As somewhat of a surprise to himself, Aire managed to walk away from the servant without skipping a beat or even looking back. In truth, he felt horrid for the way he'd spoke to her. Though after all, he was royalty and she was, well, filth. Absolute filth. The only way a relationship between them could ever exist would be in his late-night fantasies. At this thought, his heart sped up and his palms started sweating as their skin collided in his head.

What was he doing? Thinking up a relationship with a servant. His mother would have his head. This was no way for a prince to be thinking, he could almost hear her speaking those words. There was not a person he could open up to about this conflict. Not a damn person.

Evening dawned all too quickly and Aire had managed to bypass most of his pre-ruler responsibilities - but alas the pre-coronation dinner was upon them, and for Aire not to attend would be close to blasphemy. His coronation would take place early in the morning, then before his mother completely gave her powers of Queen over to him, now King, a search would begin for a suitable wife for him. This almost depressed him. He wasn't well acquainted with any visiting royalty enough to call them friends or to even say he was attracted to them, yet soon he would have to marry one of the coveted princesses.

When he entered the grand dining hall, not many were gathered around the oblong, mahogany table. It would be quite a bit before the dinner began, and the ones who had seated themselves were socializing among each other. They would hardly miss him at the moment. Taking a chance, he slipped into the kitchen and made up his mind that if another nobility asked him what he was doing, he would simply state he was making sure the servants were doing their part well.

There she was, slaving over the range. The petite, ginger servant whose name he never remembered.

"Hello," he greeted her, in an all-too-polite and embarrassingly cracking voice. He cleared his throat nonchalantly and opened his mouth to speak again, but no words came out.