A/Ns: Greetings! So. There's an explanation for this fic. First of all, it was a request from the lovely Empress of Everything, and it was just one of those weird prompts that I just knew I had to actually write... even if it did take me five months just to get 4500 words (which is really only half done, by the way).

Anyway, since it was getting long, I decided this would be one that I split up into shorter parts. So this will be a three-shot story, maybe four. We'll see. I do have a little bit more than what's posted here written, and since this is one of my priorities, I'm hoping to get this one completed in the next month or so, so I can cross it off my list. This is one of two LaxLu/LaLu requests I need to finish (the other is just a drabble so I won't be posting it here. Only on tumblr).

I didn't want to wait until I'd completed it all to post it though, so for now, I hope you enjoy the beginning of it! Disclaimer though: I'm trying to make the setting somewhat "realistic" but most of it is vague because this wasn't a fic I wanted to do a ton of research for (sometimes I just need a break from story research, y'know?). Things in this story will not be realistic for the time period it's set in. Things in this story will not be realistic for the setting as a whole. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Alas, that's all from me. Please remember to leave a review if you enjoyed! (P.S., I won't be sharing the prompt this story was based on until it's finished. Sorry!)

The royal castle was daunting, and even having lived in Acalypha all his life, just beyond the castle's grounds and in the bustling town, Laxus still thought the palace was monstrously large. Except for the last twenty-three years, Laxus had only had the pleasure of seeing it from beyond the castle's walls – the massive stone fortifications that surrounded the castle and the Queen's Garden. The castle itself had always been open to the civilians, for the king saw the townspeople on a regular basis, but never once had Laxus even gone in. He'd had no reason to.

Now though, as Laxus stood right in front of the wooden doors, right at the top of the stone steps of the castle, he had a reason to enter the castle. And he'd be a filthy liar if he said that he wasn't just a little intimidated by the Heartfilia Palace.

"Oi, you gonna just stand there all day or something?"

Laxus unfortunately felt his cheeks flush as one of the knights standing on the steps right outside the large doors drew his attention, but his face was quickly turning to a scowl. "Mind your own damn business," Laxus muttered, only to have both armour-clad men before him quickly step into position and cross their halberds in front of Laxus's chest.

"I'd watch it if I were you," the other knight warned him.

Laxus continued to glower at the two knights. He didn't like being warned or threatened – especially when there was no substance to it. "Or what?" he chided. If he'd been intimated before, it was quickly fading to nothing as he stepped forward again until the flat side of the halberd was against him, just barely digging into him. He wasn't scared of them. Not even close. "You going to lock me up in the stocks? Throw me in the dun—"

"Laxus!"

He was too busy challenging the knights to have heard the woman rushing across the courtyard, and he only noticed her presence when she was coming up behind him and screeching his name.

Laxus had recognised the voice as soon as he'd heard the shrill sound, so he wasn't surprised to turn to find the butterscotch-brown brunette with the simple, oval glasses glaring at him as she rushed to his side. And at her, he found himself stiffening in fear. The guards didn't scare him, not one but. But Evergreen?

She had her moments.

"What the bloody hell are you doing, Laxus?!" Evergreen hissed at the man next to her, only tightening her fingers as best she could around his bicep to begin tugging him away from the guards. She ignored said guards' snickering at the far too obvious shift in the man (how novel that he was scared of a woman half his size, of all things) before actually turning her attention to them to apologise on behalf of the idiot. "Please forgive him, guards. My friend here tends to get a little lost sometimes—"

"I do not!" Laxus hissed back, only to have Evergreen reach up with her free hand to slap the back of his head.

"He didn't mean anything he said, I promise," she continued, smiling hopefully and politely to the guards with the very pointy weapons. The last thing she wanted was Laxus to get his head chopped off. Well, most of the time, at least. Sometimes he probably deserved it but that's not the point. The point was that Laxus had somewhere else to be right then, as did she. "Now, please, if you'll just let me get him out of your, er… hair. I promise he will not bother you again."

The guards looked to each other apprehensively before one shrugged and they both lowered their halberds to their former positions by their sides. It was still early in the day so they were still in good moods. Laxus wasn't going to be the biggest idiot they deal with that day, that was for sure. They could let his attitude slide just that one time. "Alright, he can go," the first guard mumbled with an obvious exhale.

"But if he comes this way again," the other guard continued, "Then we won't be so nice. Now get outta here."

"Of course, thank you." Evergreen bowed her head politely before grabbing Laxus's ear and pulling the howling man away from the main entrance and back to the large courtyard.

Laxus unwillingly let himself be dragged across the quiet castle courtyard by the ear, figuratively kicking and literally screaming the entire time. "Damn it! Ever, let me the fuck go!"

