Sunlight bathed her skin, and moans stayed in her surroundings.

Jade was nine years old and still in the nursery, next to her parents' chamber.
Although the thick gabbro walls wrapped imperviously around the room, soundproofing wasn't at its finest.

Ania and Alexander were worse than rabbits in heat.

Thankfully, they didn't get too busy these nights, so Ian -- Jade's twin -- didn't get to ask 'Are Mommy and Daddy hitting each other?' recently.

Even if the nursery was one of the only pleasing places in the medieval fortress, Jade, most of the time, got out of it.

Since she was always out of the nursery, our writer knew all the official and concealed ways of her home, which she liked to take for different occasions like midnight snacks.
She also knew how to write, a little bit of literature, some sciences, and history. And maybe a little about cooking as well.

Yes, she had a lot of time to kill, so she had read about all she could reach on the bookshelves in the imperial library, apart from novels that she attained no matter what, parkour tricks working one time out of five without destroying the shelves.
The other times, she did cripple them a little bit.

Girls were normally educated by a governess from five to thirteen years old in noble society and not by a library; however, the first time Jade spoke to one at three years of age, the speech she delivered apparently flabbergasted the poor woman who said:
"This child has all the basics needed for a noble woman!"

The regent couple called for another governess, and another, and a damn third, but all of them told them the same awful bullshit.
There's no need for her to be taught.

Obviously, Jade knew how to read, write, and speak, but it seemed like it was the only thing a governess taught here. (Sighs in modern mentality.)

The fact she was one of those reincarnated persons, like in the webtoons and animes, was still hidden behind her flawless smile.
Jade was often distrait, but not dumb (even if she wasn't what we could call intelligent...), and someone telling you they were mentally ninety-two years old wasn't the most well-welcomed declaration you could make.
Oh, and also add that you know you'll die at the hands of an evil magician, and you could sign a contract to send you to the other half of this world where nobody will ever find you, it would be the very same.

Keeping it hidden was the best option, and not that hard to do.
Even as grandma, our writer had been as immature as a nine-year-old.
Her children and grandchildren always told her that.

And in all of this, the sequel?

Well, it began without any temporal indications, just with some glimpse of the same world building.
So if she wanted to prepare, she had to find the protagonist, in the kingdom of Royia before she travelled to the other continent.
Jade had to monitor Magia Prima's life to get ready for the sequel.

In bonus, Jade checked everyone around her.
Just to be sure no magician of any sort got close.
Like a damn paranoid.
If you wondered, yes, she hated that too, but survival pushed you to unexpected paths.

She stepped in an obscure staircase, steering from the second floor to the first, when the dress she wore caught her steps.

Yeah, survival wasn't always ensured with her luck.

"YOUR HIGHNESS!"

She was yanked back to her original position before she could start her prayers and let out a little 'Oh', scrutinizing her catcher.
"Hello, Hoenir."

Hoenir had been her personal servant since six years ago, when she did her first complete sentence to everyone's surprise (which was "Yes, and I'm the Pope, Benjamin," if you were curious, readers).

Due to her age, she was far too young to have a lady's maid or lady-in-waiting, so the regent couple decided to attribute a particular servant to her.
And it happened to be the youngest among the domestics at that time who got picked for the role, Hoenir.

Now seventeen with blond hair paired with profound persimmon eyes, he had everybody at his feet -- maids, butlers, and even her parents.

"Greetings, Star of Menless."
He quickly uttered, baffled by the horror of his boss tilting into the void.
"With all my respects, please never do that again."

"I absolutely stumbled for my own entertainment." She retorted, already irked by the comment.

She had done some research on his past. (Paranoid, remember?)
Only son, Father left at birth, Mom sick since he was ten, everything awesome.
He worked here to pay his mother's medicine.
He needed this job.
But that didn't stop him from being insufferable.

"Of course, tenth Princess." His convenable beam shifted to an unsympathetic grimace as he dusted out his clothes like she had been a dirt bunny.

"Know your place."
She reminded him with her brows touching each other since she wasn't and won't be just a number.

"Obviously, your Imperial Highness." He grinned.

Our writer always wondered where he had served to learn all of the untold rules of noble society.
"Great," she affirmed.
"I was going to the library--"

"By yourself? In a domestics' staircase?"

"...Yes. And I just tripped over my dress. But since you always appear from behind to help--"

"I'm not always, Your Highness."

"Shut it."

The servant nodded lightly at the short-term patience.

