She did not have a name.
Spring came and so did summer, then fall, winter, spring, summer, fall, winter, and spring until eternity. She did not recall how many springs came to pass—but that was unimportant. She could not recall many other things, but that was unimportant, too.
She enjoyed dressing up for the occasion. Today, she donned her pasty-white makeup and halo. She didn't even mind the bullets racing past her as she waltzed up lazily in the air, returning floaty, cerulean bullets of her own until she was struck dead in the chest and exploded in colorful, incandescent stars. It made her a little sad—now she's dead and must wait her turn to wake up.
There was some part of her that gleaned a little bit of joy whenever she struck someone with her bullets. Not that she loved shooting people, but hitting the plucky shrine maiden made her feel special, like she was in a play, acting as the villain. She'd much rather be the heroine, but she knew how to compromise.
Days passed, months too, then years, and she still did not have a name.
Sometimes, she worked as a maid. She wasn't sure what she did, but nevertheless, she was a maid. Occasionally, the Chief Maid came to help, and maybe scold everyone, and bring snacks. She loved the Chief Maid very much and, on multiple occasions, have called her "Mama" even though she was maybe a thousand-and-some years older—and every time, she blushed the same.
On days she felt particularly intelligent and sophisticated, she enjoyed pretending to read the books in the Great Library. It's not as if she didn't know how to read, but the books there had words several levels of complexities above her repertoire. Sometimes, she felt incredibly stupid and ashamed and sometimes, she felt like she could understand it—after maybe another thousand years.
Maybe it was because she couldn't drink bitter coffee, since all the intellectuals she knew, namely the Librarian, drank their coffee straight, but her stomach had no capacity to drink black tar. She much preferred the sweets that the Chief Maid often brought, especially those tiny gumballs that fizz in her mouth.
She tried coffee again and, surprisingly, it was not as bitter as she remembered it to be. Still, it burned the roof of her mouth and was not nearly as pleasant as cream-and-five-sugars—she thought that as she smiled and giggled to herself, swaying the cup in her hand, thinking of things that were once bitter but not as bitter as before.
One day, she will conquer coffee—but she'll wait another thousand years on that.
