Chapter Text
"I hope this is adequate. It was a bit – I mean, things moved quickly, so I didn't exactly have as much time as I would have liked to get this ready for you."
Nelyafinwë was unsure of what the correct answer should be, and he flicked his gaze nervously about the room, trying to find something to comment on. The cli– no, his new master was still hovering in the doorway. That was a small comfort. Even though the room was so large and had so many nice things in it, she clearly didn't particularly want to spend time in it, so it was what she considered fitting for him. It wasn't too much. He could touch the things here without worrying excessively.
"And, um, I didn't realize you'd need some things, so I don't have them yet, but I will get them in a few days. I ought to have realized you wouldn't have needed them before. I'm sorry." She ran a hand over her face. "Like I said, this all happened rather faster than I was expecting. I'm sure you're a bit unsettled as well."
He gave her a cautious nod, and that seemed to be the right answer. A small smile flickered across her face.
"I'll get out of your way, then. Like I said, feel free to use the laundry and the kitchen; foodwise anything in there that doesn't have my name on it is fair game. I put some new tape and markers in the drawer so you can pick whatever colors you like to label your stuff too when you get it here. Just write it on the chalkboard on the wall, well, you saw it, and I'll add it to the list when I order at the end of the week. Unless it's an emergency, if it's really important it doesn't have to wait. That's how I get food and most things, I don't really go out much for that. It gets delivered. Sorry, I know you know how that works." Another smile, a different one. He didn't know what it meant. "I've never really lived with anyone who wasn't family before. Uh, not to say – I mean family, like the ones I grew up with family. But I'm sure we'll figure this out! I'll get out of your way."
She turned to go and then hesitated. "Do you want me to close the door, or?"
"Yes, please," he said softly after the silence became awkward, though he didn't understand why she was asking him and he didn't really want to be locked in for the night already – he had had a long day and he hadn't been fed and he hadn't even been given water – but he also didn't want to have the door open because then he'd have not have the second of warning opening it would give him when she came back to try him out.
His new master only nodded, closed it, and he stood motionless for a long while after the sound of her quiet footsteps had died away.
It was a big house, and an old one, and she was used to being the only person living in it according to the meager information he had been given just before she got him. She had lived here for a long time, since she had come of age and then finished her education in something he did not even understand what it was and announced she no longer wished to live in the city. It was quiet and peaceful and far enough from the city that it took effort to go there, though not nearly as isolated as the compound that had been the only home he had ever known.
Nelyafinwë wondered how she had come to live here, if she had bought the house or if it was part of the royal family's estate and if he ruined something would it either be a mistake he would answer to her for or something he would face much worse consequences for for a while longer, before he swayed on his feet and had to stumble forward and sit down on the bed before his legs gave out. He had to be quiet, just like the house. He thought he was rather good at telling what clients wanted from their dress or their homes; at least, it was one of the most reliable guides he had ever found. Her home was quiet, calm, tasteful, and subdued. He was good at being all of those. And at following orders.
A thought struck him and he leapt off the edge of the bed to rummage desperately in his bag. Yes, he had scent blockers, several different kinds, he hadn't left them behind. Well, of course he hadn't, he'd packed his entire kit and there hadn't been anything left on his shelf. And even he wouldn't be stupid enough to forget to bring blockers. He was certainly going to need to use them, he could tell.
She was wearing them, and had been all four times he had seen her so far. Strong ones, too, the impermeable kind. It had taken all of his desperation-driven practice to finally work out that she was probably an alpha beta who shaded more heavily than average towards alpha, and he had only been able to say anything about what she was with any certainty when he had finally entered her home this afternoon. She had aired it out and cleaned it very recently, but it was a lot harder to keep personal scent from soaking into a house the way it was possible to keep it out of clothes and the air around oneself. There was still a faint smell of bleach lingering about the corners, along with other smells he couldn't identify but vaguely stirred memories of being cold and huddled into strange rooms while their quarters were repaired after a storm, and that just made it harder to tell how she was feeling. He hadn't even been able to really tell what she was when she had had to take his hand during the strange 'wedding' thing that her family and He had insisted on.
