"I'm usually bathed by my servants?" She says without thinking. She is not thinking about how she is going to be dealing with the obvious evidence of...what just happened under her clothes...and being touched by another person. Right now she is just trying to be normal and not think about any of that.

"Oh. Yes, I'm sorry. Of course." He's - never actually been a servant, of itself, but he's been called on to attend at a bath before, here. And by some who only wanted him there, or to look at him, or for him to be - separately entertaining while they savored the water. Or after. Enough experience to put together how he might do this.

He goes to help her move to the bathing area and undress, if she wants that.

She starts to let him undress her but as he peels away the wet dress. The bruises left on her skin, the lack of her usual care obvious in the little scrapes on her skin from being thrown around, the..fluids, all the little after-effects of what happened are visible to her. She freezes up for maybe a full ten seconds before gritting her teeth and trying to act as if nothing was wrong. Even though her heart felt like it would explode out of her chest it was beating so fast.

He pauses when she freezes, but starts again after. He can feel her heartrate, and guess what she froze at, but unless she pushes him away or tells him to stop - this is what she told him to do, and he doesn't have a guess for how to do better. 

He does know how to care for scrapes, and how to - most efficiently, least unpleasantly - wash off fluids. 

She just lets him wash her, trying not to flinch or jerk away as his hands and the washcloth go near the...sore areas. She wanted to die inside every time he washed one of her violated parts but she did not want to let them win. She was going to have a bath normally if it killed her. Hissing through her teeth as the bruise Aster had given her twinges every so often as well. But she remains stoic and lets the elf wash her down.

This would seem almost intimate if not for the context. Being bathed by another and cleaned of the..taint... of what happened, by one who wasn't one of the servants she had grown up with. But she Isn't thinking about that right now.

He's very careful, tries to readjust if she flinches. But not much more he can do for her bruises than for his own. (There's one around his wrist from the chain, he notices. He must have pulled too hard.)

"Do you want - to do that yourself, or should I?" he asks, when it gets to - what would be be considered more intimate parts.

(He isn't thinking about it either, though maybe in a different way.)

She grimaces. "I-I can handle it. I'm not broken, go ahead." They were not going to win and break her, she would not let them make having someone give her a bath be something she couldn't do anymore.

Whether she can handle it is not what he'd wanted to know, but he doesn't think she'd appreciate it if he questioned her, even tried a 'you don't have to handle it'. This is what she wants him to do, so he does. 

After, he draws water into the buckets so she can wash off the dirtied bathwater, brings the ragged cloth they have as a towel.

She tries to dry off with the tattered cloth. She does feel..cleaner after all that. Less of a used object and more like her regular self.

Did the humans leave her any clothes to change into?

Yes. Same kind of thing, same trim again. He brings them over. 

He'd looked around already to see if the room has the same chute-like place to put the old clothing. It does. He can show it to her while he moves the clothes there. 

"His Highness has sentenced me to do my own laundry a few times, but I think he just liked to do that, usually the servants will do it and bring new clothes. If it's the same for you as for me." He thinks this is probably for effectiveness and efficiency reasons, but that there isn't a reason to say.

These slave clothes were scratchy compared to the usual clothes she was used to. Seems like even the downtime between abuses wasn't going to be comfortable. "Well...thank you...I Didn't even ask your name or introduce myself that is terribly rude of me. I am Crown Princess Lelia Radofin Arconesta and my name is usually accompanied by many other assorted meaningless titles now these barbarians occupy my kingdom." She does a polite little curtsey.

They're not that bad - the humans do touch them. But certainly not near her old clothes, and her senses are probably heightened now. Not that he would say this out loud, had she said hers out loud.

He'd said his name before, but probably she didn't hear it, or take it in.

He does the elf style, something between a bow and a curtsey. "I'm Alesa, son of Galetha and Ethien. It would have been Alesa-sien - my mother is Crown Princess.

They call us a vassal kingdom now." 

"Oh! and I had you play servant to me. I apologize." It was one thing for just some stranger to offer to act as a servant for her. She was a princess after all. But it was quite another thing for a noble to do it. Suddenly she feels very self-conscious. "Oh, gods I had you...do all that..." 

He... hadn't realized she hadn't realized. "I don't mind. I'd just - like to help, if I can.

We paid tribute to the Valk kingdoms before," he adds, in case that helps her thinking about it. "I - wouldn't mind anyway. But we did.

I - remember when it was my first time, in the throne room. There wasn't anyone else here like this then, except their own servants and sentenced, and they wouldn't have gone near me. It - was very lonely, I remember. And there's - enough without that.

I just want to help. If I can."

Oh....OH. She notices the marks around his wrists, the bruises new and faded all over his skin, His situation was the same as hers but he had clearly had much more done to him over longer. She flinches at talk of his 'first time in the throne room' flashing back to her own experience. "Oh old gods of the mountain I'm sorry...I didn't realise...well...thank you." She didn't think she could have stomached helping someone like that after that had been done to them without constantly thinking of what happened to herself. Maybe one got used to it but she doubts it.

"I'm going to kill them for what they've done. I swear it on my blood." She snarls. Anger was a much more productive emotion.

"You don't have anything to be sorry for. You're - very welcome.

I'm sorry, I was - trying to say earlier. But. I didn't know how to say it." He looks down, flushing slightly. 

(It is not as though he hadn't been thinking about it (though it is worse to think of what happened to her). But was - a reason he wished to help, not its opposite.)

