A Maiden's Tale || NaruHina COMPLETED

Chapter 1

Hinata~

I had been a maid my entire life. My mother was a maid, and her mother before her.

We had a long line of servants working for the aristocracy, but none of them compared to the work in the palace.

When I was nine, I was brought to work in the palace for the king; and it felt like a dream. The miles of hallways, all polished marble floors and intricately weaved rugs, and the countless marvels of sculptures and paintings from masters of every nation lining the walls.

I lost myself in the warmth and the splendor of it. Of course, I tended well to my duties, but the piles of fine linens and lace dresses needing washed never quite felt like work. I would run my hands slowly over the fabrics, smiling to myself, imagining what it would feel like to wear them. For years, my days were filled with sweeping, washing, mopping, and tidying, and I was happy.

The other servants were kind, and the king treated us well.
That was until a year ago, when she arrived.

Shion was a princess from a distant kingdom known for their military strengths. Konoha was at risk of falling prey to an imposing war, and we needed them as an ally. So the king, even in his old age, offered the joining of the two nations through a marriage to the oldest daughter.

No one expected the alliance to actually continue, but it did. The two were wed, and immediately my world changed.

The new queen was not warm and welcoming as her husband had been to us; she was cruel, and taunted her servants like toys. I found myself being shoved away by the other servants, kept hidden to work in the closets and washrooms almost exclusively. I was warned not to walk around the gardens or tend to the flowers, which I had once so enjoyed. "The queen doesn't like pretty girls," someone had said, because the queen was destined to remain the most beautiful in the nation.

When the king passed away, not long after their marriage, the reign of Shion fell over all of Konoha. The people were starving, the aristocracy falling into bankruptcy, and crime was rampant in the villages and cities. The order of a once peaceful country spiraled into chaos by a queen who refused to govern her people. It seemed that even outside countries had abandoned us, leaving us to wither into nothing.

All of our hope was lost.