“Jess, move!”

Twilight's words snapped Jess out of her momentary daze, sickened by the hate filled malice she saw radiating from their beady eyes, hate having grown so fiercely since the day almost a year ago she had found a young girl sobbing inconsolably, unwilling to say a word, and the two men glaring so lecherously at them both. Jess had been kitted in steel that day, blunt training sword still in hand.

She had broken more than a few bones, and the battered pair of servitors and a girl who refused to say a thing had not helped her cause. But suspicions had been raised, and no one was willing to punish the daughter of a named lord for dispensing low justice as she saw fit. No one had been maimed or killed, and the men were forbidden to bother the frightened girl or Jess ever again.

Servants are not fools, however, and in their own way they had dispensed justice of a sort, rat turds and foul tics to be found in their bedding, sharpened bones in their soup, and no matter how they tried and courted, no serving maid in the keep would accept their favors, their hands, or warm their beds.

In a horrific flash, she saw it all. Jess should have seen this coming. She was a fool not to have.

And now, the pair of men, given pretext to interact with Jess under cover of an exotic ball enticing so many to attend or serve, had made the best of a savage opportunity, charging with club and cleaver raised, furiously intent upon taking her life at all costs.

In the middle of a stone lined corridor, wooden doors yards away, trapped in skirts and lace, Jess seized the Vor as best she could.

She shouted and charged forward even as Vidric scowled in momentary surprise, upraised blade unable to swing down fast enough as Jess dove under his guard, bracing and curling herself as her back collided with powerful legs, and Jess could feel the blows that would become bruises as her nemesis howled and tumbled to the ground.

“Bloody whore!” Usel cursed, his club whistling for her skull.

Grinning fiercely as strangely garbled words washed over her, Jess dipped back, daring no kicks, trapped as she was in tanglements of ruffles and lace, her fist smashing fiercely into Usel's bulbous nose the instant his club whipped past.

A crunch of bursting cartilage and a scream for her efforts.

Momentary surprise.

Right palm to chin, tight and hard. Teeth shatter and Usel stumbles back, blood spraying from his mouth, broken shards of black teeth trailing from bloody spit.

Neck exposed. Don't think. Act!

Jess whipped her left hand around in a tight, arcing hook, rigid fingers stabbing into Usel's vulnerable throat.

A burst of sudden pain. Her fingers throbbed as Usel gripped his throat in surprise, gurgling and wheezing, eyes bulging with the horror of death to come.

Eyes flash forward, furious beet-red countenance of Vidric stumbling to his feet once more, vicious cleaver raised high.

Jess's gloved hand caught Usel's desperate wrist, still holding his baton as he keened for breath, wrenching the wooden club effortlessly from his grip before pivoting her hips and slamming the dying man into a charging Vidric.

“Brother!” Jess couldn't deny the awful pain in the man's voice, Vidric's helpless panic turning to blind fury as he stumbled forward, lashing out with his fearsome blade for her throat.

Her wooden stick countered, catching blade against baton before lashing out for Vidric's wrist, snaring it while pivoting her hips and wrenching back his arm.

An off-balance Vidric roared and stumbled to his knees, cleaver slipping from his suddenly lax grip as Jess side-stepped before spinning about, her seized baton cracking against his temple.

Jess screamed, allowing mortal terror but a moment to vent itself before slamming her foe's skull with all force and fury, pounding with a berserker's rage as her stumbling foe crumpled then began to spasm, skull cracked.

Black hate burns. Gloved hands to chin and throat. Furious wrench, neck snapped. Vidric collapsing to the ground, still as death.

Jess took deep ragged breaths, heart racing still with the dark frenzy of terror and exhilaration washing through her, leaving her dizzy, sick, and as high on triumph as spiced wine could ever hope to make her feel.

Solemn sapphire eyes locked upon her own. “Well done, my mistress. Well done.”

Jess barks a single shaking laugh, almost a sob.

“By the gods, Twilight. By the gods.”

“If something had happened, my queen... my vengeance would have been beyond their ken.”

Soft, dry words that made Jess shudder far worse than her scrape with death. “Please... Twilight... don't even joke.”

Eyes blazing like pits of hell were the simple eyes of an eccentric cat once more. “Of course, my queen. Forgive me for not scouting ahead.”

Jess grimaced. "Here I am wearing an outfit that all but cripples a woman, not a single armament upon me, perfect prey for any man that would rape or butcher me. I will never ever allow myself to be caught so damned off guard again! If that damned fool Usel hadn't used a wooden baton instead of a blade..."

