Year 443 of the Univerra Calendar
"Did you hear?"
The excited whisper rippled through the servants' corridor like morning sunlight on polished marble.
A maid carrying folded brocade slowed her steps, leaning toward another girl who stood polishing a silver candelabra until it reflected her face like a warped moon.
"Madam is finally blessed with a child."
Two younger maids froze mid task, cloths in hand, eyes bright and round with delight. At once, the corridor changed. Hands moved faster. Backs straightened. Smiles slipped out despite rules against idle chatter during work hours.
"Really?!" one of them gasped, clutching a basket of fresh linens to her chest. "The Goddess has finally blessed us with a little princess or prince!"
"Not only that," the first maid whispered, stepping closer with scandal sparkling in her eyes, "I heard she's having quadruplets!"
The third maid nearly dropped the basket in her hands.
"Q-quadruplets?!"
She glanced instinctively toward the upper floors as if the walls themselves might hear her. Then her voice fell to an anxious murmur.
"Wait… isn't that a bit worrying? Four babies, and it's Madam's first pregnancy…"
The first maid chuckled, waving a dismissive hand as if worry itself were adorable. "There's no need to worry, silly. With current medical technology, the survival rate for quadruplets is nearly one hundred percent."
"Besides," she added with a smug little tilt of her chin, "Madam is only in her eighties. She's in her prime. What's there to fear?"
The worried maid exhaled, shoulders loosening.
"You're right… I'm worrying for nothing."
Her expression softened, almost reverent.
"It would be terrible if anything happened to Madam. She's always so kind…"
A beat of silent agreement settled over them.
Then.
"What are you three doing chatting instead of working?"
The voice cut through the corridor like a ruler striking a desk.
All three maids jolted so hard the silver candelabra rang.
They spun around.
Head Maid Lara stood at the end of the corridor with arms crossed, silver hair pinned into a flawless bun, posture straight. Her uniform was immaculate. Not a single crease out of place.
The girls stared like rabbits caught in lantern light.
"A-ah, Head Maid!"
They bowed so quickly one nearly headbutted her own basket, then scattered without waiting for dismissal, aprons fluttering as they fled in three different directions.
Lara watched them go.
For a second, her stern expression loosened and shook her head in fond disbelief.
Then the softness vanished, professionalism sealing over her face like armor as she turned toward the kitchen wing.
…
The private dietary station had already been prepared.
At the center of the counter sat a heavy golden tray beneath a polished silver dome. Warm steam curled from the edges, carrying the rich scent of broth, herbs, and cooked grain. Beside it waited a crystal cup of fruit puree, carefully measured prenatal supplements in a velvet lined case, and a small thermos of mineral tonic.
Nothing on the tray had been placed casually.
Everything was arranged with precision.
Lara checked it once.
Then again.
Satisfied, she slid both hands beneath the tray and lifted.
She moved through the estate's inner halls with silent, practiced steps. The marble floors gleamed like still water. Sunlight streamed through high windows and spilled across portraits of the Soprano bloodline: statesmen, patrons, magnates, women in beautiful jewels, men with the same crimson-pink eyes carried by the current lord.
At the end of the corridor rose a pair of grand oak doors carved with the Soprano crest.
Lara stopped before them.
Adjusted the tray.
Knocked once.
Twice.
Then waited.
"Come in~"
The voice from within was warm, melodic, honey over spring water.
Lara opened the door.
Lavender greeted her first.
Then sunlight.
The master suite glowed in soft gold and rose. Floor to ceiling windows stood half veiled in blush silk drapes, and the morning light painted everything gentle: polished wood, plush carpets, vases of fresh flowers, the velvet chaise near the windows.
And the woman seated upon it.
Rhea Soprano looked as if joy itself had taken human form.
Long pink hair spilled over her shoulders in glossy waves. Her skin seemed to hold light. Her swollen belly, heavy with four unborn children, rested beneath a loose sky blue satin gown gathered with ribbons at the waist and sleeves.
Kneeling beside her was Gillian Soprano.
Black hair and crimson-pink eyes.
A man who, in boardrooms and public events, carried the cold confidence of a lord.
Here, however, he looked like nothing but a husband in love.
He had both hands on Rhea's belly, cheek pressed to the curve of it, murmuring soft promises to the lives within as if they could already hear him.
"Greetings, Milord. Madam," Lara said, dipping into a deep bow.
Rhea immediately pouted.
Her lower lip pushed out like an offended cat.
"Lara," she said, voice accusing and dramatic, "didn't I tell you? When it's just us, call me by my name. We grew up together. Don't be so distant!"
Lara straightened, tray still balanced in her hands.
For a moment, the corner of her mouth twitched.
"I'm afraid I cannot do that, Madam."
