As I emerge from my sleepy haze, I feel a pressure on my wrist and my arm being moved aside. It precipitates my awakening, when I open my eyes, I find Lady Lance looking down at me.

My mind is still confused, barely awakening, my eyes stare back at her while I try to get my bearings. I feel the heat of her body with my head resting on her stomach, her abdominal muscles are hard but a small layer of comfortable flesh is wrapped around them. The rest of me, body and arm, is laying on the sheet right next to her.

“Hey.” Lady Lance says softly. “Good morning, Jessica.”

“Good morning, my Lady.” I reply, almost automatically.

“Want to get up?” She asks.

“Your abs make a great pillow, my Lady.” I tell her, trying to delay.

“That’s why I train myself, yes, to provide you with a pleasant experience.” She replies sarcastically.

“I don’t think you thought that one through.” I say with an amused smile. “I’m going to keep it in reserve for when I need a favor from Yvonne.”

Lady Lance makes a groan, rolling her eyes at the same time. She then sits up on the suspended sheet, forcing my head off her stomach and disturbing the whole bed with the shift in weight distribution.

I don’t even attempt to feign getting up, I just let my head slide along until it hits her thighs and stops. When she looks down at me with a stare urging me to get moving, I just shrug with laziness while forcing a yawn out.

Lady Lance brings a hand in-between our faces, breaking our eye contact. She then fully extends her slender index while folding her other fingers against her palm. I incline my head to the side, quizzically. What is she doing?

My Lady slowly lowers her hand, I follow it with my eyes when it angles to the side and approaches my belly. I observe with curiosity as the point of her finger nears.

“Let’s see. Right, about … here.” Lady Lance whispers as the tip of her index makes contact with the side of my tummy, right on the edge of my own discreet abs.

The touch of her finger there is oddly unsettling. When she suddenly jabs me with it, my reaction is beyond what I intended or expected. My entire midsection suddenly contorts away from the finger, on its own, while the rest of my body makes a small jump of a few centimeters to the side, away from her, without asking my opinion.

“Wh … what was that?” I ask in a shaky voice.

“Instinct.” She answers.

Lady Lance’s index finger starts moving closer to the side of my tummy, once again. The slow approach made me underestimate her earlier, but this time I can see the threat that the tip of her finger represents.

I bring my arm over to try to block the finger-jabbing threat with my palm, but as soon as I begin moving, she reacts instantly and pokes the side of my belly in a lightning strike.

“Ah!” I involuntarily make a small yelp in reaction while my body exaggeratedly jumps away from the source of the attack without even asking me.

“That was cute.” My Lady comments absent-mindedly. “When you feel something poke at your flesh, your body reacts automatically to protect your organs, it reflexively tries to pull them away from the potential threat. The instinct is even more prevalent the stomach area because the organs there don’t have a cage of bones around them as protection.” She explains with a calm voice and a small smile. “Should we keep going?”

“This is no time to play around, my Lady!” I hurriedly exclaim, edging away from the finger that began its slow approach once more.

I take hold of the wooden bed frame with my hand, using it as leverage to help get myself off the sheet and away from the dangerous poking finger.

“That was unfair, my Lady!” I turn around and protest now that I am safely out of reach.

“And turning an innocent sarcasm into blackmail material is fair game?” She asks, hopping off from the sheet mattress and out of bed in turn.

“Innocent sarcasm.” I scoff. “It was a scathing attack against a good-natured compliment.”

“I see you’re both in a great mood this morning.” Yvonne, sitting on the frame of her bed, throws the comment our way with a yawn.

I feel a slight rise of heat in my cheeks, deciding that it would be best to stay quiet for now.

“You stay out of it.” Lady Lance directs a flat look at Yvonne. “Just because I’m missing pieces of the puzzle between your exchanges doesn’t mean that I can’t tell who’s the aggressor and whether I’m being used somehow or not.”

“Fine. I’ll lay off.” Yvonne raises her hands, making a placating gesture. “Sucks, it was such a heart-warming experience to watch her get all flustered.”

“I’m not here for your entertainment.” I throw an offended frown at Yvonne.

