Richelle Dache was so angry she forgot how to breathe. Her hands actually shook, and she could feel her heart pounding. Everything seemed utterly surreal. Was her new aristocratic room mate actually expecting her to sleep on the floor like a dog? This was too much. She had been taken from her family, forced to come here, and now that they had their way; this was how she would be treated?
A kind of insanity descended on her, a welcome one. Richelle's eyes fell to the bed that was meant to be hers. Once more she noticed the jewelry box, the shoes row by row, and excess clothes on top of it.
"Grab a blanket? Oh very well," Richelle found herself saying, "If my lady insists!" Extending her hands like a hawk's talons, Richelle seized the edge of a blanket under all of the noble girl's items, and pulled with all her might. For a moment it seemed as if the blanket might tear, but it was made of sturdy enough material, and rather than ripping, it, and everything on top of it was wrenched violently to the floor!
Clothes tumbled. Shoes cascaded. Jewelry? Scattered like dirt swept from a doorway!
"Oh look," Richelle said gazing at the now clear space on the mattress, "An empty and unused bed! I think I'll use this one!"
The other girl, who never did have the decency to announce herself, scrambled back from the sight of the insane commoner girl's actions and the resulting mess on the floor!
"My clothes, my jewelry, my shoes!" The bulbous nosed shrew wailed!
Gods, but that felt good, Richelle thought to herself! There was a kind of euphoria in seeing this bitch distressed after her attempts to humiliate Richelle. The delight spread to the merchant daughter's features, and she began to smile as she made up the bed properly now, patting it. She didn't, at first, realize she was humming while doing it.
"You're mad! Insane!" The noble girl quavered, "To dare to damage the property of a daughter of House Swinford!"
"Oh?" Richelle replied merrily, the madness not quite spent, "So at last we have part of your name. So and so of House Swineford...."
"SWINFORD!" The other girl hissed, "Engela Swinford! Fourth daughter of..."
"Oh, a FOURTH daughter," Richelle tutted, "That makes you rather expendible, doesn't it? By... aristocratic standards."
Engela was not used to being interrupted, disregarded, or having a truth of her upper-crust condition thrown into her face. Richelle wondered if any commoner had ever dared to speak to her so in her life. Had anyone?
Dear Gods, I was never THAT spoiled. Richelle thought to herself.
Now it was Engela's turn to tremble! She sputtered like a tea kettle, "You.. you are a peasant! And you will learn your place!" She raised her hand as if she was going to slap Richelle! Clearly, much like Richelle, she'd never been in a real physical fight in her life, for the forewarning of the blow was so clear even a child could see it.
As Engela's palm came down, the complete arc was interrupted, as Richelle had the sense of mind to block it with her own upraised hand. Clearly Engela did not expect the peasant girl to defend herself. Normally a commoner practicing self defense against a noble's daughter could lead to severe punishment!
But Richelle had found her limit. She turned her block into a grab and began to twist Engela's wrist with surprising ease. Richelle may have been treated as a princess in many ways, but she had helped haul cargo. She had pulled rope to raise tents. She was no porter, but her life style had been any thing but sedentary. Engela had likely never lifted a finger in hard work in her life.
"OWW!" And Engela's rage faded in the face of being physically overpowered for the first time in her arrogant young existence.
Some beastly part of Richelle, one she didn't even know existed, wanted to follow through and use her free hand to pound Engela's bulbous nose until it was flat as a flapjack! She could hit the girl again and again until the arisocrat was simpering and begging like others had wanted HER to beg!
Then she remembered who she was. She was a Dache. And, just because no one else saw value in that, did not mean the world was going to reduce her to the savage they wanted her to be. Besides, news of this behavior would shame her father, and she couldn't bear to be lowered in his eyes. It would break her for true.
The rage in Richelle did not vanish. She didn't have that much control over it to make it go away with a willing. No, but she did manage to cage it, let it seethe behind the bars of her mind, full of spite and ire. Instead of hitting the girl, Richelle drew on her knowledge of the few times she'd seen violence before this whole dreadful conscription begain.
There had been a drunk who had tried to go after Richelle's father. Father's hired guard, what was his name? She couldn't remember. A good man, dependable, had interceded with practice ease. Rather than thrash the fellow, he gripped the drunk, not so different from how Richelle had Engela. And he had spoken a warning.
Richelle adapted the warning for her own, looked into Engela's eyes, and delivered the warning, "I'm stronger than you, and you clearly don't know how to fight. If you persist in causing trouble, if you attack me again, I will beat you within an inch of your life and shed no tears. This is your first and last warning. That said, I'm used to the bump and crash of a rough road. You sure you want to take this ride with me?"
And she released Engela with a push back. The aristocrat's own outrage was not as strong as her new found fear as Richelle's words sunk in. Engela rubbed at her wrist as if getting the feeling back in.
Richelle wanted to scoff. She hadn't held it that tight.
"You brute," Engela snapped, but she backed up as she snapped. She was arrogant and cruel, but not a complete fool.
"If I were a brute, you'd be picking your teeth up off the floor," Richelle replied coolly. That line, she did not know where she got it. With an odd sense of pride, she decided that wording might just be a Richelle original, "Understand this. I will not be belittled. I will not be ordered about. And I will not be laid a hand on. Honor those rules with me and I'll honor them with you in turn!"
"I'll have you expelled!" Engela declared.
Richelle laughed! It burst out even more readily than the rage, and indeed, shoved the rage aside, "Do you promise? I would be EVER so grateful! I've been trying to avoid this wretched place since I heard I had to come here!"
Fear once more filled Engela's gaze, "You ARE mad!"
For a moment, Richelle thought the aristocrat might try to lunge at her again, but instead, the daughter of House Swinford charged out the door in the room and went running down the hall, presumably to inform an authority of the entire event. No doubt, leaving out the parts where she started it.
Richelle found herself utterly beyond caring. She went back to making up HER bed.