"If you had just one night with the Prince, what would you do?" Chiffon asked, twirling the broom in her hand before moving on to the other side of the banquet table.

"Define one night," Sleeves said as they moved from place to place, artfully folding napkins and setting down cutlery. "Are we in his room? Do we have privacy? Can I choose what we're doing with our time?"

"Let's see..." Chiffon pondered as she methodically swept the next section of the upper hall. "Yes room, yes privacy. I think choosing what you're doing is kind of the whole question."

"Easy, then," Sleeves said with a grin. "I'd win the castle off of him."

Dusty laughed from her side of the hall. "What makes you think you could beat him? As a matter of fact, what makes you think he'd even agree to bet that? What do you have to wager that'd even come close?"

"Hey, hey! That's a lot of questions all at once," Sleeves replied, wagging their finger as they sat down in one of the chairs. "First, I know I could beat him. I just need a few rounds to figure someone out, you know, find their weak point. And then I clean 'em out." They put a hand on the backrest and leaned over to the diminutive figure painstakingly scrubbing the floor that Chiffon had swept. "No one's unbeatable," Sleeves added with a self-satisfied smile.

The shortest of the maids did not reply, continuing her work.

"Hey be nice to Glasses, she just survived an intruder attack," Dusty yelled as she cleaned the fixtures. "Besides, you got lucky the other night and you know it."

"I got lucky and clever." Sleeves hopped back to their feet and resumed their work. "And so we get to the second part of my plan: work my way up while I wear him down. I'd start small, let him win a few, make small talk, and then when he's good and confident, BAM—I get him to make a big bet. And I win. And I keep winning as he tries to get back what he lost."

"That's pretty smart," Chiffon said as she rounded another corner with her broom. "But it's gonna take a lot of games to work up to a castle, won't it? Is one night enough?"

"That's where the big bet comes in. I pull out my trump card: a lifetime of servitude. Now I may not look like much, but I made it here and I do good work, so over a few dozen years that's gonna measure up to a decent pile of coin. I'm confident I could bet that against one of the more valuable baubles in his room. And then that's it, I've got my foot in the door. The rest is just fun and games." Sleeves hopped up onto a bench and bowed with a flourish. "By the time the night is over, I would score myself a castle."

Glasses mumbled something as she shimmied by on her hands and knees, gradually catching up to Chiffon. "Oh yeah," the latter said, repeating the scrubbing maid's words, "a castle's got a lot of moving parts. Are you sure you could handle it?"

"I wouldn't," Sleeves replied, "of course it's too complicated. I'd just let the Prince occupy it in exchange for a modest stipend. In fact, I'd even let him sleep in his old bed! Naturally, it'd be my bed at that point."

Glasses suddenly jostled the water bucket she was dragging along, almost spilling its soapy contents out onto the floor. She quickly collected herself and resumed her work.

"There it is, I knew that's where you were going with this," Dusty said. "You could have just said you'd sleep with him! Why the roundabout answer?"

"I'm gonna make the most of it! Sleeping with the Prince is fine as an answer if you settle for just the one time, but if I play my cards right..." Sleeves grinned. "I can have as many nights as I want."

"You okay there Glasses?" Chiffon asked as the smaller maid doubled over for a moment.

"M'fine," she replied, proceeding to scrub under the nearby bench.

Dusty went back to the supply cart near the door to get a fresh cloth. "That's all well and good if you win, but what if you lose that big bet? You sure you're willing to risk your whole life on one game?"

"Oh I'm sorry," Sleeves replied with bluster, "I didn't realize we were shaping reality here! It's a hypothetical question and I answered it, no need to read so much into it. Although..." They grasped their chin, pondering. "I guess losing wouldn't be too bad. Who better than the Prince to give a lifetime of service to, eh? And that way, he'd never let me go."

There came a plaintive noise under the bench. Then, a moment later, a resounding THUD as Glasses hit her head on the underside.

"So how about you?" Sleeves asked as they walked by Dusty on the way to refill on table settings at the supply cart.

While the two other maids chatted, Chiffon bent down to check on Glasses. "Are you okay there? Sounded like you hit your head pretty hard."

Glasses waved her off, keeping her back turned while she resumed her work on the stone floor, albeit half-heartedly. But her colleague was no stranger to body language, and not so easily deterred.

Chiffon kneeled down to get a closer look. "Are you sure you're okay? You don't have to—oh no, you did hurt yourself!" She reached over and stroked her colleague's back reassuringly, getting a look at her head. "Oh, phew! It doesn't look like an injury to me, just a little rehearsal bump—the show can go on. Do you need a moment?"

