The Tenth

"Is this really the uniform?" Annie asks, looking at herself in the crystalline mirror. "I feel like it shows a bit too much skin...."

"If you've got a problem with it," Lilin says, "Take it up with the King."

Annie was wearing a dress, but just about the only modest part of it was the apron. Her shoulders were exposed, there was a window for her chest, and the skirt was so short that it showed the middle of her thighs. The socks felt more like advertisements than coverings, and the gloves fit just a bit too tight for her liking. It felt less like a uniform for identification and more like a spotlight to make her noticeable.

"I just might," Annie said as she shifted uncomfortably. "Or, at the very least, ask if I can wear my dress."

"Well, time to get to work," Lilin said as she clapped her hands. "Let's start in the kitchen. I bet the mess the last girl left hasn't been cleaned yet."

The two of them walked through the massive hallways, Annie still shocked at the spectacle of the gargantuan building and its incredible interior. Lilin grimaced when she noticed, hurrying her pace to try and get her to stop gawking at everything. Soon enough, they made it to the kitchen, and Lilin saw the washbasin. It was still filled, but the shattered plate was nowhere in sight. One of the other, far more useful maids must have cleaned it up.

"Alright, newbie, clean the dishes. Everything you need is there."

Annie nodded, walking up to the massive load of dishes in what looked to be a sink. There was a spout, but it didn't look like there was a handle. Then again, was there supposed to be water? Was it called water? Did they have water, but used something else to clean? She took a breath to ask Lilin, but then thought better of it. No, Charlie had said that everything she did would be weaponized. It was worth the risk to look like an idiot. So, she reached out and tapped the spout.

Nothing.

"Not like that, idiot," Lilin said as she reached over Annie's shoulder and quickly bent the spout downwards, the seemingly metal surface moving more like a plastic. She let go, and it returned back to its original shape with water now flowing through it. "Like that. Who doesn't know that?"

"Why, thank you, dear," Annie said as she looked for what kind of soap was here. There was a bowl of powder. Old fashioned, but she knew how to use it. There was only one basin, so she couldn't use her usual process, but this was more than fine enough. Looking around, she saw a small collection of rags on a metal surface. She picked one up-

"Oh, my," she said, "That's quite warm!"

Lilin looked on in disbelief as she saw Annie getting to work. Had she really just picked up one of the piping hot rags without a second thought? Not to mention the steam pouring out of the washbasin. Every other maid she had trained had screamed their eyes out at the heat, but this one... This one was humming a tune as she scrubbed away. Even Lilin herself couldn't just pick up one of those rags with gloves on, they were superheated to dry them as fast as possible. Nobody could just pick those up!

"How are you..."
Lilin stepped forward to punctuate this.
"How are you just picking those up?!"

Annie looked up, smiling knowingly. "Dear, even at this age, I've done my fair share of baking. It'd be quite an embarrassment if I couldn't pick up some hot rags with gloves on!"

Lilin looked at the gloves, noticing that they had very slight signs of burning. They weren't made to withstand extreme temperatures, and neither was the uniform. Maybe this one's Core type was somehow fire-related? That could be it, but... This was still unnatural. As much as Lilin wanted to hate this woman, she couldn't pretend that she was useless. She tried to keep up the scowl anyways.

"I'm finished, Lilin," Annie called, "Where should I put the dishes dear?"

"Stop calling me dear, Ten," Lilin spat, "and put them on the drying grid."

Annie looked around for a "Drying grid". Sure enough, there was a mesh of metal that seemed to be able to fit everything like a drying rack. She was a bit surprised she hadn't seen it before, but she didn't give it any unnecessary thought. She started to place the dishes in there, noticing that there was quite a bit of heat going through that as well. It was like a sauna!

Upon finishing, Annie went to take off her gloves to let her hands air out- only to find that her gloves felt quite a bit different than before. Giving them a proper look, she noticed small black burn marks on them, and they were quite difficult to remove. Had they shrunk in the heat?

"Oh, dear, did I burn these gloves? A shame, they were quite pretty." Annie tried to put the left glove on, but it no longer quite fit.

"Yeah, whatever," Lilin said dismissively. She took the gloves from Annie and tossed them into a pouch on her thigh. "Your next task doesn't really need gloves, anyways. There are some scuff marks around thanks to Nine's stupid, idiotic mistake. You're gonna find them, and you're gonna figure out how to get the marks out."

Annie nodded, then started to look around. There wasn't much information to go off of, so she just started looking around and thinking. The surfaces here were all so pristine, it shouldn't be too hard to figure out what was damaged. If it was a mistake, then something probably got dropped. In less than a minute, Annie spotted something on the floor. 

"Ah, there we are."
She knelt down and rubbed her thumb against the scuff mark. It didn't feel like a scratch that went into the floor, but like some stubborn material that was stuck there. She scraped it off with her nail in no time, then started to look around. Classic signs of a dropped plate, plenty of little scrapes and dots left over. She licked her thumb and got to work buffing them out. This was worlds easier with her knees in this condition! No matter how much she used it, she truly couldn't quite stop remarking to herself about how wonderful it was to be young again.

Annie went into autopilot as her thoughts drifted to what it was like when she was older. She remembered when poor little Liam had dropped an entire stack of fine china. The poor boy was almost as broken up about it as the plates had been. Madeline had been so harsh on him. It was understandable, a parent needs to properly discipline her children, but Annie couldn't bring herself to be mad. She hadn't ever used the ceramics anywho, so it hardly bothered her. She asked for Madeline to take things outside so nobody indoors needed to hear so much yapping. After that, she had slowly gone through and cleaned it up by hand. She hadn't minded it at the time, but it was quite the slog in retrospect. In comparison, doing this now felt like a roller coaster. She scooted around the floors with hardly any aches, her arms weren't getting tired with every movement, and she didn't need to focus and re-focus her eyes. It felt incredible to do a task as menial as this with such a body.