Progression of Evil

Chapter 5
Daughter of Green

Miku dreamed sometimes of the plot she had been part of.

She dreamed of the day that Father had taken her aside and handed her the dagger, telling her that she had to distract the Prince of Blue. She had to distract him, then deliver the dagger to the assassin.

"We now know the identity of the next Child of Evil," Father had said. "If we can dispose of her before she comes into power, we may just have a chance to overthrow the Yellow Kingdom for good."

Miku's memories plagued her mind. It was not a time she wanted to remember. So much had rested on her, and she had failed them all.

She thought about it often, the plot, the act, the blood she had drawn. She had never been able to tell Haku about it, at first from Father's orders, and then from fear that Haku's opinion of her would change. Miku was just an obedient servant, a witless pawn, but Haku thought her so much more. Haku needed her, and Miku was going to try her hardest to stay solid for the white-haired girl.

Even so, if Father told her to go to market because the Prince of Blue was coming to town and she was to ensnare him, she would do it because he had ordered her to.

Haku was naïve. Haku was ignorant. Haku was blissful and happy for once in her life, and Miku was not about to take that from her by telling her the orders she had been given ever since the King had expressed his interest in using her because of her marked resemblance to the Green Prince.

"He's coming to the capital today," Father had said this morning, before Haku woke up. "Kaito-oujisama will be roaming the market. Bump into him. Capture him like you did a year ago. If we can get him interested in you, he may be much more willing to form an alliance with us against the Yellow Kingdom. Our lives will greatly benefit from this if you can manage it, Miku-chan."

I understand, Father.

But even her shrewd Father did not expect Miku to meet Len. Miku could see he had come from a rich lady's house, but his clothes were dusty so she couldn't see what color they were. He was kind, though, and gentle. He had brushed her fingers, and Miku still felt his touch, even though it was accidental.

Miku loved him.

She only knew his name, true, and she'd only met him that day, but she loved him. She loved Len, and if he ever came looking for her, she would gladly go to meet him.

Just then, Miku spotted a familiar messy head of blue hair, standing over everyone in the crowd. She smiled at Haku and adroitly disappeared into the bustle of the morning market, her target clear in her mind.

A small brush, that's all that would be needed…he only needed to look down, to see her hair, and he would remember her. Perhaps she could be direct and bump into the side she had pierced with her dagger…

Miku shook her head. Father had said bump into him. He didn't say remind Kaito of the plot that had almost happened underneath his nose.

The Prince of Blue was near. Miku ducked her head as she prepared to casually knock into him…

And tripped over someone's foot, landing her face down in the dust directly at the prince's feet.

"Oh, are you alright?" Kaito said in his smooth, deep voice. He bent down to help the poor maiden up.

Miku shook her head, raising a hand to stop him from helping her. This was not supposed to happen! She should get up, fade into the mass, try again…

"Miku-chan!" Haku cried from somewhere in the crowd.

Shit.

Miku felt Haku's gentle hand on her, supporting her. "Are you alright, Miku-chan?"

"Miku?" Kaito asked, cocking his head at the sea-green-haired girl before him. Something about her was very familiar…

Miku smiled at Haku, keeping her face carefully concealed from the prince. "I'm alright, Haku-chan. Just tripped."

"Are you sure?" Kaito said, cutting off whatever Haku had been about to say. The white-haired girl looked at who was speaking and squeaked, backing up quickly. Kaito easily filled the space she had just vacated, grabbing Miku's slender fingers. "Let me help you up."

Miku blinked and did the thing she had been trying to avoid; she looked up and met his sapphire eyes.

Kaito gasped and almost dropped her, so strong was his shock. Here was the girl he had been searching for, nearly a year later. The girl, the beautiful girl of the Green Kingdom, who looked so much like Mikuo, who had cried when she thought Kaito dead, who had left without telling him where to find her. His love.

"Miku."

Miku blushed and looked away.

"That's your name, isn't it? Miku?"

Slowly, the girl nodded, aware of the way his eyes lingered on her skin and her hair.

"I have come for you."

Miku started crying then, partly because she was keeping up appearances, partly because she was relieved to have done something right, but mostly because she was thinking of the blond boy who had just left, the blond boy she loved so fiercely.

"It's alright, it's alright," Kaito said soothingly, holding her close, misinterpreting her yet again. "Can you take me to your father?"

Miku nodded, tears still running down her face. She left Haku behind, didn't even say a word to her, as she departed arm in arm with the Prince of Blue.

When Len finally made it home, he leaped off his horse, aware instantly that something was wrong. The stablemaster ran to take the stallion, but Len was already bolting through the entranceway of the Palace, down the long hall to the audience chamber. There was a guard standing outside, and he held up an arm as Len approached.

"My Lord, the Queen is seeing peasants now…" but Len just shoved past him and through the heavy metal doors.

The scene he saw before him drew Len to a stop. Right in front of him, four guards restrained a young peasant girl with reddish-brown hair. The girl was angry and spitting, hurling insults at the throne. Rin was curled up in her large chair, face hidden, trembling violently.

