Just a Servant |{ Wilbur Soot x Female Oc}| Royalty Au

|{3}|

The day of the ball came and Aster, upon entering Wilbur's room to help him get ready he dismissed her, telling her to go prepare herself, he would be fine on his own and he wanted to see her at the party. She had hesitated but bowed and left after a moment. So now Wilbur was walking down to the great hall with his son's hand in his own. Fundy would be five in a couple of weeks and he was beyond excited. When they reached the hall the butler that was by the door opened it for them and announced their arrival

"Their Royal Highnesses', Wilbur, and Fundy!" Many pairs of eyes turned to the father and son, some lingering, others going back to their conversations.

Wilbur crouched down to his son's level, "Go run around and have fun, don't be a troublemaker, and make some friends, ok?"

"Yes, dad!" Fundy gave him a quick hug before bounding down the stairs with a gleeful smile on his face.

Wilbur descended the stairs with a more dignified manner to his movements and joined the crowd, subconsciously looking for Aster. He was approached by a few people he recognized vaguely and he would speak with them briefly before moving on. He located Aster a little while later and his breath momentarily caught in his throat. She was dressed in a beautiful sky blue gown with flower petal-like shapes on the fabric. Her hair was done up in its usual braided knot with a few ornamental pieces in it.

She was talking with Paris who was looking quite dapper in his dark green, almost black suit. Wilbur approached the two and they both immediately bowed upon taking notice of him. He waved his hand leisurely, "No need for that tonight, it's a celebration." The two nodded, albeit a bit hesitant due to him being much higher ranking than them.

Paris spotted someone and politely excused himself. Aster and Wilbur watched him eagerly go over to Sam, who was dressed in a black suit with green highlights. Sam greeted Paris with a smile, which was rare for the Co-Captain of the guard. Aster giggled quietly and Wilbur turned to her, a delighted smile on his face.

"What's funny?" He asked.

"Paris's gay ass is about to go head over heels if Sam smiles at him one more time." She giggled again, covering her mouth with her hand as she tried to suppress the giggles. Wilbur chuckled as he looked over to the pair. Her words weren't false, Paris looked like he was over the moon and Sam looked quietly happy to be next to the male.

Wilbur ordered one of the butlers to tuck Fundy in for him as he wished his half-asleep son sweet dreams. His son gave Aster one last sleepy hug before following the butler out of the hall.

The ball was finally over and Wilbur wished his mother and father goodnight as the king and queen headed off to bed. Wilbur turned to find Aster cleaning up some of the decorations on the wall. He walked over to her, steps echoing in the empty hall. He tapped her shoulder and stepped back a bit as she turned, a curious expression on her face. He held out his hand with a gentle smile on his face.

"Would you honor me this dance?" She stared at him in silence for a moment, looking between his face and his hand and fidgeting with the fabric of her dress.

Aster's head was filled with many conflicted emotions as she fought between longing and hesitance. She looked at his face again and her wall broke. She placed her hand in his and he guided her to the center of the room, placing one hand on her waist, making her heart skip a beat. She put her hand on his shoulder, their other two hands still clasped together as they started around the room, steps echoing in the large space.

As Aster eased into the comfort of the silence with their movements and breathing seemingly background noise she knew, that after that, there was no going back.

As Aster was walking back to her room, a smile on her face as she recalled her dance with Wilbur, she found herself humming a song to herself through the quiet hallways. It was the same song she had sung to Fundy to put him to sleep. Lost in her thoughts she didn't get the chance to scream as she was dragged into a room and a hand was held over her mouth, she immediately thrashed around but stilled immediately at the feel of a cold blade pressed against her throat.

"I'm going to release you. You are not going to run or scream for help. Or your life will be over in the blink of an eye." The person, who she determined as male due to the fairly deep voice, waited for a moment before releasing his hand from over her mouth. She let out a shaky breath and clenched her shaky hands on the fabric of her dress.

The man before her held a knife in his hand, a sword rested at his hip. He wore mostly green and black and had an odd mask over his face. The mask was white and had a smile painted onto it in black.

"Now. Care to tell me which Kingdom you're from, princess?"

"I'm from here?" She told him, confused. "I'm not a princess either-"

"Then why were you dancing with the Prince? Hm?" Aster's stomach turned unpleasantly.

"He asked me to..." She tried nervously. It even sounded weak to her.

"If you aren't some snobby royal then what do you do?"

She hesitated to answer and the blade was at her throat again, she gulped and raised her shaky hands in surrender. "I'm a lady's maid."

The man didn't particularly like that answer. "Does the Prince have an attachment to you?" He demanded, pressing the blade deeper to her neck, trickles of blood now going down her neck and staining her blue dress slightly red/purple.

"I-" How was she supposed to answer this?

The man scoffed. "It doesn't matter, if you're the lady's maid maybe the Queen will do something about it."

The man turned to check the time outside the window and Aster edged towards the door, before she could open it fully though, the man was there, covering her mouth as she screamed in pain as the knife slashed at her stomach. It hurt so bad and Aster fell to the floor, holding her stomach as the wound bled through the torn fabric. It wasn't deep enough to be fatal but it would make her lightheaded and out of it with the amount of blood she was going to lose.

The man pulled her to her feet roughly and she whimpered in pain at the strain on her wound. Internally she was scolding herself for not taking more self-defense lessons with Puffy and Kailani.

"Don't try stupid shit and you won't end up dead." The man growled before forcing a blindfold over her eyes. Now with no idea where she was headed or which direction she was facing, she stumbled along, clutching her stomach as the man pulled her through different rooms for what felt like ages as Aster's head became lighter and she felt woozy from blood loss.

They finally stopped and she was thrown to the floor. "Alright Princess, time to wait here for a bit, you'll be used shortly." She tried to pull the blindfold off but her hand was smacked away with the flat of a blade, she flinched away from the cold metal. "And don't try taking that blindfold off, you hear me?" She nodded, honestly the blindfold was probably better so that she didn't get a headache from the light that was bound to come soon.