The day’s last light was all but gone, but Cherry kept on moving her hands in a steady motion. The bubbles forming all around her as she washed the floors clean. It was just the other day that Dora came for her to the kitchen, reassigning her to cleaning staff as they were in a need of a help. 

It wasn’t a bad work. She even got to meet and talk to Leila often - more listening than anything. But it was still a nice change of pace from her previous workplace. Cherry was happy. For once she felt as if her life was getting on the good tracks now. The happy feelings made her ever so motivated to do better job. Hence her cleaning up the hallways into the late night. She was not told to do it, in fact, she was warned not to overwork herself numerous times by Dora. But Cherry couldn’t help it. She felt so happy, she forgot hours as her hands kept on moving. She forgot the itching pain of her overworked fingers or the numbness of her knees.

She wasn’t paying attention in which part of the castle she was. It wasn’t as important as making each square of flooring squeaky clean. She moved on the next one. Forgetting everything but the rhythm of the scrubbing. Up until the door, by which she knelt, opened with a gusto, hitting her square in the nose.

“What the-“ a voice bellowed, confused and irritated at first. Then full of worry and guilt. “Oh, oh no. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.”

The man with icy eyes knelt before Cherry and her bloodied face. They were both equally surprised at seeing one another. 

“Let me have a look,” he took her face into his hands, studying the damage. “Let’s get you fixed.” 

He pulled her up by arms, and she went along at first, but then crouched back down in a very awkward curtsy, “My Lord,” she said nasally, “I’m so sorry for disturbing you.”

“Disturbing me?” the Lord questioned, “I hit you with the door. If anyone should be apologizing, it ought to be me.”

“It’s not Lord’s fault. It’s my fault for having my nose there when you opened the doors. I’m so sorry for inconveniencing you.”

For a moment the Lord gaped at the girl, pure disbelief on his usually stern face. She would have noticed, if only her eyes were not plastered to the half-scrubbed floor tile. A tug on her arm reminded her that he still held onto her arms, and she thought to protest once more.

“One way or another, we have to stop the bleeding,” he commanded and only after that did he feel her body gave way to his hands. 

Stopping the bloody waterfall from Cherry’s nose took almost full fifteen minutes. Fifteen painfully awkward and silent minutes.

“What were you doing there anyway?” he questioned as he tossed the bloodied napkins in the bin. “It’s well past midnight.”

Cherry took a quick look at windows, confirming there was no light to be seen. It was indeed deep into the night. She chewed her mouth for a moment before answering. “Cleaning the floors.”

“At this time?” the Lord’s eyebrows raised high, “Overworking like this will only hinder your work the next day. No more of that.” He looked at her timidly guilty face, and added for a good measure. “That’s an order. Do you understand.”

“Yes, My Lord. It won’t happen again.”

“It better not.”