EPISODE 4. PART 2- Anxiety

Naturally, it was impossible to look out the window from the bed in the center of the bedroom.

It was a moment that robbed Ashria of the little joy she had left.

For a moment, she was depressed, but then she remembered her old cellar and chastised herself.

Had she forgotten what it was like to live in the palace for so many months?

‘This is so much more comfortable and cozy than that….’

You’re full,” Ashria said to herself, clicking her tongue as she slipped into her cage.

The sight of her, still so stoic, made Askaar feel even more nervous.

The cage was filled with the bindings of the Empire’s most powerful mages. How could she still be so serene in such a place?

He could only stare at Ashria for a long moment, her hand clasped in his, obediently locked in the cage.

* * *

While Askaar was away, Ashria was forced to live in a cage with layers of magic.

She was like a caged bird, unable to move.

Before, she could still spend a reasonable amount of time outside exploring, but now there was nothing to do but lie in bed.

Funnily enough, before heading into the meeting, Askaar had placed a bunch of flowers inside the cage.

She wondered if they were replacements for the flowers he had torn up.

But Ashria never touched them. Strangely, she didn’t like the ones he gave her.

They were certainly much more desirable and pretty than the tattered flowers Eton had plucked from his mouth.

she couldn’t figure out what he meant by his uncharacteristic behavior, and it only made her feel uncomfortable.

When Askaar returned from the meeting, he muttered a few curses as he looked at the flowers that hadn’t been touched while he was gone.

He was so excited about the flowers that she said she liked them. Did she not like what I gave her?

He felt dirty, so he stripped off her clothes, opened the bars, and climbed into her bed, too scared to come back.

He had been in a low mood lately.

“I wonder what’s wrong with him”.

She thought she was being unnecessarily sensitive, but she was just doing her job.

It was a matter of spreading her legs for him when he wanted them, but at least he wasn’t making her do anything crazy like before, so it was physically easier on her.

Perhaps a week passed.

Ashria, tired of being free, finally called out to him.

“Daddy.”

Askaar turned around at the sound of her thin voice calling for him. It was Ashria, who never looked for herself, and he was inwardly pleased that she had found him first.

“I’m so bored of living here.”

But his brow furrowed at her next words. I wondered what he’d called her to say, just to spit out that crap…

“So what do you want me to do?”

He wondered if she was trying to beg me to let her out. He didn’t think much of it, but he also thought he’d like to see it at least once.

He thought that if he got down on his hands and knees like a dog, he might be able to get her out for a day, but he also had a sneaking suspicion that she might be trying to escape.

But what she said next completely defied his expectations. She didn’t beg or plead for release, just a simple request in a soft voice.

“Could you at least put a pen and paper in there before you leave?”

“…Pen and paper?”

“Yes.”

“For what?”

Ashria thought about drawing. Back when she was living in the basement, she used to pass the time by drawing on the walls with rocks and such.

“I want to draw.”

Askaar’s brow furrowed at the surprisingly mundane answer.

“Drawing….”

After hearing that, he was suddenly curious about her drawings. So he complied and handed over a pen and paper. But even as he did so, he felt confused about Ashria’s drawing.

As he reflected on her recent behavior, he realized that he had been spending a lot of time and attention on her.

‘Why do you have to go out of your way to touch people’s nerves….’

He was offended that he was even paying attention to her. So he could only blame Ashria till the end.

* * *

After that day, Ashria’s boring routine became a little less boring.

Askaar had left her a stack of paper and colored pencils before he left. The sight of quality pens and colored pencils for the first time in her life was enough to spark her interest.

She didn’t seem to notice, but there was a glimmer of pleasure in her eyes. The corners of her mouth twitched slightly as she filled in the colors she wanted on the white paper.

One day she drew the flowers she saw through the window, and another day she drew Eton on a walk. Naturally, she was terrible at drawing.

But thanks to him, Askaar didn’t recognize that the big blob running across the lawn was Eton.

He narrowed his eyes at Ashria’s esoteric drawings.

“This s*cks.”

“…….”

She’d worked hard on them, though. Strangely, it was more offensive to hear him say my drawings were bad than when he’d intimidated her. It felt like a blow to her pride.

