#stomme

"Oh, the first prince keeps sending spies into Princess Rayana's house. He's been doing it since before even I got here, and I think maybe also the king?" Dandelion said, dropping the first of her buckets into the water. The two of them were down at the river, Stomme helping Dandelion collect water for scrubbing, since Dandelion wasn't the strongest all on her own, and it'd be a couple extra trips otherwise. "He sends her maids and servants and slaves saying it's because he feels bad for her for not having magic, and every so often one of 'em will be a spy, and the princess will interrogate them and has to chase them out of her house."

Stomme hauled a bucket full of water out of the river, because if she didn't do something with her hands her whole entire body was going to collapse. And the princess had thought she was—?

"But, hey! You're still here, which means the princess knows you really are just a slave, now!" Dandelion said brightly, turning to head back to the castle, bucket in each hand.

"Why—the prince—?" Stomme spluttered, staggering to keep up, her mind fractured and lurching.

"Oh, he's paranoid," Dandelion said, answering a different question than the one Stomme meant to ask, "Been like that his whole life I hear. He's obsessed with the idea that his siblings will kill him for the throne. Which, y'know, not to be irreverent," Dandelion lowered her voice and ducked her head towards Stomme, "but the second prince just might. And I don't even know if that'd even be any real worse for any of us common folk if he did, y'know?" Straightening again, she continued at volume, "But if he ever actually listened to any of the spies he sent into Her Highness's house, he'd've told by now that Princess Rayana has no interest in the throne. She likes monster hunting, and she likes the Shelley household, even if the count is one big old grouch, and she's so in love with Lord Mori," Dandelion's tone turned romantic and wistful at that, fluttery in a way, "and she doesn't like the capitol at all and she wouldn't wanna have to deal with any of their siblings trying to scheme behind her back either, and I think she'd miss the area out here, you know? Capitol gets too hot and sticky in the summer."

"Ah," Stomme said, because Dandelion had paused, and it seemed like she wanted Stomme to say something.

"But don't worry!" Dandelion said, smiling, and turning, the heavy buckets sending her arms whirling out in front of her before stopping on opposite sides of her body, walking backwards for a few steps. "He only really does it about once a year, so we've got plenty… of…"

Dandelion's face fell into concern, no longer looking at Stomme, and Stomme turned back to see what Dandelion was looking at. It wasn't some rapidly approaching direwolf or rock troll, fortunately, neither was it Overseer Yan or the princess herself, which would've been worse. At first, Stomme couldn't tell what Dandelion was looking at. There was the river, the village, the cold and brittle woods, the road stretching towards the capitol with—

With people.

And there was one large flag raised high above the crowd, still so small in the distance she could only make out their vaguest shape, no individual sense to them. But she could see the flag, tiny though it still was. And that flag was magenta.

"Stomme we should hurry," Dandelion said, as flat and rushed as Stomme had ever heard the cheerful girl speak. Stomme nodded silently, and pushed through the pain in her legs to rush. Dandelion did not run, laden as she was with heavy buckets, but even so Stomme barely kept up.

"Your Highness!" Dandelion called, not hesitating to set her buckets aside and rush to the training fields, where the soldiers sparred and stretched and practiced at their deadly crafts. "Your Highness, when we were down by the river, we saw, your brother, I think! A magenta flag."

"Shit," the princess hissed, breaking off from where she had been quite thoroughly besting a knight (soldier? Stomme still wasn't sure) twice her size. "You're sure, girl?"

"About the flag, princess. They were still a ways off, but—"

"Your Highness!" someone called from the walltop, telescope in hand. "Party approaching; they carry the crown prince's flag!"

"Shit!" the princess hissed more violently. "Get me Yan!" she bellowed, tossing her practice sword aside and setting into a swift stride, now ignoring Dandelion entirely. "Clean out guest accommodations, tell the cooks—Josh, go ready my armor!" she barked out orders as she walked, Stomme only realizing she was coming this way when she was practically on top of her. Stomme stumbled backwards as the princess approached her, but not fast enough. Princess Rayana seized Stomme by the collar, thankfully not choking this time but still more than enough to have Stomme jerking down, panic flaring wildly within her, her knees buckling from the ache still in them.

Did the princess think she was at all involved in this?? That Stomme was somehow involved with the crown prince??? If Stomme had only just proven herself to not be a spy—a thing she had not known was in the realm of concern—did his arrival now make her suspect once again? Stomme opened her mouth, maybe to insist that she was no spy, maybe to beg for mercy, but the princess cut her off.

"Not you," she grit distractedly, not even bothering to look at Stomme, "You go change, you can wear your underclothes, collar, and tunic only, leave your boots shirt and pants in your room, then come meet me in the antlered reception room."

The princess did not wait for Stomme's response, simply released her and barked out a couple other names of people she wanted. Not that she would need Stomme to confirm her obedience, anyways. Stomme would do as she was told.

Stomme wasn't sure if it was consoling or not, that the princess seemed to know that. Did that mean she didn't blame Stomme for the prince's sudden appearance? Had Stomme proved her innocence well enough the night before? It was the most caught off guard Stomme had ever seen the princess, though it did not make her less intimidating. Did Stomme's presence in the reception room mean that Stomme was about to be blamed for something she had, a mere ten minutes ago, had no idea was even an option? Was she going to be near the crown prince again? Surely not, right? And if she was—

Oh gods. What if the princess made an example out of her to the crown prince? A "see what happens to the spies you send me" sort of thing? Stomme braced herself against the stone wall of the castle, her aching legs and the fear of what was to come making her weak, stumbling, slow. She did not fall over, neither on the way to her room nor while she was getting dressed, stripping down to her underclothes and replacing only her tunic back on top, but she did stumble and fall, feet frigid on the cold stone of the castle, on the way to the reception room.

It hurt. She was exhausted. She was scared. She was sick of feeling hurt and tired and scared all the time. None of that mattered.

Stomme stumbled out of the way as the door to the reception room swung open, Lady Rosa, Overseer Yan's wife, trotting out with a vase of flowers, one of the few decorations typically in the room. It was not an especially ornate vase, nor were the flowers particularly impressive, so Stomme could see why it would be insufficient viewing for a crown prince, but also, there weren't exactly many replacements which could be brought in, and its place was bare when Stomme hesitantly entered.

It was easier to focus on the vase than on the rest of it. The princess was currently absent, and Stomme felt her nerves buzzing from the lack of direction there. It felt like she was intruding, underdressed, skin prickling with cold and fear, without the princess there to direct her. With the vase gone, the only objects of note in the large stone room were the two large (beautiful) windows, two couches facing each other across a plain, thin rug, the low table perched between the couches, a large fireplace with two other servants stoking it to a roar, and the massive leshen skull on the wall that hung over it all. It was from a truly ancient beast, each antler the length of a man apiece, and Stomme had always found it intimidating to look at, like even though the monster was dead it could still somehow view her through those too-dark eye sockets.

It. Would not have been her first choice of room to receive a prince in. Fortunately, her opinions didn't matter and impacted exactly nothing.

Stomme hovered anxiously until increasingly-familiar fingers slipped below her collar and tugged her forward, casually, as the princess passed her, carried along by the motion of her stride. She, likewise, had changed, but while Stomme was exposed and self consciously trying to readjust the flaps of her tunic to cover more of her thighs, the princess was laced back into her dragonleather armor, clad from booted toe to the high necked jacket, her face the only skin visible on her. She had even larger, spikier teeth dangling from her ears than when Stomme had first seen her, the fangs segmented so as to have two sharp points each, and her sword at her hip, scabbard fine-made but having clearly seen real use. She was otherwise unadorned, and snapped (surprisingly loud despite her thick hawking gloves, also dragonleather) as she sat heavily upon the couch, pointing at her left foot, her right elbow on the couch's arm and magenta eyes on Stomme.

"Kneel here."

Stomme knelt.

"Face away from me."

Stomme turned, and let her arms be pulled behind her, tears stinging at her eyes again as vivid memories of only the night before returned full force, rope tying them together once again. Mercifully, this time, the princess left Stomme's legs and ankles untouched.

