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A princess is enslaved by conquering neighbours and survives
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Also itchy and maybe hurting her skin; there was the urine. 

(Looking at him, she'll see an elf, dressed in a short robe similarly made to what she'd been wearing. (Same kind of trim, also, but she wouldn't know what that means, now). Hair down his back, braided and then disheveled (he hadn't stopped to redo it). He has bruises here and there. If you know what to look for there's some suggestions of what he spends his time doing (and had just been doing), but she has no reason to.)

 

He's not sure what to do.

"I'm sorry," he says, which is - inadequate, and more than.

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"Oh well that's helpful, you're sorry for what your masters have done. That does me so much good." Biting sarcasm from the princess. "Th-they...they deserve to burn. To have their whole kingdom and every scrap of power they have be burned away. Leave them with nothing but ashes and pain." She almost snarls that last part out.

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He doesn't flinch.

"I'm sorry.

If there's - something I could do that would be helpful -"

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She flinches at having to ask someone, especially a servant of the humans now she was herself just a slave, how to do something. "If you could show me how to work the pipes to run a bath... I've never had to do it myself..."

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That at least he is very familiar with. 

He shows her.

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"Are you here to act as my servant? I wouldn't expect that courtesy from these monsters." The more she lets the rage build-up, the less the shame and pain makes her feel weak. So she is leaning into it pretty heavily right now.

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"I'm the tribute from the elflands." He - doesn't know how to say it. Doesn't - doesn't have call to say it often.

"We - surrendered, but they still - wanted someone. I think." He isn't sure if that was enough to - to be understood.

"I'm glad to act as your servant if you wish, while I can be here."

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"Of course the humans wanted a hostage." She practically spits the word humans. She just takes an offer for him to act as her servant as a matter of course rather than the gesture of kindness it was. She really still has all the instincts of princess-hood just expecting good treatment even after that humiliation. "Well, could you draw me a bath then?" 

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"That too, maybe." He doesn't mind. He nods, then goes to do that. (It isn't a very nice bathing area, as they go. But enough of the humans didn't want to deal with each other's fluids, or the like. So. It was there.) 

"Should I turn away?" he asks when he's done.

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"I'm usually bathed by my servants?" She says without thinking. She is not thinking about how she is going to be dealing with the obvious evidence of...what just happened under her clothes...and being touched by another person. Right now she is just trying to be normal and not think about any of that.

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"Oh. Yes, I'm sorry. Of course." He's - never actually been a servant, of itself, but he's been called on to attend at a bath before, here. And by some who only wanted him there, or to look at him, or for him to be - separately entertaining while they savored the water. Or after. Enough experience to put together how he might do this.

He goes to help her move to the bathing area and undress, if she wants that.

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She starts to let him undress her but as he peels away the wet dress. The bruises left on her skin, the lack of her usual care obvious in the little scrapes on her skin from being thrown around, the..fluids, all the little after-effects of what happened are visible to her. She freezes up for maybe a full ten seconds before gritting her teeth and trying to act as if nothing was wrong. Even though her heart felt like it would explode out of her chest it was beating so fast.

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He pauses when she freezes, but starts again after. He can feel her heartrate, and guess what she froze at, but unless she pushes him away or tells him to stop - this is what she told him to do, and he doesn't have a guess for how to do better

He does know how to care for scrapes, and how to - most efficiently, least unpleasantly - wash off fluids. 

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She just lets him wash her, trying not to flinch or jerk away as his hands and the washcloth go near the...sore areas. She wanted to die inside every time he washed one of her violated parts but she did not want to let them win. She was going to have a bath normally if it killed her. Hissing through her teeth as the bruise Aster had given her twinges every so often as well. But she remains stoic and lets the elf wash her down.

This would seem almost intimate if not for the context. Being bathed by another and cleaned of the..taint... of what happened, by one who wasn't one of the servants she had grown up with. But she Isn't thinking about that right now.