Twilight dipped his head. “It does not bear thinking about. But you weaved away as adroitly as Eloquin could have hoped, for all that the club would not have marked you, would perhaps even have torn free of his grasp, had you wished it hard enough. Even had it been of lead, you would have dodged the blow and seized the baton, just as Eloquin has taught you. At least now you know what you are capable of with your martial talents alone. But you are right, my mistress. Let us never be caught so off guard again."

Jess shuddered and nodded. A quick look around, and all was utterly quiet, more still than Jess had never known it to be before. Her enemies had chosen their ambush site well, for all that they were now dead before her, Usel spasming his last, hands desperately squeezing his throat still, Jess coldly staring as the last flickers of panicked life left his eyes, arched back collapsing with a crackling sigh, the stink of voided bowels suddenly filling the corridor.

Jess frowned. "I know just the storage room they spoke of, the design of the keep not allowing for quarters too close to my own. Not ones befitting a noble, anyway. I didn't mind the odd layout as I like my privacy just fine, and only now do I appreciate how it could all be used against me."

Her laughter was brittle and dark. “These fools were right about the storage room being an excellent dumping spot. It will indeed be used to host a body or two. Their own.”

With that Jess began the arduous process of dragging the bodies to the stout wooden door that opened to her touch, quickly scouting the room to find it bare of anything save a fine fur coat, draping it over the pair of bodies before parting once more, sealing the door shut with a fierce act of her will.

Twilight smiled in cold satisfaction. “I doubt that door will give anytime soon.”

Jess chuckled softly. “Not unless their spells can burn through all the forests of Erovering, that door will remain shut against all the mages of Highrock, lest I will it otherwise.”

Twilight frowned. “But the putrid stink of rotting flesh...”

“Faint enough, from the door slit. I am the only one nearby, and I always keep my windows open for a good nighttime breeze. And if some vines somehow manage to creep into those rooms, I am sure there must be at least one window sealed only by poorly made shutters within. Then fertilizer inside covered with corpse flowers, roses, and tomato vines before you know it.”

Twilight smirked. “Not that I'd want to eat those tomatoes.”

Jess chuckled. “Fine for the pigs, though. All those years of those two tormentors gorging on the pigs they raised, now the pigs can savor turning tables, and all that.”

Her cat nodded. “It is a poetic justice of sorts. Now come, my mistress. We have blood to clean, and will no doubt need a handful of minutes for you to get over the shakes I see trembling through you even now, for I suspect that this is but the first encounter in a night that will no doubt be filled with horror and triumph unlike anything we have savored in quite some time.”

With a shaking nod Jess did just that, rags dipped in water soaking up fresh blood quickly enough, hurriedly thrust atop the future compost presently in storage before the door was sealed once more, and Jess found herself spending some moments trembling and sobbing uncontrollably, even as she tore off her now much-hated dress and applied some of her special liniment to knuckles and back. She was no mage, but if the slight aches she felt even now were to fade completely by the time she was mounted upon Mercy once more, she wouldn't be surprised. Not one bit.

Gentle eyes gazed into her own. "You really don't have to do this, my mistress. I would never shame you if you just wanted to curl up in that bed, dream sweet dreams, and wake up in your family home, to raise beautiful flowers, find a sweet boy, and never leave Calenbry lands again."

Jess swallowed, heart racing, as her familiar spoke on. "If you wish it hard enough... I promise you... you will find it to be just so. It is your choice, my queen. But say the words, and when you next awaken, it will be safe and happy in your family's bosom once more."

Jess shuddered, squeezing her eyes shut, both terrified and awed by what was being implied, and somehow not at all surprised to know such things could be made true with a simple nod.

At last she shook her head, smiling sadly. "And if but one of my friends fell to death's cold grip, when my warding of spear, bolt, or arrow could have saved his life? No, Twilight. I will embrace the role I swore to, every day I looked into my friends' anxious eyes and realize the terror they hide just underneath, praying for salvation that, without me, might never come. We train to fight against wild odds, and one day, death will come for us all."

Twilight nodded. “Yet you would keep dark death at bay as long as you can, even as you writhe with the memory of that pair of fools dying by your hand, however fierce you try to be. Yours is a noble spirit, my mistress. I pray that the horrors to come aren't too awful, though of course we both know we will probably be drenched in blood before the night is out.”

Jess chuckled and sobbed at those words, trembling hands struggling with formfitting linen armaments before donning quilted gambeson, reinforced boots and blade, knowing full well Eloquin had her full kit waiting for her at the stables, but refusing to walk the corridors of Highrock unarmed, ever again.