ᴡᴍᴍᴀᴘ: ᴏɴᴇꜱʜᴏᴛꜱ

Noir.

Jennette, known as the pure, the lovely princess of the Obelian empire, who with the love of everyone, her citizens and father included, she lives a life that everyone desires. Everyday she looks out the windows towards the lake, everyday she sits with her father to have tea with him, everyday she lives as if nothing is wrong because- there isn't.

But still.

No matter how good, no matter how talented she was at dancing, or embroidery, or arranging tea parties, she could not take up father's reins even as his heir. She tried, she really did try. 

She sat down with those who graduated with the highest scores, and she looked at the numbers and words swirling on the pages, with their voices droning on in the background, and she just couldn't. 

She had the best tutors, the best officials, everyone surrounded her with such high expectations she couldn't get rid of them with her longing for a simpler day to follow.

Her father looks at her work day to day, month to month, until one day, he doesn't call for her to bring him the assigned work. Jennette later hears that it was because he had appointed a regent position in case something happens to him with his failing health. 

Her heart falls as she listens to the couriers whispering in the hall. She sticks closer to father after that.

But not long after, Claude de Alger Obelia dies, for reasons unknown to even the best and brightest Imperial mages. And Jennette became an Empress in name, and name alone. 

A figure-head that had no real power but sat on the golden throne to look pretty as her appointed regent did things in her stead. A lifeless, forever lovely princess.

That was all she ever was in life, and all she would ever be.

Athanasia at a young age learns from her uncle, with his dark Obelian eyes and hair that captures the sun in its locks, and a black heart that could rival the worst of malevolent demons, that her father was nothing to her.

He had abandoned her for her uncle's child-a daughter he no longer hoped for, and instead of bemoaning her fate, she works on policies and sword mastery as if the devil possessed her, and her intelligence helps her soak up knowledge, endlessly. 

Anastasius watches her fling her mana at a target and sees it burn up in a sea of blue flames, and smiles.

She did not say of how she wanted to be a princess like her cousin, or how she wanted her rightful place back, she simply went on being herself, and her fist lights up in electric strands as she looks at the eyes of the Imperial family in the mirror and across from her at the table. 

Just as how Anastasius didn't tell her of how his eyes burned with black rage as he stared at the palace in the distance. The palaces that were supposed to be his, would always be his.

He tells her of black magic when she was ready, because even if she wasn't his own, he had raised her with all the feelings he had left. 

Their blonde hair and blue eyes were disguised with it, how her father was dying with Jennette by his side, and Athanasia seems to cover her laugh with her hand. He asks her why.

 She snickers as she throws out a, "Well, Uncle- she was named as god's most precious, but she's doing exactly the opposite to the one who dethroned the tyrant, isn't it most fitting?"

They make it to the palace just as it is ready to fall, because even with her lovely name and appearance, Jennette would have never been able to stop a war. It had long been in motion.

Their quiet army of troops standing ready to storm the doors, and their black hair and black eyes shimmered under the firelight and in a sweeping motion, their eyes and hair were plain to see. 

Claude, who had fallen victim, was no longer there to protect his people, his chosen heir. And with a relish that could not be put into mere words, Athanasia and Anastasius rip through them as if they were paper. 

The lovely princess falls at last. And there sits an emperor rightfully crowned, who once had sat in that golden throne before. Now with a new lovely princess at his side, one that was truly worthy of her name.

Together, they are eternal life and resurrection, together, they make Obelia whole once more.

Long live the Imperial bloodline. 

Bow before their immortality.