Midoriya stood beside Tokoyami, helping him check on the horses and make sure they were tethered to the wagon. Midoriya gently patted the horse's side as it turned its head and muzzled its nose against his skin, its breath rustled the tips of his hair.

"Here."

Midoriya turned at the sound of Tokoyami's voice. The dark haired man was holding Dark Shadow's cage in between his hands. The bird stared at Midoriya and squawked its displeasure at having to leave his master's hand to go to its new temporary owner. Midoriya accepted the cage and let out a surprised yelp as Tokoyami pulled him into a one armed hug. They pulled apart, with Tokoyami's hand still resting on his shoulder. He stared into Midoriya's eyes, his mouth turned downwards into a frown. "Be careful; watch your back."

Midoriya nodded, a nervous smile stretching across his face. "I will."

Tokoyami frowned as he glanced up at the palace; the tall spires reached out towards the sky. Countless servants moved about the palace, Midoriya spied a group of maids whose arms were bogged down by heavy buckets containing laundry that needed to be washed. Midoriya turned his gaze to the palace. Tokoyami patted him on the shoulder as he wrenched his gaze away from the alabaster white stones that made up the palace. "There's a dangerous feeling that seems to sleep within the walls of this palace."

Tokoyami patted Midoriya on the shoulder once more before climbing into his wagon and bidding Midoriya farewell.

Midoriya stood in the courtyard with Dark Shadow's cage resting in between his hands. He stood in the courtyard, watching the fleeting specks of the caravan disappear into the distance.

Turning around, he glanced up at the palace, the high towers and the windows that glittered like freshly polished jewels forced him to attempt to swallow down the lump that was growing in his throat. The longer he stared at the exterior of the castle, the longer he became convinced that it appeared beautiful on the outside; an architect's desire to give viewers a glimpse of what he wanted them to see—gilded windows, soft seashell colored stones and a beautiful set of gardens—but hid the gross misshapen mistakes behind the facade, behind the white washed stone.

Midoriya tore his gaze away from the palace to see Yaoyorozu walk towards him, her head held high and her back as straight as a board. A warm smile graced her face and it put Midoriya at ease some, but the jagged and guarded edges still remained around him. Like a rose where the thorns had yet to be sheared.

"Midoriya, your training starts now."

When Yaoyorozu had said his training would be intense, Midoriya had thought she had been kidding, but as the royal scholar for Enten brought her stick down onto the back of his hands giving him a good whack, Midoriya realized that she was unfortunately right.

Enten culture and etiquette was far more different than he was used to. He knew enough to scrape the surface, but according to the scholars and servants who were training him to get used to his position and job, his knowledge about Enten was more or less the very tip of the surface he was attempting to scrape again. As the scholar lamented about the fact that she was being forced to drill months—if not years—of knowledge into his brain in a mere day, she shot him a look that screamed he was a lost hope as he stumbled over the correct way to bow to a member of Enten nobility who was both older than him and not a member or extended relation of the royal family.

His head swam during that day. Who knew there were different social etiquettes and rules that he had to follow for each interaction that he had?

He was passed from one teacher to the next who educated him in some manner of his duties. From the royal scholar he went to the bath to be taught by the head of the chamber maids. A stout old woman who had a sharp tongue and a red face that was constantly that coloration due to the steam from the hot water that she barked out orders for the girls under her employee to heat in big copper pots and then transfer into copper jugs that retained the temperature of the water.

She taught Midoriya how the prince liked to be bathed, how to pour the right combination of sweet smelling oils into his bath and how to press the button that would ring in her area of the castle to let her and her girls know that the prince needed his bath to be filled with water that was piping hot and scalding—the temperature that he liked. Midoriya frowned, perplexed by Enten's culture in which bath water was drained and freshly prepared for each person's use instead of conserved for a single family. Even the guests of the castle down to the servants had their own bathtubs and could enjoy taking a bath in fresh clean water.

From the chamber maids he went to laundry maids who were busily flying around him as they hung sheets, ironed clothes, and beat out linen with rod wires. Midoriya had sat on a little stool and quickly rolled up his sleeves to his elbows as he helped the maids wash clothing that they furiously dunked in soapy water and dragged against ribbed washing boards. They taught him how to dress the prince, that whatever he desired to wear, Midoriya had to bring to him. How certain colors worked best for certain seasons, how Midoriya needn't given the prince a heavy vest if the birds were chirping early in the morning. How if the sky looked a little gray it meant that it would be raining all day and that he dress the prince in slightly warmer clothing that was meant for such occasion.

The laundry maids had laughed as he wrung out the shirt that he had been washing and handed it off to another girl who was busily dunking the drenched fabric in a bucket of icy, cold water.

The maids had glanced at him and told him that when the oil burned low in the lamps and there was scuttling around in the halls at night, that if the prince knocked on his door and asked him to join him in bed that there were ways to keep him happy. Midoriya's cheeks had gone cherry red, causing the maids to laugh at his expense.

From the laundry maids he had been sent to the kitchen maids and the chefs who taught Midoriya how to fetch Todoroki's breakfast in the morning, his afternoon lunch and his dinner. A kitchen maid who was around Midoriya's age, a young girl who had urged him to call her Tsuyu; her hair was a dark shade of teal and it was tied into the shape of a bow behind her back. She had personally taught Midoriya how the prince took his tea. A sweet blend that had a refreshing taste and was personally made by the kitchen staff themselves from a recipe that the royal family had gotten from the queen's family. A blend that was called Winter Rose and that the prince liked to drink it within the hour that he had woken up.

He was taught what the prince liked for his breakfast: lightly toasted bread that was slathered with a generous spread of honey, eggs that were fried to a crisp perfection, and a thick slab of smoked ham.

Later when the sun had gone down and the lamps lining the walls of the palace were lit with their soft flames flickering inside of the glass frames that covered them, Midoriya was escorted to his room by Yaoyorozu. Midoriya felt his brow raise as they climbed steps upon column of steps until Midoriya found himself in the section of the palace that was reserved for the crown prince.

Midoriya turned towards the female knight. "What are we doing here?" His nerves were already on edge as he wondered if the prince or his personal entourage of knights had a inkling that he was a foreign spy.

Yaoyorozu had said nothing, but simply lifted a gloved hand and gestured towards the door the two of them were standing in front of.

Midoriya glanced at her warily as he reached out and grasped the gold colored knob in his hand and twisted. The knob turned and he pushed the door open as his eyes widened as he let go of the knob allowing the door to swing open on its own momentum.

He walked into the bedroom—he wasn't even sure if he could call it that—with Yaoyorozu following closely behind him.

The word extravagant barely began to encapture the rich nature in which the room was decorated. There was a canopy bed pushed against the wall of the room, rich dark blue satin sheets were draped over the bed with dozens of pillows propped up against the headboards. Two floor to ceiling windows were on either side of the bed, covered with white silky curtains and lead out to a personal balcony.

There was a rich oaken chest at the foot of the bed and a closet made from the same wood and finished with golden decorations pushed up to the wall on the left hand side of the bed. There was an armoire with a golden mirror inlaid into it and a beautiful ceramic bowl that had a deers running through a meadow painted on its side. The bowl was filled with cool water that was meant for him to wash his face.

He also noticed a bell attached to the wall, but found that there was no string that connected it to anything. Midoriya gestured to the room as he turned towards Yaoyorozu.

"What is this?"

Her gentle smile grew a little bigger. "It's your own personal room."

Midoriya's eyes grew slightly bigger inside of his head, he furiously shook his head. "This is—" Midoriya gestured to the room again.

"More than you're used to?" Yaoyorozu completed his thought as she raised a single brow. "You're the prince's personal servant, you need to be close to him at all times." She pointed to a door just a foot away from the armoire that Midoriya had failed to notice. The door was painted white, a soft white that was the color of the sand that occupied the Shueian beach. Midoriya had to squint his eyes just to see the outline of it against the wall.

"That room leads to the prince's room," she continued, "You can reach him quickly in case he has one of his nightmares or...if he has other needs you need to attend to."

Midoriya's cheeks flushed a bright shade of pink at the suggestive nature of her words. But he forced himself to focus on the word that she had said that truly ensnared his mind.

Nightmares.

"The prince...has nightmares?"

Yaoyorozu gave him a look that said she shouldn't have brought up the subject at all. She shook her head. "Pretend that I said nothing." Her expression softened as she glanced at the door that connected Midoriya's room to Todoroki's own. "I just...worry about him sometimes."

Midoriya wondered if weather the part of her that was worrying about the prince was simply a part of her that was a close confidant or the part that seemed as if she was much more than that.

Yaoyorozu sighed, but allowed a gentle smile to stretch across her face once more. "I'll leave you to rest. You deserved it." She nodded her head at him and left the room, the door softly swinging shut behind her.

Midoriya turned towards the bed, he spied his knapsack resting at the foot of the bed, but didn't bother to pick it up as he dragged his feet across the floor, his entire body sagged underneath the pressure of his desire to collapse into the large bed and fall fast asleep. As his knees hit the edge of the bed that was what he did.

He collapsed on top of the bed, not having the energy to attempt to change out of his day clothes and into his night one's. His eyes fluttered closed as he sank into the plush bed, the satins cool underneath his cheek and palm. His eyes fluttered open as his body wrestled with sleep. He had the upperhand, but quickly lost it as sleep wrestled him into submission. His eyes fluttered closed again as he sank deeper into the bed and further into blank and empty dreams.