Even when the blade is held at your heart, faith shall be your shield.
Primrose Azelhart had heard those words more times than she could hope to count, and yet, they did little to bring her comfort or gratitude as she sat behind a countertop within her father's office of Noblecourt within the estate of her noble family. Her hands were gripping at the wood of a small shelf beneath the surface of the counter, and the digging of the corners into her palms were all that kept her grounded as she looked on at what would come to be the scene that thrived in all of her darkest nightmares and woke her from slumber each night for the rest of her life.
There were four men standing before her, three of them shrouded in complete shadow. They wore all black clothing and stood in a triangle formation around the final man of the space. It was clear that the last of the figures was trapped with no way of escaping, and his expression remained painfully neutral as he watched his assailants with as much passive detachment as he could manage. Such was the way of Geoffrey Azelhart, the father that Primrose had come to care for so deeply. He was the strongest man that she knew, and yet, not even all the strength in the world could bring the most doomed of souls the salvation that they sought.
The three men that had her father cornered each wore markings on the visible parts of their bodies. One was coated in black save for his right arm, and the symbol of a crow wound around his limb. Another man was in much the same position, but his marking of the crow was on his left arm rather than his right. The leader of the trio, the one wearing a mask bearing resemblance to the bird they fashioned themselves after, had the symbol winding around his neck, clear as could be to Primrose's horrified and youthful eyes.
"Funny how it works, isn't it?" the man with the left arm tattoo questioned. "Everything that happens in this world falls into two neat little categories. Things one's better off knowing and things one's better off... Not. Geoffrey Azelhart, I'm afraid you've been poking your nose into the latter."
Primrose's father looked up to the men, his eyes stoic in the face of what he knew was bound to be his downfall. "I have only done what my convictions bade me do. I have no regrets," he declared. His voice was soft and possessed a secret dimension of sentimentality that only meant anything to his hidden daughter. He was unaware of her presence in the first place, and yet, she was confident that those few words were meant for her alone.
"I thought you might say something like that," the man with the right crow snorted. "You're making this delightfully easy." His voice was a slow drawl, as if he had all the time in the world and he knew it.
Primrose could see the man with the neck tattoo move forwards in the moments that followed. Her mind screamed for her father, but she forced herself to remain silent. She was well-versed in the ways of darkness, hearing stern teachings from her father about what to do in the case of an emergency, and she knew that her silence was the only thing that was keeping her life from being taken as well.
Still, not even all the training in the world could stop the way that Primrose's heart shattered when the man with the neck tattoo stepped towards her father and slashed his blade. Geoffrey crumpled to the ground, not even having the chance to cry out in pain before his life flowed away from his gasp. Primrose's eyes were willing up with tears, but she forced herself to remain silent. Her shoulders trembled with impending sobs, but she refused to release them and cast aside the legacy of the man that no others would ever come to understand.
"Make sure he's dead," the right crow instructed of his comrades. "And let's leave this place before we're seen." His voice had taken on an extra dimension of hardness, and that somehow only made Primrose feel worse, like her heart was being shredded even after being torn in half by the tragedy of her father's untimely demise.
The left crow crouched down beside Geoffrey's body, uncaring as to the blood that was seeping into the carpet below. He lacked care as he searched for a pulse or any signs of breath. When he found neither, he returned to his full height, shaking the blood free of his fingertips haphazardly. "It's done."
In the moments that followed, the men left the room, and Primrose hid herself behind the countertop as much as she could stand. Luckily for her, she was not seen, as the men were too satisfied with their victory to bother checking for any potential witnesses. For a long time, she remained there, too afraid to move or do anything that would indicate signs of her prolonged survival. Only a few simple words remained etched upon her mind.
She would never forget.
Ten long years had passed since that day, and Primrose was no longer the naive girl that she once had been.
Sun-kissed arms were pressed against a brown bench within an ornate room far from the Noblecourt home that she had known throughout her youth. The lighting was eerie and tinted orange, far from the radiant sunshine that Primrose had come to enjoy so much as a childhood. She was distantly aware of chattering nearby, but it mattered little to her. She was too busy shaking off the final traces of sleep as she rose to her full height once again.
Primrose's noble dresses had been swapped out for something far less formal. A red short top adorned her chest, and a lengthy skirt with slits down either side trailed down the lower half of her body. Jewelry hung everywhere that it could without hindering her movement, and sandals covered her feet with a delicate sense of perfection that only Primrose could have a handle on. Her grace was unmatched even though she was filled with tempestuous thoughts about what could have been if not for the foul scavengers that had stolen everything from her.
