May the 2nd, three yers ago. Tuesday. I would like to say it was a day I would never forget, but it was a very plain work day without anything outstanding about it, save for just one thing. It was the day I formally entered the service of her Imperial Highness, Princess Anastasia Elsa Marina van Ferdina.
By my experience, the children of royalty could be roughly divided into three categories.
One, the ambitious kind.
Those, who embraced their lofty role wholeheartedly from the cradle and did all they could to live up to it. They skipped childhood entirely and tried their hardest to be very grown-up, faithfully imitating their elders in everything they did from manners to speech. And that was how they would spend the rest of their lives, performing a role, wearing an actor’s cape alongside the monarch's crown, not daring to take either off even in their sleep.
The second was the kind the public remembered best: the despotic kind.
Those who escaped the pressure of their rank and its attached responsibilities into indulgence and egotism. They made the rules, were the rules, and therefore above criticism. It was simple to dismiss such children as spoiled rotten, but seeking to correct them using that understanding as the base was only liable to make matters worse. It was, in its base essence, fear of failure that drove them to dominate the fellow man, and giving them yet more reasons to fear was not necessarily the best cure. They would remember the mistreatment growing up and tyranny and scandals followed.
The third type was the hardest to notice, often overshadowed by the other two.
These children were not noisy and they were not performers. They would stoically accept their birthright, neither proud of the good in it nor twisted by the bad in it, the former effectively neutralized by the latter. Instinctively understanding they could never measure up to the vast expectations set for them, they gave up on trying altogether. They clammed up early on, did what they had to, since they had to, empty inside, but with their apathetic demeanor made clear for all that none of it was by their own choice.
I initially took her highness for a member of the last category.
She never smiled, never cried, never raised her voice, never objected to anything, never asked for anything, expressed no complaints, spoke only when an answer was expected and even then kept her words brief. When she didn’t need to do anything, she held still, either reading, or quietly staring off, wearing a blank face, like a large doll.
The only times when her porcelain visage took on something of a feeling, and even humor, was when her father came to see her. But I soon began to suspect this was merely to please the Emperor and avoid having him worry about her, rather than a genuine show of attachment. The child was everything to him and he stirred a great fuss if he suspected anything was wrong with her, and such a mayhem often troubled the young Princess more than anything else.
Well, his majesty’s sentiments were easy to understand.
After all—the Princess was cute.
Exceptionally cute.
The cutest thing in the world.
Clean cream-color hair; large, bright amber eyes with the fluffiest lashes, skin translucent and fair; a small mouth with defined lips, and a small nose you'd love to poke. A figure petite and balanced. Her looks made many forgive the peculiarities of her character. In this field, she had inherited much from her mother, the heiress of Lombaria, fabled far and wide for her charms—although, thankfully, the inheritance didn’t extend far past the surface.
In character, Princess Anastasia was most certainly her father’s daughter.
When the Princess’s previous Lady of the Bedchamber, old Augustine, was promoted Mistress of the Robes, the court began to look for fresh blood. Typically, the servants of royalty were nobility themselves, but Ferdina had established the class of imperial maids some years previously. The servants were expected to function also as bodyguards if the need arose. As humanoid weapons, a last resort. Noblewomen scarcely had capacity even for self-defense, which was why competence was prioritized over social standing.
And that was where the tale connected to myself. You could say that was the point where it truly began.
Seeing as I had managed to outperform my peers in all fields of training, my services were initially offered to the first lady of the federation, the Empress Margarita herself. However, we were already acquainted better than either of us liked and her answer was quick: “I don’t want that one.” And this door was closed.
“Very well,” his majesty had said, “then I will have her for myself!”
To which I said, “I will resign.”
So I was assigned to the young Princess, who a year earlier had moved to Valengrad from the house of her grandparents in the idyllic southern Lombaria.
Due to the circumstances with the palace kitchen, the Princess was to have two imperial maids assigned to her. I would focus on her highness’s protection and help with the meal services, while my colleague would handle dressing, hairstyling, bathing, and such like things, of the finer points of which a child of the mountains understood very little.
In secret, I was deeply thankful for this effective division of labors.
I was given the choice to name my partner and I nominated Ms Henrietta Alcott, who had undergone training at the same time, and, although ranked only fourth in overall prowess, held other invaluable traits. Such as not getting on my nerves too often. After a brief orientation period under Mistress Augustine’s supervision, we adapted to our new routine without a hitch.