She did, eventually, but only once he'd been led down a small set of stairs tucked behind an old produce cart and a pile of wooden and metal shields needing repairing. The stairs only led to a small wooden door, and the worn stones beneath his feed had Laxus guessing that it was where all of the castle's servants and staff entered – they certainly couldn't go through the main gates. Oh no.

Evergreen confirmed his very suspicion with a cold glare and a huff of annoyance as she laid her hands on her hips. "Didn't I tell you not to try and use the main entrance?"

"I don't know…" he mumbled.

"And what do you do?" she continued judgingly. "Try and use the main bloody entrance. God, you're lucky you didn't get put in the stocks for that stunt."

Laxus rolled his eyes. You'd think he would be used to the woman's lectures at that point in his life, but he really wasn't. They still proved to bore the hell out of him. "They wouldn't have done shit. They're all talk and no action," he insisted. He still wasn't scared of them. Hell no. Them deciding to let him go just made him more certain of how much they were lacking in the downstairs department.

It was clear to Evergreen that the man really did have no idea what he was saying, and as much as she wanted to get the truth into that thick skull of his, she just didn't have the time to. Not right then. She had things to do. "Ugh, whatever." She could only sigh before turning to the old wooden door and unlocking it with a large brass key. With Laxus soon following her down the cold stone hallway, Evergreen said, "This is the door you need to use whenever you enter or leave the castle, got it? By under no circumstances are you to enter through the doors at the front. I mean it. You don't even need to be anywhere near that part of the castle, to be perfectly honest."

Laxus nodded and sighed as he continued to follow the woman at her brisk pace. He'd almost forgotten that he was actually there to work - not that he was sure how he'd forgotten it - but with Evergreen beginning to lecture him about what to do and what not to do, it was sure as hell the only thing on his mind.

How Laxus had managed to find himself an employee of the royal family, he still didn't quite understand. It really hadn't been something he'd expected to have happen, but the opportunity had arisen and... Well, Laxus had needed something to do with his time, and looking after the royal family's pets seemed like a pretty easy job. He got given a roof over his head, food, and even gold. He really hadn't been able to say no to it - especially not when it had been Evergreen who had told him about it in the first place. She'd have just gone on and on about how she wastes her time doing nice things for him.

So as he followed her, going from one tiny room to the next as she picked up fresh linens and hand towels, she told him all about his responsibilities as the 'royal pet caretaker'. As far as Laxus saw, all he had to do was keep the stupid animals alive - whatever those animals may actually be. He figured his job was just going to be feeding a couple of dogs and walking them around the grounds to keep them occupied or something. Any horses the family had would be cared for by the stablehands.

Evergreen babbled on all the way through the castle, and after what felt like an eternity of listening to the woman fill him in on the workings of the Heartfilia castle, they seemed to finally reach their destination: somewhere on some floor. Honestly, every hallway looked the damn same - stone walls, boring art on the walls, ridiculously large rugs everywhere... He remembered passing another courtyard in the very centre of the castle, but that was about it. He'd mostly just been following like a sheep. It was hard not to zone out when Evergreen spoke at a million miles an hour sometimes.

"Now, the princess already knows that someone has been hired, so just say your name. Nothing else. You're not here to socialise with her, okay?"

Laxus blinked with his return back to reality. The princess? No one said anything about any princesses... Part of the reason he'd agreed to take the job was because it wasn't supposed to involve people! And Laxus... Laxus wasn't exactly good with people. Or more accurately, he wasn't good at talking to them.

But now, he was supposedly meeting the goddamn princess? He hadn't signed up for that shit. "W-Wait, Ever, what the—" Laxus unfortunately didn't get a chance to ask just what the fuck had been going through his friend's head for her to not mention anything to him about actually being in the presence of other people, before the woman in question was opening up a set large double doors at the end of the stone corridor and revealing a lavishly decorated bedroom.

As he followed Evergreen in through the doors, Laxus couldn't help but me amazed at how much furniture was actually in the room. He'd expected there to be some differences from where he slept, simply because he wasn't even close to being wealthy. But as he took in the plush four-post canopy bed, the armoire and chests with the intricate patterns carved onto the doors and drawers, and all of the tasselled cushions on the chairs and the fine rug and the art and even the overgrown fern and flowers next to the large, open window… Laxus was truly seeing how differently they lived. They lived… beautifully, if anything. And comfortably. And even though Laxus had never really cared that much about materialistic things, his damp room above the old pub in one of the poorer parts of the town was quickly beginning to look like crap.

