The door slammed open, and a group of maids stormed in.
Then they froze, the front ones first and then the back, slowly, as they realized what was being seen, whispers rushing up and down their ranks.
Slowly, they fell to their knees. With each one, Luna's heart surged inside her.
What the hell was going on?
She slowly slipped off of the bed and stood on her own feet, pulling on the nightrobe that Lukas had prepared for her before she had failed to rise.
All of that fatigue was gone, vanished.
"I apologize for disturbing you, Mistress," one of them said, and the others quickly followed suit, with a worrying speed, as though they weren't reacting to the first one's words, but saying the same thing because of what they saw.
This wasn't exactly a novel experience for Luna, but she hadn't expected it to happen here. From the impression she has gotten, the maids here were used to different mistresses coming and going, though she didn't have quite enough evidence to say that she knew for sure.
This was a very different response from the first faction she had met.
Lukas seemed to keep far too many maids for any one person, and she hadn't seen evidence of any other person at all, though as short as her time here had been, she couldn't exactly say that that was enough to prove that he lived alone.
That could mean that he used them to entertain his sexual needs and desires, but he didn't seem the type to do that.
So then why did he have so many?
Whatever the reason, he had enough of them that they had created their own groups within his employ. Most human nobles' maids weren't numerous enough in respect to their tasks that they could form factions without greatly decreasing their efficiency, and making the job practically unbearable for each other and themselves.
Luna had attempted to be a maid once, when she was very, very young.
The young lord that she had served had taken quite an interest in her, and she had found herself sitting on his lap within minutes of entering his service.
That just so happened to be the day that her father had come looking for her, so the man had been brutally murdered before she had been forced to do anything more with him.
Apparently, the lie that her father had told the nobility was that she had been stolen and kept captive for the early years of her life, and as soon as he had discovered her captor he had immediately put together a party of soldiers and rushed to retrieve her. Because of the lie he had invented, he had slaughtered the young lord and his entire household.
Simply put, she had had experience, but not much. Not any significant amount at all, really. Her father didn't like maids much, but he kept a few, ostensibly serving Luna's mother. Luna preferred not to allow any other women near her father, because of what she knew he would do to them. Her mother was a good match for him. She deserved his cruelty. Maids did not. They were of the common folk, and so it did have to be taken into account that they likely hadn't had the opportunity to be arrogant before, but Luna still much preferred them to nobles.
For their safety, though, it was just better for her not to talk to them. Even if she wished to. Luna had never had a friend. Maybe she could count Lukas as one, but her relationship with him was far too intimate and complex to be described that way. They had skipped that phase entirely, and they were something else.
Truth be told, Luna wasn't entirely sure why she had allowed Lukas to sweep her off of her feet like that. Maybe she had been too fed up with her father.
Or maybe she was scared of him. He'd never gone far enough to kill her, obviously, because she was still alive. But maybe he would one day. It wasn't unlikely. Luna certainly felt like she was going to die. And his actions didn't exactly lend themselves to a healthy lifestyle for the receiver. She had had to harden herself, and quickly, just to survive.
Just to survive.
Just one more day.
Just. Keep. Going.
Lukas had gotten rid of that need. And given her a new one.