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Chapter Text

Athanasia de Alger Obelia is a respected princess within the inner palaces and Obelia and rather loved by the common folk who see her as someone who will bring prosperity to their empire and home.

But she isn't exactly 'loved' in the sense that a parent would love their child. 

Well, there is someone who loves her like their own daughter, but that isn't her Father and her Mother is dead so she'll never know if her Mother ever loved her.

Though Lilian York, her nanny and the only living person who loves her like their own child, tells her that her Mother did love her. 

But Athanasia never met her mother so she has no personal attachment to her. Though she supposes she wouldn't mind seeing her.

But that is impossible as the dead can never come back to life. 

Athansia is respected and loved by her people but she isn't exactly loved by her father the way people may expect.

She may sit alongside him in his office looking over important documents.

She may speak with him in a casual manner that the countless ministers who line up to speak to him would never dare to. 

She may sit down with him in the gardens of the Emerald Palace once in a blue moon and she may sit down to have tea with him in his office when the both of them have time to spare for the other from their busy schedules. 

But the people inside the palace can see that the relationship between the Emperor and their Princess isn't what one would call close.

And nor is she 'loved' the way one would expect nor in the way that her late Mother wanted her to be loved. 

But she finds that she doesn't mind. Rather, she thinks this is the closest that she will ever get to her own biological family.

So she thinks that this is practically paradise, and besides, she already has someone to love her like their own child. She has a mother figure in Lilian York and a lover in Sir Lucas from the Black Tower. 

Athanasia is respected and loved by her people even if she isn't loved by her own father the way people would expect. But she doesn't mind. 

Lily is the only parent that the blonde-haired girl actually needs in her life. And Lucas has been hers just as she's been his since they first met in the fourth time loop.

But maybe just maybe they've belonged to the other even before meeting. 

Not that it really matters since that was lifetimes ago and this time loop is perhaps her 56th.

Or is it her 67th?

71st?

34th?

110th?

80th?

She doesn't know and frankly, she has lost track of how many times she's been reborn and killed.  

The majority of the time, Claude kills her because of something related to Jennette.

Either it's Countess Judith framing Athanasia for poisoning Jennette or it's Claude thinking Athanasia killed Judith and made Jennette depressed for losing a vile snake woman of a greedy aunt. 

Athanasia doesn't care anymore and she can't bring herself to remember all the times that her own father killed her in cold blood. 

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Athanasia only gasps when Lucas shoves into her in one quick move. Her pale legs were wrapped around his waist and she could feel the movement inside her womb. "You fit me like a glove, princess." Lucas groaned as he buried his face in her neck. 

"L-Lucas...!" is all she can say as she feels tears begin forming in her eyes. "Lucas," she says again as she kisses her pale slender neck. Her arms were wrapped around his neck, bringing him closer to her body to where they were connected. 

"Athy, do you want to see Attheia again?" he questioned as he kissed her breastbone. Athanasia squirmed and her mind was filled with the memories of her daughter with Lucas. The daughter that they had in a couple of time loops. 

The tears began to fall from her eyes at the thought of her baby girl. "L-Luca...! D-Do you think that we can be a happy family? Just the three of us with Lily and maybe with Sir. Felix and with Hannah and Ces?" she whispered as she cried for a child she rarely had since she died too young to conceive her with Lucas. 

She always died before she could fall pregnant with her child, her Attheia. Lucas only hummed. "If that's what you want," he said as he kissed away her tears with soft and gentle kisses. 

Athanasia smiled despite herself. She is in this life once again the abandoned princess. She's only sixteen and she already knows that she will die in two years.

Hanged at the gallows on the order of her own father. But, she thinks that she will run again in this life just like she did in a few other lives. 

"Let's run away together again Lucas," she says as she unravels one arm from her lover's neck and brings it to his face so she can push away a lock of black hair away from his face so she could see his beautiful ruby red eyes. 

Lucas smiled, "Do you want to bring Lilian, Hannah, and Ces with us?" he asked as he tucked a lock of blonde hair behind Athanasia's ear. He knows that she loves those three maids dearly. They're all like family to her. Lilian is her mother while Hannah and Ces are her aunts. Their family. 

Athanasia smiled softly at the suggestion. She'd have her mother figure and her aunts with her white also having her lover and child by her side.