She set the tray on the low table and lifted the silver dome. Fragrant steam rose at once.
Rhea turned her face away with an exaggerated, "Hmph!"
Gillian looked up from his wife's belly and shot Lara a helpless pleading glance that clearly translated to 'Please just do what she asks, or she won't eat.'
Lara returned a flat stare, her expression said 'This is your wife. Handle it yourself.'
Gillian smiled weakly in response, he has no power here.
Lara looked at him with a speechless expression, this guy hadn't changed since they were little, always so powerless against Rhea!
With a quiet sigh, she relented "Rhea," she said gently, the familiar name leaving her mouth with visible effort, "please eat. The delivery date is close. Your children need this."
At the sound of her name, Rhea snapped back toward her so fast her hair swished.
Her whole face lit up like the sunrise behind them.
"Alright!"
She tried to rise at once, but Gillian was already moving.
"Careful." His hands settled at her shoulders, easing her back. "Let me."
He took the tray, knelt again beside the chaise, and lifted a spoonful of warm broth toward her lips.
Rhea flushed pinker than her hair.
"Gillian, I told you many times, I can eat on my own! I'm not a child!"
Yet she obediently opened her mouth, eyes sparkling with happiness as he fed her with infinite tenderness.
Lara watched him feed her in patient spoonfuls while Rhea alternated between complaining and smiling like someone trying (and failing to) act annoyed. The two of them were almost painfully happy, the kind of happiness that made the room feel fuller than sunlight alone.
When the meal was finished, Lara stepped forward to clear the tray.
"Madam, I will take-"
A hand caught her wrist.
"Lara, wait!"
The urgency in Rhea's voice made Lara pause.
Rhea took both of Lara's hands in hers. Her palms were warm. Her eyes shone in a way that suddenly made her look younger than her years.
"We want you to choose the name of our daughter."
Gillian nodded at once.
Lara froze.
For one rare, naked second, her composure cracked.
"I… I couldn't possibly-"
"Please~"
Rhea leaned forward with shameless puppy eyes.
Gillian, traitor that he was, joined in.
Two pairs of puppy eyes.
A coordinated attack that made CRITICAL words appear above her head.
Lara stared at them in stunned silence.
Then she closed her eyes.
"I-"
She tried to refuse but stopped herself, swallowing her refusal and thought for a long moment.
Her professionalism wavered.
Her gaze drifted, almost helplessly, to Rhea's belly.
At the life inside.
At the bright future ahead of them.
Her throat tightened.
When she spoke, her voice came softer than usual.
"…Roxana."
Rhea blinked.
"Roxana…?"
Lara nodded slowly.
"I read it once, in an old text. From before our nation was founded." Her fingers tightened faintly around Rhea's hands. "It meant… 'little star.'"
She lowered her eyes, slightly embarrassed.
"I want her life to be full of brightness. I want her to shine like a star… all her life."
For a heartbeat, the room was silent.
A fragile, beautiful silence.
Then Rhea's eyes flooded with tears.
Gillian's lips curved into a smile that looked almost boyish.
"Roxana Soprano," he murmured, testing the weight of it. "There's a nice ring to it."
Rhea laughed through tears, wiping her cheeks with the back of her hand.
"I love it."
Something warm spread through Lara's chest.
For the next hour, the three of them sat together debating names for the other children.
Lara, against all habits, smiled brightly.
Sunlight moved across the carpet as voices and laughter filled the suite.
And deep inside, where no one could see, Lara offered a quiet prayer to the Goddess for this happiness to last forever.
…
The screams began at dawn three weeks later.
"QUICK, STOP THE BLEEDING!"
"WHERE'S THE HEMOSTATIC DRONE? MOVE!"
"PRESSURE IS SPIKING AGAIN!"
"MADAM! PLEASE STAY WITH US!"
The birthing suite dissolved into chaos.
White coats flashed under surgical lights. Monitors shrieked in sharp electronic bursts. Sterile metal clattered. A machine hissed. Another whined. A swarm of specialists, people who had spent a century or more in medicine moved with desperate speed around a bed drowning in blood.
Blood, bright red poured from Rhea in thick, unstoppable sheets. Her body convulsed violently, back arching off the reinforced table as preeclampsia seized her like a demon. Veins bulged black across her swollen belly; her eyes rolled back, foam flecking her lips. Every muscle locked in agony while her organs began to fail one by one, kidneys shutting down, liver swelling until it threatened to rupture, lungs filling with fluid so she drowned while still breathing.
A sudden, violent gush that soaked the sheets and spilled onto the floor like someone had opened a faucet inside her body.
The staff moved like soldiers.
Hands pressing.
Tools clattering.
Suction tubes slurping.
A physician slammed a palm against a monitor.
"Hypertensive crisis! Prep anticonvulsant now!"
