Hannah slowly woke from some of the most restful sleep she’d ever had. So restful and deep that it took her a few seconds to even remember where she was. Then it all came crashing back into her. She had been bought and taken to the Hayward manor where she had taken a glorious bath and ate an incredible meal. A meal that was so good she would have honestly dreamed of it, if it wasn’t for what her mistress had done last night.

Instead of the stew Hannah had dreamed of laying in Elaine’s lap, letting her fiancee play with her ears after a long day teaching. Though her lover’s hands were rough and calloused, their actions were always so soft and gentle. They stayed like that silently as they sat by the fire for who knows how long. Eventually her lover bent down to speak gently into her ear.

“I’m sorry, love, but I have to be going now,” Elaine said softly.

“No, please don’t leave. I just want to stay like this forever,” Hannah begged.

“It’ll be okay, Hannah. I’ll always be in your heart and there's someone else waiting for their turn to sooth you.” Elaine bent down lower and kissed Hannah’s head. “I love you, Hannah.”

“I love you too… Please don’t go. I don’t want to be alone.” Hannah could feel tears brimming in her eyes.

“Shh, it’s okay, Hannah,” Lady Haywards whispered as her hands and lap replaced Elaine’s. “You’ll never be alone with me. I promise I’ll take good care of you, little fox.”

Hannah went to protest but Rayne was rubbing her ears just like Elaine had, making her melt into the touch. All too soon though the intensity picked up and Rayne pinched the tip of her ear in just the right way to make the fox gasp out. Then Hannah felt Rayne’s hot breath on her ear.

That had been where the dream ended much to Hannah’s relief and the tiniest bit of disappointment. It had been a long time since she had any kind of dream like that and she wasn’t sure how she felt about having one with a woman she had just met. It was also her mistress which meant she most certainly shouldn’t have that kind of dream about her.

A knock at the door made Hannah jump a little bit. She turned to the door and waited for whoever it was to enter but nothing happened. The knock came again and Hannah caught on. “Come in,” she called, finding it a little strange to be granted such a courtesy.

Quickly the door opened and Eda stepped in. “Good morning, Hannah.” She closed the door behind her.

“Good morning, Miss Eda.” Hannah quickly started getting herself out of bed. “What time is it?” She regretted asking as soon as the words came out. She wasn’t meant to ask questions.

“It’s a little after six,” Eda said as she went about getting out the uniform in the chest of drawers. “Everyone is to rise and be ready by half past six. I knock on all the doors around a quarter past to make sure everyone is up. Most everyone are up by then and I’m sure you’ll get into the habit of waking up at the right time. It’s no worry though if you wake up to the knock. As long as you do wake up. Now let's get you dressed.”

Hannah followed along as Eda helped her get dressed. It wasn’t as difficult as Hannah had thought it was more that there were just specific ways to tie parts. The only real problems were the undergarments that didn’t fully sit right thanks to having a tail and the dress made her tail feel a little restricted under it. Hannah could deal with all of that though.

“Well, that’ll do for now. I’ll call for a tailor to get you some clothes that actually fit you. I wonder if my usual will make clothes for beastkin,” Eda mused quietly to herself.

“I’m sorry,” Hannah meekly said, feeling bad that Eda would feel she needed to go out of her way to get clothes for her.

“Oh, don’t worry about it. The lady will most likely be asking me to get one to make you a more fitting and comfortable collar, so I might as well kill two birds with one stone. Now what to do with you? You were at a bakery so do you know anything about cooking?”

“No, Miss. The Strawfords didn’t let me in the kitchen. I did all the cleaning and shopping for them.

Eda pondered what to have Hannah do for a second as she finished helping her get dressed. There was always cleaning to do, but for starting out Eda would have to send Hannah off with another maid. Since she hadn’t seen all their reactions to Hannah yet she wasn’t sure that would be the best idea. “Alright, for right now just follow me around till breakfast and then we’ll see you about sending you off with another maid.”

Hannah gave an affirming nod before following Eda out of the door. She followed the head housekeeper as she knocked on all of the doors. A number of women came out with the knock and some were surprised to see Hannah. Some weren’t surprised so word of her must have already spread.

There wasn’t much to say about Eda’s morning duties. It mostly consisted of telling a few people what to do and then having a discussion with the cook about the meal plans for the day. There was a brief concern from the cook, Miss Vera, that Hannah’s fur could shed into the food, which was a little racist in Hannah’s opinion but she said nothing. It wasn’t her place to.

