So You're a Side Character...
You are reborn as the neglected daughter of a villain who is keeping the child male lead imprisoned. Not that you knew it for a bit, not until you learned your birth sire’s name.
You aren’t well regarded and barely make enough to keep yourself alive.
Your father is a violent sort and the boy is a trophy from a formerly well to do rival that he utterly crushed through underhanded means.
He thought to raise the boy as a loyal slave soldier but has been distracted by other issues… and the boy is resistant to mental manipulation magic and has a feel for manipulation of any sort… which is why you’re pretty sure he won’t turn all siscon tsundare on you… or worse, possessive yandere.
He will, hopefully, take it as another neglected child’s attempt to escape and live.
While dodging cliches is being mentioned…
You’d just like to say you did dodged the usual cliche of truck kun or car kun assisting you on to your new life, being zapped into it or whatever. You didn’t even die in hospital.
You aren’t even sure what caused your death… only that you had a bit of a headache when you went to bed and, when you came back to yourself, you’re a kid who has been beaten bloody.
You may or may not have disassociated for a bit.
It was the hunger that brought you back.
For a while, you’re too busy trying to survive to click as to where you are.
Hell, you didn’t even read the book. It was your sister who had found a web comic version of it that gushed all over the place about it, filling you in whether you wanted to know or not.
Now, you’re very glad she did. Any knowledge that gives you a leg up is welcome… even if it’s bad news.
You never got to read the end of the series but you had definite opinions on it since, after your sister’s gushing, you went and looked up the wiki out of curiosity.
This ML was cast as the villain of the piece but was also the main protagonist.
The ‘Hero’ was frankly, an airhead, who won through plot armour, and the main FL carrying most of the load. She didn’t heel face turn on the airhead (though you’re of the opinion she should have) as far as you know because the ML was, admittedly, hot.
The typical spiky black or brown hair worn long enough to put in a low tail, chiseled / arristocratic features and striking eyes, the dark skin of the desert people, black with hints of deep red in certain lights in his case… not that you ever saw them. The cells weren’t well lit and you haven’t seen the guy in literal years, not since he was a pre teen.
(You HAVE seen his pic in his wiki characters bio information though and damn, considering how he grew up, he turned into a lean, muscled and pretty sort. Very much a rogue though, single earring, bandana and all.)
You shared what you could, when you could, with him and shared with him that you knew you were only being kept around until you were old enough to use, either as a sacrifice or a slave (you were keeping a low profile for a reason) and were likely to die here and then asked him, when the chance came, to run and to live.
You made a promise with him that, if by chance, he got away to live however he could. If that meant doing bad things like cheating people or stealing or whatever, DO THAT… but stay alive and you would try and do the same.
He asked what if you both got away and you smiled and told him, then you would both do your bests to live.
(You’re pretty sure he’s your bio brother or half brother. Maybe a cousin.
You’re definitely related anyway and he’s a year or so older.
He has no memories of anywhere but here so he must have been very young when taken. Either his mother was still pregnant with him or he was new born to a few months old.
You don’t want to think about what that meant for his mother… and probably your mother.)
It’s been almost a score of years since then.
Bro is early to mid twenties and you’re twenty this year… now, if only this twit, who you’re sure is an Isakai or an Incarnate, would leave you the fuck alone.
The original manga series had you as a minor villainess who is more of a pest than anything else who disappears from the series with barely a sentence to describe her/ your fate.
Basically, bro bro had a tanti and you were collateral damage since you kept ‘failing’ your tasks.
That reality and timeline/ which you punted the moment you were able, had you as his oath thralled minion/ pawn.
This reality… you’ve not seen the guy since the hideout you skulked around was destroyed when you were ten odd.
You don’t have any outstanding gifts beyond being small, due to childhood starvation, sneaky, due to fearing for your life every day of it for ten years and having to steal food from the kitchens from a young age to survive and fast, from running away from your ‘fathers’ minions.
You were fortunate to have been picked up, injured, by a travelling priest and his caravan, as he recognised your eyes… which you apparently share with bro bro.
That being a trait of the wiped out line.
You’ve never seen your own eyes or appearance and you were very grubby.
Your hair is the ash y dishwater blond of the bastard who likely sired you though shot with darker brown red highlit streaks… not that any of that was recognisable under the dirt, dust and grime. You do have good bone structure though and that showed.
