Chapter Text
When the large and heavy doors opened, your jaw dropped because the first thing that captured your eyes was the painted ceiling that could rival the Sistine Chapel. Although, it was strange that you didn’t recognize the usual characters like Jesus or the Greek gods. It was so beautiful that it might’ve brought a tear to your eye had you not been in this stroke-inducing situation.
You tear your eyes from up above and look towards the back of the room. A throne, made entirely out of gold (something you wanted to bite to see if it was real) with rich, purple upholstery sat on a raised platform. Sitting on the throne, there was a man. Dressed in purple garments with white accents and a gold crown resting on his head. The jewels on his crown sparkled so brightly that you could bet, without a doubt, just one of those would feed a small town for a whole year. From the few words you've picked up since being here, you instantly recognize that man as the emperor.
There was no one else in the room besides the emperor, the two guards who opened the doors, and you.
Probably half a football field separated you from him so you couldn’t clearly define his features and you squint your eyes to get a better look. Before you could scrutinize any further, one of the guards pushes your head down. A hand on the small of your back gently directs for you to walk forward. As you walked, your eyes glance around from underneath your bowed head, trying to take everything in.
This was your first time in the throne room (or the main palace for that matter) and everything was decorated to the point where you could finally understand why the French decided to revolt. Intricate, gold gilded moldings, with beautiful patterns, decorated the white walls and on one side of the room, expensive paintings of royals dressed in extravagant attire, with jewels hanging around every single limb, hung menacingly. Their painted eyes seemed to follow as you walked, as if they were the judge deciding whether you lived or died. On the other side, floor-to-ceiling windows lined the entire wall allowing bright beams of sunlight to flood the room. The only thing you thought was “simple” about the room was the blood red carpet covering the entire expanse.
You walked for what feels like forever and then stop about ten feet away from the platform, not daring to get any closer to this man. You feel the hand on your back make you get on your knees and bend down.
With eyes glued to the carpet, inches from your face, you rack brain trying to figure out where to place this guy in history. You have a pretty good memory, but who the heck is this man?
Sure, you've read so many reincarnation manhwas where the fl is transported to a fantasy world and remembers everything, but when you’re faced with the situation in real life, your mind goes blank. For three weeks you've been here, and now is your last chance to remember and maybe he'll spare your life for whatever wrongdoing you've committed.
You're in the middle of the room, feeling alone and out of place, nowhere to escape with his gaze holding you still.
Finally he speaks.
“**** **** ** ***.”
The guard beside you bends down and raises your head. You instantly lock eyes with the emperor sitting on the throne.
This is the first time you've ever seen him since being in the palace and it makes your heart skip a beat. Sitting leisurely and somewhat slouched, he gives off almost an air of boredom. His legs are crossed while his arm was propped up on the armrest, tucked under his chin, tilting his head.
Platinum blond hair, elegantly styled, is pushed away from his forehead. His features were so perfect to the point you thought he could be a model for a high-end brand. He had a sharp nose (people would use it as an inspo pic for their nose job), perfect lips, clean shaven, and a chiseled jaw. Honestly, he was totally your type.
But the one thing about his physical appearance that stood out and somewhat put you on edge was his bright, purple eyes. You've never seen anything like it and you know it’s not a trick of the light. It’s like they could pierce directly into your soul and compel you to spill all your secrets. His eyes were mesmerizing and so beautiful that you just stared at him for a beat longer than acceptable.
While you were trying to figure out why you were summoned, he spoke to the guards and you could only pick up on a few words.
“** **** ** bring ***** *** *** me.”
Suddenly, you felt an arm on your shoulder and the guards brought you to the throne right in front of this gorgeous man. They pushed you down again so you were on your knees, but this time, they didn't make you bow.
As you stare up at his purple eyes, he reaches out and gently touches your temple. In an instant, there's a massive headache and you lurch over to clutch your head. You have no idea what's happening and you feel yourself losing consciousness. You open your eyes one last time and you see him bending over your body. The corner of his mouth tilts up and turns into a smirk as he gently picks you up and carries you bridal-style behind the throne through some hidden door. Where the door leads, you have no idea.
Before you pass out, he utters a sentence you somehow fully understand.
“It’s okay, Darling, everything will be fine. Now, you’re finally where you belong.”
