Breeding Madness 1.3

Fleur was not a character when I was originally drafting the story, so I didn't get art of her when I got everyone else's references. Would be nice if someone could contribute towards helping me get that sometime- money is going to be really bad this month.

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Chapter 3 - A Maid in Love

Others lived in the basement of Grovewick Manor aside from Zethras. The servants' quarters were on the opposite side of the floor beneath the kitchens, where the maids and other housekeepers dwelled. One such maid was a young woman named Fleur Smallgrove, who was one of the many illegitimate offspring of the manor's Lord.

Like many of Lord Grovewick’s bastards, she was relegated to living in the basement and serving his household. It was common practice to keep children like her out of sight and out of mind, though the efforts were pointless because nearly everyone in Hollobell knew what sort of things went on in that lowly Lord’s manor.

Fleur’s life differed little from the one her mother lived. She was born in the manor after Lord Grovewick fancied her mother, a maid in his employ, and was raised amongst the maids and her half-siblings in the basement. It was a quaint life without much joy or cause for celebration, but at least they had each other throughout most of her childhood.

Just before Fleur’s fifteenth birthday, her mother fell ill, and it wasn’t long until her health declined rapidly. She lasted only a day after the party, which was a sad affair that saw the two of them and a few other maids and half-siblings crowded around her mother’s bed, singing a song and presenting Fleur with a small cake she was too depressed to even taste anything of beyond her tears. Some of the older maids who were friends with Fleur’s mother tried to step into her place after her passing and be there for the young girl during her late teenage years, but there was always an emotional distance between them that couldn’t be crossed.

After her mother passed, Fleur felt truly alone, and that feeling hadn’t improved much in the years since.

Yet despite her solitude and the grimness of her surroundings, Fleur never lost the goodness in her heart. She remained a girl who was always sweet and kind, albeit a plain one easily lost in the crowd.

Her mother being from the swampy province of Drerland, Fleur was lucky not to inherit many of the traits the bog dwellers were known for aside from faint a skin discoloration. Past the point of pale, Fleur’s skin was nearly blue in the right lighting. She had dull gray eyes and neck-length black hair, no breasts to speak of even at the age of twenty-one, a small frame, and a plain face with cheap glasses.

Ever eager to help wherever she could, Fleur never let insults from the other servants above her station get to her. It was just a part of who she was, finding it easier to just let things slide and take it all in stride. In her experience, it made getting through her life a little more comfortable.

Besides, things weren’t awful, and Fleur knew others who had it worse. But things weren’t good, either. Not many were kind to her, and the ones who were only acted so to an extent. Most treated her with indifference and disdain if she were lucky. Others were not so kind.

Many of the manor’s servants took out their dislike of the cruel Lord on his baseborn children, while some simply didn’t trust any who had an ounce of swampy Drerlander blood running through their veins. They took these factors, two things she was born with and had no control over, and faulted her for being who she was. Fleur considered herself lucky she’d missed out on most of the more obvious Drerlander traits and sometimes feared how others would’ve treated her if she had the infamous 'look' to her.

Fleur’s lot in life saw her taking care of many of the manor's messier duties, which often got hoisted off onto the bastards. If she didn’t like it, she could pack her bags and leave the same as any of her ilk. Her day saw her preparing food in the kitchen and cleaning the floors if she was lucky. If she wasn’t, she might be tasked with scrubbing the kennels of the vicious hunting dogs her Lord Father favored or cleaning some of his amusement chambers while making sure to wash and feed the amusement. Those were always the worst days, but it was hard to complain.

There were worse jobs Fleur could’ve been saddled with, ones most commonly given to her prettier siblings. She’d seen what they’d gone through, what it did to them over the long haul, and how long they lasted on average once it began. It made her grateful for how she looked- no one wanted to be one of Father’s favorites.

Still, Fleur’s life wasn’t without joy. Among her numerous duties, there was one among them that always made her day just a little bit better. One that she might even go so far as to admit she enjoyed.

Fleur was the (un)official personal maid of Master Zethras, her Lord Father’s court mage. No one specifically gave her the job, but she’d been taking care of his needs for so long now that it was a title she gave herself, and no one disputed. Might as well leave it to Fleur if she’s so eager to take care of him.

