"Wicked Game" Ch. 2
By Shawna
"How ironic," Shiro said the next morning, looking at a list posted on the door to the servant's quarters.
"What?" Katsu asked as she came up behind him, rubbing sleep from her eyes. It was just after dawn, and Katsu was stiff with cold and aching with tiredness.
Shiro pointed to a number 88 on the list. "You've been assigned to the prince with me."
Katsu stared at the list. "So what exactly does that mean?"
"Well," Shiro said, "When we're not serving meals, our duties are isolated to the prince. See that silver button on your cuff?"
Katsu found it, but had not noticed just how thick it was before.
"When that thing starts beeping, you jump to and get yourself to wherever the prince is to see what he wants. When he's not specifically calling on us, we take care of the third floor, where his room is, and his room when he's not in it. In the morning, we dust and open the windows in the hallways. We usually take his breakfast to his room, because he never comes downstairs for it. In the afternoons while he's out, we change the linens and make the bed and in the evenings we'll be serving dinner. At any time in between he might ring one of us wanting some random thing. You just stay neutral, eyes down, and its not so bad. We have it better than the basement servants."
"Basement servants?"
"The ones who have to stay down here," Shiro said, lowering his voice and stepping closer to Katsu. "They have to wash linens and dishes, repair broken machinery and transports, cook the food, and polish armor. Most of them will never get to see the sky again."
"Really?" Katsu was horrified at the thought. "Well, how do they choose who's what?"
"By who's better looking," Shiro said quietly.
Katsu eyed him incredulously and he shrugged. "I'm serious," he said. "Those that are considered easier on the eyes are the ones that get to move about the house, the ones that are seen. The ones they think are ugly get locked away down here."
Katsu was silent, but her gaze dropped to the floor.
"Look on the bright side, Katsu," Shiro said with his usual good humour, despite how bad their situation was. "You're beautiful and its actually doing you a favor." He smiled warmly at her, but she couldn't get herself to return it, so he just put his arm around her shoulder and led her up the stairs out of the basement.
They climbed a back staircase to the third floor, not as splendid as the grand stairway, but much nicer than the steps that took one out of the basement where the servants lived. The third floor was, as Katsu had expected, the most lavish of any of the floors. There were floor to ceiling windows, covered with thick draperies, and golden sconces on the walls. Shiro motioned her to be quiet as he approached one of the windows and pulled a gold rope on the drapes, throwing them open wide, letting in the light of the rising sun. Shiro handed her one of the two cloths he had brought from the basement.
"Open that window down there and polish the sconces by it with this," he whispered almost inaudibly. She nodded and hurried off to do as he'd said.
She was just finishing polishing her second sconce when the silver button on her cuff began to beep gently. Shiro looked up and motioned her to come to him. She did so, covering the button with her hand to muffle the quiet but insistent beeping.
"That's the prince wanting his breakfast," Shiro whispered. "Go back down to the kitchen and tell them you're taking Prince Vegeta's breakfast, and hurry up!"
She nodded and ran as quietly as she could back to the stairs, taking them two at a time on her way down. She burst into the kitchen a bit out of breath and several of the cooks looked at her in surprise.
"I need Prince Vegeta's breakfast," she panted.
A few of them eyed her strangely, and one of the cooks wordlessly handed her a tray of food. A few of the people snickered and Katsu was confused, wondering why. She had no time to ask though, remembering how urgently Shiro had told her to hurry, and so she took off, taking the steps back up as fast as she could without spilling anything on the tray.
She burst back into the third floor hallway and breezed past Shiro without a word. She stopped in front of the door to the prince's room and took a moment to compose herself before knocking softly, as Shiro had motioned for her to do from across the hall. There was only silence.
"That means it's okay to go in," Shiro whispered. "If it wasn't, he would have yelled at you to go away already."
Katsu took a deep breath and opened the door. It was still dark inside, and she froze, waiting for her eyes to adjust, glad for the light that spilled into the room from the hallway.
