Chapter 10: Seeing "her" again

By now the two of them had been working for several hours. Much like when he was Maria's servant, he was a sort of backup checker for all of Alice's documents. Though unlike Maria, on top of checking all her work, Alice also gave him a stack of paperwork to do on his own. When he asked her why she trusted him to do all this on his own, she reminded him that she knew Maria. Apparently, Maria had rather hyped up his skills, so he had a lot to prove if he didn't want to let Alice down. She even admitted that without Maria's recommendation she wouldn't have invited him to work with her, they would have remained friends, but he would have been on his own to find a job. 

"I don't have time to carry a deadweight." Alice said when asked about it. It bothered David that Alice kept weaseling in Maria's name into their conversations, he knew that they were friends but he still had some rather complicated feelings about her so he just wished Alice would stop bringing it up. Other than that, the whole event went smoothly. David found the paperwork tasked to him rather simple, mostly just simple math, or sorting issues, and found that Alice was a pro at this. Whenever he checked over her work, he could never find a single mistake. 

Even so, despite all the work he was doing he was not having a bad time. Working alongside Alice was rather "fun" which was something he had not thought about in a long time. In fact, since he had come to this world, he had not made a single friend before Alice, he was constantly in danger after all so there wasn't time. But it felt nice to be able to speak openly with Alice. Even if he would occasionally bring up some otherworldly knowledge, he no longer felt the pressure to hide it. This is quite unlike when he was working with Maria. Back then he had kept his mouth shut whenever possible worried that any excess information, no matter how seemingly useless, could be used against him, his whole goal was to escape after all, so the less he said the better. Still though, despite the relaxed non-threatening atmosphere he had working with Alice, the warmth that he felt while working with Maria was not there. There did not seem to be an explanation, but he tried to not dwell on it too much, thinking such positive things about his oppressor was not something he felt he should be doing. 

After several hours had gone by, Alice decided to stop to take a break for lunch, calling in a maid to bring her food from the kitchen. Alice offered him to ask for something, but he hesitated, worried that he may be overstepping his bounds, that they may spit on his food or poison it. He barely felt comfortable ordering the servants at his house around, let alone the Palace's. Sensing his hesitation Alice asked the maid to bring double her order, clearly intending to share with David. 

"Thanks." David said as he breathed a sigh of relief no longer having to worry about something as simple as asking for food. 

"No problem." Alice said as she played with the pen at her desk. "Oh hey! How is your new home?" 

"You gave me a mansion you know." David said flatly. 

"Yeah so?" 

"Honestly it's wonderful, too wonderful I don't think I really deserve that place." David said. 

"It's just a Baron's old estate, it's nothing too grand." Alice said with a shrug. Clearly David was not getting through to her, he would just have to live with it. 

"I told some people to furnish whatever was missing in the place, but did everything come in okay?" Alice asked since she herself had not looked around yesterday. 

"I mean pretty much, yeah. There are a few rooms that are empty that I don't know what to do with yet, and there are a lot of empty bookshelves in the study and the library, but other than that everything is too amazing." David said casually. He then pauses, realizing the mistake he made. 

"You know what, forget I said anything." He said, trying to backtrack. "Knowing you, I'm afraid you'll deliver me a truck full of books and new furniture by the end of tomorrow." Alice opened her mouth and looked like she had something to say about that and then thought better of it. Instead she asked something else. 

"What is a truck?" Ah, this again, David didn't really feel like explaining this time. "Let me rephrase that, I'm afraid you'll send me several carts full of stuff to the house." 

"This truck thing must be rather large for you to compare it to so many carts full of things." Alice said taking meaning from David's words that he didn't even know was there. She casually sips from her teacup as she pretends to act elegantly. She knew full well David didn't want to explain every single one of these things he mentioned from his world, but that was exactly why it was so easy to tease him about it. She did wish he would though, by the sounds of it his world was full of crazy and wondrous things that she can only begin to imagine. How his world must look must be beyond her. In just one day he had already mentioned 4 things she had never heard of, this Dracula man who was an evil all-powerful wizard vampire, a watch which is somehow able to keep the time indoors, a clock which is much of the same thing as a watch but larger, and now this truck which seemed to be a cart but significantly larger, how horses were expected to pull such a massive frame was something she could not fathom.