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He's very careful, tries to readjust if she flinches. But not much more he can do for her bruises than for his own. (There's one around his wrist from the chain, he notices. He must have pulled too hard.)

"Do you want - to do that yourself, or should I?" he asks, when it gets to - what would be be considered more intimate parts.

(He isn't thinking about it either, though maybe in a different way.)

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She grimaces. "I-I can handle it. I'm not broken, go ahead." They were not going to win and break her, she would not let them make having someone give her a bath be something she couldn't do anymore.

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Whether she can handle it is not what he'd wanted to know, but he doesn't think she'd appreciate it if he questioned her, even tried a 'you don't have to handle it'. This is what she wants him to do, so he does. 

After, he draws water into the buckets so she can wash off the dirtied bathwater, brings the ragged cloth they have as a towel.

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She tries to dry off with the tattered cloth. She does feel..cleaner after all that. Less of a used object and more like her regular self.

Did the humans leave her any clothes to change into?

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Yes. Same kind of thing, same trim again. He brings them over. 

He'd looked around already to see if the room has the same chute-like place to put the old clothing. It does. He can show it to her while he moves the clothes there. 

"His Highness has sentenced me to do my own laundry a few times, but I think he just liked to do that, usually the servants will do it and bring new clothes. If it's the same for you as for me." He thinks this is probably for effectiveness and efficiency reasons, but that there isn't a reason to say.

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These slave clothes were scratchy compared to the usual clothes she was used to. Seems like even the downtime between abuses wasn't going to be comfortable. "Well...thank you...I Didn't even ask your name or introduce myself that is terribly rude of me. I am Crown Princess Lelia Radofin Arconesta and my name is usually accompanied by many other assorted meaningless titles now these barbarians occupy my kingdom." She does a polite little curtsey.


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They're not that bad - the humans do touch them. But certainly not near her old clothes, and her senses are probably heightened now. Not that he would say this out loud, had she said hers out loud.

He'd said his name before, but probably she didn't hear it, or take it in.

He does the elf style, something between a bow and a curtsey. "I'm Alesa, son of Galetha and Ethien. It would have been Alesa-sien - my mother is Crown Princess.

They call us a vassal kingdom now." 

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"Oh! and I had you play servant to me. I apologize." It was one thing for just some stranger to offer to act as a servant for her. She was a princess after all. But it was quite another thing for a noble to do it. Suddenly she feels very self-conscious. "Oh, gods I had you...do all that..." 

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He... hadn't realized she hadn't realized. "I don't mind. I'd just - like to help, if I can.

 

We paid tribute to the Valk kingdoms before," he adds, in case that helps her thinking about it. "I - wouldn't mind anyway. But we did.

 

I - remember when it was my first time, in the throne room. There wasn't anyone else here like this then, except their own servants and sentenced, and they wouldn't have gone near me. It - was very lonely, I remember. And there's - enough without that.

I just want to help. If I can."

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Oh....OH. She notices the marks around his wrists, the bruises new and faded all over his skin, His situation was the same as hers but he had clearly had much more done to him over longer. She flinches at talk of his 'first time in the throne room' flashing back to her own experience. "Oh old gods of the mountain I'm sorry...I didn't realise...well...thank you." She didn't think she could have stomached helping someone like that after that had been done to them without constantly thinking of what happened to herself. Maybe one got used to it but she doubts it.

"I'm going to kill them for what they've done. I swear it on my blood." She snarls. Anger was a much more productive emotion.

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"You don't have anything to be sorry for. You're - very welcome.

I'm sorry, I was - trying to say earlier. But. I didn't know how to say it." He looks down, flushing slightly. 

(It is not as though he hadn't been thinking about it (though it is worse to think of what happened to her). But was - a reason he wished to help, not its opposite.)

He doesn't know what to say to that. (His mother would agree, likely. That, he won't say. He doesn't think anyone is listening, now, but.)

"Is there anything else?" he says instead, after a pause. "I can answer questions, or try to tell you something more. 

Or - sing, or talk about something pleasanter, if you don't want to think more of it now."

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