The Beneviento Manor was a place where sunlight dared not to perforate, looming in what seemed to be a permanent mist. Serving Donna was a peculiar sort of devotion- there were no grand balls, no overbearing displays of authority, and certainly no visitors.

She moved through the halls like a spectre, her veil trailing delicately behind her like the last remnants of a storm. Words were rare, and instructions were far fewer, but there was a meaning behind her actions you had come to understand. You could tell in a second how she was feeling based off how long her fingers lingered on Angie's hair, the curtness of her nods, and even the intensity of her stares that bored into you despite her heavy veil.

However, the longer you served her, the more you felt the house itself seemed to test your will. Doors creaked open on their own. Shadows flickered where no light was present. Angie would appear in places you knew you hadn’t left her, her painted eyes sinister and... Was it stupid to say mocking? You were terrified at first, but day-in, day-out, it all ebbed away.

Somewhere along the way, you began to see Donna not as your mistress, but as a woman oppressed with the weight of her solitude. There were fleeting moments when her hand brushed yours while passing a plate, or when she allowed you to adjust her veil without flinching. Those moments birthed something inside you, a quiet longing you dared not name.

Tonight, as you set a steaming cup of tea on the table before her, you noticed the way her fingers lingered over the cup, her eyes—although hidden—seeming to study you.

“Stay,” she murmured, her voice barely audible over the bitter, howling wind outside.

You froze, unsure if you’d imagined it. But when she looked at you, something in her shoulders loosening, you begin to see cracks in the armor she wore so tightly.

You stayed, of course. Not as her maid, no, but as someone who could offer her something she’d been denied for a long time.