All the matters are solved now,
Cinderella's ball- check
Cinderella's shoe retrieval- check,
Cinderella meeting prince- check,
Us being villains- unfortunately check too.
They are promoted from servant's wing to guest's wing with their own room each. Lady Beatrice is working as the assistant. Very dedicated and tiring too.
By midday, the front door burst open with the momentum of a siege.
Lady Beatrice swept inside, collapsed into the nearest chair, and declared with righteous exhaustion:
"I have survived half a day of bureaucratic warfare."
Anastasia froze mid-ribbon sorting. Drizella froze mid-scone. Both stared like she had just returned from the trenches.
"What happened?" Anastasia asked.
Lady Beatrice pressed a hand to her heart. "The Grand Stewardess delegated."
Drizella gasped. "Delegated what? Paperwork? Political intrigue? Wheat?"
"All of it," Beatrice whispered dramatically. "And then she smiled as if she were merely passing the salt at dinner."
"What did you do?" Anastasia leaned in.
"I delegated back." Beatrice paused. "With efficiency. And superior penmanship."
Drizella clasped her hands. "Mother, you are becoming formidable within the system."
"As opposed to formidable outside of it," Anastasia added.
Beatrice sat straighter. "The Assistant to the Grand Stewardess is expected to manage inventories, correspondence, and nobles who refuse to answer direct questions. I had no idea so much of politics was evasion and stationery."
Drizella perked up. "Did they serve snacks?"
"Biscuits," Beatrice replied darkly. "Stale ones. And no scone butter. I nearly petitioned for reform."
Anastasia nodded solemnly. "Butter is a human right."
"Precisely."
Just as Beatrice reached for her tea-finally settling into the comfort of being alive-the knock came.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Three knocks. Precise. Military. Unfriendly to biscuits.
Drizella peered over the bannister. "If it's for mother, tell him Mother already died once today."
"It was only half a day of work," Beatrice corrected. "Do not dramatize."
Anastasia opened the door-and blinked.
"Rowan?"
Rowan stood impeccably straight, hands behind his back, as if the entire corridor were a battlefield. He nodded once.
"You're here."
"Yes."
"For...?"
"I was... passing by."
Anastasia stared. "But we live at the end of a dead road."
"Correct."
"Which requires deliberate travel."
"I am deliberate."
Anastasia sighed. "Drizella! It's for you!"
Drizella appeared with crumbs and confusion. "For me? Why?"
Rowan produced a folded handkerchief like it was evidence in a trial. "You dropped this at the Hall yesterday."
Drizella lit up. "My handkerchief! I cried into it during the steward's speech about wheat prices."
Lady Beatrice murmured, "A stirring speech."
Rowan cleared his throat. "I thought perhaps... it mattered."
"Oh, very much," Drizella nodded. "I am deeply moved by agricultural policy."
A pause. A long, excellent pause.
Then Rowan squared his shoulders. "I wondered if you might join me for a walk."
Three feminine gasps followed-each for different reasons.
Drizella whispered, scandalized, "Voluntarily?"
"Yes."
Anastasia whispered to her mother, "Is this flirting or a secret interrogation?"
Lady Beatrice whispered back, "If it is interrogation, we shall discover political secrets. If it is flirting, we shall discover grandchildren."
Drizella vanished to remove crumbs and likely nothing else, then returned energized.
They walked through the orchard path.

"You dance well for a man who looks like he could headbutt a cannonball," Drizella said brightly.
Rowan nodded. "Thank you."
"And you asked me without hesitating. Most men pretend they have pressing business elsewhere."
"They were fools," Rowan replied simply. "You were the most interesting person in the ballroom."
Drizella went pink. "Interesting can mean many things."
"In this case, favorable."
They walked on, awkward and sweet and slightly idiotic in the charming way.
Back in the room, Anastasia and Lady Beatrice watched discreetly from a window.
"Finally," Anastasia sighed, "progress without bribery."
"Or treason," Beatrice added. "I'm pleased."
* * *
The palace corridors always felt too grand for normal human emotion-high ceilings, polished floors, portraits judging from every angle. Yet that afternoon, they felt unexpectedly alive.
Prince Adrien, dressed in his guard uniform and moving with the ease of someone who'd trained in it far more than etiquette allowed, rounded a corner
-and nearly collided with Anastasia.
