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Main Characters
Karina
Karina Leopold
- Broken Bird: With the parents she has to drive her into a literal fatal disease out of neglect, it’s a given. And it was her love of painting that caused this in the first place.
- Black Sheep: Is considered as such towards the rest of the family. Both her looks and talents are perceived as mediocre, and she's shoved into the role of the "good sister/caretaker" role without much choice.
- Calling the Old Man Out:
- In the past, Karina would try to call out both of her parents over their blatant neglect towards her while showering praises and favoritism to her siblings, but they would threaten to disown her for daring to complain to them, so she gave up on talking it out to her parents.
- In one flashback, she called out her mother over coddling her younger brother while giving her nothing but disdain, all because she forced Karina to give away her birthday gift to Feldon. Her mother starts her usual tirade and expectations of Karina existing as nothing more than the “perfect big sister”, but this made her snap and declare she wished she was an only child. This only earned Karina a Bitch Slap and "The Reason You Suck" Speech from her poor excuse of a mother.
- The reason she gives this trope in letter form is because she learned from her past experiences that it’s pointless to tell them in person because said parents are in denial that they’ve treated her terribly. In the letter she reprimands her father over his demands that she exist as nothing more than a mere footstool for the family (especially to Abelia) while only caring about the family’s reputation. She’s happy to finally have someone like Milian by her side who truly loves her and never threatens her, unlike her parents. Her dad is appalled that she’s ungrateful, until he reads that she expected him to say just that while questioning him why he never seen her cry because she gave up on earning her family’s genuine love. She ends her letter by asking to never contact her again unless it’s for her funeral arrangements.
- Innocent Blue Eyes: The only physical trait she shares with the rest of her family. Her bright blue eyes definitely reflect on her innocent, yet broken heart.
- The Unfavorite: Karina is overshadowed by her siblings and is considered to be the extra child by her parents. Her leaving causes the entire family to realize how badly they treated her, but by the time they all come to this conclusion, it's too late to make amends.
- Your Days Are Numbered: Due to her strong passion in painting to cope with dealing with her family’s neglect, she’s diagnosed with the fatal art disease, and doesn’t know when she’ll succumb. She decides to use her remaining time left alive to run away from home and become a great artist without her family's shadow hanging over her.
Milian
Duke Milian Pastellio
- Berserk Button: Anything to do with Karina’s family can easily set him off. Given how extremely neglectful they’ve treated her, it’s understandable.
- Crazy Jealous Guy: He gets… a little furious whenever he sees Ferriel being too friendly with Karina. One time it brought out the savage wolf in him just for seeing them in a happy mood.
- Nice Guy: Milian is this, despite his initial rough, aloof exterior.
- Perfectly Arranged Marriage: Karina and Milian were originally engaged by her parents. Milian didn't like the arrangement, as he believed Karina was too fragile to handle the cold and dangerous north. After Karina comes to live with him, he realizes that she's quite tenacious and slowly warms up to her, making it harder for Karina as her disease slowly kills her. They eventually marry and have a child, though Karina finally dies for good when her daughter is five years old.
The Leopold County
Count Leopold
Count Leopold
Karina's father, and the head of the household. His family seems to get along well on the outside, which hides the fact that he and the rest of his family neglected Karina.
- Abusive Parents: Where do we begin?!
- He’s extremely neglectful of Karina and favors the rest of his children over her. He’s in denial that she has art disease because he firmly believes that she’s got no talent as an artist. Most of his time with Karina is shaming her by comparing her to her sickly younger sister.
- Yet he has the audacity to question where everything went wrong and refuses to admit any fault he has in badly treating Karina. Because Karina was sheltered, clothed, and well fed is his definition of good parenting, but treats her as nothing more than a nanny than his own child.
- He and his wife have quoted that Karina should have voiced her displeasures. In the past, they would often threaten to disown and leave Karina to fend for herself on the streets whenever she called them out on their bullshit.
- Can't Take Criticism: This is a major personal pet peeve for him. He can never comprehend nor admit whenever someone calls him out on being a horrible father to Karina since he never would admit to loving her in the same manner as his other children.
- Hypocrite:
- He believes Karina is selfish and immature for daring to think for her own happiness, despite never allowing her any rights to be her own person, nor love her in the same manner as his other children. And he’s been enforcing this belief onto Karina ever since she was a little girl. He’ll also throw tantrums like a bratty teenager whenever someone criticizes his poor parenting.
- Thinks of himself as a good parent, but denies that he favors his other children over Karina while emotionally abusing her whenever she falls short of his expectations. Even refusing to hire out a serious search party when she runs away. Yup, this douche isn’t earning any “father of the year reward” anytime soon.
- Never My Fault:
- He refuses to see any fault he had in neglecting Karina into running away and expects HER to grovel for his forgiveness. Heck, he’s mostly driven into tracking down Karina just so he’ll drag her back home so that he can force her to beg on her knees to be back into the family and admit HER wrongdoings.