"Shut the door," came a voice; that rough, low voice that she already knew from her ill-fated run at last night's dinner. She quickly obeyed, shutting it and sealing out the light. She could see nothing so she stayed still, hearing nothing but her own breath. After a few seconds her eyes adjusted, allowing her to see, though not very well. She could make out the prince's outline; he was sitting in a chair by the window, which was draped in thick curtains.
"On the table here," he said, gesturing to a small table next to his seat. She hurried over and placed the tray carefully on the table, and then turned to go.
"Hold on," he said, sounding a bit angry. "I haven't dismissed you yet."
She turned around. "Did you need something else?"
He growled. "I didn't give you permission to speak, either." He stared down at the tray for a moment and Katsu heard him hiss. "And just what is this? This isn't mine. This filth probably goes to some low level guard. How dare you bring me this!" He rose from his chair in one fluid movement and approached her. Katsu kept her eyes down but began to tremble when he stood over her. She now understood why the cooks had snickered when they'd handed her this tray. They had gotten her into trouble on purpose.
"This is the second time you've made a mistake," he said in a voice that was low and dangerous. "Isn't it?"
"Yes," she said in a whisper.
He backhanded her across the face, just hard enough to leave a bruise. "Yes what?" He said with increasing anger.
"Yes, y-your Highness," she said resentfully, feeling the hot sting rising in her cheek.
He shook his head and returned to his seat. "Get it together or I'll have you put to death due to your uselessness. Now leave."
She scurried out of the room, shutting the door gently behind her and running to the other end of the hall. There she crumbled against the wall, tears coursing down her cheeks, and began to weep bitterly. It was not until Shiro placed a hand on her back that she realized he was even there. She looked up at him and he saw the purple bruise blossoming on her right cheek and knew what had happened. The button on his cuff began beeping.
"The kitchen maids gave me the wrong tray, on purpose," Katsu whispered. "I'm sure the prince is calling you to take it away and bring him what should have been his."
Shiro's eyes narrowed in anger, but he said nothing as he rose and went to the prince's room, emerging a moment later with the tray and disappearing down the stairs with it. Katsu stayed against the wall, sobbing quietly until Shiro came back with another tray and went into the prince's room. When he came out, he was wiping his bloody nose on his sleeve.
"I think he's in a good mood today," Shiro said with a grin as he came back to Katsu. "Come on then, get up. We can't stay here in the hallway." He helped Katsu to her feet and they took off down the stairs, back to the basement.
Katsu helped Shiro clean up his nose and the buttons on their cuffs were silent for the rest of the morning. Several of the kitchen maids snickered at seeing Katsu's bruised face and Shiro's bloodied nose. Shiro shot them angry looks and tripped one of them on her way back to the kitchen.
That afternoon, Katsu and Shiro retrieved some clean bed sheets from the laundry servants and returned to the third floor to make the prince's bed. The bed was a disaster: the sheets were rumpled and damp, and the blankets twisted and halfway on the floor.
"Looks like the prince had a rough night," Katsu commented dryly.
Shiro shrugged. "The bed looks like this everyday." Katsu made a face and Shiro laughed. "You think he's got a woman in here everynight," he said. "He actually doesn't. I just figure Saiyans must be as violent in their sleep as they are while they're awake. Believe me, when there's been a woman in here, you'll know."
"Charming," Katsu said sarcastically. "Like I want to know when that disgusting creature has been sleeping with someone."
Shiro laughed again. "I didn't say you wanted to know, I was just saying that you will know."
Katsu shook her head and stripped the bed quickly. The two remade it with the clean sheets, making sure it looked perfect before they left the room, returning again to the basement.
Later that afternoon, Katsu sat down on her cot, sighing with boredom. "Do you guys do anything for fun when you're not working?"
Shiro sat beside her. "Not really. We're working most of the time. Besides, the Saiyans look in from time to time and if we got caught doing anything that even slightly resembled fun, I'm sure we would be punished."
