Whumps, Whines, and Whimpers

She tried to give the soldiers a wide berth, but there were so many of them now, along with the servants that the princess had taken out on the hunting trip with her, the castle now bustling with people. Where Stomme previously could launder peacefully by herself, she now bent over the same tub as four others, and another washtub with four more behind her, busy hands scrubbing away at the dirt and monster blood and assorted grime from the months of hard traveling and the cull. It made her self conscious. Like she had to try extra hard now, just to prove her worth to these dozens of strangers, that she wasn't slacking off.

She tried to fade into the background, like she had, but there were so many people now, she couldn't help feeling underfoot and in the way. Even just walking down the halls had her on edge, expecting one of the soldiers to take issue with her, with her height, her muscle, the width of her, yank her around by her collar and show off just how much bigger and tougher than her they all were. It hadn't happened yet, but she braced for it every time one of them walked by her, and breathed out in relief every time their loud laughter and friendly slapping of each other's shoulders passed her by without incident.

The next time she saw the princess, it was following the loud shriek of a child's delighted laughter, little Julia running towards the princess with clear delight in the garden.

"Princess Rayana!!"

Said princess sank fluidly down onto one knee, wide grin transforming her face and her arms spread wide to receive the flurry of skirts and frills and bouncing curls that launched herself into her.

"Julia, look how big you are!" the princess announced, the soldiers she'd been speaking with smiling down at the pair from where they were now being quite thoroughly ignored. Nobody seemed to really mind the small child distracting the princess from their conversation or interrupting them, which was reassuring at least. Stomme quite liked Julia, and would be very anxious if harm were to come her way.

From the way she was lifted up onto the princess's hip as she rose, that seemed very unlikely now. To harm what had the princess's favor would be a death sentence.

Julia began prattling, as was her wont, the princess smiling as she listened. Though still doubtlessly intimidating, Stomme couldn't help but find the princess beautiful, like this, in her plain tunic she'd worn while training with the guards that morning, smiling at a child. It was like her whole face had restructured for it, eyes squinted in quiet delight instead of lidded with her failure to be impressed, lips curved and lovely instead of ominously flat, the monster teeth dangling from her ears catching sunlight like another noblewoman's jewels might.

Stomme caught herself staring, and internally reprimanded herself for her temerity before someone else could catch her in the act and smack her for it. She got back to work.

The next time she saw the princess was the day after, and given that she'd now seen the princess every single day since she'd gotten back from her trip, Stomme was starting to despair that this would become a regular aspect of her life. She was up on the walltop, pouring dirty water from the scullery over the edge to feed the blackberry bushes below, when she saw the small entourage approaching on the road.

At first, she thought the noble on the silvery-white horse's back to be a woman, the clothing flowing beauteously and hair long and white as pearls. As he drew nearer, though, Stomme thought she could make out that he was a man, just a very pretty one. When he spoke, voice calling out surprisingly loudly once his horse was parked before the castle gate, Stomme felt his gender fairly confirmed.

"Oh my love, my love, who has returned victorious from battle~" He sounded kinda like one of those troubadours that Stomme occasionally overheard when they were entertaining old owners. There was a poetic quality to his cadence. A showmanship-like air as he pressed his hand to his breast, fingers long and slender even from this distance, the folds of his flowing robes catching in the wind.

Stomme should get out of here. He wasn't there for her to stare at, and more nobles would only ever mean more trouble for her. But as she gathered the buckets to turn to leave, she found herself facing the princess once again, climbing up the steps onto the walltop. Stomme backed away hurriedly. Unfortunately, there really wasn't anywhere for her to go, the support beams of the walls locking her in. Why had the princess come up to this spot, instead of the wall overlooking the gate itself???

"Oi," Princess Rayana called, a playful sharpness to her grin, eyes on the nobleman below, "What's this peacock doing at my house?!"

"Oh, my radiant lover, I have dreamed of you night and day since your departure!" the noble shouted, extending his hand towards her dramatically. "And there you stand as captivating as a star, looking more beautiful than even the last time I was graced to lay mine eyes upon you~"

The princess did look very handsome, wearing a long surcoat with a high neck, her arms bare beneath it in a way that must have been cold but showed off her impressive musculature and four parallel scars on her left bicep that must've been from an old monster hunt. Stomme thought she looked incredibly beautiful, but also knew this was not what most noblewomen considered pretty, much less noblemen, and so was vaguely confused. And petrified! She would really prefer not to be here! She did her best to be beneath noticing.