- Denies that Karina is fatally ill, but a servant reveals that he received reports that she sounded sick outside her room. He demands to know why he wasn’t informed of this until now, but the servant pointed out that he was, but at the time dismisses the report under the excuses of his work while voicing his belief that Karina can take care of herself since she’s an adult. Rather than admit he was wrong in ignoring Karina’s wellbeing, he bluntly tells the servant that he should have told him anyway.
- As mentioned above, he would threaten to disown and abandon Karina to the slums whenever she called him out on his neglect, so she gave up on talking it out with him. And he has the gall to expect Karina to simply tell him of her complaints instead of keeping it up bottled inside, despite said threats to abandon her over his annoyance at hearing her complain.
- Even in his letter to Karina, he reprimands her for running away, but mostly because of his fears of the risk of damaging their family’s reputation while showing only concern for Abelia’s sickly condition getting worse because of Karina’s long absence, while threading to disown her AGAIN even though she’s already out of his life.
- Parental Favoritism:
- Denies that he plays favorites, while putting Karina’s happiness dead last, or none existing at all, while showering praises with his other children, especially to Abelia due to her sickly condition. And he doesn’t realize that Karina is succumbing to art disease, but by the time it’s brought to light, he refuses to acknowledge it.
- He suddenly remembers that in one chapter, he gave Abelia’s room the closest to the stairs for her doctors, his eldest son the next to her because he’s his heir, his youngest son next just cause, and Karina’s the furthest away because he felt like it. While shooting down Karina’s protest due to her fears of her room being so isolated and far away from everyone.
- Parental Neglect: See above for the full details. In short, he views Karina more like a nanny than his own child. But he’s in denial that he’s a horrible parent solely because he’s sheltered her and bought her whatever she needed, but never realizes it was love that was the most important of all.
- Ungrateful Bastard: He enforces on Karina to be the perfect sister by praising her older brother and doing whatever her younger siblings ask her to do while never treating her with the same praises and adoration he gives to her siblings. He’ll rip into her whenever she falls out of line but denies he’s a bad parent just because he’s bought all important living conditions except love. And he has the audacity to believe Karina is the ungrateful one of the two for daring to run away to someone who genuinely grew to love her.
Countess Leopold
Countess Leopold
Karina's mother, a typical noblewoman in charge of managing the household affairs. Her family seems to get along well on the outside, which hides the fact that she and the rest of his family neglected Karina.
- Abusive Parents: She’s just as bad as her husband, if not worse. And THAT’S saying something.
- She showers all her children with affection, except Karina. From the time she was a little girl, she constantly orders Karina to be more “grown up” and give into her siblings every whims.
- She drive Karina to tears just because she didn’t want to give away her birthday gift to her younger brother, the same birthday gift her mother gave Karina in the first place, but she cruelly tells her to just give it away.
- A couple nights later, Karina asked her mother if they could sleep together, but is told no because she believes Karina is too old for it while allowing Feldon to come to bed with her instead. Once again she berates Karina “immature behavior” and demands she act like a proper big sister. This was the final straw for Karina, who promptly declares that she wished she was an only child, but who could blame her?! Yet her mother goes as low as to slap her hard across the face and berates Karina over her outburst.
- Like her husband, she shames Karina by comparing herself to Abelia due to her sickly condition, but by recent times Karina had discovered she has been diagnosed with art disease.
- Also like her husband, she also has the audacity to question where everything went wrong as they both point out that Karina should have voiced her displeasure. Flashbacks show of both her and her husband responding to Karina calling them out on their abuse, neglect, and favoritism by threatening to disown and abandon her to the streets.
- The old bitch goes as far as to declare that Karina is “lying” over her art disease because she believes that Karina only wants attention. This makes Enphric angrily call out his mother.
- Never My Fault: Refuses to admit how cruel she treated Karina, while pondering where anything went wrong with how their relationship went south. As mentioned above, she believes if Karina had any problems then she should had told her, while missing the part that she would outright threaten Karina with abandonment whenever she dared to complain of her status as The Unfavorite.
- Evil Redhead: She comes off as a doting mother and dutiful wife, but pushes her eldest daughter to the corner while coddling her other children. Even going as low as to threaten her from the time she was a little girl to abandon her whenever she dared to call her and her dad out on their neglect.
Enphric
Lord Enphric Leopold
Karina's eldest brother, and the heir to the Leopold county. He's an accomplished scholar and swordsman, currently working at the capital. He's the least closest sibling to Karina.
- At Least I Admit It: When visiting Karina’s art gallery, he calls out his father over his extreme neglect while pointing out that both of them, along with his mother and younger siblings are at fault for pushing Karina away. His father denies any wrongdoing because he sheltered, clothed, and bought Karina “whatever she wanted”, but Enphric calls him out on this because he didn’t give her the same love he gave his other children, while admitting he’s treated her just as badly.
- Character Development: At the start of the story, he’s insensitive to Karina’s plight, but sees himself as a caring big brother, despite purposefully clashing his graduation celebration at the same day as her birthday while refusing to reschedule it for another day. Once Karina runs away, this brings out the Big Brother Instinct in him and finally makes him realize how badly she must have had it. He even chews out his father over his denial of being a terrible parent.
