Throw yourself into the unknown
With pace and a fury defiant

Clothe yourself in beauty untold
And see life as a means to a triumph

Today, of all days, see
How the most dangerous thing is to love

How you will heal and you'll rise above
Crowned by an overture bold and beyond

⚜️⚜️⚜️

NPOV

Track: Achilles Come Down, Gang of Youths

⚜️⚜️⚜️

The Thirteenth of September, Five Minutes To Noon...

Strangely, my to-do list is different today than it normally is. In general, I am kept mostly on the lower floors—the royal family does not like for nekos to be seen within the castle, and nobility mostly like to stay on the upper floors in order to access the best views.

I start my shift at noon—and then I work through the rest of the day and night until the sun rises again. The king claims that my kind do not need as much rest as humans do. He's not correct, but fear keeps me awake on days when the sleep is not enough.

So, as usual, I head to the lead servant's office—her name is Hera, and she's the sort of woman who always seems to need a break from everything but never ends up getting one. She's human, so she doesn't work as many hours as I do, but she seems to at least realize that my hours are ridiculous, and occasionally she'll apologize for the king's actions.

Today is one of those days. When I push open the door with gloved hands, she is sitting inside her office writing away, putting together some letter. She looks up when she hears me enter.

"Oh," she greets. "Hello. I've got your task list. Sorry about another long day for you, Nico. King's orders, you understand—are you holding up alright?"

"I am always fit to serve His Majesty," I respond automatically—we've had this conversation hundreds of times.

"You look less tired than normal, at least," she informs me, and I'm a little surprised. I didn't get any more sleep last night than I usually do. Perhaps it was yesterday's mandatory break that the prince ordered? It was nice to step away from work and do something enjoyable for once.

"You're probably going to need that today, anyway," she continues. "King Apollo has given notice that tonight he will be checking in on, uh, your...level of the hierarchy—" I want to roll my eyes. Just say nekos. "—to determine who will be allowed to continue work here—apparently, he's planning to replace some of...your staff with human staff. Don't miss that, alright? It'll be at eight o'clock in the nekos' quarters. Attendance is mandatory." As she speaks, she rifles through the papers on her desk until she finds a handwritten list of chores that I'm responsible for, and she holds it out to me.

"Thank you for informing me, ma'am," I say, reaching out to take my to-do list from her. The king himself showing up to fire an unknown number of us does not sound good. I am in the best-ranking servants, though—with the exception of yesterday, I never slack off or break any rules—

I nod at her and turn around to leave.

—and since Will has been using my work as a coping mechanism, we've finished a lot of my night work at double the regular speed, and no one knows that I'm getting help. I can never be perfectly confident in these sorts of things, but so long as the king doesn't plan to fire the entire staff—

"Nico," she calls at me just as I reach the doorway. I freeze. Have I done something wrong? I check over my shoulder to find that her expression is worried.

"Just...make sure you're not on the list of cuts tonight, alright? I heard..." She pauses, as if debating whether or not she should tell me this. "Well, I heard that the...uh, nekos fired tonight won't be..." She stops talking again, seemingly at a loss for words. I wait silently.

"Some have said that the nekos who are fired tonight will not be returning to the kingdom," she says finally, and she won't meet my eyes.

The gears in my head turn, and I really hope that doesn't mean what I think it means. I'm not sure if I have the courage to confirm my suspicions, but this isn't something I can risk ignorance on. If I'm right, I have to know.

"Ma'am...will the nekos be kept here in the castle, or moved to another kingdom?" I ask. Because if I'm wrong, those are the only two other possibilities. If the fired employees won't be kicked out into the city, there are only so many other places they can be kept.

"I'm afraid," Hera says gently, "that the King seems, instead, set on their...finality."

I'm paralyzed. Fuck. Shit. The king is killing off the nekos he's firing. My stomach roils, my gut turning over, shit. People are going to die. I might even be one of them. Holy fuck.