Princess Rayana propped an elbow on a crenelation and rested her cheek on the back of her fingers, this time wearing little jeweled rings that glinted in the sun. "Big words from the prettiest of boys. But come inside, my love, I'll let you welcome me home," the princess beckoned, and the heavy gates swung open below, creaking with strain.

Princess Rayana left to go greet her… lover? And mercifully did not so much as glance at Stomme even once. Not as he swung down off the horse, not as she lifted him and spun him around, not as she pulled him into a dip the moment his feet touched the ground again and kissed him so resoundingly the two could pass as heroes in a stageplay reuniting after some great trial. Stomme was allowed to gather the buckets once again and scurry back to the scullery with them, mumbling something about the arrival of a silverhaired nobleman, which sent the other servants all into a tizzy. Apparently he was Lord Mori, son of Count Shelley, and Princess Rayana's betrothed. Stomme listened, because this was important, but felt detached from her eyes and mind and limbs, a sort of numb terror from being so close to the princess again casting her out of herself.

The arrival of the lord meant everyone was even busier, though, so thankfully Stomme was too caught up in helping the kitchens to linger on it. And she'd thought the supply wagons had given them too much flour and barley and ale to ever use. Ha. Now she understood they were just trying to make more, smaller trips instead of trying to haul all this to the castle at once.

She was kept busy until after the evening meal, when Overseer Yan then selected a handful of them to go to the lord's rooms and finish preparing them for his use. And Stomme was one of the ones he'd chosen.

"Sir, please," she whispered, eyes shiny and wet, knees feeling weak.

Overseer Yan set a gentle hand on her shoulder. "Easy now, chin up girl. Lord Mori wants to see the gift the prince sent, I wouldn't be sending you in there without reason," he promised. And that was kind, because it meant once the lord got bored of her, Overseer Yan wouldn't send her up there for no reason. But it also meant that Stomme was of interest to a nobleman, and that was a very, very bad thing to be.

Dandelion took her by the hand and led her up. At least Dandelion was there. Stomme wondered if Overseer Yan knew enough about her to know how much she liked the girl, considered her maybe even a friend, if a slave and a servant could even be friends, wondered how close he paid attention to her actually.

"Easy, Stomme, it's fine! Lord Mori is nice!" Dandelion said cheerfully. "He's kind of a weirdo sometimes, but he probably won't even be paying any attention to you now that Princess Rayana is home!" Dandelion giggled. "The two are so cute, they're all lovey dovey at each other, Sora hates it." Sora was a groom who hated all mentions of romance and would make ugly gagging noises if anyone around him so much as kissed each other's cheeks. It meant the stables were a poor choice of venue for anyone trying to sneak away for a lovers' tryst, and Stomme hadn't seen him since the princess's return. Hadn't had time to.

"I, I, what do I, I mean, he wants me for—I—"

"Breathe, honey," Dandelion instructed kindly, patting Stomme's wrist with her free hand. "He probably just wants to look at you since the prince sent you. All you gotta do is get the fire burning and help me change the bedding, Claudia will handle the refreshments, and another group got most of the cleaning done earlier, don't worry!"

Okay. Okay. Just. Stoke the fire. Change the bedding. Let a nobleman look at her. She could do that. She could, if she just focused on that, and didn't think about anything else, she could. She could do that. And then she could leave, and Overseer Yan wouldn't send her back up there again unless the lord took more interest in her, and she'd. She'd be fine.

She had to believe that she'd be fine.

The servants here were efficient. Claudia handled the knocking, and Stomme got to enter behind Dandelion, hiding in the smaller girl's shadow, eyes on the floor and trying hard to remember to breathe through her nose. She knelt at the fireplace and did her job. She didn't look at the couch or low table where Claudia was pouring tea and setting out little delicate plates of snack food. She crossed to the bedroom and did her job. She didn't let her gaze drift to the sitting room, focused on keeping in tandem with Dandelion's movements.

She almost made it out of the room without flubbing. She was on her way to the door, following after Dandelion, when the sound of two bodies moving drew her eyes, just a quick glance, to the couch.

