Chapter 469: A Name The half-elf maid from earlier stood outside the door meant for cleaning materials, a heavy bucket weighing down her arms. She wiped the sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand, her muscles were aching from the long day of endless chores. "I’m excruciatingly tired... I need some sleep," she muttered to herself. "Tell me about it." A monotone voice came from directly beside her and the maid’s heart nearly stopped. She turned sharply to see the Elf King standing next to her, as imposing as ever, though currently without its royal cape. Instead, it wore a long buttoned shirt that looked oddly casual for someone of its station. But something was different. The maid had to blink several times to process what she was seeing. She had always needed to look up significantly to see the Elf King’s face, craning her neck at an uncomfortable angle. But now it was about her size. In fact, slightly shorter than her. "My King..." The maid immediately backed away and dropped to her knees, pressing her forehead to the ground in an exaggerated display of respect. Her heart hammered in her chest. "If I may ask... what is your royal self doing at a place like this, which is meant for the common maids?" The Elf King looked down at her with those mesmerizing tri-tone eyes, its expression as unreadable as always. "I came here... to get mops, cleaning agents, and whatnot for cooking," it said simply. "Please guide me to these items." The maid’s mind went completely blank. The Elf King wanted... cleaning supplies? This made absolutely no sense whatsoever. What the maid didn’t know was that Azel had been nagging the Elf King relentlessly for the past twenty minutes, and somehow he had managed to send it downstairs... despite it being the literal King of its own castle to fetch cleaning agents like it was a common servant. However, the Elf King didn’t feel offended at all by this treatment. Dare it say... the Elf King felt excited even. This strange, fluttering sensation in its chest was completely foreign, yet oddly pleasant. "Cleaning agents? My King, I can clean anything for you personally," the maid insisted desperately, still prostrated on the ground. "You don’t need to sully your hands with our mediocre—" "No, he would nag me to death." the Elf King muttered, almost to itself then it turned its attention fully to the storage room door. "Open it up and give me what I requested, Elaine." The maid... Elaine stood up immediately, her eyes wide with shock. The Elf King knew her name? She had worked in this castle for nearly fifteen years, and the King had never once acknowledged her existence beyond the occasional distant glance. But she didn’t dare question it. "Alright, my King!" Elaine saluted with perhaps too much enthusiasm. "I will give you everything you requested for!" She fumbled with her keys, nearly dropping them twice before finally unlocking the storage room. ... Azel was currently packing the last bits of dirt and debris into a large bag that he would dispose of later. Magic could accomplish many things, but apparently thorough sanitation wasn’t one of them. ’I’m sure the Elf King could have used magic to clean everything up instantly,’ Azel thought while tying off the garbage bag. However, that wasn’t the point of this exercise. The goal wasn’t efficiency. It was to make sure that the Elf King not only felt emotions but understood them on a fundamental level... the satisfaction of manual labor, the frustration of tedious tasks, the simple pleasure of seeing something dirty become clean through your own efforts. From what Azel could guess, the Elf King probably hadn’t given much effort into feeling emotions or cultivating them properly. And why would it? It was ancient, powerful, and had lived for centuries in a state of perfect emotional neutrality. But that kind of existence was hollow and empty. ’Besides, I think this will be a learning experience for me too,’ Azel thought, his expression darkening slightly. He had accepted Sylvia’s proposition to be her lover because she was a heroine from the game, and he had genuinely loved her character’s storyline... the adopted daughter fighting against prejudice to prove her worth. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎 He hadn’t even considered the possibility that she might have been manipulating him from the very beginning. ’If she had just asked me to fake being lovers and help her out honestly, I would have agreed anyway.’ Azel thought with bitter amusement. He didn’t need the elaborate act. Before he could delve deeper into those uncomfortable thoughts, the main door to the Elf King’s chambers burst open. Azel looked up from the bathroom doorway. The Elf King stumbled inside, struggling with two heavy buckets completely full of various cleaning agents, while simultaneously trying to balance two wooden mops precariously beneath its shoulders. Its face... normally so perfectly composed was scrunched up in obvious annoyance. The Elf King puffed out its cheeks in a gesture that was almost childishly petulant, then brought everything to rest in front of the now-swept bathroom. It would have used magic to carry them effortlessly, levitating the supplies behind it like any competent mage. But alas, Azel had explicitly told it not to use magic for this task. "When I told you to make me fall in love with you..." the Elf King said, setting down the buckets with more force than necessary, "I didn’t mean by turning me into your personal maid." Another emotion flickered across its face. Frustration. It had been quite a while since the Elf King had felt genuine frustration. The last time was probably when it had tried desperately to convince Yarog... its childhood friend not to run away with that human woman. Alas, its pleas to Yarog had fallen on completely deaf ears. The fool had chosen love over duty, and look where that had gotten him. However, this frustration was different somehow. It was the funny kind, if there was even such a thing. It made the Elf King want to laugh, which was perhaps the strangest sensation of all. "Less complaining and more getting to work," Azel said while pulling the cleaning