"You're a good employee, Nico," Hera says, as if to try to comfort me. "I'm sure he won't dismiss you. Just...perhaps you should work extra hard today to ensure it doesn't happen!" Her tone has a sort of professional cheer, as if she was telling me to work extra hard to earn a holiday party or a bonus instead of to earn my life.

Slowly, robotically, I manage to thank her and leave her office.

⚜️⚜️⚜️

The Thirteenth of September, Three Hours Past Noon...

I finish my work in record time, fear pounding in my ears. Them changing my list to include the upper floors makes sense in the context of preparing to change the shift schedule severely—holy shit, oh my God, I can't stop counting down the hours to eight o'clock like it's doomsday.

I'm on the level with the royal bedrooms today, I think—I open up the door to the room that is next on my list, and inside is a large but plainly decorated bedroom. I get to work immediately, and for some reason, this room is actually quite a mess—there's a broken full-body mirror shattered on the ground near the entrance to the bathroom, so I quickly clean up the pieces, careful not to cut my hands. Tonight would be the worst time to have injured hands—after all, my hands are really the only part of me that they care about. The rest of my body can be marred and bleeding, but I can't work if my hands are badly injured.

So I'm extra careful with the mirror, trashing the pieces. I make a note to tell Hera to order a new one for this room.

After that, I make the bed. It's not as luxurious as I would expect from a castle bedroom—perhaps this is a guest room? Only, the guest rooms are usually better decorated, I think.

I find a red stain on the carpet sort of near where the mirror was—probably someone stepped in the pieces and cut their foot, or something. I pity them very briefly before grabbing the supplies we use to clean carpets, hoping I'll be able to get the blood out—unfortunately, blood is a particularly difficult thing to remove from cloth, but I do my best, trying to use cold water first, as I have very little else that will help.

As I'm scrubbing, I hear footsteps approach the door. I mostly ignore them—generally, if I'm in a noble's room at the same time they are, they just ignore me and let me clean. It helps me because it means I don't have to stop my work every time someone enters the room, and it helps stroke their egos by not speaking to someone below them. A symbiotic relationship.

"Oh, it's you," comes a familiar voice at the doorway, and I look up.

The prince looks very different in the daytime than he does at night. His curls are brighter, as if they're made of the gold of Heaven's gates. His clothes are different, too—he's wearing an expensive sort of suit, the kind that is tailored to fit a body perfectly. And...it does fit him perfectly. I suddenly feel ridiculous in my servant uniform while he stands there looking like...well, like a prince. He's wearing these long gloves too, long enough that they disappear into his sleeves.

"I'm sorry," he says. "I meant to clean that up, but I had lessons." He strides into the room, sees that I am trying and failing to get the bloodstain out of the carpet, and then turns toward the bathroom. "They didn't give you the right materials for this, huh? I guess, to be fair, your boss probably didn't expect you to be cleaning out bloodstains today."

And it just now occurs to me that if this is the prince's bedroom, then either this is the prince's blood, or the prince hurt someone. Thinking of all the miscellaneous injuries Will has found himself with every night, I'm pretty sure I know which one is the truth, though I can't see an injury anywhere on him yet. Granted, he is well-covered. The only skin I can actually see on him is from the neck up.

"I'm afraid the stain probably already set, so getting it out is going to be a nightmare now—I wish I would have had time to clean it up earlier before my lessons, but I guess this is all we can do now." His voice is accompanied by the sound of him rifling through his bathroom cabinets. He's right about me not really having the right supplies for this—I've got a small pushcart of cleaning supplies that I leave outside each room, but nothing so far has been strong enough to take out a stain like this. The prince, though, walks back into the room holding a sort of soap—probably for the lye, I think.

He pauses when he sees me. "You're looking at me like you want to ask something. Do you?"

Well, really, I'd like to ask whether you're injured, and if the king was the one who did it to you.

But I'm not an idiot, so I don't ask that. Instead, "Ash from the fireplace might also help take out the stain," I say. "Can I have permission to take some?"