The princess was here. Seated next to Lord Mori on the couch, leaning forward to pick up her goblet from the low table, while the lord reclined against the cushions with his chalice in hand. His pale green robes were eastern-style and even more obviously fine up close, silk and satin and delicate embroidery that cost ten times as much as Stomme herself did. He had strings of three large, shiny beads dangling from each ear, a belt with strings of cord art and shining baubles dangling luxuriously off it, his silver hair pulled over one shoulder and tied with an eggshell ribbon, his eyes a pale greyish-green that sparked with mirth. That stared straight at her.

He smiled, tilted his head as though in acknowledgement, and took a sip from his drink, but did not speak or demand that she say and let him look at her any longer.

Stomme stumbled only briefly, and then fled the room.

~*~

The door shut behind the new slave girl, the poor thing's panic almost palpable, and Mori rolled his eyes and head and shoulders towards his beloved with a smug little smirk.

"She's cute."

"Down, boy," his Rayana drawled without looking at him, popping an olive into her mouth before leaning back against the couch again, goblet resting on her thigh. She tongued the olive into one cheek (cute) and spoke around it, "She's also terrified of everything that so much as breathes, and shakes worse than those showdogs they breed for trembling. The poor sod nearly brained herself the first time she saw me, she tried to kneel so fast." She frowned (adorable, not that Mori would tell her that), "Yan tells me she's even scared of the other servants. She talks so little some of 'em thought she was mute when she first showed up here, and she gets nightmares."

"So you think she really is truly just a slave, this time?" Mori asked, setting his chalice aside and plucking a grape from its bunch.

Rayana sucked on her cheeks and stared into the fire. "I think she certainly seems like one. I think tremors are a hard thing to fake, and so are nightmares. The bags under her eyes aren't makeup, and neither are her scars. The way she acts and talks and cries are all hard to fake."

"Oh, you've already made her cry?~"

Rayana whapped him on the shoulder, no real heat to it. Then she crossed an arm over her chest and rolled the tusk of her earring back and forth between her fingers, a thoughtless little gesture as her sharp eyes stared into the fire contemplatively.

"But. I also think you don't get employed by the crown prince unless you're real good at seeming like what you pretend to be. Especially if he's hiring you to spy on the cursed princess, and especially when that princess has already ousted a half dozen spies before you."

"It'd be easier if everyone he sent was a spy, so we didn't have to do all this sleuthing, and we could just dismiss them out of hand without needing to contrive reasons."

Rayana's hair was testament to that. Sure, they both thought she looked so good with it now (and cute, and pretty, and sexy), but the first time she'd shaved it all off was just so she could have a reason to cut the number of her lady's maids down by one. Prince Viktor hadn't liked having his spy ousted almost as much as their father hadn't liked her new hair (which was spitefully part of the reason she kept it so short (beyond the aforementioned cuteness and sexiness factor)).

Rayana heaved out a heavy sigh and leaned against Mori's side, his arm coming up around her shoulders reflexively as he pressed a little kiss to her shaved head, rubbing at her arm consolingly.

"If it's an act, it's working. I want to keep my guard up, but... look at her. It's hard to fake fear, like that. It just… follows her, like a cloud, wherever she goes."

"Mmmm. It's really quite the pity. If she put on a little weight and quit jumping at shadows, she'd be just your type, after all."

"UuuuuuuUUUUUUUGHHHHHHH," Rayana groaned, hands coming up to cover her eyes, slumping even harder against him. Mori laughed.

"She's tall, and broad while still being slim, and strong, and those hands on her."

"Stoooooooooop, don't remind me."

"Really, that Prince Viktor has your number. Should I think of a way to thank him for this latest toy?"

"Stop trying to fuck my brothers," she grumbled.

"But they're all so handsome~"

"Stop."

"Your sisters, then?"

"Stop," she ordered more forcefully, twisting in place and shoving a hand over his mouth, making him giggle behind her grip. "You're incorrigible."

He jerked his chin just enough to free his mouth. "So I am regularly informed."

She gripped him by the front of his robe and shut him up in his favorite way to be silenced, which was of course by kissing him resoundingly, and his arms came up around her shoulders and he ran a hand over her short cropped hair and let her weight sink him against the couch, legs spread to accommodate the way her shorter frame needed to crowd in close in order to reach his mouth.

