Once upon a time in the Kingdom of Noreden, there was a girl, born of the powerful Duke of Hessiod, Marcus van Hessiod.

This girl was called Anastasia, and she would want for nothing. 

Her family, the Hessiod Ducal Family, was the most powerful and important in the Kingdom, with the strongest Standing Army in the country, controlling large swathes of territory and wielding magics most arcane. Such was its territory, wealth and power, that it was said that the Duke of Hessiod was the true power behind the Kingdom of Noreden.

Anastasia knew this, and knew that as the sole beloved daughter of the Duke, the first daughter born to the family in two hundred years, she was important. The most important, in fact. She believed wholeheartedly that she and she alone stood at the very top, and that all others existed for her sake, be it her family, her servants or all others. The whole world was put at her service, and she knew neither right nor wrong, she only knew what she liked and what she disliked.

There was never anything she could not have, if she wanted it, for her Father would make it so.

That was, until she met Him.

Prince Albrecht Noreden, a tall boy of tan skin and rugged good looks. The second prince of Noreden, born of a Suradian concubine and bearing their distinctive traits. His hair was as dark as the winter nights, and his eyes were like onyx gems, his features were nothing like those of the Noredenian noblesse, with a strong jaw and a hauntingly terrifying glare, he stood half ahead above even the tallest of his peers, and his wide and strong shoulders were the subject of many a furtive conversation between the ladies. With the exotic good looks that clashed with the predominantly blonde and slim nobility of Noreden, he'd caught many people's attention.

Anastasia met Prince Albrecht when the two attended the Royal Academy, and she was smitten with him, yet found nothing but rejection. Even when she used her father's power to secure a promise of engagement, it was no use, for he hated her then and would hate her through the length of their engagement.

So much so that he would even fall into the arms of another woman. A commoner who had been elevated when it became known she was the bastard child of a baron, the lowest form of landowning nobility, and yet, despite all the gifts she showered upon him, all the time she spent trying to appeal to him, he would fall for her, unequivocally and without shame.

She would try everything in her power to gain him back, and when that didn't work, she sought to get rid of the girl, and thus came Anastasia's doom, as she was faced with the consequences of her actions for the first time in her life, as even her father could not, and would not, protect her from the law itself.

Anastasia had tried to poison the commoner girl, and in her failure, had poisoned the Prince instead, and as he had brushed death but been miraculously saved by the commoner girl's healing power...

The curtain fell upon Anastasia's tale, as she was found guilty and sentenced to death, the edge of the curtain took the form of a guillotine. On her very birthday, no less!

And yet, Anastasia's eyes opened once again, as she woke up not as the eighteen years old villainess she had become, but an innocent still.

Once again, it was her birthday, except it was ten years before. She woke up not in a dark, damp and dingy cell, but in her lavish and overdecorated bedroom, surrounded by pillows and dolls. 

After a good cry and finding herself relieved that her fate was not to be, she decided that she would not let herself become the woman she had once been. Indeed, she remembered now what her life at this age was like, and she remembered that despite the fact that she had two brothers and a father, she scarcely ever met them. She didn't even dine with them more than once a month.

And though she had the urge to blame them for it, the edge of the guillotine had given her a whole new perspective. Knowing where such thoughts lead, she sat on her bed, by herself, and simply thought. Thought about why her family had never wanted to be with her. She remembered a time, a very long time ago, where they would come to see her, to play with her, to be with her, and yet little by little, that stopped, and she was no longer the center of their love and attentions.

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Little by little, she found herself alone.

A maid came to wake her up. A servant. She didn't even know the maid's name, but the maid knew her, and the maid acted with nothing but terrified respect and fearful submission, and it was only putting this in stark contrast to the commoner girl who had enraptured the heart of her beloved, that she finally understood.

The fearful maid had, in her terror, tripped and dropped her tray, launching the cup of steaming hot tea's contents all over Anastasia's face, burning her quite badly. Anastasia shrieked in pain, and it triggered a memory in her, reminded her of what would follow. Right.