He doesn't know what to say to that. (His mother would agree, likely. That, he won't say. He doesn't think anyone is listening, now, but.)

"Is there anything else?" he says instead, after a pause. "I can answer questions, or try to tell you something more. 

Or - sing, or talk about something pleasanter, if you don't want to think more of it now."

She looks uncomfortable asking because it would probably hurt to think about, but she had to know. "Do they?....what is the worst that?... Am I going to have to worry about anything permanent? L-like scarring or burning or anything...or being starved for too long..."

"...May I sit?" he asks, before answering, and if she indicates approval does so (winces slightly), leans back against a wall. Closes his eyes, opens them again.

"If it's the same as for me - nothing much more than cosmetic. And not often, that. And usually healed. They - like us to look at, I think. 

Never starvation. If you try to stop eating they'll make you, and use their magic meanwhile. 

I've had a few bones broken, but very rarely, and healed almost right away. ...And that might just be me, I think it was the elf magic they wanted, mostly.

I've been whipped, badly, a few times, as punishment, but I brought it on, I knew I was doing it. Nothing you could do by accident. Still healed soon. Never aside from that. Usually they - don't even break skin, much. Not even for punishment. 

You hear about human dungeons sometimes, how horrible they are, but no one's ever taken me to one. I don't think they're allowed.

..If I - stole state secrets, somehow, or tried to assassinate someone. Something for which they'd do it to anyone. Probably then. But they don't otherwise, they haven't ever.

Maybe want to save it for that, so no one thinks it's all the same.

...If there's anything you - realize would be really bad, for you. I can try to take those. I don't think it'll work all the time. But I can try."

She goes quiet and just sits there trying to take that in. She thought she was mentally prepared to hear what they would and would not do... but all that still sounded like way too much to deal with without breaking at least a little. If...If she is going to get them back for what they've done she might need to break a little in the way they want her to... She wants to die to deny them the pleasure of breaking her but then nobody would be able to avenge her father and everything else she lost. She needed to keep that core of anger or she would lose herself completely in this place she knew.

And she comes up with a plan.

"H-how...do you keep them happy? make them think me harmless... how do you... keep your head in a space that keeps you alive and mostly sane?" She needed to survive this. She needed to be alive and herself enough to enact her plan no matter how long it took and what they did to her.

He can see the way she goes quiet but - he doesn't know what to say. Doesn't know if there's anything to say. (She hadn't asked anything about - the obvious thing, and he doesn't know how to say 'yes they keep on with that' in any way, or if he should say it. Maybe it is, in fact, obvious enough.)

This he can try to answer.

"I'm," he blushes again. "I'm - very well behaved.

Mostly." He can be more specific than that. He's never thought of it in terms of 'think me harmless', but it makes sense that she would, and, well, he doesn't think anyone doesn't think him harmless, really, so it applies. He's definitely thought a lot in terms of 'make them happy'.

"I wasn't very good at it before though," he says, in the middle. "I - spent days crying a lot, just curled up on the floor. Even though I was trying not to do that. Please - please don't think you're failing somehow. If-" (If she was like some of the elves he'd known, he'd add, you don't have to, there's nothing wrong with fighting instead, if you prefer it, if you can bear it. But again, this seems to be what she wants. And she seems like his mother, and others, that way. Fighting would be her first thought. If she's asking how to - cooperate - then it's because she's decided something. Would not like it, probably, if he seemed to be telling her what was obvious to her.)

He can try to answer the second part too, though he doesn't know how much it might be the same for her as for him.

She listens and tries not to freak out. Some of the details he described made her waver in her determination to see her plans through but she needed to be stronger than that. She listens, and learns, and tries to get in a headspace that would let her survive what they would do to her. She knows certain parts of her are going to break before this is all done, but as long as there was enough left of her to get revenge then that was what had to happen.

"I know I won't be able to make them think me declawed immediately... I don't... think I am strong enough to just take it all right now."

"I - don't think I would be strong enough not to," he says, which is true. "Or - strong isn't what I would say. It - isn't what comes easily to me. Or - perhaps 'obviously' and not 'easily'." He's failing at expressing anything again, he thinks, both what he's saying and what he's trying to say.

"I - " this he isn't even sure he should try to express. "If they wanted - someone like me - again, immediately, I don't think they would have taken you." 

"If... they think me broken. Then they will not try to break me further. And... I can gain some small piece of leverage." She is dreading how she has to achieve this state though. "But... I don't think I will be able to stop myself from fighting at first..."

He closes his eyes for a moment again.

"...if you want leverage, you can find ones who like the fighting. Not like breaking - someone - down so they can't fight anymore, that's a different thing. Like something else about it. I can show you those I know, if you want. I'm - not very good at it myself. Even with practice. But I know - who I'm practicing for.

If you want - less punishment." He tries to think.

"Some people care about specific things, I can try to tell you those. And don't care, or it depends on their mood. You - might have noticed, in the throne room - Her Majesty didn't care that you insulted her, she thinks it's funny. That's a mood for her, but there's other people like that."

He doesn't know what to say about the ones who do like breaking someone. Doesn't really want to think about it, but not thinking about it definitely won't help at all. He can try to give more psychological advice, and absolutely not break down in any way because this is her suffering and not his and he is here to help.

(He can intend to try to distract them himself, and offer it. But there is only so far that goes, and - somewhat by definition of the category, they will not want him instead.)