Why does a maid need to learn how to fight? Bella was never stupid enough to ask the question out loud. Not even before the very first lesson, just after Redana had wiled away an hour brushing her hair for the pleasure of making her new pet purr. But she asked it with her eyes, every single time. When she thought she could risk it, she asked it with the slouch of her shoulders and the aggravated flick of her ears. She asked with a drooping tail and a "Yes sir, at once sir!" that was half a second too late to be proper. But she never asked it out loud. Why does a maid need to learn how to fight? She had quite enough to be getting on with as it was, didn't they know? Didn't they understand? The Imperial Kennels trained her to be a pet. They taught her to wear pretty, floofy little dresses and how to always, always be polite even if she didn't like the feel of the collar a human was putting around her neck. They taught her how to sing and do stupid magic tricks for guests' amusement. They taught her how to sit in a lap and close her eyes all content-like while fingers wandered all the places she didn't want them. And when she was a Good Girl, they taught her how to run races. And little Tredecima had thought that was a lot of things to know! But Bella was expected to be perfect, so there was more for her to learn. Washing the laundry, drying it, folding it after. Cooking, and how to be so good at it nobody could tell it hadn't come from a proper chef but never well enough that she threatened their position. How to grind rust out of plovers' limbs. How to repair the great machines of Tellus so that the planet could function perfectly, though never the inner workings of such wonders. How to braid hair, trim nails, apply makeup, even tailor dresses for people vastly more important than her. All of it made sense. An idle Servitor was a mistreated Servitor, wasn't it said? And when your job was to be pretty, who better to put to work making everything around her pretty, too? So then. Why does a maid need to learn how to fight? Scipia declared that a Princess' life was full of danger. Empires would always have enemies, and those enemies would always seek out chances to strike at weaknesses. A Princess who was still learning how to be an Empress was as weak a point as an Empire could have. Therefore, defense must always be to hand. Therefore, a Princess can have no greater defender than she who is always close to hand. They bred Bella to have sharp teeth and claws, did they not? Here she was, a product of pure Imperial intent, growing stronger every day. So it must be! It is ordained. It is the will of the Empire! It is therefore the will of the Gods! Therefore quit slouching, little one, and fight! And she did, and did well at it. She passed every lesson. But still, she wondered. Why does a maid need to learn how to fight? He made her spar against initiates of the Ikarani temple, though she didn't know it by name and didn't know what that meant. Not [i]really[/i], anyway. For her it was fighting shadows. Awkward children with distant eyes who memorized her habits and her posture after only a pass or two. It meant hiding her intentions. It meant adapting what she was doing while she was in the middle of doing it. Swinging her leg in a big sweeping kick that turned into momentum for a dodge that left her low to the ground so she could lunge upward from an angle she should have been weak from, given her taller height. It meant taking hits so that she could trade bigger ones. It meant making her muscles strong enough that her hits [i]were[/i] bigger ones. But always carefully, carefully. She had to be soft. She had to be pretty. She was still a maid, before anything else. Why does a maid need to learn how to fight? Anakoni believed that every citizen should be a warrior, even in an empire that had sworn off of killing. He also believed that a Servitor was close enough to a Citizen that they hardly needed to be Ceronian to answer the call. A maid was just a warrior who cleaned mansions instead of plowing fields in between wars. And there [i]would[/i] be wars, slut. Fight them in your pretty dresses if you must, but fight or face the consequences. And she nodded at this too, and thanked her instructor for wasting his time on her with the deepest curtsy her legs could manage. But this was such obvious dogma that even young Bella couldn't swallow it unquestioningly. This was strength, the kind of strength they turned on her to make sure she was worthy of the kindest, best parts of Tellus she was allowed to call home as long as she was perfect. This was a lash for her to endure, punishment to smile through so she could show Her Highness what a good girl she was. But her heart was still a storm. And over and over, the question repeated itself inside her head, begging to be let out. Why does a maid need to learn how to fight? This instructor pitted her against the initiates of the Oratus temple. But like Scipia before him, he did not name the temple, and Bella lacked the wisdom to realize the nature of her opponents. This was not like Scipia's challenge; she couldn't win by being rash and unpredictable. She couldn't win by being clever or through willingness to destroy herself. These ones did not predict: they commanded. She would rush in, leaping over obstacles and choosing her angles to catch by them by surprise, only to find herself staring up at the ceiling when her blood suddenly screamed at her to trip. To win she had to push her body harder, train her ears to catch every little vibration in the notes of every voice, to train her eyes to watch for movements hidden in even simple hand gestures that might turn