"You can sit there and laugh, you can sit there and howl in joy at the suffering of your people!" The peasant girl screamed, fighting the guards relentlessly. "Go ahead, kill us all! Mark my words, you beast, I'm coming for you! I'm building an army and I will come for you and drive my pike through your ungrateful, selfish little brat head! I vow it!"

Len stepped forward. "Silence her!"

One of the guards brought an armored fist up and clonked the girl squarely on the head, knocking her unconscious. Without a word, the four began dragging the unconscious girl out of the audience chamber, each of them nodding politely to Len, who didn't notice. His eyes were locked on the shaking girl in the fancy yellow gown.

"Rin…" he whispered as he approached.

Rin looked up, tears running down her face, her body still uncontrollably trembling. "L-Len…" she said in a barely audible voice.

"I'm here, Rin," Len assured her as he took her in his arms. She surprised him by suddenly hugging him fiercely, holding him as tightly as if she wished their bodies to meld together.

"You're back, you're back…" Rin cried, her tiny hands clutching at his clothing, not willing to let him go.

Len stood, easily picking up his sister and cradling her. "Come on, we're going to your quarters. You need cleaned up, Rin," he smiled, but she just clung to him.

"Don't ever leave. Don't leave me again…"

Len kissed her forehead as he carried her back behind the audience chamber. "I won't, Rin. I promise I won't ever leave you. The next time I leave you will be the day you are set free from your destiny."

He didn't know what made him throw in that last sentence…just a fluke, Len thought. Rin looked up at him, a confused expression on her face. Len shook his head and gently laid her on her bed. She sat up, absently smoothing her gown. "Len…it was scary. I thought I could handle it. But being evil…it's just…difficult. I wanted to help her. She's been to see me so many times…I wanted to help her, I did!"

Len placed a finger on her lips, silencing her. "I believe you, Rin. I always have."

Rin sighed and fell back, her eyes closing in pure exhaustion. "I haven't slept since you left."

Len sat on the side of her bed, lacing his fingers with hers. "Then sleep, my princess. Sleep until you wake. I'll be here when you do."

The only sound he heard in response was Rin's heavy breathing.

Yowane Haku stood on the sidelines and watched, just as she always had.

She watched as Miku charmed the boy from the Yellow Kingdom, the boy who looked so much like the Daughter of Evil. She watched as Miku's expression changed once word had floated around of the Blue Prince's arrival. She watched as her best friend disappeared in the crowd, thinking Haku blissfully ignorant. She watched as Miku locked eyes with the Prince of Blue and he became instantly enamored. Backing up, she watched.

Haku knew that Miku was simply a pawn in Father's plans. She knew also how much that destiny hurt Miku. Miku smiled just as often as usual, but her smiles as of late lacked warmth, lacked sincerity. Miku had become a courtier, Haku knew, and that meant every single thing she did had double meanings.

But still, Haku loved Miku, and loved every second spent with her. Miku was her best friend, her only friend, in fact. If she was in love with the Blue Prince and he intended to take her to wife, Haku was not going to stand in the way of Miku's happiness.

Except that she knew Miku didn't love him.

She saw it in the way she had kept her face hidden, in the way her eyes had flashed when she had looked at Haku. The white-haired girl may not be important, but she wasn't stupid, either. Haku knew better how to read emotions than anyone else in the Green Kingdom, and she knew her best friend was not in love with the Blue Prince.

Her ensnarement of him was part of a greater plot, and Haku did not yet know what this plot was.

Haku trusted Miku, though, and trusted Father. Miku was only being obedient to Father, and Father was only being obedient to the King, and the King knew what was best for everyone. Haku was confident that everything would turn out alright.

Something, though, stirred in her stomach as she followed Miku and the Blue Prince back to her home, and Haku watched the pair even more worriedly.

One month later…

"Rin," Len said as her entered her room. "Rin, wake up. There's an important guest here."

The lump of bedclothes that was Rin stirred. "Mmmm…who is it?"

"Kaito-oujisama from the Blue Kingdom."

"The Blue Kingdom?" Rin sat up, her fingers running through her blonde locks. "Why is he here?"

Len shook his head. "I can't imagine. He wants to tell you himself. I had Neru-san serve him tea while we wait for you to finish taking peasant requests."

"Thank you for lying for me."

"I didn't think you'd want him to know you sleep late."

Rin threw a pillow at him in half-joking annoyance. "I do not sleep late! Midday is a perfect time to get up! You get up too early!"

Len laughed. "Come on, get dressed. I'll get the servants moving."

"Wait until you've done up the back of my gown!" Rin said, and disappeared in her closet for a few minutes, emerging dressed in a gold gown that was unlaced in the back. "I don't trust anyone else. They might slip a knife between my ribs or something."

Len laughed because she was making a joke, but in the back of his mind, he thought that anyone other than him might actually try it. He left her to brush her hair and set about his morning tasks.