After that Eda led them to a small office with an older gentleman sitting behind a desk working on what might have been a ledger. Gently knocking on the door Eda spoke, “Mr. Williams, this is Hannah. Hannah, this is Mr. Stewart Williams, the butler of this house.”

Hannah gave a small curtsy as Mr. Williams stood up from the desk. “Ah, yes. I have to say even I had a hard time believing you till this moment, Miss Eda. Well let's get a look at you.” He walked over to the pair of women and gave Hannah a look over. “This will certainly be a bit of a shock for the rest of the staff, but I’m sure they will all get accustomed to it soon enough. We’ll have to figure out a time for Miss Vera to cook a separate meal and when she can eat.” It was customary that beastkin ate separate meals from any human in the empire. Hannah had never eaten at the same time as a human, nor the same meal, since becoming a slave.

“Oh, Lady Hayward has said there's no need for Miss Vera to cook a separate meal only for one person. She will just make a little more than normal and Hannah will eat with us for every meal,” Eda said plainly with a gentle smile. Hannah and Mr. Williams both looked at the head house maid in shock and Mr. Williams went to say something but before he could make a sound Eda continued. “It will be much less hassle and make all routines for the day simpler. No need to complicate things by Hannah working on a different schedule than everyone else.”

Mr. Williams opened and closed his mouth one more time before making a little huff. By the way he looked between Eda and Hannah it was clear he wasn’t too pleased with the arrangement. “If that is what the Lady wishes, it is not my place to question. Hannah is hers after all.” Eda looked rather pleased, but Mr. Williams didn’t see as he went to check his pocket-watch. “Breakfast should be served in just a few moments. I’ll meet you there in but a moment.”

Eda nodded and turned to leave, with Hannah following in tow. The vixen was a little in awe that she would be eating with everyone else, also a little nervous too. She wasn’t sure how this was going but she couldn’t see anyone complaining with it being an order from her mistress. Complaining and being happy were two different things though.

Hannah was led to the dining table and there she and Eda waited off to the side as the rest of the staff filed in. She was a little surprised that for such a large house there weren't that many members of the staff. That being said Hannah hadn’t heard about anyone but Lady Rayne living here yet. There was also some idle chatter between staff as they all waited, and while many of them tried to keep their whispers about Hannah quiet there wasn’t much her fox ears couldn’t hear, even from across the room. Soon enough it looked like everyone was gathered as food was being dished out.

“Good morning everyone,” Eda said with a gentle smile bringing the attention to them, though they had already had it. “As you have all heard by now and seen we have a new member of staff, Hannah.” Eda nodded over to the vixen. “Yes, she is a beastkin and yes Lady Hayward purchased her. Though beastkin and purchased as she was, the lady has stated that Hannah is to be treated the same as any other paid staff. Is that understood?”

There was a very awkward pause before a number of yeses from around the table were spoken. The reactions on peoples faces were mainly of surprise but some looked indifferent and some upset. However the only person that spoke up was a male member of staff, a boy really. “Does that mean she’ll be eating at the table with us all?”

“Yes it does, Derek. Is that going to be a problem for you?”

“I—no. I mean aren’t they…” his cheeks turned the tiniest hint of red, “…dirty? Like animals?” His voice was a whisper as if to not have Hannah hear it, even though she clearly had the best hearing of anyone in the room. The whole estate even since there were no other kin here.

“No, beastkin are not dirty like animals.” It impressed the teacher inside Hannah at how gentle Eda was with correcting the boy. “If you want proof you can just ask Neila as she walked in on Hannah bathing last night. Isn’t that right, Neila?”

The burnette Hannah had met last night blushed and looked away from Miss Eda. “Yes, Miss.”

“Wait, it used our washroom?!” A blond maid Hannah had yet to meet suddenly piped up.

“Yes, she did, Anna,” Eda said, putting an extra emphasis on ‘she’. “Where else would a member of our female staff bathe?”

“Outside!”

Hannah made a mental note to watch out for Anna as best she could in the future. It was all too clear what she thought of beastkin. Honestly it was just surprising that Anna was the only one reacting this way.

Eda let out an audible sigh. “If you have a strong opposition to Lady Hayward’s orders for Hannah to bathe you may take it up with her after her breakfast. Now if there are no other questions or concerns we better hurry up and eat and get on with the rest of our day. There is much to do in preparation for Lord Hamish’s return.”

