A few weeks had passed since Midoriya had come to be in Todoroki's service, and he was finally getting used to Enten's culture and the complexities that existed within the castle walls. Midoriya's head rested comfortably upon the plush pillows that littered his bed, a soft breeze blew in from the open balcony windows offering a nice reprieve from the hot nights. His chest rose and fell, soft sighs falling from his lips as dreams stirred in his mind. However, the dreams parted as his eyes snapped open and he jolted upright in bed; the sound of a scream reached his ears. The sound liquefied itself into his veins; ice cold water that made his blood run cold and his heart fly up into his throat. The scream faded into silence, with a few terse seconds passing by before it came again.
It sounded like a wounded animal, a sound Midoriya had heard plenty of times before when he had accompanied All Might on a hunt and had to watch the man end the life of a wounded animal he had caught. Though the scream reminded Midoriya of that moment, there was a distinctly human quality to it that had his gaze being pulled toward the door that connected him to the prince's room. Without so much as a thought, he threw back the covers on the bed and raced toward the door on bare feet. Throwing open the door, he shouted for the prince as his gaze swiveled toward Todoroki's bed.
Todoroki bolted upright, sweat shining against his skin as he quickly clapped his left hand over the left side of his face to hide the flesh beneath it from Midoriya's eyes.
"Your highness?" Worry threaded Midoriya's voice as he took a step towards the prince's bed. From his position Midoriya could see the slight tremor wracking Todoroki's body.
"Get out." Those words came as a whisper, Midoriya craned his neck slightly forward to better hear them. A deep frown settled upon his face, his brows pinching together.
"Your highness." Midoriya took a step forward, the action bringing out a whirlwind of fury from the prince that smothered him.
"Get out!" Todoroki roared, ice climbed up from his right wrist to his elbow, a chilly vapor curling off of him as his fingers dug into the fabric of his bed. "Get out!"
Jumping slightly, Midoriya didn't waste a second as he turned on his heels and rushed out of the room, slamming the door connecting both of their rooms shut behind him. His heart throbbed rapidly in his chest as he leaned back against the door, pressing his green curls into the rough grains of the wood.
What had just happened back there?
Midoriya didn't get much sleep after that; the orange outline of the sun soon poked its head above the horizon, trails of rosy pink and reddish orange streaks littered to sky to inform him that he needed to start his day along with the rest of the servants in the castle. He quickly dressed and made his way down to the kitchens where a smiling Tsuyu quickly set about making the prince's breakfast and morning tea for him.
Pressing his hand against his mouth, Midoriya loudly yawned, tears pricking the corners of his eyes.
"You look tired."
He nodded, quickly wiping the tears from the corners of his eyes away. "I didn't get much sleep last night since the prince woke me up."
"Was it the nightmares?"
The surprise on his face must have been apparent as Tsuyu answered the question that was beginning to form on his lips. "Almost all the entire castle staff knows about the prince's nightmares." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "After all. I'm usually the one who has to mix the medicine into the prince's tea so that he calms down after he has one." As if to show him what she meant, she moved to a kitchen drawer, yanked it open and pressed her fingers underneath it. Midoriya heard a soft click as a secret compartment within the drawer opened. She reached into the drawer, lifting up a little panel of wood to expose a line of cream colored packets within. She directed Midoriya to grab the prince's cup and fill it with freshly boiled water; he did so and placed the cup in front of her.
Tsuyu went about preparing the prince's tea, retrieving a small golden orb she dropped in into the cup and slightly smacked it with the back of a spoon. Cracking open, the outer shell of the orb dissolved into the water, turning it a slightly golden color as small flowers and dried petals floated out across the surface. Retrieving a packet from the drawer, she ripped an end open and dumped the white, odorless powder into the tea.
"Asui—"
"Please call me, Tsuyu." The kitchen girl smiled at him as she went about setting up the breakfast tray.
"Tsuyu, has the prince always had these nightmares?"
She shrugged as she placed down a plate piled high with scrambled eggs down onto the wooden tray. "I heard way before I began to even work in this castle that the nightmares only began after the queen left. Chef." The large man lifted tore his gaze away from the pot he was busily stirring. "Isn't that right?"
The man nodded his head in confirmation.
"What was the queen like? For the prince to have such worrying nightmares regarding her?"
The chef's face paled at the question. "I can't say. Besides it's better to put such questions away and never bring them up again."
Confusion swept over Midoriya again. "Why? No one here to seems to even so much as mention the queen's name not to mention there's hardly any portraits within the castle walls of her visage and her thrown remains empty. Did something happ—"
"Midoriya!" Chef roared his name in such a manner that it shook the very bones of his body. The man dropped his voice to a soft whisper. "I beg of you, to never mention the queen within these walls much less to the prince himself, or else you're begging to have your head displayed on the walls. Do you hear me?"
He nodded as the chef implored Tsuyu to hand him the tray so he could quickly leave the kitchen. Tsuyu complied, quickly placing the rest of the prince's breakfast onto the tray she handed it over to him with an apologetic frown on her face.
Soothing her own feelings, he gave her a quick smile before leaving the kitchen and walking up the several flights of stairs that lead him up from the kitchen and toward the section of the castle that housed the prince's room. A trio of guards were patrolling the hallway, keeping his head bowed, he did his best to avoid being noticed by them.
It didn't seem to work.
As he and the guards passed by each other, the senior of the three—a commander by the phoenix shaped badge on his chest—reached out, smacking the tray out of Midoriya's hands, the cup of tea splashed against his tunic before falling to the floor and shattering in several pieces aside the food that now decorated the cobbled stone floor.
The commander, a man who appeared to be in his late twenties, had blond hair flowing down his back, giving him the appearance of a lion. "Haven't they taught you servants to be more conscious of your surroundings?"
Midoriya said nothing as he bent down to the ground, picking up a shard of broken ceramic and tossing it onto the slightly cracked tray. A flash of anger swept across the commander's face, settling into a practiced mask of apathy as he lifted a boot covered foot and brought it down onto Midoriya's hand. He let out a sharp howl as the boot dug into his tender skin. A devilish smirk stretched across the commander's face.
"Oops," he hissed, "You should really be more careful where you put your hands, you could end up losing one of them if a guard just so happens to be swinging his sword around by accident."
Refusing to bow underneath the pressure of such a threat, Midoriya ignored his own steadily crumbling advice to lift his head in order to glare into the commander's eyes. A flicker of scorn flashed across the man's face, removing his foot from Midoriya's hands, he simply stared down at the servant. Attempting to clean up the mess now littering the floor, Midoriya didn't have so much as a moment to let out a yelp of surprise as his back and head smacked against the rough stones of the wall; the air expelling from his lungs in a sharp wheeze. His teeth clacked together, the coppery taste of blood in his mouth welled upon the tip of his tongue.
Bringing their faces closer together, Midoriya grimaced in pain as the commander's bright green eyes, flecked with little spots of brown flickered over the expanse of his face. The fabric around the collar of his shirt, bunched up between the man's hands as his feet dangled a few inches off of the ground.
"What is going on here?"
Yaoyorozu stood just a few feet away from the foursome, a scowl twisted on her face as her eyes raked over the spilt food on the floor, the shattered dishes and Midoriya pinned up against the wall. Eyes narrowing, she took a threatening step forward as she jerked her chin in the commander's direction. "What do you think you're doing to the prince's personal servant?"
The commander let go off Midoriya's collar, his hands jerking backward, fingers spread apart as he held up his hands in front of him. A sly smile stretched across his face as he looked in Yaoyorozu's direction. His smile may have been friendly, but the coldness and disgust that burned in his eyes implicated his true feelings toward her. "Why nothing, just having a good, friendly chat with the servant. After all, it's our duty to make him feel welcomed to the castle."
"He's had enough time to adjust to our culture within these castle walls," she hissed out between her teeth. "I suggest you continue your rounds or else I'll have to report that you're the reason as to why the prince's breakfast arrived so late."
The commander released a huff of incredulous annoyance, before motioning for the two other guards to follow him. Yaoyorozu kept a steely gaze upon her face as the guards passed by her, however, the commander stopped in his tracks. Bringing his lips close to her ears, he whispered a threat that even Midoriya could hear.
"If I were you, I would sleep with an eye open from now on."
The guards left, leaving Midoriya and Yaoyorozu alone in the hallway. Straightening his rumpled clothing, Midoriya got down on his hands and knees, quickly reaching for the broken shards of plates and the tea cup.
"Here." Yaoyorozu was beside him, a tired smile stretched across her face as she handed him a larger broken shard from one of the plates.
He mumbled a thanks as he took the shard from her hand and tossed it onto the tray.
"It's rough being the new person in the castle," Midoriya glanced at Yaoyorozu's face to see that she was staring at him, her eyes taking a misty, distant look to them, "But you get used to it eventually."
"You say that as if you've had a lot of practice with it." Eyes narrowing, his lip stretched out into a thin line. "And it doesn't seem like you're especially used to it."
She hummed, a sound of displeasure rumbling in her throat. Reaching up with her hand, she tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear. "I'm grateful to be working in the castle serving under the Prince," she shrugged her shoulders, "it's better than probably being married off to a rich bastard by now and having my third kid."
"What?" His voice reverberated off of the walls; the incredulousness he felt could hardly be contained by the implication of her words. "But I thought you could get married out of love here?"
Sharp laughter that bubbled out past Yaoyorozu's lips startled him. "It's best that you quickly remove whatever naive notions of this country and our culture that you have from your head." Lightly shaking her own head, she continued. "Women here, to some extent have the same freedoms as men; we're free at night to play with whomever we fancy, our futures, however, are just decided for us."
He bit down upon his tongue to keep himself from asking her if she 'played' with the prince at night.
"I know in Shuei, it's more common for marriages to be made because of love, but just because our two countries are neighbors, doesn't mean Enten follows the same values as Shuei." She observed him as he used a broken shard to scoop up the smashed pieces of what used to be a trio of hard boiled eggs. "Here it's far more common for Quirk marriages to occur, arranged marriages to gain financial or political influence or in order to raise a houses social standing."
The two of them finished quickly cleaning up the mess. Standing up, Yaoyorozu brushed her hands together, there was something pensive about the way she stared down at Midoriya. "I'm grateful towards him. He saved me during a time I was uncertain of myself and my future looked incredibly bleak." Turning her head, she looked fondly at a banner upon the wall, just below the depiction of the phoenix in the center of a burning sun was the crown prince's personal emblem. "I simply serve the prince as a way to pay him back for everything he's done for me."
Turning her gaze back upon Midoriya, a shiver ran down his spine at the subdued fire that burned within her eyes. It wasn't the bloodthirsty and impassioned heat that he felt from the king or the cold, indifference that he got from the prince. This fire coming from her, was a fire that looked small, but was equally, if not far more dangerous than the others. He felt a nervous smile stretch across his face as a droplet of sweat traced down the side of his face and curved underneath his chin.
"And if anything happened to him—" A smile stretched across her face, exposing the whites of her teeth. "I'd make sure those who did it, suffer greatly."
A/N: Next update we get a really badass fight scene featuring Midoriya.