______________________________________
~Three weeks ago~
You have zero clue how you got here. You didn’t die or fall asleep. You were just sitting on your couch doomscrolling when you got transported. The next thing you knew, you were falling from a clear blue sky. You must've blacked out because when your eyes opened, you were face down in plush, green grass that’s seemed to be meticulously manicured.
You look down to dust yourself off and for some reason, you weren't wearing the same clothes you had on like thirty seconds ago. Instead of my shorts and a t-shirt, I was wearing a black, knee-length dress with a neckline that goes all the way to the bottom of my throat. There’s also a white collar, dainty lace lining the edges, with matching cuffs and apron. You reached your hand up and feel that your hair is in a bun with this weird lace headpiece tied around your head.
‘This is sooo bizarre.’
You look up and see you were surrounded by this gorgeous garden with massive hedges, blocking the view outside. You knew you should've focused on finding an exit, but instead, you got sidetracked and your feet started walking without you thinking. Each section you saw held a different type of beautiful flower, there were dozens of butterflies and bumblebees flittering about, and all the trees had delicious looking fruit hanging from the branches.
As you made your way over to the looming hedges on the edge of the garden, towering over you was this indescribable palace rising in the distance. It was made entirely out of limestone and marble and the facade was whitewashed with gold accents, confidently showing off the wealth of the owner.
Distracted by the extravagance of this place, you didn't notice when a voice shout at you and your head jerked towards the noise.
“***** ** *** **** *** ***!”
A lady, about twenty years-old and dressed exactly like you, was frantically gesturing for you to come over quickly. You didn’t understand a word she was saying, but you went over anyway because you couldn't hide anywhere. When you got close enough, she grabbed your wrist and dragged you away from both the garden and palace. You walk a long way and all the while, she’s talking in a language you didn’t understand. You are left bewildered and don't make a sound, not because you didn't wanted to, but because she never stopped talking the entire time.
You finally make it to this modest-looking building and it's made with the same material as the palace, just without the gold and with two guards, who look like they should be stationed at Buckingham Palace, standing on either side of the door. As you both get closer, you start panicking and because it feels like she’s going to turn you to jail.
When you stop in front of the guards, she pulls a glowing, gold piece of paper out of her pocket and holds it out of the guard to inspect. After they found whatever they were looking for, they look at you expectantly, but you're too scared to move. Instead, she reaches into your pocket and pulls out the same paper and hands it to the guards.
After giving back both our papers, they let us in and she lead me down a bunch of confusing hallways until we came upon a dining room. The only things in this long, rectangular room is a long, oak table that has about thirty chairs around it, each filled with a person dressed like me or the male counterpart. After finally letting go of my wrist, she ushered me to sit down and takes the empty seat next to me.
It seems we are the last people to arrive because the second she sits down, everyone quiets down. The man at the end of the table stands up and claps his hands and instantly, people come out of a hidden doorway and start serving us lunch. There’s a full array of different meats and cheeses with fruits and bread. Pitches of juice and water are brought out as well and when last plate is set down, the people serving sit, then everyone starts digging in.
It’s so lively and everyone is talking or eating, but you have no idea what to do in this situation or if it’s okay for you take even a crumb off the table. While you're debating on what to do, someone grabs your plate from underneath you. You look and it’s the lady who brought you here. She’s filling up your plate and after she feels satisfied with the amount she put on it, she sets it in front of you as you stare incredulously. She speaks again, nothing you understood, smiles, and starts to eat her plate of food.
‘Why is she being so nice to me?’
In that moment, you decided to just go with the flow and observe so maybe could figure out what your role is in this world.
______________________________________
~About two hours before the present~
After being here for three weeks, you've understood a couple of things about this world, but there was still so much you didn't know.
The history fanatic in you wanted to place where you were somewhere in Europe, but nothing made sense since the supposed year was 2713. Also the fact you couldn't understand anything spoken except for numbers confused your mind to no end. You could understand gestures, pointing, and a few words, but other than that, there was no way for you to communicate.
The real shocker though, was there’s magic in this world.
Unfortunately, since you don’t know how else to describe it and don’t know this world’s terms for everything, you just decided to apply the plot-hole ridden world of Harry Potter to understand. It’s pretty similar except they don’t use wands and don’t chant weird words, it just happens somehow.
People light lamps with fire from the tips of their fingers and can make any alcohol they want appear. They create gusts of wind on the sidewalk to gather the fallen leaves or place spells on a sponge to clean the dishes. There’s so many other things that they can do too and it’s so amazing to see every single time. Every morning, people just flick their wrists and their clothes change from pajamas to their work clothes. They also can make themselves clean with the magic too. Although, this is about the extent of magic low-ranking people can do.
