Chapter 213 - The Devil In My Father (1/2)
”What can you tell me about him?” said Reed as he kept a weather eye on the scenery outside.
With Mu shrouded in eternal darkness due to the lack of a parent star, the only way one could navigate the gloomy tombworld was by using equipment to scan one's surroundings or use the sporadic lightning bolt created by the world-spanning Anima storm that encompassed the planet to light the way...
”I thought you already knew about him, considering how you shared memories with...” said Lu'um, somewhat surprised. She had genuinely not expected Reed to not know anything about the former Emperor. Not that she had ever brought up any topics that were related to Him.
Reed shook his head in denial and said, ”I only know bits and pieces about the Emperor from fragmented memories that I stumbled upon. The Wretch wasn't too keen on showing me His past, not that I would have cared to listen even if He had a change of heart.”
As far as Reed had been concerned back then, he already had a wonderful collection of bad memories from his own childhood; he had not been interested in adding to his collection...
”Then what do you know?” said Lu'um curiously. ”Here's what we'll do; Tell me everything you know, and I'll fill in the gaps and correct the misunderstandings. It'll be faster than going over, well, everything from the beginning, right?”
And so, Reed began to recount what he had glimpsed so many years ago...
He knew that the former Emperor wasn't a princeling, by any measure normal of the word. The man had been born a member of the gentry, but rarely ever acted the part. He was a maverick who lived to do what he pleased above all else.
Lu'um smirked. ”That sounds about right. When I was young, the Emperor entertained Itotia and me with stories about his misadventures. He used to peddle counterfeit artworks to snobby nobles to humiliate them later on when someone called them out for owning a fake. Or when he used to party crash at formal parties with his friends to steal dates away from actual princelings, much to their fury...”
If something was considered sacred, polite, or formal, the Emperor considered it a target for his personal amus.e.m.e.nt. And that was why he found the First Princess of the Mulian Empire so fascinating when he first saw her. Never had he seen something so delicate and pure in his life; the moment the Emperor laid eyes on her, it was over already over for him.
”The dumb idiot even trespassed into her damn bedchambers at night just to meet her! Had he not been spared by the Princess, he would have certainly been sentenced to a fate worse than death,” said Reed, as he reminisced about the memory he had witnessed. ”And then, as if to tempt his own early death, he continued to break into her bedchambers every night afterward...”
Reed already felt his head beginning to hurt the more he thought about this so-called ”Emperor.”
Every memory he seemed to recall of him was one that only increased his disdain of the man.
He was pretty much everything Reed hated of someone; the man was a notorious braggart, liar, swindler, gambler, habitual womanizer, and a general pain in the a.s.s to anyone that knew him.
”He wasn't that bad...” said Lu'um, but when she began to remember some of his more colorful stories, she backpedaled with, ”Well... everyone makes mistakes in their youth. We can't hold him accountable for that, right? And he did eventually grow up a bit once he got older... I guess.”
And then, there was the startling fact that the audacious bastard had actually eloped with the Emperor's eldest daughter, the First Princess, on the very eve of her wedding to her arranged fiancé.
This, of course, had not been enough for the bastard either, for he had also taken the Mantle of Heaven as well, which was reserved only for the chosen inheritor of one of two the sacred Marks of Responsibility.
As far as Reed understood, this damned fellow was the root cause of everything.
He was never supposed to have a part in the wider story of the universe. He was never meant to fall in love with the First Princess, become the owner of the Mantle of Heaven, obtain the Mark of Responsibility, or become Emperor of the Mulian Empire.
The man was a living aberration, to put it politely. A snag in the grand tapestry that Fate had woven. An actor that seemingly broke the script and had completely turned everything inside out, for better or worse...
”What do you want me to say? If it weren't for his actions, none of this would have fallen...” said Lu'um as she stared at the bleak, desolate scenery outside of their ship.
”...But at the same, you and I wouldn't have been born, you know. You and I were both created as contingency plans — had everything gone as planned, neither you nor I would have been created. And I don't know about you, but I like quite enjoy existing very much...”
Reed frowned at the thought that his life had been the result of a cosmic blunder of catastrophic proportions, but in a twisted way, it did delight him knowing that he was an error. Even more so, when he thought that his existence was the byproduct of someone else's f.u.c.k up.
”In any case, he wasn't as terrible as you think he was,” said Lu'um with a tender smile. ”He was a loving father, devoted husband, and a joy to be around for all that knew him. He was... a truly great man.”