When she let him breathe again (and he did ever so enjoy being kissed breathless by this wondrous, radiant woman) she rested her head atop his chest, sighing again as his arms encircled her and pet gently down her back.

"…You really did come home quite early this year, darling," he mentioned, tone careful and serious.

"And I really am fine," she assured again. "We met our quota for the cull early, and everyone wanted to go home. I did a final sweep to make sure there wasn't anything nasty hiding out, informed your father, and we left. No curse required."

He kissed the top of her head again, the angle a little awkward like this, and lifted his palm so it was just the tips of his fingers that stroked along the sturdy linen over her back. Tendrils of magic seeped from his fingertips into her back, and she shuddered, eyes slipping closed and mouth parting slightly. Even just the slightest touch of his magic had her flushed already, and her hand formed a fist in the pillow beneath his lower back.

Just under the surface of her skin, her curse roiled, thick as tar and cloying. It stuck to his magic like tree sap, like a thick and viscous urine (not that he'd describe it like that out loud to her (though maybe he should, she might think it funny)), and he pushed gently deeper, then deeper, then grew little hooks at the ends of his magic tendrils and started to pull.

Rayana gasped on top of him, feeling the curse that ached all through her blood and muscles and bones start to recede, and Mori focused on being slow, on being careful, and not pulling too fast, too hard. Any attempts at cursebreaking had only ever hurt his dear Rayana. Too harsh, too fast, and they'd threaten her very life. His magic, though, his methods, she described as leaving her feeling no worse than her skin might smart after ripping a wax off of it. And the relief he could grant her, of dragging her curse back into its core (which itself was in the core of her, where he couldn't budge it from), of leaving her limbs free and painless beyond that faint echo of a sting and limber once again—if this was the only relief he could grant her, he's give it to her every night he saw her, until his own magic burned out like a snuffed candle.

He sank his magic down through her ankles, through her calves, and pulled at the curse through them, guiding it up the rivers of her own body's layout, dragging his senses over the muscles in the backs of her knees, up around the sides of her thighs and over the tops of her hips, stuck his magic in the pit of her belly and dragged it up below her diaphragm, threading through each bump of her ribs to the center of her sternum, from each individual finger, sliding down her delicate metacarpals, up her wrists like fingers brushing to her forearms, to her elbows, up to her shoulders and pulling back down into her spine again. He knotted the curse there altogether, to the right of her heart, in the bend where her esophagus split into her two lungs, and bid it remain where he'd put it.

"Fuck," she gasped when he'd finished, his magic breaking off and leaving them both sweating a little, panting. He'd poured himself into the most intimate parts of her and they both felt better for it. It was the kind of trust that Rayana gave no one, not one single soul, nobody at all, except him. He could get high on that knowledge alone.

"You've got knots in your shoulders again," he muttered. She whapped him half-heartedly.

"I'd like to see you climb all over the eastern hills without gettin' knots in yours."

"But that's why you do it for me," he said, blinking prettily. "Since I'm so delicate and fragile."

It had been the duty of the house Shelley to keep the monsters of the eastern wilderness at bay for as long as there had been a house Shelley. And before that, it was the duchy's responsibility, from whose line the Shelleys had branched off of. That Count Shelley's one and only heir was an effete and delicate prettyboy whose stomach turned at the smell of blood and whose instructors despaired of ever teaching to properly wield a sword was an embarrassment the family could barely shoulder, but it was a mostly-substantiated rumor that bearing him had ruined his mother's womb, a complicated birth and all, and his father, for all his short-tempered faults, loved his wife genuinely, and would entertain not a single word nor thought that he should ever divorce her and remarry.

Fortunately, Mori's talented, skillful, powerful fiance actually enjoyed the good, satisfying work of monster hunting, and bore the task that should have rightfully been his burden with yearly zeal for a good hunt and a well-earned victory. As Mori's father grew steadily older, and his fiance grew steadily stronger, the lion's share of the hunt fell more and more upon her shoulders.

Her poor, stiff shoulders, and he crooned, "Shall I massage them for you? Maybe a foot rub?"

She waved vaguely. "There's servants for that."

He grinned. "Pretty, strong, new servants?"

"Stooooooop!!!" she groaned, getting up and shoving him down by the mouth again, barely stifling his laughter. "I'm not thinking about the hot new slave who may or may not be a spy sent by my brother."

