Chapter 2: CHAPTER 1: King's Pawn
The King's treatment towards his once beloved had changed.
In so many ways that impacted the way everybody else treated Lillemor.
If the King didn't care about his daughter, who did?
No one.
Did Lillemor worth anything to him?
As far as everybody else who worked or lived at the castle, No.
The last thing his Majesty cared about was ... his own daughter.
Consequently, filth to the king was filth to the nation's eyes. And so it became.
All he seemed to care about was to make her the most perfect lady of royal women so she could be wed to the most greatest of princes.
To her father, greatness was everything. And it was measured by wealth and good looks.
So the only last way Lillemor could please her father, if she ever wanted to, that is (hopefully not), was by attending all her royal classes and mastering them with excellency.
She did just that, unfortunately.
And yes, no matter how much her heart told her that there was no point in proving to a moron that you are a marvel. But again, that moron was her father, a.k.a the man she had stupid little hopes for. Hopes that he will change. Hopes that he will finally acknowledge her existence. Hope that he will, one day, turn back to the man he once was.
Not just her father, but her best friend.
For ever since that fiasco with the oracle, things had fallen into shreds. Her amazing friendship with her father had thawed into something as small as nonexistent.
He knew why, she knew too.
But he didn't know she knew.
He never told her what the oracle said, and for some reason, Lillemor had hoped her father to come clean with it with his pride and finally say the words to his daughter— that he wasn't ready to be killed by a mere young girl to fulfill a bloody freaking prophecy of the oracle he murdered.
It disturbed the young girl too many times to count. How it was crystal clear, that her father desired and loved the throne more than he loved his own daughter. His own flesh and blood, his own offspring.
It hurt.
It hurt so much that Lillemor lay awake crying every passing night.
The vision of the sword that striked the oracle had never left her. It stayed with her, sticked with her and even sometimes, as weird as it felt, followed her around.
Those last minutes with the oracle had been the beginning of a personal awakening that she, herself, couldn't understand.
The oracle's words seem to be permanently plastered into the walls of her mind and underneath her eyelids, as if daring her to ignore it.
As days flew and more realization dawned in, she abhorred growing up.
She became painfully aware of the fact that she was not only a princess but the only child of King Sedek.
She was the heiress of the throne, as much as she loathed the idea.
She just wanted to run away from everything and everyone, and live a simple life far away from all these power-greedy kingdoms and bloody witch wars that had no end.
She didn't want to get married to some handsome prince or whatsoever. Deep inside, she wanted something more than that but felt too reluctant to acknowledge the yearning.
She wanted to be more than what they all bargained for. More than her father's expectations.
More than the world could afford.
If only people treated her with respect. If only they stopped treating her like a mannequin and appreciate her gentleness.
But again, Lillemor had come to the conclusion that the old saying that you get what you give was very very wrong.
Some people would just hate you, no matter how much you love them. Some people were just imbeciles. Take it or leave it.
"It's like this", she heard a voice say before she felt hands fixing the position of the bow and arrow she was holding.
It was Peter, her best friend, who happened to have a mastery on archery and offered to start training her on the basics.
Peter's father, Matheus, worked for the King, crafting archery ornaments for the army. A man with the kindest heart and the most crafty hands Lillemor had ever seen.
It was as if him and his family was born for the shit.
Lillemor tightened her hold on the arrow before letting it fly, hitting two inches from bull's eye.
"You hold your string like an amateur", Peter giggled, making Lillemor roll her eyes. The boy really enjoyed making her feel less no matter how much hard work she put in. Yet she liked him.
"Not everyone was conceived in a household of craftsmen, Petey."
"That wasn't supposed to put you down, you idiot. When are you going to start taking constructive criticism?!"
"I'm not taking any fucking constructive criticism from someone who's never constructed anything ", Lillemor grabbed another arrow from the bundle on Peter's hands while the boy laughed. " 'Sides, we're just youngsters, it's our age to be foolish."
"Count me out"
"Once you get in there's no way out, that's the thing about being born", she smirked. "You can't out, there's no way back to the exit where you came in. You face the world, you fight, and survive, that's the rule.", She took another shot, missing, her smirk falling.
"So I can't skip to my next life if this one sucks ..."
"You're starting to get it.", Lillemor tried another shot, missing again, even farther away this time.
"You're holding it wrong again", Peter cut in. "Move your fingers."
"Enough talk, come and teach me this shit", she gave up, handing the bow and arrow to the blue eyed boy and grabbing the pile of arrows to hold instead.
"Thought you'd never ask", he smiled, taking his position. "You be the slave and I be the princess for once, sounds good."
Lillemor almost rolled her eyes. The boy really liked being a princess, in a way no boy did.
It took Peter one single shot to kiss bull's eye and he did it so effortlessly amazing Lillemor felt a strike of shame.
Peter held his bow and arrow perfectly aligned, pulled back with the right strength, and let it fly with ease, the arrow earning momentum and settling rightfully on the middle of the dot. The perfect center.
