POV: Eunice/Roanne

Josephine Evergreen was the maid’s name. She had long brown hair tied in a bun, and she wore a black maid’s dress with a white apron to it. When I asked her about what had happened yesterday, I realised I wasn’t careful with what I was saying.

“My lady, have you lost your memories?” She whimpered as she sat beside me on the sofa.

I paused for a moment before I answered, “It... seems so.”

I was lying again. I didn’t want to lie, but I also didn’t know what to explain to her. How could I even have memories from yesterday if I’m a total stranger to this body? I had no choice. It was either that I go along with her assumption or tell her I was not Roanne at all, but in fact another person named Eunice. A person who came from outside this world of a web comic.

I then thought to myself that there was now a vacancy for me in hell after being such a liar. I’m the absolute worst!

“Oh, Lady Roanne! I am so sorry I did not know about your illness!” She wailed, and it made my ears ring a little.

“Josephine, stop crying for a moment and answer my question. What did I do yesterday?”

“You and Prince Aesar were having a meeting in the lounge room,” she sniffed. “When I came in to serve you tea, you were yelling at his highness. I got nervous of your temper that I accidentally spilled the tea on your dress and...”

“And?”

“You... hurled the tea cup at me.”

Roanne... this stupid girl! What is her problem?!

My eyebrows twitched, and I took a deep breath. Roanne made the scar that was on Josephine’s cheek. I understood that her behaviour was appalling, and it wasn’t making my life any easier.

“I am so sorry, Josephine. I didn’t know what came up in my mind,” I sighed.

Josephine stopped crying and was stunned yet again. She stared at me for quite some time and it made me feel awkward. I shifted on the sofa a little further away from her.

“You... you have changed, my lady!” She gasped.

“I have, haven’t I?” I chuckled and scratched my head. “It’s a pleasant change, isn’t it? But... I need you to keep my illness a secret from others in the household, and that includes my family. Can you do that for me?”

“Ye-yes.”

Admittedly, Josephine wasn’t very smart. It was easy for me to get away with things that people other than her would have suspected.

The morning sunlight of dawn hit the bedroom floor through the arched windows. The leaves and flowers of a tree outside the building bloomed with bright colours of orange and green.

“What date is it today?” I asked.

“It is the 17th of December 1678.”

I rubbed my temple in frustration.

“I think I’ll need a recount of all the activities I’ve done in the past,” I gazed at several birds that were chirping in the branches. “I probably need books about Valbara’s history as well.”

“R-r-right away, madam!”

Josephine went out of the room and came back a few minutes later with three house journals, as well as a thick and dusty history book. She plopped the books on the mahogany table of Roanne’s glamorous bedroom. I fanned the air with my hands and scrunched up my nose as the dust flew around us. After nearly four hours of only reading two house journals, my back and neck ached. Suddenly, a little girl who wore a dainty, pink dress and red shoes barged into the room. She had the same purple-coloured hair as Roanne’s, but her irises were as yellow as a sunflower.

“Big sister!” she grinned at me in excitement, gambolling her way towards me. The little girl hugged my leg with her short arms. Her chubby cheeks were like marshmallows that I really wanted to poke at.

She was Roanne’s little sister, Sylphia Imrora. Sylphia was 3 years-old and was the youngest out of the Imrora siblings.

“Hello there,” I smiled at her. I was nervous on how to approach her.

“Big sister, will you not join me for tea?” She tilted her head. She was so adorable that she reminded me of how my younger sister was when she was a kid. I felt a flush of happiness inside me.

“Of course I’ll join you for tea!” I beamed.

Several maids entered the room and fitted me into my dress. The skirt was light blue and ruffled whilst the top was a white blouse with floral lacing. One maid wanted to tie my hair in a bun, but I suggested for her to do a low-tie instead. I wasn’t comfortable tying my hair in a bun.