With that Eda took her spot at the end of the table opposite Mr. Williams and Hannah took the open spot next to her. That also happened to place the vixen next to the maid from last night who was still blushing, though it was mostly under control. As Hannah made to sit there was a quick moment of awkward shuffling to move her tail out of the way from under her uniform. Being the center of attention though her little movement wasn’t missed by anyone and she couldn’t help but blush. “There’s no opening for a tail in the uniform so sitting down is a little awkward.”

That satiated most of the staff and even for those it didn’t, it didn’t matter. That little introduction had taken up precious time that could have been used for eating, so it was time to eat before getting back to work.

~~~

Rayne sat up in her bed, reading over some letters from extended family that she hadn’t gotten to yesterday. As always there was a deal of family news to get through; one of her cousins (not actual cousin but cousin in the sense of related distant family) got engaged, a third uncle falling into a bit of ‘financial difficulty’ (which Rayne knew meant gambling) and would like a little bit off assistance, and a slew of other formal letters keeping everyone up to date. Rarely did Rayne ever get a letter that was just friendly talk between family, but she did find one from her second cousin Margret which was a nice surprise. She made a note to write a response later today.

A knock at the door pulled Rayne’s attention from the letters to find Eda already entering the room, not having bothered to wait for a response. Almost instantly her lady’s maid locked eyes with the already open curtains before a slightly annoyed look turned the lady’s way.

“I’m allowed to open my own curtains, Eda,” Rayne said with a light chuckle.

“I know, my lady, but you truly need not bother yourself with it. You can always ring the bell and I will come early for you,” Eda said with a sigh as she walked over to the closet.

“Eda, you know better than anyone that it takes less time for me to do it myself than to call for you or another maid to come and do it. Besides, I enjoy the quiet morning breeze before I greet the world.” It was one of the true moments of peace in her life and though she enjoyed the little play Eda and her shared over it, she wasn’t ever going to call someone to open her own curtains.

Eda shook her head and opened the walk-in closet. “Is there anything in particular you would like today, my lady?”

“Hmm,” Rayne set the letters down, “a dress might be nice. None of that bustle nonsense. I don’t understand what the current obsession with it is.”

“The world of fashion is ever changing. I bet you couldn’t even imagine what was in fashion when I was a little girl. Any color preference?”

Rayne had to give that to Eda. Though she rather enjoyed clothing and shopping for it she hadn’t given much thought into fashion and clothing of yesteryear. “Something warm. A deep red maybe. How was everything this morning?” Rayne asked, moving the conversation along to something she had slightly more interest in. Slightly being a bit of an understatement though when it came to her vixen.

“So far everything has gone well. I’ll call for a physician and a tailor while you’re at breakfast. Hopefully at least one of them will arrive before noon and the other soon after,” Eda said as she searched Rayne’s large collection of clothing.

“That’s good.” That wasn’t quite the answer she had been looking for and she had the slightest feeling that Eda also knew that.

“Before you ask, Hannah’s introduction did go over a little better than one would suspect. Stewart clearly wasn’t thrilled with the idea of Hannah eating with the rest of the staff per your orders,” Eda said with a smirk knowing full well what the lady had truly wanted to know.

“Well, he can bloody get over himself,” Rayne said quietly to herself. “Hold on, I never gave you an order for Hannah to eat with the rest of the staff.”

“I assumed you would like her to be treated as any other member of staff and told everyone as such. Was I wrong to assume that?” Eda asked, turning back to Rayne with a blood red dress in hand.

“I admittedly hadn’t thought that was something that needed to be said.” She actually felt a little upset that hadn’t been assumed.

“Sadly it was. Overall though no true problems. Though one of the maids, Anna, got a little vocal about her disapproval. The hall-boy was also a little ignorant of things, but I genuinely think he will learn better soon enough.”

Rayne nodded as she hopped out of bed and started to get out of her nightwear. “What have you set Hannah to do now?”

“She’s with Neila setting up the dining room and after that’s done she will be off to help prepare Hamish’s room,” Eda said, starting to help her lady get dressed.

“She's not in the kitchen? I would have thought since she worked at a bakery…”

“Apparently the Strawfords didn’t let Hannah near any of the cooking. Not sure why, but the cook was worried about her shedding into the food. Hannah didn’t say anything to that though, but the girl’s timid so she might not have said anything even if it was untrue.”

“Hmm,” Rayne said, stepping into the dress. She didn’t know if beastkin shed so maybe that was something to figure out. Would Hannah be offended if she asked?

“My lady.”

“Yes, Eda?”

Eda took a deep breath. “Do I want to know what happened between the vixen and you last night?”

The lady didn’t reply right away as she tried to figure out the best response. There wasn’t anything wrong with what she did with Hannah last night as technically she was her property. That being said, admitting what happened last night felt a little embarrassing for some reason. “If you're wondering if anything inappropriate happened last night you need not fear. Nor did I push her on any hard subjects.”

“Rayne,”Eda said, helping finish dressing the lady. “You and I both know that since you own her nothing you do could be inappropriate. Well, between two women it might be seen as inappropriate to many.”

Eda always had to be right. “I held her while she cried for a little while and then I played with her ears. Happy?” Surprisingly there was not a hint of snark in her voice.

The lady’s maid paused at the last button on the dress back. “She let you touch her ears?”

“Yes. What about it?” Why was Rayne suddenly fighting off a blush?

“You do know beastkin don’t like others touching their ears.”

“I know,” Rayne said, not turning back to look at Eda, afraid the blush was visible. “But I made sure Hannah wasn’t uncomfortable or felt forced into it.”

“Do you also know that adult beastkin only let their lovers play with their ears?”

Now Rayne did turn to look at the older woman with a little shock on her face. Was that really the case? Had she overstepped Hannah’s boundaries already? Did she push her vixen too far? But Hannah had been the one to push her ear back into Rayne’s hand and she was visibly very relaxed because of all of it. The lady bit the inside of her lip before letting out, “Fuck.”