“Really? You’re doing great without trying then, congratulations.” She replies with a wide smile.

“Ugh.” Lady Lance says, rubbing the side of her temples with her hands.

“It’s too early for me. I surrender. You both win.” Better to cut my losses here.

Yvonne laughs brightly while my Lady directs a hurt glance my way. Seems like she resents being lumped along with Yvonne. Maybe I didn’t lose the exchange too severely after all. I smile mirthfully.

“Look at her, she knows what she did.” Yvonne tells my Lady tauntingly.

“Almost textbook, achieving victory by retreating.” Lady Lance comments with an amused expression. “You would break hearts at court.” She adds.

“Not interested in theirs.” I retort instantly, staring right above my Lady’s left breast, gaze aimed straight towards her heart.

An awkward silence floats over us after my answer. Lady Lance shifts her weight uncomfortably, changing support leg. I do my best to remain placid but it is an impossible task with the heat rising in my cheeks.

Yvonne stays uncharacteristically silent. I throw a quick glance at her from the corner of my eyes, she is eagerly watching us with an interested expression.

“I’ll be back for lunch.” I tell them, cheeks undoubtedly bright red.

“Alright.” Yvonne says, acknowledging.

I turn around and walk out of the building. Lady Lance’s silence weighs on my shoulders as I walk down the street towards the lavatory. I shouldn’t have said that. I didn’t really intend to, sort of … came out.

Once at the lavatory building, I approach the window where I hung yesterday’s clothes to let them dry. I pick them up to fold them up and put them back on the window’s border in a pile. I’m being tidier than I ever was back home. I make a slight smile at the thought before taking a street on my right.

Haven’t taken this one before, but as long as I pick streets that go away from the lake, it won’t be hard to exit the city and find the large mushroom pit field.

As I make my way, I take care to glance inside every window that I walk by. I find more buildings filled with beds, a couple more smiths for small hand-held tools, but also one where workers are shaping a kind of clay to make large amphorae. There are several kilns in the back of that room, their chimney tubes exiting through the back wall.

After a bit of thought, I realize that the Rykz must store most of their food in liquid form since both scouts and warriors eat by using their trunks. That could be useful information for my Lady when she gets out of here.

When, not if. When, not if.

As I check inside another building, I find a smith with workers making hand shovels, possibly the same one that I found yesterday but I’m looking in from a different window. This new angle of vision allows me to see that there is a wood barrel with a dozen iron bars laying inside, it’s right next to the structure’s entrance.

I keep do my best to memorize the location of this building as I keep walking. I soon reach the mushroom pit field, making my way between the well-like pits to find a new area with some undesirable plants to uproot.

“Once more.” I utter between my lips with a smile, kneeling on the somewhat loosened soil. I pinch a tiny sprouting clover between my fingers and throw it in front of me.

“Once more.” Those hand shovels must be pretty useful for this. I think as the next sprout I pull on breaks in half, just above the root, forcing me to search the soil to find the other half and pull it out.

The morning goes by smoothly with no other incident as being forced to comb through the earth for a while to find the small roots reminded me to be careful with the amount of strength I use. A worker with a basket approaches me when the sun nears its noon position in the blue sky.

I get back up on my feet and nod at the worker in thanks. I don’t see it do anything to respond, but the Rykz does turn around to pick up my stack of uprooted plants. I shrug and start making my way back to our building, I don’t follow the worker who takes a different path because I remember telling the others that I would come back for lunch as I escaped from the embarrassing silence I provoked.

I take a turn towards the lavatory, passing by the well. Inside, I find a few copper basins, I take hold of one and flip it over to eject the water inside towards the evacuation trench in the center of the room.

I manage to lift the copper basin with my arm, it isn’t light but I can carry it for the short distance to the well. I lay it near the low wall around the well and start the whole process of lifting a bucket of water with a single hand.

Pull on the rope, wrap it around my forearm, adjust to grip it higher, pull, wrap around, adjust grip. After three buckets, my arm hurts and my breath is short. I don’t even try to drag the copper basin back to the lavatory, deciding to wash here.