"Turn back towards me."

Thumb and forefinger gripped Stomme's chin, tilting her face up, not forceful but neither gentle, and the princess scowled irritably down at her.

"You," she said, fetching a little copper bell from her pocket and securing it to the front of Stomme's collar, the little metal clasp cold against Stomme's throat, "are a set piece. You understand me girl? You're furniture. From the moment my brother enters through those doors your one and only goal is to remain absolutely, perfectly silent. I don't care what you need to do to keep yourself so, but if you make noise, I will punish you. Confirm."

Stomme swallowed dryly, too scared to speak, afraid that even now she would be punished for the sound. Moving as little as possible to avoid ringing the bell, Stomme nodded, just barely, into the princess's grip.

"To help you stay your tongue," the princess continued, retrieving the second item from her pocket, a thin iron bit which would not have looked out of place on a horse's bridle, and Stomme opened her mouth obediently to receive it. The princess secured it, then tilted Stomme's face from side to side, making the bell jingle and Stomme wince, but no punishment came as the princess examined her work.

"You have until he gets here to get acclimated to your task," she said, releasing Stomme's jaw. She instead gripped a fistful of Stomme's hair (her hair tie had not been on the list of articles the princess still permitted Stomme to wear, and so she'd left it with her pants and boots) and pulled Stomme (surprisingly gently) so her head was on the princess's lap. Her heart jackrabbited in her throat, tightly wound as a hare in the bush while the fox stared on, but the princess released her hair and stroked gentle fingers through the strands, flattening and straightening what she had mussed.

"Off your heels, you'll injure your ankles that way," the princess ordered, "Ass on the floor."

Stomme shifted as ordered, wincing again when the bell jingled. But she had until the prince arrived. She had that long. She wouldn't be punished yet. It felt just as wrong to lean her shoulder against the couch, to lay her unworthy head upon the thigh of one so high above her, but Stomme was a set piece. She was furniture. She was where the princess wanted her, and clung to that truth as a drowning man.

The bit in her mouth meant her lips were always at least a little bit open, and gravity meant that when she drooled, it was going onto the princess's lap. She tried to discreetly suck her saliva back in, but the princess's gently carding fingers tugged sharply.

"Noise, girl. I said be silent."

Panic flailed inside her. She couldn't drool on the princess! But the other option was sucking spit back in through her teeth, and she knew the princess would not merely reprimand her, if she were to make the princess repeat herself.

Stomme, lowly and unworthy slave that she was, let herself drool on the dragonleather of a princess.

Princess Rayana settled her right cheek on the back of a loosely curled fist, leaning against the arm of the couch, while Stomme trembled against her left thigh, the princess turning her scowl out towards the window while servants and other slaves moved about.

"Easy girl," the princess murmured, petting absently at Stomme's hair, still. "You'll tremble yourself into ringing the bell. Try to relax."

So Stomme tried. She tried to go—not limp, limp would be too out of control—but loose. Tried to let herself sink her weight against the thin carpet and the couch and the princess's leg. She noted that a good number of the other servants in the room were stripped down like she was, most of them slaves. Actually, most of the slaves Princess Rayana owned were accounted for in this room, a rare sight that they would all gather this densely. And that all of them should be dressed like Stomme. They, at least, got to keep their boots on, a fact that reminded Stomme of just how cold her legs were, in this autumn month, despite the roaring fire, and how prolonged exposure would only make her colder.

She wouldn't move a muscle, though. She would stay where she was put.

"Yraima, fetch the Seveian rum, three mugs," the princess ordered one of the older slave women, who left silently and swiftly.

Stomme tried to. To relax. To hit an almost trance-like state, where she was nothing, not present, not meant to know or react to anything. She was a set piece. She was furniture. She was silent, that and nothing else. She nearly startled when Sora of all people entered the room, flushed red down his neck and shoulders hunched up to his ears, dressed down to a tunic and his boots and nothing else. He stalked awkwardly across the room, taking up a spot standing next to the fireplace, face turned away in mortification and just barely visible in Stomme's peripheral. She wondered what that was about, since Sora was a freeman, as far as she knew, though there were a couple other free servants here also adhering to the princess's odd dress code, and not all of them women either. Maybe it was just that Sora was a groom, and should be in the stables, and also had a nasty and biting attitude unfit for polite company, and should be nowhere near the princess and the crown prince.

Stomme didn't need to know. She was only a slave, and right then she was not even that. No more than a set piece. Silent.

Lord Mori entered some time later, and for the briefest moment Stomme almost didn't recognize the man.

Gone were his flowing eastern robes with their artful embroidery and many hanging baubles. He was in a long and flowing tailcoat of rich green and gold buttons, the tail of it rimmed with ruffles and lace. Beneath it, he had a purple vest and a silken ascot, and there was a golden chain connecting his lapel pins. His sleeves ended with a burst of ruffling that sprang wildly free from the tighter overcoat, and his pants were skin-tight and tucked into shiny black boots that squeaked on the stones before he reached the carpet. His hair, maybe, was the most jarring part of it all. When normally he wore it long and flowing, today it was all neatly secured in a tight topknot, not a single strand loose, and no less than three ornate hairpins securing it, the only part of his current attire that seemed connected to his normal aesthetic preferences. He wasn't even wearing earrings, from Stomme's admittedly limited angle.

"Your brother," Lord Mori hissed irritably, flopping himself on the other side of the couch, his right leg coming anxiously close to knocking Stomme in the back, "could give us some fucking warning."

"Mm," the princess hummed, a more curt sound than she typically made at her fiance. He huffed, and leaned in, caressing her jaw.

"Are you alright my love?" he asked, tone void of any of the syrup his "concerned" voice normally took, just a brief and short check on her well-being.

"I'll feel better once this is over. Everyone in place?" she asked. No one responded verbally, but something outside Stomme's range of vision must have satisfied her, because she then just ordered, "Rosa."

Lady Rosa curtsied, and left the room with a quiet swish of skirts.

The tension in the room grew thick enough to cut with a knife.

Lord Mori sighed, and hauled himself up behind Stomme, her peripheral vision not really well enough to see him, despite laying on the princess's lap. From best she could tell, he now sat perfectly upright, one hand resting on his thigh, while the princess did not move from her slouch against the arm of the couch, the only sound the crackling of the fire, the only movement the princess's gloved fingers in Stomme's hair.

The crown prince entered.

He was dressed entirely in expensive true-black, with even-more expensive magenta aiguillettes over both shoulders and parallel bars of expensively braided, intricate frogging down the length of his torso. He wore gems on each finger, most of them magenta as well, and his pitch-black beard was full and meticulously groomed, his equally dark hair slicked back and pink glints at his cufflinks.

Stomme was furniture. Stomme wasn't even a slave, she was just a set piece. Stomme was silent. Stomme wasn't important to what was happening here. She breathed, and did not move, and did not make a single noise to draw attention to herself.

Lord Mori rose as the crown prince strode into the room, bowing low, a placid, blank smile on his face that did not change as the crown prince did nothing to acknowledge him in return. The first prince's magenta gaze settled, hard and expectant, onto Princess Rayana, more than a decade his junior and many spaces back in line from his position for the throne. She did not rise. She did not move. She met his gaze, and pet idle fingers through Stomme's hair.

"Little sister," the crown prince said, both a reminder and a demand in his tone.

"Your Imperial Highness," she returned coldly, her words a wall more impenetrable than the thick stone surrounding this very castle. An angry muscle twitched in his jaw, but he merely sat on the opposite couch, gloved hands tugging at his pants as he did in that way of nobles whose pants had been fitted so utterly completely they could no longer sit without having to do that stupid little shuffle. Not that. Not that Stomme would think it was a stupid gesture. Stomme didn't have opinions about important free people, and she especially didn't have opinions then. On account of the fact that she was just a piece of furniture.

The fact that she had almost thought something negative about the crown prince set her back on edge, and she focused again on her task to remain still. To remain silent.

Lord Mori sat after the prince had, posture still exactly precise, impeccable. The crown prince barely glanced at him before saying to Princess Rayana, "You greet me with such odd formality, little sister."

Stomme could not parse some diplomatic doublespeak of nobles, but thought she caught the scolding there, that the princess had addressed him by his title while he called her sister, but she had not risen and bowed as he had clearly wanted her to.

"I recall you stating you wished that we should regard one another as family, brother. Has this wish changed?"

"Not so," he said, smiling in a way that felt slimy. "Indeed, it is familial love which has brought me all the way out to this quiet backwater of yours. I worry for you, little sister, that you should grow wild and uncouth on these savage hills and this barren castle. You should come visit the capitol more, that you may not forget your own refinement. It does not suit a princess to live in such paucity."

"Yes, well," the princess said, tone inscrutable, her fingers unerring in their rhythm through Stomme's hair, "I do not doubt the people of the capitol's ability to surround themselves with such refinements, rather than spending their budgets on matters of practical use."

She paused a moment, just to let the blow of the insult really land. Stomme, if she were a person and not a slave and not a piece of furniture, might have snorted, or at least smirked, as Lord Mori did. That the nobles in the capitol spent quite a lot on very frivolous bullshit was not a particularly rare opinion, though it was one that caused that muscle in the crown prince's jaw again to twitch. His anger was enough to keep Stomme low and small and afraid, shielding herself with the fact that she was not expected to be anything other than glass eyed and silent.

She wasn't sure what Lord Mori was smirking about, to be fair. He was a greater peacock than most noblewomen Stomme had heard stories of and seen, all added together.

She was furniture. She had no opinions. She was silent. Only silent. She did not have opinions on men who could hurt her.

"Though you need not worry for me, brother. I am kept quite comfortable here, and my every need is attended to by a plentiful number of servants."

"Yes," he said, magenta eyes sliding briefly down to Stomme, to the metal bit in her mouth and the ropes 'round her wrists and the bare stretch of her naked leg with the front flap of the tunic only barely covering her modesty. A shiver coursed through her, involuntary, scared, and she could only be grateful it did not ting the bell. "I see you've made use of the workers I have sent you."

"Some of them," Princess Rayana agreed, the rhythm of her fingers in Stomme's hair breaking only briefly, as she stretched her fingers out to full length, slow and purposeful. "Unfortunately, it seems you may yet need to work on your judge of character, elder brother, as some of them claimed—quite fictitiously—that they were spies who entered into my house under your order."

More than just his jaw twitched, that time, a vein in his temple pulsing briefly.

"I see," he said, tone lower, growing ever so slightly strained. "I am glad you knew better than to believe such obvious lies."

Yraima entered with a tray with three stout mugs on it, but did not go to the crown prince first. Instead, she knelt down at the princess's right side, head bowed low, leg outstretched so the whole room could see her bare skin, soft and beginning to sag with age, as the princess lifted her head from her fist for the first time since before her brother entered the room. She took a mug with that same casual, careless grace she lived her whole life exuding, and Yraima crossed behind the couch to kneel again by Lord Mori's left side, and offer the tray to him as well.

Visibly angry now, the crown prince snapped, "Rayana. While I know you were not raised with the same expectations as the rest of us, you should know better at least than to order your slaves to serve you and your gigolo before your future king."

"Oh?" Princess Rayana said, and Stomme could hear the single, smoothly arched eyebrow in her tone. As though cued, Lady Rosa entered pushing a small cart, a well-crafted but simple tea pot and a single delicate tea cup and plate sitting atop it, a pleasant smell wafting off. "Forgive me, brother. I recalled you saying you did not care for the taste of bitter rum, and did not think to offer you something you would dislike. No, no, Rosa," the princess ordered, tone higher pitched but far from light, interrupting the gentle lady as she placed the delicate cup (Stomme didn't know they had a set so fine. Maybe it really was just the one cup and plate, which was why she had never seen it used) on the low table before the prince. "You and Yan go enjoy the tea, my apologies for pestering you for its making. My brother will have rum with us."

Yraima crossed to the crown prince, knelt down, note-perfect to the same gesture she'd made at Princess Rayana's side, and offered up the tray with the final remaining mug.

Princess Rayana drank from hers. Lord Mori cradled his in his lap.

Stomme was so scared she could hardly breathe.

She did, of course. Because not breathing would mean she would gasp when her lungs finally remembered their function in spite of her, and to gasp would be to make noise, and she could not do that, but Stomme felt so, so, so scared, sitting quietly on the floor, head in her princess's lap, the crown prince sitting with two fists curled tight and his jaw so clenched his temples bulged with it. And he was not the third princess, which meant that he was not quite so terrifying as she. But it also meant that he had magic, and the princess didn't, and Stomme didn't think Lord Mori would let any real harm come to the princess, if the prince did snap, but Stomme was technically seated between the two, and would not assume any protections would be offered to her if the man's rage exploded.

She was furniture. She was nothing. She wasn't even really here. She was breathing, and she was not moving, and she was silent, she was silent.

"Also, I was older than her, last I checked," Lord Mori said cheerfully, blithely ignoring the mood of the two royals. "And I have yet to pleasure her in bed, as we are naturally waiting for the night of our wedding for our mutual deflowering." He took a sip from his mug.

"I see I have misunderstood," the prince grit out, face turning slowly redder as the time went on. "I will have the tea. Thank you. For your consideration."

"Of course," Princess Rayana said, and though her tone almost sounded congenial, it also very, very much did not. "I would not want for you to be made uncomfortable, brother."

Stomme noticed that he did not apologize for his insult to Lord Mori. Because she was furniture, and also a slave, she didn't have an opinion on that.

Lady Rosa turned right back around and set and poured the tea, and curtsied low before leaving again. Princess Rayana finished her mug, and set it on Yraima's platter in dexterous exchange for the last remaining full one.

"So," Princess Rayana said, magenta eyes locked upon each other, both siblings seated with wide-spread legs, though Princess Rayana lounged while Crown Prince Viktor sat rigidly straight. She continued to pass slow fingers through Stomme's hair. "What brings you here unannounced, brother? Have you come bearing news that father has at long last set the date for my wedding, now that Anika has not only been wed, but had her first babe besides?"

"Perhaps you should visit the capitol and question father thus yourself," he said, "I have not asked after such arrangements, though there is still time, little sister. If you were to apologize on bended knee and ask politely, he may yet be willing to call off your engagement to this coxcomb."

Princess Rayana's fingers gripped suddenly tight, real anger lancing through her in the first rise the crown prince had gotten out of her the whole exchange. Stomme grit her teeth and closed her eyes, tried so hard to breathe through her nose and stay quiet, dreading what would now be—

Lord Mori laughed, loud and Stomme couldn't even tell, from the sound, that he was faking it. It sounded genuine.

"Oh, and here we were worried that because you had not sent word ahead, your visit heralded something bad! Oh, but I see you are in a fine mood, if you can jest with us thus."

He set his hand atop the princess's, which also happened to be on top of Stomme's head but that was fine and not terrifying at all because she was furniture and no one in this room would pay attention to her as long as she was quiet.

"As though either of us would wish to annul that which brings both of us such joy."

Princess Rayana, tension sliding out of her just as swiftly as it had come, turned her hand beneath Lord Mori's and gripped it squarely.

Crown Prince Viktor's eyes slid to Lord Mori with poorly disguised disgust, then returned to his sister without acknowledgement.

"Little sister—"

"Brother."

His temper flared again, pulse in his temple, but he continued on, "Being so far from the capitol as you are, I doubt you have heard much of the rumors circling that there is unrest amongst the nobility."

"From my brief time spent there, I was under the impression that there was always unrest amongst the nobility."

"Now more than ever. There is talk of a faction rising in support of the second prince, who would usurp my place as future king. Ridiculous, I know, but there are whispers that you back him. And without your presence there to reassure them of your intentions, the air grows hostile towards you, little sister."

"I would think it would grow even moreso towards him, if he is the alleged insurgent."

"Oh certainly! But Jo can handle himself. I am more worried about you, little sister, and how increasingly pressing it is becoming that you make your fealty towards your king and crown prince known, so you cannot be misconstrued."