He hadn't given him any particular directions on what he needed to be for her, so he had gone with the default neutral mix of scents and behaviors to let her know that he could be anything she wanted. That seemed to have been the right choice. Undoubtedly she would give him his instructions when the mood took her. He wasn't even sure if she had wanted to buy him to work for her like he had done for Him for as long as he could remember, or to be help and some kind of diversion or companionship in this lonely house that was so large for such a small person. It didn't matter. He needed to be calm and neutral, like the house, so he spent some time adjusting the artificial scents he layered under the blockers until he was sure they were somewhat compatible with her needs and then sat down on the floor, still overwhelmed by how nice the room was.
He really hoped she just wanted someone to clean and cook and probably take care of the gardens and whatever else she had outside who could go with the rest of the decor in her house. He was so tired of the other kind of work. Even if she did want to play with him as well as wanting him to do the rest, it would be a welcome relief to only have to accommodate the desires of one person every night instead of four or five or a whole gathering's worth on the bad nights, and unless she invited friends over and was of a mind to have him serve them too it would only be her and not more than one at once. And really it was odd that she didn't even have one other servant yet, so she probably wanted him more for his ability to run a house than to entertain her. She was the third in line for the kingship, she should have an entire staff looking after her from the little he knew about the matter. But it appeared that it would just be him, for now. Perhaps she was just starting to build her own staff after detaching herself from her parents'.
No pressure there.
She had most certainly been the one to pick him, not her family. She had been calm and certain and authoritative throughout the entire negotiation to buy him, the parts of it he had been present for at least; her parents and her brother, and her small sister who was old enough to attend and learn but not quite old enough to entirely understand what was going on, had been less agreeable. They had been carefully polite, probably not wanting to risk giving him any reason to do anything less than his best because they had to know the irritation a reckless servant with a grudge could cause, but they had not been enthusiastic by any measure. At least that showed that she knew what she wanted and would communicate that clearly?
The only thing he absolutely could not make fit into any scenario he could come up with about why He had finally decided he would be worth more completely sold into someone else's hands than continuing to work for Him like he had always done was the strange fake wedding thing they had gone through. It couldn't have been a real one, because that was impossible. Nobody would ever marry him, there was absolutely no way he could be a fitting spouse for her of all people, and she was much too important to marry her future consort in a lawyer's small office with only her parents and siblings and a few other people that were probably impartial witnesses to the contract in attendance. Anyway, she needed to marry a real person, so it had to have been a deception. The whole thing had barely taken an hour, he had been sent back to the empty house He had brought him to after telling him she had now had sole possession of him and to pack his things and say goodbye to his brothers, and then her father had come to fetch him in the morning and lead him to where she was waiting to ride back to her home along with the rest of her purchases from her trip to the city.
It had been the morning of today, but it felt like it had been lifetimes since then.
Her father had only ordered him to make sure to serve her to the best of his ability, and if it had come from anyone else he would have felt a little insulted, but as far as he knew neither he nor any of his brothers who were old enough to work had ever knowingly served any of the royal family before, or even someone who was personally close to them, so the Crown Prince obviously had the right to be wary of his competence. Now he understood why he had been told that even better, since apparently he was the first servant she had chosen in building her own household.
There weren't even any handlers here to make him presentable and give him his food and do the injury treatment after he was done for the day. He'd have to do it himself and his master would be the one handing out his food and he didn't know what kind of schedule she would want him to keep, if she would want him to maintain himself as he was kept when he was at home or like he was treated while he was out working or if she wanted him to look like something else entirely he had no idea of. And he couldn't just obey his handler because now he didn't have one.
The thin file He had thrown at him to study on his ride to Tirion hadn't really been much help in understanding what his job was now or what his new master liked. Between the vocabulary he could not even read and the sparseness of the parts he could, all he had really managed to gather that he had not heard in rumor or crude gossip before was that it was her own preference to be titled as a prince, not a princess, and her education had not been for obligation or show as she was terrifyingly smart. It hadn't even had a picture of her.