Those who can perform these menial spells are brought to the palace to work, some against their will, but most were enticed with money and after they came out of the head butler’s office, they were holding a glowing, gold piece of paper. The ones who came unwillingly were dragged to the servants quarters, kicking and screaming. After a couple hours, they would come out looking resigned or sobbing, holding the same glowing, gold piece of paper. You figured out everyone in the palace kept that paper on them and that it’s some type of identification papers or a contract.
The high-level “wizards” are the ones who can do the crazy stuff like pulling any inanimate object out of thin air. You've seen them fly, but they can also use portals to go anywhere they want (whatever tickles their pickle you guess). They also perform protection and regeneration magic around the palace. One day, you saw a wizard on his lunch break lying underneath a tree in the main garden. He flicked his fingers and the tree sprouted fruit instantaneously. He plucked a piece of fruit off of the tree and it slowly floated down into his hand.
'That was the coolest thing I’ve ever seen. I wish I could do that too.’
The only downside to being here is that you can’t do magic. Even if you had the abilities, you wouldn’t know how to communicate to others that you wanted to learn.
Another thing you learned was the lady’s name who you first met when you got here. Her name was Lyla. She was very sweet and caring and honestly, you didn’t know what you would've done without her. Every day, she makes you follow her around and mimic the work she does. Her job is housekeeping and maintaining the annex where all the servants stay so you follow her around and clean up each room. Slowly, you settle into a routine and eventually, you both clean together like clockwork. Apparently, you and Lyla share a dorm room and you found out she has the ability to use magic to change both our clothes so she does that for you every morning as well.
A weird thing you figured out is that everyone knows who you are and treats you like we've known each other a long time. You feel like something in everyone’s mind has been altered so they somehow know you and you know there’s more to it, but so far, that’s all you have to work on. All the workers know you can’t communicate and instead gesture or kindly guide you wherever they need. They always seem to help you out throughout the day as well or give you little knick knacks to keep.
During lunch and dinner, all the staff would eat together in the dining room and enjoy each other’s company. When everyone was done for the evening, everyone who didn’t have the night shift would gather in the common room to drink, talk, read, or do whatever they wanted. Since you didn’t understand them, you would just sit there and listen, but it was so peaceful and fun to watch everyone interact. You would even try to learn some of the language whenever they read aloud. Slowly, people would trickle out off to bed and they always said good night to each other. Then the next day would roll around and you would do it all over.
It was… nice.
They all were so nice.
If you could just learn the language… you wouldn’t mind if you stayed here forever.
Shaking yourself out of your thoughts, you get up from your seat and take your empty breakfast bowl to the kitchen and put it in the sink. As you come back to the dining room, you see Lyla waiting, smiling and ready to start the day.
'I could get used to this.'
You had a comfy place to sleep, good food to eat, an easy job to do, and people who treated you nicely. The employers were lenient and every single evening was pleasant. What more could you ask for?
You go to the cleaning closet, grab the supplies, and head towards the first dorm room to start on cleaning. By the time you were on the fifth room, two guards showed up in the doorway.
“*** *** bring ****** ****,” They said to Lyla.
She looked at you and gently pushed you towards them. They usher you out of the room and as you look back at Lyla, she waved and smiled. It puts you at ease a little bit because she seemed fine with it so you go willingly.
______________________________________
~Back to present~
You groan as you slowly start to open my eyes. Your body feels sluggish and heavy and your lips feel dry and parched. Moving your head side to side, you rub your face into the soft mattress.
‘Mattress?’
You immediately jolt awake. Sitting up, you look around and try to remember what happened. You are in a massive bed the size of a small apartment with white, silk sheets and feather pillows. On the ceiling looms a gigantic mirror the length of the entire bed and it must be a magic mirror because there’s sparkles swirling around in the glass. The room is decked out in expensive furniture with blue and white accents and there are multiple doors lining the wall, but on one side there is floor-to-ceiling windows with a door to a balcony overlooking the main garden.
This is the perfect room. Every single thing down to the candlesticks is to your preference and if you actually owned it, you would've just stayed here forever. But you didn't own it and you didn't know who it belonged to. All you knew was that you weren't going to wait to find out.