A needle plunged.
A line fed medicine into her arm.
For one heartbeat, the convulsions eased.
Then a sudden gush of bright red blood soaked the sheets and spilled over the edge of the bed in a heavy, terrible sheet, pattering onto the floor.
Someone swore.
Another voice cracked. "Where is it coming from?!"
"Diffuse rupture, vascular tearing!" a medic shouted back, hands slick to the wrists. "It's everywhere, it doesn't make sense!!"
Hands pressed down.
Suction tubes slurped.
A drone hovered in, projecting blue scanning light over Rhea's abdomen, then flashed red warnings faster than anyone could read.
At her side, Gillian clung to her hand.
"Goddess… please…" Gillian whispered, clutching her hand so hard his knuckles whitened. His expensive silk shirt was soaked crimson, his face streaked with tears and his wife's blood. He didn't care. He only stared in horror as the hemorrhage refused to slow, as if the very life inside her was tearing its way out. He kept leaning close, repeating her name like a prayer, like if he said it enough times she would be okay.
Rhea's eyes fluttered.
Sweat plastered pink strands across her forehead. Her breath came in broken gasps. For one impossible second, her gaze found him through the haze.
"G…Gillian…" Rhea's voice was a broken whisper between seizures.
He pressed her hand to his cheek. Tears ran freely now.
"Yes, my love. I'm here. I'm right here."
Her fingers twitched weakly against his skin.
"Am… am I going to die?"
Her voice was small as if strength was leaving her body.
The question tore straight through him.
"No." The word broke in his throat. "No. No, you're not. Everything will be fine. I promise. Please, just hold on. Please."
Rhea squeezed her eyes shut.
A sob tore out of her throat, strangled by pain.
"I… wanted to see them…"
Her voice cracked into a scream as another convulsion ripped through her body.
"I wanted to… hold our children…"
Her voice trailed off.
For one horrifying moment, she went still.
"HEART RATE CRITICAL, START EMERGENCY RESUSCITATION!"
Gillian's world narrowed to the flat tone of the monitor and the sight of his wife's hand going limp in his. Doctors shoved him aside, but he barely felt it. He simply stared, eyes empty, as the room filled with frantic shouts that grew distant, meaningless.
At the doorway, Lara stood frozen.
Her hands covered her mouth.
Tears spilled down her face unchecked.
She was not Head Maid at that moment.
Not the estate's strict supervisor.
Right now she's just a girl who had once shared clothes with Rhea.
A girl watching her friend drown in red.
Time lost its shape.
Seconds passed, seconds that felt like eternity…
Then suddenly.
"Waaaaaa!"
A new sound cut through the chaos.
Gillian's head jerked up.
His eyes widened like a man waking from a nightmare.
He staggered toward the sound, shoving past a stunned doctor.
Then he saw the warming table.
And whatever remained of him broke.
A tiny infant lay there, umbilical cord still attached, body trembling a clear sign of life.
But her face, There was a thick, rope like growths, purple black and pulsing, it distorted her face, twisted across from temple to cheek. One eye was swollen completely shut beneath bulging flesh. The skin there looked raw, uneven, almost melted, mapped with writhing veins visibly beneath the surface.
The other three infants lay silent…too silent.
A nurse adjusted the towel with shaking hands.
Under the cloth, the growths pulsed faintly.
Gillian's breath hitched, he felt like his world had collapsed.
His wife.
His three other children.
And now this.
This screaming thing.
This monster…his daughter…
Gillian dropped to his knees.
"No…"
He grabbed his head with both hands, fingers sinking into his hair as if he could claw his way out of the moment.
"No… no…"
He didn't know who he was saying it to.
He did not know whether he was grieving his wife.
His sons.
His daughters.
Or the screaming child still breathing on the table.
The cry that should have meant a miracle sounded.
A sound that should've meant life.
Instead, it sounded like a curse.
A doctor approached behind him, face gray, their gloves red dripping with blood.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Soprano…" a doctor spoke, voice heavy with guilt.
Gillian did not look at her.
"We couldn't save your wife." The doctor swallowed hard. "Nor the other three children."
The baby wailed harder.
The doctor's voice dropped, trembling with a kind of helplessness rarely seen in this day and age.
"Your daughter has a congenital condition unlike anything in our records. Severe neurofibromatosis like tumor growth intertwined with catastrophic vascular malformations…" She looked at the child and then away. "As of right now… there is no cure."
A file slate was set quietly on a side table…
On the Fourth of March, Year 443 of the Univerra Calendar, Roxana Soprano was born.
…
Years passed.
The Soprano Estate changed.
Not outwardly.
Its walls remained spotless. The chandeliers still shone. The gardens were still trimmed with obsessive care. Guests still praised the household's elegance.
