"Ah! It's a boy!" The mid-wife shouted over the bed as she held up a small child with navy blue hair, identical to his father's, the king of the Mides territory. His mother, who was tired and exhausted, immediately fell into a deep sleep, so he would only be sent around from arm to arm inside the room. The first person to see him was his father, then his two siblings.
There was a rule in the kingdom, that when a child is born identical to appearance with the reigning parent's look, they would grow to be the owner of the throne. And since the newborn had both the king's blue eyes and blue hair, his siblings were envious of something they couldn't change. Upon being handed onto each of their hands, his torment started.
"Aww! Look at him!"
"Such a cute and loud piece of meat..."
His eldest brother spoke, having his mother's gold eyes and his father's blue hair, the closest match up to the time that his younger brother was born. And his sister, having her mother's pink hair and gold eyes. Both of which, were determined to ruin the baby's future.
Regardless, Cedric grew up with the most affection from the servants and his parents. His birthdays were the full of bustling noise, laughter and people who swarmed around him. While his siblings at the corner stood while glaring with their eyes at him. He couldn't do much as a young child, so he stood completely still and watched the situation grow into a blazing fire for him. He was too innocent to even realize anything, so he frequently asked his parents why his siblings acted like that.
However, at the end, the sibling would start hating him even more. After that it turned out that, even saying good things about them was turning Cedric's childhood into hell. In rage, his siblings would go around doing a lot of things. His brother grew to start hitting the servants, until he would kill them. While his sister would be tearing and breaking her room down everytime. The most rageful one for some reasons, was the eldest brother.
"They say the eldest deserves more respect and affection. Then why is the youngest getting everything?! Genetics can't be controlled!" The eldest would say.
"Why does he get everything while I am being left behind like a crump of bread that feeds only peasants!" The sister would say.
Cedric didn't know the meaning of any of this, so he endured everything with his own servants' words. For every of the words that came out of his siblings' mouths, he would feel guilty over his own presence. The situation grew to be even more tormenting as his fifth birthday came around, when his sister and brother stole all attentions while trying to make it seem like he stole their belongings.
The entire hall turned into a tale of Cindrella where her step-sisters ruined her ball dress that she created for so long. However, for Cedric, he was still too young and innocent to even understand what they meant, so he just laughed along with his siblings, making it seem like a half-created joke in front of everyone else.
"Well? The crown prince is so hopeless, he is laughing over his siblings' torment!"
"Can we blame him? He is too young to even understand what they mean!"
"I can't even believe they are brainwashing him like this."
"What insolent kids the King has! That they envy a small child who did nothing to them! His genetics can't be changed, and so can't his position."
The background noises turned more and more loud, as the surrounding air turned unbareable. The siblings left that day, but... They never stopped.
Soon enough, the day that his sixth birthday arrived. He was suddenly dragged away by his slightly more impulsive siblings. They seemed frantic, but their acting was not fluid enough to mask the underlaying mischieve.
"Cedric, my dear brother, you should flee the palace."
The young child found himself completely shadowed under his towering siblings, and immediately nodded. He wasn't allowed to ask a single question, but he didn't hesitate this time.
"But why do I need to flee?"
Of course it was shocking to his siblings that he had suddenly grown the audacity to ask such a question. Even before the twisted elder brother could open his mouth, his sister stepped forward.
"There are assassins who are going to kill all of us today, and as sincere siblings, we want your safety. Now listen carefully, once we help you navigate out of the palace through the empty corridors of the unused emergency passages, you will meet an elderly lady who was your nanny in your younger years. You won't remember her now, you were merely an year old. Once you find her, she will take you in. Remember to call her your grandma, she will raise you like her own grandchild."
Those were the words he was told that instant. Following that, it was just a blur of events, his siblings using whatever they could do, faking it till they made it to drive him out.
Sometimes dissapearing before doors and then coming out bloodied, shouting that there were assassins attacking them. Creating fake explosions, even using the beaten servants as their proxies. Cedric could only run faster and faster in that time, determined to listen to his siblings. He knew he was too young and weak to fight back for his siblings, so he didn't even dare be stubborn any further. Outside the palace, the young kid was simply pushed into believing his parents had died, and was already grieving how vulnerable he was.
He eventually met the so-called nanny, and left the Mides territory. He had to walk, day and night without a proper stop. The journey wasn't even paid for. The nanny had to take a few breaks, and Cedric was finally pushed into learning the brutal reality of life. There wasn't any luxury and only one themselves could provide for another person or just to keep themselves alive for a long period of time.
That period, is called survival.
Even a King or a Queen would have to be forced into it when facing wars and battles—where there wasn't any escape. The way people used psychology to run themselves, is what survival truly means.
It is to swallow their own pride and get on their feet, hunt for their own food and think about just lasting. Some may not make it, but they still fight reality and try to save themselves. The reality though, is that people don't know their own future, unless those miracles of regression, transmigration and all that happened. Because real life wasn't a novel.
Novels were to please people that yes, life can change and life can be better.
Also sometimes, we learn many lessons from it too. But in some cases... We fail to realize...
Those may be some escape for reality to some people, but the future can change with even the slightest nudge. It is just the concept of the Butterfly effect.
