"Look at those tiny hands, aren't you just adorable!"
The young girl with light brown hair, wearing a maid uniform exclaims
"Quiet Marybelle, Babies ears are delicate, you mustn't speak in such a manner."
The mature older woman with black hair that is slightly greying, who also wears a maid uniform. Marybelle quickly covers her mouth as if she could catch her loud outburst from before.
"Sorry Mom..."
"MISS Cynthia!"
The young girl jolts at the outburst than chuckles slightly before rectifying her mistake.
"Sorry Miss Cynthia"
"Better...Now off you get, you have plenty of cleaning to do now that I have been given the duties of a wet nurse...Can you truly handle it dear?"
The young girl nods vigorously, then moves her hands around in a motion that she thinks is someone either moping or sweeping.
"You taught me everything I need to know, I'm basically a pro at this point!"
She smiles wide and before the older woman can reply, or rebuke her for her tomboyish behavior, the younger girl has dashed out of the room, to most likely begin her job cleaning, leaving the older woman to just sigh.
"Please tell me you won't grow up to be like her, I love her to bits, but she needs to act more like a proper lady..."
The older woman comes in close and lifts the child that was laying in the crib, staring lovingly into the baby's eyes.
"But you Miss...You will grow into a lovely lady, surrounded by flowers, have tea party with your friends, and dancing with young princes. Your life will be filled with nothing but bliss, so says your father."
The maid points to a portrait of a fat man with a mustache that looks like it is drawn on with a marker, sitting in an overly gilded room, holding a large golden scepter, so large In fact, that if the man stood up, the scepter would tower over him.
"That's your loving father, he commissioned a portrait when he found out you were being born, so that he could watch over you always."
The maid smiles and looks back at the baby, hoping to see the child giggle and smile at the face of her father, but what she sees shocks her, something she has never seen in her many years looking after children...Total and utter disgust, a face a baby should never make.
At that moment, she realized, this baby has never cried...Not once, something was strange about this child. Unlike the children before, she stared with such purpose, as if she knew what was going on, and maybe as if she was planning, or listening to everything.
No, that can't be right, a child, not even 3 days old, wouldn't understand what she is saying, let alone be planning something.
But that thought never went away... For over 10 years.