The smaller maid didn't answer, her eyeglasses visibly speckled with water droplets.

Lou didn't like being like this. She was just trying to do her job, trying to reach her goal... she just wanted to see him, and nothing more. She was trying so hard to stay humble. To ask only for what she needed. Why was everything, everyone, even her own emotions making this so difficult?!

She had already given up so much.

Lou tried to focus, to re-center herself, to tune out the conversation her colleagues were engaging in so earnestly. She just had to go back to work, and be the person everyone saw. Before, she had lost herself in this. Now, it felt more like playing a character, like in one of Chiffon's stories of her theater days. A character she had come to know well. A character close to her heart.

She could figure out who she was later. For now, this was enough. She had to get back to work. She just... she just had to buckle down and get back to work! She lowered her head and gripped the damp rag in her hands so tightly that her knuckles turned white.

"Aww, it's okay, you don't have to force yourself to push through," Chiffon said in a friendly whisper as she put an arm around her colleague. "Here, here. It's better to let it all out. And then we can pick up where we left off!" She smiled, gently rocking Glasses from side to side as the latter gave in and leaned into the hug. The two of them kept going like this, left and right, left and right, as Chiffon hummed a soothing tune over the sound of the smaller maid's short, gasping breaths.

The moment passed quickly. Glasses nodded, squeezing Chiffon's hand. The two of them returned to their work; the taller maid sweeping, her smaller colleague scrubbing—once she'd taken the time to wipe her eyes, then her glasses, with a small piece of cloth she kept in her apron pocket.

The other two had been keeping the discussion going in the meantime. "Look at you, acting all high and mighty about my answer," Sleeves said with indignation. "You're the same as me!"

"Excuse me," Dusty replied as she helped her colleague move the more ornate seats out onto the freshly dry floor, "our concept of 'getting to the good part' might as well live on different continents. You're cheating him at cards, I'm wrestling him into the shape of a pretzel. We are not the same."

"I'm not cheating at cards!" Sleeves protested.

Dusty crossed her arms. "You were cheating Glasses just the other night."

"I didn't cheat her, she just can't—" Sleeves sighed. "Nevermind. I get it, the Prince has a great body. I just don't see the appeal of fighting him."

"That's because you've never seen him up close. You should sweet-talk your way into some shifts that overlap with royal guard training now and then, you'll learn something." Dusty leaned closer. "Anyway, the guy who had the Prince's body first, the big scary wolf guy? Remember him? He was training a bunch of new officers a couple years ago, right next to where I was out dusting the rugs. Let me tell you, when they got to the shirts-off grappling lessons..." She let out a low whistle, twisting one of her dark curls around her finger as she looked off to the side in recollection. "That body's a thing of beauty. How could you pass up a chance to see what it's capable of?"

"I am seeing what it's capable of!" Sleeves protested. "In bed."

"Yeah, but you're wasting half the evening gambling! The Prince's body is practically invincible now. Don't you wanna test its limits? Hit as hard as you possibly can, with no fear of repercussion? Don't you want the chance to pull and snap and tear into the body of the strongest living warrior north of the ocean?" Dusty leaned in, eyes unblinking, smile wide. "Don't you wanna just... unleash?"

Sleeves leaned back as far as they could go without tipping over. The only sound in the upper hall was of Chiffon rhythmically sweeping with her broom; even Glasses had stopped scrubbing to look in Dusty's direction.

"I'm... I'm good," Sleeves eventually squeaked.

"Singing a different tune now, huh?" Dusty said, moving on to the next piece of furniture. "Anyway, I'd use all the moves my brothers were too wimpy to take. Get a good sweat going. And then, when I'd gotten everything out of my system, I'd let him do the same." She grinned. "In bed."

Glasses almost tipped her bucket over again as she hurriedly went back to scrubbing in the wake of Chiffon's broom.

Sleeves shook their head, picking up their side of the heavy chair. "I just think you're kidding yourself if you think you have any chance of winning that fight. I haven't seen him up close but I've seen enough. You'd have better luck wrestling a tree."

"Don't underestimate me! I could last a round or two. My older brother's built like Sir Frederic and I could take him on a good day."

"That doesn't mean anything," Sleeves said as the two of them placed the chair down in its spot, "the odds on those two are an order of magnitude apart."

"Could you really take on Sir Frederic?" Chiffon asked, leaning on her broom, her work done. "He's not as big as the Prince but he's still really big."

"On a good day, yeah," Dusty said. "Big guys have weak points just like the rest of us. Just gotta twist 'em the right way."