They'll be a family. The only family that she needs. "Only if they want to. I wish not to separate them from lives that they want to live," she sang as Lucas resumed fucking her. 

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Athanasia gasped as she jumped forward and sat on her bed. She was panting and sweating as well as shaking. It was as if a water of cold water had been dumped onto the little blonde-haired princess. 

Her breathing was heavy and laborious. Her body ached and it felt as of she had been running a mile. She felt weak as if she was ill and could nearly move a finger with much difficulty as her body was fragile. Which was odd as she is by no means fragile or delicate despite her appearance. 

"What in the world....?" she whispered as she rubbed her eyes. This wasn't the first time that she had been having...odd dreams. Those dreams always consisted of blurry laughter directed at her and a brunette girl and a blonde man as well as a beautiful young man with long black hair and ruby-red eyes. 

It had felt so real...

The man in her dreams was called "Lucas," as she called him in those dreams. And sometimes, in some dreams, Athanasia would have a child with the beautiful raven-haired young man with ruby-red eyes. "Attheia," was the name of her child. 

Athanasia felt as if her heart was being squeezed from the inside and all she could think of was her Lily, that man named Lucas, and her child named Attheia.

And as odd as it might sound, Athanasia found herself fighting back the jealousy that threatened to eat at her for the other her that had Lucas and Attheia. A family. 

...I want that, I want to have a family like the 'me' in those dreams...she thought as she closed her eyes and fell backward onto the bed in a slightly dusty room in the abandoned Ruby Palace.

She shrank into herself and closed her eyes as she ignored the cold of the night in favor of wrapping herself up in blankets and dreaming. 

And she dreamt of a happy life where she was married to a man named Lucas with long black hair and ruby-red eyes and having a child with long and wavy black hair with her jeweled-blue eyes that she named Attheia.

She dreamt of having a small happy family that consisted of her, Lucas, Attheia, Lily, Hannah, Ces, and sometimes even Sir. Felix Robain. 

And sometimes, she dreamt of her Father being part of her little family. 

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He watched the small blonde-haired girl walk towards him with her hair tied up in a high ponytail. Her face was neutral, not betraying a single thought or emotion as she walked toward him who was on the throne. 

His fingers that had been gently tapping on the throne paused, he glared at the bastard girl who kept walking without stopping to greet him, the emperor, and ruler of this empire! What an impudent wench of a girl, he thought. 

Jennette is at his side and her eyes are filled with arrogance and contempt as she watched the younger half-cousin who is her only adversary to the throne stop come to a halt and bowed slightly at the hip. Jennette feels that Athanasia didn't bow enough to her and her Father Uncle. 

Athanasia's face was on the ground so they do not see the growing smirk on her pretty face. "All hail towards your majesty, the sun of the empire, blessings and glory." she catches sight of a blur of black hair and ruby-red eyes near the throne as she slowly raised her head and put on a facade of neutrality. 

"And long live Obelia," 

At her words a hand slipped around Claude's neck, catching the golden-haired man off guard as well that brunette chimera girl. He trashed his throne, the throne that he had taken by force and by violence from the elder. The throne that he had grown too comfortable with sitting at after wrestling it from the elder. 

And now it will belong to the younger once again. Not the eldest, never the eldest, at least not really. 

"Hello, your majesty." Lucas's long hair shone in the light, the light that he belonged to now. But he only belongs to her light, and no one else's. Athanasia stepped forward towards the throne where her 'father' was uselessly fighting for his life against her lover.

And she brought out her sword. "Your majesty, I've come back to take what is mine," she says with cold eyes much like his own, and with that, she plunges her sword into Claude's chest as Lucas removes his hand from the throat of the father of his beloved.

Blood pours out of the wound, blood pools and drips from Claude's mouth, his eyes wide and shocked as he stared at the girl in front of him. 

The girl that he had abandoned. His pupils stare at the blonde young woman who he had abandoned as his daughter and then at the brunette girl that is not his daughter but he had taken in under his wing, either way, as his heir. 

His magic flickers but does not activate save for tiny lightning coming out from his hands. Lucas narrows his eyes at him and he summons a ball of fire, ready to be thrown at this wretched man who had killed him and his beloved in more than one lifetime. 

Athanasia watches him from the corner of her eyes and shakes her head as she brings the hand not holding the sword to her father's chest to her lover's own chest. Lucas stares at her hand on his chest briefly before making eye contact with her.