He was suddenly thinking of taking up that free bed down in the servants' quarters. It was rightfully his anyway, assuming he kept the job…

Evergreen's annoyed huff brought him out of his slight trance and he looked up to her with an eyebrow raised. "Hmph. Looks like she's already up." She wasn't even that surprised that the princess was up and about, to be honest. It was like that most mornings.

Laxus could only be relieved at that, even if Evergreen was seemingly frustrated about it, judging by the crease in her brow. "Good," he muttered. "Now I don't gotta see her… Not that I'm sure why I needed to in the first place…"

"Because, Laxus," Evergreen replied in a rush as she quickly ripped the silk from the bed. "Just… Just because." Admittedly, there were some things she'd failed to mention to Laxus about the job, simply because she knew how picky he was and she knew full well that he wouldn't have even agreed to taking it if he'd known exactly what his duties included. Evergreen didn't have any intentions of explaining the full details of his new job right then, either.

He rolled his eyes and groaned loudly. Laxus hated it when the woman was vague; it usually meant she was up to something. For some reason though, Laxus didn't think much of that right then, and instead just flopped himself down onto the nearest chair so hard that it nearly toppled backwards. Evergreen only scolded him and warned him to be careful, and then was quickly adding the fresh linen to the bed.

Eventually, after Laxus had asked if they were done there exactly seven times, they were finally leaving the princess's chambers and Laxus surprisingly found himself struggling to keep up with his friend as they rushed down the corridor once again.

"Now where are we going?" he groaned. He hoped the answer was outside, but knowing Evergreen, Laxus doubted it.

"Will you stop asking so many questions? Sheesh… You'll use up your yearly question quota if you don't be quiet," she mumbled. It was weird for Laxus to be talking so much as it was. He wasn't a very talkative person by nature, yet that morning he didn't seem to want to shut up. After convincing one of the other servants to take all of the princess's soiled linens down to the help's quarters, Evergreen took Laxus all the way down to the ground floor of the castle once again, across the inner courtyard, and through to the East wing of the sprawling palace. As they were nearing the one room of the castle that Evergreen knew to always look for the royal heir, she turned back to Laxus behind her and said, "Now, I mean what a said earlier. Just introduce yourself, and if she talks to you – which, she will – try not to be your usual grumpy self and roll your eyes, alright?"

He rolled his eyes at that and got a slap on his arm from the woman. "Alright, alright," he muttered. Although, Laxus did have to admit he wasn't quite sure what to make of what Evergreen had said. He wasn't grumpy… At least not all the time. It wasn't his fault people were morons and he didn't have the patience to deal with them.

They stopped at an inconspicuous door in the cold, stone corridor; the only colour in that part of the hall were the bright red tapestries hanging over the tall windows, and the masterfully woven rug beneath his feet. Evergreen knocked twice on the large doors and was then pushing them open in the middle by the polished brass handles.

For a second, Laxus thought he'd somehow been transported to a tropical rainforest in whole other country. Of course, that being impossible, he quickly realised that he was in the castle's large and ridiculously humid conservatory. Full and luscious gardens lined either side of stone path leading towards the centre of the room, and as far as Laxus could tell, there wasn't a single space in the room that had been left free from any kind of tropical looking fern or tree, other than the paved spaces, of course – though even on that, there were gem-encrusted pots with other bushes planted in them.

"Come now," Evergreen said, and Laxus followed the woman without complaint.

The limestone path curved around a large rain tree with branches that extended all the way up to the ceiling and created a canopy over the path, and below it were all kinds of ferns and shrubs that grew in abundance; only the odd flowering plant broke up all of the green. The tall arched windows that lined each of the seemingly sky-high walls let in more than enough light to make up for the comparatively cold interior of the rest of the castle. Out of the corner of his eye, Laxus saw a bush rustle and he stopped dead in his tracks. "Uh… There aren't any wild animals in here, are there?" he asked cautiously.

Wild? No, not at all… "No, now hurry up." She beckoned him towards her and scurried along the path again. Just because it was Laxus's first day and he'd probably not do much, it doesn't mean everyone else got to take the same liberties. She had other things to do.

So Laxus followed her once again, only to stop dead in his tracks when they reached the open space in the very centre of the room and he saw a blonde sitting cross-legged in her bedclothes and surrounded by more cats that Laxus had ever seen at any one time. One was climbing up to lay across her shoulders, another was stretched out on her lap and enjoying the attention, others were just laying in the sun from the many windows, and another was even climbing the cherry blossom tree planted just behind her – though how and why they'd managed to get that to grow indoors, Laxus wasn't too sure. He did have to admit it was kind of pretty, though… Well, for a tree at least.

