Poisonous Love

Chapter 8: A New Big Sister

*Vincent's POV! (unedited... sorry!!)

My sister is anything but normal, but I wouldn't have her any other way. She is sweet, helpful, and always smiling. While she acts occasionally like a complete idiot, with no balance, she is surprisingly very smart. She taught me to read and write, basic math and science, etiquette, dance... which surprised me further, manners, history, literature, and much more. I was amazed to see the girl who I first took as a fool, become such a serious tutor for me personally.

When we first met, I thought I was looking at a doll... she was so tiny and cute, a petite face with large pink jeweled eyes. Her pearly white skin looked extremely soft, and her luscious cherry red lips had a smile on them. She looked like she had never been unhappy or sad... and that pissed me off. I hated people like that, oblivious to the cruelty of the world, stupidly honest. They didn't know how to survive, and looking at her, she most likely didn't know left from right. Like a single mean word would make her cry.

After the intital introduction I found her name was Rosalia... a cute name. She certainly seemed adorable and sweet, maybe a little too energetic when she found she was slightly older than me. Annoying... She dragged me around the entire masion. While I was thankful for the strange amount of useful information she gave me, I became suspicious. What only child, especially of a high ranking noble, would be happy to suddenly have a sibling not related to them? I was only bought for my capabilities in battle, and the fact that Duchess Vermillion was too weak to give birth to anymore children. This didn't mean Miss Rosalia had any use for me though... was she as stupid as she let on? Was my thought process.

Yet she shocked me, while teaching me about how to disern poison, and to my horror drinking some to prove her immuities, she told me I was family. She was worried about me... something that had never happened before. I was used to cold glances, even pity, but genuine care? As ashamed as I am, I broke down in front of her. I expected scorn but instead she held me, this tiny girl, while stroking my head. Yes, she was family. My family. Mine.

Today we were making cookies for mother, who Rose oddly pushed me to get closer to. I had questioned her but she only lightly replied, "A child needs a mother" with her soft chiming voice as she wisked the eggs in the bowl. As a past commoner, I knew it was not normal for a noble lady to cook, but once again I was happy my Rose was not normal. She was better this way. Kind, intelligent, and naive.

I felt slight pity for the terrified cooks and servants in the large grandiose kitchen. They did not know how to handle the sudden children coming in to bake sweets, nor the overconfident young miss that was currently defying all rules to the usual style of cooking in this country. As a child from the slums, a plebeian, I was prepared for slight harassment from the servants. Though, they seemed to busy trying to keep up with the always slightly panicked Rosalia. I questioned why in the Spirits she was always running around with such high anxiety? I also questioned the slight perverted expression she had on her face when she drank poison... it was truly unbecoming for someone with such a cute face. I never outright questioned it though, as I knew I needed to keep up the sweet innocent brother expression in case she became suspicious of my intentions.

At first they certainly weren't good. If this family was as cruel as the church officials, who starved and occasionally sexual abused the children, then I would deal back my personal pain by ten fold in the future. I knew a normal child my age should not have such vicious thoughts, but after watching my mother and father die from a fever which struck the small town I resided in when I was three, made me realize that this is not a kind world. It's why I had hated nobles, sitting on a throne while their people died of disease and bad fief management. Disgusting slums were my home after that, until I was caught stealing bread from a local baker, and beaten until unconscious. When I woke up, I found myself in a jail cell, and after that I certainly wished to be back in the filthy streets that I called home.

The guards were disgusting pedophiles, their yellow ragged teeth and blood shot eyes from the drugs they likely were on. I had watched, and heard, as a guard by the name of Ophine, pushed himself onto a small, defenseless little girl... over and over. Her wails for help never reaching the ears of those who needed to hear it most. Through the bars, as Ophine continually raped her, I had accidentally made eye contact. Her soft brown eyes dull, no longer filled with the slight terror and fear before when she had first been brought to the underground prison. Now they looked like a lifeless doll. Her dirty tattered skin full of bruises and cuts, and when Ophine was finished, blood surrounding her body in a pool as it seeped from her lower half. Yet I keep eye contact with her, even as the life faded from those dull, cold eyes, until her already pale skin became ghostly white and she died. It haunts me, knowing the disgusting and dirty world I live in. The nameless child no older than me, raped to death completely alone. Even when her body was gone, and my body grew weaken with starvation and dehydration, I never forgot those eyes.

That was when the guard turned on me, despite all the other children, my unique hair and feminine face that always reflected back at me in the dirty puddle of water I was forced to drink out of in the cell, was a curse. When his bloody, blackened nails, turned on me, I panicked. With all my being I wished that he would just die. Die, and choke on his blood.

My wish came true, and I learned I could use magic. The stone in the filthy, feces covered cell, turned into deadly spikes all around me and Orphine. The spikes impaled him from all directions. Through his skill, his jaw mangled and frightfully distorted. Then his stomach and chest in multiple areas. Lastly his disgusting crotch, straight through his spine. Yet I never felt guilt, or pity for the guard while defiled so many, and attempted to do to me. I felt happy. I felt a sick feeling rise in my chest at my victory and newfound power against the world which cursed me.

After that I killed everyone. All the guards were lifelessly dangling from the spikes coming up from the floor. The metal bars broken and bent by a simple flick of my wrist. And even the remaining prisoners. I went on a spree. Leaving only a smile on my face and blood soaking the stones in the prison as I walked out completely unscathed.

The church found me not long after, offering me shelter and training for my power. Their greedy eyes filled with contempt for my existence but I ignored it for the opportunity to eat and sleep in a relatively better place than the streets which would leave me shaken and breathless with fear of closing my eyes. 

Then the Duke showed himself, a pompous noble that I hated. Yet I saw an even better opportunity. I could take control of the Vermillion name, and make myself completely invincible. I could wait my days out patiently for the best moment to strike, and end everyone's miserable existence. I just had to smile cutely, pretend to be a simple child, and enact my hatred on the world and land which betrayed me.

Yet here I am. In a kitchen behind any commoner child's dreams, and making snacks for a woman I barely know with my "big sister" smiling happily as if this world was not the most disgusting existence. Even I knew I was dirty, too filthy for a real innocent child.
I expected hatred and jealously from this little girl, so tiny and fragile. Instead I received something almost foreign after my parents died... love. She said she loved me, that we were family, and that she... as laughable as it was, would protect me. When I looked into her eyes, trying to find the same despicable greed or envy that all held towards me, I only found adoration and kindness. This tiny fool was simply and easy to manipulate, yet so stimulating and interesting. She was funny, always full of unimaginable energy, and smart. Albeit dumb to the workings of this world, but her eyes always held an anxiety I couldn't grasp. Like she was running from something, always trying her best and dusting herself off after failing, shouting 'I won't lose!' in her cute, high pitched

Mother was shocked but happy, as Rose forced only me to present the cookies. Shockingly, she asked me to join her for tea. I was even more shocked by how happy it made me...

Especially the first time she gave me a hug in worry after Rose took a fall from the bottom of the stairs and I had grabbed her to prevent her from hitting. I took the brunt of the fall to prevent Rose from getting hurt, but when mother heard about the event she scolded Rose on being more careful and thanked me before asking if I was hurt anywhere. It was nice, this family.

I actually had been hurt, but Rose was amazing in her usage of magic, and made a healing potion for me. Something incredibly rare and invaluable. Yet she forced it down my throat before I could complain, and my injuries were gone. I knew she had a contracted spirit, Ricin, but we did not... get along. It usually ended with us glaring at the other.