area and most of all, colleagues and friends that were like a second family to her.
But holding this child and knowing what was in store for him made her feel bad for being the one to carry him away. Her not being able to understand why the child had to be neglected, coupled with the fact that he reminded her so much of her dead younger brother tugged at her heart strings and made her incapable of looking him straight in the eyes, instead having to settle for flashing him what she hopped was a comforting smile from time to time.
After walking along multiple hallways and up many staircases, she stopped in the middle of a corridor and pressed a button on the wall. From above dropped down a ladder which she climbed up to enter the attic.
Viera was appalled.
'This is where they're going to keep their child?' She thought to herself before scrambling around in the darkness for the lights and realising there were none. She pulled over an old sofa cacked in dust ,which she set the child on after clearing. She then quickly left and returned a few minutes later with two candles which she lit and set on top of a rickety old table.
She also brought baby clothes to cover him up with. There was no nappy.
Her guilt was eating away at her and she couldn't bear to leave a baby on its own in such a place so stayed with him for as long as she could before the head butler Jeirus summoned her to the servants lounge.
She reluctantly let go of the child and after giving him a small apologetic kiss on the forehead, left the attic and Kurtis alone.
There was nothing but silence and poorly lit darkness in the attic. He could barely move so he had to bear with it and hope someone would come for him.
Between his crumbling mental health and inability to move, it felt like torture. He had nothing to do but stare up at the Black ceiling and get dust in his eyes while willowing in self pity.
He had no way of telling the time so what was actually only two hours felt like ten after which he heard the door open and the Young maid come back in with two bottles of milk.
She set him on her lap and fed him the milk while stroking his sparse hair and flashing him adoring looks. Normally being in such a position with his head on the lap of a beautiful girl any boy would be ecstatic but Kurtis couldn't help but think of how pitiful and self deprecating it felt and it just fuelled his creeping depression.
Viera started talking about feeling bad for him and how if it was up to her he would be treated the same as the other children but Kurtis wasn't paying attention. After leaving that bedroom his poor eyesight had returned but maybe because inside the womb it was really dark ,he could see fine in the dim attic.
There wasn't much to see, unlike the rest of the luxurious and extravagant Castle , the attic was ,albeit spacious, old and dark. Most of the space was occupied by large boxes full of old clothes and unused furniture.
This time the Young maid couldn't stay long, she had her afternoon duties to attend to and hurried off to see to them.
She returned a while after that to bring him more milk and stayed with him for a bit before duty called.
....
The next three years were the worst of Kurtis' lives.
The only bright spot was the Young maid who would bring him his meals and spend as much time with him as possible. Kurtis had always been really smart and that hadn't changed since his reincarnation, with Viera's help and because he had nothing else to do, he quickly learnt how to walk and talk. A bucket had been placed in the corner for him to relieve himself into and he quickly learned to control his bladder and bowels.
He could read a bit but couldn't write, Viera was a maid with commoner origins and no education. She had been taught enough about reading to do her job and that's what she taught him.
He quickly grew really fond of her, with nothing to do but rummage through old clothes he quickly found himself slipping into a deep depression and would only be temporarily lifted from it whenever she was with him.
He had hoped that he would find something interesting in the boxes other than clothes. A book or or at least something he could use to better his reading skills but the most interesting thing he found was a rock about the same size as his three year Old Middle finger lodged inside one of the musty old sofas.
It wasn't even like the clothes were valuable in any way, they were poorly made suits and cotton dresses that were ripping and falling apart.
Using all of his strength and running on pure boredom, he had pushed the boxes up against the wall and rearranged the rotting furniture to make the the place vaguely reassemble a living room with a broken sofa in the middle which he used as his bed. Viera had somehow managed to sneak him an aged duvet and used pillow to use as bedding.
He lost count of how many times he felt like crawling up in a ball on it and crying until he ran out of water in his body to waste.
The only way he had of telling the time was by keeping track of when Viera came to bring him his meals which had changed from at most two bottles of milk, usually only one, to a small bowl of soup, two slices of bread and a small glass of water. Three times a day, every day.
She couldn't read the time but had told him that she usually had to bring him lunch six hours after breakfast and nine hours before dinner also that after she brought him dinner she had to go to bed.
Night times (which he had allocated as after dinner) were the worst. Despite his endless efforts to fall asleep, he would always end up thinking about his horrible life, how he was living and how much he missed his mum and by extension his old life. In the end he spent whole nights thinking depressing thoughts and fighting off tears which would usually mean he would spend 'day time' tired and grumpy.
He had sworn to himself he wouldn't cry, no matter how bad things got. He was sick of it and had considered doing his new parents a favour and committing suicide multiple times. He probably would've if it wasn't for Viera giving him the bare minimum amount of hope that he needed to keep going.
Over the three years she had really grown as a woman physically. She had grown even more beautiful with age and her body had filled out, she now had slender and plump curves which were visible even through her modest maid attire.
But she had changed a bit
About a year after being born, Kurtis was in a bad mood and curled up in bed, at the back of his mind the fact that he was still technically unnamed played on his mind when he heard the familiar sound of the attic door opening. He immediately snapped out of his daze and rushed over to the trap door eagerly expecting to see Viera climbing the ladder.