He chuckles. "What, like I had another use for it? Take however much you need."

I stand and head to the door, reaching out into the hallway to grab a small-ish bucket from my cart before returning to the bedroom. The fireplace is on the wall opposite the bathroom. It's not burning right now, but there's plenty of ash in the bottom for me to scoop into my bucket. I take more than strictly necessary and then head to the bathroom to add water, stirring until it forms a paste.

I return to where the prince is now kneeling on the floor near the stain. He smiles at me when I enter.

I say nothing, but I sit next to the stain and begin working my homemade cleaning agent into the carpet—the ash might seem like it would create bigger problems, but ash is much easier to clean out than blood. I scrub it in. The prince tries to help, but I give him a sharp look. If somebody walks in to find the prince is helping me with my duties, I can't guarantee that I would keep my position.

"What—? I can't help you?" he asks, sounding sort of hurt.

Slowly but surely, the ash is helping. "Your Highness is above this sort of work—and it is my responsibility to ensure your quarters are clean so that you may live in peace."

"Nico," Will says, sounding a little betrayed. "I have no idea what you're trying to tell me with that. Can you just say what you're honestly thinking for once?"

"I'm not sure what you mean, Your Highness. My life's purpose is to serve you."

He grunts. "Yeah, well, fuck that. Your life's purpose is to live. I want to help."

And that's not a question, so I don't really have to answer. I think I've scrubbed in the ash as much as I can, so I sit back onto my heels and check my work. It looks fine.

I glance up at the lye soap—that would pair well with the ash. The prince sees me look at it and immediately grabs it, prepared to try to work the soap into the carpet himself before I can stop him.

Irritated, I reach out and grab his hand to take the soap away—which isn't really allowed, but I'm hoping this smaller risk will help prevent the much larger risk of someone walking by and seeing the prince doing my job for me—

And then I realize.

I took off my gloves to clean.

Fuck. I am directly touching the prince right now. Holy shit. Oh my God. I'm an idiot. Kill me now.

Will is just as surprised as I am, and he just about drops the soap entirely, as if I'd shocked him. Heart beating out of control from nerves, I quickly take the soap while his grip is loose, and Will continues to stare at his hand quietly.

Shit. Fuck. I can't believe I was so stupid. It's one thing to tell me it's alright to take off my gloves, and quite another to actually be touched by me. There's no way he's going to be alright with this. This is it—he's going to tell the king what happened, and I'll be one of the servants to be killed tonight—

"Your fingers are callused," he says, and it's so bizarre that it actually stops my spiraling. Of course my fingers are callused—I work with my hands daily. Calluses are inevitable. Except perhaps it makes sense that he wasn't expecting the rougher texture of my hands—I hadn't been paying much attention in my panic, but his hands are probably soft from years of hardly any hard labor. Perhaps he's never felt a hand like mine before.

I say nothing in response, so he quiets again, too. I stand up and get a new towel from my cart, and then I use the pump in the bathroom to wet it. Then I scrub the soap into it, hoping the lye content will be high enough for it to make a difference.

When I return to the stain with my soapy towel, the prince's eyes follow my hands as I scrub the soap into the carpet. I do not comment on that. Perhaps he really is deciding that neko hands are dirtier than human ones. After all, I spend my whole day doing work like this. Perhaps the calluses were just a reminder of this.

The stain seems to be coming out, which is a relief. I give the lye and ash mixture some time to work—but this is generally the best course of action for getting organic matter cleaned up, so it shouldn't take very long. I grab my water bucket when I'm sure the stain is safe to remove as usual, and from there it is only a matter of cleaning up the carpet as normal.

I'm working like this when another pair of footsteps becomes audible in the hall, and it stops at the bedroom door once again. I scrub harder, nerves sparking at the knowledge that I am being watched.

"William," comes a stern and unhappy voice. "I have heard rumors from the nobles that you were gallivanting around the castle with a stranger last night. Would you care to explain yourself?"

