"Take it away! Now!" Her royal majesty, the renowned queen of Merthingham—or "the feisty old-wench," as several palace servants called her—roared several decibels louder than a gunshot. "It is wretched! Utterly wretched!" she continued. "How dare you feed poison to my guests, girl! I will have your head on a silver platter for this without a doubt. Save your crocodile tears!"

"I have no tears to shed, ma'am."

The old woman choked in shock.

"Your Royal Majesty," Lucy corrected herself; rightfully, yet tryingly. "I will simply approach the royal cook and request timely alterations that suit your most distinguished taste. And, if you'll forgive my curt words, Your Majesty, tears will not move mountains to make it happen; but actions most definitely will."

Besides her worrisome form of communication, Lucy Auclair was naturally a bland, uncharacteristically unenvious side character. She had brown hair, like the daughter of an impoverished family, and emotionless, black disinteresting eyes, with a very typical ivory skin which half of the continent's population possessed. However, she wasn't always like this. Or at least not this bland.

"You dare speak back to me, girl!"

"Shall I play deaf then?" She beamed perversely, confounding the shaken woman further. "That will pose no difficulty on my part, My Queen. You see, I think silence is a characteristic you lack immensely, so feel free to use me as a paragon of politesse."

Lucy instantly reduced the woman to a sputtering mess, and she watched quite proudly, all while playing deaf as she had said she would earlier.

Indulging further in the situation, her thoughts travelled back to her life before this novel-ish world, where such bodily functioning was a luxury to her. There, she was also a brunette that had complementary golden flecks in her just-as-ashy brown eyes for some touch of uniqueness. What also sold her off as "unique" was a hearing loss disability, setting her apart from the crowd and making reading Ashley Stevenson's—now Lucy Auclair's—all-time favourite escape from life. She would read about princesses whose so-called hardships would be set straight by the help of some handsome prince or knight... or about petty rivalries between ancient families who wielded magic... and of tragic romances between amoureux whose different societal classes sentenced their love to a preordained grave.

Sometimes she would also wish that she could live such exciting, frivolous fairytale lives on days when her parents would gnash at each other, analyzing at the defective thing they brought into existence. Or days when fool-hardy attempts of rising above her circumstance would rein in more trouble than upturns.

"What are you still doing here?" The shrilling voice of the Queen snapped her out of her mind. "Get out! Now!"

"Yes, my Queen," her mood switched instantly, and she complied, picking up the trays of petit-fours and assorted truffles she had previously come in dignity with.

* * *

"She called 'em trash, didn't er?"

"'Wretched! Utterly wretched!'"

"Close enuf," Matilda, the head kitchen maid, with questionably the strongest northern accent amongst the staff, embraced the irksome fact, guiltlessly taking the trays from Lucy and placing them onto a nearby counter space. "If we can enjoy 'em for ourselves after da wedding, Itz notta complete loss, love."

"It is for Victor, though."

"How selfless of ya, suga cube; carin' bout da royal cook when ya never-ever once did," the lean, austere woman mocked Lucy's humble duplicity. She carried the exact pulled-back brown chignon and black eyes like hers, too. "What d'ya do to 'er this time?"

"I told her to shut up..." Matilda was unimpressed. "Basically." I had actually done more than just that; I'd committed treason, Lucy thought to herself.

"If that's the case, don't give us a thought. Get on up 'n get an early start on ya packin'."

"I don't want to go packing!"

"Ya shud learn ta keep ya damn trap shut, then!"

"Matilda! Please!" Lucy took the woman from behind. "Help me! I have nowhere else to go apart from here. I'm a poor diligent soul, hardly a ragamuffin who needs charity, so please talk to her for me! Please!"

"I talk'd ta 'er five times in da past month already. Go get charity somewhere else!"

Seeing that her whining wasn't stirring the conversation in the auspicious direction she intended, Lucy saw no need to continue—or even carry on with her work here, either.

Change wasn't always a bad thing, she convinced herself. Moderately literate in the continent's language, plus some saved-up coin—which she never saw use for until now—was enough to get by for at least a month before she found a desirable charge.

Originally, encountering a nobleman like a duke, marquis, earl, or even the most unattainable of them all, a prince, was her hope upon applying for palace work. Reflecting now, however, they were all unattainable in the first place, considering how rigid a social structure this world operated with without sparing second thoughts of broadening its thin horizon. In one of her books, though, the heroine had no social standing—sure enough; she was a beauty—yet she snagged herself a wealthy earl!

"This isn't fair!" she pouted, splaying across the beautifully marbled and gold-accented kitchen countertops—the Merthingham kingdom really loved to display their wealth, even where it was not openly observed.

"Itz perfectly fair, suga cube!"

"Have you people seen Prince Eric's bride from the Cryptal kingdom?" Another clone maid came running in, shivering all over from excitement. "Gosh, the girls really are as pretty as the rumors say they are over there! I mean, she's got the most bluest orbs—"

"How blue?"

"The most cherry pinkest of hairs—"

"Describe 'pinkest'."

"I even heard she's as kind as a queen when, of course, she's yet to be crowned!"

"Please! Couldn't be our queen—"

"Oh miss Lucy, would you shut up!" The young still-room maid finally snapped at the interrupting chatterbox. "Picture everything you're not and you've got her!" Offended, Lucy rose up from her seating position. "Stop asking silly questions!" Then, slamming her hands on the marble countertop for a dramatic effect that didn't land as it should have, she bellowed: "Why does everyone want to see me go mute today?"

"'Cause ya talk excessively!" Matilda nipped her ears from behind, eliciting a shriek of pain. "This is da last time I ever help ya, ya got that!"

"Thank you. I deserved that."

"A chambermaid friend of mine, you know, Lucrecia, she told me she saw her in the flesh with her own eyes! And that she was tall, beautiful, and courteous. How I'd love to be her lady's maid! Or even her, herself!"

"Ya'd have ta live a 'ole new life for da ta 'appen!"

The entire kitchen broke into exuberant laughter—even the people who pretended to be aloof to the conversation shared the sentiment. The perfect picture of "family" sat before Lucy, making her realize she couldn't leave this heavingly prison even if she wanted to. Parting ways with these individuals would be life-changing compared to the previous family she lived with her entire (past) life.

A simple life...

The lust for greed and over-indulgence in worldly vanities had blinded her to an unconditional gift every soul possesses; class, colour, and differences notwithstanding. This world was the key to experiencing it.

"You know... I've lived a crazy-ass life before I reincarnated into this one which, by a long shot, is candidly heaven."

_ _ _

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