Wrapping up my part in the breakfast preparations before seven, I would go upstairs to find her imperial highness in her room, by now up and dressed, hair cleanly combed, gaze still drowsy. Having confirmed her fit for public scrutiny, I would escort her then to the dining hall for breakfast, and from there on to school.
The Princess attended Sain Germain’s private school, the oldest and most prestigious educational institute in the capital. Although many of the pupils were from noble families, anyone who could pass the entry requirements was accepted—even commoners—and no one was to be given preferential treatment within the premises. It was believed the choice of school would help make her highness more familiar to the masses, though there were some security concerns.
Servants were not allowed in class and the academy had its own security staff, so after seeing the Princess safely in, I would return to the palace and work on the mise-en-place for dinner, clean the Princess’s room, or my own room, go shopping, or do whatever else I could do, or was asked to.
Half past three, I would take the carriage to school once more to pick up her highness and bring her home.
At five o’clock, the family would have tea together with miscellaneous guests. Sometimes it was only the Empress and her female followers, sometimes the Emperor and his cohorts. Princess Anastasia’s attitude towards these occasions was much the same regardless of what sort of company she found herself in. Rambunctious men, or gossiping women, or only the closest family, it made no apparent difference to her.
By six o’clock, her highness would usually head to the library to do her homework, and a personal tutor would be there to advise her. Then piano lessons.
At eight o’clock, dinner was served, and all staff would attend. It was the one occasion in the court nobody was allowed to miss. The Princess was not a very picky eater, not compared to her mother, anyway.
The above would repeat every day from Monday to Saturday, with sparse few alterations. On Sundays, her highness had no school and the program varied more. Sometimes the imperial family would go out together for a picnic in the park, or shopping, or driving, a river cruise, or theater, or to see a ball game, or a race, or whatever you might want to do on your one day off.
It was the one day in the week when I could spend more time with the Princess, but what little crumbs of knowledge I gleaned through these hours of study were irregular and not particularly useful. Three weeks as her attendant and I still knew precious little about my mistress.
What did she like?
What did she hate?
What was her favorite food? Her favorite color? Favorite animal?
What was she afraid of? What kind of humor made her laugh? What kind of clothes did she like to wear? What kind of flowers did she want by the window?
I had no idea.
The Princess didn’t ask anything of her servants, nor told us anything about herself of her own initiative. We did our work and she allowed it, denying having any opinions, answering questions only in a singular word, or a gesture. It was not right for a maid to speak without permission and I could only request permission so many times in a day before it got insolent. I had to plan my limited queries with great care, word them in a way that necessitated more verbose answers. Yet, she somehow circumvented my attempts every time, pointing out that you could indeed express great many things with only a syllable or two.
By the age of ten, Princess Anastasia had honed laconism into an art form.
But if this maddening silence carried on for much longer, one of us three was bound to part with her reason soon.
I was never a terrific conversationalist myself, not then, not now. How could one person with such trouble expressing herself get another with a similar condition to open up? Now there was a task. The great pride that had swelled in my bosom over my success in training was soon replaced by a sense of incompetence and helplessness no different from those early days in the kitchen.
Henrietta was of no use to me in this plight. That woman had no trouble speaking her mind, but only privately. Hailing from a poor place, similarly to myself, she strictly refused to do anything that might jeopardize the well-paid occupation, by forcibly extracting eloquence from one who clearly didn’t desire it. It was our job to adapt to our mistress’s conduct and not expect her to adapt to ours.
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She was undoubtedly correct there—but I had to disagree.
Sometimes the correct thing wasn’t the right thing. Humans were creatures of will and action. Who in the world didn’t want to be known and understood? Who could enjoy wholly suppressing her own spring and allowing outside assumptions sculpt her identity, with no power or opportunity to steer the discourse?
Who are you?—Each of us was the only person qualified to answer that for ourselves. Never should you accept an answer contrived by another.
There were whispers in the court that her highness was born impaired. They said Lombarian noblemen had favored their sisters too much in procreation, and here we had the result: a body devoid of soul. A mind empty of meaning. A hollow idol to be sat before the crowds, like the totem poles carved by ancient savages to dance around.
I was half-ready to murder the speakers, but what would that have accomplished? It wouldn’t have stopped people from talking, only made them believe they had hit too close to the mark. But none of that was remotely true! I couldn’t well express it in words, but it was clear to me all along there was gold in that child, waiting to be excavated. Both spirit and intelligence that had simply yet to find their rightful venue to shine.