He pulled her hand away with both of his. "Well the good news is that if she is a spy, there should be nothing in her report other than an empty castle and your swooning fiance. I think we put on quite a good show for her, no?"

"You," she kissed him very briefly, "are a menace. And I'm tired, so I'm going back to my room to sleep."

"Of course," he said agreeably. "Can't have anything in her report that the two of us spent the night together. I mean, could you imagine? The entirely erroneous rumor that we'd have premarital sex?"

"Oh, the scandal," she deadpanned, though there was a fond warmth and humor just under her tone. "Though I imagine they'd think you, oh randy and licentious Lord Shelley, would be the one to deflower me, rather than—" she gripped beneath his thigh and pushed suddenly back into his space, crowding him down onto the couch and kissing him breathless again, her teeth scraping at his bottom lip and making him choke on a gasp, his arms around her shoulders once again, his body flushed and responding easily to her—

Just as suddenly, she'd pulled away from him, leaving him reeling and gasping, disoriented.

"Well, goodnight my love!" she said, far too perkily.

"I, wait—"

"Well I can't stay. Since it would be erroneous to think we'd have premarital sex, after all."

"No, wait, I take it back," he said, splayed out on the couch.

She giggled at him—a girlish and playful noise she only ever made in complete privacy, so vanishingly few permitted to see her in anything but her finest form—but just sauntered to the door, pausing to cast him a fond look over her shoulder and a "Good night, my love."

Pouting, he returned, "Goodnight, darling."

OK so I've read one too many fics recently where Tam and Lucien reconcile by throwing hands and listen, I don't think that's actually healthy, but it's fun to draw and write about! It must be therapeutic for a guilt-ridden Tamlin to let Lucien take his anger and hurt out of him physically. Tam doesn't really put up a fight here; he welcomes the pain, think it's owed for the position he put Lucien in and for the bloody nose he gave him. After years of feeling very little at all, the adrenalin rush he gets grappling with his old friend is... something different.

At least her overseer here accepted it when she grovelled. Her size meant she was used to getting in trouble no matter what she did, men with whips and something to prove projecting defiance onto her that she'd never once had. In that regard, she wished she'd been born slim and waifish and delicate. When the smaller girls cried, it sometimes got them pity. At least she didn't have it as bad as some. Mikal was thrice her size and weight, a "rescue" from the mines, hairy as a bear and sweet as a duckling. He got. Pushed around a lot.

Stomme wondered what had happened to him. After the raid, after their owner's whole operation had been blown wide open and all the assets of that whole noble family seized by the crown.

The crown she was now serving. Technically.

She was in a spare castle. Allegedly, the third princess lived here, but she'd not seen hide nor hair of her since arriving. The third princess, who was shunned by the nobles for being born into the royal line without magic, with four older brothers and two older sisters each more magical and noble than the last, rumored to have a nasty, haughty attitude and a penchant for violence (there was a rumor, also, that she was cursed, but Stomme knew better than to believe that). Stomme dreaded when she eventually caught sight of her. When the princess would eventually catch sight of Stomme. A violent noblewoman in a bad mood was dangerous enough, a violent noblewoman who'd been shipped out here by her family who'd rejected her would see Stomme as nothing more than one big punching bag, and Stomme knew damn well she'd have a better chance begging her way out of punishment with the overseer than with the princess.

The overseer, after all, had proven himself to be a sensible, level-headed, and even-handed man. Blond hair shiny and glossy, long down to his mid-back and always tied in a ribbon his young daughter had embroidered for him, narrow spectacles perched on his beakish nose and soft, slate-grey eyes that was starting to wrinkle from how much he smiled. He was interested in this job only inasmuch as he needed to ensure the work was getting done, and spent the rest of his waking moments with his pretty, young wife and their adorable, young daughter, who skipped about the palace as though she were its princess, gleefully sticky in the way young children always are and her corn-blonde hair flouncing in the sunlight. Stomme couldn't blame the overseer for being far more interested in spending time with his beautiful, happy family in what Stomme thought was a very beautiful castle, than he was in nitpicking apart all of Stomme's many flaws.