The utmost perfection of the act made Lillemor wince a bit.
What the hell was she doing wrong that Peter got so right?
"That was the worst shot I ever took", the boy confessed.
"What the fuck are you saying?", Lillemor's gray orbs widened. "That's the most perfect archery move I've ever seen, Petey! You're one of a kind, born and bred."
Peter didn't even take the compliment seriously, he just took another lazy shot and hit bull's eye again, smoothly while his best friend eyed him with envy.
"Don't worry, you'll master it", he sighed, as if sick of how easy it was for him. "Eventually."
Lillemor sighed too, disappointed because the sun had began to set which meant her father would be out and about, on his way to check if the Princess of the Northern Kingdom of Salem was in her room doing knitting lessons with Moira, the old talented maid of the palace who looked as sweet as an old woman should be but only Lillemor knew how angsty and ruthless the wrinkled bitch rattled with her.
As if she couldn't fire the old hag with the snap of her fingers! Oh right, she couldn't. Her father was the one with all the authority.
Lillemor wasn't even allowed to order anyone for a mere cup of tea.
She knew she ought to fear her father's powers ...
Yet, like always, she stood a bit far away from the palace, illegally learning archery from her best friend. It took everything to convince the boy to do this for her and she was glad she had such a kind friend.
She wanted to grasp every professional skill the head warrior of the army had to master. It had always been her dream and she wanted to achieve it, albeit secretly.
For archery and sword fighting were only taught to men in her Kingdom. And it bothered her immensely when girls were chased out of those classes because they were considered to be 'weak' and that they should be home rearing children, cooking, and knitting by the fire.
She didn't yearn to be queen but she did yearn to turn all those laws around.
From her father's views, all these skills were for 'males', not for soon to be wed little virgin princesses.
That's what he said when she begged him to learn sword fighting.
"No man wants a lady holding a sword, that's the most unattractive thing ever!", King Sedek had yelled at her.
That hit a chord.
She was taught that she was born to be some man's beloved wife, nothing else. That submissiveness was her achievement, her desirability was what rated her standards, and her worth depended on her beauty. She was fed up with the belief that if she didn't please a man just by the look of an eye then she was as worthless as a cum rug.
Only one person told her otherwise ...
Peter.
The Western and Southern Prince had come to wed the beautiful girl, but left, one mad and the other, disappointed. Leaving behind a relieved Lillemor and a mad father.
There was only one left, her father's hope, .... Prince Easton of the Eastern Kingdom of Salem.
It had to work.
This one has to love her or else, there would be no hope in Lillemor's life.
Her father spoke of her marriage as if it was the last thing that could save Lillemor's life. As if her life depended on it.
Lillemor was beautiful, her father said, she just didn't want to embrace it.
She hated it when he spoke of her like that, like she was a commodity he was trying to auction off but ended up with a low bidder every time.
He told the maids to force Lillemor to be more appealing. God knows what he even meant by that if he didn't look at his daughter the wrong way.
And that she should act more lady-like. The word almost made the princess barf.
They bought more amazing gowns, forced her into more dance lessons, caked her with more make up, and taught how to speak calmly and slowly like a lady.
Lillemor was okay with the way she spoke, and no matter how much her belly grew from sneaking at night to eat sugary treats, she felt fine.
She didn't want those paints on her face, those overdramatic hair, those pink glittery gowns that pushed up her chest way too much for her liking, and most especially, not the corset.
She was not just okay, she was confident. In her simple white dress, boots, and her ash blonde disheveled hair, she was as content as she could ever be.
With her innocent face, plain dark skin, flat chest, and flat ass she was a zinnia ready to bloom, except maybe, it was just in her eyes.
She loved herself and everybody else, but she was getting nothing back.
Her father insisted that she should talk a little bit more, get a little bit crazy, attend more balls, accept invitations from other princesses and accept advances from men to bed her so she could start being good at it or else her future husband would chase her away.
She was even forced into cooking classes and to spend time nursing babies here and there. All the motherly duties that could make her the perfect wife.
Yet the only person she liked to converse with was the male maid with which she had to beg her father to let her have.
The boy was her best friend, and the only person she liked spending time with. Despite how much her father wanted her to have a girl for a personal maid, like how every other princess should, Lillemor didn't let the blue eyed boy go.
The King insisted that she'll need a female servant eventually, because she was going to be a married woman soon but still, Lillemor forcefully declined.
Peter was everything she had.
The only person in her dreadful life who understood how she felt.
The only person she could reach out to and talk to.
None of the ladies cared about Lillemor in any way, they all mistreated her and made it their duty to remind her that she was despised by her own father.
Hence, treating her not like a princess but unneeded trash.
As if they didn't serve below her. As if she wasn't the next heir to the throne.
She was a princess with no authority at all.
It was like she was walking with an empty crown.
As if she didn't hate the thing enough to have it on her head at all times.
Made out of gold and silver, so priceless but yet worthing nothing.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone