Let’s see, what all do we have in here? He began looking through a small closet along the dark and moody hallway. He dug around in the closet grabbing a broom and a flimsy duster. These should do the trick.

When he worked at The Drunken Pony, he had gotten quite good at dusting off furniture and floors. In fact, if he had kept working there, he would’ve likely earned a renowned title for Best Duster of the Year or something like that. Those simple days of cleaning things or working at the inn were long over, unfortunately. That didn’t mean he couldn’t think back to those fond memories he had of back then and perhaps even utilize some of the cleaning methods he developed whilst working there to the current day.

“Um, what do you think you are doing digging around in there?”

Kiran popped his head out of the closet spotting an angry-looking maid that had the same face as Aphelia. She stared him down as she kept both of her hands on her hips with her fingertips tapping angrily.

He held a duster in his right hand and the broom in his other. “I thought I might help out with the dust situation around here. There’s not much else to do admittedly so I thought to put my cleaning talents to good use.”

“Who do you think you even are taking on that kind of responsibility when you’re nothing more than a guest?”

He shrugged his shoulders while she maintained her frighteningly intense glare. “Oh I see. You think we’re incapable of doing it ourselves. That’s it, isn’t it?”

He shrugged again. “I never thought that for one moment.”

Steam practically burst out of her ears. Her face reddened ever so slightly and she forcefully grabbed the broom and duster from his hand. “As a guest, you are only permitted to remain in your room unless you’re attended to by someone else. Do you understand?”

He lifted a finger to respond only for her to interrupt his attempt.

“And I don’t want to hear another question or statement out of that mouth of yours.”

“I’m not allowed to ask any questions? Oh sorry, that was a question, wasn’t it? Drat, that was yet another one. Oh dear, oh my, what am I to do?”

“You are really annoying me now!”

“Sister,” Aphelia muttered from behind her.

“What—”

She grabbed the broom from her angry sister and handed it back to him. “Please don’t be rude to our guest. He’s just trying to help.” She looked him in the eye and although the two of them shared the same face, she did not harbor those malice-filled eyes the other maid sister of hers kept at all times. Now that I think about it, I’m fairly certain that she’s the one who held that knife over my body last night. She is quite distrusting, isn’t she? He thought that her voice was familiar. When he thought it might be Aphelia, he didn’t think that would be something she would do considering her kind demeanor. But now that he realized she had a twin sister, it all made more sense to him.

“Please forgive my sister,” Aphelia said with a slight bow.

“Already forgiven,” he said with a smile. “Is it alright if I help out around here? I do just so happen to have some experience in this field believe it or not.”

“If you’d like sir, I don’t believe Lady Meredith would have a problem with it. Just try to not wander into any rooms that you haven’t been given explicit permission to go into.”

“That sounds easy enough. Are all of the rooms down this hall alright?”

She nodded her head and all he could see was her sister tapping her finger angrily against the other arm that she held onto. If she could have her way, she’d easily shove that knife through his heart.

Her sister walked away leaving just the two of them. He took the duster and began dusting off an old wooden table that sat next to the closed closet. “May I ask what her name is?”

“Her name is Evelyn.”

“I get the feeling that she doesn’t like me very much.”

He finished dusting off one of the tables sitting in the hall and sat the duster on top of it. He grabbed onto the broom which he had leaning against the wall and began dusting the floor underneath the table making sure to get every bit of dust he could off the immensely dusty dark wooden floor.

“My sister can be hard to get along with, but she can be really sweet too.”

If kindness existed underneath all that intense anger of hers along with that threatening maneuver she had made towards him last night, he wondered to what extent Aphelia’s words were true. She knew her better than he did obviously but first impressions were quite powerful. He acted kindly towards her although he was willing to toy with her a little—as he liked to do towards people sometimes—but he knew he ought to be very careful with Evelyn in particular. The last thing he needed was some cute maid to be the one who killed him. The thought of that happening nearly terrified him as he dusted that dusty floor along the hall.

The simple task of dusting things made time fly by for him. He dusted off one table, two tables, three tables, and even a fourth table up and down the hall. A single stroke of a finger along the dusty wood surface would leave a thick mass of dust upon it where it had all built up. But not anymore in the places he had so far managed to clean. I don’t know why, but this brings me great pleasure.

Was it his job to clean the manor? No, but it did well to pass the time and give him something to do. He had been reading that book—and indeed it was truly interesting and illuminating—however, he could only read a book for so long until his eyes glazed over and his mind wandered leaving him to stare at a single page for an unfathomable allotment of time until finally, he became fully cognizant to the fact that he was indeed making no progress with the page full of words neatly written onto the paper.

Sometimes in life, repetition was key. Sweep a floor. Sweep a table. Sweep beneath a table. Dust the molding that was around a doorway or on the bottom walls alongside a hall or a room. A simple task no doubt, and yet one he found himself at peace with. Someone had to do it. It might as well be him.

Even in dark times such as these, a person’s home needed to be cleaned.

He went into one dusty bedroom. It was as dusty as every other room down the eastern wing of the manor.

As he brushed away the cobwebs gathering up towards the tall ceiling, the sounds of someone’s heels stopping in the doorway. “Um sir, what do you think you’re doing?”

The one and only Evalia chose to ask him this pertinent question. She wore another similar black dress to the one she wore the previous day. Unlike yesterday however, she additionally had a black bow in her black hair today.

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“I thought I’d help spruce things up a little,” he said.

“Really? Is that it? You just thought to, spruce things up a little? How very odd. Somehow I don’t exactly buy whatever it is that you’re trying to sell.”

“I don’t have any wares on hand unfortunately otherwise I really would have something to sell to you.”

She clicked her tongue as he pulled the broom down after having gotten the cobwebs up above one of the corners of the room. He turned himself around so that they could at least talk face-to-face as she kept standing in the doorway. “I’ve never known of a guest willingly lowering themselves to carrying out what ought to be a servant’s duty. If you ask me, what you’re doing is quite inappropriate.”

“How so?” He was genuinely curious why she would think that. Rinas had his own children carry out menial duties. If they could do it, someone like him surely could.

“It’s about perception,” she replied instantly. “You are supposed to be a guest—which in this household is quite an accomplishment—yet you lower yourself to the duties of someone unbecoming of someone given guest privileges.”

“I suppose I can understand your perspective,” he said, “but I don’t mind if people perceive me in ways that might not be optimal. I simply thought I would help out a little and try to keep my mind occupied.”

“There are other ways to keep a mind occupied without lowering your status.” Status means a lot to her then.

He wondered why she would assume he cared about status or appearances. He obviously didn’t want to come across as a complete delinquent or some grubby fellow, but doing a bit of cleaning was hardly undignified. He supposed that her view of him taking on duties that so-called lesser people were oft to do themselves, was largely due to her upbringing.

Kiran leaned the broom against the wall and moved over closer towards her. “Tell me then, what other options are there for me to do besides reading a book or doing a bit of cleaning? If you have any ideas I’m more than willing to you hear out.”

“There are many things of course.” He began to notice how well she held herself up. She placed her hands at the perfect places along the sides of her dress. She stood up completely straight and in a dignified way. She even motioned her head and lips whenever she spoke in the perfect manner befitting a young and upcoming noblewoman who one day would hold greater power as they were to inherit it someday. “I always enjoy tea time for example. There’s also—” She went on and on about the variety of tasks that he could do. For a time he listened along nodding his head every now and then as his mind wandered.

“You just want me all to yourself,” he said interrupting her long spiel.

She tilted her head just slightly. “Excuse me?”

“I know, I know. It must get lonely here. It’s not every day you get to have a guest over I’d imagine. You’re eager to have someone to do things with, is that it? Don’t worry, I fully understand and I would be willing to chat or do whatever it is that noble people do together if that is what you would like.”

Her lips quivered a little. I was right wasn’t I? “That…that is not at all what I am suggesting necessarily.”

“Oh,” he said picking up the broom once more, “that’s not it, is it? Well then, I better get back to lowering your perception of me by sprucing up this manor of yours. The dusts not going to clean itself, you know. Or maybe, you could even join me and help me resolve this dust problem. You know what they say, the more the merrier.”

“You’re very odd.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

With a wide smile, he went on sweeping and did so while also noticing how much she had eased towards him. When they first met she had wanted him to be denied access to the manor as a guest but now she spoke and acted more kindly. She was still skeptical of him and in some way perhaps looked down on him, but she did not do so out of some sort of hatred or disgust. If anything, she was curious now about the strange man who was confident in his actions.

“You can stop sweeping. We could, I don’t know, chat a little if you’d like over some tea.”

He leaned the broom once more and gestured for her to lead the way. “You may lead, I shall follow.”

They entered the more center part of the manor within a well-furnished room. He sat down at a table that wasn’t filthy like the rest. It appeared this part of the manor was given some care for particular regularly used bits.

“How’s the tea?”

He sipped the warm cup and found it pleasing. “It’s good. I am curious though, how is it that you are able to get tea under these grim conditions?”

“That’s a secret.”

Behind those tightly sealed lips, I will one day uncover those secrets. “Is that so? What a pity.”

She sat down at the white table across from him. She held her hands together in her lap with them overlapping each other. “Where do you come from? Your skin is not light like everyone else’s.”

“I come from the fifth domain.”

“Really?” She put a finger to her chin. “That must explain it. I must assume then that the sun has not gone dim there.”

“It indeed has not.”

“I had wondered whether the other domains had gone dark like ours.”

You’re not the only one. “How long has it been this way?”

She bit her lip and for a moment looked away from his eyes. “I had at the time turned twelve when it suddenly went dark so it’s been roughly ten years now.”

“Ten whole years of absolute darkness?”

She nodded her head.

“I imagine you must miss the sun. I know I do and I’ve only been here briefly.”

“I have as you can imagine. It’s quite hard to survive here, although I do have it easier than most. I can’t imagine it’s easy in the other domains however for anybody. Our world is truly ruined and only seemingly gets worse.” The grimness of her words weighed heavily upon her heart. “Despite that, my mother has worked hard to help cultivate a strong civilization—if it can even really be called a civilization anymore.”

“I have heard that she plays a major role in the survival of the people in these lands.”

“That is very much the case. That has been our duty as a family for many generations even before the day the world became fractured.” The implications of those words suggested that the Duvaugn family was quite old, so old in fact, that they had existed for multiple centuries.

“I—” she stopped herself briefly from continuing to speak and looked down with those softened eyes of hers. She held up her head and swallowed. “I-I suppose I ought to apologize to you.”

“For what?” He kicked up a leg folding it over the other and sipped on his tea.

“For how I may have treated you yesterday when you first arrived. I-I should not have conducted myself in that manner and for that, I am sorry. That was not how I ought to have treated you at first sight. For that, I apologize.”

It’s only been a full day and she’s already treating me nicely. Now all I have to do is try to get Evelyn to feel the same. However, he thought that maid might be particularly difficult to gain favor towards.

“Your apology is accepted,” he said putting the teacup on the plate that sat on the table. “Frankly, I don’t blame you for viewing me skeptically. In fact, I’d advise you to continue to do so. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that the person you hadn’t really thought would be a monster, could very well end up being a monster.”

“I take it you have personal experience with that?”

“Yes, there is one particular man who comes to mind.” Since she had told him some valuable information, he thought to reciprocate especially since she had apologized to him when she hadn’t needed to. He told her about Noreko and how he had plunged the human and scarcely familiar populations within the fifth domain into complete and utter destruction forcing them to flee to the fourth domain. He was hoping to relay this same information to Lady Meredith whenever he got the chance to speak with her as Felghan had planned out.

Much like how he felt about Noreko, she too felt horrified by the actions of one person who ruined it all. Although Kiran in some way, had some blame for the entire affair. He had killed the queen after all which set it all in motion. He would, however, not take the blame for the destruction of the pillar itself. That lay solely with Noreko.

A person began to approach them. He looked up from Evalia and saw Felghan standing there before them. “Lady Meredith has arrived,” he said with his hands clasped behind his back.