"Always the same dream..." Primrose murmured to herself as she brushed a few stray threads of brown hair away from her face. She had seen the events of her father's murder every night in her dreams, and even though it had been ten years, the immediate sting still came to her all the same with intense ferocity that tried to eat her alive. Her brown eyes, once vibrant and excited with all of the potential that the future offered, had grown dull and lifeless since the death of her father. He had been everything to her, and she had been everything to him. There was little left for her that she knew and understood of her past life.
But there was the present in all of its unfortunate glory, and Primrose found herself facing it with unfortunate brutality as she tried to ground herself in reality. She was no longer in Noblecourt or House Azelhart. Her new location was Sunshade, a town far south of the childhood home that she could only visit in memories these days. She was not a noble either, instead having been turned into a dancer by cruel twists of circumstance and tragedy. The room was small with hardwood floors and a single rug as if that offered any comfort against the crowded space that housed five performers and everything that they owned in limited quantities as a direct result of limited privileges.
Three girls, all dancers, chatted nearby. Amice, Gisella, and Cateline were their names, and as soon as they noticed that Primrose had awoken and spoken, they perked up with twisted frowns on their frowns. Amice rolled her eyes in Primrose's direction, a dramatic action that Primrose had grown tragically used to over the years. "I wish I had your confidence, Primrose. I couldn't imagine nodding off minutes before my cue," Amice drawled. Her brown hair was pulled into a low ponytail, and when she turned away, she made sure to flick her tresses dismissively at Primrose.
Gisella sighed and shook her head as she ran her fingers through her own hair. "How nice it must be to be the master's favorite!" she cried out. Even though she wasn't looking at Primrose, the enmity directed in the other girl's direction was clear as could be. Primrose responded with silence, smoothing out the folds of her dress before looking up at Gisella with an even, passive expression, unwilling to give her unfortunate companion the dignity of seeing her squirm. Gisella responded with a scoff. "Fine, go on and keep your airs. Act like you're better than the rest of us.
"It doesn't change the fact that you're just another dancer in the sands, Primrose," Amice said next, picking right up where Gisella had left off. "Nothing but a kept woman, here to flatter the dignity of men who pay for the privilege."
Primrose made eye contact with Amice, still unwilling to show even an ounce of pain in the direction of the trio of girls. She had grown used to their antagonistic behavior over the years. None of the dancers in Sunshade under the employment of their 'master' liked her much, though to Primrose, it didn't matter. This was all about means to an end when push came to shove. "I suppose you're right," Primrose replied simply, keeping her deep brown gaze as level as she could manage.
Out of the corner of her eye, Primrose saw the last girl in the room, Yusufa, wince and curl over herself. Yusufa was the only dancer within Sunshade who didn't detest Primrose openly. In fact, Primrose didn't even know if Yusufa was capable of hating anyone, too full of hidden love and care for the world between her empathetic eyes and kind gestures. Her black hair was cut close to her face and matched well with her blue ensemble, but she used both of them as a shield and a distraction to keep from having to look up at Amice, Gisella, and Cateline, knowing the consequences that would await her if she crossed the dancers.
Cateline had strolled over to the window while Primrose was distracted, and the curtains were pulled away and held between her fingers. She suddenly let out a gasp and forced herself away from the window before turning her attention to her skirt, smoothing out every crease or fold that she saw. "Sh! Enough chatter! Master Helgenish is coming!" Cateline cried out.
Yusufa and Primrose both fell into place alongside their companions as the door opened, and the most thoroughly unpleasant man that Primrose had ever met thundered into the room. A snarl was curled across the lips of Helgenish, the man who Primrose had come to know as her master and owner. She detested the man with everything that she had, but she refused to show it. After all, keeping such a fact secret was crucial to her survival in Sunshade.
Helgenish was a large man with gray hairs that spread across the sides of his balding head. He was practically dripping with expensive fabrics and jewelry, and he slammed the door behind himself as he looked over the girls. Everything about him was dangerous, and Primrose immediately found herself standing to attention. If she could mitigate the harm that Helgenish was capable of perpetuating, then she would consider that evening a success.
"Do I keep you women to titter here in the shadows?! My customers are waiting for their entertainment!" Helgenish roared as he looked over the five girls. Yusufa flinched, and Primrose found it lucky that Helgenish didn't respond to such a physical response with an open reaction of his own. "The opening act should be on that stage already! Now get out there and earn your keep!"
Amice, Gisella, and Cateline dropped their previous anger towards Primrose immediately, nodding to Helgenish as they walked towards the door. Yusufa trailed after them, trying to hide her nerves. Primrose remained for a moment longer as she reached down to adjust the strap of her sandal. The shoe was starting to feel the sting of frequent performances, and she knew that it was going to take some work to ensure that nothing went wrong during the show. She didn't have the time to change without earning Helgenish's rage, so she decided to craft together a solution as swiftly as possible without drawing attention to herself.
