It was the third day since Lelia Radofin Arconesta Crown princess of Ventalar has been taken from the castle by human soldiers and taken to their palace. She had been fed nothing in that time, the cell was bare stone except for some straw to sleep on and a bucket to relieve herself in.
This was not an acceptable way to treat a royal captive! Didn't these barbarians have a wing in the palace for political prisoners? She would be sure to tell her family the barbarity of these humans when they ransomed her back...though there had been a lot of soldiers storming the castle...maybe they had not gotten away. She would just have to hope she either got ransomed back to her family or a horde of Valk warriors who had taken the wolf shifting potion would storm the palace to rescue her.
The tiny newly established neighbouring human nation had attacked without provocation. These aggressive humans, that looked just like her own people but with strange round furless ears and no tails, just showed up out of nowhere and set up a kingdom next door. She hadn't even bothered to learn the name of their little country thinking it unimportant and that father would deal with them, and in no time at all they were at the gates using powerful magic to batter it down and storming the castle taking prisoners and looting everything.
She had tried yelling down the hall through the bars to get someones attention and that she shouldn't be in this cell but anyone who passed by just ignored her or gave her a scornful look.
She was dirty, and tired, and hungry, and just wanted a bath so as to be able to wash her dark hair and furry ears and fluffy tail. Miserably sitting in her cell hoping they didn't just intend to starve her out.
She looks uncomfortable asking because it would probably hurt to think about, but she had to know. "Do they?....what is the worst that?... Am I going to have to worry about anything permanent? L-like scarring or burning or anything...or being starved for too long..."
"...May I sit?" he asks, before answering, and if she indicates approval does so (winces slightly), leans back against a wall. Closes his eyes, opens them again.
"If it's the same as for me - nothing much more than cosmetic. And not often, that. And usually healed. They - like us to look at, I think.
Never starvation. If you try to stop eating they'll make you, and use their magic meanwhile.
I've had a few bones broken, but very rarely, and healed almost right away. ...And that might just be me, I think it was the elf magic they wanted, mostly.
I've been whipped, badly, a few times, as punishment, but I brought it on, I knew I was doing it. Nothing you could do by accident. Still healed soon. Never aside from that. Usually they - don't even break skin, much. Not even for punishment.
You hear about human dungeons sometimes, how horrible they are, but no one's ever taken me to one. I don't think they're allowed.
..If I - stole state secrets, somehow, or tried to assassinate someone. Something for which they'd do it to anyone. Probably then. But they don't otherwise, they haven't ever.
Maybe want to save it for that, so no one thinks it's all the same.
...If there's anything you - realize would be really bad, for you. I can try to take those. I don't think it'll work all the time. But I can try."
She goes quiet and just sits there trying to take that in. She thought she was mentally prepared to hear what they would and would not do... but all that still sounded like way too much to deal with without breaking at least a little. If...If she is going to get them back for what they've done she might need to break a little in the way they want her to... She wants to die to deny them the pleasure of breaking her but then nobody would be able to avenge her father and everything else she lost. She needed to keep that core of anger or she would lose herself completely in this place she knew.
And she comes up with a plan.
"H-how...do you keep them happy? make them think me harmless... how do you... keep your head in a space that keeps you alive and mostly sane?" She needed to survive this. She needed to be alive and herself enough to enact her plan no matter how long it took and what they did to her.
He can see the way she goes quiet but - he doesn't know what to say. Doesn't know if there's anything to say. (She hadn't asked anything about - the obvious thing, and he doesn't know how to say 'yes they keep on with that' in any way, or if he should say it. Maybe it is, in fact, obvious enough.)
This he can try to answer.
"I'm," he blushes again. "I'm - very well behaved.
Mostly." He can be more specific than that. He's never thought of it in terms of 'think me harmless', but it makes sense that she would, and, well, he doesn't think anyone doesn't think him harmless, really, so it applies. He's definitely thought a lot in terms of 'make them happy'.
"I wasn't very good at it before though," he says, in the middle. "I - spent days crying a lot, just curled up on the floor. Even though I was trying not to do that. Please - please don't think you're failing somehow. If-" (If she was like some of the elves he'd known, he'd add, you don't have to, there's nothing wrong with fighting instead, if you prefer it, if you can bear it. But again, this seems to be what she wants. And she seems like his mother, and others, that way. Fighting would be her first thought. If she's asking how to - cooperate - then it's because she's decided something. Would not like it, probably, if he seemed to be telling her what was obvious to her.)
