It Is The First Bit Of Normalcy She Has Had Since Her Boss Vanished.
It is the first bit of normalcy she has had since her boss vanished.
For three lovely days and nights, she was able to play the role of host, and Drakan the role of valued guest.
She gave him a room, she kept him well fed, and she was as polite as always. In return, he taught her the rules and laws of their clan. He told her how their particular variety of hospitality functioned.
After three days and three nights, he left.
He gave her a gift.
He gave her a knife.
It’s an old thing. It is so very sharp, and comes to a tidy point. The handle is worn and aged, yet the blade shines as though it has never been used.
She takes it in her hand, holds it.
Her cold skin matches the cold of the metal hilt.
She makes a few attempts at cutting and stabbing with it. Her movements are clumsy, lacking her usual grace. No amount of skill at needlework or using a broom has prepared her for this. Even if she were to find herself in a fight, she would much prefer to grow claws or twist and reshape the bodies of her opponents.
But she has been given a gift, and she intends to accept it in every way she can.
She needs to practice.
She goes to one of the spare rooms. She fixed this one herself. She made the bed. She fixed the walls. She crafted the decorations.
For now, none of this matters.
She takes all those raw materials, and shapes them into the thing she needs.
She builds muscles and a skeleton and vocal cords and eyes and teeth.
She takes a brain, but leaves it as empty as it was when she made it into that pretty thing over the fireplace, and puts it inside the body.
Soon, her preparation is done.
She lashes out with her new knife, embedding it in the dummy’s eye.
It jerks and twitches. It screams. It does not fall or move backwards.
She is satisfied.
She removes the blade, and fixes the dummy.
She lashes out again. She cuts its throat. The cerebrospinal fluid it is using as a surrogate for blood spills out.
She steps back, and fixes the dummy.
She moves around the dummy, and crouches swiftly, striking at its legs. She cuts the muscles that keep it standing, and it tumbles to the ground. It cries out again at this.
She steps back, and fixes the dummy.
She walks back around to its front. This time, she strikes lower. She draws her blade through the skin of its belly. Guts come tumbling out. Tears fill the eyes of the dummy.
She steps back, and fixes the dummy.
She plunges the blade into the flesh between its neck and shoulder.
She steps back, and fixes the dummy.
She strikes it under the arm, nearly tearing it off the joint with the force and precision of her blow.
She steps back, and fixes the dummy.
This goes on for a while.
By the end of her practice, she has become quite adept with a knife. Her movements are exact and calculated. She is graceful again.
She has grown rather fond of this knife.
She fixes her attention on the dummy. Tears stain its face. Viscera and cerebrospinal fluid tarnish the floor around it. It is covered in scars, borne from wounds that have been too rapidly healed.
Its eyes seem to plead with her. She ignores it, and returns all of the materials to their proper places.
She leaves the room with a soulless smile on her face. She wonders what it would be like to practice on something that could still act and think.
But first, she has made a mess, and it is her job as a maidservant to clean it up.
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It all starts rather abruptly.
She’s going about her day - well, her night - doing all of her usual jobs. She’s found and served a meal for her boss. She’s told the others she works with the tasks they have to do, then she’s gone to do her fair share of those tasks.
As things stand, she’s in the hallway, about an hour before sunrise, checking over all the decorations and improvements and fixes she’s made to the house.
In her time here, she’s turned a building on the edge of collapse into one that is not only structurally sound, but one that is beautiful and that she can be proud of.
Not to mention, her methods mean that all the waste from her and her boss’ meals gets put to use. She’s tidy and efficient like that, never wasting something that can be put to use.
She spent decades working on this place. She painted and repainted the door. She fixed the knocker on the front of it. She found and installed the locks that keep it closed. She has lavished that same amount of love and attention and care on every little detail of the place.
This is why it’s so upsetting when the door caves in.
A sharp tearing of metal rings out as the door flies off its hinges and backwards into the hallway.
She’s angry, but she isn’t stupid. She’s also quite quick, dashing upstairs before she can be seen.
Four people stride into the house, looking rather pleased with the damage they’ve caused.
What other details of these people matter? Neither their appearance nor their clothes nor their gear change a single thing about their fate.
The door she’s cared for for decades lies splintered and broken across a floor she’s cared for for decades, in a room she’s maintained and cared for for decades, in a building she’s cared for for decades.
She made that floor herself, taking out rotten planks of wood and replacing them with her usual materials. She made those flowers lining the hall. She made those books on the shelves. She made these walls.
The floor under the hunters erupts, sharp slivers of bone and teeth appearing from it as though out of thin air.
One hunter is caught in their leg. They stumble. They fall.
The floor yawns open to let them fall through. They’re in the void between the floor and the foundations now. She can deal with them later.
One hunter stands, leaning against the wall, recovering from their sudden exertion.
This one is fast.
A long, thin, and sharpened bone - maybe a femur, she thinks - slides swiftly out of the wall and impales them through their heart. Their life drains from them as they struggle powerlessly to lift themselves off the spike that rests in their torso.
One hunter is brave. They climb the stairs, taking the steps two or three at a time, intending doubtlessly to kill her.
Claws grow from the fingers of her right hand. She dashes forwards with a swift, controlled movement.
Their face a bloody, pulped ruin, she discards their corpse over the banister.
She has made rather a mess of herself. It is not proper for her to have so much blood in her hair, or on her hands, or on her dress. It will take hours of scrubbing for her to clean herself and her clothes.
The last one stands, frozen still, eyes fixed on hers. They can do nothing but uselessly open and close their mouth as she descends, and rests her hands on their arms.
Their eyes beg for mercy.
Their form distends and stretches. Muscles and bones snap and reform. She needs more material for this, so she fetches the corpses of their comrades. The three are joined and remade.
At the end of this, she has something to replace the door they so rudely destroyed.
The first hunter to fall is kept a while longer. She has exerted herself oh so much, and is rather in need of a drink before she goes to clean herself and lay herself to bed.
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She/her, LARP doer, Warhammer and Gundam fan, that one reveal with Zane from Ninjago changed the trajectory of my life,Certified Scribblehub Eggfic Protagonist.
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