Mei Ruan March 30th, 20XX

The door to my room swung open with unnecessary force and Jaya stormed in with a furious expression on her face. I got up and saluted her as usual but before I even had the chance to ask what was wrong she extended her dreaded vines of magic and bound my wings to my back.

The bronze light extended from her wand to wrap around my wings and stretched up to grab the back of my head to keep my gaze straight and directed towards her.

The pressure of the vines increased as my hair was pulled and only increased as she released her silent rage on me. Yet as I became adjusted to the pain she suddenly began to pull at my wings, as if trying to rip them from my body.

The excruciating pain wracked through me and clouded my thoughts like a bloody haze. The facial paralysis spell I cast on myself flickered in and out as she began to attack me.

I saw my face flip back and forth between an expression of blankness and one that portrayed complete and absolute agony in the reflective walls that surrounded my room and it only made the experience even worse.

She increased the pressure on my wings, pulling so hard I could almost feel them loosening from my shoulder blades but I refused to give her the satisfaction of hearing me beg. I slammed my lips shut and instead began to strengthen the partial paralysis spell on my face, mentally repeating the short spell over and over again.

Finally, she seemed to realize that I wasn't going to crack and loosened her magic, unwilling to deal with the repercussions of crippling the current general of the Ruan Clan army.

“I heard that Linus boy came to see you and begged for you to take him back”

The jealousy raged within her voice as she spoke despite how hard she tried to hide it within her lecturing tone.

“ What? Were you so antsy about meeting the prince that you already prepared a backup? Don't forget Mei, You are marrying into the royal family and he has been in the human world for so long. I’m sure the Prince would not be impressed to hear of this.”

The pressure on my wings increased yet again as she noticed my line of vision stray towards the small air duct where a small and disobedient creature lay in hiding, watching this whole spectacle in horror.

“ Mei!”

Jaya called my attention back to herself as she let out her frustrations on me.

As I stared down the woman I couldn't even bear to call my elder sister any longer I wondered how she had become like this.

Even back when we were children she had always been a sadistic b***h but it would always stop at leaving slightly venomous snakes in our beds or telling us the wrong times for appointments. She would never actually physically harm us and would even protect us against others who attempted to bully us.

However, this all changed when my mother went into early retirement; opting to go and defend the borders of the land, which had been relatively quiet for the last 17 years, and had divided up the Clan between us girls. She had even given a sizable part to Aruna, who hadn't even crossed her first century.

But aside from being thoroughly unreliable as a mother she had really tried her best to evenly divide up the Clan between us three girls.

She had given me the legendary Army of the Ruan clan, The formidable intelligence and trade routes to Aruna and the impressive political power and status to Jaya.

It was just too bad that Jaya had grown up in the way she did and instead of using the power to grow the power and wealth of the Clan she just used the army to bully the smaller families into bending to our will and used the intelligence and trade networks to find out petty gossip. And other than that she had completely ignored our existences and had left us all to our own devices.

Perhaps it was because Jaya was the only one of us that had been created with a goblin and considered herself of a higher class than myself, who had been created with a half human and Aruna with a half witch.

We all qualified as ‘full’ fairies because my mother had completely wiped out whatever traces of the other races from us but the discrimination still existed between some of the ‘full blooded’ faires; namely my sister.

I sent clear signals with my eyes up to Aruna, who was frozen in shock and started to distract Jaya who had yet to notice her.

“Duchess Ruan. If you know that I met with Askeli, then you should also know that it was he that barged into my courtyard demanding to speak. I explained my situati-”

Jaya suddenly looked up to the air vent I had been looking at before and a dark feeling spread through me. I yelled at her,

“ Duchess Ruan!”

A soft smattering of noise echoed from the vent as Aruna abandoned her slow but effective stealth movement technique she had bullied Lillian into teaching her and frantically began to escape, realizing that she, like me, wouldn't be able to fight back even if she was attacked.

Jaya’s eyes narrowed with malicious intent and what she was about to do became clear. She raised her wand and began to mouth out a clearly malevolent spell.

She sawed out either sides of the vent and drew Aruna out, like a little animal that had somehow found its way in and gotten stuck.

“ Aruna, Were you that curious? So interested in the way I discipline your elder sister?”

The little fairy shook her head at hypersonic speed and began to stutter out an apology. As she did so tears of pure fear began to stream down her face as she did so and she could barely keep herself elevated, bobbing up and down as she occasionally forgot to flap.

“ O-Ofcourse not Elde- Duchess Ruan. I w-wasn’t interested at all!”

Seeing her so scared I realized that in all of her time she hadn’t ever met with Jaya without the protection of Mother. To be facing Jaya, the eldest sister of the three of us, and the Current head of the Ruan Clan with no such support must have been terrifying for her and realizing this was the final straw to me.

At this rate the Ruan Clan would horridly collapse within itself.

Jaya extended her wicked vines towards the child at a familiar trajectory, obviously intending to give her the same ‘punishment’ as she had given to me but I couldn't let them land.

