15 GIRLS-IN-WAITING

When she opened her eyes into slits, she found herself lying on a makeshift bed, comfortably tucked under a pile of blankets. She clenched the soft sheets between her fingers as she tried to refresh her mind about what happened. She's not getting anywhere near successful in probing her mind with the recent incident. All she could recall was her puking her guts' contents into the unfamiliar soil as soon as the carriage landed.

Before she opened her eyes completely, she heard unfamiliar voices at first. Perhaps they saw the balls of her eyes move under her eyelids or when it lifted into slits.

"Princess Meredith!"

"Shh! Quiet! She's waking up."

Red heard unfamiliar voices of girls who were probably the same age as her. Before she could discern the owner of the voices, though, the talking disappeared.

She rubbed the sleep from her eyes. Sitting up, Red could see glimpses of scanty furniture around the bed where she lied. She's inside a dark green tent the shade of moss. "Where am I?"

Her head hurt. It felt terribly painful when she moved looked around her new room. She cupped and massaged it with both hands.

The two girls who seemed to be the owner of the voices from earlier entered the tent. When they saw her sitting up, they gasped, and they timidly approached with concern. "Princess Meredith! How are you feeling?"

She stared at them questioningly, "You are?"

"Oh, apologies for the insolence. I am Matilda, your lady-in-waiting." Said the girl with long thick braids of frizzy light brown hair that dangled on her shoulders. She must be Red's height which hovered over a hundred and sixty centimeters. Her body of slender built and her fingers were long and bony but they looked not too weak for a girl.

"And I am Laarni, Princess Meredith. I am sent to assist you and the lady-in-waiting. I will attend to your grandmother while we are traveling on the road." The other girl commented with a grin adorning her freckled face, her green eyes sparkled with warmth and awe. She's more on the plump side with red hair pulled into a bun beneath her head and a bit shorter, about five centimeters shorter than Matilda. She's always smiling. It exuded so much warmth from her.

"Another servant girl is with your grandmother right now, her name is Lily. I thought you would want to know." Matilda added.

"Thanks." She responded with a smile. Yep, she wanted to make sure her Nana was alright.

The two girls curtsied. "It is our honor to serve you, Her Ladyship, Princess Meredith. It's our pleasure to meet you and serve you."

"The pleasure is mine." She bobbed her head in acknowledgment. The words simply came out of her mouth as an automatic response.

She smiled. We're almost of the same age. How old are you, guys?" She asked cheerfully.

"I'm twenty this year." Matilda retorted, pointing to Laarni, "while she's nineteen."

"Oh, so both of you are older than me. I'm seventeen, turning eighteen in three months." She grinned. "Let be friends? When we're together just call me Red. We can all hang out together. It sounds fun. Let's have some sleepovers, too. Tell me tales about your childhood. Let's do those things. What do you think?"

Matilda and Laarni exchanged troubled glances. "Afraid we couldn't do those things with you, Princess."

Red heaved a sigh. "Well, let's all try first, shall we? After all, we're going to be spending most of the time together."

"As… As you wish, Princess Meredith."

She sighed. It probably would be a long road ahead before she could befriend these two.

She bowed, and that was when she realized that her clothes from the instance they left – a pair of blue jeans and a maroon knitted sweatshirt – were now gone, and in its stead was a lacy silk nightgown. She hugged her chest in distress. "Who, who changed my clothes?"

"We did, Princess. It is our duty to change your clothes for you."

"Huh!" She felt violated even if they're all girls anyway. She tried to blink away the bitter aftertaste of the revelation from her consciousness. It came too much of a shock to her. She had not been naked in front of anyone in years, except for Nana who used to bathe her until she was like… four or five?

"Is there something that you would like to eat or drink, Princess Meredith?" Matilda tore her from her shock.

Her head was still throbbing. What better way to wake up from her deep, deep hypnotizing slumber, still groggy with sleep, than to see these girls her age offering their service to clothe her and just be there for her every whim.

Even if Nana treated her like a baby, she wasn't all too pampered that she needed to be fed and clothed so literally. She had arms and an able body to do all those menial, personal things on her own.

"Uhm, I just need a glass of water and a medicine for headache." She said while standing up. Automatically, she proceeded in making her bed – a habit she was so used to doing in their apartment at East Sechoia County.

"Let me do it for you, Princess." Laarni volunteered while Matilda filled a glass of water atop a wooden side table nearby with a fresh cold water.

"Oh." Red stood aside, helplessly berating herself for letting Laarni take over. 'No one should make your bed for you!' She's mentally scolding herself.

"Here's the pill, Princess Meredith. It's organic and harmless to your empty stomach. Please have some fruits as well. You must be starving by now." Matilda handed her a saucer where she had put the pill for headache, and then extended an arm while offering a generous serving of melon, mangoes, apples, and grapes on an ornate platter with gold carvings on the table. The fruits looked the same from where she came from, or at least the peeled and sliced version, but it tasted better. She let out an orgasmic "Hmmm!", even if she would not have known how she had sounded.

She took the pill and munched on some fruits. Afterward, seeing that there was nothing else to do, she insisted on going out. "I'll check the surroundings first. Maybe I'll check Nana too."

Matilda ran ahead and blocked the tent's entrance, arms flung wide open, and legs spread apart. She looked like a skeleton of a five-sided star or better yet, a girl version of the Vitruvian man standing up on her own two feet.

"Her Ladyship!"

"What?!" Red was getting bored. She's so near plucking her eardrums with her pinky finger except that she didn't. She could still restrain herself and behave properly. 'Don't tell me I can't go out as well?' She thought, a little bit annoyed.