With every death, the unearthly wails of the invading army grow louder.

The gates of the castle explode with a mighty crash. The walls shake and the smell of smoke grows ever thicker.

The demons are within the keep now, the last remaining defenders falling like dust in a sawmill. A fight echoes down the corridor towards Lily's room, the clash of steel on steel, mocking laughter, thundering bolts of magic-

-a puddle of blood seeping under the door.

A pause, unnatural stillness washing out the sounds for a brief moment.

Then, a brisk knock-knock at the door, like a housewife calling on her neighbor for a teatime visit.

Her mother would tell her to use the knife now. 

Lily doesn't. Perhaps she isn't an obedient child after all.

Perhaps, instead, she is the kind of child who identified the possible entrances as soon as she was locked within, and hid in the best place for an ambush.

Lily remains very, very still, and very, very quiet, her eyes narrowed and breath nearly held, her hand gripping the knife's hilt hard enough to hurt.

She does not open the door.

The door opens itself. For a definition of open that admits disintegration. Through the space it formerly occupied comes flying an armored figure which hits the far wall hard enough to break bones. From the way the body puddles down onto the floor, it is assuredly dead. (The helmet rolls off. The face is a bloody wreck, but intact enough that Lily can identify it as her eldest brother.)

Then into the room steps the Demon Lord, Queen of the Dark, Mistress of Night. She has to duck slightly to clear the doorframe. Her armor is ebon, segmented plates overlapping like the scales of some great dragon, raising sharp serrated edges into the air with each flex of her joints. A cloak of shadow trails behind her, sucking in the light. Beneath the hood sits a bone-white disc, the only spot of brightness in her attire. The oval-shaped mask is featureless, no openings for eyes or mouth, but dimpled and blurry with some sort of texturing that can't be made out at this distance.

She should be in the woman's blind spot - 

Lily surges forward, utterly quiet, knife aimed for the best gap she can reach. (A joint, probably. She knows joints are often weak.)

The knife pings off the hidden underlayer and then she's heaved up into the air by the back of her shirt and thrown against the wall and pinned there by a hand at her throat. (All of which happens in much less time than it takes to describe the action.)

Then the bone mask is in her face and from this close she can make out that the texturing on it is finely detailed carvings of human figures in various states of torture, dismemberment, and death, none bigger than half a fingernail.

"So," says a voice. It should be terrible, it should be fierce, it should make your ears bleed to hear it. It's an ordinary woman's voice, one that would be unremarkable paired with almost any face she knows. And yet. All those shoulds are inextricably called up. "The final scion of the Vale reveals herself to me. I should have saved your mother to show her how casually you disregard her final wishes, child."

Her knife goes for the tiny gap between the mask and the chin. 

The blade snaps in half and the hilt is summarily knocked out of her hand.

"Child, I am so covered in reinforcements that you could not hurt me with a sledgehammer." The mask tilts, consideringly. "Not that you could lift a sledgehammer, I suppose. Though I do believe you would try."

If her family is dead - if her entire family is dead and she's the last scion - then she's the rightful ruler of this holding - 

She's going to try curling in half and kicking both the woman's armpits - one advantage of being so much smaller than her opponent.

- And at the same time, she's going to reach for the ley lines converging under the castle, feeding into the wards, and yank. 

She's pretty sure this will either fill her with tremendous power or blow the castle up. Either way, it's a weapon. 

For her troubles, she gets stubbed toes, a sudden dizzy spell, a muffled thump that shakes the foundations, and a tap on the forehead and the sudden icy shock of an antimagic ward.

"Clever little thing," the Demon Lord says. At the sound of further collapses in the distance, she cocks her head to listen. "That will be the west wing," she says when the noise subsides. "I dare say you've just killed yourself at least a score of my demons. Your hatred has potential, child."

She bares her teeth. "I'll kill more."

"Would you kill me if you could?"

"Yes."

"Good." Soft laugh. "Very good. You are worthy, child. I will train you, if you hold on to that hate."

"Why?"

"So that one day, I can kill you."

"Why not kill me now?"

"So that you'll have a fighting chance."

"I might kill you, then."

"You will try."

"More than that."

"Then it is a promise, child." The Demon Lord releases Lily, letting her fall to the floor.

