The Warrior [The Selection]

Chapter Nine: Jeans and Dragons.

"That's really not necessary." I urged again for the seventh time.

"It's our job, Lady Eris." Said the tiny maid currently stripping the sheets off the humongous bed I'd woken up in this morning.

Not that I remembered actually getting into the bed, nor the room I'd spent the night in. By the end of the ball, I'd been rip roaring drunk. How I'd made it to my own rooms, I wasn't sure I wanted to know.

"Please don't call me that." I'd said that several times too, "My name is Eris. I'd prefer it if you just spoke to me normally."

"That's also our job, Lady Eris." Smiled a second maid. Robyn, she'd informed me. This one was tall, with wide shoulders and long limbs. Her thick ash blonde hair was coiled into a braid that hung all the way to her waist. Considering her face was completely covered in thick swathes of freckles, it was hard to discern the colour of the skin underneath.

"But-" I tried to plead, but was interrupted as the third maid, Taylor, pressed a couple of pain relief tablets into my hands, accompanied with a glass of water.

This was the stern one, I'd already decided. Dark hair twisted into a tight knot on top of her head, with dark, scowling eyes hidden behind round spectacles, and a scar at the corner of her lip which pulled her mouth down on one side. She'd been decidedly irritated with my hungover state as the three of them had woke me this morning.

"Thank you," I murmured, a little ashamed, as I threw them back and gulped the water.

This wasn't exactly the first impression I'd intended to make. In fact, I hadn't intended to stay long enough to meet the maids assigned to me.

"Don't worry about it, miss." The tiny one said. Kit, I remembered. She was so small she had to actually climb onto the bed to straighten the pillows. "A lot of the guests last night had been excitable, and many had a lot to drink."

"Not that it's something to be proud of." Taylor muttered as she moved to help Kit with the bedding.

Robyn was riffling through a huge oak wardrobe, pulling at flowing dresses with huge skirts.

"I'm sorry you saw me in such a state." I said, genuinely sincere. "I'm not even sure how I got back here-"

"You were carried." Taylor scowled harder, the scar whitening severely.

"Oh." I breathed, and felt my face flame scarlet. But no matter, hopefully that news would make it back to Prince Asher, and he'd dismiss me for being such an embarrassment. "Well, I am sorry for the trouble."

"Don't be silly," Kit tittered, "We've seen a lot worse, being maids, miss."

She was probably the most adorable creature I'd ever seen. Her skin was a rich sepia, lightening to rose pink around her cheeks. She had huge eyes, made more striking for being a clear, sapphire blue. Her hair was hidden under a piece of pale fabric that framed her face and settled on her shoulders, but I assumed that her hair was also dark. She managed to be smaller even than me, in size and height.

"Please call me Eris." I urged again, taking a seat on the stool set in front of a vanity mirror. I felt foreign in such a fancy room. "I'm a Seven, and being maids makes you Fives. So you see? You're all higher on the social ladder than I am. You shouldn't be calling me by a title."

"But you're a Three now, miss." Robyn reminded me with a smile, turning from the wardrobe. None of those clothes belonged to me personally, though they'd all been delivered with me in mind.

"But I doubt I'll be here for very long, so I'm still technically a Seven."

"You expect to go home soon?" Kit's eyes - impossibly - widened, in a gesture that seemed distinctly birdlike. Her head even tilted in the imitation of one.