I continued to wrestle mentally with this problem and time passed, until a certain incident in early September.
The day was Thursday. I waited for her highness before the cast iron gates of Sain Germain, as usual.
I made sure to be always half an hour early, in case her classes ended prematurely, but they rarely did, and I wound up with a wealth of idle time in my hands, which invited needless ideas. I stood and surveyed the afternoon street view, half of my mind occupied with the Princess’s future. A short distance away, near a lamp post, a stray dog tore hungrily into the carcass of a smaller hound, run over perhaps by a cart. The dog was quite large, with long and mottled fur. Very likely, it had been a wealthier family’s pet, abandoned after growing too large and less endearing, now borderline feral, scavenging its sustenance off the streets. It was not an uncommon scene, especially in the rural regions. These ministers of nature let nothing go to waste. The death of one nourished the life of another. I hardly even registered such a mundane thing.
A bell in the high tower behind the school rang.
Soon enough, children of different ages began to pour out of the grand manor repurposed as a school in the middle of the city. Parking in front of the gates was prohibited, which forced the rest of the pupils to go farther for pickup, unless they walked. But the Imperial House’s sparkling coat of arms on the side of our carriage was permission enough. A member of the school security would bring her highness out of the main building and across the wide schoolyard to the gate, and she would be my concern from thereon. I watched them appear, the same as any other day, and, when the Princess was twenty paces away, bowed my head low in a greeting.
“Your highness. Are you ready to return home?”
“Un.” The Princess made a faint sound of affirmation and trod on.
I acknowledged the guardsman with a nod, as a sign that his duty was done and he could go, which he did, and I turned to return to the carriage that awaited right by the sidewalk. The same as any other day.
The repeated monotony of the scene took the better of me then. It was not my intention to make up excuses for my blunder, but that was precisely what happened. I still had ways to go as a maid. I headed for the carriage without looking back, certain her highness followed along, the same as she always did every other day these past months. But the next thing I knew, the Princess was instead briskly striding towards the stray hound further down the lane.
The scene I had dismissed as inconsequential was not necessarily seen the same way by others.
Why? I could sort of grasp the reasoning from the child’s agitated motions. I had learned to read her mentality to an extent, observing her so closely. The sight of the dog preying on its fellow in broad daylight had violated against the Princess’s ten-year-old sense of justice. She simply couldn’t tolerate the vile act of cannibalism, but went to shoo the beast, urging it to leave the mangled bag of fur be. But the dog was not at all willing to part with its lunch, nor did it put royalty on a pedestal. It bared its teeth at the Princess, ready to fight for its rights. Either her highness failed to recognize this, or else her sympathy for the dead overpowered her reasoning, or maybe she just harbored surreal ideas about her own invulnerability—I wouldn’t know that much.
At any rate, still waving her arms, she took one step too close, and the canine fellow jumped at her.
Left so far behind at the start, I was too late to prevent this.
I had committed quite possibly the gravest mistake an imperial servant could make, and our crown Princess was about to pay the price for it.
There was only one thing I could do to stop the worst with the clearest certainty. I put myself between the two and stuck my arm deep into the hound’s jaws. Two rows of dull fangs sank into the limb, piercing through cloth and skin and muscular fiber, and bending the thin bones inside in such ways, I was surprised they could do that without snapping. The only reason I didn’t have the whole arm ripped clean off was that the creature never meant to kill, but only to scare off a perceived rival for its meal.
Animals typically had a strong distaste for human flesh and blood, and would rather not eat it, unless diseased or crippled and unable to procure anything else. Surprised to find a maid between its teeth, the dog, looking rather stupefied, unbuckled its jaws and retreated. It snatched what was left of the carcass and went off skittering along the sidewalk.
I was glad to conclude the match as a draw.
Scorched inside by guilt and shame almost on par with the pain rending my arm, I turned back to Princess Anastasia, who had dropped on her bottom onto the sidewalk out of the suddenness of the intervention. It may be that I pushed her a bit, or it may be that I didn’t.
“Forgive me, your highness,” I apologized and offered her my intact left hand. A breach of etiquette also, but that couldn’t be helped. “Are you unharmed? Can you stand?”
The Princess didn’t move. She stared at me, at my mauled arm, trickling blood, and my face.
“...Doesn’t it hurt?” she then asked.
“Yes,” I answered. “As a matter of fact, it hurts quite terribly.”
