As I watched my brother and cousin play together outside from the window and my mother watching over them with a smile on her face, I felt a knot form into my stomach so hard that it was about to burst. My mother was young and beautiful and a doting mother, but she always seemed to care about her sons more than me, even though I was just as smart as they were, probably even more if she paid the same amount of attention to me as she did to them. Even my aunt Hwa-Wol knew of my potential, I could tell by the way she kept smiling at me, but even then she wouldn't say anything about it, but why? Wasn't being smart a good thing? Especially for a girl who only had the job to grow up and secure a marriage alliance that suit her family best? Only my uncle and my father seemed to reassure me beyond measure, but my father seems to have a plan for everyone of us children except me? Why was that? Didn't he know how serious I was when int came to training? I was right, I am also the grandchild of Seo Geom so why couldn't I train with the boys? I had been watching them for so long that I knew I could do everything they did and even better since I had bene training on my own for longer than any of them have, with the exception of my older cousin Chul. So when could everyone see my potential just like everyone else? Why did I have to be life behind just because I was a girl? That wasn't fair? My mother taught me that Confucius laws placed restrictions on women, but if my own family spoiled me enough, then what was the problem? I was already banned from entering the kingdom since they saw twins as an inauspicious sign and would pretty much kill me on sight if everyone knew that I was part of a pair, but at least I could do whatever I wanted here in the village I had grown up in…right?
"What are you looking outside the window for girl? Where is your mother?" "She is playing with the boys as usual father. What are you laughing about?" "That girl will always be a little girl, no matter how old she gets. Can you fill up the water for my feet then? Or shall I find her?" "I can do it! I am a big girl you know!" "Is that so? I have never seen a big girl wearing such cute pigtails though." "Father! Stop laughing at me! Shall I tend to you or not!" "Very well my big girl, let us see how much you can care for your father." Of course he didn't stop laughing at me, which just made me pout and sulk a lot more and then the laughing became endless, so much so that it lured my uncle in who joined in with the laughter as soon as he saw the look on my face. "Brother-in-law, what on earth could you have said to upset our little princess here?" "I am not a princess! I am a big girl that can do everything that my noon Bo-Geom can! Apart from art, because I am the best at that!" "Do tell girl, what else are you good at? Can you take care of your uncle as well?" "Very well, I will wash him and give him tea as well…if he answers a question of mine sincerely." "Sincerely? Where did you learn to use such big words at your age, niece?" "Stop picking on my about my age! I can do everything that your sons can do you know uncle!" Oh really? What does that include?" "Well…" "Daughter? Do you have something to say to me?" "I have to ask my uncle first before I ask you father." "Oh really? And why is that?" "Because you always say yes to me anyways, don't you? More than Hyuk." "Are you showing off to me girl?" "Uncle…can I train with my brother and cousins? Even though I am a girl?" I had already prepared myself for a scolding from either my uncle or father, but wrapping myself around my father's neck did help him to calm down a little bit. My uncle never seemed to get angry about anything, but I did manage to give him a small kiss on the cheek to prepare my defence. But it was my uncle's fallen face that made me giggle instead "Good god, I am having the same conversation with her as I had with her mother when she was exactly the same age. Very well, I shall discuss this with your father…but are you sure about this?" "I am also a grandchild of Seo Geom, why can't I do what everyone else is doing? I won't be this small forever and I will not be with my family all of the time, I should at least know how to defend myself as a woman, isn't that right father?"