When she'd arrived here, a "gift" from the first prince to his "poor, unfortunate" little sister, Overseer Yan had merely sent her to the enchanted, wide pools the servants used to bathe, given her a uniform that fit her and cords enough to tie her limp, straight hair back into a short ponytail, and instructed her on how to work in this new place. It was a castle, and was therefore huge and beautiful, but even compared to her last owner's estate, who was not even royal, Stomme got the impression that this place was stark, and kind of barren. An entire wing was closed off—which Stomme was more than fine with, given that those rooms wouldn't exactly clean themselves.

The fortified walls were bare stone, heavy against siege but hardly anything to look at. The territory beyond the walls were a cold, broad river and a cold, dense forest and a cold, steep mountain said to have rock trolls and direwolves. Nothing at all like the manicured hunting grounds Stomme knew most nobles preferred. None of the vistas and entertainments and salons that noblewomen enjoyed. The princess, whoever and wherever she was, must be miserable out here in this cold and boring place.

Stomme liked it though. To Stomme, this place—with its cold winds and waters and the heavy shadow of the mountain—had a wild and decadent beauty. The garden inside the castle walls was well maintained by the three gardeners who tended it, the flowers beautiful and the herbs strong-smelling and the berry patches a frequent place to see Overseer Yan's little daughter frolicking about in, pink or red or blue smeared at the corners of her lips. Even the slaves—of which there were surprisingly few—got to wear the same well-made clothes of rich brown wool that the servants wore, the high-necked tunic with slits over the thighs for ease of movement and sturdy pants tucked into sturdier boots that Stomme was pretty sure were worth as much as she was. The high, wide windows were drafty but gorgeous, and a genuine pleasure to clean. The fireplaces with their everburning flames, and their ever-growing piles of ash to be scraped out, the dense woven rugs and denser rugs of direbear and wolf pelts, the crests and arms that decorated the halls which had to be carefully cleaned but gave a stern and stately air to the place.

It was all. Beautiful.

It helped that Stomme got to clean all of it in relative privacy. She hauled heavy baskets of sodden laundry with red hands sore from scrubbing in boiling water and lye, hung clothes on lines in the sunny and windy gardens, beat rugs with heavy arms and rolled them back up to hoist over her shoulders, hauled water up from the well on grounds or out from the river if it didn't need to be potable, cut and hauled firewood for the everburning fireplaces (of which there were many, even in the milder months), and at most she would speak to maybe a gardener while she was hanging laundry or one of the other servants if they needed an extra bucket of water or two. Occasionally Overseer Yan would check in on her, and she would kowtow and answer promptly and meekly, and he wouldn't even kick her just because he could and she would get up and get back to work, and everything was fine.

She hoisted massive shields off the walls to scrub and buff them so they shined, polished old sets of armor, some of them still enchanted with the residue of the nobles that had used them, swept until her back ached and scrubbed the floors until her knees ached and lifted sacks of flour and barley and kegs of the good thin ale they drank here out of supply wagons and life was good. She sometimes thought about using the water from the enchanted baths to clean with—she figured magic water would make her work a damn sight easier, but knew better than to go using magic for something it wasn't cast for. Nobles didn't care about the labors of their servants, after all. It was a surprising enough privilege that someone, some generations ago, had wasted magic even on that.

Magic was for conquest and amusement and power, after all. Stomme had learned that lesson young.

She wondered what the princess would do to her, to make up for her lack of it. Fire pokers, maybe? The second prince was rumored to have fire magic that outpaced even his grandfather's, she'd surely be jealous of it. Or maybe she'd hold Stomme's head down in the horses' trough, since she couldn't bid the water to lift and encircle Stomme's face wherever she stood. Or maybe she'd just take to smacking Stomme and stomping on her with the high, thin heels that were in fashion amongst noblewomen. Depending on the material, even the pretty, lacy fans noblewomen used could serve well enough as a switch to beat Stomme with. It was an easy mental image to conjure, the princess small and dainty and red with fury, her long and curling black hair bouncing from the force of her swings, her massive, frilly skirts shaking with the motion of putting Stomme in her place, lips red with lipstick and shiny with spittle as she shouted at her, earrings glinting in the cold and beautiful sunlight.