She stopped short, blinking. Then her eyes brightened. "Oh! It's you."
Not the guard she danced with nor the man who saw her sulking in the garden, just: you. As if the universe had arranged a familiar face.
Adrien bowed, because habit outranked disguise for a moment. "My lady."
She waved the title away like it was smoke. "We're not punished anymore!"
He blinked. "No more linen duty?"
"None." Her smile was entirely too victorious for a minor bureaucratic miracle. "Mother's employed. Drizella's... outside, on a walk. With a man."
He raised a brow. "The commander?"
"Do not say it out loud or she'll combust."
Adrien actually laughed-quiet, genuine, the kind that escaped his chest before he remembered to be princely or guard-like.
"And you?" he asked.
Anastasia startled, as if she hadn't expected to be included in her own update. "Me? Oh, I'm doing nothing particularly heroic today. Just basking in post-not-being-a-villain relief." She paused.
"It turns out redemption feels less like fireworks and more like being allowed to sit comfortably in one's own house."
He softened. "I'm glad."
"And Mother's mood has improved dramatically. She only scolded me once today, and it was for talking with my mouth full. Which is frankly reasonable."
Adrien nodded as though this were deeply important political intelligence.
Anastasia leaned in conspiratorially. "I also think Cinderella's happy. I mean, not just ball-gown-happy. She looked like she can breathe again. That's good, isn't it?"
"It is," Adrien said quietly-too quietly for a guard who shouldn't know why that mattered.

She stepped to the balcony, sunlight catching the ribbon in her hair. "I worried... genuinely that we'd ruined everything. That we'd be stuck as villains forever. It's a terrible role, by the way-flat, tedious, one-dimensional."
Adrien watched her as she spoke; not her words exactly, but the fire behind them, the strange mixture of boldness and sincerity that had become unmistakably her.
"I don't think you're villains," he said.
She turned, startled by the certainty in his tone.
"Even if the story said so?" Anastasia teased lightly, though something in her eyes asked for truth.
"Stories get things wrong," he replied. "Especially people."
That earned him a grin-bright, slightly crooked, slightly smug. "Well. I appreciate a guard with opinions."
Her laughter filled the corridor-warm, familiar, and entirely un-royal in the best possible way. It echoed against the walls, pushing out centuries of stiffness and silence.
Adrien found himself smiling simply because she existed.
She didn't notice. She was too busy chattering about how Drizella's fashion sense was evolving and how Mother was practicing "bureaucratic dominance" and how servants' biscuits should really come with jam if the monarchy cared about morale.
Adrien listened-happily, quietly-feeling a curious peace settle in him.
He'd made the right decision. Not because Cinderella asked, not because a prince should be merciful, but because watching Anastasia glow with relief made the world feel more correct.
When she finally paused to breathe, she tilted her head. "You're very good at listening."
Adrien bowed-subtle, amused. "I find the company agreeable."
Her smile softened-not grand, not dramatic, just... warm. "Thank you," she whispered, as if gratitude for being heard was rare.
They parted at the next turn-no promises, no confessions, no dramatic score-just two people walking away with hearts a little lighter and no idea why.
* * *
The Queen sat by the window of her private study, closed the last document on her desk and rubbed the bridge of her nose. Outside, the gardens swayed in the breeze, roses nodding as though conspiring with one another. The Queen narrowed her eyes at them.
"Easy for you to bloom on time," she muttered softly, "I have a son who refuses to."
It was, in her opinion, quite a serious matter.
Adrien was at a perfectly respectable age for marriage-old enough to hold a conversation that did not circle back to fencing or horses, and young enough to still appear charming in portraits. Court mothers had begun circling like polite but determined hawks, their daughters fluttering nearby with rehearsed smiles and suspiciously perfect posture.
And yet her son remained disburbingly unbothered, drifting about the palace with absolutely no urgency on the subject.
"My father had settled matches by this age," she reminded herself, resuming a lazy stitch. "And my cousins, and half the dukes in court-"
She paused, sighing. "One mustn't rush a boy into matrimony, of course. But one also cannot wait until he's grown a beard down to his boots."
The roses outside trembled again-almost laughing.
The Queen sniffed. "Well. Someone in this family must take initiative."
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SIDE NOTE: Finally the romance part, it will be a smooth sail from here💗🥰
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