~~~

Hannah worked the duster over the chest of drawers in one of the many bedrooms of the house. This room, according to Eda, was Rayne’s younger brother Hamish’s room, who was currently away at college. Though Hamish wasn’t the youngest brother of the family, that was Kaden who did currently reside here. Hannah still hadn’t heard anything about parents and she hadn’t built up the courage to ask.

Cleaning was easy work. This had been her main job as a slave for years now and she always worked hard. She did notice that she was working a little harder and more carefully for her new mistress. But why was she doing that? It wasn’t as if the lady would come here and inspect her work. What if she did? Would she praise Hannah? Would she get gentle head pats as a reward?

The vixen did her best to shake the thoughts of her mistress away. It was already bad enough that she had let Rayne play with her ears last night and dreamed of it. It wasn’t good of her to let herself daydream about her mistress’s gentle soothing touch. To daydream about those fingers running along the base of her ears for pinching and running up the sides.

Hannah shook the thoughts away again. By the Goddess she needed to focus on her work. She didn’t want to look incompetent in front of Neila who was constantly taking peaks at Hannah as they cleaned the room together. Was the fox really that interesting to Neila? The only differences between them were eyes, ears, teeth, claws, fur, and tails… Alright, there was a good amount of differences between them that could cause humans to be curious.

It was easy to tell when Neila was taking a peek at her because the maid audibly stopped working. It was obvious the other maid had things she wanted to know and Hannah decided to prompt a conversation the next time she stopped. Sure enough it wasn’t but a minute before Neila paused to look at her. “Is there something you want to ask?” Hannah asked, turning to Neila.

The maid jumped a little at being caught. “What do you mean?”

“You keep looking at me whenever I’m turned away.”

“How do you know that’s happening if you’re looking the other way?”

“Because I can hear you stop working to look at me,” Hannah answered.

The brunette’s eyes went a little wide. “You can hear when I stop dusting?” At Hannah’s affirmative nod Neila said, “I’m sorry, it's rude of me to stare.” Clearly embarrassed she looked away and went back to work.

It was a little strange to have someone apologize to Hannah. It wasn’t a bad strange, just someone that didn’t really happen anymore in her life. “It’s alright. I know humans can be really curious and if there’s something you would like to ask feel free to do so.”

“Really?” Neila turned back to her.

“Yes.” It also struck Hannah that she was talking to the other maid as if they were equals even though by all rights Neila was above her. And by all accounts Neila was doing much the same to her. It was wrong but it felt nice, even if it was all a little awkward.

There was a brief pause before Neila’s eyes went up to Hannah’s ears. “Can you move them on your own?”

Hannah raised an eyebrow and tilted her head to the side a little. “What do you mean?”

“Your ears. Can you move them purposefully or do they just act on their own? I keep looking and I can’t figure it out.”

It was always the ears. Humans were obsessed with beastkin ears. “I can move them,” Hannah said, making her ears move up and down separately. “They don’t have a mind of their own, though it can feel like it sometimes.” Like last night when her ears purposefully pushed back into her mistress’s hands. Neila watched Hannah’s ears move with wide eyes. Were Hannah’s ears really that interesting? Her mistress last night seemed to think so, and the vixen rather enjoyed that.