"Princess Mira, Why are you outside again instead of being in class?"
"I wanted to check on the flower. Doesn't it look pretty?"
The blacked haired girl with her knees in the cold and slightly wet dirt looked up at her maid with an innocent smile. But in response to her sweet smile, her maid let out an exhausted sigh as she rubbed her temples.
"Princess, you are supposed to be studying right now not tending to a flower."
"But I was just sick! And studying is so boring. Teacher is too strict towards me too! He scolds me whenever I get the tiniest detail wrong."
As the little girl complained about her studies, her maid merely lectured her again.
"Princess, that is his job. Which you are making it very difficult for him to do since you have been constantly late to his classes recently."
"Why do I even need to study those things? It's all things that happened so long ago."
The little girl laid down on her back against the grass next to the flower that she had been tending to. Seeing her still so carefree, her maid couldn't help but be exasperated at the sight.
"Please stand up Princess, the ground might be wet due to the snowfall. I would rather you not get sick again. And those "things" are important parts of the empire's history Princess. It would be best that you remember them. It is the least that you could do."
The maid said the last bit underneath her breath causing the little girl lying on the grass to not hear her properly.
"Hmm? What was that?"
"It is nothing, Princess. Will you please go to your class now?"
The maid bowed toward the princess. The display finally got the girl off the grass and up on her feet. Her dress was ever so slightly muddied while she was playing around in the grass. The sight caused the maid to let out another sigh.
"Let us go to your room before you go to class then. You have already ruined your dress."
The girl looked down at the knees of her dress and noticed what her maid was talking about.
"Oh, I'm sorry."
"Do not mind it Princess. Let us go get you changed."
The maid led the girl from the garden towards her room to get ready for her class that she should have already been in.
****
After a bit of time, the girl finally goes to the classroom where her teacher has been waiting all this time. Upon opening the doors, the girl is greeted by the sight of an older blonde gentleman sitting by a podium reading a book.
"I greet the old Count of Syrias."
The Count closes his book and looks at the girl bowing towards him.
"Ah Princess Mira, what a pleasant surprise. Not only are you only half an hour late instead of a full hour, you also remember some of my teachings. That being said however, I wish you would also remember the time for our classes."
"I'm sorry, teacher. I wanted to check on the flower that I was tending to."
The Count let out an exhausted sigh upon hearing the girl's excuse.
"Let us just begin Princess. How much do you remember of our last session? Where did we leave off?"
"The battle for the Wilds."
The girl was quick to answer, seemingly confident. But the Count just stared at her as he knew that it was clear that the girl did not remember anything from her last class.
"Close but no, Princess."
"Eh?! Then what did we talk about?"
"It was the "Ceasefire of the Wilds" Princess. We discussed the battle last week."
"What's the difference? They were both in the wilds."
The girl sounded bitter at the fact that she was wrong.
"The difference, Princess, is that one was the start and one was the end! They happened in completely different eras! You should be able to remember these things. They are important!"
As the Count was trying to correct the girl, bits of his hair started to stand and the slight crackling sound was coming from him.
"But why? These things happened ages ago already. Why do I need to know all these things?"
"Because Princess! We can learn a lot of things from history. The decisions that helped found our empire and the decisions that almost led to its collapse. It is important for you to remember them all so that we can repeat the good decisions all the while avoiding the bad ones."
As soon as the Count started his lecture on why these things are important, It was almost impossible to get him to stop talking about it. It made him a good teacher when it came down to the topic of history. He was very by the book which made the girl all the more bored when listening to his lectures. His passion for history was almost enough to make anyone interested in what he was saying.
'And there he goes.'
Well… all except for the girl anyways.
****
Some time later, the girl emerges from the classroom in a half asleep state. Though the class itself only took around an hour and half, it felt much longer for the girl. Normally the Count would extend his lecture proportional to the amount of time that the girl was late for. However, it seemed that he had other plans as he ended the class on time.
'Since I don't have classes for the rest of the day, maybe I should check on my flower again. But Teacher sounded a little mad at me though. Hm…'
As the girl was pondering on where to go she thought back to her teacher and her maid's spiel about the importance of learning the empire's history. Though she wanted to go back to the garden and take care of her flower, she was slightly annoyed.
'I was so sure we had discussed "The battle for the Wilds" last week.'
Seemingly unwilling to accept defeat, she headed towards the imperial library. Inside, the girl was looking for books that were about the third era of the empire. She heads up to the second floor and tries to remember where she saw the book.
'It should be here somewhere. It was here last week. Aha!'
