Suddenly an Empress

I: Pink Girl

"Alexandra Perseis, nicknamed as the 'Century's Lover' is considered to be the greatest woman during their time in 100BC-44BC. Alexandra was 19 years old when he first met the Roman prince, Lucius Vel Sylas. At the age of 20, she was already next in line to become the Empress of the whole Roman empire. At 21 she got married, and at 22 she had already conquered countless lands that rivaled the achievements of other rulers. She was also known for being the only woman that the Roman prince Lucius had ever loved and has remained a popular figure in literature, painting, sculpture, and other cultural works since the time of her death, and many famous writers, playwrights, filmmakers, artists, and composers have created, and continue to create,"

My younger cousin, Barbara, excitedly reads out loud the writings in the book she was holding even though her head was hanging from the edge of my king-sized bed. She had always been an avid fan of history and ancient artifacts, that is why she always comes to our house to sleep over because what is conveniently located next to us was the 'Centre of Ancient Artifacts', the largest museum in the entirety of England and is solely owned by my father.

Barbara did not like that I had no reaction whatsoever at what she just read to me so she groggily sat up, glaring daggers at me who was seated in front of my vanity mirror, quite busy dying my hair. Contrary to her, I hated anything about history as well as the artifacts that my father brings into his museum. He loved those pieces of junk more than his own daughter after all.

 "Are you sure about what you are doing?" Barbara stood and walked towards me. She was looking at me through the giant mirror in front of us and watched me put a pink dye on my natural brown hair. "You would stick out like a sore thumb in the crowd, Elodie." 

"Nonsense, pink hair is the new trend nowadays. . ." I dismissed her statement and just focused on what I am doing, I do not want to mess this up so badly that I might be forced to chop off all of my hair making all of these efforts for naught.

She looked at me as if she knows exactly what I was plotting and grabbed me by the shoulder with one hand and with her other hand placed dramatically on top of her forehead, "Aww, poor little Elodie Byrne. All she wanted was her father's love and attention so she had no choice but to dye her beautiful brown hair with the most ridiculous color ever in the entire world, what a nightmare!" She narrated with a high voice, completely mocking me so I lightly slapped her hand away from my shoulder earning a mocking laugh from her.

"You could have just directly tell your father your problem instead of ruining your hair, you know." When she finally got bored of teasing me, she walked back to my bed and grabbed the book she was holding, and began reading out loud some facts about that Alexandra woman that I find boring.

"You know I tried that multiple times already but his new wife kept being an obstacle to me." I groaned, staring at myself blankly through the mirror. In just half an hour, my hair would turn out pink. The color that my father had always hated since it was my mother's favorite color. Ever since her tragic death, anything that is pink would be discarded from our mansion. Father once saw a maid eating pink macarons and had her fired instantly without explanation, that is how much he hated it. And I thought that being hated is better than being neglected by him. 

I figured that Barbara would not want to hear me rant about these things since she was so busy reading and being a history nerd so I just kept quiet and continued with my work. When half an hour passed, I proceeded to rinse my hair and dry it out using a hair blower. Barbara was glancing at me every now and then to see the result but since it is still wet she just continued to read.

As soon as I finished styling my hair, I called her to look at me. "Hey, I'm done. You can judge me all you want now." 

Her nose was buried in her book so when she raised her head to judge me, her jaw dropped in awe that boosted my confidence ten times since Barbara rarely finds anything eye-pleasing aside from ancient artifacts.

"Woah, it kinda suits you after all. I guess pink hair looked perfect for fair-skinned people like you." She stood up and approached me, circling around me as if she's a predator waiting to pounce on its prey but in reality, she was just too drawn towards my hair. She looked really satisfied about how it turned out since she was expecting it to look dry and frizzy after I just burned it with a lot of bleach.

"Of course," I had my chin held up high with pride.

"Now the next thing to do is show it to your father and have him despise you for all eternity." She snickered, sitting back down on my bed that I think is owned by her now since she spends a lot of time there more than I do.

I remained standing, was about to say something but a loud knock reverberated from my bedroom door and the sound of my father's voice was heard from the other side. 

"Elodie, open up I have something to say." Along with my father's voice came Barbara's excited tone saying, "Ooh, speaking of."

I was thinking that maybe my father might have noticed my feeble attempts in conveying my resentment towards his new wife so I hurriedly opened the door for him, revealing his usual stoic face. 

He quickly took notice of my unusual hair color since he was staring at it for a while before speaking in a deep and husky voice, pretending that my hair is not vibrantly colored. "Where is Barbara?" He asked, leaning sidewards to look past me and spot Barbara who was sitting on my bed.

"Yes!" Barbara's voice was like those of a soldier as she answers since she is quite afraid of my father for always being so serious, and mostly because she can't joke around him. She quickly stood up to walk towards the door where my father was standing idly. I figured that he won't even want to talk to me and has nothing to say so I walked back towards my bed and sat where Barbara was sitting before. 

"Barbara, I know how much you like the artifacts in my museum, but today, a very valuable piece just arrived so I prefer you not going near my office for now," Father says in a serious tone, he's usually always serious but this time, his voice sounded desperate as if pleading Barbara to not mess with the new 'artifact' in his office.

Barbara is known in our family to be a big troublemaker and father personally coming here to warn her means that the artifact that is in his office seemed to be very important for him. Far more important than me apparently.

"Alright, I understand." She replied with a sullen and dejected voice, earning a nod from father and even a sigh of relief. "Then at least, can I ask what kind of artifact it is? Is it from Egypt? Peru? Or possibly from the Han Dynasty?" She immediately recovered since her voice sounds excited once again, lightly jumping up and down.

I was watching them converse from my bed with crossed arms since even after becoming a pink-haired girl, my father still refuses to acknowledge my presence. For real, I have done everything to spite him, burning his books, vandalizing the museum walls, messing with the staff, but still, he won't even see me.

I saw father, sighing, evident that he is tired of explaining things to Barbara yet he still did since she will never shut up about it until he says what kind of artifact it was. "It is a necklace from Rome, Italy. It belongs to Alexandra Perseis, a gift from her husband Lucius Vel Sylas. I am sure you know how important she is in history hence it is a thousand times more valuable than the rest. That necklace is also very delicate so please just stay here in the mansion for now, you can visit once it is safely on display for the public."

I can see that Barbara is about to explode with excitement since I think Alexandra Perseis was the one she was just reading about, the greatest empress to have ever lived. She managed to tone down her voice and nod in response to my father.

"I am glad that you understood, well, I will see you later." He says before walking away, not even sparing me a glance or even commenting about my pink hair. 

Barbara on the other hand waited for father to leave the hallway outside my room before slowly shutting it close. She turned around to look at me with a huge grin plastered on her face so I asked in a grumpy voice, "What?" I'm still in a bad mood since the whole time they were talking, father acted like I was nonexistent.

"You wanna go sneak in his office?" Her voice resembled an evil incarnation and I liked what she is proposing to do. I answered back with a wide grin the same as hers, completely forgetting about my sour mood. Since father won't even look at me despite dying my hair with his most hated color, I bet he finally will after learning that we were in his office and possibly messing with that 'very valuable' piece of artifact.

"I think a necklace from the greatest empress might suit me," I said as I pull out the spare key of his office from my drawer and dangling it in the air for Barbara to see.