"So, by all these complementary matters," a crazily unsettling smirk lifted the ends of her lips, "there isn't any necessity to be worried, am I right?"

He eventually swayed in a sign of approval, knowing hierarchy was always right.
"Naturally."

Easily sliding down the last steps of the staircase, Jade restarted her slow-pace walk.
"Since you're here, you'll pass me the books on the highest shelves. There was one who caught my eye, and as you weren't with me yesterday," she stressed, also delivering to him his daily dose of side-eyeing, "I miserably couldn't read it."

Hoenir negligibly stiffened on that, but not too negligibly since she spotted it.

"Regardless of your activities yesterday, nobody shall never know of it, including me."
Jade patted his back.

He had no magic background in the family.
No need to panic if he disappeared from her side; he wasn't planning her death.

Hoenir was, in the end, one of her most trustworthy people.
But he was just like any teenager, he didn't stand reprimands.
His eyes rolled as he bowed, as if it would have stopped her from seeing.

Thank God self-control was one of her skills.
"On which letter of the alphabet are we?" She casually asked to close the case.

Although they were, most of the time, arguing, she highly considered education for whichever person it was.
(Modern mentality definitely sticks to your soul.)
Thus, every time he followed her to the library, she ought to make him learn the language's alphabet.
Except when he intensely declined.

"We were to letter B, your Highness."

"Yes, right... We'll go for C today."

His smirk faded into terror. "Your Highness, I would beg you on my knees—"

"We'll do C." She attested firmly, pointing a finger at his chin, which was at a sufficient distance from her to have her arm extended. And as he groaned, she added. "And for your practice, I'll pray my father to lend us some paper." Turning on her heels and changing from her original direction, she was leaving Hoenir dumbfounded at the entrance of the corridor.

"Y-your Highness...!" He squealed, panicking as he remembered it was not recommended to do what Jade was about to do, already stumbling in her steps. "We cannot disturb his Majesty!"

She passed a bay frame leading to one of the four interior gardens.
"Oh, but we won't disturb him."

He paused his tripping to observe her, a few feet off, halfway in the garden.

"Since I, only, will do."

And to make it even more impossible for Hoenir, Jade started running.

●●●

She ran fast, pretty fast. Sadly, not as fast as a seventeen-year-old young man could.

"YOUR HIGHNESS! STOP IMMEDIATELY! WE CANNOT GO SHAMELESSLY WITHOUT ANY ANNOUNCEMENT BEFOREHAND!"
Hoenir yelled, capturing the feet behind her.

"OF COURSE WE CAN! HE WON'T BE THERE ANY WAY!"
She shouted back at him -- knowing what the emperor was accomplishing in a room with the empress.
She jumped onto a stairway to get to the second floor.

Hoenir, outraged by her act, couldn't reprimand his screech.
"YOUR HIGHNESS, STOP TAKING THE SERVANTS' PASSAGES."

"MY ANSWER TO THIS SHALL BE NEVER, HOENIR." Her tongue stuck out from her mouth.

Once on the superior floor, Jade found an open door, quite literally, and rushed in the room without looking, Hoenir right after her.

"STOP RIGHT THERE!" He screamed for the third or fourth time already.

But he needn't to say that again since she had stopped, and she stopped him with her arm to bump into someone.
Someone or Alexander the Emperor more accurately.

"Oh," shrieked Hoenir.

"Oh," shrieked Jade.

"Why 'Oh'?" He asked, a subtle grin at the appearance of his daughter.

Jade's first action was to bow at Alexander, as the customs forced.

What was he doing here? Didn't he go for another round with Ania?

"Greetings to the Sun of the North." Saluted Hoenir.

"Greetings, Hoenir." He answered, the voice low and filled with patience as ever.
"And greetings to you, small one." He added, the voice filled with excitement this time.

"Sir Dad."
Jade retorted, shaking her head contently in a sign of respect.
It was not the first time she used this nickname, and, as ever, it had the effect of a cold shower on him as much as it made the other listeners chuckle.

Our writer had tried grieving her past life, to forget about it and start considering this second chance as the only one.
But she couldn't forget her parents, her children and all the feelings left behind.
Thus she couldn't call this man 'Dad' or 'Father'.
She didn't manage calling a character she had made as distant but hot 'Dad' or 'Daddy'.

"I-isn't 'Father' easier?" The emperor implored her with the eyes, considering which of the violet or peony porcelain decorations to install on the center table with the hands.

"Sir Dad is convenable."