"Of course I am loyal," the princess said, Lord Mori's hand just barely twitching in a squeeze overtop Stomme's head, "But if there are those who doubt me, I fail to see how this is my problem. I made my oath on bended knee before our father and the entire Styrggian court. If the nobles take issue with me now, it is their doubts and penchant for rumermongering which is the cause, no action of mine."

"It is your inaction, little sister, which stirs Styrgge's heart to doubt."

"Do I not slay its monsters?" she asked. "Do I not protect its border each year? Do I not take up my sword and fight for those soft handed nobles who know nothing of violence and blithely expect me to do so with no respect nor comprehension of just how arduous a task it is?"

"Oh, do not act so put upon; you love slaughtering those nasty things and we all know it. And you might aid their comprehension if you returned home!"

"My home is here," she hissed.

"You are a princess, Rayana! You have duties to your crown—"

"I have sworn my fealty to the crown."

"You have not sworn any fealty yet to me."

"You, elder brother, are not yet king."

Rage roiled across the prince's face, and he stood, tall and looming even from his distance, his magenta eyes glowing.

"You do know your barbaric attitude is why mother refuses to visit you."

Stomme hit the floor hard, flung from the princess's lap as she sprang from her seat, wild fury on her face and Stomme's bell jingling against the floor. Shit. The princess's mug was dropped as well, rum splashing into the carpet, the low table between them overturned and cast aside, tea soaking into the bottom hem of the prince's pants, and Stomme curled on herself and cowered and wished she could cover her head with her hands, her neck, the delicate and vulnerable parts of her as two very powerful people raged above her.

"You dare—!" the princess shouted, her hand on her sword's hilt.

"And what will you—" the prince started in return, eyes glowing brighter and magic thrumming through the air so tight and overwhelming Stomme couldn't breathe—

"Both of you, please!" Lord Mori shouted, inserting himself between them with a hand to the princess's shoulder and an arm outstretched towards the prince. His own eyes glowed, amethyst and emerald, but instead of a thick and cloying darkness, whatever magic the crown prince had started popped like it was naught more than a soap bubble.

It also made Stomme so dizzy she reeled, nauseating vertigo even though she was entirely laying down and could not possibly fall over. Some of the other slaves and servants in the room did fall over, others merely staggering as sailors on their boats in a storm, the prince and princess both knocked off balance by the nullification. Nullification? It seemed that way to Stomme, but she was also a little too dizzy and frightened to make much sense of magic.

"My love. My future brother. Please, you lash out at each other unnecessarily. We are all family, here. Let us conduct ourselves with the civility befitting of our ranks, no?" Lord Mori said, soothing and placating, looking between the crown prince and his intended with an imploring smile. The royals heaved in breaths, teeth bared at one another, eyes wild with rage, but the prince seemed aware, at least, that in a battle of swords his sister would best him, and the princess would not draw her blade with Lord Mori so near. Around them, the slaves and servants heaved for breath, some staggering back onto their feet, others leaning on the walls, a rare few trying to draw themselves back into their silent and professional posture. Stomme remained where she was, terrified that a second infraction of ringing the bell would mean a worse punishment, and desperate not to draw any attention towards herself in the tense, relative silence of that long and awful moment.

The crown prince spat at Mori's feet. It landed on Stomme.

"I see your fuckpuppet placates you like a wife. What a blushing bride he'll make for you."

"And how is Crown Princess Amy?" Princess Rayana spat in turn, nose wrinkled with her sneering. "Still content in that happy marriage of yours? No recent bast—"

"My heart, my brother, please! Your Imperial Highness, you have ridden long and hard to arrive here. Let us settle you into your rooms that you may rest and recuperate from the long journey, and we will see you for supper. My dearest heart, he has come here specifically so that you don't make enemies of your own family, let us welcome him with due grace."

Princess Ranaya's rage did not quell, but she mustered it, and stepped back, breathing deeply and audibly, chin jutting up. Stomme flinched, and prayed to any god that looked out for slaves and the unworthy that she please, please, please not act as tripping hazard for her princess.

"Rosa. Guide him to where he'll be staying."

"At once, Your Highness," Lady Rosa's clear, gentle voice answered, even-toned like she did not even notice the magic or the raging royals.

The crown prince took an audible breath as well. Smoothed his hands over his slicked hair. Sneered one final time at his sister, refusing to acknowledge Lord Mori even now, and stormed out of the room with heavy footsteps. The door closed with no hands on it, presumably the prince's doing, because when they shut they boomed.

"Silence us," the princess ordered. Lord Mori's cloying, heavy, liquid shadows did fill the reception room then, blocking out even the tall and gorgeous windows, and the princess bellowed, "FUCK!"

Stomme almost whimpered. The bell did tinkle, just a tiny bit, as she instinctively curled in closer on herself. Shit. Shit! And the princess was right there, so of course she'd hear it!

"Oh my love, oh my love, pay him no mind. He said it only to upset you," Lord Mori soothed, taking her hand between his own and bending so as to catch her eye.

"No shit! You think I don't know that?!" the princess shouted, whirling on him, snatching her hand from his grip, and regret lanced instantly through her anger. "I, shit, fuck, Mori, I, I didn't—"

"Shhh, love, I know, it's alright."

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to yell at you," she continued, scrubbing at her face with both hands.

"I know, I know, it's alright love, I know you," he said, smiling a little again, rubbing his hands down her shoulders, and Princess Rayana took a deep, ragged breath.

She spun again, and kicked her ceramic mug with enough might to cave a goblin's skull in, launching it into the wall and shattering it into a hundred tiny pieces with an emphatic, "Fuck!"

Stomme was crying, desperately swallowing her sobs in hopes it would spare her any attention. She was just as in kicking range as that mug had been, and if the princess unleashed an equal force on her—even half the strength of such a kick, it would kill her! Stomme might not always like her life, but she didn't want to die. And if the princess only went for her shins or stomach, rather than her skull or neck or spine, it would still hurt so bad.

"My darling, my dearest, my heart, it's alright."

The princess swallowed audibly, and almost before he had finished doing so she said, "I want him gone."

"He is not a man of patience. He won't stay here long. He came to try and coax you into joining his faction, but remembers now how much he doesn't like you. He'll leave soon, my love, just ride it out." He cupped her chin and turned her face to his, smiling warmer now. "Like you did on his arrival. I swear, I could hear his patience rubbing raw."

The princess chuckled, a little weakly, and Lord Mori along with her. Then she sighed, and pressed her face against his shoulder, the most vulnerable Stomme had ever even heard of the princess being. "I hate the way he talks about you."

"Oh love," Lord Mori crooned, wrapping his arms around her, "I've had worse said about me. You know I don't care for the opinions of the irrelevant."

"I know," she muttered, "I still can hate it."

"Of course. You are my radiant and glorious Rayana; you can do whatever you want."

The princess snorted, and then just… let herself be held. It lasted only a moment, before she rallied herself, and drew herself again to full height. "No one in this room goes anywhere near my brother without my say. Someone help her up," she ordered with a dismissive hand waved at Stomme, and the princess left the room with a decisive, heavy stride of her own, shadows melting away like morning fog as the princess swung the door open, Lord Mori following at her heels.

It was Noe, of all people, who Stomme found kneeling next to her, still shaking and crying and biting down on the metal bit so hard her teeth ached. Noe was dressed the same as her, though with her boots still on, and the other slave unbound Stomme's wrists and helped her get the bit out of her mouth. Around them, the rest of the staff knelt to clean up the spilled drinks or broken dishware or right the now-damaged table, bringing the room back to some degree of sense.

Noe sighed, and plucked the bell from Stomme's collar. "Come on then. Let's get back to our room and dressed," she said, a little curtly, but she hoisted Stomme's arm over her shoulders and an arm around Stomme's back and helped her stand, which Stomme was duly grateful for.

"I—Noe?"

"She likes you even less than me," Noe grumbled, not looking up at Stomme, who was staring down at her in pretty open bewilderment. Stomme hadn't thought Noe… tolerated her. Liked her? She wasn't sure what this was.

"Th-thanks," Stomme got out, shaky and weak.