Stomme tried not to think about it too hard. It'd happen when it happened. And she'd kneel and beg and cry if the princess wanted her to cry and scream if the princess wanted her to scream and she'd be small and pathetic and submissive and the princess would get bored and wander off, and Stomme could go back to carefully lowering the singular grand chandelier in the great hall to clean all its little pieces with the other servants of the estate and carefully haul hand over fist as she and some of the stronger members on staff slowly raised it back up, or hauling water, or maybe Overseer Yan would be merciful enough she could even go lick her wounds in private and feel sorry for herself for an evening.

Yeah, and maybe Stomme's eyes would turn suddenly magenta and she'd be the royal now. As if.

But. In the meantime. It had been months. Months of wandering this beautiful, barren, cold place in her warm, sturdy clothes, bucket of water in hand or pile of firewood on her shoulder or Overseer Yan's little daughter—whose name was Julia—hanging off the crook of her elbow asking questions nineteen to the dozen. And Stomme still hadn't seen so much as the princess's shadow.

She cleaned the princess's room! She beat the rugs and laundered the bedding and dusted the furniture in there on the same rotation as every other servant did! And the princess just was never… there. Neither were any of her things, to be fair, except a very spare smattering of this and thats, nothing like the ornate jewelry boxes, fancy dresses, expensive trinkets, and gaudy ornaments Stomme associated with a noblewoman's rooms. There were a few metallic decorations, three fancy dresses shoved in the very back of the mostly-empty closet, plush curtaining on the bed. But everything else had evidently been packed up to travel with her, wherever she was. Stomme could ask one of the other servants where the princess was, over good hearty soup and rich bread and sometimes even meat, but she felt like, if she asked, it'd break whatever spell had been cast over this place, and reality would set back in.

And no one could blame her, surely, for wanting this fantasy to exist for just. Just a little longer.

She rubbed at her forehead. She had a headache, that day. It had started the night before, and sleeping hadn't warded it off like she had hoped. It didn't feel… sick, she didn't think. Just, light hurt, and sound hurt, and moving around too much hurt, and bending over made liquid swirl inside her skull (and hurt), and the cold was settling in and getting worse, and the fire she'd just set the last of her firewood next to was burning cheerfully in front of a large direbear pelt, so thick she could lose a hand in it (even a massive, ugly hand like hers), and she hadn't slept well thanks to the headache, and so she was tired, and…

And. And just. A minute. She'd close her eyes and lay in the sweet warmth coming from the fire for just a minute. She was caught up on her chores, and Overseer Yan had checked in with her yesterday so he wouldn't be looking for her today, and nobody ever used this room, so Stomme could afford just. Just a minute.

Sleep took her before she was prepared to ward it off.

Her first thought was that her headache was mostly gone. Her second thought was,

"Shit!"

She scrambled to her feet, staggering slightly as she turned her head too-sharply in the direction of the window, wondering just how much time she'd lost. "Shit." Too much. Way too much. The sun was nearly set, "Shit," she was going to miss the evening meal, "Shit," and there was no way she could catch up on everything before Overseer Yan found out and—

And she was not alone in this room.

The woman was sitting in the chair of the workdesk, staring at her impassively, one elbow on the arm of the chair and a single finger pressed to her temple. Her head was shaved, pitch-black fuzz just barely starting to regrow. She was on the shorter side of average, and had a round face, though she was well-muscled beneath her clothes, even Stomme could see. Her gauntlets and tunic were dragonleather, aquamarine scales along each hem, but unembellished, and bearing marks from wear. Her boots went up to her knees, that leather supple and engraved, though the engraving was simple and the bottoms dirty. She had earrings, big dangling things made of some massive beast's fangs, or maybe tusks, devoid of any gems. Her lips were round and plump, but unpainted. Her nails were painted, but short.

Her eyes were magenta.

Stomme hit the floor so fast her knees cracked against the stone. Her forehead would have too, if she hadn't accidentally landed it on the direbear pelt.

"Your Highness." The address was punched out of her, breathy and panicked. The third princess didn't look an ounce like Stomme had imagined she would, but there was no doubting who exactly that woman was, and just how very, very, very fucked Stomme was. Should she start begging for her worthless life now? Or should she wait for the princess to cue her to? She choked on the heavy silence in the room, each moment marching to ten thousand drumming heartbeats, unsure if the princess was just letting her stew in just how badly she'd fucked up or if trying to grovel now would count as speaking out of turn.

"So," the princess's voice wasn't soft, but it wasn't harsh either. Even so, it made Stomme flinch nearly as bad as a whip might, "You're the latest 'gift' my darling family has sent me."