Ashria pouted and ignored him, continuing to work on her drawing.

Sitting beside her, Askaar could only stare at the tiny head with his usual blank stare.

“Is that all the empress finds interesting?”

Her tone was oddly sarcastic, and she gripped the colored pencil in her hand even tighter.

“…Yes.”

Then Askaar murmured softly.

“You like that sort of thing. Inappropriately.”

For a moment, Ashria’s hand froze. Her eyes narrowed a couple of times as if trying to figure out what he was thinking.

“…You like it?”

“Then you don’t like it?”

Ashria didn’t answer, just stared at the colorfully painted paper.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen the Empress smile so much.”

A large hand cupped Ashria’s cheek, somewhat roughly. His fingertips grazed the corner of her upturned mouth.

Embarrassed, Ashria stiffened and carefully pushed his hand away.

“…I’ve never really smiled.”

She tried to force the corners of her lips down as if she hadn’t already. It only made her look more ridiculous.

Askaar watched her nonchalantly, then disappeared into the conference room, locking the bars as usual.

The only sound in the room was the occasional crackle of Ashria’s colored pencils.

* * *

After about a week of drawing, she got bored. Ashria’s colored pencils dribbled and dribbled until she thought there was nothing to draw anymore.

It was understandable. She has to see something to draw.

She let out a small sigh and scribbled meaningless lines across the paper.

Suddenly, she remembered that last night in the West. The night she wandered freely and aimlessly, with nothing to bind her.

She closed her eyes and tried to recall the air, the temperature, the sounds of commotion, the smells of food on the streets.

As she lay still in her fluffy bed, reminiscing, she couldn’t help but think.

“…I want to go back there again.”

A dazed Ashria stared at the paper. Somewhere along the way, she’d scribbled in a squiggly mess of small letters.

I want to go west again.

She had scribbled it without realizing it.

She hated herself for scribbling it, knowing there would be no next time, knowing she wouldn’t get to go again.

So she quickly drew a line over it and erased it. She felt refreshed. She felt like she had opened a door she had been trying to keep closed. Ashria chewed her lip in frustration, her brow furrowed.

‘Let’s not think about it…

‘Don’t think about it, I can’t go back there anyway. What the hell am I dreaming about, being locked in a cage and chained up?

Ashria squeezed her eyes shut hard, berating her unyielding subconscious. It was meant to drown out her wishes, but it had the opposite effect.

Closing her eyes only made her mind clutter with more things she wanted to do.

In truth, Ashria, who had grown up in the basement reading only the books Lourrane threw at her, had many questions.

She wondered about the snow in the north that was so spectacular and the sea in the south that was so sparkling. She was curious about the tulip fields near the capital, with their countless tulips, and about the mountains, which were filled with people going out to see the leaves in the fall.

I was also curious about the taste of sandwiches while sitting on a mat on the grass, and the feeling of playing water polo in a cold valley in the hot summer.

There were so many other things I wanted to try.

I was forcing myself to look away.

When you make a list of things you want to do, you naturally feel sorry for yourself for not being able to do them, and she knew that if she started to feel sorry for herself, she wouldn’t be able to get through this.

So she curled up in a ball, forcing herself to close her eyes that wouldn’t close.

But the paper on her bedside table had already given her the one wish she wanted most.

To be called by name.

Unless she was very young, Ashria hadn’t been called by name since she could remember.

Lourrane called her Number One, the most important test subject, and Askaar called her Princess. Other servants who came and went did not call her by her name, for they did not dare to speak the name of the Empress.

“Ashria….”

After spitting my name out of her mouth, she stuttered a few times at the awkwardness of it, as if it were someone else’s name, and then closed her mouth.

* * *

Ashria was in a dream state when Askaar returned to the bedroom.

There was only so much she could do in her cage, so her routine consisted of drawing and napping.

Seeing her sleeping defenselessly, unaware of my arrival, Askaar opened the bars and entered. Ashria still stirred.

“Empress.”

As usual, the dry voice woke her.