After looking through the bookshelves she finds the book that would tell her the history of the Wilds. She recognizes it as the book that she had read last week in order to refresh her memory and to prepare in advance for her lesson today. She flips through the book and finds the page that she read and marked with a small fold. As she reads the page the title of the chapter confirms that she indeed misremembered the lesson she had last week.
'Hmm… I guess Teacher was right.'
While the girl was reading the book, the doors to the library opened. The girl peeked from the second floor and saw a pair of maids coming into the library.
'Oh it's Kara. Who's that she's with?'
The girl recognizes the one with orange hair ,as she is one of her maids, but she did not recognize the one with pink hair. The two seemed to be taking a break as they pulled out a bunch of chairs and sat down. Contrary to her expectations, Kara just laid her head on the table clearly tired.
After a few minutes of looking at them, the girl goes to place back the book that she was reading. She had thought about calling out to them to help her, but decided against it thinking that they should be able to enjoy their break. As the girl had finished tidying up and was about to leave one of the maids started a conversation with something that intrigued her.
"I'm sa jealous of ya."
'What a unique way of speaking.'
The girl was not trying to eavesdrop on the maid's private conversations, but the odd way of speaking had caught her attention. She peeked at them from the second floor to see them talking.
"Oh? Why's that Lady Kara?"
"Ya got assigned ta work under ta first Princess."
To the girl's surprise the one that was talking in a strange way was her maid Kara. As she had never heard her speaking like that, she had thought that it was the other maid that was talking like that.
'So the other one is Big Sister's maid. But what is Kara jealous about?'
The girl closed her eyes and strained her ears to be able to listen more closely.
"So? You got assigned to the second Princess. Why're you jealous?"
"Oh right, you girls over at her palace don' really get ta hear about anythin happenin over here do ya?"
"Hmm… apart from the stuff that Lady Jenna talks about, we don't really hear anything. Oh but we do hear a bunch of rumors from other people though."
"Oh? What kinda rumors? Let's compare notes."
The girl hiding on the second floor was now really focused on the conversation. It was rumors about the things happening around her after all.
"Well we heard from one of the knights here, I think his name was Garth, that the second Princess still hasn't awakened as a mage."
"Bullseye. That's true. If ya run into her you'll see she still has black hair."
"Seriously?"
Many had disregarded the rumors that were floating around the palace for a multitude of reasons. One such reason was that everyone knew that the members of the imperial family were blessed by the Goddess of the sun, Sol.
"Does that mean that Princess Mira was never blessed?"
Merely having the blessing ensured that one would become a mage capable of handling fire magic. But the fact that the girl had not shown any sign of becoming a mage, one could only assume it was because she had not been blessed.
"I don't really have an answer, but ya see now why I was jealous of ya for being under the first Princess? In contrast to her, second princess Mira's fate is uncertain. Right now, she's just a lessah version of Princess Aurelia."
The girl opened her eyes in shock of what she was hearing. She had known Kara all her life and though sometimes she would be annoyed towards her, she always thought it was just because she was tired that day. But it would seem that in private, Kara actually disliked her quite a bit.
'Maybe… maybe there are two Karas? Yeah, that had to be it'
She was unwilling to accept the scene in front of her. In her eyes, her maid indeed cared for her and that the maid that was bad mouthing her was someone else.
Holding back her tears that were threatening to come out, she ran out of the library through one of the exits on the second floor all the while making sure that the maids would never hear her.
****
"Do you want to request a transfer to work under Princess Aurelia? I could put a good word in with Lady Jenna."
"Honestly that's super temptin' but na. I complain bout her but it ain't like anyone's got nothin' bad to say bout their boss. I'm sure even ya got some things ya don' like bout Princess Aurelia."
"…"
As Karliah was trying to find some complaint she had about Princess Aurelia, she could only draw blanks. From her perspective, Princess Aurelia really is a child without flaw. But looking at the situation, it seemed to her that she should try to say something to Kara.
"I-"
"Relax, ya don't need to say nothin..."
Thankfully for Karliah, Kara cut her off before she could say anything.
"And Princess Mira's got some good points to herself too. She's kinda cute sometimes and she's really kind though I'm sure Princess Aurelia's ta same. Whenever she finds somethin she really likes she becomes super excited and tries her best at it though I wish she did that with her studies."
As Kara began to babble about all the things she thought about the girl, one could tell that they had been together for quite a long while. Though what she was saying made it hard to determine if she liked the girl or not.
And though Kara spoke about all of the girl's good points, the girl was not there to hear them anymore. All the girl heard were things that struck her heart like a dagger and left it to bleed.