I bite my tongue hard. Someone spotted us? A noble having a hard time sleeping must have seen us heading to the ballroom—this is not what I need today.

Will stands slowly. "Father, it's not what you think. It wasn't...it wasn't a romance."

My entire body is rigid. I should never have let him take me away from my work. The king is here, and if my suspicions are correct, then his displeasure at the prince could very easily turn to violence. And the only way that the prince can probably avoid that is—

Is to report me, to prove that he wasn't off having an affair with some girl.

I scrub harder at the stain, my heart pounding in my ears. I cannot afford a report on my behavior right now—I can't afford any mistakes at all. I should never have put any shred of trust in the prince. It was too much of a risk, and I am an idiot. My fate is sealed. I'll die tonight the moment Will opens his mouth to tell the king—!

"You're a liar." The king's footsteps move closer. "I hear from a noble that you are seen going into the ballroom with a young man around your age, and you're trying to tell me that it wasn't another one of your god forsaken romances? You are a disgrace to the Family."

Will steps around me toward his father, and I am paralyzed with fear. I urge myself to move, to keep working, but it's like every muscle in my body has frozen up, immobile.

Because this is when the prince says, 'No, you misunderstand—I was with a servant. A neko, even. Certainly not a romance—look to your left, and you will find the one who was with me. You can't really believe I was on a date with him?'

"Father, I swear it wasn't like that," he says, and I steel myself for the inevitable. "I was just..." He pauses, struggling to find the word, and it takes everything in me not to be sick. "...with a friend."

Wait. What?

Then—

The next thing I know, the prince has gone sprawling backward—my head snaps up instinctively, just in time to see the king pull the prince up from the floor and shove him into the wall.

I bite my tongue hard, trying to remind myself that my life is on the line—I can't jump between the king and the prince—I would get killed, for God's sake—

Luckily, the king does not go farther. He leans into the prince's ear and says, "You are on your last chance, William. If you cannot fix yourself, you will not live to see your coronation. I must remind you just how thin this ice upon which you stand is. Do you understand?"

The prince's voice does not waver. "I understand."

And then the king releases him, and the footsteps fade again.

⚜️⚜️⚜️

The Thirteenth of September, Five Hours Past Noon...

I am allowed a brief dinner break, at which point I descend the stairs back toward the nekos' quarters. The air grows colder, the stone walls damper. This is my realm, the world of the castle's unseen, the servants who toil through the night, their presence felt but rarely acknowledged by those above.

This far down into the castle, I mostly just pass other servants. Many of the groups I pass are whispering together about how the prince is injured again.

One young human boy—a year or two younger than me, maybe—points at me just before I'm about to pass him. "Hey! You're the one someone saw leave the prince's bedroom after they heard the king attack him!" He says it like it's an exciting thing—a fun story instead of a very serious problem.

"Did you see the king go crazy?" asks the boy's friend, making little loops with his fingers near his head to emphasize the 'crazy' part. "I heard this happens every day—I heard the king is losing his mind. Did he seem loopy to you?"

"I would never criticize the crown," I respond monotonously. "If you'll excuse me, I—"

"What about what the king said?" asks the first boy, a dark-haired and bright-eyed kid. "James won't tell anyone what he heard—you're our only chance to figure out what the prince did."

I fight the urge to glare at them. The king said something which, taken out of context, might paint the prince in an extremely poor light—and after the prince very kindly did not let the king bring me harm, I will not so easily give up compromising information about him.

"If you'll excuse me," I repeat, "I have to get to my meal before the break ends."

The boys grumble at me, something about how I'm even worse than James about keeping secrets. They step aside, though, and I finally manage to continue down the poorly lit hallways toward the nekos' quarters.

I reach the plain wooden door that has marked my home for so many years, and I push it open.

