Maya's eyes tried to adjust to the sudden dimness. Dust careered past her nostrils as her eyes shifted through the room they'd call theirs. As some kind servants had told them, the general ground layer of the building was pretty simple.
The first two floors mainly consisted of all the rooms apart from the bed rooms like the dining room, a miniature library and the likes. At least they were allowed to be used by everyone apart from them. The next two floors mainly were for the noble boys and girls,, and they were usually allocated based on their social status in noble society. Then which led to the next two floors that was for the peasants.
As they'd said, there was a slot in each of the chosen six of the eight isles that were reserved for peasants. So, the other peasants and the people from their isle filled this floor. Well at least almost all of them, save for Felix and Agatha that had a well to do father in Central.
Maya coughed a couple of times, her eyes adjusting to the room. Five patched mats lay on the dusty floor, the wind drew past the little gap the ajar door left. She walked around, the dusty tendrils puffed up. The crunch of the wood underneath her was left behind by the black dots that coated the creamy wooden floor.
The room was barely illuminated by a window but it looked very dusty. A dresser that withered with patches of decay stood off to the side, directly beside a cracked mirror. The floor moaned under their weight.
"So, this is where we'd be sleeping?" Amelia asked in unmasked confusion.
Maya bit back a sarcastic reply, looking for a suitable place to drop her knapsacks.
"Unfortunately so." Diane answered instead as Maya walked to a book that was a little distance from the dresser. She bent down, hovering over the grated floor. She wrinkled her nose as she gently opened the book. Dust puffed up from it's weathered pages. Her eyes watered as her nose clogged.
Her lungs constricted as her chest racked with coughs. She swatted her hands in the air, pushing away the foggy particles. She ripped out a couple of pages, thatched and withered in her rough palms. She laid them around the book before dropping her knapsacks onto it.
Maya walked back to the mat at the farthest corner. Splinters of wood and rickety beams prickled the sole of her shoes. The mat itself was extremely thin, it was purple. The only thing in the room that has a zest of color in it. She dropped onto it before sighing, her tensed shoulders received no consolation.
The paper thin material of the mat, barely hid the solidity of the floor underneath it. Her eyes closed, the puff of dust still lingering around her.
"Even though I hate this room, I'm so excited to begin training tomorrow!" Amelia squealed to herself delighted. "I'll make new friends, meet so many fresh faces-"
"I doubt those disgusting nobles would even give you the time of day." Maya said with her eyes closed, her head seared with pain with the look they had all given her. The look that had been her accomplice all throughout her painful existence.
"Why not?" The excitement in her voice was dimmed slightly.
"Because they see you nothing more than the scuff on their shoes. The bane of their existence. The-"
"That's enough, Maya." Diane growled. Maya cracked an eye open, Diane's eyes gaze was hard.
"I am simply stating facts, mother," she sat up, her eyes narrowed as she traded looks with Diane.
"Well, you need not make this more unbearable. We do not need your pe-"
"You do need it, to keep your happy go lucky friend grounded." Amelia's eyes widened slightly, her smile brighter. Diane sighed.
"Thank you!" She called out, jumping giddily on her feet.
"I will not rise to your bait," she mumumured to herself, her voice still reaching Maya's ears.
"Marvellous discipline you got there, simply outstanding." Maya drawled out dryly.
"Isn't bait only used when fishing?"
"It's a figurative expression in this context." Diane explained with her eyes turned to Amelia. Her calculating eyes turned back to Maya, the analytical look making her insides squirm.
"You have a lot of talking to do." Diane said, her eyes taking her in.
"And you have a lot of shut-uping to do." Diane's eyebrows raised slightly.
"Tha-"
"I know it's not a word. Drop it."
"Your spellings are poor, really." Amelia said with a bounce of her feet. She made her way to the back, missing the heat of Maya's glare.
"You have to tell me. What happened in the isle?" The dark throb delighted at the question, twisting to share the satisfaction from relinquishing in the memory. Her head began to pound, the dark corridor echoing sounds of struggle from the vault.
"Nothing happened." Maya said, her head searing with pain as she fought back a wince.
"Well, something happened because you have been avoiding us and trash talking-"
"Don't ever use those words. It feels so out of place in your persona-"
"Now you're changing the subject, you have to stop running and let us help you." Maya turned away slightly, her head facing the withered wardrobe. The cracked mirror, the faint mirror of her expressions stuck to it's mecury colored glass.
The mar of cracks accentuated it's pained appearance making it appear jagged. The outline of her figure was split in half, just like her inner self trying to stay one.
"-days and-"
"You're not listening to me, are you?" Maya shook her head which was followed by a deep sigh.
"You need to stop running, alright?"
"Easy for you to say, at least no one has ever looked you in the eye and said they wish you were never born." Maya couldn't hide the bitterness that sunk into her mouth on saying the words. She licked her dry lips, moistening to get the taste off.
"I know I haven't but, keeping all of this bottled up inside will sooner or later make you do something that you will sincerely regret. I am ready to listen, please, talk to me." Her heart squeezed painfully at the remembrance of all that had happened. She opened her mouth, indecision clouding her judgement. The door off to the side was opened slightly, the loud creak emanated through as the slightly chilly air rushed through the gap.
The girl she had seen earlier walked in, her hands laced around a threadbare knapsack. She averted her eyes away, taking interest in the ground as she walked. Her tunic barely clung to her tiny frame, softly lolling around her joints. The girl glanced at Maya from her periphery before looking away, not missing the strange look in her eye.
