The youngest of ten children, (with seven brothers and two sisters) Liv’s value to her empire and family was always rather minimized. After all, Lusitania is first of all a military and trading empire, making its wealth from conquest of smaller countries and providing a safe place for merchants to run their businesses, and it would speak ill of the empire if such an… unimpressive specimen as Liv were ever to hold a prominent place.

Unlike her siblings, Liv was never physically strong or traditionally beautiful. A chronic illness – sickle cell anemia – has stunted her growth, and various complications from it have left her with a ruined immune system; a seasonal cold is enough to leave her in bed, too weak to do anything, for a week or more, and she still to this day puts up with the periodic pain of it. But what she had, that most of her siblings did not have, was an intellect to rival any show of physical strength and an iron determination to see her projects through. Her siblings were wary of her for it, until they realized how fragile her self-confidence was. All they had to do was imply uselessness – or just mention the name “Lucian” – and she’d break down.

About Lucian – Lucian Catilina was her best friend until they were twelve and fourteen. The son of a minor noble family, albeit one that was very old and very rich and had ties all across the empire. They’d started their education at about the same time – Lucian had delayed starting school for two years for his own health issues. Oddly enough, they met on what was to be the first day of school for a bunch of the palace kids – neither of them had been able to attend for their own medical reasons. That day the six-year-old Lucian had wobbled over to Liv’s bed and ordered the nursemaid to put her in a wheelchair and take her downstairs to the piano. He played all the nursery rhymes he ever learned and taught her how to play them, too, though at that point she was too weak to even properly strike the keys. They would meet for piano lessons once a week, or twice a week at first, but as they grew older the lessons grew in length and intensity – Lucian seemed desperate to learn, and then teach her, as much as he could. It wasn’t for a few years before Liv finally realized why. Sure, she’d known something was wrong but she hadn’t known what, hadn’t even wanted to think of what it might’ve been.

Their parents had agreed to have them married as soon as Liv came of childbearing age. This agreement was made when they were eight and ten. Still Liv refused to think of why this was being so rushed, or why Lucian seemed so desperately driven.

Until the day when eleven-year-old Lucian pulled himself through the door to their classroom, his body folded into a wheelchair. He held her hand and told her that he had muscular dystrophy and was going to lose his ability to play piano within two years and likely die within another three after that. And after that they spent hours at the piano together, both of them pouring their lives into it around whatever bit of schoolwork either of them had.

It was just a few days after Liv’s twelfth birthday that Lucian was taken to the hospital. He was under intensive care for several weeks, no one allowed to visit him. Liv spent that time, all those long empty hours, at the piano learning Lucian’s absolute favorite piano sonata – mozart’s piano sonata number 11. The one he’d had to give up on when his fingers had quit working right. About three weeks after he’d been taken in, she got the phone call that it was the end, got on a plane, went to visit him for the last time. She’d brought a keyboard along with her, of all things, and sat next to his bed and played the sonata for him and then held his hand and cried and cried. She’ll never forget the way he was laid out on the gurney, machines forcing air into his lungs and his heart to beat. She’ll also never forget the way, when she’d finished playing, that his fingers twitched around her hand, the way the corner of his mouth tilted slightly up into a tiny version of his signature half-smirk. And then he died.

She’d placed the coin in his mouth, kissed him away into the underworld as was her duty as the “spiritually closest” relative he’d had. She’d placed the wreath on his head before he was lowered into the ground, and she played the sonata – rather than speak – during the laments offered at the ceremony.

After that, she didn’t speak or touch a piano again for three years. She seemed to be an empty shell. Oh sure, she went through the motions in her classwork and other more practical things she was intended to learn, but there was no life in it. It’s only recently that she’s taken to heart his last request – that she make a mark on the world.

It was decided that Liv would be sent to Aciras, the first Lusitanian princess sent there in the course of history. She had to be sent off rather quickly (sixteen being already abnormally old for a noble girl to remain unmarried, at least by Lusitanian standards), before her people could start wondering whether there was some… other reason for her to not be married yet. (Spoiler alert, but there’s a reason. Her medical issues have rendered her infertile.)

While realistically she knows that being married off is the best situation ultimately... she can’t shake two feelings. The first being that she’s being unfaithful to Lucian, the second that she’s just being shackled down and made unable to ever fulfill her promise to him.