Helgenish waited until Yusufa was gone before huffing and shaking his head. "What a bunch of useless strays..." he muttered. Primrose finished adjusting her sandal and was about to walk towards the door when Helgenish suddenly closed the distance between them. "But not you, Primrose... You are the only one I can rely on." His hand came to rest on her upper arm, and Primrose hated how friendly his grasp was against her skin. She had grown accustomed to it during her time in Helgenish's employ, but that never stopped the way that her every instinct told her to run the instant that he grew too close.
Out of habit, Primrose's fingers drifted towards her upper thigh. Beneath her skirt, she kept a dagger just out of sight, constantly waiting for the moment when she could finally carve out Helgenish's heart and take her leave of the hell that she had come to know as Sunshade. The knife had belonged to her father, and it was one of the last things that she had left of him before everything in her life fell apart and she was forced to depart from Noblecourt a decade prior as a frail, terrified thirteen-year-old girl, unready and uncertain when it came to facing the world.
But Primrose refused to allow her reservations with Helgenish to show. Instead, she simply allowed a smile to press itself onto her face. It was falsified the same way that every other grin of hers was when Helgenish was present. She had practiced this smile more times than she could count as a way of luring Helgenish under her spell and keeping herself safe at the same time. "You flatter me... Master."
"Oh, hardly. Why, this tavern's custom has increased tenfold since you stepped on our stage!" Helgenish exclaimed, his fingers suddenly growing even lighter and more terrifying against Primrose's shoulder. "But do not go forgetting yourself. It was I who groomed you for this role." Without warning, his grip went tight, and Primrose was glad that he was no longer touching bare skin but instead the barest edges of her sleeve. She didn't want anyone to ask questions about where the inevitable bruises came from. It was a difficult conversation that she had navigated too many times to count, and if she could avoid it for the night, then she would mark that down as yet another victory in a long line of failures and disgraces that had mottled her time in Sunshade.
Primrose allowed her practiced smile, perfectly learned over her years in Sunshade, to grace her lips once more. "And I will be forever grateful for that, Master," she told him, her voice as sweet as honey and blood.
"You were an ignorant girl when I picked you up. Completely useless. I've taught you everything you know," Helgenish went on, his voice still slimy and sharpened. Primrose internally thought about how damn little Helgenish had done for all of his high words, only ever serving to make her life miserable because of his own twisted desires.
This thought was a traitor in the end though, and Primrose let the mask slip for a fraction of a moment. Helgenish's hand came up to clap against her cheek a moment later, and Primrose's fingers graced her skin out of shock. "What happened to that sweet little smile?" Helgenish snarled, his voice like nails scraping on the sides of Primrose's skulls. "Who puts a roof over your head and food on your plate? Who bought the jewels that adorn that pretty little neck?" His all too friendly fingers drifted to Primrose's collarbones before starting to drift upwards, too gentle to leave bruises behind but enough to make her skin crawl regardless. "Who made you the most sought-after dancer in this dusty old town? It was me-all me. You owe me, kitten. And I'll see that debt repaid."
Primrose smiled in response, ignoring the pain pulsing in her cheek and the alarm in her blood that screamed at her to run away from this hellhole of a town and never look back. "Yes, Master..."
Helgenish smiled, satisfied with her answer. "Good then. Purr sweetly and I may give you a treat." His fingers came up to cup at Primrose's chin, and somehow, that was even worse than the previous threat of strangulation that had come with the prior gesture. "Don't dally when you're done with your show. I will be waiting in my chamber. I'll have you purr for me some more."
Primrose was all too relieved when the door opened, and a stagehand appeared in the entryway of the room. Helgenish pulled himself away after giving one last fleeting glance in Primrose's direction. "Primrose! It's your cue," the stagehand said. He was apathetic to her plight, fully aware of Helgenish's behavior but unable to do anything about it. That was the way that Sunshade worked; everyone was simply a bug under Helgenish's heel whether they noticed it or not. Kitten or client, they were all the same, simply pawns on a chessboard to be manipulated at his every whim, and each passing day left Primrose even more insistent on pulling her dagger from its sheath and plunging it into the empty hole where Helgenish's heart was supposed to be.
"I'm coming," Primrose assured the stagehand, and that was enough for him to leave, not wanting to be caught in the middle of her encounter with Helgenish. She couldn't blame him, but part of her still desired some form of intervention regardless.
