#Zetine did her best but like most trolls she a) wasn't equipped to handle kids b) had her own shit going on

[cloudbattrolls]

Devil's In the Details

Crista Condyl | 4.7 sweeps ago | Auresh Manor

“Stop doing it so rough, Zetine.” Crista complained, squirming in the hard wooden chair. “I don’t see what’s all the fuss for, anyway.”

They scrunched up their face as they looked in the wide mirror, and the brownblood sighed in that way she had where she made them feel they’d ruined her whole evening. They sat still again, grudgingly.

“I know you don’t, Riss.” She said, tired but trying to be soothing, tucking a strand of her long hair behind one of her small ears. It wasn’t working very well, and Crista had a hard time caring that she was trying.

“That’s why I’m doing it. You don’t get how it matters, you’re too young."

She plucked at their eyebrows again. Ow.

“The lord likes us girls to all look pretty.” She murmured. “You can get that, hm?”

“Ugh, we’re only lowbloods! Why does he care?” They complained, rolling their gray eyes. “And I’m six! And - "

They paused. Zetine did too, her rough hands hovering with the tweezers above their face, the old nicked instrument firm in her grasp like the promise of more pain.

“Careful.” She murmured. “You never know who’s listening. You don’t want…”

She trailed off, but Crista knew what she meant. Both of them looked at the changing room’s gray door, away from the old, somewhat cracked mirror the pair were using. Everyone knew some servants would tattle right to the lord’s butler. But you couldn’t be sure who, though the maroon had their suspicions.

“S’nothing like that.” The child muttered, looking at the floor. “I only meant. Well. What if I’m not a lady?”

Crista saw Zetine pause out of the corner of their eye, and she moved her hands and the tweezers away, biting her lip.

“You want to be, Riss.” She said urgently, her eyes - just filled in a few perigees ago - intense with urgency. “The lord’s much nicer to us. Besides, don’t you want to be stronger?”

Crista made a raspberry.

“Jessie’s got the thinkpan of a rotten apple and twice as many worms in her head, and Tethah whines like a colicky wriggler if she has to help with more chores than carrying water. Think that’s pretty bunk.”

Zetine sucked in a breath the way she did when she was trying not to laugh, and while the maroon couldn’t quite smile their ears twitched a bit in satisfaction.

“You’re going to get in trouble for that tongue of yours.” She said, shaking her head. “The lord won’t find it funny forever.”

Lord Auresh. It all came back to him and his cerulean authority, cold and hard as steel. Except when he laughed at a joke, briefly.

“You should hush about not being a girl.” She added. “If he finds out…”

“Why? What difference? You already pluck and comb and fuss at me so I look like a 'proper' girl.” They spat, bitter, gripping the wooden bars that made up the back of the chair, even though it hurt to grasp them too hard.

“Cause my eyebrows are too thick and my nose’s too big and I don’t smile right and my ears aren’t elegant. It’s never been fun, Zetty! When’s it start being fun?”

“It doesn’t.” She said, serious and pin-drop quiet. “Not for lowblood women. It’s about surviving, Riss. If you look nice enough, nobles won’t be so quick to punish you. You have to be careful to not look too nice, either…” she murmured, putting her free hand around her other wrist and looking to the side.

“Huh?” Crista said, confused, their ears flicking. “What d’you mean?”

Zetine seemed to have not heard, and she raised the tweezers again.

“Hold still.” She said in a harder tone, one the maroon knew not to argue with and had the bruises to prove it, so they silently settled themself back in the hard chair even though their legs were starting to go a bit numb.

Pluck, pluck, pluck. 

Crista sighed in relief when it was done, but groaned because now came makeup. Ew.

“No more fuss.” Said Zetine, now hard as she got when she told them to behave for highblooded visitors. 

Crista knew what would happen if they did. They knew how those rough hands felt when they were actually trying to cause pain.

So not a single further sound came from the rustblooded child.