AN: Yo~! Peeps, I've been dead for a long, looong time, and, uh, sorry for the overuse of commas? hehe... Anyways, I very much prefer one-shots to actual stories, 'cuz its fun to try and fit more and more one-shots into the same storyline and see how far I can manage until the inevitable plot hole appears and it falls apart which will end with me deleting a few to make it all fit together. Sorry for rambling, hehe, but, yeah. The fact that I haven't update both of my multi-chaptered stories in more than 5 months should say something big about my ability to, say, persevere, yes. But one-shots are so much more fun!
(and this is the part where you can start pretending that you actually bothered reading through the mass of ramble above, and the disclaimer I'm about to type in a minute, before getting down to the story ^^)
DISCLAIMER: (actually, I don't think copyrights apply with vocaloid in the first place... grumbles grumbles...) I don't own the original song, or the storyline used in this one-shot, though I would very much love to claim it as my own interepretation of said song and leave it at that. Credits go to the-ever-awesome-mothy-sama!
Daughter of Evil
"You, my servant, kneel before me!"
A high-pitched, girlie voice said with authority far beyond her years. A thump was heard as the peasant was forced to his knees.
"Please, Your Highness—"
Her eyes narrowed, lifting an elegant eyebrow as if he had said something inappropriate.
"I mean, Your Majesty,"
Her eyebrows smoothed back into her usual expressionless—if slightly gleeful—mask, into white, young skin unmarked by age or, indeed, any form of facial expression—other than the slight glint of glee in her eyes, of course. She smile impressively and waited for him to continue, tapping her slender fingers on the armrest of her throne impatiently. She wasn't one for patience, as the peasant well knew. In fact, this particular trait of hers was well known throughout the country, though it was most definitely not well liked, or liked at all.
"P-please, Your Majesty, the weather has been so dry, not a drop has fallen from the sky for the last 3 months. Even the rivers are starting to dry! We can barely feed ourselves!"
'And?" she drawled, a tone that felt so out of place in a voice so young. She quirked an eyebrow again, feeling it made her look even more authoritative. And cunning. Never forget the cunning.
"Your Most Gracious Majesty, please, please, please lower the taxes!"
The peasant finally blurted, unable to hold it in. He had been starving for days, with a wife at home, and many younger siblings, and their families besides to feed. The young queen's lips turned down in displeasure, first this peasant had undermined her age by calling her 'Highness' instead of 'Majesty', and now he sought to challenge her authority? This would not go unpunished.
"You are but a lowly peasant!" she spat out the words like poison from her lips.
"How dare you tell me what to do?" her face twisted into an unsightly scowl.
"Guards, behead this scum for treason!"
The peasant quaked with fear, but he knew there was nothing to be done. He should have watched his mouth, knowing the queen to be quick to anger, slow to peace. In his heart, he prayed no one would blame the young queen, she was barely fourteen, not even the prime of youth, a flower before its bloom. She had much to learn in life, but no one to teach it to her. Bad things were bound to come her way. He sighed and let himself be dragged off, tempted to lay limp just to make it more difficult for the guards—they were adults, they should know better than the child playing 'princess'—as they made their way to the guillotine, just like the many before him. As he caught his last glimpse of the Queen, he thought, 'Her hair is the exact colour of sunflowers.' His severed head wore a slight smile, if you looked at it just right.
Meanwhile, in the throne room, a palace servant knelt before the queen, kissing each of her dainty feet. He looked up, soothing sapphire meeting striking cerulean, sunshine meeting gold, mirror images of each other. Such striking resemblance, yet in all their fourteen years in the court, no one suspected anything out of the ordinary—there was a rumour going around, that born look-alikes only ever come in threes.
She said to him, "Has it been done?"
"Yes, my Queen."
"Is she dead?"
A slight pause, then with a slight quiver, "Yes, yes she is dead." In a softer murmur to himself, "Her lips are as cold as the stone of this ground."
The servant looked down, tears threatening to fall, desperately hoping she did not catch the last sentence, or the slight tremor in his voice, or the barely noticeable shiver in his hands and knees.
The queen smiled brightly, childish innocence and naivety in her eyes, "You've done well! Now he will be mine!"
Laughing happily, childlike joy ringing from her, the queen said as the church bell struck 3 in the afternoon, "Oh, it's tea-time! Let's have brioche today."