Rin ran her brush through her hair and slipped her bobby pins in, holding the bangs away from her face. After stepping into black flat shoes, she was prepared to meet the Blue Prince. She flowed easily down to the tea room, where blonde Akita Neru was serving the most gorgeous creature Rin had ever seen. His white clothing, accented with pure silver and royal blue, set off slightly tanned skin and a chiseled face topped by a blue mess of hair that matched the sapphire eyes.

Rin hesitated in awe and confusion; she hadn't expected the Prince of Blue to look so…attractive, approachable, young…any of a whole slew of adjectives. Even as a servant in his Palace, she had never seen him, and the fact that he'd had to hold a ball to find a wife told the young Rin he wasn't good enough to attract a female on his own. But this work of art before her told her something completely different.

Rin knew, before she even spoke with Kaito of the Blue Country, that she was going to have him as her husband. She wanted him more than anyone else in the world…even Len.

And the Yellow Queen meant to have the one she desired, at any cost.

The new mirror shined in the faint sunlight that peaked in from the dirty window on the opposite wall. Miku really needed to get around to cleaning the glass windowpane. It would be so much brighter in the room she shared with Haku if the window were clean and clear.

The mirror was a gift from Kaito, the latest in a recent chain of new furnishings, new gowns, new hair ribbons, and once, even a diamond-encrusted necklace that now constantly encircled Miku's slender neck in order to keep up the show that she was hopelessly devoted to him.

Miku hated this acting. It was so dishonest, so heartless. The Blue Prince was like an innocent, naïve child. She had played her part a little too well, for the Prince was dead-set on taking her to wife immediately. Both Father and the Green King had banded together to persuade the headstrong Prince of Blue to wait the traditional courtship period of six months before whisking her away to the Blue Kingdom. In the meantime, Miku had to keep up this act of being nobility.

Thank the lucky stars Father had been at market that day. When Miku had stumbled through the crowd, arm in arm with the Prince of Blue, she had no idea what to do next. Father, being an important person and high in the Green King's favor, stepped in and saved her, making up some lie about Miku being the King's daughter and how he wasn't in so she was staying with Father and his wife…something like that. Miku didn't pay attention.

When the Green King and his son Mikuo returned, immediately they began furnishing a room for Miku. In the meantime, all of her belongings in the room she shared with Haku were subject to change at any time, depending on the gifts of Kaito or Mistress, and Miku was expected to begin dressing in the elaborate gowns that Mistress sometimes wore, in order to further the lie that she was the hidden daughter of the Green King.

Miku disliked the heavy gowns, each comprising of about twelve hundred skirts, it felt like. She felt rather garish and unnecessary in the tons of silk and sometimes velvet she was now to wear. Even her pink ball gown, which she'd borrowed from Mistress and had tailored, was made up of less fabric than the day gowns that filled her tiny wardrobe.

The worst thing, Miku decided one day, was the look in her best friend's eyes as she dressed each day in the elaborate gowns. Miku only stayed in the ornamented fabric as long as was ardently required before switching back to her servant's clothing and heading to the laundry room to spend time with Haku, but still, the green-eyed girl could see that Haku was again feeling lonely.

Miku didn't want to condemn Haku to the fate of being an outcast. She wanted to go back to their simple life of servanthood, before Father had involved her in this plot to force the Blue Prince into an alliance with the Green Kingdom. Yes, the Yellow Kingdom was tyrannical, but only once every thousand years did a Child of Evil come into play.

When Miku had raised this point, however, Father shook his head. "No, Miku-chan, you don't understand. The reason we only have a Child of Evil once a millennium is because the Children of Evil are not human. They live longer than we do, somewhere around eight hundred years."

"They're not human?" Miku had asked. "But…the current one…"

Father placed his hand on her shoulder. "All of the Children of Evil were once human, Miku-chan. But the seeds of evil get planted within them from a young age, and slowly they lose their humanity…and become what they were destined to be: Children of Evil. By the time the Yellow Queen took her throne, she was already evil. She had already committed sins so terrible they could not be forgiven. The seeds within her had grown, and now they bloom as evil flowers.

"But, you see, Miku-chan, if we can overthrow her reign, if we can get rid of her, preferably before she finds a mate, we can quash the evil blood. We can be rid of the Children of Evil forever. We can be free nations once again."

Miku wasn't exactly sure how the fertile Green Country was oppressed by the Yellow Kingdom, but she trusted Father, and she trusted her king. If they said it was necessary to lure the Prince of Blue into marrying her to form an alliance, then it was necessary. When Miku paused by the laundry room and watched Haku folding Mistress' gowns all by herself, though, she felt a twinge of pity for what her destiny was doing to the ones around for whom she cared most.

"I'm sorry…" Miku whispered to the doorway before whirling away in a flurry of silk and skirts.

To meet the Prince of Blue.

To fight the Daughter of Evil.

To become the Daughter of Green.