Being dragged around, Jade had to admit, wasn't a thing she quite liked.

Of course, it had happened before with her siblings, parents, and will happen again.
But when she didn't really need to be, she tried to escape it as fast as possible.
Thus, she instinctively threw her wrist out of the firm embrace that girl had took, halting her in the sprint.

Einar grabbed the pause in their stomping to sulk. "How unfortunate..."

"Unfortunate what?" She could only bark.

A detestable shrug. "Unfortunate you weren't baptized by Briel's minion. Briel always finds a reason to bully newbies."

"And it hadn't crossed your mind to help me?" Nia glowered harder.

"Nope, I had enough for my part with five punches and three slaps, with one distributed by that minion here. So I'll pass for the helping." He shook his hand dissuasively.

"I'm Trist, if you wondered." The minion said.

That girl looked alike any normal teen, practically since her carrot hair and freckles made her abnormally stand out between all the blue-eyed and blond-haired of the North.
Well, she maybe couldn't be considered 'normal' or 'average' with those two traits, but something about her exhaled indifference, a passiveness that erased her.

"Nice to meet you." Einar lightly bowed before his eyes illuminated with curiosity. "So, why this vendetta to this brat of Briel, Trist?"

"I'm not paid enough."

This is today's reason to not hit innocent people.

"Don't you feel humiliated? A slap remains a slap." And she wouldn't have taken it well.

"No at all." He shrugged as they arrived in somewhere that only God knows, identifiable as a large and enlightened hall with hundreds of tables. "Briel chooses her minion and then forces them to do anything for her." Einar held the door for them before walking and lamely finishing on a chair. "That girl is the first I've seen to fight back!"

The first to have some balls. Nia sighed. "The other are just cowards."

"The others were." The minion took her seat on a table, facing both with nonchalance.

Were.

Trist, after a short moment, breathed. "They're dead."

Death.
Death is a part of life—you live, you die, end of the story.
Yet... Death shouldn't come for young and hardworking people, for maids and butlers who just worked to fill their belly in the winter and survive to enjoy the summer—the empire having ruthless seasons, and not everyone being strong enough to resist those, even with a roof to hide under.

"W-what?" Was the only screech who could come from Nia's throat.

The minion lazily spread herself on the table, extirpating crackles and squeals from it. "As soon as a remark can be heard, we all weirdly fall ill or experience inconvenient accidents."

Everybody watched people die because of a highly-place brat?

The past minion sadly approved in the silence. "Servant hierarchy is the worst," a long, long sigh, "but since I'm a Katt, I've planned something."

Nia's expression went from 'the fuck' to 'oh' real fast.

Trist was a Katt?
This was... nice.
Although Jade had opted for taking mostly truthful people near her, she couldn't totally ignore the Katt clan, which, in a large majority, didn't possess this quality.
But Trist seemed really... straightforward.
Which was what she searched for in the end.

Einar straightened out of the blue. "Really?" Both of the golden eyes he shared with his cousin, lighting up. "What is this marvelous plan your last name has granted you?"

Trist smugly rose her brows, shifting from indifference to fall into arrogance. "Not telling."

He sulked. "Unfortunate again."

"For you?" Trist asked with a pale, sarcastic worry. "Yeah, totally unfortunate."

"For how much time did you know each other?" Nia just wanted to check.

"Five minutes." They answered in the same voice.

"Get married." She could only sigh. "Or do something that bonds you together forever."

Trist shrugged, looking at Einar. "If you're rich, I'm willing."

"Ouch," he mimicked pain so good it looked real. "I didn't know being rejected was hurtful even without a crush."

An unconscious laugh escaped Nia's lips. "Crazy how fast you two make plans for the future."

Trist only offered a wry smile, her forehead folded with apprehension. "I prefer to think of that than to think of what would happen if my plan fails."

For the little time our writer had been with Sun's cousin, Einar, it was the first moment he seemed so natural, with a wide grin and not any ounce of mischief in the look.

"You can't deny it's a clear invitation to reveal it." His golden pupils swiveled with interest to Trist. "Come on, spill the tea." Einar begged, puppy eyes activated.

Trist bobbed her head and hair, first to dissuade herself for a bit. Then, she leaned in, her hand landing before her mouth in secret. "It's tied to the tenth Princess."

Although that nickname awoke in Jade a jolt, she kept it to herself.

"Hoho," Nia swore Einar sounded like a Santa for an instant. "You're aiming high! From what I've heard, the tenth is a hermit and didn't interact with any servant apart from Hoenir. You should have an attack plan to meet her." He began to advise her in a wise tone.

A few ironic applauses roared in the hall. "I didn't know. Thank you." Her voice dripped with sarcasm, on which Einar immediately stiffened and rolled his eyes. "And where did you get that information from?"

"Yara."

Not wanting the drama, Trist exceptionally gave kindness with an exhale. "OK, fine. I'll give you that point."

Nia wondered out loud. "Why does everyone know her?"

"Because." They just told, as if it was a universally known fact.

The ringing sound of the bell covered up the laugh who spread through them.

Trist changed, brows violently furrowing. "Shit."

"What?" Our girl spun to her.

"It's lunchtime." Trist muttered, an odd panic growing on her face. "And we're not meant to be here."