"Don't hurt yourself," Noe grumbled, "And don't fuckin' mention it."

Stomme nodded, ever obedient. "Okay," she whispered, and focused on just putting one foot in front of the other, distantly amazed that she'd laid her head on the princess's lap, had felt her gloved fingers stroking gently through her hair, had laid at the feet of a dragon, and lived.

She tried to give the soldiers a wide berth, but there were so many of them now, along with the servants that the princess had taken out on the hunting trip with her, the castle now bustling with people. Where Stomme previously could launder peacefully by herself, she now bent over the same tub as four others, and another washtub with four more behind her, busy hands scrubbing away at the dirt and monster blood and assorted grime from the months of hard traveling and the cull. It made her self conscious. Like she had to try extra hard now, just to prove her worth to these dozens of strangers, that she wasn't slacking off.

She tried to fade into the background, like she had, but there were so many people now, she couldn't help feeling underfoot and in the way. Even just walking down the halls had her on edge, expecting one of the soldiers to take issue with her, with her height, her muscle, the width of her, yank her around by her collar and show off just how much bigger and tougher than her they all were. It hadn't happened yet, but she braced for it every time one of them walked by her, and breathed out in relief every time their loud laughter and friendly slapping of each other's shoulders passed her by without incident.

The next time she saw the princess, it was following the loud shriek of a child's delighted laughter, little Julia running towards the princess with clear delight in the garden.

"Princess Rayana!!"

Said princess sank fluidly down onto one knee, wide grin transforming her face and her arms spread wide to receive the flurry of skirts and frills and bouncing curls that launched herself into her.

"Julia, look how big you are!" the princess announced, the soldiers she'd been speaking with smiling down at the pair from where they were now being quite thoroughly ignored. Nobody seemed to really mind the small child distracting the princess from their conversation or interrupting them, which was reassuring at least. Stomme quite liked Julia, and would be very anxious if harm were to come her way.

From the way she was lifted up onto the princess's hip as she rose, that seemed very unlikely now. To harm what had the princess's favor would be a death sentence.

Julia began prattling, as was her wont, the princess smiling as she listened. Though still doubtlessly intimidating, Stomme couldn't help but find the princess beautiful, like this, in her plain tunic she'd worn while training with the guards that morning, smiling at a child. It was like her whole face had restructured for it, eyes squinted in quiet delight instead of lidded with her failure to be impressed, lips curved and lovely instead of ominously flat, the monster teeth dangling from her ears catching sunlight like another noblewoman's jewels might.

Stomme caught herself staring, and internally reprimanded herself for her temerity before someone else could catch her in the act and smack her for it. She got back to work.

The next time she saw the princess was the day after, and given that she'd now seen the princess every single day since she'd gotten back from her trip, Stomme was starting to despair that this would become a regular aspect of her life. She was up on the walltop, pouring dirty water from the scullery over the edge to feed the blackberry bushes below, when she saw the small entourage approaching on the road.

At first, she thought the noble on the silvery-white horse's back to be a woman, the clothing flowing beauteously and hair long and white as pearls. As he drew nearer, though, Stomme thought she could make out that he was a man, just a very pretty one. When he spoke, voice calling out surprisingly loudly once his horse was parked before the castle gate, Stomme felt his gender fairly confirmed.

"Oh my love, my love, who has returned victorious from battle~" He sounded kinda like one of those troubadours that Stomme occasionally overheard when they were entertaining old owners. There was a poetic quality to his cadence. A showmanship-like air as he pressed his hand to his breast, fingers long and slender even from this distance, the folds of his flowing robes catching in the wind.

Stomme should get out of here. He wasn't there for her to stare at, and more nobles would only ever mean more trouble for her. But as she gathered the buckets to turn to leave, she found herself facing the princess once again, climbing up the steps onto the walltop. Stomme backed away hurriedly. Unfortunately, there really wasn't anywhere for her to go, the support beams of the walls locking her in. Why had the princess come up to this spot, instead of the wall overlooking the gate itself???

"Oi," Princess Rayana called, a playful sharpness to her grin, eyes on the nobleman below, "What's this peacock doing at my house?!"

"Oh, my radiant lover, I have dreamed of you night and day since your departure!" the noble shouted, extending his hand towards her dramatically. "And there you stand as captivating as a star, looking more beautiful than even the last time I was graced to lay mine eyes upon you~"

The princess did look very handsome, wearing a long surcoat with a high neck, her arms bare beneath it in a way that must have been cold but showed off her impressive musculature and four parallel scars on her left bicep that must've been from an old monster hunt. Stomme thought she looked incredibly beautiful, but also knew this was not what most noblewomen considered pretty, much less noblemen, and so was vaguely confused. And petrified! She would really prefer not to be here! She did her best to be beneath noticing.

Princess Rayana propped an elbow on a crenelation and rested her cheek on the back of her fingers, this time wearing little jeweled rings that glinted in the sun. "Big words from the prettiest of boys. But come inside, my love, I'll let you welcome me home," the princess beckoned, and the heavy gates swung open below, creaking with strain.

Princess Rayana left to go greet her… lover? And mercifully did not so much as glance at Stomme even once. Not as he swung down off the horse, not as she lifted him and spun him around, not as she pulled him into a dip the moment his feet touched the ground again and kissed him so resoundingly the two could pass as heroes in a stageplay reuniting after some great trial. Stomme was allowed to gather the buckets once again and scurry back to the scullery with them, mumbling something about the arrival of a silverhaired nobleman, which sent the other servants all into a tizzy. Apparently he was Lord Mori, son of Count Shelley, and Princess Rayana's betrothed. Stomme listened, because this was important, but felt detached from her eyes and mind and limbs, a sort of numb terror from being so close to the princess again casting her out of herself.

The arrival of the lord meant everyone was even busier, though, so thankfully Stomme was too caught up in helping the kitchens to linger on it. And she'd thought the supply wagons had given them too much flour and barley and ale to ever use. Ha. Now she understood they were just trying to make more, smaller trips instead of trying to haul all this to the castle at once.

She was kept busy until after the evening meal, when Overseer Yan then selected a handful of them to go to the lord's rooms and finish preparing them for his use. And Stomme was one of the ones he'd chosen.

"Sir, please," she whispered, eyes shiny and wet, knees feeling weak.

Overseer Yan set a gentle hand on her shoulder. "Easy now, chin up girl. Lord Mori wants to see the gift the prince sent, I wouldn't be sending you in there without reason," he promised. And that was kind, because it meant once the lord got bored of her, Overseer Yan wouldn't send her up there for no reason. But it also meant that Stomme was of interest to a nobleman, and that was a very, very bad thing to be.

Dandelion took her by the hand and led her up. At least Dandelion was there. Stomme wondered if Overseer Yan knew enough about her to know how much she liked the girl, considered her maybe even a friend, if a slave and a servant could even be friends, wondered how close he paid attention to her actually.

"Easy, Stomme, it's fine! Lord Mori is nice!" Dandelion said cheerfully. "He's kind of a weirdo sometimes, but he probably won't even be paying any attention to you now that Princess Rayana is home!" Dandelion giggled. "The two are so cute, they're all lovey dovey at each other, Sora hates it." Sora was a groom who hated all mentions of romance and would make ugly gagging noises if anyone around him so much as kissed each other's cheeks. It meant the stables were a poor choice of venue for anyone trying to sneak away for a lovers' tryst, and Stomme hadn't seen him since the princess's return. Hadn't had time to.

"I, I, what do I, I mean, he wants me for—I—"

"Breathe, honey," Dandelion instructed kindly, patting Stomme's wrist with her free hand. "He probably just wants to look at you since the prince sent you. All you gotta do is get the fire burning and help me change the bedding, Claudia will handle the refreshments, and another group got most of the cleaning done earlier, don't worry!"

Okay. Okay. Just. Stoke the fire. Change the bedding. Let a nobleman look at her. She could do that. She could, if she just focused on that, and didn't think about anything else, she could. She could do that. And then she could leave, and Overseer Yan wouldn't send her back up there again unless the lord took more interest in her, and she'd. She'd be fine.

