Whumpfessional

Close-ups

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—"

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.

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.

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.

Overseer Yan. She would go to him, she would seek him out and prostrate herself before him and beg for his forgiveness and his correction. If he could honestly tell the princess that he'd already punished Stomme for her transgression, then maybe Stomme could avoid a worse beating at the princess's order later. That—yes, she'd do that. She would beg, and be punished, and stagger her way through making up for lost time, and mourn the loss of the quiet peace of a castle without a royal in it later, when she was curled up beneath her blanket and bruises, and she would do everything in her power never to cross paths with the princess again.