”...That right? Well, you'd know him better than I ever will, so I'll take your word on it,” said Reed skeptically.
”Still, he seemed like a poor excuse of a father and a total clown to me... But then again, those were The Wretch's memories of the Emperor. Given how much He hated his father, I'm pretty sure all the memories I glimpsed were biased in some way against the old man...”
A difficult expression formed on Lu'um's face, and she said, ”It wasn't always like that. There was a time when they had a normal relationship. Well, as normal as could be expected, I suppose. Their relationship only turned poisonous after the Emperor...”
”Turned traitor?” asked Reed curiously.
Lu'um nodded. ”After the Emperor defected, both He and I were forced to inherit the Marks of Responsibility. I can only imagine how delighted my mother must have been when I finally got the opportunity to fulfill the role she failed to obtain.”
”Nevertheless, I still remember how kind the Emperor was to me as a child. He always used to spoil me and shower me with affection whenever he met me. In many ways, he was the closest thing I ever had to a father,” said Lu'um before she added, ”Ahh, that's right... I forgot you don't know. Not that it's your fault, of course...”
Reed and Lu'um had reached an unspoken agreement long ago about s.e.n.s.i.t.i.v.e matters like their personal histories. They knew that there were memories that neither of them wished to talk about. Every individual had their own personal boundaries. It did not get any simpler than that.
”I don't have a father,” said Lu'um. ”My mother was singularly devoted to the Emperor to the bitter end. She would not court any other man besides the Emperor. Therefore, my sisters and I were all born via artificial insemination. We were born from genetically modified zygotes as a series of clones. Each sister a refined version based on the previous sister's... imperfections.”
In pursuit of a perfected form of herself, Shaali modified four of her own eggs and gave birth to clones of herself.
Four sisters were born from the mother's lifelong obsession— Yalya, Iola, Hara, and finally Lu'um.
As the ”perfect one,” Lu'um arguably suffered the most of all the sisters. Though her mother was not one to show love to her daughters, she barely showed any love to Lu'um.
And as if the expectations Shaali had for Lu'um had not been crushing enough already, she was also treated the same way by her own older sisters — with indifference and a particular loathing of her that bordered a blood feud.
One could only imagine how much those girls felt about being nothing more than testbeds, only to be ignored once the perfected product was finally created. And to be denied of their reason for existing...
”They gave me a lot of grief... They used to berate me at every turn, taking p.l.e.a.s.u.r.e in my failures, and were often scheming to get me in trouble,” said Lu'um. ”Worst of all was that my mother would never reprimand them for their actions. Instead, she would reprimand me for not escaping their schemes, as if she was naturally expecting more out of me.”
Reed sighed and said, ”Let me guess, that drove your sisters mad, right? They acted out like that to get your mother's attention, but their mother never gave them what they wanted. They wanted to be seen by her, but no matter how hard they tried, the only person your mother paid attention to was you.”
Lu'um stared at Reed with a mildly surprised look before he said, ”Have you forgotten where I grew up? Orphans are needy children and can be quite vicious at times, too. It seems we share a bit of history, unpleasant as it might've been for us...”
”Y-yes, you're quite right... It was a vicious cycle that my sisters couldn't escape. Though I'm sure the Emperor knew about my situation early on, which is why he visited our home frequently. He used to take Itotia with him whenever he visited our home under the pretext of her wanting to see me, but I'm positive that the Emperor just wanted to give me a moment to breathe...”
”Even if it was for a single day or even a single afternoon, he wanted me to have experience something normal. Something happy. To give me good memories I could use to hold on and continue struggling whenever life got awful at home. I don't know how I would have gotten through my childhood without their kindness. The Emperor even let me stay with his family whenever I used to have a big fight with my family when I got older, too,” said Lu'um.
Reed mulled over what he had heard and said, ”Sounds like he had a conscience. I won't argue that he didn't have a good heart, but it sounds like... guilt to me. Guilt that he never returned the feelings your mother had for him. Guilt over the circ.u.mstances regarding your birth. I really don't have a better way to say this, but... he should have just married her. Or made her a concubine, you know? I'm sure the Emperor of the Multiverse wouldn't have gotten in trouble for having two wives, right?”
”Would you marry someone out of pity even if you didn't love back the same way?” asked Lu'um, genuinely bewildered. ”If you did that, you'd be hurting that person even more than if you rejected them. Personally, I'd rather die than be in a sham relationship founded on pity. That's no way to live.”