Chapter 51

7 months, 2 weeks, 3 days pregnant.

It’s been five days since Livia's revelation and Liliana was avoiding her. Even after Livia had sent her a letter to her room in the hopes of clearing things up.

After anxiously waiting for a response or feedback of any kind for nearly a whole day while pretending to be doing anything but that, Livia had slapped a bit of sense into herself.

It seems Liliana still needed some time to think about everything.

The ball was firmly in her litter sister’s court. Livia, as the older sister, had no choice but to sit and just be patient as Beth had originally told her to. In the meanwhile, Livia refuses to go in pointless circles and stresses about it when in the end, it would get here nowhere.

But it was easier said than done. Livia was not a patient person. She wanted to know if she had damaged the relationship between her and her sister now. The sooner she knew, the sooner Livia could go about fixing it. The sooner she could stop thinking about what-ifs. But, despite her determination, Livia spent another day worrying over the matter before she abruptly sat in front of her desk three days ago. Since then, she has rarely left it.

Now that has unloaded some of her pinguid memories into the orbs, that left her mind a less hazardous mess of information. One she could traverse without falling into a well of countless hours of cat videos.

Livia still had no real control or guide and was still at the complete mercy of the complex organism that was her own brain, but now, she could follow a clear path of direction. As in the information, the flow was less likely to get interrupted by embarrassing memories of her first life and current life childhood.

Like that time, she was determined that her nose was her second mouth when she was four and tried to eat a banana with it to prove to her older sister that she could. Of course, all she had to manage was to get fruit stuck up her nose. And while she was bawling her eyes out because she couldn't get it out, her sister had happily stood by, pointing and laughing her ass off.

Livia's eye twitches in irritation as she scowls to herself. In comparison to the only other sibling she ever had, a whole other lifetime ago, Liliana was a sweet angel.

Currently, Livia was scribbling out the last of words of a sentence before she lays down her pen and picks up the single page to inspect her work. She keeps her fingers at the edges of the paper as not to smear the still drying ink as she scans over it, checking it for errors.

A shadow falls over her before a paper is picked up from a stack by her elbow. Livia doesn’t bother to hide her reaction to the casual but invasive action. She shoots a glare at the person hovering over her, which gets promptly ignored, before pulling her attention back to her work. Nothing on the papers was anything worth protecting from being informally viewed, but it was still irritating.

“So, while you wait for your sister to stop avoiding you, this is how you intend to spend your time?” Amaya asks mildly as she squints at the dense text of words, attempting to read it.

“It passes the time,” Livia grumbles with a shrug before she sets the page down to dry completely while at the same time grabbing for a blank one to start on.

Amaya gets a few sentences in on the one she was reading before she blinks slowly.

“Wait. This isn’t Whistina. What language is this,” Amaya holds the page out further as if it will give her a better view, but the letters do not change. She manages to make out a few more words before she gives up and massages her temples.

“Livia, just what exactly are you writing?” Amaya asks.

She had been sure in her previous conclusion that the younger woman had begun to create her own grimoire of sorts these past few days. Livia had gone from pacing the room and checking the bedroom door every few minutes to an unmovable fixture at her desk while Beth fetched her more parchment. From one extreme to the next, it seems the young woman never did anything halfway.

It would make sense. After all, Livia had invaluable knowledge in that head of hers, but it seems to access it wasn’t a simple matter. Creating a book to analog it all seems like the next logical step since she could not ‘lighten’ the load in her mind any more than she already had with her memory orbs.

And here Amaya was, thinking that she could take a peek at the ancient workings of magic that Livia used. To try to make some sense of it, but it seems her curiosity would not be sated anytime soon.

Livia pauses mid-dip in her ink well and looks up and over her shoulder.

“What do you mean?” She asks, genuinely baffled.

Amaya just eyes her and points to a random symbol, “What I mean is I am fluent in six different languages, and yet I have no idea what half this page says. I can recognize a few letters and even words, but the rest seems like pure gibberish.”