I first plunge my head into the cold water before washing my hand and forearm, using the pants I’m wearing to rub the parts of my arm I can’t reach. Once I am satisfied with how clean my hand is, I rub my face and pass it through my hair who are still somewhat drenched.

I don’t try to untangle the knots that resist me since my neck length black hair will go right back to being a mess in no time. I’ve always considered that task to be pointless since it never ends and I look fine with messy hair anyway.

The clothes I’m wearing are now thoroughly wet because of the water dripping from my head and how I used them to clean my arm.

I walk back to the lavatory and quickly exchange my dirty wet clothes for those that I left in a pile over the window’s border this morning. I swiftly wash the outfit in the copper basin next to the well.

I don’t try to be too thorough about it since the effort of the morning added to lifting buckets out of the well is starting to add up. I leave the clothes hanging over the window to dry and start making my way back to our building, our open cell.

I try to comb my hair somewhat as I walk, mostly out of boredom, but after untangling a single knot, my fingers’ muscles start to feel sore. I suppose it isn’t surprising after using them to dig through the ground for the whole morning. I give up on the task and shake my head to throw my errant strands of hair on either side of my face. I don’t really pay attention to them unless strands start wandering in front of my eyes, and that’s quickly taken care of by blowing them away.

I walk into the building without giving myself time to hesitate, finding the other three already sitting around two baskets in the middle of the room. I make my way and join them. Yvonne starts taking bowls out of the baskets and handing them over.

I sit down to the right of Ass-face and in front of Yvonne. I would rather not see him at all but I can’t sit right in front of my Lady either since we’re supposed to talk. It is way too easy for her to disturb me, sometimes she does it without even doing anything. The blame rests entirely on her for that. Not my fault at all that I like her so much.

I take the bowl and spoon that Yvonne holds out to me, lowering my head over it to start eating immediately.

“Enhance your hearing and talk as lightly as possible so that they can’t overhear us.” Lady Lance says in her ordering tone of voice.

I send two trickles of flow from my reserves and assemble the enhancing construct for hearing, just enough energy to last an hour.

“Can’t you, I don’t know, improvise a construct to block sound?” I ask between two bites of the mushroom grub. I hear Patrick make a scoffing sound. “What?” I ask

“I’ll explain later if we have time. The short answer is no, you cannot improvise constructs.” Lady Lance answers me gently. “But first, what happened when Princess Celyz took you aside to heal you?”

“She applied a paste of some kind to my injuries.” I think back to what she said. “Then she used a healing construct to make it soak into my flesh.”

“Your scream was about as bad as the one you made when your arm was burning.” Yvonne says. “Was the pain that bad?”

“No, just different, would be worse if it lasted as long as my arm burned. Anyway, not very important how much it hurt. How do I explain …” I let my words trail while I think.

“What?” My Lady asks.

“The issue is that she … The Princess, she understated the strain that the healing construct would put me under, the pain that it would cause, I think she did that on purpose to keep me unprepared when it hit me. That’s why I screamed so loudly, I didn’t expect what hit me.” I try to explain.

“Why would she do that on purpose?” Yvonne asks.

“Why are we listening to the peasant’s lies? The wench was obviously tortured. What happened is that she quickly broke and told the Rykz everything she knew to make it stop.” Patrick spouts his tirade with a sneer in his voice. “We all heard her lose her mind that same night, the wench is probably spying for that creature. We should not speak in her presence.”

I remain silent during his accusations, baffled by how much thought he put into this. I never noticed the extent of his paranoia towards me because he never showed his suspicions, but then again he doesn’t speak to me and I don’t look like much of a physical threat with my size.

He probably warned them when I wasn’t there but didn’t challenge me directly because he didn’t see me as important enough to bother until we started sharing information together in a group.

“If I lost my mind, then I don’t know what you lost, Lordling, but it must have been important because you’re further gone than I am.” I reply with an amused smile. I watch Ass-face turn bright red with interest. The fact that I didn’t even attempt to defend myself and went straight to retaliating probably helped rattle him.