The servant stood with a smile on his face and bowed, "Yes, my Queen."
The very next day, she received a letter from the neighbouring country, proclaiming war. The prince expressed that he would never agree to a joining of their respective countries by 'holy' matrimony, that there was nothing 'holy' at all in this situation, while asking her to look out for the…'irony'? What in the world did that mean? She went on. It also expressed a deep desire to avenge his beloved that had been assassinated the day before. The letter was signed in his blood. In his country, this was akin to a blood oath, one that went on for generations after, one that he would rather die than go against.
She froze in shock, letting a scream of anguish bordering on insanity tear free from her throat as she twisted the letter, torn between the desire to tear it up and scatter it or to crumple it and stomp on it. She ended up tossing the tortured mass of paper onto the ground by her heels. Yet she made no move to stand and stomp on it as she wanted. She cleared her throat and called out for her generals, shrill voice ringing in the empty courtroom. They assembled promptly, knowing she tolerated tardiness about as little as she tolerated, well, anything.
She sat back as the generals discussed various strategies and sea routes. What was so threatening about a puny country off to the east? She was the High Queen of the Country of Yellow, famous for gold and the most prosperous country in the Kingdom for it! What was sapphire to gold? Yes, there was nothing to worry about, she would win for sure. Herself assured, she sipped calmly at her tea.
The war lasted three months. She won, at a heavy price. She lost half her army, emptied out most of the national financial reserves, and famine had came but not left during the war. The country was in great need of its newly depleted reserves. The citizens, all of them, nobles, peasants, even the lowly beggars alike were alight with rage. In face of famine, all were equal, and all would die.
But she cared not.
And it would cost her everything.
The day she returned victorious from the battlefield, she was barricaded in her castle. The prince of the Country of Blue, hearing this news, came in disguise to join a riot led by a woman in red. He watched emotionlessly as the woman interrogated the queen in captivity, found in her empty castle, all her servants and maids having fled long ago.
All she did was smile. She made no response to any of the questions and even physical abuse thrown at her. She was sentenced to be executed the next day, at 3 in the afternoon. Having neither denied nor acknowledged any of her sins, she was charged guilty by the plethora of witnesses standing against her—including, of course, that one lowly beggar.
As the executioner readied to drop the guillotine, the church bell struck 3, and she smiled and said, "Oh, it's tea-time!"
The woman replied, "You truly are the daughter of evil," And down went the blade. The crowd cheered loudly, mindless chatter about the celebratory festival that night was loud in the blood-mist permeating the air. The atmosphere was slight insane, bloodlust spreading to every smile in the area. If anyone noted how the queen's, no, the corpse's voice was slightly deeper, her hair slightly shorter than usual, they didn't mention a thing, drowned in the giddiness that accompanied the joy of liberation, that everything would be solved. Rationally thinking, this wasn't true, but then, no one was really rational at the moment.
Amidst the showering of caps and any other—light—object that the mob could get their hands on, a solitary figure, decked in black and brown—the proper colour for mourning—stood glaringly against the backdrop of festive colours the mob was decked in. As the severed head of the queen rolled to the ground, blood spraying into the air in a pink haze, their eyes met. Striking sapphire met cerulean blue. One pair closed and lifted in a small smile. The other closed as tears flowed. Ducking suspiciously, the figure disappeared into shadowed alleys.
Such suspicious behaviour would have been spotted by the prince, had he not already left, or the woman, her she not been preoccupied with her thoughts. As the head finally hit the ground and bounced once, twice before settling with the unblinking eyes staring straight into her own, she turned and left, back straight, head held high.
'You were right, she was but a child, about to bloom. But what she blossomed into was not the sunflower you had hoped, but a blood red flower of Lucifer; a daughter of evil.'
An electric blue rose fell to the ground by the head of the queen, where it was promptly trampled on and squashed by the celebrating crowd. A golden headed figure was seen threading through the masses…
Like I said, I'm challenging myself to see how many other one-shots I can keep adding to this series until it falls apart, in which case I will reverse it with my awesome time travelling skills.
So, review please? Especially if spelling errors, grammar errors are spotted. It's self-beta'ed, so things like that would be inevitable I guess, I really don't like to read my stuff over right after writing, while I usually post it right after writing. So, yes, it causes a few problems.
Reviews will be appreciated~!
Ciao~