The child with scarlet hair had not been normal in any sense of the word. Raised by a man called Master whom taught her the strange practice of sorcery called Blood Magiya. She lived deep in the woods, tall trees deprived her wondrous mind to explore anything other than the viridian nature that seemed to always stretch further the more she chased its end.
And her nights were forever encased in a terrifying cage of shadows. She'd cried every night, ever since she could remember, until that day. She was as odd as it could get. In all her years of captivity, she was called many things by Master; Red Death, Chaos Enchanter, Scarlet Ghost, Blood Printsessa and so forth. But she was still a child, and she hated her titles.
And so the girl of four years spend the free portions of her days thinking of names that sounded pretty to her ears. Every day the forest was filled with the sound of her childlike songs as she made up words. Each night she turned away from the window in her room, closed her eyes and pictured different interactions she could have with other children, and used a new name in each fantasy.
Very soon, her happy dreams were shattered by Master who had used a spell to psychically extract her mind's contents and mold her thoughts to his own twisted image. He did not forbid her from having an imagination, he was far more manipulative than that. He used her fascination with everything new to his advantage and he set a trap for the child to fall into.
The girl found the marked grave by the small pond far from the cottage. She feared that asking Master about it would enrage him and result in her punishment, so she inspected the letters put together at the top of the wooden board sticking out of the muddy ground.
L U C R E T I A, it was written.
"It was your mothers." He'd told her that day. "It's only fitting to carry her name as well as her blood, no?"
And she took the name of a dead woman as her own.
——————
LUCRETIA MADE HER FIRST FRIEND WHEN SHE WAS NINE YEARS OLD.
It was a sunny day, and the birds chirped happily around the two young girls. The sky shined a bright azure shade and the clouds entertained them with shapes and pictures. The two girls laid on the grass, staring up at the beautiful ceiling of white and blue intertwined and Lucretia felt, perhaps for the first time in her short life, happy.