It was as if they were having a silent conversation and in the end, Lucas only sighed and he relented, making the ball of fire disappear with only a wave of his hand. 

Claude struggled but failed to take part in this fight, for his only daughter had won, there was no use in fighting against it, try as he may with darkness beginning to seep into his vision. 

"I'll let you in on a little secret, your majesty. Take it as a parting gift in honor of the Athanasia from the past, hmm?" Lucas stepped towards Claude's side and placed a long and slender finger on his temple. Claude gasped in shock which caused him to inhale blood that caused him to choke. 

Memories flicker in his mind like that of butterflies wings. Memories of Diana, of black magic, of how Jenette's black magic made him love her and made his entire world revolve around her and her happiness. About how he had made himself forget about keeping Diana's last wish. 

"Take care of our love, Claude. Take care of her and love as you loved me," 

Claude's hands weakly reached out towards his only daughter as she watched him with cold eyes that were the spitting image of his. Lucas watched in amusement as the man that had killed his Athanasia more times than they could count reach out to her in his final moments. How dare he. 

Claude's vision became overcome with blackness, as black as his heart, and he could only barely make out the faint outline of his daughter that became what he did to take the throne. "Forgive me, Athanasia," 

And Claude de Alger Obelia died knowing how much of a wretched man he was, no better than his father that had abandoned him and his mother which he had done the same towards his only living breathing child, killed by his own child in much a similar fashion as he had to his elder brother. 

Useless until the very end, huh your majesty? Lucas thought as he glared at the emperor. 

Chapter Text

Jennette watched in horror as her Father [Uncle] was stabbed by her younger half-sister cousin and consequentially killed by the younger blonde.

She took a step back and ungracefully fell to the ground with one swift thud. 

Athanasia glanced in the direction where she heard that noise coming from only to make eye contact with her older half-sister.

Ah, of course, but who could simply forget the lovely princess of Obelia? Simply, how lovely. 

Jennette lay there on the ground, eyes wide with clear fear as she tried to swallow back vomit at the sight of her father's (Uncle's) corpse.

Her black magic was wearing off in large increments that both Athanasia and Lucas found simply repulsive. 

Athanasia only watched as Jennette cried out and screamed as she tried to hold in the vomit from seeing Claude's corpse.

Pathetic, she can't handle even this? If she was going to be Empress Regnant then she'd see corpses.

So why was she worked up about? This comes with the job of being a royal.

You're going to see corpses and death and gore on more than three occasions in your life.

So why is she worked up about this? Jeez, her black magic is even becoming unbearable to Athanasia. 

She put a hand on her forehead and sighed. "You good?" Lucas asked, putting a hand on her shoulder.

Athanasia glanced and saw worried ruby-red eyes looking at her and she couldn't help it when her lips twitched and curved into a smile. 

"Hmm," she nodded and it was then that Jennette launched herself at her and tried scratching her arms.

Lucas sighed in exasperation and rolled his eyes at Jennette's antics. Athanasia only looked at her with cold and dead Obelian blue eyes. 

"You wanna deal with her?" Lucas asked as he waved his hand and got rid of some of the blood stains [Claude's (Papa's) blood] off of her.

Athanasia only hummed, "I'll deal with her later." she said dismissively, giving Lucas a small smile.

Lucas only huffed, "Fine, do what you want, Athanasia. But I'm still getting kisses tonight, okay?"

Athanasia nodded, "Alright. You'll get your good night kisses, Lulu." 

"Still going to call me by that stupid nickname?" 

"Of course I am. If you keep calling me Sia and Athy, I'll keep calling you Lulu." 

"I'm not going to stop calling you Sia or Athy, you know." 

"Oh, I know. Which is why I'm not going to stop calling you Lulu, my love." 

Jennette tried to do something to hurt Athanasia who paid her no mind as if she wasn't important.

Her, the lovely princess of this grand and powerful empire! Her who is the Crown Princess and not her. 

So how dare she treat her as if she is insignificant! How dare she! How dare she-

"You still have that chimera clinging to you, Sia," said Lucas as he pointed at Jennette with a look of clear disgust on his face. 

Athanasia glanced back at Jennette with cold and dead but simply dead eyes of Obelian blue.

"I know," she said, sounding simply like a songbird. 