Thinking about the morning and the day before, he realized that apart from the blurry profile portraits on worn coins and one small portrait of the reclusive Queen that He had screamed at Káno for finding and showing him and then immediately burned before they could really see anything, he had had no clue what the royal family looked like (or even their names beyond the King and the more publically-appearing Queen's, and he only knew those because it was unavoidable and His boss had some strange obsessive anger about them) before his new master had seen or heard about him somewhere and decided she wanted him permanently. He could pass them on the street and never know, in the unlikely event that he was allowed to walk down a street following her. In order to do that he'd have to have real shoes, and his master would have to let him walk outside without a hood or a lead clipped to his collar, because he knew that wasn't supposed to be seen in public.
She had been confused when she had realized he had no shoes except the ones for his work that were not made to wear outside off of pathways, or for any length of time, or to make it easier to walk. He wasn't allowed outside for longer than it took to get into a building from a carriage anywhere but in the compound and that was rare, so he had no need for them.
It was weird how she had delayed her journey until someone had found him shoes to ride in (his feet didn't even touch the ground, why were they necessary? they didn't even make him look nice?) and had said something to her parents about his shoes being lost on the journey to the city. He had told her not ten minutes before that those kinds of shoes regrettably weren't part of his accessories and he didn't have any. It had to mean something, but he couldn't quite work out what.
She hadn't led his horse – she'd let him ride a horse, not put him in a closed carriage, and he had enjoyed it even if it was unusual – and she hadn't leashed him instead. His collar had been unlocked and taken away just before the handler had handed him over to her father, and he hadn't had his new one and she hadn't given him his new one yet. He'd known he'd get a new one with her mark on it instead of his old master's, but he'd thought it would go on just as soon as the comfortable, safe, old one came off.
She had asked a little about his kit as they traveled, but she'd seemed to think what he came with was inadequate. He had everything he was allowed to bring! He had his house-clothes and his working-clothes and his personal supplies so he stayed clean and presentable to scent and sight and the supplies for his clients.
A sinking feeling came over him as he realized that in her eyes he required so many things to be what she wanted, but there was nothing he could have done about it. His kit was always His prerogative, and if He hadn't bothered to read that part of the contract or was trying to cheat her, that was between Him and other people. Why hadn't he gotten an adjusted kit before he was sold? Had she not sent in her preferences?
At least she was only surprised and not immediately angry about it?
And she had ordered him to not use honorifics, to just call her Fingon.
It was all very strange. Nelyafinwë pulled himself out of his huddle on the floor and slowly unpacked his things, setting out the ones that were equipment so they would be easily to hand and then timidly exploring the room a little more to find a few places to safely stash the secret things that were his his. At least Káno and Turco had been functioning well enough even through the shock of abruptly learning that within the hour he would be gone and likely never see or talk to them again to think of giving him all the scentblocking bags they had even though they were such a precious commodity. His things would be safe if he could just hide them from sight, he didn't have to worry about hiding them from smell too.
He cautiously opened the door on the right wall and found another, smaller, room with a strange amount of shelves and a big mirror and a small window. He hovered in the doorway, confused, before realizing that it had to be a sort of dressing room-closet hybrid. It was weird that she would give one to a servant, but at least it was not as giant as the few dressing rooms he had very fuzzy and detached memories of working in were. Maybe it was just there and she didn't want to go to the trouble of walling it up.
And he could put his working-clothes in there so he didn't have to sleep in the same room as them. Or –
He looked more closely at the shelves. They were built into the wall, thick and sturdy and most importantly, very tall and with heavy curtains tied back, meant to cover them when they were full. The room was dark, the only light coming from the window if he did not use the lamps on the walls, and he rather thought those would focus their light on the floor and leave the ceiling in relative shadow.
