When Iris woke up, it was with slowly fluttering eyes, she was in bed, but not her own, her memory a fog. She touched her head and then rubbed one bleary eye as she pushed herself up by her free arm. ‘Doesn’t feel right…’ Was her first real thought before she registered why. The bed she normally slept on was stuffed with old straw, this was soft. Her normal blanket was light, this was thick. She had no sheets before, and yet she felt silken ones now.

Her vision began to clear at the same moment as a yawn, and what she saw caused her eyes to fly all the way open as memory returned. She yanked up the blanket and looked down the length of her naked body. Her memory of the time spent with Gottfried came back, her head yanked left and right to either side of the bed, and she found herself alone.

“Damn.” She said and lay back down to stare up at the ceiling. “What was I thinking…? I really…” She closed her eyes and recalled the exploration and the moment of ecstatic bliss of shared release… ‘Now I can go home… though I suppose I can’t tell her about this…’

‘At least it’s out of the way, and I had a choice about it… even if that would have been the last one in the world I’d have imagined a month ago, hell, a week ago.’ Iris thought and slowly slid to the edge of the bed.

She put her feet down on the carpeted floor and stood up, ‘I need a bath…’ She told herself when she caught a glimpse of her front and saw the remaining proof of her previous night. She brushed back her dark hair and went looking for her clothing… but it was nowhere to be found. ‘I know I didn’t show up here naked… wait he didn’t…’ A moment of existential dread began to come over her, a sense of being trapped, back against the wall, her breathing quickened as her eyes darted around.

She stopped, her eyes fell on a note on the door. She went to it and rolled her eyes. [Clothing is in the wardrobe, or come out as you are, we are alone].

“Well, you’re definitely male… as if there were any doubt of that…” Iris muttered under her breath and strode to the dark cherry wood wardrobe. She flung open the door and found her dress as the note promised.

She pulled it on, laced it up behind herself, and went barefoot out into the main room. The expansive space had only one occupant, the dark haired Gottfried who was clad only in a purple robe that was very nearly the shade of midnight. “You’re awake.” He said, he was quiet and calm, but he didn’t look over his shoulder at her.

“Any regrets?” He asked, she could see the tension in his shoulders, which caused her to stop dead. ‘Wait… is he wondering if I hate him, if I regret it, if…’ She let out a deep breath and approached, on the opposite side of the table where he sat, she saw a plate with hot food. A steaming plate full of eggs, bacon, and baked bread, the intoxicating smell made her stomach audibly growl. She approached further, and saw there was a cup and a white porcelain pitcher filled with a purple juice.

“Are you… going to make me…” She paused, stopping before she could say the words ‘beg for food’ and instead said, “ask to eat, Lord Gottfried?” Iris remained a few steps behind him.

He shook his head without looking at her. “No.” It sounded almost painful. ‘I wonder what face he wears.’

She approached the rest of the way, sitting down opposite the warrior, he drank from a cup and with his other hand, gently pushed the pitcher toward her.

“What happens now, Master Gottfried?” She asked and accepted the quiet offer, his eyes focused on his plate, like he wasn’t sure if he should look at her or not. She picked up the pitcher, filled the cup, and began to drink.

“Do you have any regrets… about last night?” He asked again. The way he looked away, not quite meeting her eyes.

‘He’s so young…’ She told herself from the ripe old age of nineteen.

“You were my first. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t conflicted about that now.” Iris replied, “Given who you are, given what you did, given… everything.” She tightened her lips, “But…” She added, “You were the best choice I was ever going to get. And it was my choice, if I had to pick a first time, that puts me over a lot of the people who used to live back home.”

“I don’t know how I feel about that answer… but like last night, that’s probably the best answer I’ll get, isn’t it, Iris?” Gottfried asked.

She scooped some egg and meat onto her bread and took a small bite. She then nodded while she chewed.

Iris swallowed with an audible gulp, the explosion of flavor made her regret the need to swallow, and she barely restrained a whimper at the thought of the heavily laden plate would soon be empty.

“So… what happens now, Master Gottfried? You had me, we’re even, there’s nothing left to see, now I have to go back to what passes for home, will I see you again?” It was only when she asked that that he raised his eyes to meet hers.

“Do you want to?” He asked. ‘Do that again? See me again? Do more? Come with me? Go free?’ A lot of questions ran through both their minds when he asked those four words out loud.

Iris had an easy answer. She raised her chin to show off the silver around her throat. “The day you came to my city, my wants stopped meaning anything, Master Gottfried. So I don’t know why you ask me that. Whatever the nephew of the emperor wants, will be.”