“Worthless little peasant, I spend more money every month than you’ll make during your whole life, I should kill you on the spot.” He seethes, inclining forward in his sitting position like he is about to stand up.

“Again, Lordling, you aren’t spending anything right now. You’re worth even less than I am at the moment considering that you’ve managed to insult and ignore the one being that holds our lives in her hands. If you cannot even distinguish between our present reality and the fantasy you’re sustaining in your mind about your own delusion of greatness, then you truly don’t deserve to survive this.” I attack him back calmly.

I aim at his weak points and tear them apart with no aggression in my voice. Not because I want to maintain myself on some kind of illusory moral high ground, but because I want my words to do as much damage as possible to him. To do that, it is better to show calm rather than aggression, because it is always easier to dismiss violent comments directed at you.

“Rha! Enough treacherous rhetoric, you have no witness to vouch for your depraved character. I’m putting an end to you now.” He finally stands up, his expression and body language filled with restrained violence.

But, as expected, Lady Lance intervenes. She simply extends one of her legs in front of him to stop him from taking a step towards me. I repress the disappointment that I feel when I see her intercept him, it is just shallow ego to think that I could beat Ass-face in a fight. He would flatten me within seconds, even if I still had both my arms.

“What’s stopping you, Lordling? Come on, I’ll put you down with a single arm.” I taunt him, adding a derisive corner smile that is sure to communicate to him that I full well understand why he is stopping.

That I know Lady Lance would immediately stop him herself if he did put this argument down to a fight. That I am knowingly using that fact against him while playing the fool in public as I taunt him. His face turns from bright red to pale white at the added provocation.

“Coward.” He spits between grit teeth, but my smile doesn’t even twitch, it doesn’t even falter a little at the insult.

Only fools would live their life with values straight out of fairy tales.

“Enough, both of you! No more provocations. From either of you.” My Lady orders in a hard voice. The tone provokes the rise of a tingle within me, causing throbs in all the right places. I suppress the sigh that tries to get out along with the rising shiver that travels through my back. “One of you will end up doing something that we cannot come back from if this continues. It ends now. Before you get us all killed.” She explains in a tone that brooks no argument.

“Yes, my Lady.” I bend my will to fit hers without hesitating.

A strong sense of fulfillment fills my chest when I do so, surprising even me. It reminds me of how complete I feel when she holds me in her arms. I shake my head, none this helps if her will is for us to remain strictly friends.

“Don’t be tricked by this traitor, Lady Lance, she shows no respect for our status. She bent under torture and spoke to the enemy. The wench might be spying for them right now!” Patrick roars with revolt and revulsion.

“Keep your title in your pants, Lordling, it is useless here.” I snap back at him.

“Insolence! You will show me the respect I am due!” He yells, anger overtaking him as he steps over the foot that my Lady placed between us.

“He will.” Lady Lance tells me, taking back her foot.

Patrick freezes, halfway through taking another step in my direction. Surprised beyond his expectations at the fact that Lady Lance agreed with me, judged to take my side in this argument.

“I will not.” He turns to direct his protest towards my Lady with a weak voice.

“You will ignore her, she will ignore you. That is an order that I expect the both of you to follow from now on and for as long as you are under my command, Lord-heir Patrick. Jessica, this is not a situation where we can afford to be careless, I know that you understand this and I expect that you do not provoke Lord Patrick without reason.”

“Yes, my Lady.” I accept her order, bowing towards her while sitting.

I bend my spine with glee for her, an unreasonably wide grin drawn over all over my face. I feel so … fulfilled by just heeding her will.

“Sit down, Lord Patrick.” Yvonne adds.

I raise my head and find that Lady Lance is still observing me. Did she keep watching me while I bowed to her? I feel a blush rise to my cheeks. Did she read how good I felt when I accepted to follow her will? No, don’t become paranoiac in turn.

I’ve noticed that she blushed slightly when I called her my Lady. If she truly likes that, then my Leomi might also enjoy when I bow to her. If I apply Arkam’s razor, then that is the most likely explanation.

How can I use that new angle to get her to take me for herself? Should I? Yes. Anything if I can become hers or make her mine. Nothing else matters.