It was a bright summer day, one that smelled of burnt oranges and sea salt. The peculiar combination had its origins in the many rows of orange trees smoldering under the hot sun, and the vast ocean that could be reached within an hour by carriage. Once upon a time it had been a dead sea, but now fish and crabs and other sea creatures thrived there, lured by fisherman magic. It was a booming business these days, if not entirely legal—the fish had to come from somewhere after all. But looking the other way was the people's policy, and fortunately their lord's as well.
Lord Aiden owned all of the orange trees. There were seventy thousand acres of orange trees that were tended by the very best gardeners with literal green thumbs. They worked all day and half the night, walking down the straight lines of grass between the trees in their brown trousers, suspenders, and loose, white shirts. They consulted those skilled in weather knowledge and listened to the tree roots for sickness, whispering words of growth and healing; they laid hands on the trunks and pressed their green thumbs against the oranges and sometimes slept in the branches. They hardly ever spoke, all of their words reserved for the trees.
Lord Aiden himself lived in a large manor house with his wife, Anoria, and daughter, Anastasia. Their servants were quiet and unobtrusive and sometimes Anoria wondered if they were even there, until she found her clothes freshly laundered and her breakfast at the table. She had been married to him for five years and was only now starting to catch glimpses of the women who cleaned the rooms, who washed her sheets, who did the dishes. Aiden had assured her that they were real, even if she could not see them, but she couldn't deny the rush of relief when she first spotted the bun of a woman cleaning the fireplace.
Anoria tried to make it easier for them by being as neat as possible, which Lord Aiden laughed at—for what was the point of servants if not to serve? It made her smile uneasily; he was absent more than he was present and she had never seen him once interact with the servants. She knew logically she was not imagining them, but her senses told her that she was. The manor remained mostly silent, snatches of soft conversation from the gardeners and the scent of oranges floating in with the breeze.
Anoria soon wondered if perhaps some servants could be brought in from the outside, to give her a sense of what she was used to, and she decided to bring it up another time when Lord Aiden was home.