Servant

Thorns of a Rose

•Y/N: Your Name
•E/C: Eye Color
•L/N: Last Name

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Your POV:
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There was no need for words as we walked to the courtyard gardens. Alton's company was more than enough to clear my tears away, but my emotions from the bath have yet to fade. I couldn't help but wonder what might've happened if the King hadn't been fooling around back there. I was petrified, frozen stiff with terror. He had pulled many stunts in the past, but none that involved something like that.

It was a new level of scary that I didn't even realize I'd have to deal with when I came here, and now, I have to work as his personal maid. How close does he want to keep me just to torment me? I don't understand his motives. He's simply insane. My feet come to a halt when the sun kisses my skin for the first time in what felt like forever.

It's warm and welcoming, like arms opening up for a loving embrace. The weather is fairly warm, but as the breeze swept through and sent my hair flying back in gentle waves, it cooled the temperature nicely. It gave me a fresh breath of air that I didn't realize I needed until now. I was in awe at the presence of the vivid and thriving greenery before my eyes as we start down a stone path to venture into the garden. Peach and apricot trees, ripe with fruit, are picked by women with baskets to take to the kitchen, likely to make a delicious desert, while landscapers shape massive and small topiaries of lions and detailed, humanoid figures with their hedge clippers, cut the lush green grass and water the strikingly beautiful, blooming flowers that seemed to create a rainbow.

Roses appear to be the favorite, as there are many bushes of them of every color one could imagine. I felt as though I had stepped into a new world— A better, brighter world, where all worries were washed away with the wind. My mind is pulled back to reality when we stop at a stone bench, which Alton kindly sweeps off for me to sit there, as if there was anything filthy there to damage my dress in the first place. Everything out here is pristine and clean, much like the palace itself. I bow my head to him in thanks as he offers me to sit first and smooth out my dress as he joins beside me.

"It's much more beautiful up close," I comment aloud with a dainty smile, at ease with the sight presented to me. "It's so colorful." Alton uses a finger to pull down his mask, unveiling a smile of his own.

"The late Queen was a lover of roses; therefore, it was ordered that roses of every color should fill the garden to please her. It was her wedding gift, essentially." He chuckles softly before saying, "I remember, back when our King was young, he would order me to bring his mother a rose every morning at breakfast. He demanded that I had to pick the loveliest bloom of the morning. I thought it was kind of cute, actually. Hard to believe he'd do something like that now, huh?" His shoulders depress as he leans forward some with his elbows on his knees, while I was in shock.