"Put your face back on now, kitten," Helgenish commented, clearly aware of Primrose's discomfort no matter how hard she tried to hide it. Primrose cursed her damn dream for leaving her off balance and unable to right herself again. Helgenish caught onto the weaknesses of others easily, and he was using it to make her miserable once again.
"Yes, Master," Primrose said in her regular cadence, speaking the words as if they didn't feel like poison seeping down her throat. She nodded in his direction, pretending that she didn't feel the phantom sensation of his fingers on her neck, as she left the room behind.
While on her way to the tavern, one of the most imposing structures in town, Primrose gave a sideways glare in the direction of Helgenish's mansion. He had paid for it with all of the wages that he stole from his workers, dancer or barkeep, and it was one of the largest and most impressive buildings that Primrose had ever set eyes on. The manor reeked of pain for Primrose, as every time that she was forced to enter at Helgenish's whims, she left with the taste of hatred in her mouth and an urge for bloodlust in her fingertips. She wasn't looking forward to being with Helgenish that night, but she wasn't being given much of an option in the matter. Sunshade was what would bring her closer to the men with the crow tattoos, and if she wanted to exact her revenge, this was her only choice.
That was what had brought her to Sunshade in the first place. After Noblecourt fell to ruin and House Azelhart shattered into a shell of its former self, the men of the crow disappeared. Primrose yearned for revenge, seeking to kill those who had done the same crime against her father, and Sunshade was her first clue. The town was apparently a place frequented by one of the men, and she had been there since the age of sixteen to try and figure out how to track him down. Seven long years had passed since the day that Primrose was picked up by Helgenish, but she had never been lucky enough to see the man with the crow tattoo. She knew that he was still out there though, and she was going to find him one way or another.
Primrose's thoughts were brought to a close as soon as she arrived in the tavern, and the general cacophony of the room overwhelmed her by snapping her out of her trance. She had to stay focused if she wanted to avoid further catastrophe. Amice, Gisella, Cateline, and Yusufa were already scattered about the tavern, acting as waitresses since they weren't on the stage. They laughed in that blatantly false way that all of the dancers of Sunshade did, ignoring the flirtations of patrons while thriving on their sickening words as well. Primrose shoved them out of her mind to the best of her ability and walked to the side of the grand stage lined with red curtains, ready to perform with everything that she had for the sake of living to see another day in this bitter, agonizing excuse of a town.
"Kept us waiting long enough, Primrose," the stagehand snorted once she arrived. He had been shrouded in shadow until Primrose was close enough to speak to him. He was clearly intent on ignoring the encounter that he had witnessed between her and Helgenish, something that it seemed everyone in Sunshade did out of a matter of survival and convenience.
"My apologies. I was... Fixing my shoe," Primrose said even though everyone in the world knew that it was a lie. She wished that fixing her sandal was the only thing that had held her up along the way.
The stagehand snorted, something tragic overcoming his brown eyes. "It better have been worth it. You're our best chance at getting to eat tonight," he muttered. Primrose knew this much was true; Helgenish was not above starving his workers to feed his own coffers, and she had endured many a hungry night because of his disgusting greed. Everyone was counting on her to put on a show and call in enough leaves to satisfy Helgenish's desire while still feeding them for the night. Once again, she was reminded of how she could not afford to be distracted in the least despite her offbeat start to the evening.
"The customers have been waiting," the stagehand went on, pretending that he hadn't spoken of such grim reality a few moments prior. He pulled open the curtain that would let Primrose move onto the stage and gestured for her to get a move on.
Primrose just smiled to herself, giving the crowd one last glance before she took to the stage. "Let the show begin," she murmured under her breath, allowing herself to slip into the facade once again of swaying hips and dangerously perfect smiles.
As Primrose found her place at the front central part of the stage, the crowd's members began to whistle and holler in her direction. The piano player, yet another underpaid worker under Helgenish, began to brush his fingers along the keys. Primrose gave in to the music and allowed it to control her body. She detached completely from reality as she moved on her own, simply acting out of instinct rather than any legitimate rhyme or reason. She had performed these routines a thousand times, and each new show brought with it the same old thought process.
This was all for her father. Primrose's life in Sunshade was nothing short of hell, and she was fully aware of such a fact. However, she was doing this for the sake of Geoffrey Azelhart and the proud fallen house that they had once shared a lifetime ago. She had tracked the first of the three crows to a patron of the very tavern that she had come to work in, and while it was just the barest glimmer of hope, she was willing to embrace it. That was the only hint that she had, so she had to grasp it with every bit of force that she possessed.
