"What are you looking at?"
The words, growled and as vicious as a whip, cracked the servant out of her daydreaming. The moonlight painted the rippling water of the mansion's fountain silver, the brickwork ivory, and the girl she'd startled a pale shade.
"I just, umm…" the servant said numbly, dumbly, her mind gradually waking from its slumber.
"Why do you look at me so?!" the girl growled again. The servant's silver eyes darted here and there, searching for an excuse, an escape—but the noble-born girl had her locked in with that gaze, her intense eyes as red as rubies, as red as her dress…
"I-I was astonished by your beauty, little miss. I am sorry, I did not mean to offend you," the servant girl stammered.
The girl looked on at her, her eyes struck wide before they narrowed, boring down on the servant girl, her snarl dark and feral. The servant saw the way the girl's hands balled and, for a second, anticipated aggression. Damage. Something worse.
There was a sniffle. The servant watched the girl's hands fly up into her azure hair as she started to cry.
Uncertainly, the servant stood there in pinched discomfort as she witnessed this.
"Who hurt you, little miss?" the servant asked.
"L-lady Olivia De Vere," the girl sobbed.
"Ah. That little witch. I really—" The servant sighed, a moment's impropriety leaving her stomach lurching, her eyes snapping wide.
She saw that the girl with the red eyes and the light-blue hair was looking up at her through the veil of tears and the cage of her fingers.
"Little miss, I apologise. It was wrong of me to speak out of turn—" the servant gabbled.
"No!" the noble daughter started, before going quieter. "No, go on."
The servant blinked, looking on at her. "Go on?"
"Yeah. What's Lady Olivia De Vere?" the girl asked, those wide red eyes watching her.
The servant looked on, unsure what to think. Was the girl looking for something to use, to put herself in Olivia De Vere's good graces? To out a gossipy servant girl?
What would her masters do if they realised?
What could they do that they haven't already?
She hesitated a moment longer, staring on at the sniffling child, before she at last sighed.
"Lady Olivia De Vere…" the servant knelt beside the girl, "is a nasty piece of work who snipes and damns just about everyone with jealous spite, spreading awful little rumours. If I were her cook, I'd put slugs in her soup and dog food in her pie."
The girl giggled, and the servant felt immense gratitude when she saw that smile.
"If you were the cook, she'd"—the girl paused, caught between laughing and sniffling—"she'd know you were to blame."
"Ah. You're right! Damn…" The servant mock-scowled as she struck her knee with such suddenness it made the girl with the red eyes jump. Then, her fingers clicked. "I will shave her dog."
"Yes!" The girl nodded.
"Put itching powder in her drawers."
The girl laughed.
"Plaster the walls of the town hall with her diary's entries."
"Yes, yes!" The girl cheered.
The servant and the girl sat there in the courtyard for a few minutes more, assassinating the young noblewoman's tormentor and concocting all manner of revenge. It was a childish, graceless conversation, but it served as an escape for the both of them—a few minutes reprieve from a world that cared about rank, composure, class, propriety and deceit.
Then, far too soon, the servant heard the butler of the household call for her. She let slip a heartfelt sigh, knowing she'd be talked to sternly for wandering to begin with.
"Shouldn't you be going soon?" the girl asked.
"I suppose I should," the servant whispered.
"You were called for," the girl said.
"Yes," the servant agreed.
"You might lose your job." The girl pouted.
"Ah, if only," the servant said, all too hopefully.
The girl watched as the servant shook off that moment of honesty and made to get up.
"I didn't say you could go yet," the girl pointed out.
The servant hesitated, her silver eyes lowering as she nodded.
"Apologies. I'm afraid I answer to my masters and De Vere's senior staff long before I answer to you, little miss. I cannot leave them waiting, as you implied."
"What's your name?" the girl with the red eyes asked.
The servant gave it.
"That is a boring name," the girl said archly.
"Why yes, I suppose it is." The servant shrugged, clearly too tired to argue.
"I will name you Sakuya," Remilia Scarlet said as though she was stating a fact.
The servant blinked, smiling good-humouredly. "Ignore her."
"Hmm?" Remilia said.
"If Olivia De Vere—"
The maid paused as she heard the head butler shout for her again.
"Yes, coming! Now," she turned back to Remilia, "just ignore her, for now. Later, get a tutor—Mr. Osbourne on Avalon Lane. I've—"
"Avalon?" Remilia's red eyes flashed, her mouth opening a fraction.
"Avalon Lane, yes. Mr. Osbourne, he is very good at teaching girls how to talk 'rich'—how to perform in… well, settings like this," the servant managed, splaying her hand to encompass the surrounding mansion and the high society that it contained.
Remilia looked on at the servant girl.
And smiled. Widely. "We'll meet again, Sakuya, " she promised.
The servant looked on, liking nothing more than to talk to her again. Then she thought about her obligations. The complications that could arise.
"I hope so, " the servant lied.
Remilia watched her fondly as the commoner hastily withdrew back into the mansion. The young noblewoman's gaze lowered to register the thread waving this way and that after the servant girl. Her ghostly pianist's fingers closed around it.
The servant closed the squealing wooden door behind her and was stunned for a second, all of her worries and woes replaced by a single, empty-headed moment—as though she had walked into a room only to forget what she had entered it for.
"Very prominent canines," she mused, her voice a dream before she returned to the hectic shift of a maid seeing to supper.
In the end, the master butler was kindly in his remonstrations, taking the servant to one side at the end of the evening.
"My dear, I must apologise for being brisk with you. Tensions run high when Mr. De Vere hosts his parties—between you and I, I feel five courses is two too many, even for the most extravagant of souls." He was an old man with a lined face, possessing a warm laugh and a mouth that was unaccustomed to smiling.
