Devils in Disguise (possessive royals x reader)

1 Warm Welcome

“Y/n! Come here!”

Your father's voice remained persistent even after his third calling, the loud rumble voicing throughout the whole of your room.

“I'm coming!” you shouted back for the third time, hurrying to put on your simple linen dress. Holding up your skirts, with your hair in a full, thick braid reaching past your shoulders, you ran down the stairs into the kitchen, almost falling down in the process.

Your father, in his breeches and shirt, stood in the middle of the wooden room, just beside the small oak table, leaning against it. He had had trouble standing ever since his knee injury; it never properly healed and he often had to use some kind of staff to help him walk. There was something glinting in his hand.

“Y/n, go and get some milk for your mother, will you?” he ordered, showing the glinting object in the palm of his hand to be a handful of copper coins. “And get some bread, too.” He ventured to the cabinets and got out an empty bottle, handing it to you. Milk was cheaper when you brought a bottle for them to put the milk into.

It had been like this ever since you were a child; your mother had grown sick only a couple months after your birth and hadn't been able to heal from the everlasting sickness yet. As time passed and you you grew older and older, the sickness became so bad you needed to learn to tend the house and do the chores yourself. Now, your mother was only laying in bed, awake when she felt good, sleeping when it got worse.

You didn't have the means to call in a serious doctor and the old grandma of your village could only do as much to try helping your parents. They called the sickness deathframe and you knew your mother was not the first to have it and won't be the last as well.

That was the sad reality of your life.

With a deep sigh, you accepted the coins from your father's outstretched hand, not even bothering to ask where he got them from; you knew he borrowed them from a neighbor, promising to give them back when the weather gets a little warmer and the crops will finally start to sprout. It had been a couple years now that your crops had failed to grow first, each year after only more miserable. You barely had vegetables for yourselves and could not afford to give them out to someone else. Still, yoir father believed each year to be the one; the one where your crops will overgrow your expectations and you will have an abundance of them to give out for free, even. It was his dream and you did not have the heart to tell him it will probably never come true. He had debts with almost the whole village, now.

With pursed lips, you tried mirroring your father's smile back at him. You didn't want him to always borrow money from others, but you knew that if you didn't want to die of starvation, it was the only chance of survival. Back in the past, when your mother was still capable of working, she sewed. Dresses, breeches, shirts and blouses, all decorated with delicate embroidery which took her days to complete. But now, her hands were shaking so bad she could barely hold a mug. And without her work, the only little money you used to get was from your father's farming, which was now slowly but surely leading into a ruin as the crops were nearly not growing at all.

Of course, your mother had taught you to sew as a girl, but it could only bring in as much money. Moreover, most of the things you were able to sew, you gave out for free, as a payback for your father's debt. So oftentimes, it brought no money.

The door behind you rattled as you closed it and stepped out into the dust street, with houses lining the egdes of it on both sides, ones just like yours. The dust swirled around your feet as you walked along, clutching the money in your fist tightly and the bottle in the other. The bakery was not far and it took only a few minutes to get there and the milkman was on the way there; you'll stop to get some milk on the way back.