Thinking that the sight of her curled up on the bed, uncovered, in her skimpy clothes, was quite ar*using, Askaar roused her a couple more times, but she still didn’t respond. He could only hear her breathing at regular intervals as if she were fast asleep.

He thought about waking her up more but decided against it. Besides, Ashria’s face looked very relaxed when she was asleep, unlike when she was awake.

Her normally rigid mouth was busy babbling like a child, and her eyes, which had been so vacant and hollow, were now closed behind her eyelids.

For the first time, Askaar realized, she looked like a child in her age.

As he looked down at her sleeping form, he saw a piece of paper sticking out from under her pillow.

Thinking it was a drawing, Askaar carefully pulled it out from under her pillow. As expected, there were no drawings on the paper. There were just a few unrecognizable lines and a few scribbles that looked like she’d scribbled them down.

“Doodles…?

Askaar squinted, scrutinizing the paper, hoping it might contain some information about how to get out of here, or who might be able to help me.

But there was nothing on the paper that he wanted, just a bunch of boring scribbles.

I want to go west again

To be called by name.

I wonder about the snow, the ocean, the leaves, the tulip fields

Eat a sandwich on a mat in the grass.

The scribbles had been crossed out, perhaps to hide them, but Askaar persisted, finding the original sentences hidden beneath the lines.

He read them, hoping they might hold some kind of clue. ….

It only made him feel strangely uncomfortable.

When did she ever act so nonchalant as to not draw a drop of blood from a stab wound, and why did she have to write down such inane things now?

As he stared at the paper, he noticed her name written in small letters in the corner of the paper, and before he knew it, he was saying it out loud.

“…Ashria.”

It meant “perfect creature” in Zadat.

Lourrane had given her the name to signify that she was my perfect test subject, but Askaar, who didn’t know that, pondered Ashria’s name and thought it was incomprehensible.

“What kind of a soulless wench would call herself so perfect?”

He clucked his tongue in frustration at Lourrane’s naming skills, and even as he did, he couldn’t help but be bothered by the unrecognizable scrawl of what she wanted to be called.

Askaar pushed down the annoyance and grabbed the scribbled paper, not sure why he was doing it, but by the time he realized, he had already tucked it away in the drawer where he kept his important papers.

* * *

“Empress.”

At Askaar’s call, she turned toward the door, her eyes cloudy as always.

“Dad… you’re here.”

“Empress.”

Trapped inside the cage, Ashria rubbed her eyes wearily.

Strangely, she’d been more lethargic lately.

The black magic had drained her of her life force, growing stronger with each passing day, but Askaar, unaware of it, found it oddly distasteful to watch her fail to gain weight no matter what he fed her.

Her wrists, which were so skinny that they would break if she tried to push them, were reduced to nothing but bone.

“…You’re not getting any fatter.”

He muttered as he stepped inside the cage and touched her biceps, which were still long enough to hold with one hand.

“You’re not normally fat?”

Flustered by the question, Ashria averted her gaze and nodded slightly.

“I don’t think an imperial body can be this skinny….”

It was true. With dragon blood in their veins, they could neither gain much weight nor lose much weight without special magical intervention.

But now, Ashria had lost so much weight that she was nothing but bones.

‘Lately, I’d cut back on our daily lovemaking to once every three days because I was afraid I was being too hard on her.’

She was hard as a rock, and I couldn’t help but feel frustrated when I saw her groaning like a dying chicken.

It was the others who were dying because of her.

No longer able to take out her anger on Ashria, Askaar had become very sensitive to nobles and servants.

Unaware of this, she simply looked at him harmlessly, as if she didn’t know why.

Even afterward, Askaar was so displeased with her thinness that he often sent for a physician to examine her. But since the problem was caused by black magic, there was no way a mere doctor could find the cause.

As usual, the doctor would write down a list of herbs that would help, and then leave the room in a huff, fearful of incurring the wrath of Askaar.

Ashria bemoaned the fact that this meant one more type of supplement she had to take.

“I’m destined to die on a certain date anyway.”

What’s the point of all this?

she felt sorry for the doctor who didn’t know that.

But I had no intention of telling him. she was afraid of what Askaar would do to me if he realized she was on a time limit.