"A few months after Whisper and I started our studies together, 2 new individuals were introduced to the group. Subjects 105 and 106. No one took a segundo look at them, not until they made themselves know. Castor and Duke were both from the outside world. They had been brought to our prison together and forced sa pamamagitan ng my father to work as partners. The only reason they cooperated was because he told them what was to happen with Whisper, me, and the rest of the children. They were supposed to be our knights. As a pair, they were impossibly strong. Too erratic and fierce to be leaders as Whisper and I were, but a good pair all the same.
"Castor eventually decided to break the rules ibingiay to her with the plan. She told us it. Told us that Whisper and I were meant to lead our army as his amy. My father was a brilliant man. He found out and wanted Cas executed for breaking his rules and risking everything he had worked for the last twenty years. He also realized that Whisper and I, along with the others who we had told, including Duke, would not allow her to be harmed. So he moved his plans up.” Once again his voice changed. It gained sobriety.
"Another part of his plans was that there would be an heir to the throne. But Whisper and I felt nothing else for each other than a partnership, similar to the connection between Aryess and I. And since we were too young at that point.. He had 'routine checkups' done on us both, in which we were ibingiay anesthetics and knocked unconscious for surgery. Lucky for him, we had both already met puberty.. I'm sure you can put the picture together. Whisper was told immediately that she would become pregnant, so that she wouldn't do anything that could harm the baby or herself. Dr. Felis thought there was no possibility that we would try anything rash with her in such a delicate state that would require she have medical attention at any point in time. So he took Castor away, expecting no retaliation. We thought she had been executed. So we made plans.
"Duke was becoming irrational with his partner stolen from him. They had been so close for three years, dependent on one another even madami so than most of the partnerships that were forged during training. When we made plans to break out of the compound, before Whisper was madami than a buwan or two along, he wanted the honor of killing my father for everything he had done to him, us, every other innocent child in that prison, and especially to Castor.
"And despite everything.. I told him. I told my father what would happen, a night before it happened. I tried to persuade him to help us and restore Duke's faith. Even after everything that happened in that horrible Hell of a place, Dr. Felis had earned the trust of every subject there. Some of them only met him once or twice, but he was the only one who cared to ipakita us kindness. I thought he might help us. But he left. There was no way to stop our combined forces from escaping and, upon realizing this, he fled. He was gracious enough to give some excuse to the other directors and doctors about leaving on some emergency rather than give us away. And so we escaped."
"What happened when Duke found out about your father leaving?"
"He was furious, of course. He blamed me, without knowing I was the one who told or that I was the doctor’s son, for being the paborito of that monster. That's why he hated me so much."
"And... Noëlle?"
"I... I don't know. We traveled while Whisper was pregnant. When she was 5 months with child we decided to take precautions from those hunting us. That's when we brought her to her family in Paris. As I told you, she caught up with Duke and I the morning after she reunited with her parents. It was pure madness, but we couldn't argue with her. Neither of us wanted to either. I was her partner of course. And Duke.. Castor and Whisper had nearly become sisters in the time Cas and Duke served as our segundos in command. I held a similar bond with Duke before we broke out. After Cas was taken, Whisper comforted our remaining knight. They became very close. You could even say they fell in love.
"I was madami than happy for them, of course. They were like my older siblings. Okay, that sounds a little like incest, but what I mean is.. we were a family. I loved that in its strongest form, which was them together. But Duke didn't know that the fathering genetics of Whisper's child was my own. I didn't even realize it until the araw she was born.
"We had been on a ship in the three months after leaving Paris. It was insane having a pregnant 16 taon old playing at pirate, but we were extremely careful. I've already told you that we were captured while on a cruise sailing to America. The three of us, we took the ship within a week of our capture. Turned the crew against their captain and with the same pag-ibig that the inmates had for Whisper, the pirates named her their new captain. Well, they named me their new captain because of the obvious connection between us, but if Whisper hadn't been four months from having a baby she would have been in charge of those brutal sailors. That's another thing Duke was sore at me for, when I was named head of the pirates.
"They treated her like the princess she had been meant to be. They made sure that she was always comfortable, that the cabin where her and I held our quarters was safe, clean, well guarded. When she was a few weeks from being due, I proposed docking in a town that was off the charts, but also safe, clean, and comfortable. The entire crew was unanimous in agreement. A couple of weeks after we settled in the port, Whisper's daughter was born. I was the only member of the crew present aside from a boy, Aden, whose mother had been a midwife, conveniently enough. Duke was staying out of the way on the ship where the rest of our sailors waited. As soon as the baby was born... She was so healthy. Had a good pair of lungs. She was screaming so loudly that I'm surprised our crew didn't hear her from across the harbor. She already had a full head of hair as curly as Whisper's.. and as golden as my own.
"I don't think Whisper anticipated that she would have a feature of mine that was so recognizable. The baby stopped crying almost as soon as her mother had her in her arms.. but then Whisper started crying. She was petrified that Duke would get angry. It was so, so stupid that we thought he would realize that the baby shared my genes. Obviously nothing physical or even romantic had happened between us, but... Whisper only stopped crying when it started to upset her daughter. We knew that we couldn't keep her ligtas from him. We couldn't keep her ligtas from him, or the dangerous lives we lived.