agents out of the bucket. He turned on the bathroom tap, expecting water to flow. Nothing happened. The pipes groaned but produced only air. "Hey, fix this with your magic..." Azel said, frowning at the tap. "I thought you said I shouldn’t use magic." the Elf King spoke with a surprisingly haughty tone that shocked even itself. Where had that come from? Azel turned to look at it, his crimson eyes gleaming with amusement. "Yes, but since your hands are so small now..." He held up his own hands meaningfully. "Shall I use them to manually unclog the tap instead? It might take a while, and the pipes are probably filthy inside—" The Elf King quickly flicked its finger. Water rushed out of the tap immediately, clear and clean. "Good..." Azel grinned. "Let’s get to cleaning." ... About an hour later, the Elf King sat in the large tub of the bath, leaning forward as its impossibly long hair was being carefully scrubbed by Azel. The silver-green strands stretched nearly to the water’s surface, and Azel worked methodically through each section with surprising gentleness. "Apart from your stinky armpits..." Azel said conversationally, "you really don’t have any other dirty parts of your body." The Elf King’s face flushed slightly... another new sensation. Without clothes, its body looked exactly as Azel had expected. It possessed neither male nor female organs, the area beneath completely smooth and featureless like an elaborate doll. There was no awkwardness in bathing it so it was nothing inappropriate. "Stop emphasizing the armpits," the Elf King muttered, sinking slightly lower into the warm water. "I now know that they were dirty and will clean them regularly from this point forward." Azel smiled genuinely, working shampoo through the Elf King’s hair with efficiency. "Sure, sure..." He rinsed a section carefully, making sure no soap got in its eyes. "Would you like your hair to be styled?" Azel asked after a moment of comfortable silence. The Elf King blinked, turning its head slightly to look at him. "Styled...?" it repeated slowly, as if testing the word. "Yeah. It’s really long, and just leaving it down all the time seems wasteful." Azel gestured at the mass of wet hair. "I could braid it, or put it up in a more manageable style. Something that would be comfortable but still look regal." The Elf King considered this. In all its centuries of existence, it had never once thought about styling its hair. Hair was simply... there. It was functional and a part of its appearance that required occasional washing but nothing more. "I... suppose that would be acceptable," the Elf King said carefully. ... Azel had put some sort of cream on its hair, removing all the wrinkles and making everything completely straight. The texture was different now, it was much softer somehow. The silver-green strands that had hung limply for centuries now seemed to catch the light differently. His fingers worked through the length, sectioning and smoothing the hair. "Have you ever gotten your hair styled before?" Azel asked, his voice casual as he continued working. "From what I saw in the flashbacks, your hair was always this..." "Beautiful?" The Elf King chimed in immediately. That was what it always saw its hair as. It was very beautiful. Long, lustrous, befitting of royalty. What else could it possibly be? "Bland." Azel finished, making the Elf King’s eyes widen in shock. "Bland?" The word came out almost offended. "My hair is not—" "Look at my hair..." Azel interrupted gently, tilting his head slightly so the Elf King could see better. The Elf King twisted its head back to look at Azel’s hair properly this time. His silver hair was styled in a certain way that looked beautiful. Not just neat or clean, but intentionally crafted. There were subtle layers that framed his face, and the way it fell seemed almost artistic. Even as it was now, there was personality to it. "It looks amazing... more so than my hair." The Elf King admitted reluctantly, genuine admiration creeping into its monotone voice. "It really looks like what one would have to an event." Azel smiled slightly at the compliment. "Well I was attending a birthday party before Sylvia dragged me over here to Elun’varis." His hands continued their work, fingers moving through the Elf King’s hair with surprising gentleness. "That was why I styled my hair... usually I would put it in a ponytail and leave it." He said. "Nothing fancy" "I think you should cut it..." The Elf King said thoughtfully, watching Azel’s reflection in the mirror. "The ponytail would look good on you, however it would make you look quite feminine. I’m not sure warriors sport that kind of hair at these times anymore." The comment hung in the air for a moment before Azel let out a genuine laugh. "Oho, so one who hasn’t cut their hair is advising me to cut mine?" Azel chuckled at the talk, his chest shaking with amusement. But regardless he started braiding the Elf King’s hair, his fingers splitting the strands into three sections. "I really like mine long though. It’s part of who I am." "I feel you, human." The Elf King said, a hint of camaraderie in its voice. The braiding continued in comfortable silence for a moment, the only sound the soft rustle of hair being woven together. Then Azel stopped suddenly, his hands pausing mid-motion. He looked down at the Elf King with a slightly incredulous expression. "Don’t you even know my name?" The Elf King froze. A wave of embarrassment washed over it, something it hadn’t felt in decades and its shoulders tensed slightly. "I apologize... I haven’t asked for your name despite asking you to make me fall in love with you." The Elf King said instantly, turning slightly to meet Azel’s gaze with an apologetic expression. "That was... incredibly rude of me." How had it missed something so fundamental? Names were important. They were the first thing exchanged between people and the foundation of any relationship. Yet here it was, asking this human to help it experience love without even knowing what to call him. "That’s not an issue at all." Azel said with an easy smile, resuming the braiding. "My name is Azel Winters." He paused, then added