Until Primrose was able to find the truth behind the death of her father, she would continue to dance in the name of her father, the man who had taught her to perform so many years ago. She used the skill that he had passed down as a means to survive, almost as if she was still paying tribute to him each time that she took to the stage. Sunshade was simply a means to an end, and one day, she would be able to leave behind this pathetic excuse for a town and its disgusting master to pursue her greater quest of revenge in the name of what she had lost and would never have again.
When Primrose finished the dance, it was of pure instinct without any input from her mind. Mentally, she was miles upon miles away within the borders of Noblecourt, rewinded years into the past to explore the depth of her memories. Sunshade was nothing more than a hollow shell for her to occupy as long as her recollections remained proud and true.
The crowd responded the same way that it always did. Patrons both new and old whistled their praise for Primrose. She pretended that the less kind of the comments didn't make her skin crawl, ignoring the way that a few of the tavern's customers requested a private show the same way that Helgenish did all too often. She listened while wishing that she could fill her ears with cotton and truly abandon Sunshade to return to the home that she loved so dearly even more than a decade later.
But Primrose voiced none of this. Instead, she simply smiled as she swept her skirts outwards in a deep curtsey. "You are all too kind. And too handsome, I might add," she declared, well-versed in the nature of flattery after her years of enduring Helgenish's harm. She offered one final wave before departing from the stage, allowing the cheers to become little more than static that thrived in the back of her mind without any attention being offered in its direction.
"Not bad, Primrose. Not bad," the stagehand smiled as Primrose returned to the backstage area in full. The smile on his face made it clear that he was impressed for his performer despite his understated words.
"Thank you," Primrose said simply. She took a few steps towards the stairs, but she was cut off by her shoe's strap pushing uncomfortably against her foot. She looked down and saw that her makeshift recovery job had not been enough to fully repair the shoe to its former glory. Primrose assumed that this had happened during her performance, but because of how caught up she was in her own head, she didn't even notice until she stepped free of the stage.
"Look at your sandals. It seems you've gone and broken a strap," the stagehand muttered under his breath. "Go back to the dormitory and fetch yourself another pair." He gave her one last wave before turning his attention to Cateline, who was next in the lineup for the night. He gestured her over, and Cateline finished her conversation with the nearest pair of uncomfortably shifty customers before walking in his direction.
Primrose looked down at her shoe one final time, allowing an expression of slight dejection to appear on her face. She shook it off a moment later, knowing that she couldn't afford to dally for much longer. The show had to go on, and she wasn't just talking about her performance within the tavern for that night. The entirety of her life had become little more than a show that she put on for a mix of her own satisfaction and to appease those around her, but she held no open complaints with such a fact. After all, this was simply a matter of survival.
The fall of House Azelhart had hit her hard the same way that it harmed everyone associated with the ruling family of Noblecourt. She had wound up on Helgenish's doorstep solely to try and fulfill her mission, driven to the border of something twisted in an attempt to find her purpose in the theoretical deaths of the crows. Her father was the one person who she had come to rely on without any doubts throughout her childhood, and she knew that allowing his murderers to roam free was the last thing that she would stand by and see happen. Sunshade was simply a step to her next destination, and one day, she would be able to abandon this sorry excuse of a town to fulfill her greater mission. Nothing was going to get in her way, not the other dancers, not Helgenish, and sure as hell not a damn sandal.
With that thought in mind, Primrose flashed a smile to the customers who looked in her direction before making for the door of the tavern. She was immediately hit with the uncomfortable warmth of Sunlands winds, and part of her wished that she could be back in Noblecourt's cooler weather that had always been just perfect to her despite her need to stay grounded in reality. Primrose granted her memories one final act of dignity for the night as she released a light sigh. After that, it was back to putting one foot in front of the other to continue the dance that she called life. One day, the next act would begin, but until then, she would perform without even a beat of hesitation.
Primrose, I love you a lot.
This chapter is obviously much darker than what has been published previously. I think that Helgenish should shut up and stop existing immediately. This chapter was a lot of fun to work on primarily because of the contrast of what Primrose shows the world and how she feels inside. I'm going to really play into this when the other party members show up since it's pretty clear that it would take a while for her to open up to others even if she found them to be more trustable than Helgenish on a fundamental level.
I don't have all that much to say in this chapter. I guess that good news (unrelated to the story) is the fact that I've officially graduated from high school as of this chapter! Woohoo! Hopefully fast updates will continue over the summer since I'll have tons of time to write and all that fun stuff. For now though, I'm going to get some sleep since my late night updates are still unfortunately a bad habit of mine. Next week, we'll press on with Primrose's story. Until then, I hope you enjoyed. Feedback is always appreciated. Have a nice day, everyone!
-Digital