Let Her Rest

Faustina was assigned to deliver clean sheets to the bedrooms in the central wing of the palace. Not even to make the beds, just to deliver the sheets. It sounds like a simple task but there were hidden depths to everything in the palace.

Different quality sheets went to different places, some sheets needed to be heated while others would be brought in from the cold and were meant to stay chilled, the rooms needed to be attended to in order of who would retire to bed first, which inevitably involved a lot of assumptions by the servants who might just accidentally affect a noble's reputation by preparing their room too soon.....

And all of that wasn't even mentioning the fact that the Central Wing was where the Imperial Family and related royals reside!

Faustina had been paired with a girl of around 17 who had been assigned to the same task for awhile now. That girl couldn't be bothered to help her any more than shouting across the room that a sheet that wasn't folded properly or was put in the wrong place. When Faustina finally directly asked for help the girl slapped her in the face, hard enough to hurt but not leave a lasting mark.

"Is there a brain beneath your skull? Take up the sheet on the bed already and fold that too until you get it!" She looked down at the younger girl haughtily.

Faustina looked up at the girl dully, 'she is over a foot taller than me...how pathetic...', she touched her cheek and rubbed it with her palm.

"I'll try that. Thank you for the advice." She spoke without smiling, bowing her head lightly while keeping eye contact, her silvers pupils almost the same empty shade as the white of her eye and the other girl shook slightly before grimacing, flicking her hand as if she had touched something disgusting. The older one couldn't hide her discomfort, quickly walking past her.

"Why did they assign me this worthless thing?" The teenager muttered to herself as she left the room, the ornate doors shutting behind her. "Dare to not listen when I tell you how things work? I won't come back to help that good for nothing, tch-"

>>>>>>>>

Prince Oleander appeared calm but if one looked closely they would notice how his legs moved rapidly and despite walking his pace was faster than someone jogging. Long legs, despite his short stature, flew down the expansive halls. Luckily, there was no one who was brave enough to dare to watch the Prince after the way the night went so far. So no one saw the way he was racing to his room, or the way his fists were clenched and his eyes were tearing up.

Oleander felt like he couldn't breathe. He was desperately practicing the breathing exercises Doctor Lovis taught him. Breath in through the mouth, hold the breath, breath out through the nose... Except he kept stumbling over the steps. Forgetting to breathe out, struggling to breathe in at all. He was drowning. He did his performance and now his time was up. He needed to be in a place he knows. He needed to get away from the testing words and judgemental eyes and hidden meanings. He needs to be in his room.

Now.

He was just about to open the door to his room but someone stopped him. Not only did they stop him, they touched him.

Oleander couldn't hear anything. Not the stuttering apologies or the mumbling explanation. The staff knew not to touch him. His own mother knew that he shouldn't be touched unless he explicitly said it was okay. And that was on a good day. At the current moment, today was not a good day for Prince Oleander.

The servant girl was shoved to the ground, despite the strength of her limbs from physical labour and clearly closer to the end of her teenage years, being both larger and older than the Prince. She didn't dare to try grabbing ahold of the Prince's arm to keep her balance.

"GET HER OUT!" He growled, yelling out into the hall, not even aware of if any guards were there or not. His hand scratched furiously at the arm that had been touched. The boy essentially fell into his own room as he forced the giant ornate doors open with his body. It didn't matter though, he was more comfortable on the ground anyway and had always hated chairs.

Oleander curled up on the floor and finally felt safe, with his head tucked into his knees and the rocking of his entire body.

Faustina froze in place, her hands still smoothing out the soft cotton on the bed. She felt that this must be what a prey animal feels like when they watch a wounded predator bleed.

The thick wood doors prevented her from hearing whatever happened outside. She yelped when she heard the door slam but the Prince didn't even seem to hear her or realize she was there.

Faustina had never had to comfort anyone. The other servants kept their distance from her because of the circumstances of her birth and she obviously wouldn't have any highborn friends. Her mother was a strong and independent woman who never needed to be comforted. The girl had never been in this situation before.

Her eyes dashed between the bed she was next to and the boy on the ground. 'He might get cold like that on the marble floor...' Despite there being soft rugs all over the room there wasn't any where the boy sat. It was a spring day, the daytime was warming up but the nights were just as cold as any winter. Faustina was the type of person who hated feeling a chill, she didn't know how to comfort him so she did what she would want someone to do for herself if she was on that cold marble.

