I… Can’t… Breathe!!!

I barely managed to sleep last night, and I’m waking up to practically being strangled! Elizabetha, no, screw that name, it’s too long. Liz grabbed me in her sleep, and she’s not holding back when sleeping! I’m gonna fucking die from this if she doesn’t let go! I elbowed her stomach, and the rapid breath she took meant she woke up.

“Huh? You can just tell me to wake up, you silly boy.” Seriously? I’m short, not young. Well, relatively not young. I’m at the ‘starting to get back pain’ part of life, and my back pain is gonna get a lot worse if she doesn’t stop practically strangling me!

“Let… go…” I could hear her laughing behind me. “Please…”

“Good, very good, but no. I very much like it like this. It’s not like you’re going to die, right?” I shook my head. “Oh, you mean…” I nodded. “Alright, I’ll let go… a little.” I finally took a breath as she loosened her grip. She still held me pretty tight, but it wasn’t deadly tight. Her office/room was unexpectedly messy. I honestly thought someone like her would try to control everything she could, including her environment. I guess laziness transcends all personality types. “You woke me up quite early, Mariel. I hope you can pay me back for that.” Pay her back? Is she trying to get me indebted and enslaved?

“I don’t have any money on me.” I could feel the reverberations of her chuckle on my back.

“No, no, I don’t need money. I need… actions, something symbolic.” So… I needed to do a chore, got it.

“I’ll make breakfast.” Her constant chuckling stopped, as she pulled me up so she could get closer to my ear.

“That’s what I like to hear.” Slave masters are bastards no matter the period. I did something so I wouldn’t die, and I have to pay for it? I try getting up, but her grip is still too strong. I have to clear my throat for her to respond. “Huh? Oh… just five more minutes.” …What? She literally just gave me the go ahead to make breakfast, and now she wants me to stay for a little longer? God, what the hell is she thinking? “Are you frustrated?” No shit captain obvious!

“Yea. Being enslaved tends to do that to you.” She chuckled again, which only made me more frustrated, but I could hide it. My job for a whole decade was to look at liars in the face, hear them spout their nonsense, and then calmly try to form a connection and hook before selling them a story on why their goal and mine were the same. All that to say, I’ve endured worse.

She eventually let go, and followed me as I walked into the living room. I opened the fridge to see… yep, that’s definitely what I expected. The fridge was very cleanly separated into four portions. The British ‘food’, the Russian ‘food’ and scraps of meals that were more expensive than me.

“I can use whatever I want from the fridge?” I turned around to look at Liz, who instead of simply nodding or shaking her head, wasted my time by talking.

“Yeah. Everyone here bows down to me, so just tell them it was under my name and you’ll be fine.” Alright, let’s see. The Brits knew well from sausage, so I ‘borrowed’ one of those for every person here. Good thing that one of the Slavic people made cucumber salad, that will freshen everything up, and… fuck, there was nothing else that’ll pair with this. How did the Russian not have potatoes? Was he stupid? I guess bread will have to do.

“Oh? Do you think I can eat that much, Mariel?” My eye twitched before I looked at her. I swear to god if she made me apologise for this.

“No. I’m cooking for everyone–” What the– Did she teleport? Or am I so slow compared to her that it looked like she teleported. It doesn’t matter, she’s had her hand over my mouth anyway.

“You’re cooking ME breakfast. The rest of them don’t deserve this.” Wow, real subtle there with your hatred of anyone below you on the hierarchy. Is my breakfast without an ounce of effort put in it that good that you have to hoard it all for yourself? I sighed after she let go, and put back all but one portion’s worth of ingredients. After a hot minute of searching, I finally found the skillet.

“Why don’t you keep the pans in the oven?” I looked at Liz, who was giving me a death glare.

“You are the third person to ask me this! What is with people living on this backwater planet and putting their pans in the oven?!” What was she on about? That was just common sense. My mom always put the pans in the oven… I think I only do that too because she did it. Man, what a great cook she was.

“Nevermind. Just let me cook.” I grabbed the sausage and dropped it in the pan. By the look of it, the fat on its surface is gonna be enough to cook it, so there was no use in putting oil in. It reminded me of my mom’s lazy cooking that still ended up tasting better than whatever I made these days. She always made sausages when Jack came around. I hope Jack’s– Oh. He’s dead.

Fuck! Oil spilled on me! How did water get in the pan? I whipped the oil off of my robe and moved the sausage around a couple times before scoping it to a plate. It looked quite sad now that I looked at it, but she should be grateful I’m not breaking down right now.

“Here.” I slid the plate towards her, and despite its haphazard appearance, she didn’t comment and just started eating. “Do you know what time it is?” She swallowed whatever was in her mouth at that moment before talking.