You shake your head because you can't distract yourself. You have no idea where you are, but you have to get out of here. You don't even try to open the balcony doors because there's no way you could jump down without injuring yourself. Scrambling off the bed, you run towards a random door and open it, only to find a luxurious bathroom with a spacious tub resembling the Roman baths. There's no time to admire so you slam the door shut and open the next door to find a full walk-in closet with men's clothes. The next room is an even bigger closet filled with everything you could possibly ever want from expensive fabrics and silks, shoes, handbags, and jewelry.
But you couldn’t care less right now. You need to leave. Running to the final door, you pulled as hard as you could hoping it’s an exit.
It’s locked. This has to be the entrance to the bedroom. It has to be.
You pulled again and even tried to push it, but nothing was working. When you yank on it one last time, someone from the other side opens the door. When the door opens, you tumble and fall flat on your butt. You look to the opened door and see polished, black and probably expensive, dress shoes. As your eyes slowly travel upwards, purple pants flood your vision, then a white belt with a golden buckle, a white, button-up shirt, and lastly the face of the beautiful man, the emperor, staring down at you.
“Are you hurt?” He says in a concerning tone, almost like he actually cared.
Questions tumbled out of your mouth at a rapid pace, “Huh? I’m fine. Wait. How do I understand you? What is going on? Where am I? Who are you?”
Instead of answering you, he bends down to grab you. Before he could, you spring to your feet and dash through the door and ran as fast as you could.
You didn’t look back to see if he was chasing you. You didn't care. All you were focused on was getting back to the annex and Lyla. There was no one in the halls as you were running and weaving your way through the palace, not even guards. You turned down a bunch of random hallways when finally, you turn a corner to see a grand staircase in front of you. At the bottom of the stairs, there were massive doors wide open and basically begging you to walk through them.
Breathing a sigh of relief thinking you've escaped, you start going down the stairs quickly. Just as you're about to reach the doors, they slam shut with a thud. Banging your fists so hard you get some splinters in the palms, of your hands, you slide down to your knees and rest your head against the doors, panting from exhaustion.
“Darling, why did you do that? Hmm?” You hear a voice call out.
You turned your body away from the door to look and it’s that handsome man again at the top of the staircase. You're so tired of running and you have no idea how he found you or why he looks so casual, but you can’t stay here. You slowly stood up as he leisurely walks down the steps. When his foot touches the last step, you make a run for it again, but somehow anticipating you were going to try to escape again, he flicks his wrist. Your body instantly freezes.
You can’t move. He walks up to you and deftly touches the back of your neck. You feel every single muscle in you involuntarily relax and your body slump into his waiting arms. He carries you bridal-style again and heads back towards the room you woke up in. As he makes the long trek back, he must have something to do with the state your body is in because he asks you questions, cocky questions.
“Did you have fun? Running away like that? From me? I bet you’re tired, Darling. When we get back to our bedroom, how about we rest? Wouldn’t that be nice? Actually, I think we might need to set some ground rules. It seems you don't know your place yet. How about that instead?” He asked brightly.
'He knows I can't answer him so why is he asking so many?'
Finally, you made it back to that bedroom and he magically opens the door with his pointer finger. He walks in and gently sets you on the plush bed. He conjures magic to make your body float to the middle of the bed and when you feel the mattress come in contact with your skin, he flicked his wrist again. Before you could react, you could feel soft fabric slither around your wrists and ankles, spreading your limbs apart. You start to tremble out of fear since you can't even crane your neck to see what's going on.
“Perfect. All done.” He whispered.
He finally takes off whatever spell he put on your body and when you try to sit up, you can’t. Glancing to your side, you see soft, red silk tied around both wrists. You look down and your ankles are also tied. Each silk string is tied to the edges of the bed and you realize you're in a spread-eagle position and very vulnerable.
You start to thrash around trying to undo the bindings and he just silently watches as you helplessly try to escape. Once you've exhausted yourself and stop moving, he climbed onto the bed and sat beside you. There seems to be only one last tactic and you look up at his purple eyes.
You pleaded, “Please, I don’t know what’s happening or what you want, but I’m not supposed to be here.”
His body moved on top of you so his arms and legs were on either side and caged you in. He leaned his head down, put his nose into your soft hair, and slowly inhaled. Your head flinched as he groans into your ticklish ear. He lifted his head up and stares at your face for a few seconds.
A smile blossomed on his face as he said, “Didn’t I already tell you, Darling? You’re right where you belong.”