Shades Of Your Warmth

Rice Noodles and bitter Memories

A walk of several hundred metres later, the princess reached the royal jeweller's workshop. She strode in in anguish and started pulling out rare gemstones from the series of small cabinets.
The royal jeweller and one of his assistants stood aside and watched the princess lay out a couple of perfectly cut and polished sapphires on the counter. The princess had always been ever so careful while handling her precious gemstones but this time, she seemed to have no interest in being careful. She picked one of the gems up and turned to the very nervous middle-aged jeweller.
"How much carat do you think a sapphire of this size will have?" She asked, holding the gem between her two fingers.

"I cannot be a hundred percent sure, your highness, but i think that one is about six carats."

The princess gave a nod and started heading out. She knew someone had to be very wealthy to be able to gift a mere girl a necklace with a high grade sapphire pendant. Did it somehow had anything to do with her brother? She knew of her brother's infatuation with the maid but gifting something that expensive felt outrageous. It made her insides boil. For some reason she felt she was being challenged, whether the person was her brother or someone else.

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The stars were plentiful and the breeze was light. Becky had walked out of the maids' common dining hall sooner. She walked past the big garden and stood right outside the princess's tulip garden.
For some reason, this place always called to her. Some of her best and worst memories lay in this place in the forgotten past.
She remembered this to be the last place she ever saw the princess when they were little. For she was also left unconscious after the earthquake. She could still recall how her life had been saved, how the princess came running to her, embracing her so she would be out of harm's way. She remembered it so vividly as one would a recurring dream. She survived unscathed but the same was not true for the princess. She never saw the princess again. Her and her mother were deported a couple of days after the incident.
What killed her more on the inside hadn't anything much to do with the separation but the indifference the princess was showing to her now after she had worked so hard to come back. She knew the princess had all the reasons to be angry with her. She just couldn't bear knowing the princess hated her.

All those years, she had only one wish whenever she saw a shooting star. It was always the same line that would come out of her mouth. The wish to be reunited with her princess. The wish did come true but she was now blaming herself for not wishing the princess would treat her just the same.
Now, everything she said or did seem to frustrate and infuriate the princess more.

Becky reached for her necklace and grazed the pendant with her fingertips. She could still see the burning anger in the eyes of the princess earlier. The princess was very angry seeing her necklace. She couldn't fathom why. Did the necklace belong to the princess somehow before it was gifted to her by the prince Chen of the kingdom of Makati.

"What got you out here this late?"

That jump-scared Becky for a good second and she froze for a moment. She didn't have to turn back and see to know who the voice belonged to.

She really had nowhere to run or to hide. She turned slowly towards the princess.
"I- I don't know." Becky muttered. She said it because it was hard to form a longer sentence. But nonetheless, it was the truth. She really didn't  know what she was doing there.

"You know you shouldn't come out here this late without a lantern. You wouldn't want to step on a frog."

Was the princess trying to engage in small talks or was she imagining things?

And the princess's voice sounded unfairly calm that Becky almost wanted to cry.

"I-I will bring one, n-next time, I guess" Becky replied. She cleared her throat gently afterwords, blaming her brain for making her struggle in voicing a simple line. She would always be this stuttering mess whenever she was around the princess and she hated it. She worried the princess would further perceive her as an incompetent idiot.