Pura

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I wake with a fright,

as light tapping was felt against my still sore muscles. I hadn't even remembered myself falling back asleep, but I had been so consumed with my thoughts that it seemed reasonable that I had unknowingly fallen asleep at some point during the night.

My eyes sprung open and were instantly met with the likes of a young girl with big doe eyes the color of an evergreen leaf.

It wasn't Selma.

"Uhm- I didn't... I didn't mean to startle you. I just wanted to tell you that your breakfast was set and ready to be eaten," she gave me a shake-y nod, then began to scurry towards the exit of my bedroom before she was forced to interact with me any further.

"Wait," I rasped out a second before she was given the chance to slip through the door.

The small girl hesitatingly turned back around to face me with a slight look of terror. "Yes, sire?" she quickly replied back, with her voice sounding as small as a whisper.

"D-Do you know the whereabouts of a servant named Selma?" I inquired flatly, trying to hide the tremors rattling in my throat.

"Sorry, Prince, but no. The King has spent the last few days reassigning everyone, so it's been pretty chaotic for us this past week," she answered back as her thin fingers toyed with the fabric of her dress. "D-Do you want me to ask around?"

"No... NO! It's fine. I just- Uh... I just wanted to make sure she was okay," my words were jumbled as fear and anxiety began to coat my stomach in a sickly rumble. My father wouldn't take her away from me... he couldn't.

We both sat in silence for a brief second as I tried to push down the bitter taste of loneliness and anger. I hadn't been ready to let her go. I wasn't ready to be alone without her, and that realization was a little too late to settle in.

"Thank you," I whispered politely after realizing she had still been patiently standing by the door. She gave me a small smile, then grabbed at the door knob that her hand had just been so frantically attached to a minute ago. I watched as she cracked the door open and took a step outside my bedroom, "What's your name?" I called out before she could completely leave my room.

"Nadia," then she closed the door and left me to my dark thoughts again. The thoughts that surrounded my father and his impulsive ways.

The ways that somehow always left me as the butt-end of jokes. Taking down all his anger and animosity like a pliant little pawn, that he could repeatedly use anytime and anyhow he wanted. It hurt. No matter how much I tried to act strong, and like the things and decisions he made didn't affect me; it did. Every single time it did, without fail.

Yes, I hurt him in a way that would damage his image and name, but if he took Selma away for a long period of time... that would be a whole different variation of hurt. He knew she had quickly became a face I had grown to love and cherish from all the years she had been taking care of me when my father couldn't. She had always been my backbone; being there whenever I couldn't keep going on my own will. And if he took her away, it would take everything in me to forgive and forget like I did any other time he made a mistake.

My mind couldn't even focus on the steaming breakfast in front of me anymore, I just wanted to confront my father about Selma. It hurt to know he would pull such a move on his son; his son that was already going through enough as is. I needed her, and that was a fact that all three of us knew too well. I may be proving my father's point that I was too attached to her, but for some reason, I couldn't care less. I had been stripped of everything else that had once loved me, so I couldn't find it in myself to let this one get away.