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aesthetic_mojoCharlotte couldn’t say she’d been lied to, that her family pretended to be anything but what it was when they were in private. Even in public they were surprisingly up front about some things. They wanted to build and expand the family holdings. Every decision was made to protect or increase the family’s wealth and power. Those few charities they supported were the ones who knew to appeal to their public image, not their heartstrings.
From birth Charlotte was taught carefully. Looking back she could see there were three tracks to it, but at the time it was all just her life. First there were academics. She received a rich classical education complete with Latin, some Greek, French, and German. Her tutors had degrees from the best universities and with only one student could take the time to truly educate her, not just throw information at her. Then there were the occult arts. Her tutors there had qualifications as strong, but not quite so well documented. By the age of ten she could make a potion that could give two days worth of relentless energy with almost no recovery time at the end or, with the addition of one herb, kill at the end of those two days.
By far the most important lessons were taught most subtly. Every member of the family had his or her place in the over reaching plan. Some were meant to make money, others to acquire arcane knowledge, still others to make the family bloodlines stronger. Charlotte was intended to do all three. She was to marry young, make a number of babies who would have her talents and her husbands, then after doing her part to raise them to be strong magicians, she would join the business. Her father had it planned down to the smallest detail, even to picking out names for children who did not yet exist.
Weeks before her impending marriage, Charlotte’s father sat her down and explained it all to her. Finally all the things she’d known without thinking about it were laid out before her—a roadmap straight to Hell. Her virginity, her body, her mind were all to be sold to the future for the chance to strengthen her father’s grip on eternity. They would be used to buy politicians, business associates and even property. He was absolutely certain that everything would happen exactly as he said. There was no room for deviation, so much so that he didn’t even hear her requests for freedom.
She could never truly escape them. She didn’t bother giving up her name or changing her appearance. That wouldn’t matter. What she did do was give up her nature. For a full decade she used none of her magic, none of her arcane knowledge, nothing that would give any impression she was of any use to the family. She could only hope that her father would decide she would not breed true, that she would somehow dilute the blood he needed to build his dream.
Sure enough, ten years past that when she began to practice again, as her powers strengthened beyond what she’d expected, they were back. When she most wanted to be left alone to figure out who she was, there he was reminding her of his expectations. She knew what he wouldn’t understand her recent moral quandaries. Absolute power had corrupted him absolutely. There was no way she’d follow in his footsteps. Not then and not now.
578 words
From birth Charlotte was taught carefully. Looking back she could see there were three tracks to it, but at the time it was all just her life. First there were academics. She received a rich classical education complete with Latin, some Greek, French, and German. Her tutors had degrees from the best universities and with only one student could take the time to truly educate her, not just throw information at her. Then there were the occult arts. Her tutors there had qualifications as strong, but not quite so well documented. By the age of ten she could make a potion that could give two days worth of relentless energy with almost no recovery time at the end or, with the addition of one herb, kill at the end of those two days.
By far the most important lessons were taught most subtly. Every member of the family had his or her place in the over reaching plan. Some were meant to make money, others to acquire arcane knowledge, still others to make the family bloodlines stronger. Charlotte was intended to do all three. She was to marry young, make a number of babies who would have her talents and her husbands, then after doing her part to raise them to be strong magicians, she would join the business. Her father had it planned down to the smallest detail, even to picking out names for children who did not yet exist.
Weeks before her impending marriage, Charlotte’s father sat her down and explained it all to her. Finally all the things she’d known without thinking about it were laid out before her—a roadmap straight to Hell. Her virginity, her body, her mind were all to be sold to the future for the chance to strengthen her father’s grip on eternity. They would be used to buy politicians, business associates and even property. He was absolutely certain that everything would happen exactly as he said. There was no room for deviation, so much so that he didn’t even hear her requests for freedom.
She could never truly escape them. She didn’t bother giving up her name or changing her appearance. That wouldn’t matter. What she did do was give up her nature. For a full decade she used none of her magic, none of her arcane knowledge, nothing that would give any impression she was of any use to the family. She could only hope that her father would decide she would not breed true, that she would somehow dilute the blood he needed to build his dream.
Sure enough, ten years past that when she began to practice again, as her powers strengthened beyond what she’d expected, they were back. When she most wanted to be left alone to figure out who she was, there he was reminding her of his expectations. She knew what he wouldn’t understand her recent moral quandaries. Absolute power had corrupted him absolutely. There was no way she’d follow in his footsteps. Not then and not now.
578 words
