Warning: this fic contains physical/verbal abuse, injury, misogyny, & implied/referenced r*pe.
Daniella has never been allowed to think very highly of herself. She has always been made to know her place.
Her days consist of much of the same. She cooks. She cleans. There isn't much else she's useful for. In the endless monotony, everything blends together into a grey, turbid sludge. Suspended within it are the moments that occupy Daniella's thoughts frequently as she goes about her duties. Most of them are about as far back as her severely disjointed memory goes, which is certainly not as far as it ought to.
Not that she even realizes.
She remembers staring at a clinical white wall with an X-ray box on it, laying on an operating table, and hearing somebody moving things somewhere out of her unfocused sight.
Her body did not want to comply with her attempts to make it move. It took significant effort to change the position of her arm even slightly, and it only ended up slipping off the edge of the table and dangling uselessly.
Everything briefly went black.
Daniella found herself on the floor. She feebly clawed at the gaps between the tiles as if she could possibly find enough purchase there to pull herself forward.
"Now, now. Try not to be so eager," a voice told her, one that she later found out belonged to her master. "I'm not finished yet."
Daniella remembers when she first met Riccardo. Master had forbidden him from entering the room he was been keeping her in, but Riccardo did always have a penchant for disregarding orders.
There was a dull sensation, a very weak signal sent by touch receptors that reached her brain.
She could see that Riccardo had struck her.
She could hear the impacts of his open palm against her face, of her body against metal shelving, and of various bottles that had been previously resting there shattering upon her.
There was no pain. Back then, it didn't register as odd to her.
"Worthless," Riccardo spat, angry that Daniella was incapable of giving him what he felt entitled to. "What kind of woman are you?"
As he continued his gush of vitriol, she remained limp as a ragdoll. She did not look at him, only stared at the chemical burns she was now sporting. Something that spilled was turning parts of her skin a blotchy pink before it began to eat through it, forming angry red craters.
Every word that left Riccardo's chapped lips stuck in Daniella's head and took permanent residence. She did not know herself to be broken until that moment. Foolishly, she hoped her master would tell her differently.
When he returned later, he flew into a rage even more severe than Riccardo's.
Master was furious, knowing whose doing it was without even having to ask. While he ranted about both her and Riccardo, she continued to dully stare at her burns.
As time went on, Master's anger turned into irritation. Similar to the kind you'd feel upon spilling a bit of water on your shirt. Daniella faded into the background, allowed to freely roam the estate but expected to be at his beck and call the moment he so much as needed his half-empty glass refilled.
It's difficult to not let her mind drift to things such as those when almost no sound reaches her ears but silence, when she is always so utterly detached from whatever task is currently at hand, when she is so frequently alone.
Debilitas used to trail after her like some sort of lost dog, making her job more difficult with his hovering and his clumsiness. He stopped after the first time he tried to play with her like one of those musty dolls he keeps in his shack. Now, he avoids her. He is frightened of her, she is fairly certain. Daniella is unbothered by that.
...In a way, it's nice to have a man in the castle who listens to what she says. Even if it is out of fear. Daniella does not have much control over anything.
Riccardo only makes an appearance when he wants something. An extra pair of hands when a task requires more than one person (or when he is above doing it himself), a voice to relay his messages to Lorenzo, or a means to get his anger out.
Daniella doesn't quite understand why he continues to seek her out when he's in one of his moods. When he spits venom, when he has his way with her, when he throws her against walls, into furniture, or onto the floor; when he strikes her with all of his might, when he wraps his dry, leathery hands around her throat and squeezes until her vision begins to blur... something unpleasant churns within Daniella and disrupts the emptiness, but never enough to show up on her face or in her body language. Her lack of reaction always leaves Riccardo visibly unsatisfied.
Perhaps he holds onto the belief that one day, things will magically lead to a different end.
Lorenzo has been driven into hiding, so Daniella doesn't see much of him anymore. She knows that he sees her, though. She knows that he has eyes all around in the form of hidden cameras, that there are peepholes behind the portraits, in the bathrooms, near the beds, and in a few other places. When Lorenzo needs her, his uneven voice often carries through one of the peepholes. If he is positive that Riccardo will not follow her, then he will summon her to where he has holed himself up.
"Listen, maid... He had Debilitas take her into the outbuilding. I want you to sneak in and break the lock on her cage."
Daniella does as she's told. What use is she, a broken and incomplete doll, if she can't even complete simple tasks for the men above her? Clean. Cook. Break the lock. Make the girl comfortable when she eventually gets out.
Once both Riccardo and Debilitas have left, Daniella heads into the stone outbuilding. It's bitter cold and reeks of blood and decay, but most of her senses range from dull to nonexistent so she hardly even notices.
Her eyes sweep the dim space until they land on who she's looking for: Fiona, the person who's been the talk of Castle Belli long before her arrival, the cause of Lorenzo and Riccardo's most recent and intense feud, everything that Daniella is not. A complete woman.
Fiona looks... strangely peaceful... despite lying on cold, hard metal bars on a cold, stone floor. Daniella thinks that she might have assumed Fiona dead if it weren't for the rise and fall of her chest beneath the white linen.
A ghost of some unidentified emotion flits through Daniella. Something dark. Something unpleasant.
She breaks the lock and leaves.
When they next encounter each other, Fiona's awake.
Daniella enters the guest room as soundlessly as a specter. That's how she carries herself around the entire estate. Lorenzo and Riccardo are often busy with work they deem important, and what good is Daniella if she doesn't stay out of their way? Clean. Cook. Don't be a nuisance.
Fiona must simply sense her presence. She whips around, shoulders tense.
When Daniella's eyes catch hers, it's like a match catching strike paper. She manages something that could be considered a smile, slowly gestures towards the clothes she laid on the bed, and tells Fiona that they're for her.
Fiona doesn't say anything. Doesn't even move. Not until Daniella starts heading for the door.
"Wait. Don't go."
Daniella pauses and turns back towards Fiona with her gaze now firmly affixed above the top of her head.
"Um," she swallows, "excuse me, but where are we? And how did I get here?"
Daniella isn't supposed to answer, so she doesn't. Clean. Cook. Keep the girl comfortable. Keep her own mouth shut.
Fiona faints moments later. Daniella isn't meant to touch either. Not with her filthy, scared hands. She can feel Master watching. She leaves.
Even with everything going on, she still has duties to attend to, anyway.
When Fiona eventually finds her way into the music room, Riccardo puts on his poor attempt at charm. He's upset, though. Not because he thinks Fiona can successfully escape and avoid giving him what demands. He doesn't even care. He continues to let her run around until he's ready. No, Riccardo is upset that Lorenzo dares to try and interfere.
As usual, because Lorenzo's whereabouts are unknown to him, Daniella is used as an outlet for Riccardo's fury. He shouts into the dilapidated room, having no way of knowing if Lorenzo is even close enough to hear him, and he strikes Daniella over and over again.
Clean. Cook. Accept the beatings because she deserves them. For being so broken. So incomplete. So utterly unable to fulfill a woman's purpose. All because of one thing.
Azoth...
Riccardo wants Fiona's Azoth to fix himself. Compared to him and her Master, Daniella's understanding of alchemy is rudimentary, but she wonders if could it also fix her.
Could it give her worth?
Could it make her complete?
For as long as she can remember, she's followed orders.
Not anymore. She's finished.
Now, if she were Miss Fiona, if she were caught up in a pointless attempt to escape this place, where would she have wandered off to...?