“Once more.” I utter after throwing a clover on my pile, humming along a few notes to hide the stress that I still feel, coming from my fear of my actions being discovered. Hopefully, they can’t smell that. I rip a weird plant with jagged leaves out of the ground and throw it on my pile. “Once more.”

I messed up yesterday, she asked for my plans and all I offered was … What kind of answer would have worked? “Once more.” Should I have said that I would follow her to the ends of the world? We would both have known that to be a lie, I won’t learn to behave within Nobility because I don’t respect them.

“Once more.” Is it that I lack ambition? I could try telling her that I’ll take the test to be a Templar but there’s no way for me to pass that, it would be about as useless as lying to her. I know nothing of swordswomanship and I can only use the most basic flow constructs.

Or is it because she thinks I’m still suicidal? Telling her that I don’t think I’ll make it was a mistake if that’s her issue with me. “Once more.” Hopeful delusions, I know why. She’s just not interested in a plain and messy girl like me.

I hear steps from rather close by, the sounds of wind mixed with my and other worker’s digging the earth make it hard to notice the small noise that someone’s walk makes until they are very close. “Once more.” Better to keep working and not act like I am on my guard.

“Jessica.” Princess Celyz’ resounding voice calls out to me.

Having heard her approach, I manage to control my reaction. I calmly turn my head and look over my shoulder.

“Good morning, Princess Celyz.” I mutter before going back to work, plunging my hand into the earth around a tiny lettuce sprout.

“Good morning.” She replies. “Don’t be so tense, I’m not going to punish you for his words.”

“I appreciate that, but his actions do reflect on our group as a whole. I apologize again.” I throw the platitude her way, suppressing a sigh of relief. She’s assuming that what happened yesterday is the reason behind my tension, lucky. I throw the lettuce on top of my pile. “Once more.”

“However, I couldn’t help but overhear some of his yells.” The Princess says, starting to walk again but this time in a circle around me. I do my best to ignore her and keep uprooting because the work makes it easier for me to keep my composure. “Lord Patrick had quite a few things to say about you …” Her voice trails off. An invitation to complain if I’ve ever heard one.

“We have our differences.” I try to make a casual shrug but it ends up being all stiff. With my eyes fixed on my hand buried in the ground, I can just barely see her circling shadow from the edges of my field of vision. “Once more.” I throw a sprout on my pile, a plant I don’t know the name of.

“Don’t you feel excluded in how they treat you?” Princess Celyz says almost in a whisper, the first time I hear that tone from her.

I reflexively shake my head as I hear her words. A physical manifestation of my mind’s attempt at expelling the very idea. I focus more of myself on the work, moving ahead on my knees to reach another unwanted sprout.

“They haven’t known me for very long and I’ve been a burden, they’re treating me just fine.” I sharply answer.

“Hum.” The vibrating sound that she makes as she circles around to my left is soothing to my ears. “Unlike my Queen, I know what a peasant’s life is like under their liege. You can talk to me.”

“I don’t have a liege right now.” I throw another weed on my pile. “Once more.”

“Oh. I am surprised they’ve not executed you for treason yet. Perhaps the situation simply didn’t allow for conflict with my warriors so close by. I wonder what will happen once you rejoin human society, will the Templar Order simply let you take another oath?”

“I …” My voice breaks as her words shake me to the core. “I don’t know.” I whisper, hurting my hand when I plunge it in the loose soil with too much force.

The consequences of my choices haven’t hit yet, huh. Princess Celyz takes a few more steps, completing another circle.

“How did your liege treat you for you to break the oath they made you take?” She asks slowly, starting another loop around me.

“I just did that in a moment of anger, Buton behaved normally for a Noble.” I tell her to put it in perspective.

“Normally? Tell me, what’s normal?” She pushes me on.

“I thought you had knowledge about human society.” I turn the question back on her. I take my hand out of the ground and throw a root with a single leaf on my pile. “Once more.”

“I do, but I wonder what you, Jessica, consider normal behavior for a Noble.”

“Hum.” I make the sound mostly to inform her that I am thinking about it. After a short while, I decide to tell her about the loan, about how the Baron changed behavior when our endeavor got out of the precarious phase and looked like it was going to succeed. “Once more.” I say, throwing another weed on my pile.

“Do Nobles behave that way regularly?” The Princess asks. I shrug to show my ignorance on that subject, Buton is the only Noble I interacted with in that capacity. “I think that Baron played you.” She almost whispers as she takes a step in front of me.

“What do you mean?” I raise my head to throw her a frown, the insinuation disturbs me enough that I take my focus off of the work. She also stops walking to turn her blank ovaloid face towards me.

“You said he started taking more of your father’s time, correct?” I nod in agreement. “That is not the behavior of someone trying to establish themselves as co-owner of successful stables, that Baron is deliberately overburdening your family to make you default on your payments.”

