Escaping The Tragedies Of This Family!

Act 2 - Lady Tila is acting strange 1/2

"Lady Tila has awoken?" One maid whispered to her companion with a hushed voice, they descended the backside staircase, their arms full with baskets of dirty laundry. 

The other maid, her lips pursed into a pout and gave a half-hearted shrug. "I wish she never woke up at all," she muttered.

"Hey!" the first maid hissed, nudging her sharply in the arm, eyes darting nervously around the stairs. "You know we can be heard right?" 

"I'm not wrong though," the second maid scoffed, unbothered by the reprimand. Her shoulders slumped as she sighed, almost dreamily. "The manor's never been this peaceful. If only the coma had lasted years." 

"Just say you want her dead," the first maid retorted with a nervous chuckle, her lips curling into an awkward smile. As their shoes tapped softly against the marble floor of the bottom landing, they caught sight of a tall figure sweeping from behind them, walking in the opposite direction—a woman with an impassive face and a cold, distant gaze. Both maids stiffened at once. There was only one maid in the Lovelace manor who had such an icy presence accompanied with a tall and slim figure: the maid assigned to Lady Tila herself. 

She walked, not bothering to acknowledge the maids in the slightest. The two maids exchanged horrified glances, their faces pale as the realisation hit them like a slap to the face.  

"She was behind us? Since when?!" One of them gasped in a panicked whisper. "I told you to be quiet!" the other hissed, heart pounding as they scurried away, praying their gossip wasn't heard by anyone else.

Danielle Portigas, the maid in question, had been assigned to look after Tila since the girl was five years old. She had seen every side of her and harboured a hatred for her ever since that one incident. Danielle loathed Tila's voice, her constant crying, and the fact that she was forced to care for such a pretentious, spoiled brat. But what she despised most was Tila's materialistic, self-centred personality, a perfect contrast of the privilege Danielle had come to resent due to growing up with nothing.

Being privileged was one thing, however, the true nature of a person lay in how they demonstrate that privilege. Some wore it like a crown, flaunting their superiority, blind to the struggles of those beneath them. Others carried it quietly, using their position to uplift and support those around them. That was how Danielle would describe nobles, figuring out their personality and their values. To her, Tila was nothing short of a walking superiority complex with an annoying personality.

Danielle made her way to the garden and sank down beneath the shade of a towering tree, its lush leaves shielding her from the blazing sun. The quiet embrace of nature was a welcome escape from the tense atmosphere inside the Lovelace manor. She dreaded the thought of returning to Tila, of facing that spoiled, sneering face. She knew the second she stepped back into that room to retrieve the trolley, Tila would have some sassy and rude remark waiting for her.

"I just want to stay like this forever," she muttered under her breath, leaning her head back against the tree trunk. Her gaze wouldn't move, it settle straight ahead absentmindedly looking at the backside of the Lovelace manor. Then she blinked, each getting slower and slower until she closed her eyes and completely fell into a deep slumber. 

- 

Five years ago

Tila stood in the centre of the room, her once-elegant pink dress torn to shreds, pearls spilling from the seams like droplets of water, scattering across the wooden floor. A girl slightly older than Tila wrapped her arms around her, attempting to console her, but it was in vain. Tila collapsed to her knees, her face contorted in anger, fists gripping her ruined dress as she kicked her legs furiously. "Why does everyone want to annoy me today?" she wailed, tears streaming down her face. "No one cares how I feel in this house!"