Indeed, not many would take pride in such a title. Fleur heard all the other maids gossiping and was in on all the rumors they spread, all the insults and snide remarks they said of him. Whether they were whispering amongst themselves or outright complaining about Master Zethras in the laundry room, she paid the others no mind. Not even when they teased her directly about her strange devotion to the peculiar man.

So what if they were right, and she had a little crush on him?

Their teasing only made her feelings stronger, and all that they said about Master Zethras only made her want to stand by his side all the more. Gods, he wasn’t even that ugly. Fleur was convinced the other girls were blind. There was potential there, with his tall figure and his long hair... he just needed someone to care for him and fix him up a little, and that’s all she wanted to do.

It helped that he was always nice to her, in his own way, at least. He kept others at a distance but was never openly rude unless first provoked, and Fleur was proud to say she’d never angered him. If anything, she wished she could be of more service to Master Zethras beyond what little he asked of her.

Fleur made an attempt here and there in small, subtle ways that wouldn’t attract attention or come off as too forward. These gestures often came in the form of small, surprise gifts every so often that her pittance of a salary could afford. Things she thought he might find interesting or things he might need. It was another source of pride to see some of the trinkets she’d given him find their way into that vast collection of his, not in any special place of reverence but among the clutter all the same.

The last thing she’d gotten him had been a bottle of hair tonic. For a while, she hadn’t even known if he was using it. Then, one day, she happened to catch him as he was leaving his chamber, and they were both heading in the same direction. She trailed behind him at a respectable distance but soon recognized the scent in his wake. That made her day and strengthened Fleur’s resolve to continue her little gift-giving ritual.

Today, she’d be sneaking a batch of cookies into Master Zethras’s food cabinets. Fleur baked them secretly while no one else was looking and counted down the minutes until she was done cleaning the amusement chambers. After she was done and had washed up, she bounced through the dreary basement toward his room.

Everyone knew where she was going, and she’d picked up on whispers from every person she passed. However, Fleur was in too good a mood to let any of their nonsense dampen her spirits. Aside from excitement over sneaking him her present, Fleur took special pride in getting to clean Master Zethras’s room. He was strict and particular regarding his unorganized organization, but Fleur had mastered tidying the place precisely how he liked it to the point where he forbade anyone else aside from her from cleaning his chambers.

Fleur reached his door a moment after he’d left, catching a glimpse of Zethras’s robes billowing behind him as he turned a corner. The maid slumped a little in place, saddened that she’d missed him. Then, she shook herself of her disappointment. Fleur had a job to do and would see him some other time- this was no time for slouching.

She reached for the door to get straight to work, but someone else stepped out of the room and nearly slammed it in Fleur’s face. It was another maid- an elf she’d never seen before- who looked angry at her presence.

Fleur skidded to a stop before the door hit her, her good mood shriveling up. How could this be? Zethras didn’t like anyone being in his room- aside from herself, of course. And even that was more of an ‘I’ll tolerate it’ sort of arrangement. What was this strange, tanned woman doing in there, and why did he leave so quickly?

The strange maid glared down the hall after him, paying no mind to Fleur as she stared. In most cases, she would’ve stuttered out a meek apology before asking if she could get by, but then she saw what the woman was holding, which made Fleur pause in alarm. It was some sort of mysterious stone tablet, and while she didn’t recognize it specifically, it seemed like it was something from Master Zethras’s collection.

This woman wasn’t stealing from him, was she?

No… probably not.

He was in the room with her until now, so Fleur didn’t find that likely. But that left only one other option as to why she would have her mitts all over Zethras’s things, and Fleur liked that implication even less. It made her sad to think about it and want to turn tail and run, but she might lose the only thing she had to look forward to in life if she didn't stand her ground.

That wasn’t something she was going to sit by and let idly happen, so she took hold of her irritation and marched up to the stranger.

“I-I, um… excuse me…?” Fleur finally squeaked out.

The unknown maid, at last, regarded her peer, though it was with eyes that seemed to stare straight through her. Fleur had been looked down on her entire life, but never had she felt so small as before the scrutiny of this random, red-headed stranger. The fact that she even managed to continue speaking was something of a miracle.

“I… I don’t recognize you, so maybe you’re new here… um… and maybe you don’t know that it’s my job to see to Master Zethras’s needs.”