The blonde looked up just as a tiny calico kitten emerged from under the skirt of her nightgown and began to pad around curiously. "Oh, good morning, Evergreen!" the woman said once she spotted the two.

Evergreen curtsied while Laxus just stood there in shock. "Good morning, Your Grace," Evergreen replied. "You're up early this morning, if you don't mind me saying. I expected to find you in your chambers being so early."

"Yes, well…" The blonde picked up the calico kitten before it got too far away and snuggled it with a slight giggle. "My little prince here decided it was play time and started pouncing on me, so I decided to just come out here to play with them all this morning since they like the trees and the sun." She turned her attention to the man staring wide-eyed at her then, and couldn't help but try and hug her kitten a little tighter. She liked to think she knew everyone that worked in the castle – much to her father's disappointment – but him... She didn't recognise the man with the lightning shaped scar over his eye, though he was a little intriguing; she wondered how he even got such a scar. "And who's this? I haven't seen him before, have I?" she asked softly.

"Oh. No, Your Grace. You haven't," Evergreen replied. She had half the mind to slap Laxus over the back of the head then for just staring with that goddamn grimace on his face, but not in front of the princess. Oh no. Clearing her throat and just hoping for the best, she introduced her friend: "This is Laxus, Your Grace. He's the new, uh… caretaker."

"The caretaker?"

"For your cats."

"Oh… I see…" she mumbled.

Evergreen cleared her throat when the princess looked down disappointedly. "And, uh…" she began quietly, looking between her and Laxus beside her. It was hard not to notice the eye twitch of her friend – clearly realisation had struck him already and it was obvious that he wasn't exactly pleased to find out what it was he'd been brought into… "Laxus, this is Princess Heartfilia, Heir to the next throne of Fiore."

The princess pouted and let out a little huff of annoyance. "Princess Heartfilia," she muttered mockingly. "You know I hate it when you call me that."

"R-Right, yes. I apologise," Evergreen stuttered. She knew all too well how the princess hated being referred to by her title, but alas, Evergreen wasn't exactly employed by the princess herself. No, she was employed by the royal family, and at the head of that royal family was King Jude. And boy, was he a force to be reckoned with when he wanted to be. Thankfully, King Jude didn't deal with the castle staff himself. That was the Mest's job, and he was far more reasonable than the king… Still, despite what the princess preferred to be called, Evergreen still liked to do her job correctly, and most of the time, that just mean referring to the princess as she should properly be referred to.

Well, at least when there were others around them. Like Laxus, for example.

Clearing her throat, Evergreen corrected herself while gesturing between the princess and her friend beside her again. "Laxus, meet Lucy, otherwise known as Princess Heartfilia," she said, getting at least a quick smile from the woman in question.

"I, uh…" Laxus still wasn't sure what he was supposed to be doing, and for an awkward moment, Lucy only stared at him as a smirk grew on her lips as he just stared back. But then Evergreen took it upon herself to help him, and following her orders, Laxus quickly knelt down on one knee and bowed his head respectfully where he still stood on the path. "It is the greatest honour to be in your presence, Your Grace," he tried not to mumble, and at the words that had just come out of his mouth, he couldn't help but grimace.

Lucy, on the other hand, only giggled. It was clear as day to her than her new animal caretaker wasn't comfortable. "You can rise, it's okay." The look of relief on the man's face had Lucy snickering again, but her amusement was quickly dying once she remembered that he was really just there to take care of her pets for her, and then Lucy really had no idea what she was supposed to say to Laxus. Instead, she just wrangled the kitten that escaped and brought it back to her chest.

Thankfully, Evergreen was there to clear her throat and ease the awkwardness, even if it was only for a moment. "If… If you'd like, I can give him a tour of the grounds, instead of him getting straight into work," she said. She doubted King Jude wouldn't approve of that, but… Well, it would be for the best anyway. Laxus would be useless as a caretaker if he was getting lost within his first five minutes on the job. "Then I can bring him to you later in the day, if that suits you, Your Grace."

Lucy nodded. "That would be best, Miss Ever," she agreed.

"I'll see to it that Laxus receives a tour of the grounds and meets the other staff then." She bowed briefly and began to turn on her heel before she stopped and asked, "Would you like your breakfast served in your room or in the banquet hall this morning?"

"Oh, in the hall, please. Mother says I need to come out more…"

"As you wish." And finally, Evergreen bowed quickly again to leave. Laxus didn't need to be told to follow his friend, but as he did, he couldn't help but glance back over his shoulder to the princess surrounded by the felines in the centre of the small paved area.

There was something most definitely off about the girl… Laxus just couldn't tell what it was.