- Never My Fault: He’s worried over Karina’s disappearance and wonders what could have drove her into it. It didn’t even cross into his mind that he largely ignored their parent’s neglect towards her while purposely scheduling a picnic to celebrate his graduation on the same day as Karina’s birthday would be the last straw for his sister. He eventually grows out of it.
Feldon
Feldon Leopold
Karina's younger brother, and Abelia's twin. He has great social skills, easily able to make friends and connections. He does tend to get into trouble, which Karina was forced to clean up after him.
- Annoying Younger Sibling: Shares this status with his twin sister. While he doesn't have a grudge against Karina like Abelia does, Feldon does take advantage of his older sister's docility and frames or shoves responsibility for his pranks onto her. At one point he went crying to his mother in order to force Karina to give him her own birthday gift, then threw it away when it grown tattered.
- Bratty Half-Pint: He loves pulling pranks while allowing Karina to take the blame for it. When he was only three years old, he fought with Karina over her birthday gift. When told no, he manipulated his mother to take his side and force Karina to give him her birthday gift while tearing into her for not being “grown up” and a terrible big sister.
Abelia
Abelia Leopold
Karina's younger sister, and Feldon's twin. She's a talented embroider, but is quite sickly and needs constant attention. Karina was closest to Abelia, being taking care of her when her parents couldn't, though it meant she had to give up on having a social life outside of required events.
- Annoying Younger Sibling: Shares this status with her twin brother. Abelia admits to being jealous that Karina is healthy and able to go outside and do things she can't, and so Abelia has made Karina stay home with her and give up things like her toys and snacks towards her. Karina hates that her parents favor them over her while Abelia doesn’t have a shred of concern over her major emotional scars.
- My God, What Have I Done?: When she overhears Karina’s letter to their father, she’s horrified over the the revelation of Karina’s intentions to never return while revealing that she’s dying from the art disease. She runs to her room crying once she realizes that Karina did briefly come back to put her to bed, especially lamenting that her big sister meant every word in her letter and feels especially guilty over treating Karina badly.
- Spoiled Brat:
- She revels at her family showering her with affection while pushing Karina to stay by her side like she was more like a nanny than an elder sister.
- She admits she would sometimes act even more sicker to make Karina stay with her because she felt jealous that Karina had a healthier body than her and hated that Karina could go to parties and make friends while she couldn’t.
- She would have Karina take the heat from their parents tirades from minor problems she started, then run to her to cry out how sorry she was for the predicament. Then ask for more favors.
Others
Ferriel Carlos
Marquis Ferriel Carlos
- The Gadfly: Ferriel likes to provoke people, particularly Milian, and is brutally honest towards people who he isn't fond of.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: Milian and Ferriel are this. They constantly butt heads and insult one another, but they do care about each other deep, deep down.
Dr. Winston
Dr. Winston
A gruff doctor who Karina sees when she isn't feeling well, since she doesn't want to rely on the ignorant family doctor. He diagnosed her with art disease and helped her get to the north, but ended up following after her after being concerned over her wellbeing. He also has art disease, which has slowly destroyed his eyesight, and has given up on his gift embroidery as a countermeasure.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: While he initially acted as a Dr. Jerk towards Karina, he softens up once he figures out how bad her home life is, and chases after her up to the north. Justified, as he too has art disease; it's implied her determination to live her final days to the fullest shook him out of his cynicism.
- Real Men Wear Pink: The gruff, grumpy Dr. Winston is an expert embroiderer, with the miraculous ability to find anyone or anything using his embroidery as a map. However, he gained art disease and had to stop in order to keep his eyesight intact. He will still do it for special occasions, however, like when he went to find Karina in the north.
Nocturn
Nocturn
Abelia's personal doctor, and the rest of the Leopold family's doctor if needed. Karina once had feelings for him, but they died when she realized that he only had eyes for Abelia, who reminds him of his dead little sister. He's Dr. Winston's apprentice, and takes charge of his clinic while he goes up north to check up on Karina.
- Dr. Jerk: He’s warned by his mentor not to play favorites with the patients, but he does just that with Abelia because he’s reminded of his own dead sister, even borderline into a romantic attraction. He doesn’t notice that Karina had a a crush on him for a time, until he tears into her of what a terrible person she was for ALMOST getting Abelia injured. Nor does he notice her fatal art disease because he’s only focused on caring for Abelia.
- The Intern: He's Dr. Winston's apprentice.
- Kick the Dog: One time he witnessed Karina getting badly injured by a falling bookcase, no thanks to Abelia’s antics over demanding her sister’s attention. Rather than care for her injuries or scold Abelia, he rips into Karina for almost getting her sickly little sister injured. Even proclaiming that he’s glad that she got hurt instead of Abelia, all the while imagining that he’s seeing Abelia as his own deceased sister.
- My God, What Have I Done?: After Dr. Winston leaves for the north, Nocturn eventually realizes that the patient with art disease is Karina, and laments how he didn't help her when it was obvious she was ill.
- Replacement Goldfish: Nocturn cares a lot about Abelia because she reminds him of his little sister, who died young. He’s not even hiding his outright attraction to her.