Not to mention it didn’t really read as words of careful instruction. Amaya hadn’t gotten far, but what little she was able to read. It was almost like a story. Sort of. Maybe it was a journal entry? It was dated. At least, Amaya thought it was. The only number she recognizes was one. Which made little sense, given the actual date of today.

Livia's eyebrows furrow, “What? No. I clearly wrote this in Whistina...” She turns back to study the sheet she had in front of her and then promptly does a double-take.

Amaya was right.

The half-finished parchment before her was a strange mix of different languages. Not only that, it seemed along the way, she had digressed to unused and abandoned forms of it. She blinks again, wondering how she only just now noticed.

Amaya places the page in her hand down and leans over Livia’s shoulder, “So, what spell is this for?”

Livia stares at the page a second longer before she draws her eyes away and towards the maid.

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“Spell?” She asks, her voice almost faint. Why would she be writing a spell? She had no access to her magic, so it would just be a pointless thing. Plus, such knowledge should not be so readily available for just anyone to stumble upon, not that they would know what they were looking at even if she had been so careless.

Amaya blinks her dark eyes, “Or diary entry?”

Livia just stares blankly at her with a dull gaze.

What had she been attempting to write again?

Oh.

She turns back around and picks up her pen. Livia remembers now, “It’s not a spell or an entry.”

It was history.

An archive of it.

Livia resumes her writing.

Amaya stares at her but soon realizes that her presence and questions have been completely forgotten as Livia has fallen into her own mind. It has become a rather frequent occurrence as of late. She sighs and turns on her heel. It was about time to prepare the bath anyway.

----------------------------------------

7 months, 2 weeks, 4 days pregnant.

“How long has it been since we have met?”

Amaya looks up from the book she had been reading. She looks behind herself, realizes that she is the only person in the room, then back at Livia’s head, wondering if the girl had eyes at the back of it since she has not turned away from her work at her desk.

It was closing on midnight, and Beth had retired a while ago. Sen had also been in the room a moment ago before he stood up and left to do whatever he did during his leisure time. The soft sound of her dip-pen and the page of a book turning every now and again had been the only ones to fill the room for the past two hours.

And now, it seems Livia has come out of her own mind long enough to voice random questions.

Amaya, figuring that the young woman was going through a brief moment of lucidity, turns her attention back to the book Beth had recommended her and answers without thought.

“Almost two months now?” Amaya estimates vaguely.

“Hmm,” Livia hums, scritch, scritching away, “Then we are still strangers.”

“More among the lines of employer and employee, but yes,” Amaya agrees absently and crosses one leg over the other. The plain and standard black heels given to all maids of the Valentine household dangles on her feet. The heel was barely an inch high and blocky. It was quite ugly, in Amaya’s humble opinion. As was the black and white uniform that reach well below her knees.

Livia pauses in her writing, holding her pen to her chin as she contemplates something on the paper. Though her back was to Amaya, she could easily picture the dark smears underneath Livia’s pretty eyes as her pouty mouth pulls down in a frown.

Amaya has given up interest in the strange works Livia was always busy with these days. To be honest, it creeped her out more than just a little bit. The strange languages, jumbled into some unknown code that only Livia could read and the way her employer seems almost possessed with the need to write every day with no end in sight.

It wasn’t normal.

But, then again, Livia was no ordinary woman.

“How are you liking your stay here, so far?” Livia shoots out the question in the silence.

Amaya loses track of where she had been reading and has to start back at the beginning of the page.

“Isn’t it a bit late to be asking that?” She says with a snort, wondering where all this sudden attention was coming from. It wasn’t necessary. She was well aware of what her role was. Amaya was being paid to do a job, after all. Friendship or even these getting-to-know-you questions were unneeded.

From the corner of her dark eyes, Amaya sees Livia shrug casually, “Just curious...”

“Mmm,” Amaya hums and returns back to her book.

But Livia sets down her pen, scoots out from behind her desk, and turns to better face her.

“So?” She prompts and then stretches out her hands high above her. The action causes the strap of her long nightdress to fall down her shoulder while at the same time drawing it tight around her pregnancy.

Amaya sighs, and puts down her book, “So, what?”

