Mai, being the clumsy idiot she was, leaped back and was met with a crash of glass shattering around her feet.

"Aw, shoot, I'm so sorry," Mai winced as she stayed rooted to the spot, looking up at whoever was at the door after a moment of shocked silence. Three women stood there, wearing identical black silk robes that were tied at the waist with a red sash, delicate red flowers winding up the hem and sleeves. The eldest looked to be around 50. The one in the back looked like she was a few years older than Mai herself, and was fixing her with a curious, hardened expression. And the youngest (who wore an incredibly guilty expression) couldn't have been more than 13.

Mina's age, Mai thought involuntarily.

The two older women looked from the broken tray at Mai's feet back up to her eyes, the younger one just staring at the floor. When Mai opened her mouth to speak again, all three of them collectively flinched. Mai closed her mouth, carefully observing the three of them. She delicately stepped around the shards, being careful not to hurt her feet in the process before getting as far away from the wreckage as possible.

"M'lady, are you alright?" the eldest one asked carefully, almost scared.

Mai was ever-so-slightly irritated at the title, but that didn't stop her from replying evenly. "Yes, I'm perfectly fine, but is it alright if you... DON'T call me that? My name is Mai, by the way,"

"What?" the youngest one squeaked, meeting Mai's eyes for the first time before the one in the back (she had really pretty brown hair, Mai observed) smacked her in the shoulder.

"Yiren, quiet,"

"It's okay," Mai was slightly perplexed at their behaviour, but she tried not to let it show. "It's no big deal. She can talk if she wants."

One smile was all it took to have the little girl, Yiren, beaming at her.

"Uh," the eldest one took the reins again, looking rather perplexed but still barrelling on, "we were sent to help you get ready for the banquet, so if you would just follow us?"

She spoke hesitantly, with a slight tremor in her voice, and Mai suddenly felt sorry for them. The ladies in this castle must have been perfectly terrible to their maids if they were acting like this.

"Of course, Ajumeoni," Mai nodded respectfully at the gray-haired woman, who froze. She had been taught to always respect her elders, but they acted as if this was the most shocking thing in the world to them.

"Why- why did you call me that?" the maid looked purely astonished at Mai's respectful honorific.

"Because you're older and wiser than me and deserve respect," Mai answered honestly, her voice matter-of-fact. It was just common sense to her. She could never imagine yelling at someone who was older than her, and also just trying to help her. All three maids looked shocked, but the middle one smiled softly, quietly, as if she had remembered something she felt fondness for.

"Thank you,"

Mai followed the handmaidens to the bathroom, where she was scrubbed and washed down and then finally slathered with a sweet-smelling lotion that made her skin glimmer. Her hair was washed and dried, and it seemed to shine with a light of its own. Her handmaidens seemed slightly afraid to approach her, their eyes widening when she shifted or made a small noise in pain when they brushed at her bandages or the small scratches in her back that she had utterly forgotten about.

"I'm not going to hurt you," she finally sighed, their behavior making her feel uncomfortable and slightly sad, "I don't know what you've heard about me, but I'm not going to shoot you or anything,"

The maids all looked fairly surprised at her statement, the youngest's eyes growing as big as saucers. "Can I call you unnie?" she whispered, almost shyly. Mai's eyes softened, shifting color into a gentle rose-gold. None of her maids looked particularly shocked, like Jimin and Taehyung had been, but they still looked slightly astounded, in wonder.

They were probably warned before they got here, Mai reasoned, I wonder if they were also instructed to keep it a secret.

"Sure!" Mai grinned at Yiren, who smiled back before launching into a jumble of words and stories that she clearly had been holding in even since she got here. The child was obviously talkative. Once, the lady with brown hair had tried to calm her down.

"Yiren, please hush. You're probably disturbing the lad- I mean, Mai,"

Mai shot a friendly smile at the woman before shaking her head. "It's perfectly fine. She's really nice, anyway,"

The grateful look being given to her by both the older women made Mai a little more at ease.

