Muhtesem Yuzyil Imagines ♡

Zerefşan Hatun - Forgotten

Ben Zerefşan. 

I am forgotten. Lost. Name won't go down in history, except as a loser.

I came here shortly after Sultan Selim ascended the throne and when Murad III became leading Sehzade. At first, he was completely in love with Safiye Hatun, but Nurbanu Sultan would not have it. As I was new, exciting, beautiful, she chose me to overwhelm Safiye. 

I hated the girl, and when I began getting power she hated me too. I loved Murad, but I had to share him with many more girls till I realized he didn't share the same feeling with me. We had a short, unimportant relationship. What he had with Safiye was special. For years he had only lay with her, enchanted by each other, and only through outside interference had he started getting children.

I too wanted to have some, but as much as it pains me to think such a way, he only loves Safiye. She has several children with him, and I have none. I started to think I was infertile, but perhaps he's simply the wrong man for me. I wish I was never kidnapped, never brought to these old Ottoman lands... 

I had a longtime lover back in Bulgaria, Georgi. We wanted to get married, to get wed in church along our family and friends. I would be 16, and he would be 20. But they stole my dreams from me and expected me to be willing to lose all my moral principles, harm, and kill others. It was cruel, and I could never return.

Georgi probably thinks me dead- he probably married others. My mother stabbed herself as I was being kidnapped, she couldn't deal with the pain. My father was probably killed during the raid. My family, ruined. I can't live with these burdens no longer.

Zerefşan was sitting in a corner of the harem, pondering her life. Why was she here? There was no purpose for her anymore. Even if Murad III had even a little bit of feelings for her, she would never be home here. No. Couldn't we escape, free ourselves from this misery, from Topkapi Palace, the Ottoman Empire, entirely?

She wasn't truly happy here. This palace felt like living hell, and all the girls did was compete for love and hurt others with a passion. This place turned people into monsters.

I never wanted that. I never chose this life over my old one.

It was night. Zerefşan sneaked out of the hallway and went to the balcony to breathe some fresh air and think. 

It can't stay this way. I must escape. 

She looked around and all of the harem was virtually locked out. She knew she could never return to Bulgaria, no matter how hard she wished it.

I watched as the stars glimmered in the night sky. The soft breeze went through my hair as I put my hands on the ledge. No more. 

Zerefşan looked at the balcony, the back at the dim sky. Home. Her home wasn't truly in Bulgaria, it was in the stars, in the heavens. 

She hoisted herself onto the top of the balcony and inhaled. Is this the right choice? She'd never know otherwise. 

Zerefşan gracefully lifted her leg and her arms, and sprung off into the night, as the moon lightened the sky above Istanbul. Maybe she'll see Georgi, and mother, and father, sometime soon. But for now, she cascaded into the sky, happy once more. Nobody knew what happened, and perhaps nobody ever will.

Zerefşan, the forgotten girl.

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Hi! Hope you enjoyed this short and sad story, for it will be featured in some of my books as an ominous warning. Let me know if you have any story ideas, and I'll write them!