She had to believe that she'd be fine.

The servants here were efficient. Claudia handled the knocking, and Stomme got to enter behind Dandelion, hiding in the smaller girl's shadow, eyes on the floor and trying hard to remember to breathe through her nose. She knelt at the fireplace and did her job. She didn't look at the couch or low table where Claudia was pouring tea and setting out little delicate plates of snack food. She crossed to the bedroom and did her job. She didn't let her gaze drift to the sitting room, focused on keeping in tandem with Dandelion's movements.

She almost made it out of the room without flubbing. She was on her way to the door, following after Dandelion, when the sound of two bodies moving drew her eyes, just a quick glance, to the couch.

The princess was here. Seated next to Lord Mori on the couch, leaning forward to pick up her goblet from the low table, while the lord reclined against the cushions with his chalice in hand. His pale green robes were eastern-style and even more obviously fine up close, silk and satin and delicate embroidery that cost ten times as much as Stomme herself did. He had strings of three large, shiny beads dangling from each ear, a belt with strings of cord art and shining baubles dangling luxuriously off it, his silver hair pulled over one shoulder and tied with an eggshell ribbon, his eyes a pale greyish-green that sparked with mirth. That stared straight at her.

He smiled, tilted his head as though in acknowledgement, and took a sip from his drink, but did not speak or demand that she say and let him look at her any longer.

Stomme stumbled only briefly, and then fled the room.

~*~

The door shut behind the new slave girl, the poor thing's panic almost palpable, and Mori rolled his eyes and head and shoulders towards his beloved with a smug little smirk.

"She's cute."

"Down, boy," his Rayana drawled without looking at him, popping an olive into her mouth before leaning back against the couch again, goblet resting on her thigh. She tongued the olive into one cheek (cute) and spoke around it, "She's also terrified of everything that so much as breathes, and shakes worse than those showdogs they breed for trembling. The poor sod nearly brained herself the first time she saw me, she tried to kneel so fast." She frowned (adorable, not that Mori would tell her that), "Yan tells me she's even scared of the other servants. She talks so little some of 'em thought she was mute when she first showed up here, and she gets nightmares."

"So you think she really is truly just a slave, this time?" Mori asked, setting his chalice aside and plucking a grape from its bunch.

Rayana sucked on her cheeks and stared into the fire. "I think she certainly seems like one. I think tremors are a hard thing to fake, and so are nightmares. The bags under her eyes aren't makeup, and neither are her scars. The way she acts and talks and cries are all hard to fake."

"Oh, you've already made her cry?~"

Rayana whapped him on the shoulder, no real heat to it. Then she crossed an arm over her chest and rolled the tusk of her earring back and forth between her fingers, a thoughtless little gesture as her sharp eyes stared into the fire contemplatively.

"But. I also think you don't get employed by the crown prince unless you're real good at seeming like what you pretend to be. Especially if he's hiring you to spy on the cursed princess, and especially when that princess has already ousted a half dozen spies before you."

"It'd be easier if everyone he sent was a spy, so we didn't have to do all this sleuthing, and we could just dismiss them out of hand without needing to contrive reasons."

Rayana's hair was testament to that. Sure, they both thought she looked so good with it now (and cute, and pretty, and sexy), but the first time she'd shaved it all off was just so she could have a reason to cut the number of her lady's maids down by one. Prince Viktor hadn't liked having his spy ousted almost as much as their father hadn't liked her new hair (which was spitefully part of the reason she kept it so short (beyond the aforementioned cuteness and sexiness factor)).

Rayana heaved out a heavy sigh and leaned against Mori's side, his arm coming up around her shoulders reflexively as he pressed a little kiss to her shaved head, rubbing at her arm consolingly.

"If it's an act, it's working. I want to keep my guard up, but... look at her. It's hard to fake fear, like that. It just… follows her, like a cloud, wherever she goes."

"Mmmm. It's really quite the pity. If she put on a little weight and quit jumping at shadows, she'd be just your type, after all."

"UuuuuuuUUUUUUUGHHHHHHH," Rayana groaned, hands coming up to cover her eyes, slumping even harder against him. Mori laughed.

"She's tall, and broad while still being slim, and strong, and those hands on her."

"Stoooooooooop, don't remind me."

"Really, that Prince Viktor has your number. Should I think of a way to thank him for this latest toy?"

"Stop trying to fuck my brothers," she grumbled.

"But they're all so handsome~"

"Stop."

"Your sisters, then?"

"Stop," she ordered more forcefully, twisting in place and shoving a hand over his mouth, making him giggle behind her grip. "You're incorrigible."

He jerked his chin just enough to free his mouth. "So I am regularly informed."

She gripped him by the front of his robe and shut him up in his favorite way to be silenced, which was of course by kissing him resoundingly, and his arms came up around her shoulders and he ran a hand over her short cropped hair and let her weight sink him against the couch, legs spread to accommodate the way her shorter frame needed to crowd in close in order to reach his mouth.

When she let him breathe again (and he did ever so enjoy being kissed breathless by this wondrous, radiant woman) she rested her head atop his chest, sighing again as his arms encircled her and pet gently down her back.

"…You really did come home quite early this year, darling," he mentioned, tone careful and serious.

"And I really am fine," she assured again. "We met our quota for the cull early, and everyone wanted to go home. I did a final sweep to make sure there wasn't anything nasty hiding out, informed your father, and we left. No curse required."

He kissed the top of her head again, the angle a little awkward like this, and lifted his palm so it was just the tips of his fingers that stroked along the sturdy linen over her back. Tendrils of magic seeped from his fingertips into her back, and she shuddered, eyes slipping closed and mouth parting slightly. Even just the slightest touch of his magic had her flushed already, and her hand formed a fist in the pillow beneath his lower back.

Just under the surface of her skin, her curse roiled, thick as tar and cloying. It stuck to his magic like tree sap, like a thick and viscous urine (not that he'd describe it like that out loud to her (though maybe he should, she might think it funny)), and he pushed gently deeper, then deeper, then grew little hooks at the ends of his magic tendrils and started to pull.

Rayana gasped on top of him, feeling the curse that ached all through her blood and muscles and bones start to recede, and Mori focused on being slow, on being careful, and not pulling too fast, too hard. Any attempts at cursebreaking had only ever hurt his dear Rayana. Too harsh, too fast, and they'd threaten her very life. His magic, though, his methods, she described as leaving her feeling no worse than her skin might smart after ripping a wax off of it. And the relief he could grant her, of dragging her curse back into its core (which itself was in the core of her, where he couldn't budge it from), of leaving her limbs free and painless beyond that faint echo of a sting and limber once again—if this was the only relief he could grant her, he's give it to her every night he saw her, until his own magic burned out like a snuffed candle.

He sank his magic down through her ankles, through her calves, and pulled at the curse through them, guiding it up the rivers of her own body's layout, dragging his senses over the muscles in the backs of her knees, up around the sides of her thighs and over the tops of her hips, stuck his magic in the pit of her belly and dragged it up below her diaphragm, threading through each bump of her ribs to the center of her sternum, from each individual finger, sliding down her delicate metacarpals, up her wrists like fingers brushing to her forearms, to her elbows, up to her shoulders and pulling back down into her spine again. He knotted the curse there altogether, to the right of her heart, in the bend where her esophagus split into her two lungs, and bid it remain where he'd put it.

"Fuck," she gasped when he'd finished, his magic breaking off and leaving them both sweating a little, panting. He'd poured himself into the most intimate parts of her and they both felt better for it. It was the kind of trust that Rayana gave no one, not one single soul, nobody at all, except him. He could get high on that knowledge alone.

"You've got knots in your shoulders again," he muttered. She whapped him half-heartedly.

"I'd like to see you climb all over the eastern hills without gettin' knots in yours."

"But that's why you do it for me," he said, blinking prettily. "Since I'm so delicate and fragile."

