Love In The Palace

Memories

-unedited, be mindful of grammatical and spelling errors-

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I stare at the flowers which I've freshly picked from the Phoenix Garden. The drops of dew are still napping on the pinkish-white petals, indicating the freshness of the delicate flowers.

"What are you doing, Jade?" Cherry taps me on my shoulders from behind, causing me to turn around out of reflex. A broom and a pair of scissors are held in her hands firmly, readily.

"I'm thinking of placing these in Crown Prince's sleeping chamber...to freshen the atmosphere. Be-because it's always so gloomy in there." I grip onto the stems of the flowers, however making sure that I don't bruise them. Cherry smiles faintly, then raises both the broom and scissors up.

"Well, then I'll go to grooming the garden." She says, leaving me behind. I walk towards Crown Prince's sleeping chamber before hearing another sentence from her.

"By the way, please change Crown Prince's sleeping chamber's sheets as well afterwards!" I hear Cherry exclaim loudly, before running towards the side garden.

My hands slowly push open the wooden doors leading to Crown Prince's sleeping chamber. Dark as usual, I carefully close the doors as Crown Prince hates it when the doors are left open whenever he's in the room. I squint my eyes hardly, trying to get clear vision as much as possible. The windows are tightly closed-almost locked. Plants are purposely grown at the windows to prevent any sunlight to further penetrate into the room, although maybe there's little sunlight seeping through the gaps of the doors and windows.

My feet kick something that rolls away in return. Wine, I thought to myself. I lift up my arms, trying to reach the surrounding for guide.

"Why are you here?" Suddenly, Crown Prince talks in the complete silence, making me jolt, though luckily I don't drop the flowers in my grip. With the flowers still in my embrace, I curtsy.

"Yo-your humble servant is here to... To... To place flowers in the vase..." I cowardly answer Crown Prince's question, afraid that he may be angry at me for meddling too much with his personal space.

"Are you that scared of me?" He asks unexpectedly. I stare at the direction of the voice blankly, shocked and stunned. I'm practically scared of him, since he's the Crown Prince. But, in a way, I'm not scared of him since he's never punished me although I accidentally bumped into him the other day, causing both of us to fall down.

"N-no." I lie. He chuckles, I can hear him gulp down more wine.

"You're the first one to lie." He says, clearly having seen through my lies through the tone of my words. My heartbeat speeds up, afraid of angering him.

"The others don't even answer me." He continues, my heartbeat slowly calms down, a sigh of relief comes out of me.

"It's dark isn't it? Go open the windows a little, do the flowers." Crown Prince comments nonchalantly, back to drinking. I stand up straight, feeling the surroundings in the dark till my hands touch the windows. Opening it, my eyes squint at the brightness as they seem to have gotten used to the darkness in the past few moments. I turn to look at Crown Prince, finding him staring at me without blinking. I look away instantly, embarrassed. Grabbing a decent-looking ceramic vase with a tint of green, I place and arrange the flowers, making sure that the combination of colors are suitable and beautiful. Spotting a scissors nearby, I use it to cut off the redundant blossoms and leaves.

"What's your name again?" Crown Prince asks suddenly, out of nowhere. I stop cutting, facing him and keeping my head low.

"Your humble servant's name is Jade."