"Yiren," the gray-haired maid called for the little girl, who had paused her inspecting and prodding of Mai's bandages to look up at her elder, "please go outside and clean up the plate. Your unnie may not be angry with you for starling her, but someone else may be."

"Okay!" the sweet little girl yelped before scurrying away, out the door to the bathroom and into Mai's room. As soon as she was gone, both the woman with brown hair and the elder maid turned to face Mai, eyes full of questions.

"Why are you being so kind?" the maid with brown hair finally broke the award silence, not removing her hands from where they were teasing Mai's hair into curls after straightening it.

Mai was shocked into silence at her sharp, mistrusting tone. "Am I not supposed to be?"

"To be very honest with you, princess, NO."

The older woman finally spoke. "Youjin, be POLITE."

"First of all, I am not a princess," Mai spoke evenly, her curiosity as to why Youjin was acting this way outweighing her irritation. Youjin didn't even let her finish, though.

"You will be when you bed the princes."

"YOUJIN!"

Mai shot a glance at the brown-haired young lady who hadn't stopped styling Mai's hair even while she spat out her bitter words. The older maid looked utterly scandalized, giving Mai an almost fearful look.

"I'm not trying to bed the princes, as you put it. I actually know that there are many women here who are, but I certainly am not one of them. Taehyung and Jimin are ridiculous playboys anyway- I truly don't see the appeal," her voice turned teasing at the end and she sent Youjin a wry smile. Said woman looked slightly taken aback at her bold statement, then cautiously returned the grin.

"Oh," was all the young lady said, an embarrassed flush rising to her face. "Oh. I- Well, I'm sorry, m'lady, I just- every time a woman comes to the palace, it's the same deal, and I didn't want to deal with- oh dear, I sound like an idiot,"

Mai giggled a little bit. She was far more comfortable around people of the same gender than she was around boys. It wasn't that she got nervous or shy- quite the opposite, actually. She became incredibly prickly and sarcastic, as she had proven to herself. If it was a male talking to her the way Youjin had, she would have all but ripped his head off. Maybe it was because she had her heart broken once. Maybe it was because it had once been Mai and Yuki's job to hunt down Emi's boyfriend when she had finally admitted that the bruises on her arms were from him. She just... didn't trust men. Around them, she tended to act like them- full of bravado, proud, prickly. She enjoyed breaking those conformities, but Mai became softer around fellow women, because she sympathized with them- she knew what Youjin was doing when she was talking rudely to her- she wanted to make it clear that she wouldn't stand for any moony, lovey-dovey BS. Mai honestly would have done the same.

Mai was pretty sure that, given enough time, Youjin and her could be good friends.

So she really didn't have any reason to hold a grudge.

"No problem!" Mai chirped, smiling at Youjin through the mirror, "I get it."

If it was possible for Youjin to look any more shocked, Mai wasn't sure she could picture it. "Really?"

"Back home, I had to deal with the same problem." It wasn't exactly a lie. Girls did try to get closer to Mai so they could get closer to Yuki and Zheng, which utterly disgusted her, because WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU. DO YOU NOT HAVE SHAME??? She voiced these thoughts. "Some people have no shame,"

"EXACTLY," Youjin nodded empathetically, hands almost losing their grip on the braid she was curling through Mai's hair. They made eye contact through the mirror and they both burst out in giggles.

The older maid hadn't said anything through this exchange, but her facial expression had shifted from apprehensive to shocked to... a happy one. One with a slow, soft smile that made Mai warm inside.

"Ajumma, what is that look for?" Youjin suddenly demanded, taking notice of her elders' face.

The gray-haired woman chuckled at her half-irritated tone. "I was worried that the lady would kick you out for your behaviour, but it seems as though you two are getting along." While Youjin had been doing Mai's hair, the older lady had been steadily stirring a creamy, near-translucent ointment, stopping when it began to turn opaque and then resuming when it turned crystal-like once more. It was perfectly fascinating, but Mai refrained from asking what it was for.

"No, Mai-ssi here seemed nice enough to take it," Youjin added the honorific, to Mai's surprise, shooting her a grin when she did so.

