Akari means light.
Light meaning the only array of hope given to the Ayumu nation. One of the largest empires known to mankind.
When the empire suddenly disappears on the young girl's seventh birthday, an invasion erasing the nation forever, causing...
I am then caught by the older man as his eyes are bright as he observes me.
"Jin! My daughter! You're back!"
My face conforms into something of utter shock and bewilderment.
"Who?"
...............
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I stare down at my palms, pale and thinner than I'd recognize. I watch as the bubbles of white soap gather in between my fingers and help me imagine white clouds. For that is where I long to be—not in this...strange circumstance.
And just as I imagine my freedom, which is not really freedom in the slightest, it is washed away with one large scoop of water.
The servants that had dragged my fatigued body do absolutely nothing but talk amongst themselves in silent whispers and hide behind their palms just as I done with my missing mask.
As they work around me, and hours pass of them dressing me as if I was some form of a ceramic doll, my mind is either blank. Or filled with the endless questions that fill me to the brim.
"Jin! My daughter! You're back!"
The Wu Lord has called me Jin. My name is neither Jin nor familiar to that.
My family had no connections to the Wu Lord, or the Wu family, the land known for their fearsome wolves used in battle. Sure there was no animosity from what I know of. But they and I have no knowledge of each other apart from our reigning titles.
Is this their way of overcoming that? Kidnapping a princess like an evil villain in a fairytale book?
But I have no worth if I am called someone else.
My limbs, numb from both fatigue and spiked tea. My lips, painted as a blooming pink to hide its barren sweetness. My cheeks flourished with a rose of desire as I feel anything but. My fringe, clipped full and short. My small birthmarks, covered as if they were banished from existence. And my eyes, widened and searching for my very own way out.
