if any artists could help with the cover that would be great! <----- image description Prologue Hello. My name is Emilia Andere Von Kleine Insel, princess of the island kingdom of Kleine Insel, a small stretch of land off the coast of Germany that the sea swallows more and more each year. This diary is the only place where I have ever been allowed to speak freely. I was born second.Not by much, of course. My twin sister, Mia Tochter Von Kleine Insel, entered the world exactly two minutes before I did, though you would think it had been two centuries by the way our parents speak of her. Mia has always been the sun around which the kingdom revolves. Beautiful, charming, loud — impossible to ignore. Wherever she walks, people look. I learned very young that people rarely look at me. Mama and Papa never bothered pretending otherwise. Mia was praised for speaking. I was briefly smiled at for staying quiet. Mia was dressed in silk and jewels while I inherited whatever no longer fit her. When tutors visited the palace, they taught Mia how to rule and taught me how not to interrupt. Still, I listened. People often forget that quiet girls hear everything. This is the story of how my family’s favoritism destroyed them. Or perhaps how it destroyed me first. The royal historians say Kleine Insel will someday disappear beneath the sea entirely. They say future generations may never know our kingdom existed at all. If that is true, then let this diary survive us. Let someone know that there once lived a forgotten princess who loved her family enough to let them break her heart. And let them know the kingdom chose the wrong daughter to ignore. Chapter 1 April 12, 1578 Dear diary, This is my first entry, though I suppose that is obvious. I do not know whether anyone will ever read these pages, but I think I would like to be remembered somewhere by someone, even if only by ink. Mama once told Mia, after her pet hamster Flocki died, Aller Anfang ist schwer — all beginnings are hard. Mia cried for perhaps three days before forgetting both the saying and the hamster entirely. I, however, remembered it. That is how life has always been between us. Mia experiences things loudly and briefly, like fireworks over the sea. I keep things quietly, sometimes forever. The palace servants say I was the calmer twin as a baby. They say Mia screamed until someone held her, while I simply watched the room around me. They say this proudly, as if I was their daughter instead, and sometimes it seems that way. Kleine Insel grows smaller every year. Some mornings seawater reaches streets it had not touched the day before. The scientists insist there is no stopping it. The priests insist there is. Papa insists nothing is wrong at all. That is another thing my family has in common with this kingdom: both are sinking while pretending to stand perfectly still. Mia does not notice these things. Or perhaps she does and simply chooses not to care. It is difficult to tell with her sometimes. Everyone loves her anyway. I suppose I do too. For now, I remain what I have always been: the other princess.But lately, when I walk through the market with my governess (one of the only people that really understands me), people in the village have begun smiling at me differently. Not out of politeness. Something else. More tomorrow. — Emilia
hold space while you read. last slide is cover description. Chapter 2 April 13, 1578 Dear diary, I think the first time I realized Mia and I were different was on our fourth birthday. Mama hosted a grand celebration in the palace gardens with musicians and ribbons tied to every tree branch. Mia wore gold silk. I wore pale blue because Mama said brighter colors suited Mia better. I remember one of the noblewomen kneeling beside us and asking whether we knew the meanings of our names.Before I could answer, Mia stood atop her chair and announced proudly, “Mia means mine and beloved.” Everyone laughed. Then she pointed at me. “And Emilia means rival.” The adults laughed even harder at that, though I later learned it was not entirely true. Mia basked in the attention anyway, bowing dramatically while Papa applauded her cleverness. Mama looked as though she might cry from pride. I remember looking down at my cake instead. Afterward, one of the kitchen maids quietly told me Emilia could also mean industrious. I liked her version better. Mia has always loved being looked at. Even as children, she could not bear the attention belonging to anyone else for long. One Christmas, when we were six, Papa brought us dolls from the mainland. Mia had begged for one with golden curls and a velvet dress stitched with pearls. Instead, she received a doll with dark braids and plain cotton clothing. She screamed. Not cried. Screamed. She threw the doll across the room so hard its porcelain face shattered against the fireplace. Mama rushed to comfort her while servants scrambled to clean the pieces before Papa grew angry. I remember kneeling beside the broken doll after everyone left. One eye remained intact. Bright blue. I kept it for years afterward hidden in my jewelry box, though I could never fully explain why. My own doll that Christmas had been forgotten entirely. A servant eventually stitched me one from leftover fabric scraps so I would have something to unwrap while Mia opened her replacement gift. Mine had crooked little arms and uneven buttons for eyes. I loved her immediately. As we grew older, the differences between us only sharpened. Mia filled rooms effortlessly. She laughed loudly, danced badly, and spoke over nearly everyone. People found it charming somehow. She could insult a person to their face and they would still leave smiling simply because she had noticed them at all. I envied that sometimes. No matter how hard I tried, I always seemed to disappear beside her. At lessons, Mia grew bored quickly while I listened carefully. She hated history, ignored economics entirely, and once declared geography “irrelevant” because “the island is small enough already.” Yet when tutors praised my answers, Mama would smile politely and say, “Well, Emilia has always had far more time for books.” As though intelligence was merely what happened to children no one wanted around. Still, I did not hate Mia. I do not think I ever truly could. When thunderstorms frightened me at night, she would crawl into my bed despite claiming storms were “beneath her.” When other noble girls mocked my quietness, Mia once threatened to throw one of them into the harbor. She can be cruel, thoughtless, vain, and selfish. But she has loved me in her own strange way. Perhaps that is what makes all of this so difficult now. Because lately, the people have begun looking at me the way they once looked at her. And Mia has started noticing. More tomorrow. -Emilia