A contained giggle caught the audience, composed of domestics and decorators, as the emperor let out a whimper.

"Sir Dad," she threw her chin up, resolved to ignore the snickers. "Hoenir and I were planning to work on the alphabet. Which reason brings you into a waiting chamber?"
She resumed, observing the somber yet well-lit hall.

"I was just checking the new arrangement of this room."
He finally decided on the peony porcelain in the right hand.
"Loads of guests are calling me."

Not bad for an answer, except he could do better.
"And how's Mother?"

The Emperor choked his lungs out.
The servants around reproduced the movement, but more from laughter than embarrassment, as they knew what happened in imperial chambers.

A sound of shattering glass tragically cut all possible fascinating answers from him.

"Are you alright?"

"Maria, look at what you've done!"

"I'm sorry--"

"It costs a hundred times your salary!"

A maid who just entered the room with the new decorations had let those finish their lives on the slick wooden floor.

Alexander achieved a small sign of the hand.
"No worries. Are you hurt, Miss Maria?"
He asked, offering his hand to the girl, kneeling by the dispersed pieces of porcelain.

"No..." the maid blushed.
"Thank you..."

Couldn't he just stop charming people like that?
(It was painful to watch for our writer to watch her character captivate people while just wanted sheets of paper.)

"Great. Let's just clean this up."
He announced after the maid had the time to blush three times.

Jade nodded.
"I'll help."

"No, no, no. You cannot do that, Your Highness." Interjected the maid Maria, shaking her head vigorously. "I'll clean and repay it. I'll happily do my work."

"I'm glad you'll be happy," Jade smiled back, crouching to pick up the fragments of ceramics disseminated across the rug, "but I'll still help."

I'm not going to wait for that woman to finish picking them up to finally have my sheets of paper.

"And there is no need for repayment. This vase... had a great life," added Alexander as he laid a furnished flowerpot on a counter, the pottery that broke not being his favorite.

"We can agree on that, Sir Dad. Don't you think, Hoenir?"
She spun to her servant, who had been laughing silently until now.

He managed to change his expression swiftly enough, not without an enormous jerk, but still swiftly.
"I'll undoubtedly follow your opinion, your Highness."
He bowed again before glancing with unease at the emperor, who adjusted the last piece of furniture from three inches where it had been before.

Habits stood hard in Jade's family, and her father had the quirk of being slightly maniac.
Slightly.

Everything at its place.
Everything in the way of the right place would be defenestrated.
Better not staying in the way for too long; even if Jade wouldn't finish thrown out of a window (she hoped.)

"Then--" She brought the fragments of glittering porcelain back to her, only to see something.
In the white, luscious sixth fragment of pottery, there was a reflection other than her own.
A little beige bunny, tiny enough to sit on her shoulder.

"Then? Small one?"

"Oh, yes, Sir Dad." She awoke, diverting her eyes from the fragment at the call. "Then, could you lend me some paper, please?"

He smiled and strode toward the exit. "Of course. Follow me."

'Hey, I know you've seen me! Don't ignore me!' But she admittedly ignored that voice in her head, marching out of the room, Hoenir behind her and the six fragments in hand.

"Your imperial Highness!" The maid Maria called the head out by the doorway. "Please, let me take those pieces!"

Jade gave her a serene look. "There won't be this need." I'll need it more than you. "Have a great day."

She hurried to catch up with Alexander, ignoring the maid's last whines.

●●●

The office of the emperor was immense on two floors, the first acting as a bureau and the second as an archive.
Unpleasantly, that archive was full of economic counts and political contracts, one bigger than the other -- all those sheets of paper blackened by boring content.
She actually wondered if it had another utility rather than collecting dust.

Alexander, who was behind his wide desk in ebony wood at the center of the room under the high, thirty-foot luxurious ceiling, came out, claiming white sheets in his dominant hand.
"Will these be convenient enough?"
He asked, handing them to her.

"Yes, they will be perfect. Thank you, Sir Dad."
Jade bent her lips.

"Father."
He insisted, too late, since she had already grabbed the pack of paper and was at the opposite half of the room, as to say, the entrance.
"And there's a bin for the ceramics."
He specified her a trunk not far from the door.

"Won't be necessary; see you later."
She curved in a goodbye manner as Hoenir, who stood behind all along, did the same.

They flew out together before the emperor could even reply with any politeness.

His huff was nothing significant enough to be considered audible. "I wonder when one of my kids will become lucid."