Some men were dragging a girl by her hair to the courtyard, from her appearances and the way she was dressed, she seemed like a maid.

“Fuckin’ Eastalian bitch, can’t you handle things more properly”, the three men threw her in the courtyard. “Don’t go breaking things you can’t replace”.

One of the men kicked her in the ribs.

The maid could only grimace in pain as she tried to hold her arms up to protect herself miserably.

“The oldman may have taken a liking to your kind, but he ain’t the chief no more. You’ve already lived here in far more luxury than your eastern kind deserves”, he looked at her with scorn.

Contempt due to segregation was commonplace in all of Mountaliya. However, Nortaliya was known for being less affected by it. But judging by the scene in front of them, there were all kinds of people everywhere.

As the men were preparing to leave, the maid tried to sit up and stared silently at one particular man, one with a scar on his eyebrow.

“Wait”, he said, getting the attention of the other two.

“Th’ fuck are y’ glarin’ at?” he motioned to the others with his head. “ ‘old ‘er down”.

The other two moved to grab her arms, but she resisted and tried to shake them off.

And when she resisted, the man with the scar mustered all force he could and stomped on her abdomen.

And with a groan that infested with pain, her arms lost all strength.

From Beowulf’s perspective it was quite surprising that she hadn’t screamed or cried. She endured it all, withholding her emotions.

It was the only retaliation she could muster.

By not giving them what they wanted the most.

Control.

Some people drive pleasure from making others submit, and feed their fragile ego by staying in control.

The man with the scar slapped her face with the back of his hand, which resulted in a cut on her lip. As the tiny stream of blood trickled down, he held her face with his hand.

“It’s these rebellious eyes y’ Eastalians got, I don’t like ‘em”, he pushed her away. “My mood’s fuckin’ ruined. Let’s go to th’ ‘all”, they turned towards the gathering hall, seemingly done with the girl.

But before they could, a meek looking boy, wearing glasses came out of the residence.

“Evening, ‘young master’”, they said mockingly as they went towards the hall.

The boy looked at her a mix of pity and sadness, as if he wanted to help her.

But he didn’t, and went inside again.

The girl now lay in the courtyard, by her lonesome.

[Is the punishment for breaking something valuable so harsh among humans?]

He asked, with the slightest hint of sorrow in his voice.

It was likely that whatever she broke didn’t matter at all. It was probably just an excuse to beat her down. Something to take their daily vexations out on.

[Should not you have interfered? And stopped them?]

“Why?” Beowulf asked, in the distance the girl got up and slowly walked inside.

[If I am not wrong, in human terms it would have been the ‘heroic’ thing to do.]

What should’ve he done? Helped her as if she was some damsel in distress?

Perhaps, he could stop it, but Beowulf was only here for a few days at most. He couldn’t protect the girl for all of her life. And interfering now would only cause further problems for her later.

Kindliness born out of a thinly veiled condescending sense of pity isn’t kindness at all.

The girl didn’t want to be pitied, that would be like spitting in the face of her resolve to stay brave.

“Make no mistake Ghost, there are no heroes. Only fools and fools with charisma”, he said as he opened the door to the hall slightly, the noise interlaced with the music came rushing outside.

[It is loud.]

“You don’t want to come inside?” he looked at him

[I do not. It is irritating. I shall go and search for those requests you mentioned.]

And with a feline-like jump he climbed the manor’s walls and leapt outside.

Beowulf turned his head towards the door, braced himself for the rowdy night ahead of him and entered the hall.

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