It was midday, and the weather was simply perfect. A blue sky filled with clouds, accompanied by a light breeze in the gardens of the Imrora House. The garden was filled with the most colourful of flowers, from red pentas and yellow primroses to pink coral bells and purple asters. The bushes were neatly trimmed into hedgerows and an enormous field of grass that was scythed clean.

A beautiful woman with silver hair and yellow eyes was sitting under an old oak tree, with a boy of the same hair colour laying his head on her lap. They sat on a white picnic matt beside a small table with cups of warm earl Grey tea, plates of cake and a teapot on top of it. Two maids accompanied them and stood a few inches away, in service for them. The beautiful woman was wearing a green and white dress, whilst the boy was wearing a blue vest with a white collared shirt and grey trousers. She held a book in one hand and stroked the boy’s head with the other. She read aloud the story of the book as the boy listened to her soothing voice and dozed off to sleep. After she caught sight of me walking from the entrance of the manor and holding Sylphia’s small hands, she waved at me and smiled angelically.

The woman’s name was Fioné Imrora, and the boy was her 13-year-old son, Therice. She was the mother of Roanne.

I sat on the picnic matt in between Sylphia and Fione.

“Roanne, why didn’t you join us earlier?” Fione asked.

“Big shishter wassh weading booksh!” Sylphia yelled with her mouth full of cake.

“Why is it so noisy?” Therice grumbled as he rubbed his eyes. He grabbed his mother’s hand from his head and hugged her arm.

“I was just studying Valbara’s history,” I replied.

“Oh, I thought you had fully grasped your history lessons with Baroness Marches,” said Fione.

I was about to ask who Baroness Marches was, but luckily I stopped myself from doing so.

“I needed to jog my memory on some stuff, that's all.”

“Or maybe you were just trying too hard to impress the prince again with your intellectualness,” Therice muttered whilst closing his eyes.

Fioné pinched his nose, and Therice cried out, “Ouch!”

“Be kind to your sister, will you? She’s already gone through enough with the breakup.”

She looked at me sincerely and asked, “Do you still love Prince Aesar?”

It took me a while to answer her question. From what Josephine had told me, along with what I had read from the web comic and the house journals, it had been two weeks since Roanne and Aesar broke their engagement.

“I... I don't know, but I think I’m alright.”

She touched my cheek with her warm hand, “My daughter... My wonderful and smart daughter.”

She had such kind eyes. For a split second, she reminded me of my mother.

I gazed longingly at the caring mother and her children among the graceful and peaceful surroundings. I knew all too well that Roanne’s wrongdoings and her eventual death would bring about the downfall of her own family by the end of the story.

Pain lingered in my chest, and tears swelled in my eyes. My nose turned red as mucus filled my sinuses.

“Roanne!” Fioné exclaimed, “what’s wrong, dear?”

“I’m so sorry,” I wiped off my tears with my sleeve, hiccupping as I gritted at my teeth.

Fioné placed my head on her chest as I sobbed on her dress. I kept sobbing, and she caressed my head gently. The teardrops landed on Therice’s face, and he wiped them away. He sat up with a worried look on his face, “Big sister?”

At that moment, all the memories I had with my own family came rushing through my thoughts. The first time my little sister started walking on her two feet. The day we had gone to the carnival and bought the biggest fairy floss there was. The time we celebrated my graduation from the police academy.

I wondered what my own loving parents and sister were doing without me.

I wondered if they were mourning for me.

I’d give anything to see them one last time and say goodbye to them properly.

But most of all, I’d give anything to turn back time before I made the stupid decisions that led to my death.

I really, really missed them so much.

I went back to my room feeling embarrassed after I cried in front of Fioné. I was lucky enough to have gotten away with the situation because they thought I wept for Prince Aesar and was still distraught by the broken engagement. Fioné suggested I returned to my room if I wasn’t in the mood for tea, and I did just that. I politely excused myself from the gathering, thinking that I ruined the mood for everybody.

Get a hold of yourself, Eunice!

