As the vivid picture of the captain standing before Judith sank in, her limbs went numb and her body had shut down, so she stood in place like a statue.
Silence should have filled the hall, but the pounding of Judith's heart prevented that.
She stood still, contemplating her options.
"Foreigner," the captain finally spoke, as he leaned off the wall and began to walk around Judith. "What might you be doing in my room?"
Judith held her tongue for the moment, as she began to gather her words. Without letting the seconds draw out any longer, she finally spoke.
"I…I…" but she faltered. "I was asked, to, check on you." Judith had said.
"Why is that, if I may be so bold as to ask?" The captain said with sarcasm in his tone.
Judith did her best to keep calm, whilst praying her intensive heartbeat would recede in its beating. Finding this to not be the case, Judith — once the captain had walked to her back — took a deep breath, as silently as she could, and then exhaled.
With this, a calm had surfaced within Judith, albeit small, but prevalent. Which enabled Judith to think and speak properly.
"Your maids wanted to ask you what they would be preparing for dinner." Judith had said, eyeing the ever dimming light of the setting sun.
"I find that strange," the captain said with a pause as though expecting an answer. But Judith reserved her speech for only when it was necessary, as to avoid any slip-ups.
"Considering the fact that I was asked that before leaving this manor." The captain said with a tone akin to the hiss of a snake, which left Judith more than frightful.
She forced herself to calm down, then she thought and spoke.
"They wanted to double check." Judith said, keeping her face as neutral as she could, not wanting to divulge anything unintentionally with her expressions.
"I see." The captain stopped behind her, which made Judith's fear rise to a degree she couldn't understand. Probably due to the fact that he could literally stab her from the back and she wouldn't be able to either see it coming, or react fast enough.
Still, she did her best to hold herself together, as she stood.
"If that were the case, then why did you hide under my bed foreign maid?" The captain said in a flat tone, which carried with it a bite of a venomous snake that almost made Judith gasp.
At this point, the stone mask that Judith had put on to hide her fear and anxiousness began to show cracks, cracks which grew by the second.
'Calm down, calm down.' Judith said to herself, as she thought on what to say.
The captain made to speak when Judith had blurted out.
"Forgive me captain, when I was asked to find you, I went to your room to look, but then like a stupid idiot, I began to admire your things. I saw this beautiful knife sticking out of your drawer of your desk, and I picked it up. When I heard footsteps I got started and dropped so it fell under the bed. I did my best to find it, but by then you had already returned to your room!" Judith screamed each word as though she was afraid of the consequences of her actions. Which she was, but for a different reason.
The captain stood astonished by Judith's reaction, but he said nothing, more so as Judith had continued.
"I knew what it would look like if you had found me under your bed, that's why I hid. I didn't mean to invade your privacy and I swear I'm not a spy, I'm just a slave who had the opportunity to have a better life in Qugan should I be given the chance, please don't execute me due to a misunderstanding!" Judith said, this time finishing up all that she had thought of in her mind.
With nothing else left to say, Judith just pretended to sob and spoke nothing more.
The captain, more than flustered and confused as to how to react, had no other thing to say apart from, "Enough, you may go" to Judith.
Judith smiled for a moment, before correcting her face and turning to the captain with a bow.
"Thank you so much." Judith had said with a sniffle, as she turned her back to him at once and began to walk away, grinning hard.
The captain stared at Judith as she walked off, feeling slightly dazed. But more than anything, thirsty, as he stared her down.
'Dammit.' The captain thought, and began to scratch his thumb with his index finger. 'Don't you worry, once the sun sets, you'll be mine.'
Judith left the hall and entered into hallway, all the while knowing full well what the captain was thinking. But that was a good thing, because getting kidnapped was all part of her plan.
***
After returning to the kitchen and receiving a good questioning from Tsai with both anger and concern, Judith had watched the maids prepare dinner for their masters, and then for themselves. Before finally settling into the maids quarters for the night and drifting off to sleep.
Though Judith had found herself incredibly tired, — attributing most of that tiredness to the life and death situation she had faced a few hours prior — she till did her best to stay awake, long enough till she was sure the other maids were asleep.
And when that time had reached, Judith rose up like a spirit summoned from the depths and made her way out of the sleeping quarters.
But unbeknownst to Judith, Tsai was also awake.