It had been the duty of the house Shelley to keep the monsters of the eastern wilderness at bay for as long as there had been a house Shelley. And before that, it was the duchy's responsibility, from whose line the Shelleys had branched off of. That Count Shelley's one and only heir was an effete and delicate prettyboy whose stomach turned at the smell of blood and whose instructors despaired of ever teaching to properly wield a sword was an embarrassment the family could barely shoulder, but it was a mostly-substantiated rumor that bearing him had ruined his mother's womb, a complicated birth and all, and his father, for all his short-tempered faults, loved his wife genuinely, and would entertain not a single word nor thought that he should ever divorce her and remarry.

Fortunately, Mori's talented, skillful, powerful fiance actually enjoyed the good, satisfying work of monster hunting, and bore the task that should have rightfully been his burden with yearly zeal for a good hunt and a well-earned victory. As Mori's father grew steadily older, and his fiance grew steadily stronger, the lion's share of the hunt fell more and more upon her shoulders.

Her poor, stiff shoulders, and he crooned, "Shall I massage them for you? Maybe a foot rub?"

She waved vaguely. "There's servants for that."

He grinned. "Pretty, strong, new servants?"

"Stooooooop!!!" she groaned, getting up and shoving him down by the mouth again, barely stifling his laughter. "I'm not thinking about the hot new slave who may or may not be a spy sent by my brother."

He pulled her hand away with both of his. "Well the good news is that if she is a spy, there should be nothing in her report other than an empty castle and your swooning fiance. I think we put on quite a good show for her, no?"

"You," she kissed him very briefly, "are a menace. And I'm tired, so I'm going back to my room to sleep."

"Of course," he said agreeably. "Can't have anything in her report that the two of us spent the night together. I mean, could you imagine? The entirely erroneous rumor that we'd have premarital sex?"

"Oh, the scandal," she deadpanned, though there was a fond warmth and humor just under her tone. "Though I imagine they'd think you, oh randy and licentious Lord Shelley, would be the one to deflower me, rather than—" she gripped beneath his thigh and pushed suddenly back into his space, crowding him down onto the couch and kissing him breathless again, her teeth scraping at his bottom lip and making him choke on a gasp, his arms around her shoulders once again, his body flushed and responding easily to her—

Just as suddenly, she'd pulled away from him, leaving him reeling and gasping, disoriented.

"Well, goodnight my love!" she said, far too perkily.

"I, wait—"

"Well I can't stay. Since it would be erroneous to think we'd have premarital sex, after all."

"No, wait, I take it back," he said, splayed out on the couch.

She giggled at him—a girlish and playful noise she only ever made in complete privacy, so vanishingly few permitted to see her in anything but her finest form—but just sauntered to the door, pausing to cast him a fond look over her shoulder and a "Good night, my love."

Pouting, he returned, "Goodnight, darling."

She supposed she should be glad that the princess wasn't punishing her while already irate from her brother. Stomme could pray that by the time the princess remembered Stomme did in fact still need to be punished, it would be after her brother was gone and her head was cleared, and she might be feeling a little more lenient towards her disobedient slave.

It was hard enough completing her chores with the injuries she did have. If she was able to sit in one place to work, like over the laundry tub, then Stomme was efficient enough, but her damned limping made the rest of her work slow and arduous. She was out late the fourth night after the prince's arrival, and there'd been talk of him leaving the following morning. Good riddance. Not that. Not that Stomme, would ever be so bold, as to think good riddance about one of her betters. She was just, it was a slip of the tongue, not even, she hadn't said it out loud, she was just tired and sore, though limping thankfully less and less each day. It still put her out late, the almost-full moon hanging overhead, the stable quiet as she replaced horse blankets and gear and other odds and ends from the laundry, most of the horses laying down and fast asleep already.

"Oh, while you're here, could you throw down a few of the hay bales from the loft?" the night groom on duty asked, a smaller boy who didn't have Stomme's strength. More than that, he was a freeman, and Stomme was not, so she couldn't deny him the request even if she hadn't seen the reason in it. Climbing the ladder was hard on the red marks from the switch, now mottling an oranger color with a few day's healing but still plenty sore, and she had to take a moment at the top to just breathe and grip her leg beneath the injuries, fingers digging into brown wool and tight muscle, but then she got up and tossed hay down.

It occurred to her that there should probably be a second groom on duty, given the number of horses they now had here (two of them speed demons, which she didn't think she'd ever get over), but Stomme didn't actually know enough about stables or grooms or horses to dare question leaving one young lad in charge of the princess's stables all by his own. Whoever was in charge of this place knew more than her, and she would leave them to it. She took up her empty basket, her sore back and tired shoulders brimming with anticipation for when she'd finally get to lay down and sleep at long last; she just needed to get back inside the castle, put the basket away, and limp back to her room.

The main way back into the castle… hng. She was still on high alert for the crown prince. Realistically, she knew he'd be asleep in his guest quarters, preparing himself for a long day of riding the following morning, but what if he was drawn out to check on the steed he'd be riding? There was a side door down a narrow little alley around back of the castle, a servant's door that'd spit her out close enough to the laundry it wouldn't be a huge diversion, and Stomme didn't have to worry about getting pricker bushes on clean laundry or maneuvering around the low hanging branches of the crab apple tree that stubbornly dug its gnarled roots into the narrow path, untended by the gardeners who had more important focuses than the little side path that was so rarely used. There was enough moon to see by, at least to make sure she didn't trip, and Stomme didn't want to run into anything else when she was so close to being done for the day.

So, of course, quite naturally, it was on that very path she took to avoid her fate that she met it on.

An old chimney jutted out into the already-narrow path, about midway to the little side door, obstructing half of it and probably one of the main reasons so many people didn't bother maintaining or taking this way. As Stomme lifted the empty basket out sideways and turned to shimmy around it, one hand bracing her balance against the almost-too-hot-to-touch brick, she heard the incredibly distinct sound of a slap, and hissed words that sent her scrambling back, pressing her spine to the chimney and her free hand to her mouth.

"You show remarkable temerity for a man in your position," spat the crown prince himself, and Stomme clutched the empty basket to her chest by the handle, heart rabbit-quick in her throat.

"Yeah, that's always been the problem," came Sora's voice. Why was Sora in a dark, secluded place low traveled with the prince!? He was one of the ones the princess had ordered away from the man, did he—surely not. Surely not Sora?

"Listen here and listen well," the crown prince hissed, audibly furious but keeping his voice low, unable to overhear unless you were right there, right where Stomme was. "I will not take disobedience from a mere groom. I am your crown prince and your benefactor and you will do as I say."

Benefactor? The crown prince was Sora's—oh that. That was not good. And it was not good that Stomme was overhearing this. She wanted to flee, but every nerve in her body screamed that if she moved the merest inch, she would be overheard, be caught. Be still. Be silent. Be silent.

"What you're saying I should do is pointless!" Sora hissed in turn, and Stomme's belly swooped. What was he doing?!? Benefactor or not, this was the crown prince, Sora could be whipped for his tone alone, much less the insult.

Another slap, thrice as loud as their voices, and then another, and then another, and then another, the sound of bushes rustling as Sora undoubtedly buckled under the onslaught, the prince's heavy breathing.

"Where you grew such a tongue," the prince heaved between pants, "I perish to ever discover."

Sora spat, a wet and unpleasant sound. "Let me know if you find out." There was a strain to his voice now, words grit out around the pain fettering his throat.

Another sound of impact, maybe a boot? And Sora gasp-groaned like he'd been struck in the belly or his stones.

"Fuck, lay off," Sora moaned, and Stomme became abruptly convinced that this would be it, for him. She was going to stand here, frozen as a statue, and listen to Sora die. "What would I even tell you that your actual spies didn't tell you before they got ousted for, oh yeah, being a spy in her house?" he gasped with such exasperation that Stomme could never imagine saying to anyone, much less the crown prince. "That she hates you? That she hates the capital? That she hates your whole fucking family and the scheming that nobles do and will come back for your coronation, only your coronation, and then never again after? That she's stupid in love with Lord Mori and wants to get married so she can officially leave your family as soon as possible? That she likes the monster slaying and the eastern hills and rides a speed demon on the hunt? You know all of that already! I can't tell you a single damn thing—" Another blow, making him choke briefly, but he continued on his tirade, "—that you don't already know!"

