You Two Will Give Birth To Me In The Future

The identity of ‘Your Highness’, who came with priests and knights behind him, was none other than my father.

The Holy Knights around me almost bowed on the floor, but considering the relatively loose imperial etiquette, that was a bit overkill. However, I understand why they were so nervous. 

My father was one of the few ‘Saint Equites’ in the Empire’s history. Saint Equites was a title given only to those who awakened the ‘Divine Sword’, which could only be used by Holy Knights  of the highest level. Befitting his position as the master of the divine sword, His aura made you feel like making eye contact alone was blasphemy.

I thought all popes looked like that. But at this time, my father was only 18 years old. He wouldn’t have been a pope or emperor yet. My father must have been pope-like since childhood.

I paused while trying to raise my trembling hand.

I’ve been fooled by countless dreams since the day I lost my dad. The dreams had various backgrounds and contents, but the end was always the same. The moment I reach out to my dad, he becomes a swarm of butterflies or a scattering white light.

“Did you discover this child yesterday⋯⋯ ?”

“Yes, these maids found the baby in the room of Her Majesty, Princess Viola.”

A familiar voice answered my dad’s question. When I turned my head, I saw the maidservant I met yesterday. At her words, my father looked back at the court maids.

“Is there anything special about the baby?”

“Yes, yes! She’s a normal baby except for the fact that she is very well behaved. But what kind of situation is this?”

When the courtmaid bewilderedly asked, the maidservant whispered quietly.

“The oracle has come true. ‘A child of God will appear in the world of humanity’. Moreover, on the day of the oracle, a baby suddenly appeared in the imperial palace.”

“Then, this baby⋯⋯.”

The maid’s hand, which was holding the basket, gripped harder. Her very confused face looked down at me.

“Very well behaved⋯⋯.”

Dad pondered as there could be other meanings to the words ‘very mature’.

I was surprised to see my dad suddenly, but it wasn’t all unexpected.

Dad received the oracle and waited for a special sign, but nothing happened. Even the next morning, he would’ve checked once more for any abnormalities on the previous day, and I thought he would come to check if he heard about a baby appearing in the Imperial palace.

I clenched my hands due to my anxiety and opened them again. My father was a saint born with stigma like Sophia’s. If he had used his powers here, he might have sensed my filthy aura that Sophia felt.

How great would it have been if I were really God’s child. 

Sophia, the child of God, came to the Vatican at the age of five. The appearance of the child was clean and the cute way she spoke the Imperial language was unlike a child who escaped Nasha, a living hell.

“It’s about time God talked to Sophia.”

As a child, her pronunciation was somewhat slurred, but she introduced herself with unshakable confidence. The voice of God spoke in Sophia’s mind since childhood.  She was able to speak, and write without learning, then she went through the long and mortifying days in her journey from Nasha to the capital of the Holy Empire.

“⋯⋯Abu.”

But I couldn’t speak. Even mimicking a saint is impossible.

The helplessness that followed me all my life weighed down on me. It was sad to be trapped in such a weak body. I finally met my dad, but I can’t even call out to him

“Are you mumbling?”

Dad then turned to me.

He reached out to me, who couldn’t raise my hand. A large palm brushed my head.

I blinked, bewildered.

Dreams and reality were completely different. Reality was warm and clear.

My dad, who looked twelve years younger than I remembered, stared at my eyes and muttered.

“Your eyes are pretty.”

‘You have pretty eyes,’Dad would always say. My pink eye was inherited from my mother. My uncle said that I was the only one in the Imperial family with such a heterogeneous eye color. My dad was the only one who called my heterogenous eyes pretty.

Perhaps the dream I had this morning is still continuing. I lifted my head, feeling an indescribable feeling. Then, suddenly, I saw a red scar on my father’s palm.

“Abya⋯⋯.”

That must hurt. My dad was always sick. When I was young,I used to train my healing powers so I could relieve Dad’s pain. However, it was not easy for me, who was born with non-healing properties, to exercise my powers.

In the end, I was able to learn how to use my healing powers only after my father died.

I reflexively gathered divinity in my hand. And I put my hand on my dad’s wound.

Even though my hand touched his, my dad didn’t disappear.

I looked at my father who didn’t disappear with trembling eyes.

In my tear-blurred field of view, my golden divinity fluttered. As if me having a lack of divinity was a lie, my power was exercised.

The memories, the voice, that I have painfully and tightly kept.

It came pouring out as if a dam had collapsed.

‘It’s my dad.’

It’s really my dad.

I must play it cool. I have a plan. If I use power in front of my saint father, he may feel dirty.

My mind went blank when I felt my father’s hand and body temperature on my palm.

