Mornings in the Carnelian Estate had always been quiet. If you listened close enough, you could hear servants approaching down the hall by the clack of their shoes on the marble. Sunlight filtered through the windows, a golden yellow, as the curtains floated aloft on a warm breeze.
Morana Carnelian, 10 years of age and in her nightgown, sat in the large dining hall alone, staring ahead with dead eyes. The servants entered with her breakfast, one of the head maids feeling concern upon seeing the young child with such a demeanor. However nothing was said, and a bowl of soup was placed before the child. The girl did not budge, and took a moment before she looked down at the meal before her.
"Milady," The maid prompted gently. " If you don't mind my insolence, may I ask what happened to your hand?"
She looked down at her hand, bandaged tightly with a clean handkerchief she had fetched from her dresser.
"Nothing." Morana said dismissively. "A glass broke in my room, is all."
The maid look startled when Morana pushed back her chair, rising from her seat.
"Milady?"
"Clean the broken glass in my room." Morana said.
Without saying anything more, she turned and left.
~ * ~
Was this a dream? Am I dead for real this time?
Morana could only wonder this as she wandered the halls of her family estate. The estate did not change much from when she was 10 to when she was 20, but walking the halls and having everything tower above her was an nostalgic feeling. If this is death, she thought, then it must be a type of hell. Of course, she knew she deserved such a fate.
Her footsteps slowed as she realized she was walking towards her father's study. He was barely there. Being the Head of Carnelian was demanding, and Morana was sure she could count on her hand how many times she had seen him in her life. Especially since he wasn't around during the few days she had been looping continuously, making the last time she saw him feel extremely, extremely long ago. Did he even exist to begin with?
She turned heel and headed the direction she came, choosing a destination this time. The garden, always beautiful and bright, a place she had frequented often. She found the old tree she'd often go as a child, and caressed a single rose on the rosebush that grew close by, pressing her index finger to a thorn, watching it bleed, and letting it fall onto the bare ground. A sprout soon after wriggled its way out of the earth and up.
Her powers still worked. What a strange afterlife, this was.
She tilted her head back and closed her eyes, feeling the sun on her skin.
...
"Lady Morana"
It was the maid, hesitating nervously a meter or so behind her.
"What is it?"
"Lady Auretta..." The maid said. "She's asking for you."
Morana's eyes snapped open.
"...Mother is calling, huh."
Morana looked down at the newly sprouted flower. It was a lily, blood red. She smiled bemusedly to herself, before turning to face the maid.
"I'll go."
It was on a far corner of the estate. Down a level, even. It was a place one would never think a lady such as Morana's mother would frequent. But inside was more lavish than you'd expect, and therefore such a place suited Auretta Carnelian perfectly.
Her footsteps sounded heavy, echoing in the dark as she found her way to the heavy oaken doors. She knocked curtly, and her mother's lilted, sing song voice resonated from the other side.
"Come in."
Lady Aurette lounged on a lavish, ornate couch, made in red and gold. Aurette's hair, golden and spun into a low bun, with wisps of it brushing her delicate shoulders. Dark, mirthless eyes stared at Morana from across the room, her lips curling upwards.
"My daughter." She wrapped Morana in a hug, bringing her close enough that Morana could smell the stench of her perfume. From somewhere in the room, Morana could hear a faint, panicked breathing.
Auretta pulled back, guiding Morana by the shoulders to the middle of the room. A young woman was curled up in front of them, tied and bound and gagged. Her eyes were wide and afraid, her breathing hitched and scared.
Auretta placed the familiar blade in Morana's hands and smiled. The scared woman was pretty.
Break it.
Scar it.
Maim it.
So it can't fight.
Kill-
Morana suddenly released the blade, the knife clattering to the floor.
"No!"
~ * ~
The Carnelian Dukedom was the richest in the kingdom. Of course, it had always been so. The land belonging to them had held prosperous mines of both iron and ruby ever since, and perhaps even before, the Aurum Kingdom was founded.
The current duke, Pyrrhus Luken Carnelian, had been an only child to a single father, and ended up inheriting the dukedom at a young age when his father had died to an illness. He then went on and married a woman named Auretta Amaranth – a woman who had come from a branch family of the ancient Amaranth Earldom. Even if from a branch family, this union, at the time, was seen as a strange one.
The two families had often been at odds due to the difference in their values. The Carnelians, often boasting wealth and many material things, and the Amaranths, a noble family descended from the ancient elves, who offered their spiritual magic to aid the Kingdom.