I ordered Josephine to get me a pen and a piece of paper to write on. I tucked my chair in front of the table and dipped the quill pen in ink before noting the plot of the web comic as I remembered it.

The name of the web comic was ‘The White Dandelion’. It was a story about a blooming romance between the good-hearted saintess and the crown-prince of Valbara.

Roanne Imrora was the villainess.

A woman who behaved vile in order to cope with the disrespect she faced from the other nobles of Valbara. Her family bore shame as the 5th Duke of Kanber married a commoner named Fioné Kira. The nobles despised the Imrora family after they made the marriage ties. Roanne defended her father and mother and became the heartless woman she grew up to be.

Even though the Imrora’s were looked down upon, they were the only ducal family in Valbara that owned and ruled the largest duchy. By having such an enormous property, it gave the nobles another reason for the House of Duke Imrora to be hated on.

Despite all that, the relationship between Emperor Thiesteus and Duke Imrora remained well. They were long-time friends, and the emperor chose to ignore the gossip surrounding the Imrora’s.

Because of their closeness, an arranged marriage between Roanne and Prince Aesar was also set since Roanne was 15 years-old. They would make their marriage official once Roanne had turned 20.

In all honesty, I pitied Roanne when I first read about her background.

That was until she tried to kill someone with murderous intent.

The unexpected happened when Prince Aesar met a Saintess named Calisa Andillon in the gardens of the imperial palace. She was a member of the Temple of Alekos that came to the palace and gave a preaching and ablution to the family of the emperor once a month. Prince Aesar naturally fell for her at first glance and would later break the four-year engagement between him and Roanne.

The reputation of the House of Imrora plummeted afterwards. Roanne became furious and loathed the saintess. Eventually, she found out that Calisa was of royal blood to an enemy kingdom known as Nebore. She resorted to getting her revenge by involving herself with the tyrant king of Nebore, King Quaiser.

The deal was to kill Calisa in exchange for stability in the west region of her family’s duchy. A region that was invaded by the Neborian Army. King Quaiser would never know that Roanne was killing two birds with one stone.

She ordered an assassin to kill Calisa, but Sir Melvis, the prince’s royal guard, fought him off and killed him.

After finding out that Roanne was involved in the murderous attempt, Prince Aesar subjected her to treason. All noble ties that were made with the House of Imrora would be severed as a result.

Aesar would kill the king of Nebore and successfully conquer the kingdom with his treasured wife and saintess as the sign of peace for the once-Neborian citizens.

“For god’s sake! Why do I have such bad luck every single time!?” I whined in front of Josephine, and she panicked.

“My lady, what is it again?!”

I slammed my head against the table and cried, “I don’t want to die!”

“You’re going to die!?” she shrieked. “My lady, please don’t die!”

Whether it be in this world or the next, death was inevitable.

But I knew I needed to do something. I would not make the same reckless mistake of my first death.

I needed to plan carefully this time.

I recalled the first time Roanne crossed the borders and visited the Quaiser Castle to make the deal with the Neborian king. It was on the 14th of December 1678, and today’s date was the 17th of December. I was already too far in to the story. The damage was already done, and I blamed it all on Roanne.

The only thing left for me to do was to face the consequences.

My plan was to save the Imrora family and not kill Calisa.

Thus, I needed to defend myself against the Neborian king for failing to meet his demands, as well as other Valbaran nobles who might find out about the deal and label me as a traitor. That meant I needed to gain the trust of the nobles and convince them I was still on their side.

With so many dangers that will cross my path, it also meant that I needed to learn how to fight in this era. My feeble body didn’t have enough stamina to even sprint or punch. I made the decision to train and strengthen myself with the skills and knowledge I had from my previous life.

After I finished writing down the story, I rolled the paper up and tied it with a ribbon. I placed it in the drawer of the table and opened up the history book of the Valbaran Empire. As I read through the book, it was then that I discovered my new pastime.