Jennette's nails bore the brunt of the damage that she tried to inflict upon Athanasia. To the point that now the brunette's nails were bloody and no more.

Jennette's nails came off and she wailed as Athanasia grabbed her and smiled angelically as the brunette's blood ran down her small pale hands. 

And now, Athanasia will take what Jennette had taken that has never been given to Athanasia and what Athanasia had never gotten to have. 

Despite having the same right to those things as Jennette. 

They both had the same right. So why is it that only one can be loved while the other hated? Is that simply not unfair? 

Every child deserves a parent, but not every parent deserves a child. 

"It's alright Jennette," she said as she kept her beaming angelic smile on her face. As if her hands weren't stained with the blood of her father.

The one who had given her life. But he -her Father- had also been the one to take it away. 

She was cursed, and Athanasia KNOWS that she is cursed.

For she killed her FATHER of all people, the one who had given her LIFE.

But he would have taken it away without a second thought if he wanted to.

And isn't that interesting? She only killed him because he would have killed her first.

And she was NOT going to die AGAIN at the hands of her own father.

Not again, never again. She wouldn't allow that to happen, not if she could do anything about it. 

For SHE -Athanasia- is Eternal Life. And SHE will live up to her name. 

And if it means killing her own father and being cursed by the gods then so be it.

She's already cursed anyway, what is one more curse compared to being over and over and over and over and over again by her own father of all people? 

Athanasia stroked Jennette's hair which was now slightly covered in blood.

"There there Jennette, it won't hurt too much if 'Father' trained you in pain resistance," Jennette's eyes widened in shock and she opened her mouth to scream.

But she couldn't scream, it was as if her voice was robbed away from her. 

Athanasia pulled Jennette's head backward and leaned in closer to her ear where there were gangly gold and sapphire earrings.

"I'll only make it hurt if you're not a good girl. But then again, when have you ever been a good girl?" she whispered. 

Jennette's eyes widened and then she felt as if something was sucked away from her.

Her jeweled blue eyes turned to green and she looked at the eyes of her cousin. She looked into the eyes of a true Imperial royal of the Obelian Empire. 

She brings up a dagger and stabbed it into the side of Jennette's throat in one swift move.

Jenette's pain-filled screams filled the throne room and her blood spilled on the ground, ruining the carpet and Athanasia's uniform with her blood. 

Athanasia's hands were once stained with the blood of a family member.

Except for this time, it was a cousin that she had killed instead of her own father, not that she would know that anyway. 

Athanasia let go of the dagger that was still drilled into the side of Jenette's neck, she brought her closer to check her eyes to see if she was still alive.

She tossed the corpse to the side a couple of six feet away from her. 

She glanced back at Lucas and smiled, Jennette's blood was on the lower half of her face, on her hands, and her pants and uniform.

"It's over, Lulu we won," she whispered, closing her Obelia blue eyes. Finally, no more hanging just peace and quiet...FINALLY! 

Lucas only hummed in response, he snapped his fingers and a dark blue blanket appeared out of nowhere around Athanasia's shoulders.

"You'll get cold with the blood of those scums on you, Athanasia," Lucas said, walking towards her until he was by her side. Always. 

Athanasia leaned towards him, resting her head on his shoulder.

Lucas wrinkled his nose. "You'll get my clothes dirty with those bastards' blood, Princess." he said, clearly annoyed, slightly smacking the hand that Athanasia had on his tight.

Athanasia only hummed in response. "I'll help you get the blood off the clothes later. Right now, let's just enjoy the moment for now,"

For we have won. Both of us have won. There is no need to hide anymore from unworthy people, my love. 

"Akright then, but you're getting the blood off the carpet and dealing with the dead bodies. I don't want to waste my time with those pesky bugs,"

Lucas's ruby-red eyes darkened a bit but they still held warmth in them as he looked at Athanasia's peaceful expression. 

"I think that you will want to be the ones to decide what happens with their dead bodies anyway,"

It's only right, they burned your body and put your ashes in a bowl in the farthest area of that Chimera's lily and daisy gardens.

So YOU should decide what to do with THEM.

It's simply fate rearranging itself so it could go the way that it was SUPPOSED to go in the first place, my undying Athanasia. 

For finally, can you live up to your name with no one sabotaging your future with black magic and hatred.