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[12 years ago in Marise's POV]

When I was an infant, I was dropped in front of an orphanage with nothing but a dirty cloth on my back and the box I was placed in. There was no note, no keepsake, nothing. I never knew my biological family, simply an abandoned child that was too troublesome to keep, I guess.

The orphanage I was raised in believed in earning your keep. We were put into work as soon as we knew how to stand on our legs. If our work was half-assed or took too long to complete, the matron would thoroughly beat us black and blue.

I hated living there.

We weren't even fed properly—our meals consist of moldy bread and water. Sometimes when I wanted to treat myself, I would sneak out of the orphanage to dig through the trash cans. You can usually find better leftovers there.

It wasn't the nicest thing in the world, but when your stomach starts caving in from hunger, even trash can food seems like a luxury. I tried begging on the streets but, I quickly learned the hard way about the hierarchy of the world. Adults of nobilities would sneer in my face, while the commoner adults simply looked at me with pity. If I was lucky, sometimes they pitied me enough to give me a loaf of bread. But, it never came any of the nobles though.

Their high-nosed children were worst, throwing profanities and things my way, telling me to get lost. And whenever I even so much as glare at them in return, they'd grow angry and cry to their parents. I was lucky to have enough agility and speed to escape before I was caught and punished. They couldn't do anything to me anyways since I never physically assaulted them. Soon, I grew a hatred towards the nobles more than anything. 

And then one day, one of the graduated orphan workers (A/N: kids who became adults that sometimes works for the orphanage) ended up spraining her ankle in an accident. She made a request to the matron for one of the orphans to take over her second job while she recovered. Since I was the most well-behaved kid in the orphanage, naturally I ended up being selected.

I guessed, she thought that if one of us took over, she could probably get away with not giving us part of the salary we had earned?

Hmph. Greedy little thing. 

If I could, I would take her pay check and run away from this dump. But, my senior was smarter than that. She told Duke Alcmene that her "younger sister from the orphanage" would be taking over temporarily and since I was too young to handle money, the payment for the job will be sent straight to "our" home. I couldn't even refuse because she bribed the matron to keep me in check.

And so, I found myself working at the Alcmene manor as a temporary maid. However, instead of taking over her job, the duke assigned me as a temporary personal maid for the young miss of the mansion, seeing as I was only a few years older than her.

I didn't quite have a good impression on the young miss, who was only 6 years old at that time. She was a noble and therefore, I assumed she was selfish by nature. But, I kept those thoughts to myself. I did everything she asked me to do, even the most menial task. If she wanted me to put socks on for her, I complied. If she wanted me to feed her by hand, I also complied. Every little thing, I did it for her. I didn't like the young miss but, I knew better than to direct act out against someone who was above me.

But then, my perspective on her completely changed.

It was the final day of me working in the mansion and I was in a bad mood. I hated working for nobility but the Alcmene household wasn't a bad of a place for employment. The young miss was excessive and complained about everything but, the food was good and I even had a nice bed to sleep in. I wasn't looking forward to going back to that hell hole.

"Young Miss?" I called out loud. She disappeared right after lunch when I was clearing up her plate. I sighed, slightly annoyed that she was already making trouble for me on my last day.

I found myself around the western parts of the mansion. Opening the door to the library, I poked my head in. There's no way the Young Miss was here. After all, she found the library incredibly boring. But as I scanned my eyes around the room, my eyes landed on a certain caramel-colored hair girl who had her back turned towards me.

"Miss Evangeline?" I walked closer to her. She must have been deeply engrossed with something, seeing as she didn't even notice me calling her over and over again. When I was finally directly behind her back, I could see that she was trying to reach for a book on a shelf that was too tall for her.

Coming up from behind her, I cleared my throat. Her eyes turned towards me in surprise.

"Grab that book for me!" she ordered immediately. I did as I was told.

She grabbed the book from my hands and opened it, revealing a white letter in between the pages.