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“Around nine.” She pointed to the pendulum clock, which was definitely off cycle by now. “You can’t tell, since Samoylo always messes with it to try and make me sleep earlier.” Alright, so she cared for timekeeping very much, and Samoylo definitely does not like her. That was something I kept in mind.

“So why haven’t you reprimanded him for it?” A genuine smile returned to Liz’s face before she responded.

“I’ve dreamt of doing that so many times. How I’d love to watch him squirm as I take every ounce of life force from his body, but no, he’s too useful. While I AM the most powerful member of this organisation, I can’t keep half these retards in check.” I wasn’t even shocked by her choice of words. “The flock of the Revifier has fallen on low times, but I’m sure we’ll rebound once the peasants feel the emptiness in their hearts that only the true light of the Goddess’s word can fill.” So… Samoylo is the one keeping the group together despite hating the founder. I didn’t know what he was planning, but she was very stupid to not try and have someone more loyal replace him. I’d need to talk to him more to fully figure him out, but at this point, he might as well have been a spy to an unknown group in my book.

“Ah. What about the other ones? Why are they here?” Alex must’ve been here because he was strong, and the old man knows how to talk well, but the other two were a mystery to me.

“Because they believe in the word of the goddess of course! They’ve seen through the deceptions of this temporary revolution. When the King of The World kills Ian, it’ll be over for these godless heathens.” What? Were they stupid? Why would they worship the goddess when they weren’t reincarnated?

“So this whole group is dedicated to worshipping the person that’s hated by everyone?” She rolled her eyes and gave me a slight nod. “Do you not realise the issue with that? At least put it up as a front. I’m sure you can steal the imagery from some old world religions” Liz froze as I began, and let her fork down when I finished.

“You want me to throw away the purity of my beliefs in favour of enlightening these people? What a devilishly genius idea. I’m sure you’ll be more than happy doing all that for me, right?” Why did I even mention that? Like, yea, it made sense that I’d do it, I knew some things about christianity, and would be forced to listen to her talking about the goddess anyway, but that didn’t mean I wouldn’t be annoyed by it.

“Is that what we’re doing today?” Liz looked away for a second, thinking. Did she make Samoylo do everything, or did the whole group not have any plan or goal?

“I’ll have to ask Samoylo.” Of course. “He usually wakes up first, so we have a full–” Yep, that’s the sound of a door slamming into a wall so hard it makes this whole dimension tremble. I pulled my shirt up to cover my mark.

“Elizabetha!” Alex walked into the living room, giving me a death glare right as Liz was giving him one too. Was I supposed to give Liz a death glare to complete the loop? “Since when did you stay here for breakfast? Especially for this… interpretation of what a meal is.” Honestly, he made a good point.

“Interpretation?” …This place is full of weirdos. Why is SHE angry now? “You dare speak like that while eating things unfit for rats?” We live in eastern europe, what did she expect him to eat? I mean, at least it wasn’t Polish food. Those people could probably eat metal and get nutrients from it. Alex was clearly taken aback, as he literally took a step back.

“Elizabetha?” He looked off, almost horrified, before slowly walking back in his room. He was definitely after my head now. Liz defended my food for no reason, insulted his taste pallet, and that idiot probably thinks I’m stealing her from him, even though it’s clear she would probably throw up from even the idea of that.

“Who’s he to say your cooking is awful! Once, he made this sort of… gelatinous soup, and he along with Samoylo and Francizeck thought it was weird that I was grossed out by it.” Yea? Why wouldn’t they be weirded out by that?

“It is weird. Kholodet is delicious. It’s just a cultural divide.” That last statement didn’t stop her from still being disgusted by my statement.

“Cultural divide? No, you just have an inferior set of traditions from me. Weren’t you the one who made a big deal out of the pork jelly from the restaurant? What makes ‘Kholodet’ different from it?” Is she seriously asking me why I wouldn’t like sweet meat?

“Maybe the fact that it doesn’t have twenty pounds of whipped cream on it? You don’t mix sugar and pork.” She waved her hand dismissively at me, as if trying to coax me into frustration, but I held it in.

“And that’s why you don’t deserve riches. Your peasant mind cannot accept the mixing of two delicacies because of what? A taboo?” The urge to ask her if she was stupid was growing stronger, but I held it in… again.

“Are both of them bad?” Liz stayed silent to think, and shook her head after a good half minute of ‘thinking’. “Oh, right, because one of them is on the menu of a rich restaurant and the other is made by real people who had to suffer from the plight of being poor. Either accept that they’re both bad, or that Kholodet is not weird.” Yep, I definitely almost passed the unwritten line there, but I could tell she didn’t mind it too much the second that fake smile came back.

“...Haha! Fine, I’ll admit it, you won this one. I’m sure you’ll use your newly found happiness to endure the insults from everyone as you wake them up.” …What a bitch.