Royal Plaything

Lilia was dropped off in her aunts chambers by Lottie, now that she had gotten here, she wasn sure what to do. There was a single bed in the room but Lilia wasn sure she was allowed to sleep on it so she found a warm corner to curl up in.

Lilia had no idea when her aunt showed up because although the floor was cold and hard, she fell asleep right after she lay down.

Caitlin had come in many hours later, at first she frowned because she couldn find her niece but then she caught sight of a little lump lying in the corner.

She made no move to take Lilia to her bed, instead draping a blanket over her and calling it a night.

Lilia was startled awake before dawn by the jarring sounds of ringing bells. She was roughly shoved awake by her aunt and was still drowsy when she hurried down the halls in the company of other scullery maids who had also been woken up by the morning alarm.

They had to clean up in the washrooms before reporting for duty and the ice-cold water jolted Lilia fully awake. Her cheeks and nose were a bitter red as she stood beside four other scullery maids wiping down dishes and stacking them.

They had to get all the dishes from dinner last night clean before breakfast could be served, it was grueling work.

Lilia adjusted quickly although she was the youngest and unfit for this kind of hardship.

At breakfast, Lottie sat beside her, Joan with her as expected. Those two were joined at the hips and although they were strikingly different, they were thick as thieves.

Lilias days consisted of washing dishes before every meal and scrubbing floors in between. There were precious few moments when she could catch a break during the day and she spent the time ogling the castles gardens.

The castles gardens were like a little world of its own, it was simply magnificent and required a small army of gardeners to keep it in top shape.

On one such day, she was sitting on the top step of a staircase that led to a turret and didn see much use. It was her favorite spot because it provided an ample view of the castles gardens and very few people wandered there.

It had been more than a week since Lilia moved to the castle, and every free time she was given was spent on the steps of this staircase, staring at the blooming flowers.

Lilia didn have to return to her station till it was lunchtime. They had finished scrubbing early today and had gotten themselves more than an hour of free time.

Lilia didn know where the other girls went when they didn have to work and she didn ask. It was clear that she wasn accepted into the group they had formed and Lilia didn mind, she would rather flower watch.

Her peaceful time was interrupted when the boys her age whom she had encountered on her first day in the castle ran up the stairs that she thought were her safe hideout. After a few days at the castle, she found out that they were stable boys who also did some menial jobs at the castle that were too arduous for the scullery maids to handle, like armory cleaning.

She would have thought nothing of it if they had just run past her and gone on their way but instead they stopped when they got to her, surrounding her with curious eyes that looked a little cruel.

Lilia steadfastly ignored them, staring out the high windows and pretending not to see them.

The stable boys were having this though, the undisputed leader, Gabe, spoke first. ”Yer Cranky Caitlins niece, ain ya? ” He sneered in her face.

Lilia looked at them at this point, the mention of her aunts name was enough to get her attention. She said nothing though, staring at them blankly.

With her shabbily cut hair and gaunt appearance, she cut a very unlikeable figure.

Gabe roughly shoved her, they were at the top of the stairs while Lilia was sitting a step or two down. This meant that she ran the risk of falling all the way down to the bottom step and getting badly injured.

Luck was on her side because she managed to catch herself on the wall after stumbling down a couple of steps, she wasn hurt but she was very terribly shaken up.

The stable boys didn seem to care and only laughed crassly and high-fived each other.

”Thatll teach cruddy Caitlin not to get us in trouble again! ” Gabe boasted, swaggering off.

Lilia had been looking forward to getting an hour-long peaceful time of watching flowers sway in the afternoon sun but now it was ruined.

She was too shaken up to keep sitting at her usual spot on the staircase, she also didn want the stable boys coming back to try to throw her down the stairs again.

Instead, she huddled up on a bench in a corner of the servants mess hall. At least this time, there were other people around so she would be left alone.

They had called her aunt names and said that she got them in trouble, Lilia didn know anything about that and she wasn going to ask. Telling her aunt about it would be bothersome so the best she could do was try to stay out of their way.

Sitting huddled in a corner of the greasy mess hall with bruises on her palms from when she stopped her plummet to the bottom of the stairs, Lilia was reminded of her parents.

After moving to the castle, she was kept so busy and exhausted that she hardly had the time to remember her dead parents. But there were certain moments sadness washed over her and coated her like a suffocating blanket… Moments such as this one.

It had her fighting the urge to cry because if she cried, someone would notice and try to fetch her aunt, Lilia didn want that.

So she held it in, sniffling and picking at the chipping edges of the table to distract herself.