When Melissa rose, Alice was jarred from her rest, and she blinked a few times before following suit. The girl turned away inexplicably, but the princess still looked at her quizzically, trying to meet her eye.

At the white-haired girl’s request, Alice smiled softly, albeit a bit sadly. That would be a hard request to address. However, the princess was determined to follow through with her many promises and vows to be fair and just and serve all who beseeched her.

“You...are not a burden.” Her eyes held something unspoken, something Alice herself couldn’t decipher within. She went on though.

“However, if you are sure you want to be a servant of Crescentia, I will not stop you. Tomorrow in the morning I’ll have the charges against you rescinded, and later we’ll do the oath.”

It was surely foolish of her to be doing so much for someone she hardly knew. Someone who could very well be conning her. But if it was so, she would bear the consequences of her foolishness, because the rewards she reaped were much greater, even in the short time she’d known Melissa. She’d become vastly more prone to sharing some feelings of hers, which had gone unspoken for several years. Perhaps it was because they hardly knew each other before that they could bond so quickly. Perhaps it was the low stakes at the start which encouraged them to keep on raising them. 

“As for your sleeping conditions...why don’t we sneak you upstairs, get you cleaned up, and you can take mine. I hardly sleep in it anyway.” Alice hardly hesitated to crouch down to Melissa’s ankle and unlock the shackle around it. When the restraint was undone, the princess extended her fair hand to guide the former captive through the complex corridors, and the smile that crossed her face was a rare genuine one, albeit slightly nervous and unsure.