Chương 52: Vol 1. The Long Quest for Brisket: Part 1

Tavi awoke in the servant quarters of the Seran Estate with a start. The greyish light of the morn leaked through the narrow windows, illuminating rows upon rows of cramped cots next to personal dressers which housed each person's clothes, and shoes lined beneath the beds. The room smelled faintly of sleeping felines and old wool. CLANGCLANGCLANG! Rava was banging pots together, exclaiming:"Alright, everybody, wakey wakey, eggs and bakey!" Tavi growled as she rubbed her eyes with her paws.

Around her, ears flattened, tails lashed beneath blankets, and one servant buried her muzzle beneath her pillow as she let out a long groan of misery. It had been a long night the other night. Lady Korra was (rightfully, she supposed) antsy, more visceral and scary than she normally was due to the stress of the Coniton. Then someone of House Orien plopped down on her doorstep with an odd stranger. Yeah, speaking of…

"Alright, I'm up," Rida said. She flipped back the sheet and began fastening her uniform with the swiftness of someone who had performed the ritual a thousand times over. The others in their servant quarters did the same: laces tightened, the collars of their tunics buttoned, trousers evened out, stray hairs hurriedly brushed from the dark fabric of their jackets. Tavi still had to look down to remember which button went where; she wasn't used to tunics with this many buttons. It felt a little unnecessary.

The collar always felt too tight around her neck. (She guessed the servants of House Seran were not permitted the luxury of being able to breathe comfortably. Perhaps that cost too much money.)"Do you know what duties we each are performing today?" Tavi asked Rida.

"You know about as much as I do," Rida said, fastening the laces of her shoes.

"And I will still know about as much as you do for every morning you ask that question."

"Sorry," Tavi mumbled.

"And that is the other thing," Rida said, pointing a claw at Tavi.

"The more you keep spouting out sorries, the fewer people are going to respect you. Especially around royalty. If you screw up, just say, 'yes, mistress,' or 'yes, sir,' or, if it is Her Highness herself, 'yes, my lady.'""S—yes, mistress," Tavi said with an ear flick.

"There. You see, guys, the peasant girl is starting to get it!" The others in the servant quarters chuckled. Tavi's ears went flat against her head. She was awfully lucky to be in the position she was. She had applied for a position of servitude in the royal estate in hopes of paying off her family's debt, and, as luck would have it, she got the position. It had been a rough transition period. She knew nothing of formal etiquette.

On her first day, her seneschal scolded her for carrying a plate with two paws, and for slouching as she walked, and for looking their master in the eyes, and for this, and for that, this and that: One paw, girl. Shoulders straight, girl. Eyes down, girl. Tavi's head hurt. This was all so… just so exhausting. She was starting to really regret taking this position.

Then she remembered her father counting silver and copper coins at his desk for the third time, as though another count would magically produce more coinage. She sighed. Just two months before, she was toiling away on her parents' farm just on the outskirts of town.

Instead of waking up to Rava's incessant racket, attempting to put on clothing far too fine for someone of her status, and going to meet a grumpy seneschal, she was waking to chickens, trudging barefoot through damp soil, hauling feed until her shoulders burned, and digging mud from beneath her claws at the end of the day. That all felt some such simpler. A turnip did not care whether she looked it in the eyes or how she stood while she plucked it out of the ground.

Once Tavi had finished putting on her uniform, she took a deep breath, straightened her shoulders, and walked out. She and a couple of others went along the corridor of dark stone floors until they came and met the seneschal face to face. He was an older gentleman, probably in his late thirties, but there were few manly qualities to his character.

His greying muzzle was stern, somehow sterner than even Lady Korra's, and the way his face was so weathered gave his glare the effect of casting a spell of uneasiness over people. And it was certainly doing that to Tavi right in that moment. All the servant girls lined up, and like clockwork, each stood with their backs straight, their chests heaved high, and their faces stern. The seneschal held his hands behind his back, and he stared daggers at them—though Tavi felt as if she was getting the brunt of it.