Katsu heaved another sigh, putting her head in her hands. "So we get to do nothing? Nothing at all?"
Shiro snickered. "There is one thing," he said evasively. "A lot of the servants take time to indulge their, um, personal needs at night."
Katsu looked sickened. "In here?" She said. "Surrounded by everyone else? They sleep together?"
Shiro nodded. "Hey, people have needs. Sometimes they go in the kitchen, but there's usually more than one couple in there. The Saiyans know that the servants do it, because every now and then a baby is born."
"What happens to the baby?" Katsu asked softly, a little nervous at what the response might be.
"They'll let the mother keep it if it doesn't get in the way of her duties. When the child is four or five, they put it to work. That's why they don't bother to separate the servants by sex. They know that the servant population will sustain itself if they're all left together."
"That's sick," Katsu said firmly.
Shiro shrugged. "Any race that keeps slaves does it the same way."
Katsu shook her head and put it back in her hands and stayed that way for a long time. Night came and the kitchen maids prepared dinner. Katsu took two platters, carefully this time, to take to the dining room, delivering them without incident.
"The prince wasn't in the dining hall tonight," Katsu said to Shiro on her way back to the basement.
"I noticed," Shiro said. "That means one of our cuffs should be beeping soon."
Sure enough, Katsu's button sounded a minute later and she got a tray from the kitchen maids, who Shiro kept an eye on to make sure that they gave her the right one.
The bruise on Katsu's face tingled as she made her way up the stairs. I hope he's not going to hit me again, she thought apprehensively. With her bruised face and still sore nose, she was getting quite beat up for being here only two days. She knocked softly upon reaching the prince's door and, receiving no reply, entered slowly.
The curtains were open, and the light of this planet's waxing moon spilled in, sending a path of silver across the floor. The prince was standing before the window with his arms folded over his bare chest, wearing nothing but a pair of pants, looking out over the castle grounds. For a moment Katsu stared, appreciating the view of the perfectly chiseled muscles of his chest and stomach. Her breath stuck in her throat when she realized what she was thinking, and she cast her eyes down hurriedly.
"On the table," he said, his voice low, but the tone still hard. She obeyed quickly and then returned to the center of the room, standing with her hands clasped and her head down. For a moment he said nothing, still staring out the window, and then he went to the table and appraised the tray she had brought before turning to face her.
"You didn't screw anything up this time," he said. "And here I was hoping to have a reason for an execution."
She swallowed hard, anger rising in her stomach.
He laughed scornfully. "I'm making you mad." It was not a question, but he followed it wtih, "Aren't I?"
"Yes, your Highness," she said, realizing even as the words left her mouth that he would probably strike her now, but not regretting saying them to him.
"Look at me and tell me that," he said, anger coursing through his words.
She looked up, right into his eyes. "You're making me angry, your Highness."
For a moment his face didn't change and she felt sure he would beat her now. But abruptly he laughed, a loud, scornful sound. He put his hands on his hips, looking cocky and very much like a prince, before speaking. "I'd forgotten that you were one who crashed here, and not one who surrendered. You're more feisty than the other weaklings who simply couldn't die with dignity. They drop to their knees at the slightest hint of command from me."
She said nothing, thinking of Shiro.
"Get out," he said, turning away with a lopsided grin. "I won't punish you for your lip because it gave me a brief moment of amusement."
She hurried out of the room, her anger still rising. She shut the door hard behind her, resisting the urge to slam it with all her might. She hated him. It hit her in that moment that she had begun to hate the prince with a passion she couldn't remember having for any other emotion. At the same time she had a picture in her head of the way the moonlight had played across his perfect body. She gritted her teeth, banishing the image from her mind as she descended the stairs. When it refused to go away, she only became more angry, bashing her fist into the wall. It figured that someone she hated so much had to go and look so good.
**To Be Continued...**