The nekos' quarters are carved into the very foundation of the castle, a dimly lit labyrinthine network of chambers and corridors, though most of it is just storage for our daily supplies. The central room is dominated by a large, rough-hewn table, its surface scarred and stained from years of use, surrounded by mismatched stools and benches. Here, we gather to eat our meager meals, sharing what little conversation and camaraderie we can afford—though most of us rarely get a chance to actually participate in this, and even when there is time there is not usually energy.

Against one wall, a row of iron cages stands as stark reminders of our status. Each cage is just large enough to hold a sleeping, transformed neko, lined with straw and thin blankets that do little to ward off the chill of this level. The air is thick with the mingled scents of straw, sweat, and the faint, persistent tang of old blood.

In the far corner, a small hearth provides the only source of warmth, its fire often left to burn low. The flickering flames cast long shadows that dance eerily along the walls—it's as if even the lighting cannot allow us to let down our guards.

Inside, I'm surprised to find an excited murmur passing around the nekos gathered around the meal table. I don't know very many of them well at all—like I said, we aren't given enough time outside of work to get to know each other. Still, I know my peers well enough to be surprised that there is a lighthearted feeling in the room today.

I weave through groups of nekos to get to the table and find...

It's covered in bowls of salads.

I find a smile tugging at my lips—Will didn't forget. Of course he didn't forget. He might just make an alright king after all.

"It's all for us? Are you sure?" asks a girl on my right, and another responds, "I'm sure—Hera says it was ordered only for us. No one else gets any of it."

I scan the table. He didn't cut any corners with this. There's even piles of shredded chicken on many of the bowls—cheese, too. Tomatoes, peppers, onion, cucumber, egg—the salads are piled high with toppings, and there are several different dressings to choose from. He didn't stop there either—there are sides, too: breads, fruits, cheeses. He's filled every space he can with as much of a variety as he could possibly manage.

I let the very malnourished or sick take their meals first—and then the rest of us take bowls, delighted at the idea of having a real meal. And one that's actually good for us for once—Will probably saved lives with this meal.

But then, I remember the king's plan for tonight, and I realize that the effort is going to be wasted on many of us.

Thinking of tonight spoils my appetite, and I have to force myself to eat the rest of the meal lest I feel weak later.

When I finish my bowl, I set it on the pile of dishes that is forming on one end of the table. Whoever finishes their shift earliest will clean them up. That's the unspoken agreement among us all.

It's not until I head back out of the nekos' quarters to return to work that I realize that that felt an awful lot like a final meal.

⚜️⚜️⚜️

The Thirteenth of September, Eight Hours Past Noon...

The nekos are lined up in our quarters, and it is dead silent. The rumor must have passed around that those who are dismissed tonight will not be making it out of the castle alive. Also, there seem to be some people missing—I can't imagine that anyone would have forgotten about a meeting as important as this one, so I can only assume that some attempted to run before the king could get a chance to kill them. My stomach twists. I try to reassure myself that I'll be fine—I haven't had any complaints on my work in a very long time, and I consistently always finish the items assigned to my to do list.

I have to be one of the most efficient employees here—he can't fire me.

But I must not really believe it, because every muscle in my body is tense, my nervous system feeling like it is a string being pulled taut, ready to snap. In other words, the stress molds my body into cement, and that familiar instinct tells me that I will not make it out of this alive.

The king enters with several knights.

He's the spitting image of the prince. Golden curls, blue eyes, and kind expression. To outsiders, the king is a friendly man who enjoys discussing poetry and music.

To those who know him, though, his personality is more akin to an arrow: sharp, quick, and fatal. He does not attempt to keep up appearances in front of such a lowly crowd—his expression drops from kindness to bored skepticism the moment he passes the threshold into our quarters.

At once, the nekos drop into bows. The girl next to me is trembling. She's young—maybe twelve. Many of us arrive at the castle young. When there are so few options to support ourselves, the castle often seems like the best course of action.

