Chapter 1:

Old Scars

The Vermilion Eyes She Mirrors


"Hello, madam."

There was a little shift of movement and the sound of incessant scratching.

"You cretin have demanded too much of me," a gravelly voice complained. "Let me rot in this hell you've placed me. Let me die in peace. I do not wish to be bothered any longer."

The visitor wouldn't be disheartened so easily. "I used to call you 'Stepmother.' Do you still deny audience to me?"

Neither of the two expected a reunion in such a sour way, but they hadn't separated on good terms a decade ago, so it wasn't much to be shocked by.

"You dare to return to me?" the old prisoner spat. "I will never give you the apology you seek."

"I don't care for an apology. You are so prideful that you could never lower yourself beneath me. I know," Talissa said.

"Then what? What do you desire from me after so long?"

"I only wanted to know what you would say."

"Say? I was blinded by my personal desires. However, the choices I have made I cannot regret." The prisoner loomed in the darkest corner of the cell, legs crossed and head pressed to the concrete wall.

If the woman had any remorse, Talissa couldn't see it in her expression to confirm. All she could observe was straw-like gray hair draping down a hunched form.

The pitiful prisoner murmured a phrase under her raspy breath. A single sentence that dried the once-stepdaughter's mouth.

"And, I wanted to see him."

Him.

"But you...you took him!" she cried. Her small shoulders trembled. "Why would you do this to me, Talissa? I cared for you."

If Talissa filtered out mentions of that boy, everything struck genuine.

"You did care for me, and I cared for you," the stepdaughter answered steadily.

The prisoner with carvings of wrinkles at the corners of her eyes squinted as unseen tears dripped down. They painted small splatters of a darker gray on the concrete. Talissa hadn't remained in Lotte long enough to witness how weary her stepmother became.

The woman sniffled, wiping her face with rough and filthy hands. "If you cared for me, why did you take him? I needed him to stay sane. You knew that."

She crawled towards the haze of light where her rejected stepdaughter stood. There, Talissa caught sight of the woman's rubbery and thin fingers, dark eyes devoid of life, and frail bodice.

"You intend to mock me from your place of freedom. I am no longer an empress, and it appears you have changed since I last saw you," said the prisoner.

'Changed' as in appearance? Talissa distinctly recalled the searing pain from her forehead through her left eye, the aftermath of a fatal slash of mana. Or 'changed' as in bearing? Before, Talissa was a mute child with doe eyes that would cower under the weight of her stepmother's power. But now? Now she could shudder hundreds of weary soldiers, a rather bitter response and yet a grand feat.

Still, a little crescent of her heart lingered in the hopes of the recovery of a lost relationship. A relationship that could be so much more if there was so much less in the way.

"You aren't a little girl. Why do you come back?" the prisoner inquired with a curious look towards her visitor.

Unexpectedly, the words spoken by her stepmother wasn't with distaste. The curses, the shouts of blasphemy that Talissa expected from the dethroned empress ringed in her ears.

"Have you heard of the concept of filial piety?" asked Talissa.

The prisoner clicked their tongue. "So you've gone as far as Vie and learned of such a thing?"

"Yes."

She'd gone farther than Vie, but would the woman she knew want to hear her accomplishments, or would she rather the countless failures?

"If you had an ounce of filial piety, you would have given that boy to me instead of seducing him, luring him away like some uncultured swine."

Talissa did not lure him.

"I dedicated much of my time into ensuring you were raised obedient and respectful, but this is how you pay your respects to me. At a prison."

Where she should be.

"You were not here to save me when I was dethroned. After all these years, I was right to exile a pest like you."

Talissa closed her eyes. She knew as soon as her stepmother mentioned the exile that the fragile calm would rapidly crumble. "I missed you. I wanted to see how you've been faring, but it appears I've overstayed my visit."

The rage flared in her stepmother's face.

"Where are you going, you vagrant?" The crazed woman leapt towards the bars of her cell and barked, "I did not raise a child so vain and impudent!"

The 'vagrant' turned away from the cell.

Yet, the prisoner continued, jabbing her finger at Talissa, "Look at your clothing. You can afford to put clean clothes on your back and allow the woman who raised you to suffer in these rags? You must be a prostitute! Why else do you wear such quality clothing if not for selling your body? That body of yours tempted him!"

Enough about him. She had enough of him.

Rage was a volatile emotion Talissa watched too often and knew too well. It fueled a fire that burned in the woman's eyes.

Anger does that. It revitalizes a passion that once laid dormant in one's mind.

For a long time, Talissa thought of anger as an evil, but anger is what kept Talissa alive when friends fell by her feet and bullets showered like raindrops.

Talissa took one last glance over her shoulder as the prison warden bobbed his head in regard.

Anger may keep a person breathing, but anger doesn't heal old scars.

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Hayato Shinohara
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Violette
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