“How are you?” Livia wants to know, slumping a bit in her seat as she yawns.

A noise on the bed draws both their attention to Noctis, who scampers away from the pillow he just knocked off and jumps on the bedside table to groom his paws as if nothing has happened.

“I’m fine, Lady Livia,” Amaya drawls with a roll of her eyes.

Livia smirks and her dull eyes sharpen, “That’s good, I suppose. Have you had any trouble with the other employees? ...My mother?”

Amaya closes her book after bookmarking the page she was on, and snorts, “It wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle.”

“But...?” Livia prompts.

Amaya sighs, “They are very curious about you. The other employees. Beth and I get constantly badgered with questions whenever we come to pass them. In the halls, in the kitchen, walking out of our sleeping quarters. It's rather tiresome. Especially since I am under strict orders to say nothing.” Dark eyes squint at Livia, “Because I have to stay silent, it makes them even needier.”

Livia just chuckles lightly, “Good. What are the current rumors going about?”

She always keeps an ear to the ground, even if she isn’t really interested in that sort of stuff. Especially now that she has retreated and cut herself off from the outside world. It was better to be informed and keep up with the current stream than to be lost and at a disadvantage.

Amaya’s annoyed look melts off as her expression brightens. She leans forward in her seat, “Well, last I heard, the princes are still under surveillance even after they had returned to Aster Academy. Monika, a maid who has an older sister whose daughter attends the academy, says that neither Prince Orin nor Prince Rodale are seen much outside of classes. They would have had little interactions with that heroine of yours. At least in public.”

“And the public opinion of them?” Livia asks as she gets up and walks around the small seating area before taking a seat again. Before she could pull the tray of tea Beth had left for them towards her, Amaya is already by her side and preparing her a cup.

She was aware of certain OG events that might not come to pass because of the two princes' restricted movements, but given that this was barely YEAR 2 of the story, she wasn’t concerned. Because now, other targets will be crawling out to have their shot at Amelia.

“It hasn’t changed,” Amaya confirms as she pushes the steaming tea towards Livia, “Some are still defending the princes like the loyal subjects that they are, thinking the king was gracious for being lenient, but mostly, many aren’t pleased.”

Livia takes a delicate sip and hums, “It won’t be long before all this noise goes silent though.”

Even in this world, which was much different from Earth, interest was quick to wane.

Amaya nibbles on a cookie, before saying, “True, but even so, it will be a while before that time comes. Especially with the courtship of the crown princess candidates coming up.”

Livia has no interest in that particular topic, so she changes it, “And what do the people say of me?”

“Poor girl,” Amaya raises another finger, “Abused by her own mother, pitiful girl, no wonder she turned out that way, she didn’t deserve to be exiled, is the child she carrying a bastard, was she married before, she is a victim but she does not deserve to be queen, she shouldn’t be a candidate, her parents should wed her off while they still can, had she had the bastard yet, what a waste, and so on.”

Livia doesn’t feel moved by the words and somewhat agreed with them but only on one topic. She was unfit to be queen. By the standards of the society she was born in, Livia had lost her ‘purity, and therefore was automatically seen as inadequate in all sense, no matter the circumstances.

If only her mother had not been so short-sighted.

Livia's lips press into a thin line, and she sets down her teacup with a noisy clank.

“...And what of my mother?”

Amaya's eyebrows raise, “Dumpster,” She states bluntly, “Her reputation is in the dumpster. Word of her passive abuse spread like a wildfire. She is the name people love spitting on currently, even more so than the princes. Many see her as the greedy mastermind behind you getting re-engaged to Prince Rodale.”

Livia smiles thinly at that, “Well, I suppose that whole ordeal had been worth something in the end. Beyond stripping my mother rights to my person.”

Amaya finishes off her cookie and shakes her head, “And what a mess that had been. I don’t think I saw Sen so angry. I had to talk him down from doing something rather dramatic.”

Livia lifts a curious eyebrow, “Oh?” She hadn’t known about that.

Amaya just waves it off with a cocky grin, “It’s nothing to worry about. Just know, I handled it.”

Livia snickers, “I’m sure you did.”