Chapter 17

The maid could not even ask if Ashtie was all right.

Tears flowed silently, and the small, round shoulders rose and fell–the cry turned into loud weeping. The kid kept muttering, but the meaning was unclear because of her breathing and crying. But the maid could understand. In fact, anyone could easily guess.

“Mother… Mother… Mother… please… why… why… how… why… Mother…”

“You said you loved me, Mother.” Whispers of her loving smile like spring, warm arms, beautiful face, everything was still so vivid, she could paint it even with her eyes closed.

Ashtie buried her face in the blanket, and it got wet little by little like wet cotton.

“Mother. You said you loved me, you… loved me, please, why? How? Why… You lived finely until yesterday. You were alive… Why, Mother?”

“Was this real?” She didn’t know if it was real or not. An afterimage of Mother and the image of her death continued to overlap. “Mother.”

Ashtie cried herself to sleep.

The next day, her mother’s death was not a dream. Ashtie denied eating breakfast, sat on the bed, and just cried and cried without saying anything. As she sat down and shed tears, she dug up her memories of her mother, and suddenly realized something.

“I was not enough for her.

“What I only needed was my mother. I was happy enough when I had her, I liked my mom’s love. I wanted her smile and praise, so I tried so hard. I lived hard, read books, and danced so hard that I even don’t know if I could have tried harder than I did. All my time with her was like a precious jewel…

“But my mother was not. I was not enough for her.”

Ashtie cried over and over with her realization. The great sense of shame and sorrow that she felt was not any consolation, help, or happiness to her mother’s death pressed onto Ashtie. Only a choking sound flowed from a small, crushed body.

“I could not score the people who looked down on my mother. I could not stop the king from beating or raping my mom. Really, I could not do anything. I didn’t do anything to her.

“Oh, Mother, why…” The tears didn’t stop.

She cried so much, that one could wonder how many tears were stored in that small body.

But, no one patted the crying child’s back. No one soothed her. After crying for a few days in a row, of course.

Ashtie slowly sank down to a deep place. She withdrew to a dark swamp. After her mother died, the child’s daily life became nothing. Waking up, eating, getting sunshine, or going to bed was not daily life anymore.

The people still vulgarized her. Her time was spent in solitude. No one took care of her properly, but the dance was still there. The fact that dance still existed, Ashtie had no idea whether to cry or laugh. There was no Mother.

But that was the reality: continuous contempt, ridicule. The dance that was her mother’s breath settled down. Now, she was alone.

“Ashtie, my baby, Ashi, Joanena; they were the names that never would be called again. My real name, nickname, childhood name, everything. Who will call my name again? The king? Siblings? Nobles? Maids? No one will call my name as if it were lovely.

“Why am I living? The person who showed me the light of the world, who showed me happiness, who I truly loved with my whole heart, died. I eventually made that person die. Why am I living, anyway?”

The little child tried to die.

But there was one realization. “I cannot die.”

Suddenly, there was a shock, as if she put her face in the cold water and could not breathe. She could not do anything, she even could not even kill herself, and that burned her heart black. The child realized that her heart could be sore if her heart was so dark.

Ashtie burst into tears once again, like pouring rain.

The one who made her life like this was also her mother.

She had to convey the dance that her mother taught her to somebody else. Her mother, until she left, taught her dancing. Mother’s happy life was dance itself. She could know just listening to her free-spirit life stories. “So, I have to pass down this dance–Mother’s wish, hope, and Mother herself. I can’t have it all for myself, and die alone with it.” She wanted to let people know about the times when she and her mother were happy.

But to do that, she had to be close to other people.

But it seemed impossible. Although she set people’s contempt aside, Ashtie was not confident. “Be familiar with others? Share my emotions and build memories? Love others? Like I did to Mother?”

She felt like she could not love anybody else easily again. “What if the person I love dies, like my Mother?