“ Lillian.”

The dark shadow materialized in front of me and Jaya paused her spell, looking on in cruel curiosity as she watched what she thought was a futile rebellion.

“Awaiting orders General Ruan.”

In the end no matter how badly she had treated me she was still my elder sister. I looked down to her from my elevated position once more and softly said.

“ Let her go Jaya. If you do so now I won’t act.”

At the heaviness in my tone, she instantly became wary but then she looked at me, still trapped in her web and began to laugh loudly and obnoxiously. She then began to condescend me.

“ What? Are you going to send Lillian to fight me off? Even if you’ve never been properly schooled you should at least know that a lower class noble could never defeat me. Even if she fought with her life she would only barely be able to land a scratch.”

And then as if to prove a point she completed her spell and grabbed Aruna by the hair, the wings and then by the throat. Binding her wings and pulling at her hair, Jaya began to tighten the last Vine around Aruna’s throat that due to her youth was still a tad chubby.

“ Duchess Ruan! I’m sorry! I reall-ack”

As she was gradually deprived of her ability to breathe I keep my eyes trained on Jaya and then whispered just barely loud enough for her to hear.

“ Remember Jaya. This was your choice”

Lillian looked at me for permission once more and then without any further hesitation began to chant a short but incredibly strong spell and the room suddenly went dark, until only Lillian, Jaya, Aruna and I were its inhabitants.

Thick bronze chains hung in mid air, glowing like spectral chains and illuminating the expanse of darkness.

In her surprise Jaya loosened her chokehold on Aruna and turned towards me as the Little fairy slumped onto the floor and focused on breathing heavily and deeply.

With faker bravado at the unfamiliar spell Jaya began to bluster, speaking as authoritatively as usual.

“What nonsense is this Mei? Stop it before I have to make you.”

Her vines began to tighten around me again but I was no longer obliged to accept such ‘punishment’. I reached out a bare hand to the vines around me, gathered them all into my palms and in one satisfying jerk, broke them.

Lillian stepped forward as well, wearing my mother's official seal which allowed her to be within this space and held up a projection screen on which my mother’s furious but tired face could be seen.

At first Jaya was angry at such a blatant act of defiance from me but then she paled as she realized the full implications of her situation.

“ You used it.. the reckoning spell.”

Aruna, who remained on the floor panting like a dying seal, looked up at the grave tone and widened her already large eyes in shock to see me completely freed from my contriants and the rapidly disappearing vines of magic hanging from my clenched palms.

Lillian purposefully turned the screen to show Aruna as she was to mother and the angry lines on her face only deepened. But I chose not to explain like I was tattling and instead walked up to the screen and bowed.

“ Mother. Do you approve of the reckoning happening now?”

She let out a tired and extremely disappointed sigh and then slowly nodded.

“ Do as you wish Mei. I won't interfere unless necessary.”

So I did exactly as I had been wishing for the last eternity. I pushed my wand upwards towards the origin of the golden chains and directed them towards jaya.

She struggled against them and even tried to run away but it was futile. similarly to her vines earlier the chains hung around her like shackles and bound her wings and limbs.

Lillian cast a small spell to keep the projected screen elevated in the air without her having to hold it and then went into position in the middle of the room.

“ Aruna. Can you please repeat what mother said to all of us when she divided up the clan between us?”

A small light lit up within her eyes as she struggled to her feet, too tired to even fly, and in a thin voice she repeated ad verbatim my mother’s words.,

“ Mei will lead the military of the Ruan clan. she will protect our best interests and defeat those who fear work against us. Aruna will be incharge of the trade routes and intelligence systems, she will secure our wealth and sniff out any plots against us. Jaya will have the political power and be the official head of the Ruan clan in my absence, with the help of her two sisters and her own skills she will protect and lead the two of you in maintaining and furthering the reputation of the Ruan Clan.”

Still speaking in the low tone I properly began the reckoning and asked the first question to Lillian who still acted as my mother’s representative.

“ According to what you have observed so far do you think I have upheld my duties?”

Lillian put a hand on top of her heart to show her honestly and began to speak but before she could Jaya interjected, still looking pale as she tried to figure out a way to weasel her way out of this and end the reckoning before it got to her turn.

“ I request the use of the Truth Cap. She has been working so closely with Mei that her opinion could be biased.”

To so clearly insinuate the corruption of my mother's hand chosen representative was a reckless move and showed just how scared Jaya truly was but I couldn't blame her. After all, It was always a scary thing to completely face the repercussions of all one’s actions.

The truth Cap was a torture device invented by the goblins during the First Fae-goblin war. It made one incapable of telling a lie and would viciously slice of a shred of the wing each time a lie was told, unconsciously or not.

The wings were similar to the earlobe in that, aside from a few light and thin bones to give it structure,, they were mainly just soft tissue but they were also incredibly sensitive to pain.

For her to request the use of such a thing on Lillian…. I could see my mother’s usually bright eyes dim further in disappointment even from a distance.

“ Permission granted.”