Eventually the food arrived, and the maid left after handing the food over, scowling slightly as she handed it to David, but done so that Alice could not see it. They chatted for a while longer as they ate and then resumed work for the rest of the afternoon. When the day was over Alice invited David to stay for a dinner enticing him with tales of master chefs, but David declined, saying he wanted to finish the work on his home as soon as possible so he needed the rest of the day to do it. The truth was even if he didn't have work at his house he wouldn't be able to eat here, outside of the princess' company, the Palace was not too friendly to him, so he wouldn't feel comfortable. With a pout, Alice saw David out, handing him a small letter with a golden seal to keep with him to enter the palace easily next time. 

As soon as David got home, he rushed to the back garden to resume the work from yesterday only to find it all done. The entire yard had been skillfully weeded and cleaned, even the tool shed in the back seemed to be repaired slightly, though it might need to be replaced entirely in the future. Little did David know that after yesterday's event, his house staff had assumed that the back garden was the most important thing to their new master, so they put most of the other work aside and finished that as swiftly as possible. Of course, the garden was far from done, new seeds needed to be planted to allow flowers to grow, new bushes needed to be brought in to allow the garden's fullness to come back, as well as a few other things to return it to its former splendor. But all of the work that could be done immediately was finished. Slightly dejected that his plan was thwarted, but not ready to give up he quickly headed inside to speak with Sebastian. After a short "argument" he left, bucket of paint in hand, to help renovate the house. 

The next day he was eating breakfast when Sebastian told him he had a visitor outside. When he went outside to see who it was it was a messenger, letter in hand, as well as three carts full of books. David immediately understood what was going on, with a bit of regret he told Sebastian to have some people bring the books inside while he opened and read the letter. 

Hey there! So, I was thinking yesterday, what's the point of having bookshelves if you have no books to put on them? Right? I know I am right! So anyway, take these books and don't say no! I've read a bunch of them anyway and the rest look boring, so I don't mind. Signed Princess Alice. PS. I didn't send you any furniture this time, but if you figure out what you want to do with those rooms just let me know! 

And then at the bottom of the letter was a little smiley face with its tongue sticking out. David rubbed his forehead as he finished the letter. 

"Seriously that girl!" David said, slightly annoyed but also amused.

David showed up at the Princesses office, on time this time and quickly closed the door behind him. 

"You are paying me for this right?" David said quickly as soon as he entered the door. 

"For what? The job? Of course, I am." She said as she sipped tea innocently. She knew even before David came in that he was going to have an amusing reaction, so she had been waiting all morning to see this. 

"What's the point of paying me if you are just going to keep giving me stuff!" David said with a bit of anger and gratitude at the same time. Alice just takes another sip of tea without saying a word. David sits down in a huff. 

"Look, I am grateful. But you've already given me so much." David said as he calmed himself down and began to talk seriously. 

"It's not just the house, or the servants, or the books. You helped save me when I was dying from poison, you helped save me when I was being drugged underground, you gave me a job and a new life." David said to Alice who is now a little taken aback by David's heartfelt words. 

"We are friends, right?" 

"Of course we are." Alice said mildly concerned now. 

"Well friendship is all about give and take, it doesn't need to be perfectly equal but if I'm just taking from you, I'm no different from those girls who just want to be your friend for your position." 

This was not the reaction Alice was expecting, she planned to tease him about the books for a little while and then move on, she hadn't expected him to come to her, give her a heartfelt talk and lecture her. Maybe she had taken this too far, perhaps she was abusing her position a bit too much. 

"Look you are a princess, with more wealth than I can imagine, I'm not sure there's anything I can even get you that you would want. But if I just keep taking your handouts all the time, I'll just become a parasite leeching off you, and I don't think either of us want that." It hadn't even occurred to her to think like that, she just wanted to tease her friend and give him gifts at the same time, it hadn't occurred to her that she was making this relationship too one-sided. 

"I'm not saying you can't give me gifts; lord knows I like getting gifts, but next time think about the time and the place to give me something, and also give me a chance to give you something first." He said with a small smile.

It was strange, the last thing she expected was him to tell her all of this, she was just doing what she had always done. Being the crown princess, she always received expensive gifts from foreign dignitaries, special envoys, and nobles. But they almost always expected, or hoped for something in return for them, even if it wasn't an equally lavish gift in return then they were hoping for her favor or something, to nobles, gifts are like ways of exchanging greetings. With each expensive gift she got the less valuable it seemed. But still she had never seen someone say that a gift was too expensive. But here he was, saying that she shouldn't thoughtlessly give him gifts.