To the servant girl, that only made the apologetic, lop-sided grin all the more valuable.
"Honestly, I feel you performed very well today. It'd be an honour to have you and yours for dinner again, with you parti—Miss? Are you well?"
The servant waved off the concern as she tried to find her voice.
"I'm alright. I'm…" she floundered for an excuse, "just a little overwhelmed from the day's activities, I'm sorry!"
The master butler looked on at her in consternation, before he nodded. "Ah. Well then. Let's find you a chair, after all—"
"Ah, there she is!" a voice like velvet rolled over the master butler's fussing.
The servant swallowed, her silver eyes regarding the man who had entered. Rangy. Strong. His features were hawk-like, his brown eyes as cold as river stones.
"My dear, we really must be going. Would you fetch my umbrella?" he pointed the words at her.
She watched herself move to obey, though she felt devoid of agency. She did not escort the man; rather, she was led by him. Gently, whilst people could see them.
"That's it, my dear. One step at a time, good show! Hold the handle lightly but firmly; you're not strangling the bloody thing."
The servant swayed in her step, feeling as though she might throw up. Soon, the grey, fuzzing world of a rain lashed street was replaced with the cloying closeness of a carriage shared with him.
"So? Did you make a friend?" he asked her as silver flashed in his hand.
Don't. Please, let's not…
"Darling, you're— you're not ignoring me, are you?" he asked, exactly six seconds later, his eyes watching the minute hand of his watch with interest.
His tone reminded her of the black powder pistols she'd seen used by naval officers, what it must be like to be staring down the weapon's barrel. One wrong word, one moment stretched too long, and her vision would explode into flashing thunder and blinding pain, she knew.
"I believe I found someone suitable." Her voice was a whisper.
"Ahhh, someone took a liking to you? That's my good little spider," he whispered, his smile shining. "Go on, give us a name."
She thought of the noblewoman she had met in the courtyard. Her eyes widened. She hadn't gotten her name.
She swallowed again, her mouth opening.
"I-In my urgency to fulfil my duties, I think I failed to ask for it."
He closed the pocket watch with a mechanical click. The servant girl's mouth grew thin as his master's smile disappeared. Despite the bounce and clatter of carriage travel, she could hear the creak of leather and see the way his hand shook as he squeezed the watch.
"By God, you're a stupid, stupid girl," he hissed.
"Yes," she agreed, trying to make herself small.
"Wrack your brain. Give me a name, or I'll…" He forced a smile, his eyes crazed as they stared her down.
Don't make me do it.
"Olivia De Vere." The servant rushed out.
And like that, her master's mania faded, replaced with that hard, plastic smile.
"Oh, my dear girl, you got it in the end! Though, I am surprised. Won't she be missed? Is she conventional in her tastes, or is she something of a deviant, preferring, well…" He indicated her to divulge more with a gloved hand, his hawk-like features watching her.
But the servant sat back, staring into space in silent resignation.
"Ah… Perhaps we should consider releasing you from our service…" He sighed, planting his chin on the palm of his hand as his gaze went to the window, watching the gaslights and dollhouses of Victorian England pass them by.
That bitch.
Remilia's gloved fists remained stiffly at her sides as she stormed her way up the stairs to her suite.
That bitch. If she knew who she'd been speaking to…!
Her fangs pressed on her bottom lip, threatening to break skin as she almost bumped into a fellow guest.
She hissed at him, the sound so sibilant and so unnatural that he stuttered and stumbled against the wall to let her by, his goggle-eyed expression giving her a morsel of satisfaction.
When she was safely ensconced in her room, she forced herself to open her hands, her eyes hunting for something inexpensive to break.
"Patchy, she's such a bitch…" She whined to herself, giving up. She wished she'd brought her old friend along to complain to—though, at the same time, she was gladdened that Patchy hadn't been around to see her lose her composure, or hear her speak so coarsely.
Or to fraternise with a commoner.
Oh, yes. Her!
Remilia's scowl disappeared as she stopped dwelling on Olivia De Vere and started contemplating the servant girl—the one with the silver hair and silver eyes. Extraordinary, but for her circumstances. Shabbily clothed, but she moved with such form.
Funny, too. Remilia grinned at the memory.
What's more, she had, without payment—and without fear, too, that was remarkable—cared to help her, when everyone had averted their eyes, excused themselves or tittered behind their hands and fans like the coy little third-rate half-breed b—
What was her name? Remilia furrowed her brow for a moment as she whisked up the servant girl's skein, the thread trailing after her as she moved. She pondered on the name for a few moments more as she crossed the room to the curtain flanked portal where moonlight streamed in from.
Sakuya, that was it. Well, it was her new name.
Remilia brought the fraying, greying thread into the light, turning it in her hands.
Huh.
T'was a shame, it seems as though it was reaching its end.
It was a puzzling thing, and a little sad, too. She seemed healthy enough when they'd spoken. Apparently, she would not make it through the night, if fate had its way.
Well, that wouldn't do.
Remilia took the end between finger and thumb and concentrated…
And like that, the thread wound on, unspooling inch by inch, regaining its cherry redness and growing in length as she stretched it between her nails. She smiled to herself.
"So fragile…" She sighed. "Now, where should we meet…"
"Ah, shit," the master exclaimed loudly enough to startle the servant girl. "But I promised my sister. She's taken a shine to you, you know."
The servant blinked, nodding docilely.
"So we'll take you home, see you disciplined, that you might remember how the dance is done," the master told her, smiling pitilessly.
"Yes, master."
"…Circus is in town this weekend, if memory serves," the master murmured, as though he was reading from a script he'd never read before.
Remilia sighed pleasantly, thinking of elephants, lions and the silver haired servant girl as she prepared for bed.