He took you in, had you cleaned up and educated by the female members of his order and nominally protected. You KNOW he’s got plans for you but, until you can manage on your own, you let it slide.
His plans included presenting you as an Heiress of the line and sponsoring you into the Court.
You’ll take the noble education but also circulate rumours that you likely have a brother out there and HE is the rightful Heir.
Should he be found, you are happy to abdicate in his favour as you were educated in a convent and, even with your sponsor’s aid, know little about noble niceties.
You were presented at Court at sixteen, two years late, but your learning was disrupted by a dreadful fever… apparently, another marker of the bloodline but since you were only a half, they weren’t sure you’d survive and you were slow to recover.
You did well enough but played up the delicate health angle and commissioned a search for your noble brother…
Who is boss of his own gang by this time and climbing ever higher in the underworld.
You haven’t had direct contact but you brother knows of his title, your existence and ‘ill health’ and is due to make a move any time.
You have NO idea why this hoe thinks you’re after the airhead.
In the series she fancied him, but nothing more. She was to zombified for more than that… and you have to admit, the airhead has a pretty face… he’s just got nothing between his ears outside of self entitlement and an unshakable belief that HE is the main character and is due to defeat the villain and blah blah.
He ticks all the boxes being a royal younger son, good looking to the point of bishiness, a slender but muscled build, an easy going manner (outside of his innate arrogance) and prodigious sword skills. Red blond hair, hazel eyes and symmetrical features.
FL is also quite typical being a former country lord’s daughter fallen on hardtimes, who made her way to court through cleverness, charm and beauty along with being able to make connections easily. (You envy her that much.)
Long chestnut brown hair with ashy highlights, brown so dark it was nearly black eyes, cupid’s bow lips, a slender yet shapely build. The works.
You drop a few bricks in the way of ‘hints’ before telling her that you never got to finish the series but you have NO intention of getting wiped out by ‘bro bro’ or anyone else.
You want a quiet, easy life.
Honestly, do you need to drop a few memes before she gets the hint.
You don’t know why she’s trying to adhere to the books time line so rigorously, but you’ve got NO intention of playing villainess to her heroine… and you think she could do better for herself than the airhead but whatever. You do you, hon.
You even gave her finger guns to hammer home the point.
You KNOW she’s an isekai… so are you. You just don’t care.
Let them find someone else to play ‘villain/ess’.
YOU just want a quiet life.
She almost has a tantrum over it, dead certain that if things don’t follow the ‘correct’ path, the world will end in destruction.
She is positively gobsmacked by your ‘and? So what if it does? Isn’t that even MORE of a reason to live a comfortable life while you can?’
She storms away and ‘spies’ on you. SURE that your after her man, plotting nefarious deeds… SOMETHING.
Why is it Incarnates/Regressors never think that there might be others of in a similar situation around? Or that things absolutely have to follow the ‘script’ of whatever book/ game/ manga / whatever or things would go to shit.
It never seemed to occur to them that it isn’t just THEIR decisions that can change things.
Free will exists after all and anyone’s actions can change things…
Hopefully, lil miss ‘heroine’ would get bored of it soon because you ain’t lil miss zombie and have no attachments to anyone really in this life.
You know they’ll probably marry you off, try and exile you or both… you just really don’t care. So long as you have enough money and food to get by and some human companionship now and then, this is fine.
Beyond surviving your ‘childhood’ the hardest thing you’ve faced was keeping the ML from turning into the typical Yandere/ Tsundare who was overly attached/ possessive of the female figure. You aren’t the female lead and had NO intention of becoming one.
You’re a side character and perfectly content that way.
Interestingly, both north AND south were regarded as barbarians here. It was the central territory that were the soft, rich elite. Also, in this world, it was the South that was a freezing icebox and the North that was scorching desert heat.
Just your and bro bro’s luck to have grown up in the scorching north.
(You’d never thought of that. Magical planet not Earth.
It’s entirely possible it has a different planetary structural set up right? Different magnetic field or equivalent. Different rotation and all that other jazz.
Why didn’t MORE writers outside of Pratchett play with that idea?
Even GoTs had the North as the froze part… and their seasonal cycle was seriously wack.)