EMPEROR AND I

THE BORDERLANDS

There is something special about spring.

It"s a season that suppresses darkness into light, and a time that ushers in music that carries unspoken words. As it motions, a person"s heart learns to let go of the sorrow, the pain, and the heartache that was faced in winter.

There was a spring in Princess Le-anne"s life that shone in the coldness of her winter. It was someone that Princess Le-anne called "her person," and in the future, maybe her heart would accept her as mother, who she yearned for and missed so much.

Her person was beautiful—not the beauty of the physical features that eventually fades away, but the beauty of the soul. It was like her soul was made of meadow flowers. Her smile was the most alluring to watch, that Le-anne seemed to forget the responsibilities that weighed down her shoulders in that person"s presence. Moreover, what enchanted the princess is that she smelt of sun and daisies with a mesmeric hint of river water.

Beyond being Princess Le-anne"s person, she was also an instructor. She was missioned to mentor Princess Le-anne about Nevoria"s ways of life and how to be a woman who could catch his majesty, the Emperor of Nevoria"s eye. From the day the princess arrived at the Borderlands, the woman had specialized in improving the girl"s martial arts, embroidery, and skills in conversation, poetry, and dance.

However, when summer approached, the princess was to learn in the hardest way that, "the good die first and those whose hearts are dry as summer dust burn to the socket."

Maybe her person had not grasped the saying, "He that would be healthy must wear his winter clothes in summer," because when summer came, spring died.

From being the spring, Le-anne"s person became nothingness, and in the girl"s heart, she became nameless. For the second time in her life, she was left to face the world alone.

Her days became unbearable, while the stagnancy of time became a wound that refused to heal. The Borderlands, a place which had become home to her, once again became a place in which her father had temporarily dumped her to, so that she could be poison that was lethal enough to make a nation go on its knees.

And so like a drug, hatred consumed her.

She started to hate Nevoria for being an empire that bullied her father"s little country, Huticah; because of it, she could not be a normal woman. She would never marry the love of her life, travel the lands, or simply enjoy life without anyone grinning from behind her with reins in their clutch to control her.

She despised how Huticah sold its people to Nevoria because of greed. She loathed her mother for abandoning her, an act only a petty woman would do. She hated Brother Hu-go for his deceit, father for his selfishness, Nameless for leaving her, and most of all, the witch that replaced Nameless.

S.V