However, little did any of them know at that time that Auretta herself was strange amongst the Amaranths. Brought up with great love and care by her grandmother, she was often doted upon. However, she came from a branch of the Amaranth, and thus often felt vastly inferior. Thus, Auretta often tried to cover up this wound to her pride with lavish things, often bathing in the attention of those who thought her beautiful.
It wasn't that unusual to those who knew her when she marred a Carnelian. Auretta had often yearned for more wealth, and Duke Carnelian, seeing the advantages to having marriage ties with a respected and old family, easily agreed to the marriage.
The two would have one child, a girl.
Auretta had named the child Morana, a name that meant illness and death, and left her to the maids to raise. Growing up, Morana was a quiet child, and perhaps in those youngest years she knew some happiness.
When Morana was four she had taken one of her favorite picture books to go read in the gardens. She had been walking over to her favorite sitting spot, underneath an older and weathered tree, when her foot hit a rock, and she fell forward. Her injuries weren't serious, just a small cut on her hand, and Morana had reached up with her other hand to wipe her tears as her wound wept blood, dripping on the ground. At the spot where her blood dripped, a sprout appeared, growing slowly and gently until a bud formed. Morana, enchanted, and fed it more of the blood from her wound, and watched it bloom magnificently into a single rose.
But then her mother had suddenly appeared.
Lady Aurette had rushed forward, grabbing Morana's bleeding hand, yanking it away. Morana could not recall the exact words that left her mother's pretty lips, but they were something along the lines of "Freak" and "Witch".
It was from that point on that her mother had taken some interest in Morana. Every few days, or weeks, or months, as if suddenly reminded of her daughter's existence, she would call the young girl to her room. Each time, the room Morana entered held a similar scene.
Each time, a different woman was tied and kneeling. Sometimes, Morana could recognize a servant of their manor, sometimes it looked like a simple commoner woman. What they all held in common, was that they were pretty. Auretta would place a knife in her daughter's hand and push her towards the helpless woman, asking her to "make mother feel better". Auretta never felt better until they were scarred, maimed, and as things grew more extreme, sometimes killed.
After, the women were carried away, an incident to be swept under the rug by Duke Carnelian.
"That's a good girl." Auretta would whisper into her trembling daughter's ear. "What an ugly thing you did, how ugly you are."
Her mother's pretty lips would twist into a ghoulish smile.
~ * ~
The knife fell from the 10 year old's hand and hit the floor with a clatter.
Morana suddenly recalled this very day, this very woman. She had not been able to remember her face before, but now it was here in front of her. Beautiful, light blue eyes, instilled with fear, and once long ago Morana had emptied them of their beauty. This beautiful woman had been her first kill.
She took a step backwards, shaking, then another, her back hitting something solid. She looked back to see her mother, her eyes dark and menacing, and Morana felt herself go cold to the core.
"What did you say?" Auretta whispered, her voice a dangerously low tone. Kneeling down to the child's level, she clenched Morana's shoulder, hard. "What did you say to mother, just now?"
Morana stared into the dark pits of her mother's eyes. Mother wanted her to continue, and to continue would mean to kill. She remembered how she made her carve out the woman's eyes as she was kicking and screaming. She somehow remembered it all so vividly. The kill...
Somewhere deep inside of Morana that urge still growled and paced. Kill, maime, scar. It sounded like mothers voice. It was something she wasn't sure could ever go away. The urge to kill those who were pretty and beautiful, perhaps not because her mother had conditioned her to, but because mother herself was also beautiful.
Both mother and those women, aren't they the same? Didn't a part of Morana always imagine their faces as her mother's face as she made them suffer, imaging that they were her?
A calm suddenly swept over her.
What use was killing? How many lives, how many moments, had she spent, devoted to ending the life of another? Morana looked over her shoulder and the tied and trembling woman. Was it sympathy, had she grown a heart?
No.
She was simply sick of the same thing, the same scenes, the same moments, repeating over and over and over. Death was all the same. Each kill was always the same. Each and every minute she had ever spent in this room with this creature that was her mother - the same.
It was terrifyingly monotonous. It was terrifyingly meaningless.
Morana finally turned back to look at her mother, her eyes dead and devoid of emotion.
"I said no, mother." Morana whispered, just loud enough for Auretta to hear. "Kill her yourself, you ugly whore."