"Yah, Youjin, you need to learn to control your temper," the eldest maid rolled her eyes and then turned to Mai. "I'm sorry about her. She... can be quite difficult unless you prove yourself to more than what she hates. Which is many things."

"Not MANY things!" the brown-haired woman protested, "It's mostly just related to the attitude of the nobles."

"Which is interesting, considering how you work as a MAID in the PALACE, Youjin," the dry rebuttal made Mai snort in laughter. Youjin shot her an eyeroll through the mirror, fastening the last pin in place of the loose crown braid she had made, smoothing out the curtain of loose hair at the back.

"You have very nice hair, Mai," Youjin admitted as she stepped away. Mai raised an eyebrow.

"Are you KIDDING? Look at yours! It's so silky and nice!"

Youjin's smile widened at Mai's words, the smile making Mai pleased that she had caused it. She always did like making people smile and laugh. It was sort of addicting.

If that even makes any sense.

Soon enough, Yiren returned, her delicate features peeking through the door before noting the calmness of Youjin and the clear content on both her elders' faces and then barrelling through with her words once more.

Wow, that girl talks a LOT.

As the maids continued to work on Mai, they seemed far calmer around her- they laughed and chattered, Mai piping in once in a while. It was altogether a pretty pleasant experience.

By the end of it- how long had they been in the bathroom anyway?- Mai took one look at herself in the mirror and didn't even recognize herself. She was... radiant. Gorgeous. Skin glowing, hair supple and shiny even after being washed, color-changing eyes seeming bigger and brighter, any odd imperfections absolutely GONE. No body hair was left on her, she seemed a bit more slender, her muscular thighs seeming to have shrunk just a bit, her acne scars had faded so they were hardly visible.

Mai had been reluctant to take off her clothes- she was violently insecure, and it was just WEIRD. But her maids had insisted, saying they needed to properly scrub her down.

Mai wasn't sure if she should have been offended or just confused.

Eventually, she had taken off all her clothes aside from her undergarments, and that was when her maids had seen the scars that wrapped all over her body- the little circular ones noting where she had been stabbed with pins, nails, and pencils, the small half-moons where nails had drawn blood, the neat lines that came from razors, and of course, the long, ropy crags along her back that made it clear that she had been whipped more than once in her life. Yiren had gasped, and Mai felt shame flare through her, hot and angry. Had she just scarred a child with her own mistakes?

Youjin had just stared with shock and pity, fingers flicking out as if she wanted to trace the winding lines, to give her comfort. "Aisha-nim, why...?" she had trailed off, looking back at her elder, who just shook her head sadly.

"No one offered to heal you, child?" she probed gently after a long moment of twisting, ugly silence. Mai looked back with confusion.

"Heal?" she echoed, the grip she had around her stomach loosening for a moment. "It wouldn't have mattered, it would have scarred anyway,"

Now it was their turn to look confused. "But..." Yiren trailed off, gray eyes flicking from her to Aisha and then back. "But the ointments..."

"Mai, you said the prince dressed your wound last night?" Youjin burst in, clearly tired of this. Mai nodded mutely, eyebrows still furrowed. What were they going on about? Ointments? Well, obviously, they helped with the infection, but scarring would happen whether she was admitted to a hospital or not. So why were her maids acting so damn dumbstruck?

Youjin didn't wait another instant. Her hands were unpinning the bandages around Mai's calf before she could even jerk away. As the cloth fluttered to the floor, Mai winced, not wanting to look at the ugly sight she had been greeted with last night.

Eventually, her eyes flicked down, flashing a pale, apprehensive purple before landing on the smooth skin of her calf.

Wait.

She averted her eyes, rubbed them, and then looked back.

WHAT?

The skin was supple, smooth, no traces of blood or the cuts that had been gouged in her flash last night except for a trio of bullet-shaped scars that were far more faded than the ones she had gotten YEARS ago. They were barely even noticeable, almost seeming like a decoration on her skin. No pain flooded from them when Mai cautiously dragged a finger over them, and she fought a scream of shock.