He could put his working-clothes on one end of the room, all curtained off so he could pretend they were not there, and make a tiny nest on the top shelf on the other end. It would be near the window so he could tell the time and leave it open to confuse the scents, it would be up high where few people ever looked and even fewer could actually reach. It would be so much safer and cozier than the one he had had in the back of the cleaning closet in the compound. He wouldn't even get headaches from the scent of the chemicals that hid him.
Nelyafinwë scaled the shelves and tucked himself into the corner. There was a bit of false wall there to make the room look better and it hid him and held him in even without the curtains being drawn. And if he put clothes in one section and drew them it wouldn't seem as odd that all of them were closed to make the room look tidy. He curled up on his side, back to the wall, legs stretched out just a bit more than he found comfortable to press against the false wall, and discovered that he could indeed see out the window if he angled the mirror slightly differently.
Relieved that he could cross that off his list of worries, he moved his working-clothes to hang by the door and on the far end of the room, drew all the curtains, fixed the mirror, and then brought in the scentblocking bag that had his towels and the lap blanket and the worn-out shirts from his brothers his old nest had been made of and hid that tucked very far back into the bottom shelf near his spot, but not so near that it would catch anyone's eye. Not too close, but not glaringly far either.
Then he ventured back into the bedroom, still looking for places to hide the odds and ends he had that were his and definitely not things he was supposed to have for his own, and places to stash bottles of water or food that would keep once he managed to begin sneaking them away. If he could put things on a list and label them with his name it might not be as hopeless as he had feared. It would be tricky to get food up here without her noticing since there was nobody else who could possibly be taking it, but maybe if he was clever and stealthy about it she would not notice him taking food from himself. If she meant what she said about him being allowed to request her to buy some things occasionally. His old master would never have dreamed of allowing such a thing, so maybe it was a test.
A little anxious at the lack of quick hiding places that weren't obvious in the bedroom, he peered around the door on the left side and was surprised to find an entire bathroom, with a real toilet and a place to wash and everything. It wasn't even locked, and she had said everything in these rooms were his, so that probably meant he was allowed to use everything in it without having to ask her permission every time as long as it was when he was put in his quarters at the end of his workday. Again, it was too big and too nice, but then he remembered how old the house was, how nice all of it had been, and for the first time took into consideration that she had probably put him here instead of the servant's quarters that the place had to have somewhere (the attic? the cellars? he resolved to find them as soon as he could so he could start making a case for his moving to them) because he was the only other person in her house and she wanted him nearby to wait on her. Her rooms were on the same floor, even if they were almost the entire length of the house away, in the opposite corner. He would only have to go down the hall when she called for him instead of up or down a lot of staircases and possibly a warren of smaller hallways.
That made him breathe a little easier and creep over to examine the bathtub after he had looked around hurriedly to make sure nobody was watching and cautiously used the toilet to take care of his stretched-full bladder. Surely she wouldn't have left it here and working if he wasn't allowed to use it while he was locked in his quarters? It would be much less work to clean than giving him a bucket.
Again there were windows in here, which he did not like at all, but there was no balcony that he could see or any place someone could obviously see in from, and there were curtains there ready to use. If she had left them, surely she would not be angry that he used them?
The bathtub was much too big. He could lay full length in it, and it had high sides that would block him from getting out fast. But it would hide him from view just a little and it would be nice to not have so many bruises and stiffness from trying to nest in one that was too small. He could even fold up something to put under his head and possibly sleep through the worst of it if she gave him the time to recover like that. If she didn't have a thing for that and keep him in her bed like too many people had.
He sat on the floor again and pressed his forehead into the cool stone side of the bathtub as he realized that he would end up in her bed if he was lucky; since he belonged to her and would for some time it was more likely that he would end up in her nest or be made to build her a nest in her nest-space. Just the idea of being forced to be so vulnerable in someone else's most private space made his skin crawl and his vision begin to grey out. There was no way she didn't have an elaborate, large, permanent nesting arrangement somewhere in her own house. And if his guess was right and she had any strong leaning towards alpha at all, she would want him there eventually for some reason, to take care of it or for her entertainment or maybe even just to have him there when she felt like looking over the things she owned.
He didn't leave his quarters until the next day began.