They're Watching You

Chapter 3

A/N: Feedback would be really appreciated!

She was running out of time. Adelaide paced the length of her room in her nightclothes with her hands resting together, fiddling, in front of her.

Her maid was supposed to be fulfilling the princess' request today and was due to arrive any time now.

It had been a couple of days since Adelaide had eventually found the courage to ask for what she had been wanting for most of her life. When she was much younger, her innocent curiosity had taken over and she had outright asked her nanny the thing that had been plaguing her mind for as long as she could remember. It hadn't ended well.

She wasn't allowed any technology around her so that wasn't an option but it also meant that she lived in blissful ignorance with purely her own thoughts, unaffected by the wider world.

Where was her maid?

The maid in question was going to retire soon but before she leaves, she is going to train a young recruit, someone of a similar age as her since she had been so deprived of people her own age her whole life. If this was the one blessing her father ever gave her, she would be glad for it.

He was also getting young recruits for many positions around the castle though and the only reason she could think of why the king would do this, was so that he wouldn't have to fill any vacancies for a longer time and to also build their loyalty. He liked the people around him to be impressionable: vulnerable. First, he made sure almost his entire population was relatively defenceless and now he was attempting to brainwash his staff. To him, this was more important than having experience of the job.

The door to her room cracked open and Adelaide stood perfectly still. Grey wispy hair appeared from behind the polished wood and the maid walked slowly into the room because of her weak bones, but Adelaide still didn't let out her breath.

"Do..." She was suddenly overcome by doubt. The nanny she had asked for this same thing had gone and asked the King if she would be able to provide her with what she wanted and in response, he had stormed down the hallways and burst into her room with a face like thunder, anger blazing in his eyes and acid dripping off his tongue, staining her pale pink carpet.

Adelaide remembered it well, not only because he never usually ventured this far to the end of the castle that he would be anywhere near her rooms, but because of the terror she had felt. Her life was sheltered, she was never exposed to such emotive outbursts and she was so restricted that she had never done anything to warrant his wrath. It was a completely new experience for her.

"Do you have it?"

"I do, but at least let me close the door first, child, or do you want me to get executed before my retirement." She was joking... wasn't she?

Her maid was most commonly short-tempered, not exactly the best trait to have when dealing with a child as she used to- since Adelaide was no longer a young child- but it was not really the best characteristic for dealing with Adelaide in general. She was fair tempered, had an endless amount of patience and was dangerously naive.

Her withered hand sunk into one of her pockets and withdrew with something clutched between its fingers.

There it was. Adelaide could barely contain her excitement and was jumping up and down on the spot before the maid reprimanded her for being too noisy because it could draw the attention of the guard standing outside her door.

When the elderly woman made no move to pass over the object, the princess said tentatively, "can I see it?"

Her hand slid back into her pocket and dropped the item.