The king says nothing as he inspects us. He moves slowly down the line of servants, flipping through pages of a record book and checking our name tags as he goes. So far, he has not shown any preference for one neko or another—he simply looks over the record of tasks completed by each of us and then moves on to the next.

It is nerve-wracking not to know what he's thinking, or who is getting pulled from the line. I wrestle with my fear in order to keep my expression calm and kind, hoping it will pass for adoration—after all, that's how I'm always supposed to look at royalty, though some of them make it easier than others.

King Apollo stops in front of me. My heart speeds up. I do not so much as breathe.

Please. Please. Keep moving.

"Neko," says the king, and he's addressing me.

Fuck.

Holy shit. I'm dead.

"Your record is longer than the others. You manage to complete an impossible number of tasks in the night when the human staff has gone to rest. You work at a speed that would almost imply you have help, but there are never any other servants, nekos or human, to work anywhere near you, and you have no access to anyone else who might be willing to help. Would you like to explain yourself?"

Shit. Fuck. He hasn't questioned anyone else.

I open my mouth to respond, and nothing comes out. This is my worst nightmare. Maybe—maybe if I tell him that his son comes to help me, I could twist it to sound like the prince ordered me to let him help—

Fuck. No. I've seen how the king treats his son.

"I am efficient," I manage to choke out. "I am spurred by my love of you and your reign."

The king's expression twitches. I have no idea if he bought it or not. My heart is pounding at a million miles a minute—if the king doesn't order my execution, I'll die of a heart attack instead.

"Knights, take this one aside," King Apollo says finally, and my stomach drops out.

No. No, oh God, fuck—!

Knights grab me roughly on each arm, and my instincts tell me to fight them, to fight until my last breath, and maybe I'm outnumbered and maybe I'd never make it even through the halls without being stopped by more guards, but at least I'd have gone out fighting—

"Lock up the rest," the king orders, and my blood curdles.

I go still in the knights' grip.

Lock up the rest? As in, in their cages to sleep for the night or—

Or is the king killing them all?

The knights which are not restraining me order the other nekos to transform. Many of my peers look relieved at not having been chosen, and I want to scream: you're not in the clear yet. It's only eight o'clock—why would he want to lock all of you up to sleep for the night already? You're not safe yet, goddammit!

The king waits until the guards have locked each neko into a cage on the wall, and then the king gives a satisfied nod. "Bring those to the lowest dungeon level. They will be finished off tomorrow morning before we bring in the new human staff."

Oh my God.

He's killing all of them—after me, there will be none left—and goddammit, the only reason I'm going to live is because I cheated. Golden hair and blue eyes measured out my ingredients, helped me sort laundry, helped me put together displays. I am alive because of the prince, and the others will all die—

Fuck. I have to try to fight for them.

I try to twist out of the knights' grips, so some of the knights who were beginning to transport cages set down the cages—filled with nekos making a racquet with their yowling and hisses—and rush over to restrain me further. There's one on my left arm, which I try to yank free, but he is twice my size and more well-fed. There's another on my right, and she shows no mercy when I struggled—she twists my arm painfully, and if I move another inch, my arm will come out of its socket.

Another grabs me from behind and uses his thick arm to wrap around my throat and choke me out. I thrash, but they expect it, and they just barely manage to keep me restrained.

"You forget yourself." The king grabs me roughly by the chin, fed up with my protests. "Neko, you will continue to work here until you finish every item on your list. No breaks will be allowed until it is finished. Understand clearly that you are a loose thread here that is simply too convenient right now to cut off. The moment your usefulness wanes, you will join the others. Do you understand?"

It is so similar to the threat the king made to the prince earlier today, I get deja vu. The prince had responded with a loud and clear: I understand.

But the king is killing off the entire staff. Even when I open my mouth—to agree or to spit in his face, I'm not sure—I find that there are no words. Only a burning in my stomach that tells me I will hate this man until the day I die.

The king has a sword hanging from his waist.

