Author's Notes: I know I said I'd go back to Spice!, but I wound up typing this out and figured, ah well. Don't think that this means I'm not finishing Spice! though, but I'm still trying to figure out how this 'compiliation' format's gonna work for me. Anyway, here's the beginning of the Daughter of Evil/Servant of Evil/Message of Regret saga, I hope you like it and don't mind it too much.


Once upon a time, there was a golden kingdom, which had been ruled by a single dynasty for as long as Time existed in the minds of Men. Although there had been attempts, as there would be in any monarchy, to replace this ruler or that ruler with a different one, these royals had always managed to prevail - Their enemies would fall to fighting among themselves, or someone in the conspiracy would be persuaded to betray his fellows, or the usurpers would be defeated on the field of battle, or sometimes those who wished to change the regime would simply die in their beds. By hook or by crook, the ruling family of the golden kingdom had always retained their throne, and dark rumors had arisen in their shadow, that they had made pacts with evil gods, or perhaps were demons themselves.

But, whatever else could be said about them, it was true that this ruling line, the family called Kagamine, were superbly successful at making their kingdom prosper. Although the golden kingdom had started out as nothing more than a series of small hamlets, each successive generation of the Kagamine did all within their power to strengthen their homeland and see that it grew, and always with one of the Kagamine name at its head. Eventually they became a great power in the world, they and their golden kingdom, and they were renowned for their famed military; it was believed that only the crimson mercenaries of the southern plains could match that army in skill at arms, and the soldiers of the golden kingdom were much greater in number. When they marched into battle, nearly every enemy fled the field before the dazzling men and women clad in gilded steel.

Under the Kagamine family, the golden kingdom grew into its name, and was soon preeminent among all the other nations. Because of this its people prospered, and whatever ill rumors might have existed around their ruling line, the people of the golden kingdom did not take them seriously; or, if they did, they didn't much care. It was enough for them that their families were safe, their trades were vibrant, and that they lived in a land where they were proud to bear its name. And so, while those abroad bandied about terrible heresy about the Kagamine, they dared not speak such words aloud, especially within the borders of the golden kingdom. For a very long time, the sign of the Kagamine - an oval mirror, edged in gold - was respected and feared across the world, and held in great esteem by the people it oversaw.

But, one might ask, how could this even be possible? After all, is it not the name of Kagamine that is even now reviled as the most fearful of tyrants? How could the golden kingdom, if it was truly such a proud and worthy place, now exist as nothing more than a few transient peasants in the ruins of a charred countryside?

How could the last Kagamine, scion of such a long-ruling and accomplished line, be known today only as a sly-faced femme fatale, a "daughter of evil" worthy only of disdain and revulsion?

This is the power of the passing of time, and of the truth in the old saying: History is written by the victors. History, yes, and myth, and even the fairy-tales we tell to our children may hold even a measure of what once was true, however badly that truth has been eroded by the changing tides of fate. This, then, is the story of that golden kingdom, and of the last ruling Kagamine, and of the golden-dark shadow that was forever at her side. What follows is the truth of what happened so long ago, and it is not a story of dark magic or supernatural visions, but of simple human nature, and the power that love holds to create... and to destroy.

Perhaps it is even a story of how love, sometimes, can save.


Once upon a time, as the stories always go, many generations past, the crown prince of the golden kingdom was known for his hedonism. Although he was a brilliant strategist and a talented musician, he spent most of his time sporting with the young maidens of the kingdom, much to the despair of his royal parents. Most of the young women were anonymous, to the benefit of all who were involved; but, when the rank of the young lady was quite high in and of itself, it was much, much harder to prevent such knowledge from reaching the public. In this particular instance, it would have been easy for the royal family to simple "dispose" of the lady, who had been unfortunate enough to win the prince's royal attentions, but she was much more intelligent than many of the nymphs he had deflowered. Learning of the schemes against her life, and expecting as much from a line as status-conscious as the royal family of the golden kingdom, the young woman fled her homeland in the dark of the night like a fugitive. Her flight meant leaving behind all that she had ever known, her family and even the young man who had been her fiance, but at least it meant that she could keep both her life and her freedom.

The woman's flight eventually came to an end in a small town nestled on the coast, where the local fisherfolk took her in and accepted her as one of them. It was there at the maid, now a maiden no longer, first felt the stirrings of life within her, accompanied by the dizziness and then, at last, the pain; in that small town, she gave birth to not a single child, but to twins. These children, a boy and a girl, bore the bright-gold hair that was a signature of the royal family's line, but not a word was breathed to them about their true heritage: The entire village kept silent, and their mother only told them that their father had been a fisherman, long since lost to the sea.

For eight years, at least, for eight brief but happy years, their entire life was each other, and their simple home by the sea.