He can try to answer the second part too, though he doesn't know how much it might be the same for her as for him.
She listens and tries not to freak out. Some of the details he described made her waver in her determination to see her plans through but she needed to be stronger than that. She listens, and learns, and tries to get in a headspace that would let her survive what they would do to her. She knows certain parts of her are going to break before this is all done, but as long as there was enough left of her to get revenge then that was what had to happen.
"I know I won't be able to make them think me declawed immediately... I don't... think I am strong enough to just take it all right now."
"I - don't think I would be strong enough not to," he says, which is true. "Or - strong isn't what I would say. It - isn't what comes easily to me. Or - perhaps 'obviously' and not 'easily'." He's failing at expressing anything again, he thinks, both what he's saying and what he's trying to say.
"I - " this he isn't even sure he should try to express. "If they wanted - someone like me - again, immediately, I don't think they would have taken you."
"If... they think me broken. Then they will not try to break me further. And... I can gain some small piece of leverage." She is dreading how she has to achieve this state though. "But... I don't think I will be able to stop myself from fighting at first..."
He closes his eyes for a moment again.
"...if you want leverage, you can find ones who like the fighting. Not like breaking - someone - down so they can't fight anymore, that's a different thing. Like something else about it. I can show you those I know, if you want. I'm - not very good at it myself. Even with practice. But I know - who I'm practicing for.
If you want - less punishment." He tries to think.
"Some people care about specific things, I can try to tell you those. And don't care, or it depends on their mood. You - might have noticed, in the throne room - Her Majesty didn't care that you insulted her, she thinks it's funny. That's a mood for her, but there's other people like that."
He doesn't know what to say about the ones who do like breaking someone. Doesn't really want to think about it, but not thinking about it definitely won't help at all. He can try to give more psychological advice, and absolutely not break down in any way because this is her suffering and not his and he is here to help.
(He can intend to try to distract them himself, and offer it. But there is only so far that goes, and - somewhat by definition of the category, they will not want him instead.)
"I want... people to think of me as safe and harmless and desirable... If it's because they want me and not because of a humiliating my people thing I think I can get a tiny smidge of control. If they want me... and want me to want them..." Be the favoured concubine of important people and work from there. That was step one. Don't think about what you have to pretend to want to get that until you have to. She thinks.
He can talk about safe and harmless and desirable (he'd never thought about the first two, really, but they're there). ...He can talk about - trying to work with a humiliating-my-people thing, if she wants. Or offer again to try to point those ones out, though they may not be the same ones for her as for him. He can talk about the forms of control, if one calls it that, one can get.
...safe and harmless do not have to be mutually exclusive with fighting, necessarily.
He doesn't know anything about people wanting her to want them. He doesn't think anyone here thinks he wants them
In the middle of this the door will slam open and a soldier will stride into the room. Mostly ignore Lelia, looking at Alesa.
"So this is where you've gotten to!"
He can get to his knees very, very quickly.
Glances with obvious apology at Lelia as he lowers his head.
"I'm sorry, ma'am."
She grabs his hair and starts to drag him from the room. In the middle of this actually takes notice of Lelia.
"Got cleaned up? Good.
No one wants a dirty mutt." She yanks harder on Alesa's hair, more as counterpoint than because it looks like she thinks he's relevant to this.
She is frozen in panic when the guard comes in, does nothing as she drags Alesa away and flinches when she was called a mutt. After the door slams closed, she seems to recover herself and slams her fist into the stone floor in shame. She shouldn't have frozen up. Even if she knows there is nothing she could have done she shouldn't just have let them do that right in front of her without doing something.
At least the pain in her fist was a sharp ache that was easier to focus on than shame or panic that a guard will come in for her as well.
If he was there he would say that there is definitely nothing wrong with having done nothing, and he would in no way want for her to have done otherwise, not for his sake.
But, obviously enough, he isn't.
No one comes for her quite yet. After a little while someone pushes some food into the cell.
She eats mechanically. To keep her strength up, she doesn't bother thinking about the foods taste as she shovels it in. Eventually, she has finished eating and is alone and nothing is stopping her from thinking about what happened in the throne room again. Not reliving it is difficult so she tries to focus on every vengeance she will inflict upon that awful awful family. It helps a little bit.