This maid, this maid- she'd had this maid fired for this, no, not just fired, she'd had the maid thrown in the dungeon and tortured, disfiguring her to repay her the insult. Anastasia was filled with panic, she hadn't even thought about what she had done, and now that she could remember what it was like to be on the receiving end, now that she understood and knew, she could not help but feel sympathy and regret.

It took until now, until this shocking stinging pain, for her to truly realize what a monster she had been.

It registered then. Everything she'd done. Everything she'd said. Her family had drifted away from her because she had grown into an unforgivable monster.

But she could change, she could become someone else, she could become someone better. And the first step on that journey was here and now. Through her tears and the intense, incredible pain, she begged for mercy for the young girl who had made a mistake because of fear, to her father and her brothers, and this one step would change her future forever.

Because the tears of relief and happiness on the maid's face triggered something deep within Anastasia, as she learned something that she had never thought would ever be true.

Doing good... feels good. Being thanked. Being appreciated. Being... respected.

It felt good.

Intoxicatingly so, even. Anastasia was a changed woman, and though her burns would haunt her for many weeks until she was fully healed, the scar left on her spirit would last much longer, and she would become a wholly different existence, drunk and intoxicated on the smiles and praise words directed her way by everyone around her. A girl who had known only scorn now tasted nothing but praise, and she loved it.

And yet...

And yet..!

And yet here she was, hollow and alone.

Throughout all her life, she had known nothing but praise and respect. She had known nothing but gratitude.

And yet she was empty, she was in despair even.

One hundred years after she had changed her path from that of a selfish and spoiled villainess to a selfless saint, she knew nothing but the same sorrow that she had felt at the end.

She knew Death approached. She was familiar with it. Though it might not come in the form of a guillotine, it was just as frightening.

The Saint of Hessiod was an old woman now. A hundred and eight years old. Though she had known love, it had never been more than one sided. Her beloved prince married that same commoner girl. Tiara, was her name. Though it tore at her heart she had wished them happiness fondly, from the bottom of her heart, and they had named her godmother of their child, as had many others. Though she had never had children of her own, many had sought her out. She had become a symbol, an icon.

The Saint of Hessiod, a woman given to charity and selfless endeavors, was everyone's Granny, at the end of her life.

This was her last birthday. Her last day on this world. Only her brothers' descendants had come to her humble abode to celebrate it with her. The great grandchildren of her brothers.

She had known not the joy of a family nor the happiness of a lover...

It was perhaps her only regret. In her zeal to become someone worthy of love, she had swung too far in the other direction, and become someone whom others felt unworthy of.

A custom of Noreden that had become more and more popular, making a wish upon the gods as you blew on the candles of your birthday cake... it was the first time Anastasia ever experienced it, at the suggestion of one of her grandnephews, the youngest among the crowd that gathered to wish her a happy birthday and pay their respects to the ancestor who had raised the name of Hessiod to such a degree.

A wish upon the candles, huh?

Perhaps she was swept up by the mood, perhaps she it was just a whim.

But she made her wish, nonetheless, as she blew her candles with what little strength she had left, even as she lay on her death bed, and thought that, if she were to live again, she'd like to be able to make some friends next time.

The last of the hundred and eight candles' fire was snuffed, and with the clapping and celebration of her family's descendants, Anastasia settled on her bed, and closed her eyes one final time, warm with the knowledge that it was at last time for her lonely existence to end.

The whole of Noreden mourned the loss of the Great Saint, a grand ceremony held on that date, every year, for the following century.

And then while everyone else was busy preparing for the celebration of the Saint's birthday, exactly one hundred years after the passing of Saint Anastasia, Anya, daughter of a huntswoman and a baker, tripped, hit her head on the edge of a table, and was promptly reminded of not one but two past lives on her way to the la la land of unconsciousness.