Dagger In The Heart

Chapter 3: The Lady in Ruins

Nadine

"What have I done?!" I asked in fury as I stomped around my bedroom, my pink skirts swishing and swaying around my legs whenever I switched the direction of my aimless walking of emotion.

"I have been born a female. Is that what I have done wrong? Does my father expect me to apologize after all this time for me being born a gender that has to be forced to marry a man? That I, myself, have not been born a male who can do whatever he wanted? Outrageous. All of this is just... just..." I could not even find the words to describe how idiotic, mindless, foolish, and senseless this all was.

Has my father believed I would be okay with such a decision? Behind my back as well. He was traveling around the globe probably to see if any dense man would take my hand to be his trophy to parade around and be a pretty bird to show off to his friends and family. It made me sick. All of it.

I never wanted to run away so badly in my life. I yearned to throw something, break a window for all I care, and let my father pick up the broken shards.
"Oh calm down, dear cousin. You are taking this way out of context. Come sit, I fear you shall hurt yourself with that rage of yours and your poor feet need to rest. I can hear them screaming in agony over here." My cousin said then took a sip of her tea.

Lily Pembroke, daughter of my Aunt Mary Pembroke. Lily comes from a family known for their beautiful offspring and Lily was living proof of it.

Her hair, which seemed to be as wild as she can be at times, was swept over her right shoulder and was extremely curly. It reached her down to her stomach and paused in its growing length, I found myself quite jealous because my hair was an ever rapidly extending monster whose goal it seemed to be if it can or not, reach the floor within the timespan of four months.

I paused in my steps and glanced over my cousin's outfit. A deep shade of red which reminds me of cranberries along with black trimming around her skirts. She always wore black gloves that reached her elbows per her mother's request. If Lily shall not act like a lady then her mother would force my poor cousin to dress like one. She had some ruffles of black sprout forth from where her deep red sleeves met her elbows, I was surprised she was not red in the face by how much her mother had covered her up.

Lily wore only the finest fabrics and wore the most beautiful dresses her mother could find, even if those same dresses would be tossed aside on some gentleman's floor at midnight.
I slowly walked over towards the opposite seat which sat on the other side of the end table in between both me and Lily. A teapot painted with particular features and designs of vines and little tiny flowers settled on top of the wooden surface of the end table. Matching tiny teacups made from fine china sat on their crystal clean pearl white saucers, they held a sweet-scented tea that filled the room with the heavenly smell of flowers and berries.

I sat down before Lily could order me to sit once more. She poured some tea into my cup and pushed it towards my direction with a little nudge.
"Drink. It shall calm your jumping nerves and soothe those veins popping out of your head."

"I do not have any disgusting veins popping out of nowhere on my body. I am not that mad." At my argument, Lily raised an eyebrow at me while her eyes scanned my head, on blasted instinct, my hand shot up and my fingers grazed along the smooth skin of my forehead.

Nothing. Nothing but warm skin that was cooling down slowly over time while being in my cousin's presence.

"Please just take a sip of the tea before it gets cold. Goodness knows that you need it now rather than the queen." She stated as she leaned back into her chair, getting comfortable with her delicate teacup in her hand.
I took the warm teacup off of its saucer and took a slow sip of the tea.