The maid stared Fleur up and down as if judging a piece of meat. “Yeah? I guess someone has to,” She remarked with amused disdain. “Good for you.”

Her dismissive tone did little to embolden Fleur, who was doing her best to figuratively puff out her chest. She was on the cusp of speaking again, but the woman cut her off.

“Whatever. I was just dropping off some shit Master Zethras ordered," she sneered. "Do me a favor, and you can get on with... whatever it is you do around here.”

“Oh,” Relief washed over Fleur in an instant. That made so much more sense. She wasn’t trying to take her job. One of Master Zethras’s deliveries had arrived, and Fleur was too busy with her other duties to bring it to him! She lowered her guard and smiled, saying, “In that case, sure! How can I help?”

“Have a look at this-” The maid handed Fleur the slab from Zethras’s collection. “You don’t happen to notice anything strange about it, do you?”

Fleur gazed at the relic after it’d been thrust into her arms, inspecting it immediately and seeing the strange glyphs carved onto its smooth surface. “Um. No?” Fleur blinked. “It just looks like another one of Master’s, um… Master Zethras’s…”

The world around Fleur contorted inward, becoming smaller and so much larger simultaneously, blinking back and forth between the two states. She tried to look away from the slab the first second she noticed something was off, but her eyes wouldn’t follow any of the signals her brain was sending. Sweat poured out of her at a rate suggesting her body suddenly decided it was tired of containing any liquid whatsoever, her eyes dilating broader until her irises disappeared.

Fleur let out a shrill cry before her throat gave out on her, her windpipe feeling as if it were strangled by an unseen tendril, the rest of her suffering now committed to silence as her mouth foamed and drool dribbled past her lips.

The glyphs on display flashed with a luminous light as the rest of Fleur’s vision went dark. Her mind became oblivion with only the burning and searing words branding themselves directly onto her brain. In the darkness, these words began to boom thunderously into her ears, a translation she did not and could not comprehend. Horrible sounds accompanied the words- roars and shrieks and screaming erupting and rending apart her simple mind in a bloodcurdling symphony.

And then came the visions.

Visions of beasts that would be and never were, beasts baring long fangs oozing with viscera and venom, claw-tipped wings and razor-sharp talons that shredded all unfortunate enough to live beneath the open sky, tentacles writhing, slithering and constricting each other in a moist, incestuous union of wormy knots.

That was to say nothing of the eyes watching her from every angle. So many different kinds, all unified in their indifference and hate, all glowing and glaring in the darkness. All trained on her.

Fleur somehow remained standing for a few precious moments after this mental onslaught began until convulsions ripped through her body. Her grip on the slab loosened, letting it fall where it broke apart into hundreds of tiny stone fragments. Her legs gave out from under her, and if it weren’t for the unknown maid catching her, she would’ve hit the floor hard.

Instead, the woman laid her out and settled her comfortably while Fleur continued to convulse, foam, and drool. She managed to avoid choking on any of it, the gurgling noises coming from her throat being whimpers and cries distorted from the foam.

Fleur would’ve appeared to be having a typical seizure to any random passerby. The truth was that there was no comparison to the ongoing horror she experienced at that moment that stretched on into infinity. Years and years worth of mental torture were condensed all in a few seconds, and this would only continue until she adjusted to this new reality and gained a measure of resistance or when her brain finally gave in and stopped trying to sustain life under such hopeless circumstances.

The maid balled her hand into a fist, knocking it lightly against Fleur’s skull several times.

“Hey, you still in there?” She waited for a response before knocking harder. Fleur coughed something up and let out a dazed sound. “Huh. Well, I guess it worked, then. Ugh, this fucking sucks…”

Forget the stupid bitch. She was really the one who was suffering here.

The maid stood up and walked away from the now-unconscious Fleur, cursing how things had turned out and leaving Zethras’s door wide open as she left the scene. Her job playing babysitter was done today; she only had to send a message, and then she could return home where she belonged.

The maid’s eyes flashed brightly as she reached out to another.

Heading back now. The rest is on you. Turns out Lady Emlaalth’kir was right. He’s ready. Try not to scramble his brain when you give him the book, by the way. I could give less of a shit however you wanna toy with the guy, but we both know how much this stupid human means to her, so… look, just don’t fuck it up, okay?