"A time and a place, huh?" She thought to herself. 

"I'm sorry," She said aloud after David had finished. "I didn't realize you put so much thought into it. I just wanted to tease you a little." That last part she mumbled under her breath. 

"Alright as long as you understand." David said, "I guess I'll have to think of a gift to give you in return now though." He laughed to himself lightly. 

"Though I doubt I can top a mountain of books, I mean books are expensive right?" Alice shrugged. Alice did not know since she always lived in money, but David was sure of this. This world had yet to invent the printing press, thus all books were written by hand which is an incredibly slow and expensive process. That mountain of books that was delivered to his house was probably worth a literal fortune. That was one of the reasons he had them brought into his house so quickly, it was like having a mountain of gold outside his house. 

"Well we should probably get to work." David said as he grabbed some papers off her desk and sat down. 

"Oh, and Alice?" She looks up at him. "Thank you." He said with a smile.

Time flew quickly over the next few weeks, during the day David worked alongside Alice on paperwork and a few other tasks, and afterwards he would go home to help fix up the house. After two days had passed, another cart full of documents and books arrived at his house, his immediate reaction was to think of Alice again, but when he looked at the contents he realized that it was in fact all the "evidence" the Duke had that pointed to him being the culprit of the murders. 

"That old bastard really did send them to me." David said with a smug grin on his face. He honestly wasn't sure what kind of trick he would pull, he could have "lost" the documents in transit, he could have sent him mostly paper with no words on it, he could have, and still might have, kept some of the most important documents at his manor. But perhaps with the princess as his backer the Duke couldn't dare to not honor his agreement. After getting the house servants to help him dispose of the documents he went to work.

He was also learning a lot more about the world he was in by working with her. Not only were the documents he was handling much more important information than when he was working with Maria, but also, they covered much wider aspects of the society as a whole, as one would expect while working aside a princess. It was helping him to get a more balanced understanding of this world.

Eventually he came into work one day with his hand behind his back and a sheepish look on his face. After being questioned by Alice about it, he pulled out a wooden carving of a fish on a stick, it was poorly crafted and had especially bad quality in a few areas, namely the tail fin. But David presented it to Alice as a return gift. He had spent the past weeks when he was not working or helping fix the house making this. Numerous attempts at making this resulted in failure, it was only once he had gone onto his 15th attempt that it looked reasonable. 

"I'm sorry it's not that great." David said a bit embarrassed at the craftsmanship. 

"What is it?" Alice asked flatly as she examined it. Ah, that hurt, he had tried very hard to make it look like a fish. 

"It's a fish on a stick, you know like when we first met. I wasn't sure what to give you, but this is what I came up with. Sorry it sucks." David said as he hung his head in failure. 

Alice was unsure of what to say, she had been given wood carvings made by some of the best craftsmen in the world, she had been given crystal sculptures whose intricate designs make the mind wonder at how such a feat was achieved, she had been given jewels whose radiance shined so brightly that just by entering a room with it on immediately made her the center of attention no matter where she was. But somehow, this otherwise poorly crafted statue touched her. Unknowingly, in David's attempt to come up with a gift to give Alice, his funny/ campy gift he had decided on was related to a very special moment for Alice, so to her this was a memento of their friendship, which had only grown even stronger over the last few weeks. Alice smiled. 

"You're right it does suck." She said as she put it on the top of her desk right on the front. 

"But I like it!" 

"Ah, you don't need to put it in such a prominent position!" David said, still lamenting his decision to give it to her. 

"Too bad, it's mine now and I'll do what I want with it!" She said, sticking her tongue out at David. He wishes now that he had spent a few months practicing more if she was going to put it out in the open like this. He still had no idea just how special that gift was to Alice. 

Eventually the day was over, and David was getting up to head out but before he left Alice stopped him and handed him a letter. Alice didn't even need to say anything, the letter, which was addressed to him, had the family seal of the Velma house on it. He quickly opened it and found that it was a short letter that contained a time and location. With a stoic look he folds the letter back up and puts it away. He thanks Alice for the hard work and then heads out all without his stoic expression leaving his face. 

The time had come to see "her" again, he was not looking forward to it, but he knew he had to, no matter what she did, she would die without his blood, so it was his obligation to save her. With that on his mind he headed towards the location designated on the letter, a small tavern, and waited a bit before heading inside at the correct time. Upon entering he hears her speak for the first time in a long time. 

"Good to see you again, David." Maria said gracefully.