It was that decision that must have changed the course of my life to grow up who I was now; yes I was an educated and popular woman in the village and I always helped out my mother as much as I could. But it was the training that kept me disciplined and grounded and kept me away from being fully sucked into the deep black hole that the nobility class drew to everyone else including ordinary citizens who simply could not afford that lifestyle. My maternal grandfather himself ran away from that lifestyle to cultivate his own, and my paternal grandfather to me was the living example of what chasing a life beyond your means could do to oneself. But my father did have his own plans for me regardless of my choosing to live my life as a lowborn as my mother did; which included having a full education on the entire class structure to be able to differentiate between the main classes inside the palace so I could tell who was being genuine and who wasn't for my father to focus on. Despite his retirement in his father-in-law's village, he still kept himself very busy in the community of the kingdom through his nephew Chul, which also meant that he hadn't said a word to my twin brother Hyuk and our cousin Geom of their secret escapades in the kingdom doing only god knows what. "Father! Why can't I go into the kingdom as well?" "Because anyone who would recognise you and your twin brother would have you instantly killed for being inauspicious omens and you know that girl." "So you really will not say anything to my brother? You will not even scold him for breaking your rules about staying away from the kingdom?" "And what are you expecting girl? That I ground a growing man so that he can stay at home with his twin sister to berates him all of the time." "I do not berate him! I just correct him on his mistakes that is all." "You cannot change his introverted nature, trust me I have tried my very best. And at least he is being productive, do you really think my nephew will tag along in his little games without informing me of anything?" "So that is why you funded everyone's education father? So that we can all be your little spies?" "Daughter…" "Do not mind me father, I am just in awe of your mind and how it works." "Is that supposed to be a compliment?" "What are you looking at me like that for?" "I know you girl and I know what you have one of your requests for me." "Father…can you teach me? How your mind works? So that I can be the same?" I could see the hesitation in my father's eyes as I quickly made my way to bring him his favourite tea that I had already brewed for him along with his favourite honey cakes and a meal full of fried eggs, almost twice the amount that my mother allowed him to have. That certainly brought a smile to his face which was rare for him, but I already knew that he would not decline me this request we were educated per his standards and yet our weaponry training had all come from my uncle and I bet may father had been feeling a little left out in that area. The difference between myself and my twin brother was that he was the only one who wanted to follow life on a straight path with overlapping lines of manipulation and cheap tricks to get results. Myself and my cousins on the other hand didn't mind straying from my uncle's straight path to get our jobs done and to live the extraordinary lives that we lived with privileges that we were not necessarily allowed to live anywhere else due to our different social statuses.
"Well? Father? Come on, you need somebody carry out your own legacy, not just my grandfather's. And you know that Hyuk will not do it, and Hwan…well he tries and fails miserably and gets into loads of trouble all of the time. At least teach one of your children to do it right? Please? I know that you have many reasons to keep me locked up here in the village and that me being twin is only one of them."
That was yet another milestone that marked my life; using the means of manipulation was the furthest thing that my mother wanted for me as a woman, but it sure as hell saved my lie a few times when I had started making trips to the kingdom with my mother whenever she needed to visit someone or shop for new materials for her embroidery house, which was rare because we all knew at this point that Hyuk was sneaking into the palace albeit in disguise but nobody was saying anything to him at all. And it was on one of these visits to the kingdom without my father that led me to reuniting with my cousin Chul and big sister Bo-Geom after almost a decade of them parting from our little village. Before that moment; all I knew was that I wanted to become one of the most powerful women in our nation's history that didn't involve me selling myself as a kisaeng or being shipped off in a marriage first. My mother surprisingly held onto that reputation but barely made any use of it since she had us around the same time and had hardly stepped foot in the kingdom ever since. But when I was reunited with my big cousin Chul and noon Bo-Geom that I finally seemed to have a plan on my own outside of my father's plan to become some sort of hollow socialite. I wanted power, the same power that Chul and my father had, and I would put it to better use than own mother ever could, and I knew just the person who was going to help me achieve it. But it wasn't going to be easy, especially when I had my brother and mother to worry about. As twins, we could not be any different in every single angle apart from our faces and as for my mother…I just wanted her to be proud of me, without thinking that I was being too greedy, too vivacious, too vicious and too untamed. I loved her and I respected her, more than she knew, but I also had a life to live and more than one legacy to uphold, and the last thing I was going to be was a naive and sheltered little girl who couldn't contribute anything to society just because I had to live my life as sheltered twin from those damned Confucius laws. Who knows, I may be able to achieve my mother's dream of getting rid of those archaic laws that only served one party and ignored the other all together.