She ruined the bed she had been working hard to fix up. Yanking the sheet off, she shuffled over and placed the fluffy comforter in front of his feet without saying a word. Oleander's head snapped up out of his arms because of the sound and he looked at what was happening. Forgetting to be surprised by her being in his room he snatched up the comforter, wrapping himself in it while laying on the floor. The comfortable pressure and warmth relaxed him.

"Thank you..." He spoke hoarsely a few minutes later, his voice muffled by the fabric he was buried in.

"You are very welcome your highness..." The girl wanted to ask him what was going on, if there was any way she could actually help, but she hesitated, unsure if it would be overstepping his boundaries.

"...Please don't call me that right now." The boy whispered, the words coming out more pitifully than he intended them to.

"Oh....Oleander?" She replied expectantly, wanting to ask him her questions.

Oleander popped his head out the blanket to look at the first person to treat him like a person today.

The girl had a feather on her head, one that must've snuck it's way out of the soft comforter while lugging the heavy thing over.

"May I touch your hair?" Oleander asked, even though she couldn't do anything if the Prince did whatever he wanted.

"You are very kind to ask, I don't mind at all, your hi- Oleander." She stressed his name, correcting herself immediately. Ignoring the fact that her questioning tone had been ignored with ease, as if she was used to that kind of treatment.

"Thank y-" Oleander was about to say the words for the second time before he realized that the girl had laid her head down right in front of him on the blanket. Not touching him but directly in front of his legs. He had never been in such close proximity to anyone other than family before.

Faustina was too tired to even think about how what she was doing violated etiquette even more than everything else that had happened since The Prince entered the room. She wasn't thinking when she put her head down facing away from the boy. Almost immediately her tense muscles relaxed, the pounds of heavy fabrics and things she had carried that day didn't exist anymore. She forgot the questions she had wanted to ask the Prince along with all her other thoughts as she drifted away...

Oleander just wanted to take the feather out of her hair so he did that, but as soon as he touched the silky strand he was surprised. A maid certainly wouldn't have anything like fancy hair masks and treatment shampoos to keep it feeling like this. So she was just naturally like this.

He ran his fingers through her hair. Something he couldn't do with his own.

The long black waves had a tendency to get tangled the second anything other than a fine tooth comb touched them. Oleander hated the tension caused by untangling the knots. To the frustration of his mother, the boy would be quick to snatch the scissors and cut them out.

"Oleander!" She hissed, "Do you want to look like a madman!?"

Spots of his scalp were either still missing hair or slowly growing back in after he'd pulled it out in a moment of stress.

Oleander truly did like his hair. After calming down and seeing the loose strands in his hands and on the floor he would become incredibly upset. Both at whatever situation overwhelmed him to this point and also at the fact that he had pulled his hair out again, causing himself pain and frustration but solving nothing.

As Oleander ran his hands though the thin but strong and healthy red hairs he felt relaxed. The texture on his fingers was calming. Grounding in the best way. He tried something his mother used to do. The braids that always annoyed him and caused his hair to be tangled somehow were different right now. There was no tugging and fighting and pain. Her hair was different. Her hair wrapped around his fingers on its own and the braid formed by itself. Time melted away and he forgot where he was as he devoted himself to this. The girl in front of him breathing softly in her sleep.

The Prince braided a maid's hair. Letting her rest.

>>>>>>>>

Faustina woke up to a strange feeling. Her head felt heavier than usual. She sat up, pressing her hands into the thick plush cushion and-

The girl fully sat up. Looking around the room bewildered.

She wasn't living in horrible conditions but she had still never slept in a down feather comforter before. At most she had felt it's softness while washing or drying one.

There was no one else in the room. Looking at the massive windows the sun wasn't even at the horizon yet, the sky was just starting to take on a lighter shade of blue.

Faustina hesitantly got out of the bed, her rough feet landing on soft carpet. The strange feeling on her head was bothering her so she quickly made her way to the floor length mirror in the room.

What she saw there shocked her.

Intricate braids. Layers and layers of them, all of varying sizes. They looped together to form a crown. It looked exactly like a tiara on her head.

She touched it gently, barely believing it was really her hair.

"It suits you...do you like it?"

Faustina nearly jumped out of her skin but the prince laughed wildly, his rich blue eyes seeming to shine with a clear, mischievous light.

"I do like it. If you think it suits me then I must thank you, Oleander." Faustina replied, pausing before using the Prince's name as he'd told her to despite her ingrained instinct to use his title.

The Prince smiled, glad that she agreed, not even thinking about his role in society at the moment.

Neither understood the other.

The girl simply enjoyed a luxurious hairstyle.

The boy simply enjoyed seeing the girl with a crown upon her head...