When Ruth woke up the next day his eyes immediately narrowed in suspicion. His golden irises seemed to shrink as he looked up at the unfamiliar ceiling. The soft glow of the plant life in the room increased the light level as he stirred, his general movement at being abruptly awake having disturbed the organic material enough to cause it to give off the distress lighting.

“Does everyone else wake up and not remember how they got where they are as much as me?” He wondered aloud. Mostly to see if anyone would take the bait and answer back. The silence continued to fill the very small room. It was almost the size of a closet.

Closet. In this case, a small area used for storage usually recognized because of--

The image of several closets filled his head as examples. The pain immediately struck him like a ‘cow’ charge to the face. He rolled back and forth in the small bed clutching his head in abject horror at how much his head hurt. It didn’t help that the more he rolled the brighter it got in the room.

Slowly the pain receded and Ruth sat up, taking his hands away from his delicate and tender head. The wince that had been on his face remained in large part as something occurred to him.

“She made me stupid,” Ruth finally deduced with no small amount of disgust. Why the fuck was it important to know about closets? The last few days(week?) had been one adventure after another about survival and frantic moving. Yesterday and today was the first time that he had been inside an enclosure of … human(also demi-human, demi-god, certain monster races--) design.

The obvious question being, why the fuck had she given him so many pointless words?!

Ruth tried to think of another pointless word to test his hypothesis.

His eyes narrowed in concentration as an object and an associated word in Under Common popped into his head. Eyes widening in horror, he whispered the word that had no use, related to an object he would never need to be able to identify, “...scarf.”

↢↦

Inevitably Ruth tired very quickly of thinking of other useless words. He ventured out of the small furnished ancillary former broom closet and immediately explained the insanity to Sikes in a quick series of explanations, finding the man sitting at a table with four chairs sipping some sort of steaming liquid.

The words he had loathed the most(so far) were ‘paperweight’ and ‘letter opener,’ respectively. The term paperweight could be referencing anything. Anything?! What was the point of having a word for something that quite literally should already have another word describing it? Letter opener was slightly awful as well. There were letters, which in this case was correspondence or mail but not like the letters used to create the correspondence or post, and the opener part was just a knife. A dull knife with absolutely no use whatsoever outside of opening the parcels.

“Why not just use a fucking knife then?” He asked Sikes.

“Life is a puzzle,” Sikes said after a long moment of staring blankly at Ruth. “It is good that you are up. In the morning you and I will be working together,” he sipped his tea and pursed his lips, closing his eyes slightly as if he really enjoyed it. “For the foreseeable future, I should think.”

Ruth was immediately on guard and stood up to his full height. “What kind of work?”

“Her Supreme Benevolence is doing errands and will attend you in the evenings. In the morning I shall work on developing your sense of danger and general education. In the afternoons Lady Solace or Lady Merriweather will collect you to take you to the castle for martial education.” Sikes motioned broadly to the table.

“What?” Ruth finally asked, not understanding the gesture in the slightest.

“Sit, if it pleases you, and we can discuss why this is to your benefit.”

Ruth quickly looked at what Sikes was sitting on and returned his attention to the remaining chairs. Simple chairs with the wooden backs having spaces in between wooden bars. It might be slightly uncomfortable but if he leaned forward he could fit his tail through the empty space at the back of the chair. With the barest of difficulties, Ruth sat in the chair closest to Sikes.

For a moment he sat absolutely still. There was something… almost nice about this. A moment later his butt began to go numb on one side. He shifted slightly. Then the other side started to go numb. He decided to ignore this and just scowl instead. His last thought about the chairs wasn’t about how the chairs failed functionally, it was about this demi-human form that he inhabited. It was obvious that this form preferred sitting like this, which was to say, upright. Why then did it immediately send him discomfiture signals?

Bipedal bodies are fucking dumb.

“What are the chances I can run away and she won’t find me?” Ruth had a pretty good guess that the chance was low considering Tamara had mentioned she could find his soul space at will. He didn’t remember how he got into the closet with the bed and the surprisingly comfortable sheets, but he remembered almost everything else up to a point where he had grabbed a book off a table…

“I should think very small to non-existent,” Sikes said bluntly. “It’s not all bad though. In a way, she is only interested in making you grow stronger. Don’t you wish to be stronger? I’m told you would like to kill Her Holiness?”

Ruth just stared at Sikes then, hard. For a long time, there was silence between them before Sikes finally began to look nervous.

“I suppose that was a bit too manipulat--” He started.

“What do I have to do to kill Tamara?” Ruth interrupted him abruptly.

Sikes grimaced slightly. “You have got a long way to go, but I suggest following the program set out before you. In the morning, as I’ve said, you’ll be with me and we’ll train your mind. We’ll teach you subtlety and deception, suspicion and just the right amount of paranoia, and of course, etiquette.”

“Etiquette?” Ruth asked, the images in his head for this weren’t actually that clear.

“Oh yes, but that will be the easiest part.” Sikes nodded slowly. “There will be times when you get mad at me. You’ll want to hurt me. Remember that I am only doing this for your own good. Do I have your word that you’ll remember that and act accordingly?”

Ruth nodded. “You’re trying to make me gain strength. It won’t be easy. I appreciate your help.”

Sikes nodded slowly and watched him over the rim of his steaming cup. “Then, tea?”

Ruth watched the man pour more of the steaming liquid from a pitcher and place it into the cup. Sikes swirled the liquid with a spoon and set it on a small plate. These fucking words… Ruth received the plate and took the cup off. It was damn small, and light, and the water smelled like warm dirt. He hesitated, noticing that it wasn’t a bad smell. He took a sip of the liquid and swallowed. The warmth numbed his tongue and started to spread down into his body.