He cleared his throat and said, If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

"Gentlewomen… you are looking…" He turned his paw side to side.

"Respectable." Tavi heard a plethora of sighs. That had been the best compliment they had heard him give in a good long while.

"Now, onto your assignments for the morning. As you may know, Lady Korra has some guests of House Orien; they will be here the next two days while we prepare their cargo for their long haul to Veyrath, so you lot will need to start working harder or I might have to stick my foot up your ass." He stopped for emphasis. Tavi shuddered. If there was one thing unfortunately manly about their seneschal, it was that.

Slowly, the seneschal assigned each girl a job, and after he did so, they would bow and skitter off to do their chore. For some, it was preparing breakfast, for which they needed to head out into the market and grab the fresh produce of the morning. For others, it was attending to the stables or starting the process of preparing the cargo for House Orien. One by one, each person had gone off, leaving only Tavi alone with the seneschal.

His heels click-clacked across the floor as he came up to her— far too close for comfort. Tavi was puny for female standards. Even against her relatively average-height male superior, she only came up to his chest. Tavi swallowed a lump in her throat. She felt her heart race. Shoulders straight. Posture straight. Chest up. And, nice and monotone:"What is my assignment today, sir?"

He continued to stare at her for a moment, and then, with a little smirk, he said, "Ah, miss new girl, I do have a very important task for you today."

"Whatever it is, I shall fulfill it, sir."

"Are you familiar with who our current guests are?"

"Of course, sir," Tavi said with a slight bow.

"And who are they?"

"His Highness, Prince Tahir of House Orien," Tavi said rapidly.

"Yes, and who is the other?"

"I… um… the… elf?" Tavi cringed. Her ears went flat against her head. Her seneschal dug his heel into her foot before letting up. He looked down at her with one fang showing and said, "Mind your words, girl."

"Yes, sir," she said. The center of her foot was pulsating now.

"Now, you will be happy to know you shall not be dealing with Prince Orien; I already have my men getting him ready for breakfast. However, Lady Ceryne informed me herself that she wishes for Prince Orien's guard to be treated as if he were Prince Orien himself.

"And so, guess what? You will be attending to him yourself." Tavi peered up.

"I, just me?"

"Yes, he insisted he does not need much. He fought even one servant helping him—so it will just be you."

"I… he… that e—he is a man?"

"Yes."

"Sir… I…" Tavi stopped talking when she saw her seneschal cock his head and lean in. Oh, Seroth, for someone so high-ranking in a royal family, his breath sure reeked.

"Is there a reason you are protesting my orders, girl?"

"It is just… sir, I can't dress a man!" Her seneschal scoffed.

"He is practically a woman anyway." So are you, she wanted to say.

"Now," he continued, "you are going to do it, or"—he stomped his foot—"I am going to put this shoe somewhere more unpleasant than your foot. You got that?"

"Yes, sir!" Tavi blurted.

"Now, his name is Sir Morton Christian. He is a human from the Texan realm. You will address him as Sir Christian."

"Yes, sir," Tavi said, mulling over the foreign words in her head. Human. So that is what he was. She had never heard of such a race, but it wasn't as if she had travelled very extensively.

"He has wounds on his arm from his duel with Lady Korra. I will need you to take the bandages off, rinse the wounds, scrub them, and rebandage them." Tavi gulped again. He… he duelled Lady Korra. She shuddered, thinking of the type of person who would willingly do that. Still:"Yes, sir."

"Finally, I will need you to groom him; that mane and fur of his could use a cleanup."

"Yes, sir."

"Now go off! His room is in the guest quarters—the third hallway from here, third room."

"Yes, sir." And with that, Tavi went off to meet Morton Christian. The farther she went into the guest wing, the quieter the estate became. Her footsteps sounded horrendously loud. As she passed through the marble corridor, she saw it: room three. She took a deep breath, and with her grooming and medical stuff in one hand and a paw taut on a door handle, she twisted and entered.

"Um… S… Sir Christian?"