Maya lay back on the mat, the pool of dust slowly clogging into her nose. She coughed a couple of times as she turned and tossed, trying to find the right position to sleep in. Chatter bubbled warmly around her but she kept her eyes sealed. Soon enough, after all the turning she fell into the dark abyss of sleep.
***
"I'll die of this dark gourmet meal if I take another spoon."
"Amelia, using the word gourmet implies that you like the meal and you think it is splendid." Amelia's face scruched up in a deep frown. They were at the servants quarters which was at the east flank of the huge compound, a distance from the guard quaters. The place, like the the farmer and guard quarters looked out of place in the serenity of beauty the environment held.
It had dark stone walls that were chipped away at the edges. The roof was made of dark iron with dents of rust corroding it's surface. The rickety wooden door opened up to an adjoined kitchen and dining room which stank of mud and rust. Cobwebs flanked together in the corners, numerous bowls were littered around, keeping away the water that dropped from different crevices.
It then traveled up the staircase which divided into two barricaded floors, one for the males and the other for the females. Maya stared at the green lump on the dull bowl that was grey with decay at it's rim. Distaste flushed down her throat as she eyed it warily. Surrounding chatter enveloped Maya's ears, the servants trickled about, the chatter getting louder.
Maya gripped the spoon, feeling her tummy grumble. She scrunched her face again before scooping a huge lump. The clang of the rickety spoon against the slob pierced her ear, she shuddered. As she was about to raise a spoon to her mouth, a hand poked into her side. For the 100th time, annoyance rolled off of her as the already rusty spoon broke in the slob. It's deeply red skin sunk into the pudding like meal.
The heat in the room was palpable, the torches added to the amount of heat in the room. The torches at the side wilted, the breaths of many fanning against flame reducing to the superior heat of human kind. The sun wasn't up, the dark sky still was overlayed with the navy blue with shudders of twinkling stars from the window at the north wall.
A servant girl, Misty, Maya remembered sat at their small table which was pushed near the west wall.
"How's the slob treating yo?" The girl asked Maya, wincing at Maya's now broken spoon.
"Perfect." Maya muttered, the vision of her slob darkening because of the torches' reduced flames.
"I promise you, it gets better the more you eat it and you lot would be eating it a whole lot." She said reassuringly that Maya couldn't help but snort. The girl continued to talk, her eyes wide as she babbled on to expectant ears. Amelia was smiling ear to ear as they both babbled along. One Amelia is already enough, she couldn't help but sigh. They had to according to the kind servants that helped them yesterday, eat with them as they did with the peasants.
According to them, if they had so much as stepped into the dining room, they would have booked for detention for trespassing. And by the looks of it, it was an official law for unappointed servants to enter into a nobles dining room, they would be booked for trial in the name of trying to poison. Maya shook her head, marvelling at how ridiculous the noble community was. But, they all seemed to fear the nobles unlike, their isle in which the highest authority which was the king was still addressed by name by some.
Bitterness vaulted past her tongue.
"The bell hasn't r'ng yet?"
"Not at all. The classes wo'ld be res'ming a tid bit late, so we have more time on o'r hands."
"How come?"
"Remember Lord Altard?" Maya turned slightly to the mass of people. The voices came from the seat across from theirs, two men with matching pale skin and bony hands were hunched over a table.
"-what about him?"
"Because of his m'rder, the chief guard set up a gro'p to check into 'is death. Some other m'rders were discovered, which supposedly linked to his own. Rumors have it that his body was discovered at one of the alleyways of Ashport."
"What? I can never be cut dead there, what he doing that far east?"
"Nobody knows. I heard his guards had arrived a few minutes after he had been murdered. All that remained of him were ashes."
"Then how..... they sure it was him?"
"His signet ring was there, on top of all of em rubble. Then, they saw a note from the revol-"
"Do you know what spreading such information about those rebellers could do to you, you could be hacked to death? His supreme majesty doesn't show mercy."
"I know but if I could I would join-"
"It seems like you want us both to be killed." The other hummed, Maya tuned out of the conversation, her ears perked at the new information. Lord Altard. Diane had told her once before that he was one of the top healing scholars. Maya shook her head, losing interest as soon as it came.
She felt a gaze burning through her side, her head pivoted to the side to be met with brown ones far across the room. The girl looked away caught in her act. Maya narrowed her eyes slightly, the girl had been giving her weird stares and side glances. She shook off the urge to walk up to her table and demand why she had been staring that way. A faint throb cut through her thoughts, this one was devoid of the murky feelings of despair and anger.
She shook her head, the faint feel of a pull, almost invisible, drew on her mind. She looked around, her head pivoting at different directions. The chatter continued in its maximum, enjoying their last bits of happiness till the guards came here and dragged them all to their duties.
No one looked in her direction, the world around her a blare of laughs and whispers. She shook her head, shaking off the chills that crept up her spine. She eyed the rising sun in the distance, the once dark sky now giving way to a flurry of peach and gold with orange twinkling the sides.
In a few hours, she'd have her first class. She shook of the tension as she gingerly watched the slob.
I want to thank God for giving me the Grace to write this. So, how was it? Do any of you know the reason for his death? Why does that girl stare at Maya, this much? Anyway vote and comment if you like.