I try one last time to fight my captors, straining against their combined strength. The man who has me in a chokehold squeezes hard, and I can't get any air—fuck, maybe they'll just kill me here and now—

"Hm," is all the king says. Then he turns, and my window of opportunity to kill him is getting smaller and smaller. I put all my strength into twisting and thrashing, fighting for my peers' lives, trying to break free—

And then the king disappears out the door, and the knights are still managing to just barely keep me held back—I hate that they're successful, but they've been building muscle mass while I struggle to even eat a single full meal on any given day—my fury is held down by trained cruelty.

And with the king gone, hope is quickly fleeting—and the remaining guards not holding me back resume their work transporting the caged nekos out of this room, disappearing out into the hall to move them into the dungeons. My entire body shudders—where is the justice in this? How can the king order such a terrible thing without a shred of remorse evident anywhere on his face?

The knights get tired of my struggling, so the man keeping me in a chokehold tightens it once again, and air is gone, and I struggle just to breathe—

"Feisty little cat," mutters one knight, and the others laugh, and my world is quickly turning to darkness—

And I struggle once more for even just a single breath, but no air comes—and then unconsciousness takes me.

⚜️⚜️⚜️

An unknown time, on an unknown day...

When I wake up, the entire nekos' quarters has been cleared out except for the table. The fire in the fireplace has been put out, and the entire room is freezing cold. My head is pounding. I push myself onto my elbows, and I spot a piece of parchment nailed to the door.

I feel sick when I try to stand. The world tilts and spins and I struggle to remain upright—still, I manage to stumble over to the door and tear down the parchment to read it.

It's a to-do list. The tasks are written in a tiny font in three columns, filling up the page with items I'm supposed to complete. I turn it over and find that there are more columns of chores on the back.

This sort of to-do list would take weeks—and the king said no breaks. I wasn't spared from the mass death. They simply found me to be too convenient to kill immediately—I'm too efficient to waste, so they're telling me to work until I die instead.

I drop the list and watch it float to the ground.

I have no idea how long I was out—is it possible that the other nekos have all already been killed? If I try to go save them, will I find only corpses and empty cages?

And I feel stupid for even considering it—because I couldn't even keep three guards off me, not in the state I'm in right now. The lowest level of the dungeons is crawling with guards—I'd have to fight off dozens of them all on my own, with no weapon and no way to escape once the other nekos are freed.

I'm in over my head.

I don't really know what I'm doing, but I push open the door and head to the storage rooms on this same level. I bypass the rooms with expensive paintings which the Family no longer likes, the rooms with old furniture and clothing, the rooms with old books and records. I walk by all of this until I find the storage used by nekos to complete our daily tasks: cleaning supplies, extra ingredients, bags of soil for the gardens, and more.

I grab a backpack meant for the gardeners and shake out its contents, and I pack a survival bag: some food, a bottle for water, old kitchen knives sheathed in wood for safety, a blanket. I stare at my bag, lost and overwhelmed. I can't afford to mess this up. What else might I need?

I scan the shelves of the room and the items stacked haphazardly on top of them. Anything too large I dismiss immediately—no matter how useful some of these larger items might be, I can't sneak them out of the castle. I wish there were more items I could use as makeshift weapons, but everything is too big—I'll have to settle for the old knives I've already packed.

Finally, I spot a small medical bag—a first aid kit which is half-empty from nekos sneaking in to steal supplies to treat one injury or another.

I grab it and shove it into my backpack, and then I close the flap and stand.

And I don't know where I'm going, not really.

But tonight when the prince wanders into the kitchens looking for pastries and dough and work, he will find lonely silence, and I can only hope he will understand that I could not afford to say goodbye.

Word count: 6020

Yes I am aware this probably should have been split into multiple chapters, but in my defense:

* Readers have to watch fewer ads if there are fewer chapters.
* This was actually meant to include Will's POV of some things happening rn too, but that would probably take it up to like 10,000 words, so I cut it off here...but it was actually supposed to be even longer originally lmao

Yours,
Sunny