"You!"
*slap**slap**slap*
The soft hand of the queen crisply kissed Nisse's cheeks.
The little girl fumbled down kneeling in front of her mother.
"W-What is it that I do so wrongly?" She cried, tears streaming down her beautiful face.
The queen disgustedly looked at the young lady with obsidian black hair and pastel bluish-pink eyes.
Tunissea is not someone special.
She was not a woman whom she should be jealous of, in fact, she was just a kid.
She was not even a kid who dared to covet what was hers, just someone who lives and scurries in the palace walls.
Nor was she a daughter of the King's mistress---But,
Tunissea, that kid, was beloved by the emperor more than his blood.
An orphan...
An orphan was granted a castle,
An orphan granted maids,
A nobody granted the title of 'Princess'
A mere six-year-old child, who was lost and was now suddenly hailed.
Maybe if such an orphan hadn't become the king's most treasured, maybe the Queen would not have lost her daughter. Maybe her little child didn't commit suicide at such a young age of ten, maybe... maybe her kingdom would have been perfect.
Watching the trembling little girl, she bit her lip and for a second, thought about wanting to comfort her--but she should really, not.
Why should she care about the person who destroyed her fantasy? her perfect world?
A smile crept up the queen's lips.
"Fetch me the whip."
*****
"Tunnie, why don't you die?" The young master tilted his head as he watched the kid his father orphaned.
Unlike before, no one was curious about her, not even the emperor.
She was left rotting alone in the castle she was granted.
Left in a great house where roses never bloomed and where the sun never settled.
Trees towered around the petty castle, her petty life.
Nevertheless, Nisse, young and still dreaming, looked up fiercely at the guy who tormented her together with her mother.
"Why do you want me to die, brother?" She asked innocently. Staring back at him with utmost eagerness to know the answer.
She never talked with anyone else except the people assigned to her, her mother, and her brother. But she knew from the books that death is bad, death is evil, and that death is the end.
She never did anything bad to them, nor wished them bad, so... why were they bad towards her? Why do they hurt her every chance she gets?
At the clear-cut question and unwavering eyes, the young master's body shook.
It was like he was looking at a child not even afraid of the words that's coming out of her mouth.
A ten-year-old child,
How can a ten-year-old be strong?
The young prince cannot help but wonder.
The one he knows, at least, the one he was made aware of was that child her age was the most fragile ones.
He smirked.
It's just a facade. The prince thought.
"Because no one loves you Nise." He straight-up answered. "Mom hates you, I hate you. No one cares for you. Why don't you just die like Killia?" He gritted his teeth angrily, losing his cool at every passing second that he stood in front of her.
Watching the small kid just a little bit older than her lose his temper, Nise watched carefully.
The queen and the young prince, hate her. The both of them hate her for one very reason.
The reason the queen always told her, again and again, every day.
"The king loves me." The words suddenly came out of her mouth.
The young master froze, Nise froze. No one moved for a second as if it was the worst thing Nise could mutter.
"Ha!!" The young master knelt, grabbing a rock from the ground. "You damned kid!"
The huge rock hit Nise in the head.
And as if it was not enough, the young prince did it again and again until Nise bled...
*****
"Hurry! Search every nook and cranny, make sure you get all of them alive!" A sound rang across Nise's ears.
She carefully tried to open her eyes amidst the ringing noise, but every time she tried, her body just got heavier and heavier.
She does not remember anything. She does not know anything.
Just the face of the young prince as he hit her again and again in the head with that huge rock, the rock he got from the garden soil.
"Sir Rafael, a child is here." A firm voice said.
Nise could hear them, albeit not clearly, she was able to understand it as the words spoke with conviction.
"Black hair?" The man asked, pulling the blanket down and revealing a sick and pained child. "That's something you don't see daily in Liven." He muttered.
"She might be a daughter of a maid." The other answered. "Should we take her as well?"
"She's recuperating." The man sighed. "Bring her to the Treatment Facility and identify her."
"Understood."
Nise felt strong hands carry her small childish body.
Delirious with fever, Nise once again fell asleep.
*****
"Good morning child." She opened her eyes.
After a long while, Nise immediately sat up after feeling the softness of the bed behind her.
"W-Who?"
"Do you not remember anything?" The woman asked.
She looked around.
The last thing Nise remembered was being hit by a rock on the head.
And... voices.
"W-Where am I ma'am?" She politely asked.
"You're at a treatment facility here at Orphen."
"Orphen?" The word rolled at her tongue.
Orphen... Orphen...
It felt like a familiar word, something she heard of but does not understand the meaning.
"U-Uhm, Orphen? Is it a place?" She cautiously opened her mouth. "H-How about Liven?"
"Liven has fallen young child."
Fallen?
The words repeatedly echoed in her head.
Fallen.
A word that means something was destroyed.
"It b-broke?" She asked yet once again.
The castle was big, and she remembered the lot of people who visited it when there were banquets and tea times.
In short, apart from her palace, it was a place filled with light.
So how could such a grand place break down?
"It did." She nodded affirmatively. "Now tell me, where are your parents?"
Nise froze at the question.
Parents.
Those are the people that others called mom and dad in the books.
Like how the prince called the queen 'Mom' and the king 'Dad'
But Nise... she doesn't have any of those.
She just have a name. Nise. Not given by any parent but just a name that everyone decided to call her one day.
"I-I..." She teared up.
She always wanted to call the King and Queen 'parents'
But it was not something she could force as they do not love her one bit.
"Do you not have a guardian my child?" Cheeks swelling and tears rolling down, the face of the small trembling kid tugged at the heart of the maid. Eventually, the young child shook her head.
"I don't have a family." She bit her lip, trying to suppress her crying and causing it to bleed.
The maid stood up and sat beside her. She crossed her arms around her back and blew on her forehead as if calming her.
"Now, now." She patted her. Tunissea cried. It was a long and awful cry. She never cried before, in fact, she never tried to. After all, the more she cried, the more the Queen would have whipped her. "Can you tell me your name little one?"
"N-Nissea."
And for the first time in four years, that was a night that Nissea slept peacefully without a troubled heart.