She tries to land on her feet, but stumbles. (She tries not to look at her dead brother's face, but can't look away - )

Lily breathes heavily as she forces herself to steady feet, forces a stern gaze towards the Demon Queen's mask. (She's still shaking a tiny bit in the aftermath, still holding back tears and unable to control her blotchy cheeks.)

"Will you spare any survivors of my people?" she asks, even though she knows in her aching chest that it's pointless. "Since I am to be your student."

"The kingdom always needs more workers," she agrees. "They will suffer if you cause undue trouble."

Her held breath rushes out of her, and she tries to hide her relief. "Understood."

"Where are we going?"

"Home. Or Hell, depending on your perspective."

"Your home."

"Yes."

Are they leaving immediately? 

After the Queen relays orders to her lieutenants regarding the disposition of captives and survivors. Then she summons her mount, a winged horse with leathery skin stretched thin over emaciated bones, barding in the same style and color palette as her own armor. She climbs easily into the saddle and leans over to pluck Lily up and set her in front.

She settles quietly, though she eyes the summoned mount with poorly disguised fascination.

A potential lever to direct behavior, good.

She clicks her tongue at the horse and it breaks into a trot building to a canter before spreading its wings and rising into the sky. She directs it to circle, giving them a view of the destruction the assault has wrought. "Carve this view into your heart, child."

She can't do anything else (the same way she couldn't help but glance at every corpse they passed, looking for her dead family). (Except it's worse, because she should've protected these lands and their people.)

A few more passes, then they're off for the homelands of the Demon Lord.

She watches the landscape under them, an odd feeling in her chest. (She wonders if it's grief.)

It's a long flight- no one wants to live next to the Demon Lands if they have a choice.

Partway through, she starts humming a tune, quick and low and surprisingly melodic.

She tenses. (The Demon Queen has a nice voice...)

"What's that song?" she asks in a whisper after a few minutes of silently listening. 

"An old marching song. For victorious homecoming."

"...Why did you even attack us? What victory did you even get?"

"A harvest of hatred, child, fear and terror. It is much more sustainable to farm such things outside of one's own desmesne."

"What ritual needs those?"

Laugh. "Demoniac ones, of course."

"I'm not scared of you."

"That is why you are up here and not below. You feed a different requirement."

"Hatred?"

"Hatred, yes, and the potential strength you harbor."

A new weird feeling in her belly joins all the weird feelings in her chest. "No one else thinks I'm strong," she says, challengingly.

"You aren't," she responds simply. "Potential strength, I said."

"No one else sees even that."

"That is their failing, not mine."

She goes quiet again. 

And the Demon Lord starts up her song again.

Eventually, the wild landscape below gives way once more to cultivation and the patchwork signs of habitation. It looks... very similar to what Lily is used to. Not at all like the stories.

She is Very Suspicious of this, but will start asking questions about the landscape (to interrupt that stupid song, if nothing else).

She clearly knows her lands and people very well, to the point of being able to name the workers of a given parcel, their military service record, the current crop, and the past few seasons of performance.

(...Lily'd been working on that kind of knowledge of her father's - of her lands and people. She'd been slowed down a little by no one in her father's estate actually having that information, and she's young yet, but... She wants that.)

She's just as hungry for an indication of how and where her surviving people will be living. 

They will be placed in the capital to begin with. The city (which they are approaching) sits at the foot of a mountain, fronted by a river that tumbles down from a higher elevation. Carved into the living stone above the city is a citadel that extends as widely as the buildings below, looming protectively with trebuchet emplacements that could easily loft a stone beyond the far shore of the water.

It looks like a pretty clean city...

There is an extensive system of sewers; she has firm standards for the conditions in which she is willing to live. Waste is managed and disposed of appropriately.

She wants more details on the standards of living of the common folk - and of forced workers like her people will be. 

The basic standard is the military pension- service is compulsory. One meal per day, paid in coin or in kind. Anyone doing actual work (including those in active service) will have or be able to have more than this. Lily's people will likely be in the mines, the Demon Lord doesn't see the point of sorting noncitizens by aptitude, where they will have ten-hour shifts and three meals a day.

They circle in for a landing on the mountain citadel.

Lily has opinions on where her people should be instead, but she doesn't know enough right now to really articulate them. 

