Another

I look at a standing mirror to see: a young lady in his teens, she has an average height and is wearing a fancy blue dress. She has straight black hair, falling a bit past her shoulders. Her eyes are green and mysterious. Her skin is similar to porcelain, white and fragile.

That's me.

My name is Liliana. I'm the only daughter of a bourgeois family located in the capital of our empire, Eleymount.

The capital of the Naiodour empire.

I live now pleasantly in my family's mansion. A mansion that holds a couple of painful memories.

It's common for people to die while giving birth in our empire. My mother wasn't lucky enough to avoid that fate.

My mother died while giving birth to me, my only close relative is my father. After losing his wife, my father fell into a heavy depression, he couldn't stand seeing me, my face reminded him of my mother. I was mostly raised by our servants.

In my first years, I tried all I could to get my father's attention. I behaved correctly, studied according to my tutor's teachings, and gave him flowers that I collected in the garden of our mansion.

But the more I tried to get his attention, the more he avoided me, as if I were a ghost. Or the personification of a painful memory.

***

One dreary day, the two of us were eating our lunch in the hall. The air was dense, as it was usual.

A female servant requested my father to pay me more attention, it wasn't the first time. But she didn't quit that day. She took a family painting portraying my mother and threatened my father to destroy it if he didn't stop with his "sorry act."

My father got in a frenzy that day. He hurried to take the painting from the servant's hands and put it in its place. And once, he did that. Once his sudden outburst of energy ran out, he cried for an hour. The female servant also cried, as well as many others.

I was still young, I didn't understand what happened to my mother. Why did she die while giving birth to me? The servants who raised me didn't want to tell me. And a part of me didn't want to even know.

And so, that day. That dreadful day. I didn't cry like them. I just ran away.

Why did my mother die? Why does my father doesn't pay attention to me? Why would a servant threaten to destroy a painting of my own mother?

Wearing those questions as a shield, I continued to run away. Until I reached the garden. Remembering all those times I collected those flowers under the watchful eyes of the servants, just to give them to my uncaring father, made me feel something that I had never felt before.

I didn't know what that feeling was at that time, but now I do. It was true anger. An otherworldly anger, powerful enough that it felt physical.

They chase after me, I tried to run away, to climb the garden wall, a tree, anything. But it was futile. In the end, they catch me.

Unaware of why I ran in the first place, I didn't give up. I resisted and punched anyone who would touch me. Like a desperate beast.

And then, everything turned black.

When I woke up again, I felt a little bit different. Like if I were another person. Like if a part of me were restored by force.

I was on my bed, and my father was resting in an armchair.

I got into a sitting position and looked at my father.

He looked at my eyes, as if trying to see something in them. "Lily, do you remember what happened?"

"Only a part of it, Dad."

"I see, a demon must have possessed you. You ran away to the garden, and when our servants tried to stop you from hurting yourself, the demon used you to hurt the servants."

I didn't say anything.

"The demon then started to... change your body. You were convulsing, foam came out of your mouth." He fakes a smile that doesn't reach his eyes. "In other words, it was as if someone was tickling you too much."

"My body was changing?" I said, worried.

He shrugs it off. "Don't worry about it. One of your eyes started changing its color, that's all. Oh, and also..."

"And also?"

"We asked the demon what its name was, and it said that its name was 'Anya." Which is a lady's name, so I suppose that the demon is a 'she."

I looked at the floor. Does that mean I said something without being aware of it?

"It's possible that a demon possessed you because I'm not giving you the proper care a young lady like yourself should have. So from now on, I'll make sure to take care of you as I should have done from the beginning."

He didn't break that promise. He made sure I had all I needed; whatever I asked, he would give me.

He made sure that everyone around me behaves, and that everything around me is in order. Putting all the eggs in the other basket, he grew overprotective. If I wanted to leave the mansion, I would need an escort. He treated me as if I were made of glass.

Later, I found out that when that demon possessed me, I seriously injured that female servant. The one that threatened to destroy my mother's portrait.

***

Many years have passed since those days.

I am now 15 years old. According to Naiodour's law, I'll be a grown woman in the next year. When I turn 16. By then, I could finally decide what to do, without biding with my troubled father.

I spent almost all my time in the mansion's library, and I asked my father to buy me all kinds of books; my tutors were also pleased with my avidity to read them. Many of those books mentioned magic, so I also requested my father to buy me grimoires. He declined at first, but I was persistent... and this time it worked.

Xander, my gentle-looking father with fair skin and very short brown hair, gave me what I requested.

And so, with my first grimoire in my hands, I began studying magic. I was extremely talented. It didn't take me much to be able to control elemental magic. Water, earth, fire, air. I was able to control them easily. But I struggled to learn other types of magic, like dark magic.

My tutors advised me to specialize in only one element, but I didn't want to do it. I studied all of them. I became a proficient mage.

I tried to make my father hire me a magic tutor, but he didn't allow it. I could only study by myself.

And then, I read a book about wardens. And decided that I will too become one. If I go to the only academy in the world. Located in this city. I could not only learn more about magic, but also travel around the world.

I wonder if, after enrolling in the academy, I would be able to find someone similar to a hero in a fairy tale... probably not.