BASED ON THIS TW for a brief mention of grevious bodily harm @homoo-wan-kenobi thanks for the idea! Its sometime in the evening,...

BASED ON THIS

TW for a brief mention of grevious bodily harm

@homoo-wan-kenobi thanks for the idea!

Its sometime in the evening, late by the way your eyes droop tiredly. Your hands are sore and red, the water you’ve used scalding enough to melt flesh off. Miss Bela showed you how once, and you haven’t been the same since. Lady Dimitrescu has five sets of sheets for her bed and all five of them are ruined and dark with a viscous brown liquid.

You’ve been up since the early hours, soaking and scrubbing and pressing the massive sheets, to say nothing of the tears you shed over the ruined throw pillows.

You would’ve had help, but Lady Chiara was an even worse employer than Lady Dimitrescu. Many a person had been let go or retained in the cellars at Lady Chiara’s word, so you were almost chronically understaffed. It wasn’t like you lost any company, because you had no free time to socialise other than the occasional staff group nap, but you did miss being able to rest your hands for more than a minute.

Lady Chiara came to see you sometime in the evening, buttoned up warmly in a sleek black coat. “Still fussing over the sheets?”

You didn’t answer right away, pressing the last corner of the last sheet. “They are finished, but I cannot salvage the blankets or the throw pillows.”

“That’s fine. I’ll be out for the week, don’t touch my side of the room while I’m gone.”

“Of course, ma’am.”

You don’t like Lady Chiara, but she doesn’t seem to care as long as you keep to her instructions for her things. And you do, because you like your job and want to keep it. And for Lady Dimitrescu.

Lady Chiara is opposite to you in that; she seems to hate Lady Dimitrescu, and everything they do that isn’t mandated by Mother Miranda. You’ve seen her smile, you know she’s capable of it, she can be charming and sweet and even loving in public. But she never spares Lady Dimitrescu a smile in private and her sweet tone hides a menagerie of awful insults that make you cringe to hear them.

Most times its about her appearance, which you think is ludicrous. Lady Dimitrescu’s posture is always perfect, her smile is always sincere, her voice always clear, her makeup consistent and perfect. You couldn’t understand how she could possibly claim they were awful or tacky. If Lady Dimitrescu managed to be perfectly to her standards, Lady Chiara would sneer over how the house was run, or the castle décor, or how dinner was cooked. And that wasn’t even the worst of them.

When you do finally finish putting the sheets away, its after dinner and you bump into Lady Dimitrescu as she’s striding down the hallway.

“There you are,” She greets you while you struggle through a curtsy with your hands full of fresh sheets for her bed. She glances at them and her face goes mildly blank, “Ah, I see.”

“Forgive me,” You say immediately, “I couldn’t salvage the throw pillows.”

“Did you spend all day trying to?”

“Of course, my lady. Why wouldn’t I?”

She looked at you and your sore and red hands and smiled, “I see. Carry on.”

And then she was gone, and you went the rest of your day cleaning her room while she entertained her daughters. When Lady Chiara was gone, Alcina liked to have music playing throughout the castle. She usually abhors the quiet. You have no idea why she hates the quiet, but she does, even a moment of silence put her on edge. You gathered from her one day that Lady Chiara hadn’t liked it when she played music during the day, so she had stopped.

It was a shame, Alcina had a lovely taste in music.

Most days she and her daughters would lounge in the drawing room, the smoke from her cigarette making the light of the candles hazy. They’d play music together, or each daughter would take turns playing against their mother in chess, or she’d read to them in soft dulcet tones before tucking them into bed one at a time.

When you went to her room later that night with her after dinner tea, the candles weren’t lit at all and the curtain was drawn open fully to let in the moonlight. It painted her silver and inky black but for her eyes, which shimmered silver when she turned to look at you. Her hat was on the floor, her silver threaded hair loose around her shoulders, down her back and slightly frizzy no matter the number of pins in her hair.

You picked up her hat and set it down beside the tray of tea in front of her then move to light a few candles. Your steps echo as you move to the other side of the room, and when you look over at her, she’s slouching in her chair. She sips her tea daintily when you stand beside her and hums with obvious pleasure.

“Thank you,” She says and you decide not to comment on the way her voice wobbles uncertainly, “You may leave.”

You don’t move and she doesn’t tell you to get out.

She’s your height while she sits and while her posture is still perfect, her shoulders are relaxed more than you’ve seen in months. Her face, though, is stuck in a pout and her lips twist while she breathes through her nose with growing intensity. You fix the way her hair parts and then, after a moment where you both look at each other, you carefully wrap your arms around her head and pull her close.

Alcina releases a long and shuddering breath, one had coming to hold your elbow loosely. You rest your chin on her head while her breathing calms down, her other arm looping around your waist and holding you close. Her hair smelt vaguely floral, a type of flower you couldn’t quite figure out. Maybe one day you would ask her and maybe one day she would answer.

“We can’t keep doing this.” She murmured, and you could feel your sleeve grow damp when she buried her eyes into your arm.

You placed a kiss to her head, “One day, my lady.”