“Why would a Baron bother doing this to us? The entire village and all the lands around it belong to him, they’re just stables.”

“Nobles have their own taxes, they have guards to pay. It takes money to rise in rank, why wouldn’t he do it? If that Baron plays his cards well enough, he can both seize the property and force your father to keep working for him.”

“I really wasn’t chosen at random, huh. Volunteer my fucking ass!” I blurt out in my frustration. “He was evasive when we asked him to reduce our allocated lands, it isn’t usually a hard request to grant since many families would jump at the opportunity to take over.”

“Did you tell this to anyone else?”

“Just Lady Lance.” I answer without thinking, still in a daze from the revelation that Buton purposefully fucked us over.

“I wonder how this escaped her.” Princess Celyz whispers, but her resounding voice makes it hard to miss.

“What?” I ask, confused.

“Well, Lady Lance is a Noble, after all, I find it surprising that the Baron’s plot escaped her notice when you told her.” She answers with a rising tone of voice that resembles one a human would use to express perplexity.

Bullshit. I can see your angle, the wedges you’re trying to drive in-between us. Just because Celyz has an angle doesn’t mean that what she tells me is wrong. Shut up, my Lady just chose not to tell me at that point. It isn’t even a surprising choice on her part since Buton isn’t relevant to our current circumstance and telling me would only add complications.

“You have a deep knowledge of human society to read the situation as quickly and easily as you have.” I stand up from my kneeling position on the ground, staring straight at her empty face. I try hard to find clues to figure her out but there’s only an ovaloid head with twelve small openings, no facial muscles at all, no moving parts that I can recognize. “I also noticed that you immediately understood what I meant to communicate when I shrugged earlier, you’ve had experience with human mannerisms before.”

The being, Princess Celyz, inclines her head sideways and stays silent. We face each other, immobile while somehow mirroring each other’s behavior despite our completely different physiologies. I hear her long root-like toes plant themselves into the soil.

“I was apprenticed to a human blacksmith for two decades, I found human culture interesting enough to learn and interact with directly for a while.” She finally speaks up, her tone flat and calm.

“You’re actually mad at him, huh.” I throw out, half-fishing.

“Quite. He insinuated that the Rykz are cattle, stupid drones, a plague he saykrd.” She pauses as the vibrations exiting the openings in her head lose coherence. “If only I could tell you more about our history, you would understand that he somehow found one of the few things I could not let pass.”

“Why did you?” I know full well why, but what will you tell me?

“You acted first, I found the punishment appropriate enough for someone ignorant of the significance of his insult.”

“He would have said the same, perhaps even worse, if he did understand what he was saying.” Come on, let me see how you wiggle out of retaliating, how you maintain the illusion.

“What he would have done is irrelevant, I can only judge him on what he did and I think the punishment was sufficient. I couldn’t ask for more and strain our relations.” The Princess shakes her head as she speaks.

“Uh-huh.” I make the sarcastic sounds with a smile. “And you came here to talk to me and make sure that it all smooths over without a wave.”

“I may have let my anger influence me somewhat.” The Princess says with a resounding chuckle.

“What do you expect out of us, Princess? Hostages? Emissaries?” I ask directly to try to take advantage of her current honesty.

“I’m sure you’ll figure it out soon enough, there’s no rush.” She shakes her head. “It is midday, I have to go meet my Queen.”

I look up to the sky to confirm for myself, when I look back down soon after, I find that she is already leaving. I kind of enjoy the fact that she just leaves when a conversation reaches its conclusion.

I start making my way back too, heading towards the lavatories while thinking back on the conversation. It’s the first time that I notice Princess Celyz trying to drive wedges between us. What does she gain by increasing the discord in our group?

More influence over those who end up isolated? I don’t think Yvonne and my Lady will split no matter what she says. Patrick isn’t going to be receptive to her no matter the circumstances. I’m the likely target then, she has been focusing on talking to me quite a lot. What for?

I don’t think my conversation is interesting enough for her to actually scheme for my attention. I make a self-deprecating smile. Let’s say I betray the group, what can I possibly achieve? My means are laughably small compared to the resources that the Rykz have access to.

I enter the lavatory, head still full of speculations. As I pass the entrance something suddenly hits me in the stomach and I double over on myself as all the air in my lungs is ejected at once.

Another hit to the back of my neck sends me to the head first into the ground, I manage to protect my face with my arm in time but that puts my elbow in the position to take the impact, the bone slams directly against the hard stone.

“Ah!” The cry of pain escapes me just before a hand closes over my neck and starts choking me. I try to fight back by pulling my arm from under my head and throwing a blind strike with my hurting elbow.