“I think I like tea--”

Sikes nodded at him, watching his expression change.

Something was wrong. The liquid was spreading warmth but it was also making him pant and sweat slightly. A growing sense of concern was mounting as his stomach began mercilessly squeezing in on itself. He didn’t have a lot of experience with vomiting in this body, but he was pretty sure that was happening. He pushed the chair back and got down on his hands and knees, trying to retch onto the floor. Nothing came up. His stomach was too empty.

Eventually, he collapsed, curling into the perfect expression of pain. If he laid like this… maybe… maybe… Nope.

Ruth writhed on the ground near the table in pain. His body spasming and contorting in ways that he hadn’t known he was capable. If it wasn’t for the fact that his vocal cords and lungs were seizing he might be screaming.

FUCKING SIKES, I’LL FUCKING KILL YOU.

“Goddess Tamara has given me a barrel of what is called Fragnagel, a poison derived from the oily skin of a… Fragnagel? I suppose? I’m not entirely sure what a Fragnagel is, to be perfectly honest with you. I do know, since I’ve had it used on me once, that it is very unpleasant.” Sikes sipped his tea as he watched Ruth continue to lose control of his body. He raised an eyebrow slightly as Ruth tried to say something to him but his mouth didn’t seem to work, and was full of saliva and drool, to boot.

“Urkk…” Ruth managed smartly.

“It lasts for five minutes. Now, I know you’re angry right now and thinking of awful things to do to me. So I want to remind you of your promise and your goal. I don’t think that is enough so I’m going to make you a deal too.” Sikes placed his teacup back on the platter and stood up slowly. He moved to the wall where a large area devoid of the light making algae and produced a small bit of rock from his waist. Looking back over his shoulder he briefly explained what he was doing. “A solution of water and some other chemicals with the algae produces an ink-like substance that will glow for a time. I’ll just write a few things here, the alphabet for Under Common. I’m told that once you see something your soul space will record it, so it shouldn’t take terribly long to advance to the lessons for reading and writing. Maybe even less time, as I’m uncertain of the degree of engraving Lady Tamara did for you..?” He paused but then seemed to remember that Ruth couldn’t answer.

“In addition, I’ll write our standing scoreboard. Here… is your name. Here… is my name… and here is the score.”

Ruth: I

Sikes:

“Every mark will denote a time when you were tricked into being poisoned. For every morning that I do not manage to poison you, I will allow you to poison me for every attempt I made to poison you that day. See? Simple. I have poisoned you once, and so a simple mark goes in front of your name. In this case, your mistake was accepting tea from the hands of someone who you loosely considered neutral to you. Anyone can poison you, for any reason. It need not be hostility. It could just be practicality or convenience. We will develop your observation skills through practical application and real-life experience.”

Ruth stared viciously at Sikes as his mind worked through the imposed game. Ruth could actually catch up in score quite quickly if he managed not to get poisoned during a day. For instance, tomorrow if Ruth didn’t get poisoned by Sikes he wouldn’t get a mark by his name. If Sikes had tried to poison him and failed he’d get a mark for each failed attempt.

It all sounded fine, except for the part where Ruth didn’t give a shit about games and wanted to pull the Durvgar’s spine out of his chest.

As if sensing his murderous thoughts Sikes frowned down at him, the rock with the glowing ink on the end drooping slightly in his hand. “You don’t approve? You know how much further away she is from you in power, yes? Do you have a better plan than pain? We don’t have to do this. I suspect that if we use less painful means you can just take your time for ten years. When you leave you’ll go somewhere else and be her whipping boy for another ten, and then another ten after that most likely.” Sikes smiled slightly.

Ruth bit his lip and rolled, trying to push down the pain as he thought, really thought about what Sikes was saying.

What was stronger? His desire to kill Tamara? Or his desire to avoid the torment Sikes was suggesting.

It must have been several minutes because the excruciating pain was starting to lessen. Before it had completely faded he put his hands on the floor and pushed himself upright, wobbling as he finally managed to stand upright. For a brief moment, Ruth enjoyed the look of sudden concern and apprehension he received from Sikes as the Durvgar tried to decide whether he’d been swayed or not.

Finally, Ruth bared his teeth and whispered harshly, “I enjoyed the lesson, teacher, may I have another?”

Sikes smiled slightly, the corner of only one side of his lips raising. It wasn’t quite a sneer, but the dark look in his eyes spoke of the barest hints of approval. He moved toward Ruth and gently righted the chair that was on the floor, brushing the handles with his gloved hands to wipe away the dust and dirt from the floor. He gestured to the chair and Ruth sat down gratefully.

The poison had just worn off and he felt like he could finally breathe.

As he was looking up to ask Sikes what they would be doing now he felt a slight twinge of irritation from his fingers. The fingers of both hands were starting to tingle. He blinked and raised his hands, staring at the ashen fingers that began to swell before his eyes. The familiar heat began to spread through his arms and swiftly reached his chest. It was only a matter of moments before Ruth was once again rolling onto the floor.

“The second lesson, always be mindful of pointless kindness. I brushed the Fragnagel onto the top of your chair handles. It is a poison that, while extremely effective when ingested, is also easily absorbable through the skin. You should have chosen another chair after politely thanking me for my offer.”

Ruth managed one angry shout and scream of frustration before his lungs and throat failed him, soon followed by the rest of his body convulsing and betraying him.

Ruth made a very angry mental note to start having the clothes that ate other clothes cover the hand with the ring on it. He would have to try and figure out a way to get it over whatever problem it had with his other arm so that it would cover that, too.

Sikes calmly walked over to the board and updated it.

Ruth: II

Sikes: