full bio | prequel

She remembers the reported consequences of the Chinese one-child policies, girls left for dead or drowned. She remembers the desperate French inheritance laws of yesteryear, favouring the natural heir - and the son always regarded as the natural, of course. Marie-Claude remembers a time when, perhaps, she could have understood why her father was so disappointed in how the only child he got was a daughter, but those times are past, and those parts of the world are half across the globe. She is his natural heir in a Ludon, the small, fiercely beating heart of Europe, where her gender should make no difference. She is his child in a society where, surely, she should be capable of proving herself enough.

Yet, Marie-Claude Barrault looks to her father, and she is never enough.

Even as she tries her best, as she abandons her political science studies at age 20, only two semesters into it, to follow his advice and begin studying literature instead, she is a disappointment. She dallies, doing her best to please him, dating a man he approves of, because Uwe is from his own party and thinks just like him. Her grades are not impressive, even as they couldn't climb any higher. Her performance isn't anything special, even as everyone else looks to her for perfection.

Marie-Claude could always improve, in his eyes - she could grow up, move out, get married, be less, be more... She should have been a boy. A natural heir.

That is the story. She cannot rewrite it. And she will not.