Aefia stared at the back of his head for long while until he dissapeared, then diverted her eyes to the small box on her hand. "Hmm... It looks... Like he had bought it not long ago when we had been away on a vacation." She whispered to herself. Her voice was carried away with the windy air passing through her face.
Nonetheless, she opened it.
"Well I have seen it somewhere..." She smirked while looking at the butterfly as it's wings slowly trembled, as if it were trying to wake up from its unalive form and fly away. It's flame-like wings reminded her of the element she used to carry, until it was no longer hers to use.
She didn't know whether the core itself had been withdrawn yet, but it was at a state that she had become significantly weak now. Being a practical human-alien in a fantasy world, which was also dangerous and filled with battles.
The colours on the wings were a deep red and black. The outlines were black, blending towards the inner wing until it begun with a bright red. The type of butterfly the design had tried to copy, was a swallowtail. It was her favourite ones.
The tails were stretched and ended with a single, bigger then the rest, ruby. It was encased with silver at the edges, that reflected her image back to her. And connected to the back of the butterfly, was a single chain that held up another smaller size of the same butterfly, but without flamed wings. Then, ending the chain with a last piece of gemstone.
But what was the more interesting part was, he had for some reasons, chosen the one she had exactly wanted to buy, but later, found out it was sold. It was after the dungeons and the next day, and she wanted this one for Nada. Although, everything about the brooch may have been something Aefia liked the most. The colour, the dark contrast, the design. And even the shape of the butterfly.
"Maybe he knew I wasn't going to get it for myself either ways..." She smiled while shutting the box again, then staring out as they neared the shorelines and then chose to walk back inside her own cabin. "But exactly how long am I going to wear it?" She asked herself while pushing open the doors to the empty chamber she had been in for the past two days.
It felt absurdly quiet today. Not because it was her birthday. But she felt like the world was finally silencing down with the more she stepped away from it now. The only thing loud was the water splashing against the ferry's exterior and her breathing.
"If I wanted... I could have jumped onto the water below." She finally realized. Her hand covered her eyes as she leaned back with her left hand keeping her upright. Once she had removed her fingers off her face, she was directly staring onto the overhead compartment of her chamber.
I will try to stay alive however long I can force it.
She thought it herself while lowering her gaze to the floor. She waited for a long time, until she heard the first 'approaching' call from the ferry whistle sound. Her attention finally snapped to the circular window to the side of the wall.
She stood up, without further hesitation, and walked over. Just when she stared out to the beautiful blue sky. The trip to my biological father's hometown was this same scene... We had to take the ferry there, just like now. And I guess I will get to meet my ancestor next... Who despised me deeply, up until death took away her last breathe. Honestly... She didn't want to accept me for being a daughter as the first child in the family.
Well I can't blame her... I hate myself for my own life decisions too.
***
It was pretty cold at the place they had just reached. Therefore, Aefia had to make a run for her cloak the last minute before exiting the ferry along with the rest of her 'family'. She clasped shut the three hatches at the ends of the lapels on the cloak. Not only that, being from the Imperial family, she had the most complicated designs of clothing now then ever. It was filled with dangling pearls and chains and hatches. And not to mention, one shouldered epaulettes... A major necessasity.
She wanted to scream for a fact, that this didn't explain status... But who was she for doing it.
They were only here for a single day and was heading back the very next morning, but still... It was their mother meeting up with her childhood friends. And it won't hurt to allow a woman emerged in deep work to have a little bit of ease and a break, once in a lifetime at least.
The carriage door swung open in front of them. At this point, Aefia realized that they were at one of the three major islands of Smod. No less... It was exceptionally beautiful too. "A two days journey for a one day event..." She let out a sigh, as she walked towards the carriage while stepping a few paces behind the duchess.
Just then, Lewis broke his silence beside her, catching her directly off guard as she stumbled half a step to the side as if trying to get away from an explosion.
"I know right?!" He sighed, while stretching his arms in the air. It took him a while, after finishing his agonizingly long warm-up, that he realized the shocked and traumatized look on his younger sister's face.
Her eyes were blown wide while her lips were pressed together in a thin line. She held out her hands in an almost surrendering gesture, with the fingers still recovering from the sudden shock.
"What?" He asked while giving her a side-eye.
Instantly enough, she turned annoyed and irritated at the same time. Her right hand rose up to smack him at the back fo his head, but she needed a valid reason to do it. She hesitated a fraction of a second before finally implanting the long awaited hit on the back fo his head.
He stumbled forward with the impact, but not losing his footing enough. "What the heck did I do to deserve it?!" He shouted in response.
"Cockroach! ... Why the heck do you have a flying cockroach on your head?! Do you not wash your hair?!" Aefia answered in reply. Then, her expression looked more calmer as she stepped to the side a little bit more to let him tremour over the chaos for a bit. "And sheesh! You had to scare me like that..."
"Where cockroach?!" Lewis asked back while dusting his hair back and forth, eventually turning it messy. "Is it gone?!" He looked up with a scared face, as if almost breaking into tears. "I literally washed it today! That ferry had a bunch of germs in the pillow! It wasn't me!" He continued with his babyish wailing.
"Relax! It's already gone... It flew away when I smacked your head." She shrugged while smiling sheepishly. Due to the long lasted commotion of shouting and hitting, caused the duchess to turn her head around to notice the changes. She was climbing onto the carriage, and had to stop just so she could turn around and ask what had happened.