casually, "Or Azel Thorne... pick whichever you want to say. They’re my names nonetheless." "Winters... huh?" The Elf King muttered, the name rolling around in its mind. It shook its head slightly, dismissing the nagging feeling. "That’s a very nice set of names..." The Elf King said genuinely. "They suit you." "What about yours? Do you not have a name?" Azel asked immediately, his tone curious rather than judgmental. "I... do not. Royal elves are not given names until they choose their genders and so therefore, I am nameless." The Elf King replied, and there was something hollow in the admission. "I have been the Elf King for four hundred years without a name of my own." "Is that so?" Azel asked, his fingers continuing to weave the braid with precision. "How about I give you a name... of my choosing?" When he said that, the Elf King felt its heart skip a beat. The sensation was so sudden, so unexpected, that it almost gasped. Its chest tightened and something warm spread through its body like liquid sunlight. Names were very important things. They were given to you by the person that you fell in love with. That was the tradition, the sacred custom of the Royal Elves. To receive a name was to receive recognition, identity and personhood. But this human... this human was offering to name it now. "Does this mean that even if the time passes... and there’s no hope for me, you would still continue?" The Elf King asked, and it hated how small its voice sounded. A small tremble crept into the words. "Even if I never fall in love with you?" "Why not?" Azel asked simply, as if the answer was obvious. The Elf King let out a small sigh. "I see... this is the first time that someone has been very dedicated in claiming me." The Elf King said softly. "I should consider myself lucky." In four hundred years, no one had ever tried. There had been political proposals, calculated approaches, attempts to win favor. But no one had simply... tried to know it. To see it as more than a title. "You may give me a name of your choice..." The Elf King continued, its voice steadier now. "Whether it be a man’s name or a woman’s name, I don’t really mind." "Hm...?" Azel made a considering sound, his hands finishing one braid and starting on another. The silence stretched as he thought, and the Elf King found itself holding its breath without meaning to. Then he smiled, and the Elf King could hear it in his voice even without seeing his face. "Sure, let’s go with Anastasia." "Anastasia?" The Elf King repeated slowly, testing the syllables on its tongue. It sounded like a name befitting of an elegant woman, probably one of the nobles in the human empire. It felt... right somehow. "Yes." Azel said warmly. "I’ve decided that your name will be Anastasia..." Azel could not see it but deep in the Elf King’s chest, its heart began to glow. A soft golden light pulsed once, twice, like the first stirrings of something awakening after centuries of sleep. Only to stop moments later, fading back into dormancy. "I accept that name." The Elf King... no, Anastasia said quietly. Then a thought occurred, and it frowned slightly. "However if you fail and I turn into a man by falling in love much later, how would I keep such a name?" The question was genuine. Anastasia was undeniably feminine. To carry it as a man would invite questions and mockery perhaps. "Hey... Anastasia can still be a man’s name." Azel said with complete confidence, and Anastasia could hear the grin in his voice. "You’d just be known as a very womanly man." There was a pause. "...You mock me." "I certainly am not." Azel said, and somehow he managed to sound completely sincere while obviously being cheeky. Then he let go of the final strand of hair. The braids fell down gracefully, cascading over Anastasia’s shoulders and back. Some strands even covered its eyes a bit though it brushed them aside immediately. "I’m done... you can look at yourself in the mirror." Anastasia turned to the right where a mirror was lodged into the wall, reflecting its image back at it. The transformation was startling. The braids framed its face beautifully, adding structure and character that the straight, lifeless hair had never possessed. It looked... alive... like a person rather than a doll. The tri-tone eyes seemed brighter somehow, and there was color in its cheeks that hadn’t been there before. It looked almost... happy. The moment Anastasia saw its beautiful locks that complimented its face, it turned away instantly. The emotion was too much and its chest felt tight again. "Thank you Azel..." It said softly, standing up from where it had been sitting. "I believe I’m done here. Take your bath and join me in the room." "Okay." Azel said easily, already reaching for his towel. Anastasia walked off quickly, its bare feet padding softly against the floor. Behind it, it heard Azel begin to take off his own towel, the rustle of fabric filling the bathroom. It didn’t look back. ... Azel stepped out of the bath wearing a pair of loose trousers and feeling completely refreshed. His skin was still slightly damp, and his silver hair hung loose around his shoulders, droplets of water occasionally falling to his bare chest. He stretched once, feeling the pleasant ache of a long day finally catching up with him. He stared at Anastasia who was reading a book on the bed while sitting cross-legged. The braids were still perfect, and the Elf King looked peaceful. "Time to eat." Azel said, pushing the table closer to the bed with a soft scrape of wood on wood. Anastasia looked up from its book, marking the page with one pale finger. "I’m not hungry..." It said automatically, as if by reflex. "I already ate—" Azel didn’t let it finish. He removed the covers from the dishes with a flourish, and immediately an aroma drifted out. The smell hit Anastasia like a physical force, entering its nose and making it flinch violently. Its eyes widened, the book slipping from its hands and falling onto the bed with a soft thump. "I can... smell the food?" The words came out as barely more than a whisper, shocked and disbelieving. ’System store coming in clutch as usual.’ Azel thought with a satisfied nod.