503 The Servant Girl
#3 of Sythkyllya 500-599 The Age Of Black Steel
Confused? Consult the readme at https://www.sofurry.com/view/729937
Save Point: The Servant Girl
Connaug Purchase, 1778
She works in the kitchen, preparing meals and cleaning dishes.
She's shackled at the wrists due to her earlier violent behavior, this being the incident in which she got hold of a kitchen knife and tried to slash her way out. Now she cleans and cooks in a state of sullen anger, the shackles not enough to critically interfere with her tasks but enough to keep her from being truly dangerous.
What makes it worse is that her master is basically good, as are his family. He bought her cheaply to save her from far worse, but cannot free her without it being noticed and incurring various complicated legislation designed to prevent assisting the escape of a duly registered slave. So she washes dishes and tries quite regularly to escape, without any assistance, and he does the very littlest he can to stop her without being accused of neglecting his property.
It makes her furious.
At the window, which is made of very many tiny glass squares held together by dubious lead, she is the first to see the beast as it lopes up the outside stairs, legs back-folding under it with each step. It is lean, wolfish, with muzzle, straight horns and large curving ears. It has remarkable blue eyes that take her breath away.
It has claws, six hard nipples on its washboard male chest, well developed haunches and three parts to its lower limbs, almost like the back legs of a huge black dog or wolf. It looks as though it was designed by the devil to hunt the sinful.
Seeing her, it leaps at the window, claws outstretched to grab at the surrounding boards so it can look in without damaging the glass. Not dropping a dish, because this would be expensive and her master would be obliged to beat her, she puts it down instead and then turns to run in the other direction, across the upstairs rooms until she comes to another expensive window. This one can be unbolted from the inside, a convenient security failure arranged by her master that she found on a previous attempt. She slams it open but before she can exit, she sees it just before it sees her, muzzle thrust out a window in the level below as it sniffs for her scent.
Failing to reach her, it must have climbed in an open window downstairs and listened for her. Damn, this beautiful beast is clever.
Ever so quietly, she spins about and dashes stealthily back to the window near the kitchen bench, trying to move as silently as possible.
The latches on the window tend to creak. Unable to come up with a better idea on the instant, she puts her manacled wrists out in front of her face and dives out straight through the window into empty space.
Small squares of poorly leaded glass tumble away from her. She reaches out, rising higher and higher as the ground passes beneath her before the fall begins, hoping to reach the line that the washed clothes are strung from, ribbons of blood trailing from her forearms.
She misses. She hits the ground. Things go black.
When she finally comes to, it is to find the beast licking the blood off her arms to seal her slashed wrists, as it opens her legs and prepares to claim its prize.
Maybe her owners will not give chase if she is dragged away by the beast. She does not struggle, just screams as it drives into her roughly.