Please let me introduce myself, my name is Clarissa Jean O'Connell and I'm a twenty year old student in a college , a certain one and but biggest problem was death,The problem with dying a sudden, ignoble death wasn't the pain; it was the sheer, blinding stupidity.
I Clarissa Jean O'Connell, twenty-two years old and a perfectly average accountant-in-training, didn't pass away saving a bus of orphans or solving a complex quantum equation. I expired choking on a miniature corn dog while scrolling through funny dog memes. The last coherent thought of my former life was a frustrated, sputtering fury that i was going out this way, having achieved nothing more than 7,000 karma points on Reddit.
"Hahah stupid dog!" Was something I shouldn't have said so fast, And then, there was only blackness. A heavy, velvet, silent blackness that lasted exactly as long as it took for a single, overwhelming thought to surface: This is stupid. I'm going to punch Death in the face.
The blackness shattered.
A gasp, sharp and involuntary, tore through her. It was too high-pitched, too weak, too small. Her eyes snapped open, blurry and uncooperative, and she was instantly assaulted by the overwhelming smells of petrichor, ozone, and something intoxicatingly metallic and old—like a vault full of ancient, exquisite wine.
She was being held. Not gently, but with the fierce, possessive grip of someone who had waited an eternity. Clarissa, or whatever she was now, instinctively thrashed, her tiny limbs useless, her throat burning with a sound she recognized with horrified disbelief: A baby's squall?.
"Silence, my little viper," a voice commanded, low and rich, rumbling like distant thunder.
She focused, her vision finally clearing enough to take in the woman holding her. She was devastating: alabaster skin, eyes like twin pools of molten gold, and lips curved into an unsettlingly satisfied smile, the color of fresh arterial blood. This was the Queen. Lilith.
"Oh, look at her, Marius," Lilith cooed, tilting the child up slightly, completely unaware of the infant's silent, existential scream of terror. "After three noisy boys, she finally graces us. The Fourth Blood is finally female."
Fourth? I'm the spare-spare-spare heir??!Great. More pressure. And am I wearing a diaper? I feel the profound indignity of my current undergarments.
Her father, the King of Everything, stepped forward, and the pressure in the room seemed to drop. He was impossibly tall, built like a myth, his eyes flickering—one deep emerald, the other blazing amber. He reached out a colossal, clawed hand—the nails filed to perfect, obsidian points—and gently stroked the baby's cheek.
"She is magnificent, Lilith," the King, Marius, murmured, his voice a resonant tremor. "And look at the sheer force of her soul. She burns with the desperation of someone who has cheated fate. Tell me, little daughter... what indignity did you escape?"
Lilith chuckled, a crystalline, unnerving sound. "She has her mother's temper already. Did you try to choke her, my dear?"
Yes! I did! On cheap carnival food! Don't look at me with those perfect, ageless faces! I died because I thought I could chew a corn dog and scroll through photos of Shiba Inu puppies at the same time! I deserve to be a common housecat, not an immortal princess!
The inner rant, however, only translated into another wail of furious, impotent frustration.
Lilith kissed her forehead, inhaling the exotic scent of her new daughter. "Welcome to the world, Eleanor Thistle. May your next death be far more worthy of your station."
The irony was a bitter, metallic taste in the newborn princess's mouth. She was now the daughter of two primordial forces, destined to rule a court of horrors. And her greatest threat, in her last life, had been her own lack of motor skills. The sheer absurdity of it all was enough to make the tiny, most powerful hybrid on the planet start crying again.
If I ever see a corn dog again, I will burn down the entire continent.
The colossal hand of the King, Marius, rested on her cheek, radiating a chilling, ancient power. To anyone else, it was a profound blessing. To the soul of Clarissa O'Connell trapped inside Princess Eleanor Thistle, it was a terrifying violation of personal space.
Don't touch me, you scary person! Her internal scream was a frantic, high-pitched shriek of panic. You look like you bite people for fun! Get your giant, pointy nailed hand away from my face! My skin hasn't even fully formed yet!
Driven by this surge of utterly mortal terror, the baby's tiny, flailing fist shot up. With the weak, uncoordinated force of a newborn, she managed to knock the tip of the King's obsidian-sharp index finger sideways.
A gasp rippled through the shadowed corners of the throne room, where unseen courtiers surely lurked.
King Marius froze, not from pain, but from sheer astonishment. His emerald and amber eyes widened, fixing on the miniature hand that had just delivered the world's most pathetic swat.
Queen Lilith, however, let out a booming laugh—a sound that was both musical and utterly predatory.
"Did you see that, my love?" Lilith tightened her hold on the baby, her golden eyes sparkling with fierce pride. "She rejects the very touch of the Wilds! Our daughter is already a force of will!"
"A willfulness she did not inherit from her placid brothers," Marius murmured, his deep voice carrying a note of intrigued reverence. He slowly retracted his hand, gazing at the princess with a newfound respect. "She is not merely a hybrid, Lilith. She is a rebellion."
I am not a rebellion! Clarissa wailed in her mind, her mouth only managing to produce another loud, outraged baby squall. I am just a person who doesn't like being touched by monsters! Do I get a say in any of this? No, of course not! I'm an heir to the entire supernatural kingdom thing , and my only life skill is making spreadsheets and being killed by low-quality poultry products! This is a nightmare!
She kept up her performance, wailing and squealing, letting the sound express the existential terror and profound annoyance she couldn't articulate. It was the only power she had—the power of an extremely distressed, incredibly powerful infant.
Lilith nuzzled the baby's cheek. "Rest now, Eleanor Thistle. You have a long, glorious eternity ahead of you. An eternity to learn that a true queen never chokes on her meals."
Clarissa's eyes—now a startling, pale silver snapped toward the sound of the word 'choke.'
She knows! The tiny soul shrieked internally. How does she know?! Did my ridiculous past life leave a literal stain on my immortal soul? I'm going to have to live for a thousand years under the shadow of the corn dog!
As the Queen lowered her to a cradle lined with velvet and silver wire, the new Princess Eleanor Thistle gave one final, powerful shriek, a perfect blend of genuine baby distress and utterly humiliated, mortal rage. The new life had begun, and it was going to be infuriating.