“There would be no one who would not die, but to me, death now has too much meaning. If the end always hurts terribly like this, if my heart tears apart like I’d rather want to die, if the only thing that will be left is an empty heart, then that time I just will want to die. How I live is not like living now, and if that happens to me…

“So, I will never open my mind to anyone again. That would be better than death.”

Ashtie decided to protect herself. The noble and elegant mask became more perfect.

“I will just dance and live. I will enjoy peace alone.”

Ashtie tried to push away the idea of having to pass down her mother’s dance. To her, her own peace was more important. Otherwise, she felt like she would really collapse. She should not die, but living was not living, either. The only time when she felt she was alive was when she danced. She wanted to learn and practice dancing even more.

When she was 13 years old, Ashtie went to visit the king. It was the first time she had a private consultation with the king. Surprising to her, the king agreed to meet her. Ashtie showed the perfect greeting manner. The king took it, and Ashtie looked up.

At the moment, Ashtie agonized about the title. She was not sure how she could call him. Of course, my Father the King would be the right answer. She never thought, at once, he was her true father, but it was time to show him politeness. She bit her lips briefly and did her greatest homage.

“My Father, the King, can I ask you a favor?”

“Father?”

The king laughed–cold ridicule, weird self-deprecation, clear contempt and anger, longing, regret, bitter lingering attachment. His face revealed all emotions. When she met that face with a wave of sentiment, Ashtie, for the first time, could see through the king’s seething inside

.

“You have human feelings like other people.

“I can make you feel anger and self-deprecation. You are a human, too. You, who wears the brightest crown and sits on the brightest throne, served by the whole nation, you who killed my mother, who neglected me, and threw us away like an old shoe… I can make you like a normal person–a human being wielded by the ugliest emotions.

“Oh, my God, the weakest princess can make the noblest king wield the most miserable emotion.” She barely swallowed the laughed that tried to come out. “To me, this thing was possible.

“So, I will call you Father. I never thought you as my father, my shoulders tremble to call you father, and I feel disgusting, but I want to make you feel miserable. So, I will call you my Father, the King.” Ashtie promised.

“I would like to enter Baya Sofiya and Baya Nansheed,” she asked, and the king granted her request.

After that, she went to Baya Sofiya and could learn other dances. In Skara, the moderate and elegant dances like performing at banquets were usually rated highly. Also, the nobles learned dancing only at the level of liberal arts, and it was only lower nobles and commoners who made dancing as a job. So, although Baya Sofiya was the Royal Arts School, the Faculty of Dance only taught things like ballet.

And that dancing professor…

“Your Highness. You are really excellent.”

Elena was the daughter of Lecco Vittoria, one of the popular professors in Baya Sofiya, and an excellent dancer. Ashtie often watched her dance. Ashtie, who had seen many dances, including folk dances and social dances under her mother, was even surprised about Elena’s beautiful and impressing dancing. Ashtie realized that with only formal and elegant movement could a person make a beautiful dance like that.

It was a compliment from a woman like that. It was as if something warm filled up her heart. That was not meant to be flattery; that compliment came from the bottom of her heart. It was the first time that she was recognized by others for her dancing.

“You have a talent for dancing.”

In fact, it was the first time that Ashtie had performing properly in front of others. Ashtie liked and was good at the dance that she learned from her mother, even more than the banquet dances. However, no one recognized it. Elena was the one who complimented her for the first time. Ashtie was not sure if it was because she was also from high status, or it was just her personality, but she never laughed at Ashtie about her status matter. When she saw some shortage from Ashtie’s dancing, she pointed it out softly and helped her to improve it. She never neglected her, and she told her that her dancing was great. Elena was a very likable person. As a professor, she did have some stiff side too, so Ashtie could not get closer to her, but that was enough for Ashtie.

During her three years at Baya Sofiya, she learned hard and constantly about ballet, waltz, and so on. By the time she graduated, she made her own dance that combined various dances that she learned from mother, and what she learned in school. Soon after, Ashtie established her own world of dance close to perfection.