Instead, she just stared, eyes bugging out as she continued to prod at the marks, not quite believing her eyes.

There was silence.

And then-

"BUT THAT'S IMPOSSIBLE!" Mai burst out, making everyone flinch. She didn't know why she was so angry, but there was nothing for it now. Blood pounded in her ears and her head throbbed as she bit her lip, trying to get a hold of her emotions.

This place was absolutely insane. It wasn't enough that Mai had been yeeted back to medieval periods- no, this specific time frame in which people still used swords and horses happened to contain spells and ointments and seers and MAGIC, and it was finally all going to her head.

Either I'm going positively insane or I'm just waking up.

I think I would prefer going insane, honestly.

But Mai had straightened up, fixed her maids with an almost detached look, and waited while she was first lathered with more of that blue potion and then scrubbed down with a grainy soap that give off a sweet, pina colada-ish aroma that made Mai sniff deeply at her skin more than once. Her maids giggled at her childish behavior even as she gave them a goofy grin.

When Mai looked back in the mirror, her scars seemed faded, muted- but not gone. Still viciously prominent.

"The scars have a higher chance of disappearing completely if you dress them early. Just like with spells, older wounds are harder to erase," Aisha smiled, her wrinkles curling up with her uplifted face. Her voice sounded slightly apologetic, but Mai's gratitude filled her chest up so much, she couldn't find it in her to be irritated.

She didn't have to be afraid of her scars anymore. She didn't have to cover every inch of her skin to hide them.

They were still there, but she saw less of them and more of herself.

Mai felt tears pricking at her eyes and she fought the urge to break down sobbing because she had been letting her tear ducts run a little too wild these past few days.

I will not cry I will not cry I will NOT CRY DAMMIT YOU TRAITOROUS EYEBALLS.

A single hot tear slipped past her defenses and she hurriedly wiped it away. "Thank you," Mai croaked, her voice coming out garbled and thick with emotion even though she tried to fight it back. Her maids just stared quietly at her.

"You're not familiar with magic, are you, unnie?"

Do I LOOK like I'm FAMILIAR WITH MAGIC???

Yiren's meek voice cut through the ever-thickening silence of the cold bathroom. Mai looked up at the small girl, thinking about what her response to this dangerous question would be. Under no circumstances was Mai familiar with magic, and yet it was used so commonly and without qualms in this world that it MUST be normal. Jimin had made her drink a 'concealing spell' in their encounter with Sungmin. King Jaeyoon had somehow known she was coming because he was a seer-slash-sorcerer. Taehyung had whipped out his magical blue torture device that healed her deep flesh wound overnight. Hell, even the ROOM Mai was staying in was connecting to magic somehow- Jimin had said so when that first got here.

But it was becoming overwhelmingly clear that there was more to it than that. The feeling Mai had experienced in the corridor when she thought there was something deeper at work there? She recognized it now. It was the same tingle she felt when she first stepped into her room. It was the same twinge she felt when she first lay eyes on Taehyung's blue ointment thing.

It was the same pleasant curl under her skin she was feeling now.

This entire palace is probably supported by magic, Mai deduced, biting her lip as she thought, I just have to know where to look.

But Mai wasn't familiar with this odd concept of magic in this world- she didn't know how it worked, what the rules were, what types there were- she was lost. Her silence (and the fact that her face probably looked like one of those 'math-ing' memes) was most likely an indication of this to her maids.

"Are you even from Esterie?" Youjin asked, narrowing her eyes at Mai, a focused look dawning over her face. Mai opened and closed her mouth, unsure of how to answer. Her eyes began to flash odd colors, too many for Mai to keep track of. Her maids didn't know, then. That she wasn't from this world at all.

Mai let out a long breath, indecision ripping through her. If the maids had been warned about her eyes, and yet not about the fact that she had been plonked her from another FRICKING DIMENSION, there must have been a reason for it.

"Youjin," Aisha had said firmly after a heartbeat of silence, casting her pale gray eyes over Mai's tense form, "no questions. Remember?"

