So you remember how I told you that I was this random background baby?
Yeah. That.
So it turns out, I am not just this irrelevant baby at all. I'm royal. Like, actual crown-wearing, throne-sitting, diplomatic-banquet-and-bureaucratic-protocol royal. I only discovered this tidbit of exciting information when this tall, icicle-eyed dude walked into the nursery, swathed in kingly arrogance and daddy complexes.
Guess what?That dude was the king.Also referred to as: My father.Plot twist level: Maximum.
You'd think I'd be thrilled. A princess! Gold! Power! Maybe even an early retirement plan!
Except… it gets worse.
Because I'm not the beloved daughter of the sweet, commoner-turned-queen Female Lead™.No. I'm the product of a scandal.The villainess's daughter.Yup. My mother—the infamous woman who drugged the king and got pregnant—now lives in the "Cold Palace," which is royal-speak for "Time-out zone for disgraced characters waiting to be forgotten."
Let's summarize:
I'm royalty.But the kind no one wants.
My mom is the country's favorite cautionary story.
And the king? He looked at me and snarled like I was a pigeon who had flown into his soup.
Of course, I did the only thing a cultured royal infant could do in the situation.I vomited on him.
Right on the royal uniform. Bullseye.
The king let out a sound like he'd just been hexed and yeeted me into the arms of the closest maid like I was a scalding potato. Then he stormed off like I'd personally insulted his lineage. Which, to be fair, I kinda did. With dairy.
After he was gone, I reclined in my crib, took a sip of air, and did some tough thinking.
If I was recalling the story right—and my head was finally sorting out the facts—I was Princess Charlotte. Not the refined, fan-preferred version.No. I was the tragic footnote. The villainess's daughter. The girl who never got an ounce of love and spent her life bitter, jealous, and horribly inept at choosing hobbies that didn't involve passive aggression.
On the timeline, I'd spend the next fifteen years ignored by my father, gossiped about by the nobles, and gradually becoming a raging teen terror. And then when the commoner queen and her equally virginal and beaming daughter arrive, I go full-on evil step-sibling mode.
I begin bullying her. Naturally.Because what's a good romance without a teen villain?
Finally, Daddy Dearest tires of my foolishness and tosses me into the dungeon, where I starve to death.No redemption arc. No last-minute forgiveness. Just. moldy bread and darkness.
And I thought dying of laughter was humiliating.
So now I have two choices:
Embrace my destiny and begin rehearsing my evil laugh, or—
Flip this script like a pancake and ensure Princess Charlotte Version 2.0 doesn't become dungeon fodder.
Spoiler: I'm choosing option two.But first, I have to make it through babyhood, not become a brat, and manage to get this emotionally constipated king to not despise me.
No pressure.