Instead the door opened and up climbed two infants.
Kurtis' heart sunk and he found himself enveloped in a feeling of dread.
Ruben and Victor were no doubt two of the most beautiful one year Olds you could ever meet. They were both around 2ft 10 and healthily chubby. They both had long wavy hair, Ruben's a mix of red and green, Victors red and Black. Both had peach coloured skin and oddly coloured eyes Ruben's sea green and Victor's pale red.
They were bare footed and wore Black silk satin suit trousers with gold buckled belts, red and gold long sleeved shirts and gold tie. Over that they wore beautifully patterned red and gold waist coats and extravagant, fine quality long coats Red and green respectively. To top it off they each wore pure gold and stunning red Ruby crowns. Ruben had his on straight and immaculate whereas Victor wore his lazily, almost hanging off his head.
Kurtis remembered thinking it was too much for twelve month old kids.
He had been so immersed in his depression that he had completely forgotten about his two very unwanted brothers but was soon reminded with a chubby foot to his crestfallen face.
"God, you look like sh*t" said Victor.
Kurtis thought it was odd hearing a one year Old child speak in such a condescending tone and swear but he couldn't deny that he had spoken the truth. He did look like crap.
Having lived on nothing but the bare minimum of soup, bread and water for so long he was way thinner than a child his age should be and as frail as a dying puppy. His skin was really pale and he hadn't taken a bath in all that time, had been wearing the same clothes for just as long and so stank and was covered in grime, dirt and dust from the attic. Not to mention he hadn't brushed his teeth in God knows how long.
Kurtis didn't have access to a mirror so didn't know what he looked like but assumed it was more of the same. Compared to them he was just a dirty bug wearing rags.
"eugh! Is that a bucket of your sh*t? That's disgusting, imagine living like this. That could never be me." Taunted Victor
"Why did we even come up here? This is a waste of time, in twenty minutes we'll be leaving to attend a rendez- vouz with the emporer and the other royals, do you want to embarrass mum and dad by taking this smell with you?" Remarked Ruben, completely ignoring Kurtis who had his head hung in shame.
"Yeah, yeah I know. It's just we haven't seen each other in a long time, I wanted a nice reunion" smirked Victor as he gave Kurtis another boot to the nose " besides, we can just get Jeirus or one of the servants to get rid of the smell"
"even so, we don't have time to be wasting on scum that are below us" Ruben said this while giving Kurtis ,who was now on his back and holding his nose, the dirtiest look.
"Heh, I guess you do have a point but it brings back old memories" Victor straightened his coat and together with Ruben, turned swiftly around and back down the loft stairs but not before saying with a snarl "we'll be back later"
Kurtis had been left there on the floor holding his throbbing and bleeding nose. He didn't move , instead he stayed there as a fresh wave of depression washed over him and he thought back to all those times he had been bullied by the two, until Viera came to bring him his dinner and made a fuss over him.
Victor stuck to his promise. He and Ruben would often come up to the attic at least twice a week to make Kurtis' already unpleasant life even more hellish. Victor would beat him up, always leaving him with bruises and more often then not, minor broken bones. After all, they were still children below four, he couldn't inflict any major damage. Kurtis new this but it didn't make the pain any less painful and unbearable, but much like in his previous life there wasn't much he could do and would just have to grind his rotting teeth and bear it.
Ruben however preferred to insult and belittle him. This only added to Kurtis' depression and feelings of self pity as well as embarrassment. Ruben would also take pleasure in sullying and ruining the little he had by disorganizing the room and nullifying all effort he had put into making it liveable by grabbing the bucket of faeces and urine and throwing it over his bed. All while making sure he was wearing disposable gloves and clothes.
They always left Kurtis feeling like sh*t and even more depressed than the previous day but the silver lining was that through their insults and goading, he learnt a lot about the outside world.
However, their bullying played on Viera's mind and stressed her out. She wanted to protect Kurtis from the other two but knew she couldn't, they were her masters and she didn't want to lose her job. Kurtis also told her not to do anything, Viera was his last hope, the light in the darkness for him.
She was the one thing he couldn't stomach losing, but to her it felt like she wasn't doing enough. She had come to love him like her own child and couldn't stand watching him suffer like this.
This as well as the struggles of being an attractive girl quickly approaching adulthood caused her stress. Soon after the first year, she was still stunningly beautiful, but you could see the toll all this was beginning to have on her. Small, well concealed bags formed under her eyes and slight creases appeared on her forehead.
The changes were almost unnoticeable but Kurtis noticed. It made him feel bad because he new it was partly because of him.
She would often visit him in her free time to check up on him and would end up complaining to him while in tears about how the male servants would often flash her perverted looks as well as the King while a lot of the Maids grew jealous of her beauty and the queen would often shoot her hateful looks and assert her dominance over her by forcing her to lick her boots from time to time. As well as how she wanted to quit but didn't want to leave him behind and finding another job would be almost impossible for an uneducated girl like her in the city.
In a way they had a sort of symbiotic relationship, she would do her best to look after him and clean him up while he would be her emotional support.
Luckily things took a more positive turn when one day while he was again willowing in self pity the attic door opened and a little girl's head popped out.