“But, your face is…”
It appeared what disturbed her most was my lack of expression. But what good would it have done for me to start screaming and flailing like mad out here in public? Such a deranged scene could have traumatized her highness for life. What if she were to dread dogs till the end of her days because of that? Her becoming saddled with such an embarrassing condition would have been all my fault. I could never make up for it.
“There is no need for concern,” I assured her. “I can heal myself with magic.”
That said, it did hurt awfully lot. Since her highness was in no hurry to get up, I chose to prioritize recovery and drew the tracer in the air with my intact hand.
Elemental Gate: Sanatio.
“Heal.”
Power poured through my body. Blood ceased to run. The bones straightened up, the rent muscles reconnected, the round fang holes in the flesh closed. In about twenty seconds, my right arm was intact again, though the regenerated parts of the skin showed distinctly paler and smoother than the surroundings. I couldn’t have regrown a missing limb, but a shallow wound like this was still within my ability.
Alas, the effect didn’t apply to clothes. Having to escort her highness home with my uniform in tatters was only a little less disgraceful than going entirely naked.
“There.” I offered the restored hand to her highness now. “All fine, as you can see.”
She didn’t look any relieved to see it, though.
“But why…?” she asked me. “Why would you do such a thing?”
“Pardon me, do what?”
“It still hurt, didn’t it? You said it did. You could’ve been killed—for my sake. For a person you despise! Why? Because my father commanded so?”
I couldn’t help but frown at her unexpected words.
“Forgive me, but why would you think I despise you?”
“Because you do, don’t you? Your eyes are always so cold, and you never smile, or tell me about yourself! The other day I heard older students say nobility should all disappear. That nobody really needs us or wants to have us, they only suffer us because they have no power and we’re only a burden on the land! You think so too, don’t you? You’re a lowborn, aren’t you? You must hate having to serve an ignorant child like me. But I never wanted to be a burden on you!”
The Princess raised her voice with an unusually agonized expression.
I had never seen her exhibit such directness of feeling, or use as many words before, or even believed her capable of it.
Perhaps it was due to the memory of pain and the adrenalin still flowing in me, but I knelt in front of her highness and, feeling exceptionally brazen, touched her face and drew her chin gently upward.
“Your highness, not a word of that is true. I do not think you should disappear, or that you are a burden to a soul. The things your father does are infinitely more valuable and useful to this land than my trivial existence. One day, you will also manage the same duties, and I will do everything in my power to make it even a little easier on you. Not because anyone commanded me to—but because I personally wish to. Because I chose to. Because I fought and struggled for years to reach here, to stand beside you. And now that I'm here, I can say with confidence that no part of it was a mistake. Yes. It could be well be that meeting you was the very purpose of my life.”
“Do you really think so?” she asked, seeking the truth in me with her large eyes, her wise eyes. “Honestly?”
“Must I feed my other arm to the dog to prove it?”
“No!” she cried and clung to my arms. “Never do such a thing again! Promise me you won’t! Not for any reason!”
“That is a promise I cannot keep. You are my Lady, my Princess. If it’s for your sake, I will never hesitate to become dog food, if I must.”
“That’s not funny!”
“It was not a joke either. I meant every word.”
“You’re awful. If I’m your mistress, then you must do as I say.”
“Yes, I am an awful, disobedient maid. I will not obey anyone if it hurts you, not even you, or your father. Day and night, I think only of your happiness and will allow nothing to get in its way. Because your happiness is my happiness. As long as you live, I live, even if I am in the grave and you still walk the earth. So you must live and relish your life, Princess, and hold yourself dear. For the sake of all of your loving people, who need you, and among whom I am but one and the least. Do you think you could promise me that? If you do, then I may also promise to be more careful from hereon.”
“I will, I will!” she said and cried great big tears. “I promise! I’ll become a good princess! So you mustn’t get hurt again, Lunaria!”
And so was the ice broken. The glacier had been wide, but we’d bridged it, both of us reaching for the other from the opposing bank. That day, my resolve was tempered and I took to heart what I already knew from the beginning, from before the beginning, before even being born. It was written in the stars above the village where I was born, on the face of the Moon. That to the very end, the end of ends, I would be the Princess’s maid, only the Princess’s maid.
I recalled that resolution now, when the time came to face the dark of Baloria once more.
The gates of the dungeon were flung opened for me, and I would let nothing get in my way again, man, or beast, or the enormity of the labyrinth.
I wouldn’t rest again until a path was carved through the mountains and I was back to where I belonged.
“Only a little longer now.”
FIN