The Lion and the Unicorn

Today, Fiona is doing my disclaimer.

Fiona: reading from paper: Ummm… right…Emmeline, or "Little – Emms", doesn't own Fiona – oh – is that me? – or Daniella, or Hewie, or Riccardo, or Debilitas – Oh my gosh, what was that? AAAGGGGHHHH!!! sprints off

Fiona? Sweetheart? That was just the telephone! Runs after her

Remember the beating scene between Riccardo and sobsob Daniella? Well I wanted to write down what our favourite psychotic maid was thinking during the scene. Cries and punches Riccardo."The Lion and the Unicorn"? Yeah, all will be explained at the bottom.

Author's notes at bottom - oh, and just to warn you, if you are offended by swearing, be best not to read this. There's not that much, and it's mostly the same word, but...hey..I know a lot of people who don't swear. I do. Just to warn yas.

"Dani! Dani-la! Dani-ya!"

I frown. How often I had told Debilitas now to get my name right? I know he has speech problems and is mentally a five year old, but 'Daniella' really isn't that hard; and when I have been into town to but supplies, most of the five year old I've seen can talk quite fluently.

He lumbers up to where I am kneeling, breathing rapidly and heavily, and shifts his feet. I look to him and notice with a stoic patience that he has traipsed mud down my clean floors. Now I shall have to do it all again. A waste of time when I could be doing something more useful.

"You are not supposed to be here," I say calmly. "I am cleaning."

He looks down at me, child-like apology written all over his face. I've seen it before, mainly on the faces of the cowed – down children with the young mothers.

"Didn't Master Riccardo warn you? You are not to come into the house. You have your own living quarters."

I turn away from him with my cloth and start wiping up the mud.

"Riccardo," he repeats.

I ignore him.

"Riccardo," he says a little more urgently. When I continue to clean, he grasps my shoulder and shakes it.

"Riccardo," he says, then screws up his face as if to remember what else it was he was going to say. "Wan's you." He finishes triumphantly.

I frown again. I have always had trouble deciphering Debiltas' broken speech. "What did you say?"

"Wan's you!" he says again.

"He wants me to see him?"

"Yes!" he grinned happily, relieved he had delivered his message.

"And Riccardo told you this?"

He nodded frantically.

"Why did he not come and find me himself?"

He pauses. Then he shrugs his huge shoulders.

"Where is he?"

He doesn't answer, simply grasps my hand, and pulls me up, then beckons to himself. Ah, I see. He wants me to follow him. I pull my hand out of his, and walk sedately after him.

Out of the door and into the cold night. Walking past the blood – stained pillars and the looming shadows, and the creaking chandelier dangling from the ceiling that I personally always sounds like an injured animal. I glance up at it. After I've finished in the main castle, I'll fix it. I follow Debilitas to the plate-pressing room, where he does what I suppose is a bow, and scarpers off.

I push open the door and the first thing I see is Riccardo, looking furious. I bow to him, as always, but he storms over and catches the back of my neck. I fall to the ground.

Oh, dear. He is in a very bad mood today.

"Sit down," he forces out between clenched teeth.

I follow his gaze to the chair at the far corner, draped with cobwebs like a white shawl, and I do as he says. I sit down primly, my hands folded in my lap, and gaze calmly at him.

"You've been conspiring with him." He does not ask – he simply states it. "Haven't you?"

I say nothing. Sometimes, if I keep calm and quiet, allow him to rage on and on like a furious summer storm, then he'll stop…

But, not today.

"Answer me, Daniella!" He slaps me again, with such force that my head turns sideways. "Answer me, you fucking useless bitch! Answer me, you stupid girl! You – you maid!"

"Oh, yes, I can see you two up there, having your little cosy chats, plotting to get her, to get the Azoth, and get rid of me! To KILL me! Is that you want, eh, girl? That'd do you fine, wouldn't it, you doll, you – I'm not half as stupid as you seem to think I am, Daniella!"

I calmly look at him. I tune him out. I imagine him dead, lying collapsed and bleeding on the floor with a piece of glass skewering his heart and lungs like meat on a spit…

It's good he's not half as stupid as I thought he was. If he was any more stupid, he'd be going backwards.

When I come back to reality, he is still standing there, ranting and screaming and flailing his arms around. I feel like telling him to calm down, to stop shouting or he would give himself a heart attack. I nearly giggle at the thought of it. That would show him.

"Take that stupid FUCKING BLANK expression of your worthless face!" he screams into my face. Flecks of spit settle on my eyelashes. "You bloody failure! You whore!"

Personally I think 'whore' is a rather stupid insult to one like me.

Then he leans into me, brown eye to yellow.

"I.HATE.You." he says softly. "Did you know that, Daniella? I can't stand the sight of you."

I tilt my head at him.

"I know you hate me, Master Riccardo," I say. "But you can't kill me yet. I've still not finished the cleaning."

As he whips out his antique pistol, I fully expect him to shoot me. He doesn't though, simply hits me over the side of the head with the barrel of it.

I know this should be hurting me. I know that my body can only take so much force. If he hits me much more, I will faint. I do not tell him to stop, simply fold my hands in my lap again and look calmly at him.

From behind the door, I could have sworn I heard a throaty growl, and then footsteps…

"Where is he?"

SLAP.

Ah. So, this is about Master Lorenzo. But the truth is, I've not spoken to him for weeks. There's no point in telling him this. He will not listen. He goes completely senseless when he's angry.

"I won't let you touch her, old man!" he screams to the ceiling. "Her azoth is mine!"

Then he turns back to me again.

He slaps me, again, and again, and again, grunting and snarling in fury as he does so, my head snapping from the left to the right, to the left, to the right. He's like a furious beast, tortured beyond all comprehension, and so he takes his fury out on me. I suppose I can see his logic. I cannot feel pain at all. Or emotions. I do not care if he hates me or not. I should do, but I…don't.

I can hear a horrified gasp, and I look to the keyhole, my face bruised and bloody, and smile. I was right. That girl – the Azoth - Fiona - is there, her blue eye peering into mine, a look of abject horror on her face.

And some distant part of me screams: if she looks so horrified, it must be out of sheer concern for me.

So why does she not try and help me?

I do not voice this thought. I just smile at Miss Fiona, blood dripping down my lips and chin.

I was actually really upset when I saw the beating scene. Ah, poor Daniella…she's my favourite character. I hated Ricardo after that. I tried to get Fiona to go in, but no… "I've got to get out of here!" Oh piss off, Fiona. Anyway, sorry for this lil bit of…in – game…something. I know it's not great. I've got a chest infection. As for "The Lion and the Unicorn"? An old English (I presume) rhyme, goes like this;

The Lion and the Unicorn were fighting for the crown,

The Lion beat the Unicorn all around the town.

Some gave them white bread, and some gave them brown,

Some gave them plum cake, and chased them out of town!

Work it out for yourselves. The first lines fit, at least. ;P

R&R please and make this sick English girl happy! I love constructive criticism and will nearly always take your advice – flames will be used to warm this fucking country up. It's FREEZING over here in England and has also been steadily pissing it down all day.

This will be the first in a little series of drabbles, probably mostly about Daniella (:D) maybe some about some of the others. Any ideas on what to right next? I'd love ideas. Only not romance. I cannot write romance for my life, which is a bit unfortunate. Ah well, I'll probably learn.