“Then I want to know what you want.” Gottfried retorted after briefly flinching at her retort.

That caused Iris to look away. “I don’t know what I want. I do know that I don’t want anything from you. No pity, you don’t have the right to feel bad for me. If you’d come back because you fell for the poor little slave that you made… if my wants matter, stay away from me.”

“And if not for that reason?” Gottfried asked the pointed question.

“You’re not the sort of man I thought you’d be. Not from the first moment… if… if you want to come see me sometimes… while you’re here… if you ask for me that is, I won’t mind your company.” She admitted, then cursed.

“What?” He asked, his eyes suddenly alarmed.

“I just realized… those four… I set record levels of tip promises from all of them… not that most customers ever keep more than ten percent of it… fat chance of it now.” Iris sighed and poked at her eggs with a hunk of bread.

“You know I’d still be willing to buy your freedom, then you can-” She cut him off.

“Do the same thing but for a lot less money? Nobody will ever hire a fallen noble of a rebel house. Besides, most of my family is almost certainly dead, if you bought my freedom tomorrow I would give it a week before I’m beheaded instead. As far as the Empire is concerned, we’re a family of traitors. They’ll never let me leave, fearing I’ll be used as a diplomatic tool to justify a conflict later. You’re not that innocent, are you Master Gottfried?” She almost laughed, she almost laughed out loud at the impossible naivete of the young lord.

“No… no. I guess not.” He said and poured more juice for himself, then took another bite off his plate.

“I can’t leave, and if I’m free I won’t be allowed to live, do you want me murdered, because that’s how you get me murdered. This is how it is unless something serious changes.”

“What if I-” Gottfried began, but her cold stare shut him down.

“If you feel anything positive about me, don’t finish that sentence, My Lord. My family is disgraced enough. I’m thankful for your genuine kindness, for what you did for my mother, and for the time that… was better than I had reason to hope for. Come see me when you want, buy my time from Mistress Lyrica, and maybe we can bring each other some relief. But that’s all. We’re both going to spend our lives as prisoners of the Empire, that’s just how it is.” Iris finished the sentence in a scathingly cynical voice, and then, to his surprise after she said it, her eyes held his long enough that she had to wipe them clean.

“But… for what it’s worth, if things could have been different? If I could have known you before my city rebelled, if we could have met in school or… something? I like to think we could have been wonderful friends. But that’s not where we are, that’s not what happened. I wish it had, but it didn’t.”

“One day I’ll be the Emperor.” Gottfried pointed out.

“People in my line of work don’t tend to live to old age.” Iris pointed out. “But… if I do, and you still remember my name and want to set me free…” Iris laughed hard enough that she had to slap her chest several times.

“What’s funny?” Gottfried asked.

When Iris finished coughing, she gave him a cynically wry grin, “I deal in lies and fantasies, Lord Gottfried. Lots of people screw the ones who work at the White Stag. They hear promises all the time, and I’ve never seen one of them be kept. No one becomes a wife, a personal servant, a husband, or even a mistress. Those are just ephemeral dreams, and all of us know better than to believe the ones who whisper them into our ears.”

He flinched, “I’m not lying.”

Iris softened, a blush rose to her cheeks, “I don’t believe everyone knows when they lie. A young man loses his virginity to someone at the White Stag, he thinks he loves her, he promises to marry her, or make her a mistress… but he soon wakes up from that. He sees her laugh with someone else, or on top of someone, or one of his friends talks about his time with her. Or he’s simply forbidden by his family, the threat of losing everything… no matter what, there’s no happy ending there. A few months later, he’s closing a curtain around him and another he’s negotiated with for a little bonus service is riding him, and he’ll have forgotten even the fake name the first one gave to him.”

“Is your name really Iris?” Gottfried asked.

She closed her eyes, “Do you want to know?”

She heard him swallow and the tension in his knuckles caused them to crack. “Yes.” He said.

She nodded, “Then yes. My name is Iris Vansi Valoisin. One of your former enemies and now your servants. It’s just as I’ve said. I’m probably the only one who still keeps the last name. But if you want to bother to remember it… that’s the truth. Now…” Iris finished her breakfast in a slew of swift bites and then drank down her juice.

“I have to get back. Come again if you want, and thank you for-” She almost said, ‘The bed, the kindness, the offers,’ and many other things, but instead she added nothing. She curtseyed and went to the service door. “Just do me one more kindness and don’t start promising me things like I matter. When it’s over, it’ll hurt less that way. Give your beaten enemy that much mercy at least.” She added instead before she opened the door and stepped through it.

It shut behind her a moment later, and as it did she didn’t even look back to see what kind of face she left in her wake.