My blow hits nothing, it barely brushes against the arm holding me. A scorching wave of pain hits me when a second hand takes hold of the wound on my left side and grips it to force me to turn on my back.

My vision isn’t as clear as it could be with my mind blinded by pain, I don’t clearly see the face but I recognize the Lordling anyway. His hand’s hold on my throat tightens as he keeps strangling me. “Argh” I manage to cough out with the very last of my air. A pitiful attempt at a scream.

My conscience starts fading. What do I do? What can I do? I panic and try to assemble a construct but I can’t focus enough to recall what segments I need, or even what construct could help me.

As a veil of black starts to spread in the edges of my eyes, he suddenly releases his grip on my throat and I take deep gasping breaths of air.

“Weak.” He snorts, taking a step back to stand up and look down at me. “I could literally do anything I want with you right now, whore, and no one would know.”

“Bullshit.” I spout with a weak voice between two choking inhalations.

“Oh?” He chuckles. “Then what am I doing now?” He asks, bringing his feet up before lowering it to violently hit my belly with his heel.

My stomach retches and I almost throw up in reaction to the hit. I forget to keep holding my head up with the pain so the back of it lowers and hits the hard rock, sending stars in my eyes.

“You’re …” I try to speak up but a coughing fit interrupts me. He actually waits for me to continue. “You’re making sure you don’t … leave any marks when … you hit me.” I make a mean grin and throw a baleful glare his way.

“Try?” Patrick asks, with a cruel twist of his lip.

I brace but it doesn’t help when he kicks my right side, right on the bruise covering my cracked ribs. “Argh.” I yell out, unable to control myself. The blinding pain makes my consciousness blink in and out a few times for a second each.

After another minute of desperately grasping for air while he looks down at me with a victorious smirk, I gather enough of myself to reply. And I have to because who knows what that maniac will do if I show fear.

“I’m not a … damsel in fucking … distress, Ass-face, … you can cause … pain, but … I’m not … going to cry and beg … for mercy.” I stammer out between breaths while hurriedly assembling a strengthening construct for my bones, putting all of my flow into it and targeting my entire body.

“Fear will do in the absence of respect.” Patrick says in a grandiloquent manner. I can’t help but cringe despite the situation I am in.

He leans forward and grabs the front of my hair, forcing my head to lift up off the ground. His lips warp to make a brutal smile, right before slamming the back of my head against the ground’s chiseled rock.

— — —

How long? The panicked question is the first thing that comes to my mind as I emerge. What happened while I was out? I look around, finding Ass-face’s back, he is walking out of the lavatory.

I glance down at my clothes and find them ruffled but otherwise undisturbed. A huge sigh of relief escapes me despite my still short breath and resolve not to show fear. It must have been loud enough for him to hear because he speaks up immediately after.

“You aren’t worth dirty myself over, whore.” Ass-face spits out from over his shoulder.

Never thought I’d ever support his opinions. Life sure is full of fucking surprises. I think, letting my head fall back to the ground and draining the strengthening construct of all its energy to preserve my flow reserves.

I might need them more than I originally thought. Thank fucking Emperor Rasaec for cowards. I retch in disgust when I think about what might have happened if Patrick thought he could get away with it …

I get back to my feet once I’ve regained my breath, refusing to dwell on myself. I grab a copper basin to flip it over, dragging it to the well and filling it with water. I wash both myself and my clothes like an automaton because my mind is focusing on what the next step for me will be.

After changing into fresh clothes, I start walking back to our building, still without having made a firm decision about what to do but knowing that I have to react in some way.

When I am in front of our building, I see the back street where I left the iron bars. Well, now I know what I am going to do. I turn around and swiftly make my way to the building with the forges, entering and barely glancing at the pickaxe heads that the workers are forging.

I grab one of the bars and turn around again, fast-walking back and entering our building without slowing down. I assemble a full body strengthening construct in which I inject half my flow.

Patrick is staring at me, eyes wide with surprise, I take two steps to close the distance, raising the raw iron bar. I ignore the cries of alarm that my Lady and Yvonne make.

I use my full strength and bring the bar straight down on his shoulder. He raises his arm to block but all it does is change the area that the bar impacts. His forearm makes a snap sound, very alike that of a branch breaking.

“Not as much fun when you’re on the other side of the ambush, is it Lordling Ass-face?” I ask, staring down at him despite the fact that he stands taller than me.

“Arrrgh! The whore broke my arm!” He yells out, using his other hand to grab the end of his forearm and doing his best to keep it aligned with the rest of his arm. “The tramp assaulted me! Kill her!” He spits out with hatred in his eyes, presumably towards Lady Lance who is standing somewhere to my right out of my field of vision.

I don’t let my gaze wander, I keep my eyes locked straight into his.