You talked with Chiyo on the way back to the mansion. You hoped maybe you had made a new friend to break the loneliness. In the middle of a debate between which was better a watermelon or cantaloupe you stupidly accidentally tripped over your own leg.

"Eep" it happened so fast you didn't have time to make much of a reaction. You saw the hard floor coming closer to your face... and a person. *THUD* your face hit right into the thighs of someone. "Ow" you groaned while sitting up. Your hair covered your face. You parted it while you began to lifted your head to see who you had ran into.

"I am so sorry." You apologized looking up into the eyes of whoever it was you just ran into. 'A girl,' you wondered. The girl had pink hair and pink eyes. You looked at the clothes she wore which seemed extremely expensive and were neither the brown of a slave or the green of a commoner. Then it dawned on you 'a noble'. You jumped up and gave a bow, "I really am so very sorry!" You didn't want to have any trouble with a noble.

"It's fine," she said coolly. You paused... 'Wait, that voice sounded a little deep for a girl'. You glanced up. "Be more careful next time, kid."

'Yep that voice didn't seem like the voice of a girl, could that kid be a boy and... wait a minute did he just call you a kid?' For a second you forgot that he was a noble and quickly turned around and said the first thing you could think of, "A caterpillar can't explain to a butterfly what it's like to fly!" There was a pause 'What the heck did I just say?'

The boy glanced over with a smile on his face giggling to himself. He called back, "where did you hear something like that?"

'Someone yells at you and that's what you ask?' You wondered to yourself then you yelled back to him "I made it up just now, it means you're one to talk!"

He started giggling. "How old do you think I am?"

"You look 12 maybe 13."

"Wrong, I'm actually 19."

"Eh, did you say 19?"

"Yep." He said grinning at you.

"19?"

"Right again."

Then someone just blurted out laughing. You looked to the side of you to see Chiyo holding the bag of flour slightly on the floor and against her stomach bent over laughing.

"What?" You asked, realizing you had completely forgotten she was there.

"It's just your face, (name). You were so surprised." Chiyo calmed herself down fast, it seemed that she remembered something. "I'm sorry Prince Kouha." She let out a little giggle as she bent over, "for my friend here."

'Did she say Prince?'

"Don't worry about it." He replied then paused for a second and asked, "where do you both work?"

Even if he said not to worry he was definitely going to get you in trouble, why else would he have asked that question? You looked at Chiyo to see if she was going to answer. You couldn't answer because no one told you who you belonged to anyway. Seeing your glance Chiyo replied that they worked for Lord Seishuu Ri.

"Ah," Kouha then walked off. You had felt butterflies in your stomach for a while and felt your face turn red. Then you remembered 'a prince.' You turned to Chiyo.

"If he is a prince how come he walks around the town without any escorts or anything at all?" Since you heard the word Prince that had been on your mind.

"I have no idea." Then she forced the bag of flour onto you, "it's too heavy, so now you get to carry it."

You grabbed the bag and sure enough it was really heavy, but then again you had always been considerably weak.

You finally reached Seishuu Ri's mansion and then the kitchen. You set down the heavy flour relieved. Chiyo ran off to somewhere after waving bye to you.

You breathed in a big gulp of air and did another stupid thing. You accidentally breathed in some of your own spit. You started coughing all over yourself and ended up getting the attention of that man from before.

"What took you so immensely long!?"

"Uh... Um, Chiyo!"

"What about Chiyo?"

"She wouldn't stop talking to everyone she saw on the street." You apologized to Chiyo in your mind but you really didn't want him to hear about how you tripped on your own leg. You hadn't known the man much but you had a feeling he would hold tripping on your own leg against you forever. You waited for the man to yell at you again but instead he just spoke a short sentence.

"Hmm, sounds like something she'd do." You waited but he didn't say anything else.

"Is there anything else you need me to do?"

He gave you a lot of different things that needed to be done which took up the rest of your day. After you finished it was extremely late. Everyone had already left the kitchen and you were just putting up the few things left out.

Your thoughts began to wonder. That morning you had woken up in a jail cell surrounded by other people. It all seemed so surreal, did that morning really happen. You recalled everyone from your village. While no one was around you let your eyes well up with tears and silently cried for the first time since you became a slave. With tears rolling down your cheeks you looked out the kitchen window at the mystic moon curious if maybe your family were looking at it too. Then suddenly, just for a second you thought you saw someone outside. You gasped and your body froze in place as you shut your eyes. You quickly opened them again and looked out the window. No one was there. 'Was it just my reflection?' You felt tense and hurried out of the kitchen, to the room you shared with all the other girls.

You jumped into the bed pulling the covers up above your head feeling a little scared as a chill went over you. It took a while before you could relax enough to sleep but slowly the weariness of the day began to get to you. You felt someone running their hands through your hair. Your mother always did that, at that moment you thought it was her doing it. You were to tired to remember that you were to never see her again. She kissed you of the forehead as you began to drift off to sleep.