"Oh," Einar sprung from the chair where he's been seated, "we definitely have to go then."

Nia spun around, scanning the room and spinning again, before swiftly uttering, her breath cut away by what she saw. "That would have been a good idea."

Einar lifted an eyebrow. "Been?"

"Yeah." Nia stared at them, flexing her chin to point a pump woman approaching with yells.

"HEY, YOU! GET THE SORRE OUT OF HERE!" She bellowed to them with a wrath only findable in old people scolding younger.

But they didn't get to hear that, sweeping the doors out of their way.

●●●

"How—" Nia panted, "do we get to eat now?"

When they all had followed Trist in the corridors, they wouldn't have thought they'd land in her room.
It looked exactly identical to Jade's one; the few decorations here and there lit up the room better than the highly-placed window.

"We won't." Trist flatly answered, seemingly unbothered.

Einar chuckled. "Not a first time?"

A sharp exhale. "I wish it had been."

Nia gave rest to her numb feet, stretching her legs on the bed where she had taken a seat.

"And for how much time we'll need to rest here?" Our girl interrupted her stretching to glance a little more closely at a book on the nightstand.

'Convincing people: fifty easy steps—'

Before she completed the title, a raucous hand hid it.

"You're putting your nose where you shouldn't." Trist's brows were furrowed, on the point of meeting each other in the middle of her forehead.

The fact she could read as a servant only proved she was one of the higher-ups in that hierarchy.

Nia offered her a sly smile. "What was your function again?"

The Katt girl's muscle seemed to all ally in a clenching reflex. "Nothing you should care about."

Evading.
Nice attempt.

If she wanted to employ her, Jade had to test about how far she would go lying. How far she could go to keep the truth in.

"Then I'll get going." Nia said, standing, marching to the door.

Before her wrist ended in a tight, tensed clasp.

"You can't." Trist was just behind, her grip on Nia's articulation like a grip for her own life.

"W-why?" Einar had bolted between them, whimpering with a nervous grin looming over his face.

"It's lunchtime. If you're seen in the hallways, you're dead." Trist uttered, the tone as soothing as an anxious person could have given.

"Quite inventive."

"I-I'm not making up anything." Trist stammered, her palm clenching again, leaving Nia's hand turn into a clearer white.

"Maybe not for the lunch fact, but your tentative of changing the subject isn't original enough." Nia ended her sentence by a lift of her shoulders. "What is your job, Trist?"

Quietness replied for the servant.

She insisted. "Which function do you occupy to be menaced by your tag of Briel's minion?"

If she let that information out easily, she could be bribed by anyone and disclose personal matters, which Jade wished to keep as personal.

Jade hoped she could hold her tongue.
Jade wanted her to keep her mouth shut.
Well if she didn't, she'll just have to find someone else, she thought as the palm left her wrist.

"It's high." Trist fussed as if her life was slipping away, as she darted away. "Too high to be just punished with more work."

Was it what Jade hoped for? No.
Did it suit her? Yes, or for now at least.

Einar shifted, and slid away, crumbling the barrier he made between Trist and her. "But not high enough to avoid Briel's shit. I feel you... OK, maybe pity you more."

Trist frowned again, her brows possibly sticking one to the other definitely. "I don't want of your pity."

"But you'll have it. Because, I," he shouted the pronoun as it had been in his body for too long, "have the privilege to be hidden in the butthole of the world! The washhouse!" His chest could have jumped out by itself if he kept busting it out like this.

"Damn, Einar, you got fever or somethin' to be this happy?" Nia placed her hand to check his temperature.

He snapped back to her. "No, I just have the chance to like my boss."

Who uses you like an experimental subject while you're a minor and not legally nor morally allowed to have that role. Yes, pretty normal Stockholm syndrome over here.

"Lucky you. But she still doesn't need your pity." Our girl shook her head as Trist imitated.

"Agree with that. Now shut up." She smiled, the first concrete smile she gave out in the three hours of discussion in that extricate room of hers.

A loud ringing sound indicated the back to work before Jade could realize sha was laughing again.

"Ugh, this bell will be the death of me." Einar sighed, transforming the grin into an only lifted, irked right corner, full of rage.

The owner of the room rose swiftly. "Um, not a word about this discussion. And particularly you..." her finger landed on our writer.

Oh, so Trist believed Nia, as a newbie, would go shout on all rooftops about her past occupation of minion.

"I won't tell a thing if you answer this." Nia snarled.

"W-what?"

"...How... how much did you get paid to be a minion? I mean," our girl tried, shrugging as she could. "I could take your place now that you—"

But Trist's wheeze already filled the room. "I-it's—" she managed in between laughs, "not worth the effort."

What a shame... our writer didn't support capitalism, but if she was the capitalist—
Well, she already was at the top of the hierarchy.
Calm down, inner Scrooge.

"Now," Trist tugged the boy and Nia to the exit, "you two go at the washhouse as I'll hide here. Hope I survive long enough to see you at dinner." She beamed and clicked the door.

And both, Nia and Einar, found themselves in the huddled hallway to march to their work, but with smiles and laughters, already looking forward to dinner.

If Jade knew what would come then, she wouldn't have been so excited.