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Ever since the anniversary of her majesty's death, life had only gotten worse for Artemis. What little maids he had left had all abandoned him. Cecilia was the only one who stayed with him, but she alone could not maintain the entire mansion herself, and soon enough, some parts of the mansion had been overrun by plants and nature.
Days passed by, and there was little done to improve Artemis' living conditions. The condition of the manor was in a straight decline. The once joyful manor had fallen into dereliction due to a lack of care.
Money had soon become a serious issue; little to no money or resources were being provided to the prince to support him and his palace. Even Artemis himself was beginning to slowly realise the lack of portions of food he was receiving, and yet he was still trying to persevere, not willing to give up, but who knows how long this stubborn attitude would last before being miserably broken down?
Day by day, Artemis was losing the very little light left in his eyes. To the eyes of spectators, it was worrying, but did they try to interfere? Of course not; they knew if they helped the prince, his majesty would be ruthless towards them, so they didn't in hopes of saving themselves.
Artemis' once energetic and exuberant eyes quickly became void of emotions. It was depressing to see a child change so much; this was one of the many thoughts Cecilia had when looking after the prince.
It was a shocking thing to see such a prevalent and joyful child fall so quickly into despair. Cecilia, although was stubborn, she would not let her prince fall any further. Every day she came up with stories and games in hopes of lighting the little spark left inside of Artemis, but little did she know most of her actions would be in vain.
Artemis had already accepted his fate of being the abandoned prince, the cursed child.
Days slowly became longer and longer, and eventually they began to mix together; life in the manor was terrible. Artemis was slowly losing sight of how he was expressing emotions, and he fell deeper into a depressed-like state.
It was obvious that there was some type of money laundering occurring, but Cecilia couldn't do anything about it. She had tried on multiple occasions to get an audience with his majesty to talk about these issues as well as about Artemis and his negative tendencies, but all of her requests were declined or just blatantly ignored, and she would constantly receive pitying glances from workers and even Felix, who had little to no power to help.
It hurt Felix to know his little prince was suffering, and yet he was unable to do a thing to help; it seemed like his majesty had forgotten all about the prince or his son.
Of course, as the months passed, Artemis soon became accustomed to being ignored, but soon enough, like any child his age, his exterior began to deteriorate.