But inside.
Doors closed more softly.
Servants lowered their voices.
Laughter became something that lived only in kitchens, laundries, and carriage houses… never in the east wing.
The east wing nursery had tall windows and too many toys.
A rocking horse with pearl inlay.
Mechanical dolls that blinked and sang.
Shelves of storybooks no one read aloud.
A room prepared for cherished children, now occupied by only one.
A small girl stood on tiptoe with her ruined face pressed to the cold glass. Her face still swollen and distorted, rope like growths trailing from temple to cheek like cruel vines.
Far outside of the estate, children ran across the lawns chasing one another through sunlight, shrieking with laughter. She saw a ball bounce. Then someone fell, got up, and laughed louder.
Her left eye was a permanent puffed shut, the lid thick and heavy.
The skin on that side looked uneven, fragile, as if it could tear if the world touched it too harshly.
Her right eye, however, was bright shining with quiet longing, the tumor on her face pulsing faintly with her heartbeat.
She lifted her fingers to the glass.
Her breath fogged a small circle.
THUD.
Heavy footsteps were heard in the hallway.
THUD.
THUD.
The sound was familiar enough that her small body reacted before her thoughts did.
She hopped down from the window seat as the nursery door burst open.
A large man staggered in, his black hair hung wild and unkempt. A beard shadowed his jaw, uneven and neglected. His crimson-pink eyes were bloodshot, hollow, ringed dark with sleeplessness. A half empty wine bottle dangled from one hand.
He looked nothing like the man from the sunlit suite years ago.
The smell of alcohol entered before he fully did.
It filled the nursery.
His gaze landed on the child.
For a single heartbeat, something flickered there.
Something soft.
A trace of tenderness as he caught the pink strands in her hair…
Rhea's pink.
Then as quickly as the flicker came, it died.
His face twisted in hatred.
"YOU CURSED THING! WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT?!"
He hurled the bottle.
It smashed against the wall beside the window.
Glass exploded.
Red wine sprayed across white wallpaper and marble like blood.
Young Roxana lowered her head at once, eyes on the cold marble floor, silent as always.
"YOU TOOK EVERYTHING FROM ME!" Gillian roared, voice cracking around the edges. "SAY SOMETHING! SAY SOMETHING, YOU MONSTER!"
Noticing the girl remained perfectly silent, he lurched forward, boots crunching over glass.
His hand rose into a fist.
Big enough to cover half her face.
The girl didn't flinch. Her head tilted up as her hollow eye simply stared back, lifeless, patient, waiting for the blow that never came.
Gillian's fist trembled in the air.
His breath came ragged. For a moment, it looked like he was wrestling something invisible, rage, grief, disgust, hatred, love or maybe all of them at once.
For a heartbeat, it looked like he would strike her.
Then his face crumpled.
His arm stopped.
He couldn't do it.
No matter how much he hated her, no matter how much he blamed her for ruining his life…he couldn't bring himself to hurt her.
A broken sound tore from him, half growl, half sob.
He turned and slammed his fist into the wall instead. Once. Twice. Again and again. Blood splattered across his knuckles and the white marble until his hand was a ruined mess.
Each impact sent dull cracks through plaster and bright blood across marble.
He didn't stop until his arm failed and he collapsed to his knees amid glass shards and dripping wine, shoulders shaking with ugly, helpless cries.
Roxana stood where she was, watching him cry.
At first she didn't understand.
She didn't understand why the place was filled with the woman in portraits she was never allowed to ask about.
She didn't understand why servants flinched when they brought her meals.
Nor did she understand why some clasped their hands together after seeing her.
But the more she saw the more she learned and then one day she finally understood.
This man hated her.
Like the nurses who looked away too quickly.
Just like the maids whose hands shook when they were near her or the gardeners who muttered prayers after she passed.
"Why…" he rasped, voice raw and drowned in grief. "Why were you even born…?"
Her lips parted slightly. A tiny sound tried to form.
But she swallowed it.
Because speaking sometimes made things worse.
She did not cry. Crying had never helped, it only sharpened the disgust in their eyes, made them whispers more of those cruel words.
So she stayed quiet.
Because being quiet made them hate her a little less.
Slowly, ever so slowly, the hatred in their eyes dimmed when she didn't speak, didn't cry, didn't react. It wasn't gone.
But it was enough for her.
Gillian stayed on the floor a long time, weeping.
Then, eventually, he rose on unsteady legs and left without another word. The door slammed behind him.
Roxana stood there, small and still, staring at the glittering glass shards on the marble, shards that looked like fallen stars.
She turned back to the window.
Outside, the other children were still laughing under the warm sun.
She pressed her deformed cheek to the cool glass once more, the tumor throbbing softly against it, and watched them play in silence.