Another blow, loudest out of all of them, and for a long moment the only sound was Stomme's heart in her ears and the two men's breathing, labored, one tight with pain.

Sora spat again. "I'm grateful to you," he said, no longer whispering, but quiet all the same, a little mumbly. "You got me out of a bad situation, and I am, I am so grateful. But there's a difference between gratitude and loyalty. I'm not going to betray the princess, not even for you."

"I could see you hung for this," the crown prince reminded darkly.

"Says the man attempting to suborn a member of the princess's household!" Sora hissed in return. "If the princess hears of any of this it's the end for both of us, and you're smart enough to know I'd have no problem with taking you down with me!"

Another blow, meatier, a fist on flesh, and another, and another, and another, and another, Stomme's hand trembling over her mouth, her eyes squeezed desperately shut, begging herself to be silent, silent, silent! The prince's rage did not subside quickly, and Sora was wheezing by the end of it, wet and tight, though it seemed a small miracle that, at least, he was still breathing at all.

The rustling of plantlife and heavy, angry footfalls informed Stomme that the prince was not reentering the castle through the little side door that had once, impossibly long ago, been Stomme's destination, but was in fact coming this way. She did not even breathe as he drew near, praying to whichever god looked after slaves and the unworthy that the chimney's shadow be dark enough, that she be still and silent enough, that the prince's anger blinding enough, that he please, please, please not see her there.

She felt him on that little narrow path next to her like the veiled figure of death itself breathing ice along her right side.

And then he passed.

She did not dare let herself breathe until he was at the end of the little path. Didn't move for a long, long minute after, ears straining to hear if she could tell when he went through the main door or not. Every single muscle of her body had been clenched so tight she nearly collapsed when she tried to move, staggering as she rebalanced, hand catching herself on the chimney.

She rounded it, and there was just barely enough moonlight that she could make out the shape of Sora on the ground, the brown wool indistinct in the night's shadows but his skin and hair pale enough to catch the moonlight and give her the vague impression of his form.

"Sora," she whispered, kneeling down.

"I—fuck, Stomme?" he gasped out brokenly, voice raw and cracking.

"Yeah," she breathed, stretching out a hand to see if she could get a better feel for where exactly he was, "Is anything broken?"

"Fuck. Fuck, fuck, how much of that did you hear?"

Uh. "I think, most of it? He was mad that a groom was disobeying him, when I first heard, I think." More or less. Beneath her hand, she felt him curl on himself, trembling with the strain of it.

"Fuck," he whined, high pitched, more vulnerable than even when the prince had been actively beating him. "Stomme, please," his hand shot out blindly, gripped her by the tunic, pulled, "please, fuck, please, the princess can't know about this, please, the princess can't know, I'll do whatever you want just please don't tell her!"

"I—" Stomme stuttered, taken aback and bewildered by this hard pivot in their conversation. That a freeman was begging—that Stomme—that—she didn't—

"I can't lose this job," he pleaded, "I, shit, I can't go back there, I can't, I won't, I can't lose this job, Stomme, please, the princess is the only one who'd put up with my stupid tongue, I don't have any other skills, please."

"I, I don't think—"

"I'll do whatever you want," he cut her off, pulling at her tunic, the moonlight catching along the ridge of his knuckles as his other hand clawed at the overgrown path, his head down on the ground, not looking at her. Stomme didn't know what to do with this position, she'd never in her life—Stomme was the one who should've had her forehead to the dirt, that was her position, she was the slave, she couldn't understand why Sora was begging her for clemency when he surely knew he could've just ordered her silence, maybe smacked her around a little just to make the point stick, and she was certain he had more than enough reason to want to be the one getting to hit someone else, after that display from the prince. "I'll do anything you want, just, please Stomme, I can't—"

"I, I'm not going to tell the princess," she whispered, rushed, quiet with her daring to speak such words.

"Please," he begged again like he hadn't heard her.

"I would—it would be bad, for me too, right?" she tried, using Sora's own logic against him. "I w-was ordered not to go near him as well, so, if I told the princess I overheard him trying to—" what was the word he'd used? "—suborn you, that, that would be telling on myself, as well."

For a long moment, Sora just breathed heavily, fist trembling in the fabric of her tunic, and then he slowly let her go, dark blond curls catching moonlight as he nodded, slowly lifting himself up onto his elbows, then to his palms.

"A-and, and you told him no," Stomme pointed out, trying to be reassuring. "So, even if she did know. That, that would prove to her that you are loyal, right?"

He shook his head.

"I owe him," he whispered, like he was confessing to some grave sin. "Telling him no just means she won't string me up for a betrayal. If she learns that I'm indebted to him, she'll still dismiss me out of caution, and I can't—" his voice cracked again, head bobbing as his shoulders dipped, elbows threatening to capsize under his weight. "I don't have anywhere else to go," he whispered.

"…" Stomme opened her mouth, but nothing came out right away. Bending forward, Stomme covered one of his hands with her own.

"I. Don't either," she said haltingly, not sure if this was too presumptuous of her, if now he'd remember just how beneath him she was and take out that trembling rage and fear on her skin. "I, I don't want to be sold off again, either," she said, pushing her luck. And it was true. Even with as terrifying as the princess was, those long summer months of peace were a precious memory she wouldn't trade for the world, Overseer Yan's gentle indulgence and steady hands, Dandelion's cheerful conversation, little Julia's whimsical prattling, hell, even Noe was pretty okay to her lately.

Sora laughed, a hollow, breathy sound, and Stomme figured that meant he was probably composed enough for her to try again, and also still not going to hurt her.

"Is anything broken?"

Sora swallowed audibly, and after a moment's deliberation he shook his head. "I don't think so."

"If I get an arm under you, can you walk?"

He nodded, taking two rapid, still-wheezing breaths. "Bet."

She helped him stand, her own legs protesting the extra weight, and stepped on the hem of the empty basket so it'd flip up into her grip once they were both upright. She bore most of his weight, having to stoop so he could get his arm up over her shoulders, and held the laundry basket with the hand overlapping his on her far shoulder.

"You didn't need to do all this," he muttered as they shambled down the narrow path. "You could've just left me there."

"Oh." The thought… hadn't actually crossed Stomme's mind. She hadn't even considered that possibility.

He laughed ruefully, which gave way to a brief spat of coughing.

"Fuck…" he breathed.

Yes that seemed like a fairly decent assessment of the situation.

Once inside the castle, warm torchlight sparse but plenty enough to see by after the darkness of the path, Stomme got a better look at him. He had blood down his chin from both his mouth and his nose, the whole right side of his face swollen and bright red, that eye puffy and shut. He clutched his stomach with the arm not on her shoulders, like that part was what was hurting him the worst, and his left leg was the one limping, bearing almost none of his weight.

Two drops of blood splattered against the floor, one two, little bright spots that would dry to something indistinguishable until the next time someone was in here on their hands and knees scrubbing the stones. He swallowed again, thankfully not spitting any more blood out onto the floor to join the little splatters.

It made Stomme feel a little silly for how much her own, comparatively minor, injuries were bothering her. It reminded her of what life had been like, before she'd been gifted to the princess. Here the two of them were, staggering to the servants' hall, each placed here by the crown prince in the service of a princess they were loyal to. Stomme, because no matter the marks on her legs, life here was still so, so much better than she had ever imagined it could be, Sora, for his own reasons.

She wondered if she'd ever be brave enough to shoulder a beating, like Sora had, in her princess's name. It seemed so far beyond her, and yet, she could understand the shape of it, how the princess could breed such loyalty in even the embittered heart of a man like this one.

She deposited him on his bed, his room small but solitary, and Sora rolled on his left side, legs curled in towards his chest.

"Thank you," he said, facing away from her, as she turned to leave.

Oh. She. Hadn't expected that either. Again, it seemed so strange for someone to regard her as—as a person. As being worth worrying or fearing or thanking.

"You're welcome," she said, and prayed the prince did, indeed, leave the next morning. She resolved to return the laundry basket later, and hobbled back to her own room to end the night.