"Frederic's hold is really strong though," Glasses said quietly as she stood up, holding her soapy water bucket by the handle with both hands. "When he grabbed my hand I couldn't get out of it, no matter what I tried."

Everyone turned to look at the diminutive maid, a mix of consternation and horror on each of their faces. Glasses froze in place, taken aback.

"Sir Frederic put his hands on you?!"

"What a creep!"

"Wait 'till the head maid hears about this!"

Oh no. A chill went down Lou's spine. She'd said the wrong thing. She hadn't given it a second thought, just blurted something out to join the conversation... This was getting out of hand. She had to say something! She didn't want Frederic to take the blame. She didn't want any more attention on her. She had to come up with an explanation.

"N... no! No!! I mean, I, um..." Lou turned frantically to each of her colleagues in turn, every face before her equally in shock.

She needed to not panic. She'd fought so many battles before; this didn't need to be any different. If you're up against a wall, chip away at it until you find an opening. "I... uh... it's okay!" She did her best self-conscious sigh. "I asked him to."

Chiffon tilted her head. "You asked him to grab your hand?"

"Uhh... yeah. I was just, uh... I was curious." Lou closed her eyes, her heartbeat slowing as she found the path out of this disastrous turn of events. "I saw him show another guard a grip-breaking technique and I... I wondered if I could do it too." She looked down, adding quietly, "I couldn't."

The air seemed to become a little less tense as her colleagues loosened up.

Chiffon patted her on the head. "That was pretty brave! But maybe you should... be a little less brave?"

"Mm," Glasses said as she sheepishly made her way back to the supply cart.

"Hey Glasses," Dusty said as she and Sleeves took a breather, "next time you have an evening free, let me know—I'll show you how to get out of that hold. There's a trick to it, it's not that hard."

"Oh. Thank you," she replied, wiping her hands on her apron. "Um... what should I do next?"

Chiffon looked over. "Oh, just finish scrubbing... oh! Oh wow, you're already done? That's great! You've been working really hard lately. Here, we can help these two with the rest of the big stuff. Let's put one of the emerald chairs here, okay?"

The smaller maid headed over to the next ornate chair waiting near the wall, her mood visibly lifted.

"Oh! No, this one," Chiffon said as she motioned Glasses over to a different seat. Her smaller colleague quickly headed over, and together they lifted it up.

"So what about you Chiffon?" Dusty asked. "What would you do if you had the Prince for one night?"

"Oh sleeping with him for sure!" she replied cheerfully, stopping suddenly as her partner dropped her side of the seat. "Are you okay there?"

"...Mn," Glasses grunted as she took a deep breath before lifting it up again.

"For the whole night?"

"I mean... maybe that would be a bit much. I'd have dinner with him first. Maybe in bed. There's really not a lot of room to sit down and eat in his room, all the tables are so cluttered."

"That's right," Sleeves said, "you got royal bedroom cleaning duty that one time. But that was in the princess days. Things must've changed now, right?"

"Nope!" Chiffon answered cheerfully. "The Prince still leaves things lying around everywhere! Ribbon says he's even worse now! But it was nice to get a look at the room in person though. It helps set the stage in my mind." She closed her eyes. "I'm sure the Prince would've liked you back in the princess days, Glasses. You two were about the same size!"

Glasses grunted half-heartedly, turning around to lift her side from behind for a moment.

"The Prince and I could talk over dinner! I bet he's really fun to have a conversation with. And that'd give us some time to get to know each other too, which makes the sleeping-together part even better. Besides, the Prince had that princess body for years—he must know tons of things about women! Gosh, that would make the whole night better, don't you think? Imagine being with someone who understands your body, deep down. Someone who knows all your secrets. Wouldn't that be amazing?"

Thump!

The tenuous grip Glasses had on her half of the chair faltered. She turned around again, bending down to get a better grip.

Chiffon smiled. "I think that'd be pretty amazing."

"Can't argue with that," Dusty said as her and Sleeves pushed another chair into place. "You know, it's pretty wild just how fast he took to his new body. Maybe he had prior experience with his former bodyguard, eh?"

"Wouldn't put it past him," Sleeves said. "From what I hear they were inseparable."

"Pretty much!" Chiffon added. "Even that one time I cleaned the royal bedroom, one never let the other out of their sight. And they did a lot of looking! No wonder there were rumors. Ribbon had a lot more stories about them, too." She guided the seat into place, then turned to her coworker. "Oh hey, Glasses, we never got your answer! What would you do if you had a night alone with the Prince? Would you sleep with him too?"

"Can we PLEASE talk about something else?!" Glasses implored plaintively as she collapsed onto the chair she'd been holding.

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