The rest of the time had been spent in trying to alleviate the awkward tension that had been brought up in the moments before. Eventually, the jokes and the chatter had started up again as Mai had been helped into an incredibly beautiful, off-shoulder red dress. Its bust was made of smooth red silk and was plain, but the skirt flared out gently into a hanging wave of gold flecks and starbursts that reminded Mai of the fireworks she used to stare up at with her friends on the Fourth of July from Griffith Observatory (A/N: this is a real place. I used to go here to watch the fireworks explode all over the city when I used to live in LA).

Even though the necklace Emi had given her (yes, Mai had not taken it off the ENTIRE TIME) didn't really match with the dress, she refused to remove it, gripping the blue crystal intertwined in the thin gold wires tightly.

"No!" she had whined, "I'm not taking it off!"

Damn, I sound like a four-year-old.

And so she was only adorned with her necklace, a black choker, and a couple of gold armbands that her maids had managed to wrestle her in. Yiren had sneakily managed to weave glitter into the braid wrapping around her head, much to Mai's dismay ("I look Iike a four-year-old!"). Against Mai's protests, Youjin had brought out a pair of strappy, lace-up gold gladiator sandals that were a literal b*tch to put on. At least she didn't have to wear the MILLION-INCH heels the brown-haired woman had brought out with a wicked grin. There was NO DOUBT that those would have been so much worse.

I DO NOT do heels.

It was true, she hated heels. Even when Mai went to parties back home, she would dress casual- nice, but casual. This was a little too much for her. It got worse when they brought out the makeup.

"NO!" Mai had screeched, literally sprinting around the room with Youjin on her tail, "NO MAKEUP!"

But Mai didn't have a chance against Yiren's puppy eyes and promises to keep it light, although Youjin's threats of dismemberment did help slightly.

Despite all of Mai's complaining, whining, and protesting, though, they were finally finished.

And now that she was looking in the tall mirror next to her dresser, she had to admit that she looked good.

Really, really good.

Glowing skin, gorgeously styled and yet seemingly casual hair, a beautiful dress, beautiful shoes, beautifully done makeup (lightly tinted lip gloss, mascara, slight eyeliner, the TEENSIEST bit of blush), all paired with Mai's confidence and looks that could kill- damn. She looked like a queen. When she sneakily strapped her knife holster to her thigh, the look (in Mai's opinion) was completed. Even though no one could necessarily see it.

"Y'all are literally miracle workers, you know that?" Mai peered at herself in the mirror, locking gazes with each one of her handmaidens. Each of them beamed with pride.

"Hey, even if you weren't trying to bed a prince before, you'll be able to now!" Youjin snickered, making Mai whirl around and playfully glare at her.

"Ha ha, hilarious,"

Yiren looked confused. Aisha rolled her eyes and pulled the smaller girl closer to her. Mai's mouth twitched upward at the sight of the older woman's glare.

"I don't suppose I could wear my jacket... " Mai cast a wistful glance over at her faded black jacket that was raped over a bar in the corner of her room along with her other clothes. Aisha looked perfectly scandalized.

"Absolutely not! It hasn't been washed in DAYS, not to mention this is a serious event where you have to make a good impression and WHAT WILL THE PRINCE THINK-"

Mai rolled her eyes (which were currently flickering with little streaks of gold in the brown depths) and made a face at Yiren, who stifled a giggle. "Okay, Aisha-nim, I get it, I get it."

Said woman made a self-righteous face at Mai. "You had BETTER."

And then there was a hesitant knock at the door.

"OOOH-"

"DON'T YOU START, YOUJIN!"

A/N:

Well, I liked this chapter

Tbh I was planning to make Taehyung a huge douche in my original planning BUT I saved that for someone else

Have fun with this chapter, I guess

Hey I'm more than halfway done with the editing! Proud of me? ;)

Well, I love you guys! Stay safe and have fun! Don't go insane, children. I've been having problems with this myself, but just keep yourself calm. Read. Write. Run around your backyard and/or house. Draw. Run on treadmills. Cook. Bake.

Stay alive, Lovelies!

-MyOwnA.R.M.Y