"Yes, Your Highness," Stomme breathed, barely able to squeeze even those words out of her tightening throat. She knew she was a mockery of a "gift." That house slaves were supposed to be small and pretty, and that she wasn't. That her being here was just one more insult laid against the runt of the royal litter.

"I suppose you were Viktor's idea?"

"Yes, Your Highness," Stomme repeated, curling slightly closer in on herself to hear someone (even if she was a princess!) call the crown prince by his bare name.

"Stand back up."

Stomme stood, dizzy from the vertigo of rising too fast and the sheer terror of what would happen to her now. The princess tilted her head only slightly, dragging magenta eyes up and down Stomme's form. Plain brown wool on plain brown skin and plain brown eyes below plain brown hair in a plain short tail, with plain brown boots and a plain leather collar. Stomme had nothing about her that would ever be interesting, which she could offer to appease. Nothing, except her pain.

The princess stood with a careless sort of grace. She moved with languid confidence, like a knight that'd had all the cocksure arrogance sucked out of him. Like those big-tusked wildcats that nobles sometimes thought could be tamed into pets. Like a goddamn royal. It made sense, that she would call her brother by his bare name. Until this moment, he'd been the most terrifying person Stomme had ever laid eyes on the boots of. Now, it was laughable that he could even be considered in the same class as Princess Rayana.

Stomme tried to stay still for her approach. Not the trembling, Stomme couldn't still that if she tried. But the skittish little steps backwards. the panicky urge to curl in on herself, or kneel again, when she'd been told to stand. Her shallow, too-fast breathing. Princess Rayana stopped mere inches away from Stomme, arms crossed over her chest, the top of her head level with Stomme's nose, eyes still dispassionate and unimpressed, and Stomme fixed her gaze firmly on the floor. She tried not to cry. The tears were there, but she didn't let them fall. Sometimes, only sometimes, if she started crying after the pain started, it could convince the person that she truly was in pain. If she started crying before the punishment, that would merely prompt them to give her something to really cry about.

Thin, deceptively strong fingers gripped her jaw. Forced her to look up. Tilted her from side to side, slowly enough it almost felt gentle, silent and ominous and foreboding. Judging her. Finding her undoubtedly wanting.

"Yan tells me you've been a devoted worker."

"I—yes, I, please, this was, was a fluke, a mistake, I've never—it won't happen again, please, I swear, I—"

The third princess released Stomme's jaw and snapped, only once, and Stomme shut up instantly. Fragile hope buffeted from fear inside her, desperation clinging to that half-absolvement of Overseer Yan's praise. She. She hadn't known she'd impressed the man. She'd have to find a way to express her gratitude to him. If it could save her, even if only in part, right now, she would owe him everything he could possibly want from her. "You are a skittish little thing, aren't you," the princess mused, as casual an observation as though she were remarking on the craftsmanship of a bracelet. Stomme didn't know if she expected an answer or not.

Hand still upright, perched in the position from when she'd snapped, she took slow steps around Stomme, magenta eyes burning at Stomme's skin. Stomme tried to remember how to breathe. Tried not to cry, or cringe, or flinch, or take one wrong step. She could oh-so-easily imagine the light scrape of painted nails before they dug into Stomme's skin. A fist in the short hair of her ponytail squeezing right before it yanked. A powerful kick from those sturdy, flat boots to the backs of her legs. The scrape of iron as the princess took the fire poker from its stand, before the sizzling of her own flesh beneath it.

But all that happened was two small, slender fingers hooked in the buckle of her collar, and tugged so slightly she didn't even sway from it. "He got you from that raid on the Orvilles' estate, did he?"

"Yes, Your Highness," Stomme answered, still trying not to cry.

"Hm."

The princess released her, and dropped her arms to her sides, sauntering back to the workdesk. She did not sway or strut, like Stomme might have expected. Maybe it was better to say the princess prowled back, all confidence and economy of movement. Stomme was once again put in the mind of a soldier's grace.

"Dismissed."

Stomme's body didn't wait for her mind to finish gawping at that. She was out the door and down the hall like an arrow loosed from its string. Tears fell, then, and Stomme ran until she was bracing herself against the stone wall of the castle and heaving for breath, bent over in half.