Their little snowflake

To want is a sin (1)

"Marilyn what have you done?!"

"I didn't mean to..." She sobbed, thus was how the day ended in the duchy.

-----

"Hmmm...." The small white haired child seemed to moan in pain, sweat dripping from her flawed face but even after the nightmares she'd had, it was to no comparison to what she lived.

"PLEASE DON'T KILL ME!"

"AGH!!!"

"HAVE MERCY!!!"

"I'LL HAVE YOU KILLED!!"

Shouts and screams of agony of the people she'd killed filled her mind like a plague, it didn't leave her mind, thus it antagonized her every being.

She was androit at close-range combat and many victims fell at her trembling hands. Simply because she followed orders of those above her, neither did she care about the money, the fame, the honor or the pride she'd receive from those things. It was winter, the season where all her emotions were buried under the deep icy snow, since then she's felt nothing.

The will to live was gone along with those dead emotions.

She could still hear the voice of the man that took her in and made her his slave, "YOU USELESS THING!! YOU CAN'T DO SH*T! ARGH!" The nails that dug into her cheek and the harsh cold palm that became almost strident.

The echoes rang in her head as she lifelessly stared into space, because there was nothing else she could do and just the thought of still living and having no one to lean on made her heart ache in a strange and inexplicable way.

"..ai? Shiyai!" She was woken up by the voice of the woman that took her in, her splendid hourglass figure and translucent, silver velvety hair ran down through her waist making her sleek and pale appearance cold and frigid.

The room was filled with decorations and paintings of the duchy's heirs and ancestors, but she didn't spot Delancy's. Why?

"what?"

"Why don't you smile for a bit? It'll cheer you up!" The archduchess suggested, unbeknownst to her that she'd been staying at the estate rather than going to report to the second prince of the empire, whom was apparently cranky and overprotective of his sister.

"Ok..." Xiao Ai stretched out her lips and curved them like the bananas in the painting next to the fireplace.

"Ha...Shiyai, you're not a monkey! but even monkeys smile more naturally than that! Put your soul into it!"

"My soul was not included in the contract." Xiao Ai grinned effortlessly, there was no reason to smile or to laugh. The snowflakes outside the room reminded her of that, Delancy noticed her wandering into the outside, staring at the ice crystals that fell delicately and ended up losing it's glimmer as soon as it met a surface.

[The world is so beautiful and yet so cold...] She thought.

"Shiyai, Do you miss your parents?" Delancy questioned without much thought, of course she did it because Xiao Ai seemed to have a lifeless expression but, more so because she was worried.

Xiao Ai parted her thin dry lips to speak but nothing came out, [Parents? I...She probably thinks I have parents in this world, how foolish. If this child really did have parents, she wouldn't have been sold to the slave auction.]

"Parents..? You mean the people that brought me to the world..?"

"Yes..?"

"Ah, those people..." Xiao Ai came up with a good excuse for that, "They sold me as a slave due to their ongoing debts," She hoarsely told her, there was a strange sensation she had within her heart almost as if it would explode. Nonetheless, she did not react to the pain, not because she was immune but because...

She didn't care enough anymore.

"Oh, It seems that I am the first person to take shiyai in, since you've already accepted to become my heir, You'll have to receive a new name worthy of a noble, also blah blah blah blah blah..~" The silky, sweet and endearing voice that spoke to her was slowly fading away, her face grew blurry as Xiao Ai slowly fell asleep in sweat.

"Her Astor! It's overflowing inside her body! CALL THE PHYSICIAN!!!" Delancy struggled to keep her calm as she watched the small child calmly sweat in excruciating pain. [Why is she so stubborn? What has this child been through for her to be numb to the pain of an Astor's Awakening!? ARGH! I should've paid more attention to her!]

"Marilyn!"

"Yes, Your Grace?" The tall and well-built woman arched her back leaning towards the short Duchess, "I need you to get THAT."

"Ah..! I understand, Your Highness," Marilyn nodded anxiously, as THAT thing would quickly change the course of the life Delancy had prepared for Xiao Ai.