hypnotic, and her nose to catch the chemical notes that meant pheromones were entering her body. She had to identify them to cut them off, and never make a mistake, and she had to cut them off perfectly, or they'd use her own dulled senses as a weapon against her. She hated this training more than any other, especially as she got older. One wrong move on even the subtlest level could mean her claws wound up dug into her own throat, and then there'd be no one left to ask the question. Why does a maid need to learn how to fight? Lucia was the kindest of her instructors. And maybe it was a coincidence, but she was also the only one who never asked Bella to fight her way through waves of strange trainees roughly her own age. She might even have answered the question directly, if Bella had dared to ask it. But she didn't. Any idiot who let her guard down after only a little bit of kindness deserved to be culled. So she never found her answer from her favorite teacher. But Lucia's muscles and the scars she wore proudly across her body told Bella that, in her opinion, it simply felt good to be strong. Crafting your body to be able to leap higher, run faster, hit harder, and dodge more agilely was simply part of becoming a better person. And that made her think of Redana. And that made her smile. And that made her not mind the rest of it so much. Why does a maid need to learn how to fight? Maybe that was the wrong question. Why does she need to fight like [i]this?[/i] Lucia's instructions were simple. Hit her, don't get hit. Both impossible. Maddeningly so. And that was the entire point. She needed to learn what kind of power was locked inside anger, how much farther she could push herself if she rode it like a wave. She could crush stone, rend steel, crumple sevenfold shields like origami cranes if only she embraced that white-hot lightning inside of her. To win... that is, to succeed, because hitting Lucia only made her deck Bella harder, she hard to turn herself into a whirlwind. She had to hide power under that pretty frame that nobody could possibly believe was there. She had to seethe, explode, and then quickly and quietly pack it all back inside of her again before anybody could be offended by it. It was as anything she could remember doing, and the contrast only made her more curious. Why does a maid need to learn how to fight? Mynx came too late to be of any help. By the time the Toxicrene was willing to drop the body double routine and be a friend and confidant, Bella had lost her window to ask the question. The maid already knew how to fight. Now she needed to keep in practice, and this much Mynx was [i]very[/i] good at. She could be any opponent, any lackey of Odoacer's that rumors said might be after Dany, and she could be anywhere at any time. More to the point, Mynx knew how to fight in ways Bella hadn't seen before. A single touch could end a fight before it began, but dodging wasn't always possible when she'd waltz in and suddenly her arms ended in tendrils or claws to rival Bella's. She talked all the time, too, that was the weirdest part. Fighting Mynx was one hundred percent a case of fighting against her own secret insecurities (or sometimes fantasies) without ever letting them rattle her. Misdirection made her forget that behind the curtain was a first class ass kicker with an infinite variety of daggers. Sometimes the fight [i]did[/i] end before it began. Sometimes she'd ask to spar and wake up three hours later from a nap she never meant to take. But always one she needed. Winning was impossible, honestly. But Bella didn't mind as much as she thought she was supposed to. It always made her think, and these were the only lessons she got to learn that came with a hug at the end. Why does a maid need to learn how to fight? ...Now she knows. Maids need to know how to fight because the galaxy is full of monsters. Monsters like Thellis Thist who eat the dead and smoke their souls to feel alive. Monsters who fight with every power Bella's ever trained against with a viciousness that only comes from long ages in the dark. Grasping. Scheming. Adapting. Her ELF flashes harmless against Thist's. The rush of her claws is batted aside like she was a child again, first by predictive movement and then, far worse, again with pure animistic strength. Thist moves like mist and strikes like falling stars, too fast and too slow at once for Bella's eyes to follow. The Auspex calculates trajectories, and she changes them three times before Bella can respond to the first. It shrugs inside her head and squeezes her ears to punish her for being this stupid. She was prepared to fight a god? Well not Artemis. Definitely not Hades. Bella digs her heels in deeper. There is nowhere for her to run. No escape is possible from this. Maids have to learn how to fight because Thellis Thist exists. And they should have been taught better. Wasn't she warned? Stay out of trouble, XIII. When nothing you do can impress a two-bit lawyer, that means you're outmatched. All of the posturing and pride of Empire means nothing in the face of a proper monster. That's the lesson. That's the hospitality of the Endless Azure Skies. Breathe it in, Bella. And then die. There is one lesson left that can help her. Bella howls with toxic fury and slashes her claws into everything she can reach. She may be no match for Thist, but this palace is no match for her. She'll bring the whole fucking place down on everybody's heads, and then see who's feeling smug about it after the fact. She's... sorry, Mynx. You were right. When you can't win, you cheat. And then you hope to run away. [Overcome: 1, 2. A failure means Bella reactivates Tenacity Incarnate]