People love to indulge themselves into those out of reality stories to keep them afloat from their own harsh reality gnawing down on them from below the water surface.
The only time that someone wouldn't judge a book and point out errors of the story plot—unless there is a necessity to be corrected—is when the people don't like the false reality they were provided with. The false seems too false from happening, making it more like a hopeless story to the particular person.
To Cedric, his luxurious life outside the palace, was the reality he needed to swallow his pride for, and his younger ages were like a fantasy story to him. He had to face it—no one was going to come for him and save him from the endless sea of only problems.
He didn't hate it of course, he had to take it as a lesson to finally learn of the situation that wasn't just a daydream anymore. An endless happy life was an impossible chase away, it was best to learn to survive the sea of life right now than to let it drown himself.
With that thought in mind, he set out his foot into the forest, looking for any wild berries he could find to feed himself and the nanny. He had to find a river or lake nearby to gather dirty drinking water, learning to light a fire, trying to navigate. By the time they exited the forest, Cedric had learnt a lot more then he had in the palace. He was grateful, that such a thing had happened—but still a small part of him was grieving for his family.
He managed to stay off the streets thanks to the nanny's life savings, which he felt intensely guilty for. Her savings had to run a kid for another decade or so—and her own expensive medicines. At most, Cedric would be eight when the savings would run out. So by the time he turned seven, he started going around doing neighbourhood works for a few extra cash. The nanny was happy for him, trying her best not to make it seem like she was forced into this.
Then suddenly, he was ten. The nanny's life force started to drain. She turned more and more weak, which caused Cedric to work harder, going two jobs at once to just keep up with the pilling bills. By the time he was fourteen, an opportunity came to him, being associated to a major criminal gang.
He had no other choice, so he joined the Banshees. The critical beginners rule, caused him to watch his nanny get killed. Washing him over with guilt, but in replacement for that, he got to learn of his siblings' betrayal.
In determination to get his revenge, he started to get into killing people over and over, and each time, it got easier. The guilt became lesser and lesser, almost like a habit that becomes addictive in the future—and then into a hobby. He started taking more and more brutal missions.
Two years went by, completely flying through. It was like, just the blink of an eye when his life suddenly got worse. If only it wasn't for that girl, he would have made it out his own way—to slaughter his siblings.
Everything was fine up until they reached the destination. Of course, he was reluctant to go in the beginning.
"Come on! This one will be fun! A naive young girl who can't defend themselves. They really are the best targets you know."
So of course he went along.
However, the naive young girl turned out to be a completely different person overall. Back then, she had black hair and black eyes, with the same depth as him or any other people at his disposal. Although he saw her only from a distance, he already had an idea of what kind of a person she could have been.
She wasn't naive at all. In fact, it felt like she was the one playing with every one of the six members' minds. Like how a puppet would have listened to their master, they all directly fell into her trap without a single trace of evidence that it was actually her. She had a sharp tongue, a smile that only flashed before she showed a different side of her, a dangerous warning that appeared five seconds before your defeat.
Following the small amount of time he had gotten to understand an inch of her as a person, he was dragged away to be imprisoned. He wanted to know more about her—about her life or about how her mind worked so flawlessly within seconds. But he could only sit in his prison and wonder what his life truely meant.
It was a small time for him to reconcile his mind, thinking of his past actions and just how many lives he was forced to take. And whether if she had been in his position, she would have done it too. However, he only knew the surface of her personality, so he couldn't do anything else then to rot in his prison.
Until, she appeared again. But this time, she had come along with someone. Her clothing said she was from a high noble family, but that wasn't until she called the Empress 'mom', that he realized she must have been from the Imperial family. The thing that caught his attention the most, was that she had a completely different appearance from the Empress, to call her mom.
Purple hair and purple eyes. Not like her mother. Blue eyes and silver hair of the late emperor. Nor like her father.
He got more and more curious.
Following her visit, he and his members were out into society services, to replace the punishment of prison time. He was completely dragged out of his thought revenge for the short time. At that point, he thought he might be unbothered of his initial plans with having the heads of his siblings.
That was another turning point. A sudden mishap happened, and he was given a job as her personal butler. He exchanged his name with her, but he still didn't know hers. She was secretly his role model, but he didn't know exactly who she was to be able to say such a thing.
During that time, he made a special request to her. That he wants the Banshees to fall along with the hostages to be freed. And without even questioning him, he got the ashes of the building he had grew up in for the last two years. However, he just didn't know why she would do something a mere butler requested. One thing though, was that she might have done that to get to his good graces.
But it wasn't logical to think a master would want to get to the servant's good side.
As he had thought, she only used him to run a few errands for herself. Like purchasing bandages and bottles of toxic sedatives. Sometimes sending letters and spying for her, that was the most he had to do. In the midst, he came to learn more and more of his family's doings.
The deeper he dived, he realized that she wasn't breezing through her life as he had thought her too. She had a much stronger mind to go through the things she faced, that he thought was her way of using her sharp tongue.
Unlike him, she would suffer injuries, be punished and solve her own problems. Then in the middle of others' deep, peaceful sleep, she would stitch herself back together using her mouth and bite back her pain to get ready for another day of playing the masquerade show.