Foreign Prince

Esme tried not to gape as she followed Ria to the breakfast hall. Not that there was much to look at as they moved through the servants quarters. She had simply made a habit of masking her environmental observations as the gaping gaze of a tourist. She couldn't use that trick in the moment especially since they encountered patrolling guards as they walked further away from the rooms. Esme kept her head down and did her best to look like she was supposed to be there.

Fortunately, they didn't walk too far before they arrived at the large palace kitchens. There were about seven different buildings all built around a large courtyard. The doors and windows to the buildings were all wide open and steam was pouring out from them. Through the open doors and windows, Esme could see chefs, assistant chefs, maids and matrons bustling about in what she knew was the frantic art of preparing a royal breakfast.

Thankfully, Delphi didn't lead them into the bustling steaming rooms, Instead they went behind them where an eight building was separate from the seven. The doors and windows were thrown open too and there was a bustling but no cooking was going on. It was a dinning area.

Their hurried footsteps quickly carried them to the building, pass the threshold and into the busy atmosphere of the dinning room. Esme took it all in her eyes capturing every major and minor detail and storing it away in a special place in her brain.

The first thing she noticed was that the large hall was divided into two. On one side was three lengthy tables arranged with chairs on either side and several servants already occupying most of the chairs. At the other side there was a single lengthy table with large serving pots and pans on it. There were serving ladies on one side of the table and on the other side there was a steadily declining queue of servants holding empty bowls. Some servants were just sitting to eat and others were standing and clearing up their bowls.The hall was abuzz with chatter and several matrons hurrying about both supervising ang hurrying the maids up. Infact some matrons seemed to be escorting some maids away to take care of urgent chores. In the midst of the hall was a lady who seemed to be keeping the time and supervising. She was clearly the head matron. Her uniform was of a bolder color than the other matrons and she had more badges pinned to her clothing.

It was just the image of a busy servants dinning room and it may never come in handy for her but still she had too because what if...

'You stare too much', Delphi scolded.

The next minute she grabbed Esme and pulled her to the serving side of the hall and quickly put an empty bowl and spoon in her hand while also positioning her in the queue for food.

'You must get used to the fast paced morning life in the palace, Ria otherwise you will be found out. Look the head matron is signalling eight minutes left till she clears out this hall'.

Esme looked and sure enough the head matron was performing a combination of signals with her hands but Esme could not decipher them to mean what Delphi had interpreted them as.

Her confused expression was not missed by the girl behind her.

Delphi sighed softly 'I have much to teach you'.

The pair soon reached the end of the queue and Esme handed her bowl in to be filled. While her bowl was being filled with soup a servant on duty handed her a puffy brown bread. She smiled her thanks retrived her bowl and stepped out of line. As she contemplated where to seat, Delphi breezed past her carrying her own bowl and whispering, 'Follow me'.

Esme followed as Delphi led them to the far end of the middle dinning table. There were two open seats side by side and Esme and Delphi quickly snagged them.

A strange thing happened in a passing second and if Esme had not been who she was she might not have noticed it.

Delphi grabbed a chair but before she pulled it back to seat in it, a girl from across the table looked up from her meal slightly, scanned the two of them and then gave a very subtle nod of approval. Delphi then quickly sat in her seat and Esme followed suite.

It was tree root soup. How convenient and cheap. She swirled her spoon in her bowl looking for a shred of nak mushroom but there wasn't any. Esme slurpped her first taste of the soup and resisted making a face. This was unlike anything Eris had ever cooked. There was not enough tree root, no mushrooms and the fruit juices were a distant taste. Instead it tasted mostly like flavoured water.

She bit into the puffy bread. It was soft as air. Mostly because there was more air than dough. It had been mixed with a lot of yeast and left to rise for a looonnnng time. Esme knew she would miss Eris's cooking and wondered if the leftovers for lunch and dinner would be better since they were orignally cooked for the nobles.

As she ate, Esme lifted her head from her bowl to look around her surroundings. Curious about the girl with whom Delphi had had the earlier passing interaction, Esme settled her eyes on her and studied her.

The girl was a beauty, even sitting Esme could tell that she had the well appreciated and popular petite body type with soft curves. Her face was pretty too. She had a cute round face, the kind that implied innocence. Her eyes were large and almond shaped, a round nose, small but full pink lips. Her pupils were a dark color and her mid length wavy hair- which Esme noticed she hadn't tied according to the rules- was mahongany in color and so healthy that it moved at every slurp of her soup. Soup that was made of beef, gravy and shrimps. Suddenly she could smell the garlic butter from the flat bread the girl held in her hands.

Esme's eyes narrowed. She looked down the table to see if anyone else got a diffrent soup and bread. Everyone had tree root soup and puffy bread for as far as her eyes could see.

She dragged her eyes back to study the girl again only to find her already looking at her.

The girl smiled. A wicked sweet smile and raised a challenging smug brow at Esme. Esme looked down into her tree root soup.

This wasn't the kind of trouble she was here for.

She kept slurping her tasteless soup knowing she need to finish eating soon but not quite knowing how she would force it all down her throat.

Just as Esme felt like she was getting a hang of the taste, a maid came towards their end of the table requesting someone who was done eating to take a meal to the nobles. It wasn't strange, this had been happening since Esme begun eating. Some idling maids were being called out to start serving meals.

But the maid said two words in her chatter that made Esme's head snap up.

'Ianik Zeiah'.

The words translated to Foreign Prince.