I couldn’t control my emotions anymore. 

“Ueueueu⋯⋯.”

Eventually, I burst into tears.

I could see Dad’s gray-blue eyes widening in an instant.

My father’s hand which touched mine stiffened, and the people watching were confused.

But I bet I was the most confused person in this room.

“Heuaeaeng! Heuae⋯⋯ Ug, kkeug!”

I tried to cover my mouth with both hands, but it became a more sad sob.

Maybe my tear glands are broken? As my body gets younger, my nerves that control my facial muscles become immature altogether. Tears flowed from my eyes like a real baby.

But I couldn’t stop.

No one understands. How it felt to be left alone in the Imperial family, infested with vipers after my father died. What it felt like when I first met my dad in my dream and woke up. How cut off and hurt I was until I gradually felt grateful to meet my father in my dreams, whom I cried for with longing.

I, who lost my father when I was six, was more familiar with my faceless father in my dreams, who disappeared when I touched him, than my living father. But now I see my real father, who disappeared 10 years ago.

The roaring maids and Holy Knights,  and even my father  don’t understand just how long I’ve been waiting for this moment

How difficult it was for me to get to my dad.

“The baby⋯⋯.”

My father muttered in a confused voice. The maidservant and court maid hurried to his side, thinking that the Crown Prince was embarrassed because the baby was crying.

“Hey, shall we try to comfort her?”

“Originally, she’s a docile baby, but what happened?” 

“She must have been surprised that there were so many people.”

As if they were trying to comfort me by hugging me, the maids reached out to me.

But I didn’t want to be separated from my father, whom I had barely reunited with. If I hadn’t met him now, I wouldn’t have missed him after I saw him.

How do I execute the saint imitation plan? I was neither a saint nor a witch. I was just a daughter, who reunited with her father after ten years. 

“Heuaeaeaeng!”

When I screamed and grabbed my dad’s thumb, the maids became puzzled.

In the midst of the commotion, in which a baby cried loudly and maids were bewildered, my father was alone silent. Whether my thumb was holding his hand or not, he was just looking at his palm silently with his hand open. He murmured softly as he looked down at his spotless palm, which had been cleared of their wounds.

“This is ⋯⋯.”

His knights, who spent all day focused on the next Holy Emperor, caught the little murmur. The maids, who felt something unusual, stopped soothing me and turned to my father.

Dad, who was looking at his palm strangely, slowly opened his mouth.

“The baby has used power.”

At that moment, the surroundings became quiet as if ice cold water had been poured on everyone.

“Heuaeaeaeng! Ueu, heuaeaeng⋯⋯.’

Having control over the commotion, I held my dad’s thumb tightly and wept bitterly. Like a child who lost her parents. Or like a child who regained her parents.

My dad, who was looking at me crying for a moment, slowly reached out to me. He supported my trembling back and butt, holding me in his arms.

“Is that true, Your Highness?”

In a space where only my cries could be heard, a Holy Knight had plucked up the courage to open his mouth.

Dad patted me on the back with a complex face. The touch of my father, who is still a bachelor, was awkward and clumsy, unlike how I remembered. But one thing was the same. My dad was a kind person. Even though he didn’t know I was his daughter, he hugged me tightly, regardless of whether I would dirty his clothes with my runny nose or tears. Whenever my dad patted me on the back, I became more emotional and kept crying. 

As if to confirm, Dad clenched and opened his healed palm a couple of times.

“⋯⋯ I’m sure. This is the power of healing.”

“Oh my god.”

“This baby is so powerful!”

A voice of admiration came from all over the place.

Healing using divinity, the power of healing, was one of the powers that only priests with stigma could exert.

Dad’s knight muttered with a lost expression.

“Then this child is the youngest priest in the Empire⋯⋯ no.”

He shook his head without speaking.

“You must be the child of God.”

“The child of God mentioned in the oracle is ⋯⋯!”

“The child of God, here, now?”

“This baby is a saint!”

Suddenly, a maid ran out and began to shout. The maids, who were snooping nearby at my father’s sudden visit, were surprised to hear the news. The knights were as noisy as the maids, and my father couldn’t mediate the situation.

Dad was looking at me. Dad’s eyes, which became even bluer under the light, seemed to stare inside of me. But I didn’t avoid his gaze.

‘I missed you, Dad.’

I buried my face in my dad’s chest.

Dad’s stiff shoulders trembled for a moment, then patted me on the back again. With his large palm patting on my back  gently I had a strange feeling that somehow everything was going to work out. My body, which was constantly nervous and worried, loosened up.

Without even realizing it, I fell asleep in my dad’s arms.