"Ms. Spotter, Kindly move out of my way this instant. Prince Lewis requested my presence nearly ten minutes ago, and you know he hates to be kept waiting." A shrill, feminine voice called out as Mary tried to squeeze through the doorway with a fresh load of laundry, only to be rudely shoved out of the way before she could. Nearly losing the load she barely managed to save it, though not before slamming her shoulder into the heavy wooden door.
Son of a sea-hag! Mary nearly cursed out loud, though she managed to contain herself in the end. No sense getting written up for something she didn't cause, even if it was going to leave a nasty bruise. It wasn't the first time something like this had happened, rather it was sadly a common working hazard for Mary. Yet, this was to be expected when the vast majority of the staff were formerly nobles and she was merely a somewhat wealthy commoner. Mary was a maid in service to the royal family. To her, this was simply a job to pay her bills and keep food in her belly. However, to many lower-born nobles especially the third and later-born children, it was a chance to rise above their station in life. All they needed to do was catch the eye of some bachelor or widowed noble and they could spend the rest of their lives in luxury. Due to this they always did whatever they could to appear their best in front of those nobles when they visited the palace, which meant they almost never spent any time on their actual jobs as it would require effort and getting dirty. Which meant most of it fell on the shoulders of the few unfortunate commoners working with them, commoners like Mary.
This wasn't to say Mary couldn't handle the work, rather to her it was all rather easy to the point of being mind-numbingly boring. The only bit of challenge was the sheer amount of work to do, and that is where her frustrations came from. Being raised in a family where everyone helped out, such an environment like this was alien to her to the point she wondered how anyone could live in such conditions. The only reason she even kept on with the job was the generous pay and benefits she received for her troubles. Indeed, the royal family was aware of what went on when they weren't looking. However what could they do, half the reason they allowed these noble children to work for them was in order to placate the nobles worried for their children's futures. It wasn't as if they could just tell them, "You're terrible at your job, get out". They would likely have half the nobles under the rank of Count rebelling within a month. The only workable solution that could be found, if it could even be called that, was to offer far greater benefits and wages to the commoner workers so they would be willing to put up with the situation.
Naturally, the noble children found out about it and raised a fuss that mere commoners made nearly thrice what they did. However, they failed to realize just how annoyed the royal family had gotten that they were being forced to make concessions in their own home. After several thinly veiled threats and dissappearances the noble children shut up, though it didn't mean they wouldn't stoop to making things harder for the commoners. Such was the daily life of one, Marigold Spotter.
Marigold Spotter, Mary to her friends, was the third daughter of a semi-wealthy shipwright and merchant. Her family had sailed upon the wide open seas for generations, though if one believed the rumors it wasn't always as honest businessmen. Allegations of piracy aside though, her family was a warm and loving, if stern one. Her parents ran a tight ship both at home and at work, meaning Mary was more than accustomed to hard work. Just, she was used to everyone pulling his or her own weight rather than having to do the work of eight people. At this point, one might wonder why she was even working as a maid when a flourishing company like her family's should have more than enough work and funds to keep her around. The issue was that Mary couldn't swim, as in, she sank like a rock. Ocean travel, as dangerous as it was due to storms, pirates, sea monsters, etc, meant if anything happened she'd be a liability since she'd never be able to save herself if she went over. Fine someone might think, she can just work in the office and do accounting then. The problem there was that when she looked at the numbers, and words on the page seemed to rearrange themselves. Sure, she could still make out what was said but not with enough speed or accuracy to catch errors or fraud in the books.
Her parents had consulted several doctors on the matter but none had even the slightest clue what causes it or how to cure it. They did say though that it was actually something relatively common, affecting seemingly 1 in 100 people. They did also admit however that the statistic was likely inaccurate due to many people still not knowing how to read or write letters and numbers. Either way, while she could read a chore list or simple notes well enough. She could never make it through the sheer mountains of numbers and legaliese that made up the contracts they used, and as for ship-building. No matter how strict her parents were they would never make their beloved daughter do something as dangerous and burdensome as working as a shipwright. Since her family made ships for deep-ocean travel they had to be able to put up with the dangers of what lurked out there beneath the waves. This meant the processes they used were far more intense and accident-prone compared to other shipwright companies, especially since they used several pieces of magic to reinforce the process.
One wrong cast however and the board meant to be the ships keel might burst into a shower of splinters under the weight of the rest of the ship, hurting everyone around it and potentially ruining the whole thing or some other mishap occurring that would result in injury or even death. Left with no other obvious option her parents were forced to look elsewhere for work for her. Luckily the royal family soon sent out notice that they were hiring a new batch of maids and butlers for the palace. With Mary's own hard work and a little palm greasing from her parents, Mary landed the job and started working as a maid in the palace. It had now been almost five long years since she started and the job was finally beginning to take its toll on Mary, both physically and mentally. Often she rose early in the morning at first light, and was the last to bed long after the sun had set, sometimes only barely accomplishing one meal a day and others none at all due to the amount of work.
Today was one such day, weary to the bone after picking up the noble children's slack she shuffled back to her room and laid down face first upon her bed without having even gotten dinner. So tired was she, that she barely even had a moment to think before she fell into slumber. However as she did so, a light, a strange mix of sea blue and ghostly green washed over her as her tense and weary body slowly relaxed until it went limp. With not a sound made and only the light as a witness even her breathing peacefully stopped and with that the life of one girl named Marigold Spotter came to an end, or did it?