Supreme Dictator | An Ode to The Innocent

Chapter 3

Walking through the silent hallways, Lilly stops in front of the door. A bright smile painted on her face as she knocks on the door, it was so great that her eldest brother now pays attention to her! He wasn't so difficult to approach and his mannerisms were just mild now.

Although, she does wonder if he had time to play with her in order to make up the days where he would just shut himself in his own room. What had make him step out? Lilly wonders. She wonders why. But she doesn't dare to find one answer.

As she waits, she hears a muffled shout of the eldest and a permission to come in.

"Uhm-, I'm sorry for being late yesterday..." Lily mumbles as she closes the door. Her feet awkwardly shuffles and stands straight like a soldier as she stares at her oldest brother.

Rust met sky, tepid and diffidence. Cale simply hums and motions for her to come closer, "No worries. There's nothing to apologise for. Right, Bassen?"

The baby blue wonders next to the oldest's side, a brown-haired boy silently doing his work with efficiency. Bored eyes and a stoic face, he looks up nonchalantly to stare at her before nodding: "Yes. There's no need to."

"Lillian." A voice sounded from the left, Lilly immediately tensed and looked towards Cale with big eyes.

A sigh left the oldest child's lips and stood up from his seat, his walk wasn't necessarily fast, it was a bit slow and casual. He comes in, just three feet away - Lilly looks up to see, only for him to kneel down.

"Lilly," the voice was soft and coaxing, similarly like how her Dad would talk like when he looks at her. Lilly responds with blinking eyes-. "You are with your siblings, there's no need to feel so tense even if you are around me." The large hand that was on his brother's lap found a place on top of her head.

Blinking with hesitation, Lilly nods and takes a deep breath. The tension in her muscles disappears but a place of reluctance lingers. There was something weird about her oldest brother.

He feels weird—; peculiar in the way his eyes blacken to a point of no light, strange to a fault of sudden change of pace or expression. She was told to rely on her instincts, but there's no way Big brother could do something bad right?

Even if he was trash, he never tried to hurt anyone but flimsy throw bottles on walls or the ground. Yeah. Lilly nods, much more brighter and vigorous.

Cale's eyes crinkle, "Good girl." He praised as he ruffled her hair before standing up: "Go help your brother for a bit, I need to have a word with the Head Butler." 

Lilly hums and skips next to her other half-brother: "What are you doing?"

"Solving the problems of older people and their quandary with simple tax analysis." Bassen epigrammatically replies, his fingers slightly twitch from frustration but carries on writing.

The young girl blinks owlishly as she thought of his words then nodding, "Oh. I hope you can settle it." Bassen merely gives her a nod but Lilly wonders if she could do anything.

Although she's bright in certain areas and better than the average age, Lilly still falls behind from her older brothers. She could only hold a sword and be the best. She hopes she could do something for them too. She doesn't want to sit idly and appear useless.

"What do you think can I help you with?" A small silence follows after, the shuffle of paper and the scribbling of a pen.

Then a sigh of resignation, "Go and read the requests from the letter box, make sure to analyse, and see what's right and wrong of the paper. Think of it as observing the weak and strong points of an adversary— Then, you write their responses like how you approach and defeat such an enemy."