"A cockroach... Nothing more." Aefia immediately replied, but the situation cussed her smile to wipe off completely in a short matter of time. The despair from the ferry had circulated back into her mind, making her saddened over everything all fo a sudden.
She wanted to croach down and grasps her hair strands onto her fingers and pull them until she could get back into her sanity. But her situation to the public couldn't be shown. The public knew she was the daughter of someone, but they didn't know her life story and she didn't intend for them to ask or listen to it.
The duchess entered into the carriage, followed by Lewis, and only she stood for a second longer. But what really stopped her, caused an anger inside Lewis to erupt as he stepped forward to interrupt the conversation between the guard and his younger sister.
"A servant like you can't enter into the same transport as the duchess!" He shouted. It was the long lasting anger on her which she still didn't know about it, but she didn't bother wanting to know about it. Regardless, Aefia stayed silent. "Get back... There is another one." He added a millisecond later.
So the expensive silk and complicated dressing style is not enough to explain... Oh well... Let's see how far you would like to go when I am already in a mood for death.
"What could possibly make her look like a servant to your eyes?!" Lewis asked while stepping half out of the carriage. He offered a hand to Aefia, which she ignored and placed her hands at one side of the carriage while hauling herself up and into the compartment.
"But–" The servant tried to speak, but Lewis stopped him abruptly and cut him off. "She isn't a servant and you know it. Don't try to act like you don't know anything about her." He answered back while closing the carriage door himself.
The duchess sat opposite to the two siblings. "Why didn't you say anything?" Her eyes narrowed at only Aefia. "If you don't fight back, they would take advantage of this situation and drain you mentally by using your physical world."
"I don't want them to seek revenge for being humiliated by someone like me. They know for a fact that I am adopted." Aefia replied without giving it much mind. "Simply put. When people heard about Cinderella's story, they didn't care to listen to the step-mother's or the step-sisters' side of the story... Did they?"
The rest of the way to the venue was complicated to explain. It was an hour before sunset that they had departed from where they were meant to stay, and Aefia was met with the more surreal scenes in her life. It was all violets and pinks, something that caught her eyes in a different kind of colour. Brown, lit up by the setting sun, with a reddish hue, with the light from the sky reflecting onto her iris.
She didn't want to break her eyes contact with the scenery, not even one second. It was too beautiful to forget about. It made her forget her problems and her mental traumas for once. She was too taken away with the fact that a world could be this beautiful...
Fantasy... Is really and truly beautiful and amazing...
She thought to herself. For once, only for once, did a positive thought erupt inside her mind. Finally, Lewis decided to break the silence, noticing the way she was just staring at the sky then walking up the fleet of steps. "You seem to taken away to say anything..." He spoke.
"I don't have anything to say... I wish I could stop and take in the scene for a long moment until it fades away." She answered back with a smile while diverting her gaze to his face, then climbing the steps faster then usual. She dashed past him, which left him in surprise.
"Catch up if you can... We are only two floors away from the rooftop of this mansion." She spoke while running up the steps with a different kind of happiness in her eyes. Everytime she passed the windows with the sun's beams peaking through, she slowed down to steal a glance at it.
***
"So... Emily. I see you have become a busy woman. How is your life anyways?" The Baroness, who was one of the closest friends to the Duchess, asked with a sweet tone.
"It's good! It's actually better then before... But a little complicated..." She answered back, her dark purple hair flowing in the wind. The open roof top of the estate was the perfect place for a barbeque. So they had decided to hold a reunion here.
"Why? Is it Lewis?" The Baroness asked while folding her arms. This estate was her own, and they had free will over it. It was more like the guest annex because of it. And it was a tall tower... Five floors, but as tall as fifteen for the high ceilings.
"No... It's my daughter..." The duchess replied while setting down her wine glass.
"Wait... You have a daughter?! Henry's younger sister?!"
"No... An older sister to Henry and younger sister to Lewis." She answered back with a straight face. "She is smart and all, a perfect child honestly... But it seems that she deals with a lot more then she shows or tells anyone. And she is a lot quieter nowadays..."
"Where is she?" The Baroness asked back. "Don't mind, I am just curious to know how she looks."
"There." The duchess used her chin to point at the direction of a girl who liked to be in her mid-teens, with black hair that turned silver at the edges, leaning against the railing while staring into the sky with void replacing her eyes. The Baroness was captivated instantly.
"Her name is Aefia... That was what she told me, didn't give me her surname. But I decided to add the name Seraphina as her middle name." The duchess added. "If I could, I would have called her by Seraphina from the start, but I happened to do things that may have caused her to drift away from me. And for your information... She is adopted."
"Well she seems to have a good sense in hair style it seems." She remarked. "But why did she choose silver as a colour?"
The duchess diverted her eyes towards Aefia's hairs. "No... They are natural. She doesn't have the time to dye her hair. But sometimes... She does dye it red... By accident... It isn't permanent though." She answered back.
"How?"
"Because she stains it with blood... While fighting, or getting entangled into a fight... Stuff like that. She is into sword fights and stuff like that. And sometimes she gets herself too immerged into battles. And sometimes... It's just accidents around the house."
The Baroness finally diverted her gaze to the duchess, with a questioned look on her face. "Emily... I know that look on your face... What is it that is bothering you about her truely?" She asked with a friendly smile.
The duchess breathed out a sigh. "It's... That she has been immerged into the thoughts of taking her life. And I can't do anything about it."