Chapter 12

Crimson jumped and turned around after he felt the tap on his shoulder. There was a lovely young woman, no, fox-kin standing behind him. Her hair was the orange usually associated with foxes and she had a pair of fox ears popping out of her head with black on the tips. Her tail was colored the same with it being mostly orange, but black at the tip. Her eyes were as green as emeralds and seemed to sparkle in the lighting. She was also, he noted, wearing a maid uniform.

“My apologizes! I am a new Delving Guard and I was looking for the cafeteria, but I got lost and I couldn’t find anyone to talk to, so I ended up finding this library and…well…I got distracted.”

She shot a grin at him, “By the books?”

“Uhh, yes?” it came out like a question.

She let out a cute little giggle at his bright red face. “Well I’m glad you like the library, but to get to the cafeteria you just enter the hallway to the right of the main entrance.”

He stood up and bowed to her, “Thank you very much miss!”

She shook a finger in front of his face, “It’s not ‘miss’ my name is Sariya! I’m a maid here at the castle.”

“Well, thank you for telling me how to get to the cafeteria mi-Sariya. I guess I’ll go get something to eat now.”

“No-no silly, the cafeteria closed hours ago.”

“Hours ago?”

Crimson noticed for the first time how late it was; the giant windows above the book shelves had stopped letting in sunlight and stars could be seen.

Sariya looked at him for a moment with a simple simile then reached into the pocket of her apron and pulled out a small roll.

“Here, you can have this.”

“I can’t take your food!”

“Don’t worry about it; I just brought a little snack in case I got hungry. Please, take it.”

He looked her in the eye for a long moment, then slowly nodded he took the roll. He could tell she wouldn’t budge; especially not after she heard his stomach rumble, well, more like roar. He quickly consumed it. It wasn’t very big, but it was very dense. It had no problem stopping his stomach from declaring to the world that it was neglected.

Sariya watched him eat and commented: “It’s quite the miracle that you didn’t run into anyone in the hallway. We maids were having a meeting a few hours ago, but you still should have run into somebody.”

“A meeting?”

“Yup. King Rysen and Queen Aanya are looking into setting up a political marriage with the Pecusta Kingdom. They are trying to set Princess Rhinese up with the second Princes Ryker. I hear he’s quite a fine specimen of Wolf-Kin.” She said with a mischievous giggle.

Crimson was a bit surprised, “There isn’t any racism?”

“No! Of course not or, at least not here in the Aldaen Kingdom. If, you went back about 500 years ago, to when this kingdom was one of the ones that believed that humans were the only enlightened race, I would have been a slave instead of a maid because of my Fox-Kin heritage, but that all changed. The king of the time changed a bunch of policies; he freed all slaves and outlawed slavery, set laws against discrimination for race. He built connections with the other non-human kingdoms and pursued peace for his whole life. All of the royalty since then have aspired to be like him!” She was very passionate about this topic, which makes sense considering the fact that she was a Fox-Kin.

Crimson agreed with her; that king was rather amazing. He had achieved what earth never could.

“That doesn’t mean that there aren’t human supremacists of course. There is one human kingdom way to the east that is all nasty like this kingdom was, but we don’t negotiate with them and they refuse to talk to us.”

“Well, I guess that is one thing that will never change,” Crimson said with a sigh. At least one kingdom had achieved, or nearly achieved the dream of equality.

“That’s enough of all that depressing talk,” Sariya said clapping her hands together, “I’ll walk you to the front entrance so you don’t get lost!” There was a happy grin on her face as she grabbed his hands and dragged him out of the library.

- - - - - -

Crimson’s face had been the same color of his name as she dragged him all the way to the front entrance. He wasn’t used to interacting with girls in such a..touchy feely kinda way. He had decided that he would ask her out on a date. Nothing ventured nothing gained after all, and the worst thing she could do is say “no.”

He turned around on the stairs of the front entrance of the palace. “Hey, Sariya?”

“Yes?”

“When I get a little more settled here and have a bit of money from my job: would you go on a date with me?”

The brightest smile he had seen her make bloomed across her face; she hopped down the stairs and whispered her response in his ear, then scampered back up the stairs.