Chapter 2

Dear Diary
Am I lucky or what?
I’m married to the Universe’s most powerful king. He’s kinda nice. And he has money too. One almost wishes one wasn’t how one is.

So what if my plans of universe-dominance went kaput? I married the most powerful king in the universe. Literally. I cannot get over that.
It’s just a matter of a few months now.

Anyway, I met his daughter yesterday. Her name’s Snow. A bit silly, yes. But she’s damn pretty. You take one look at her fair hair and smiling, dimpled face, you start feeling insecure.
However, MyrorMe still abides by me faithfully. Hah, perhaps Snow isn’t as pretty as me after all.

Artemis

***

Good-natured Snow of course knew none of that. She didn’t know the mistake her father hadmade. She still believed that Artemis was as she looked – nice.
She’s the ever-smiling, friendly, little Princess. She befriended everyone. She was the epitome of sweetness. Of course, when you have a know-no-wrong Princess and an evil step-mother, you get a recipe for a disaster.

And such a self-obsessed step-mother at that. She was not known for her gracefulness when losing. And if she wanted something, she couldn’t settle for being second.
Every morning, she would open her Vaio, bring up MyrorMe and ask it:

“MyrorMe , MyrorMe, this you say,
Who’s the prettiest in the Milky Way?”

Yes, a rhyme. She might as well have added hand-actions too.
But since she was that breathtakingly beautiful, she was always given the same answer – “You” – by MyrorMe’s WAN which spanned across the Milky Way and compared owner shots.
That one single-syllabled word had a huge effect on Artemis. It fed her vanity.

***

Snow was, by now accustomed to seeing Artemis sit at the breakfast table, cooing away to her father everyday. She was used to seeing both of them together always.
She didn’t waste much time thinking about Artemis anyway. She’d grown up these many days without her, and she could continue growing up without her, thank you very much.
After breakfast, she would sit at her computer, studying. She was taking up three courses that year which meant a lot of time spent attending the online teaching sessions.
And then of course were the exams.
If there was one thing she hated more than sitting in front of her computer trying not to yawn or fall asleep during her ‘classes’, it was an exam. Ever since newer anti-cheating software had come up, she couldn’t even have any other piece of text in the same room other than the electronic test-paper in front of her. Spell Check was temporarily disabled the moment her paper loaded and other websites simply refused to open. If they detected any open piece of text around her, the software would just jam her test paper and she would be recorded for cheating.

That fine day, Snow had left her teaching session on and had gone off for a walk and the computer had started to beep horribly. Really, what was their problem??

As she ran towards her room, she caught a glimpse of Artemis’ face peeping out from her room window. She could have sworn her face was covered with hatred unseen before and all of it was directed right at … her.