She doesn't really care what Lily's opinions are, either.

They land, and she unceremoniously hoists Lily off the horse before dismounting herself.

She lands on her feet with only some stumbling. "Where am I staying?"

"Would you prefer a guest suite or a cell?" It's very hard to tell if she's being serious or not.

Unimpressed frown. "Does my answer even matter?" she asks, suspiciously. 

"Of course it does, child. It will help me to learn more about you."

"Are you going to just stick me wherever you want, no matter what I answer? Are you going to give me the opposite of whatever I say?"

"Yes, and no."

She crosses her arms over her chest. "Then I'm not answering."

She inclines her head. "Thank you, that's very helpful. This way." She motions towards the door.

She walks very grouchily.

The foyer the door leads to is clean and well-lit, with coat hooks and bootracks and armor stands.

"Wipe your feet," she says, taking off her mask and cloak and hanging them up.

(...Horrible evil monsters shouldn't have normal human faces. Especially shouldn't look like someone could mistake them for Lily's mother. (And isn't that a horrible thought itself?))

She just sort of shuffles her feet, not really wiping them properly. 

"If you track ash through my hallways, you will be cleaning it up yourself."

She nods, and just takes off her shoes carefully. They're kind of caked in ash and worse. (That's more than reasonable, not - the kind of extreme reaction Lily had been half-subconsciously checking for.)

Good. Then off to...

...a guest suite. A small one, only two rooms, but nicely appointed and without a lock on the door.

So neither an external nor internal lock, then. (Lily's always been good at improvising ways to lock other people out of her room, though.) And she doesn't mind small - it's not like she has anything to put in her. She'll explore the rooms briefly, mostly with an eye to seeing if there's food or books already in them. 

Neither are in evidence.

"Is there a library?"

"There is."

"Show me it."

"No. I have other things to do tonight. I will arrange for your food to be brought here, and your training will begin tomorrow."

"Then have a servant show me around."

"You do not give orders here, child."

Of course not, but it's helpful to see how far she can get away with pushing.

"Will you please delegate showing me around, or perhaps - if that is too much to ask - bringing me something to read with my meal, to one of your servants, my Lady?" she asks, as sarcastically as possible. "Surely you are set up to be a good host - ?"

"In fact I am not. It is remarkable how few visitors I receive. And no, I will not be delegating a tour or having a book brought to you. Your negotiating position is not one of strength and I see no reason to encourage the attitude you are taking."

"Then I'll find things myself." Hmm that possibly wasn't pushy enough for a test, but she can tack on the insults she's thinking up if the Demon Queen doesn't react poorly to independence. 

"Obey the guards and do not open locked doors. If you are not here when I come to start your training tomorrow, I will be displeased."

...She feels kinda sick about the brief thought that if it wasn't for all the murder of her people then this would be better than home.

"Are you going to be actually useful tomorrow?"

"If you survive that long, you'll find out."

"You going to kill me?" she asks, trying to suppress the undercurrent of triumph in her voice at having gotten a reaction. 

"Not yet. You might get yourself killed before that time, if you are incautious here."

"Don't do your dirty work yourself?"

"Putting padding on exposed edges is a waste of resources. If you are inattentive enough to cut yourself, I have no use for you."

"A lotta words to excuse being sloppy and careless. Do you cast your people aside like trash too, if they ever stumble?"

Smirk. "Oh child. I know you want me to hit you. Did your parents hit you often, before I killed them? Are you looking for comforting familiarity, or evidence to convince yourself that I am not better than they?"

"For how much you'll let me get away with. Looks like 'a lot' so far."

"I am not as insecure as your mother was. I know that I can reel you in from a longer leash."

She narrows her eyes. "Then what are the rules?" she shouts, failing to keep her voice from cracking. "When will you hurt me? When will you hurt my people? 'Don't open locked doors, be where I tell you when' can't be it."

"It is for now, child. Others will come as you learn more."

She doesn't believe that.

"Which rules will you hurt my people and not just me for breaking?"

"If you run, or if you cease responding to your own hurts, then I will hurt your people."

"I don't run away."

"Then they will have little to fear."

Shaky nod.

"Tomorrow, then." And she'll leave, shutting the door behind her.

Lily -

Intends to go exploring. Find the library. Figure out the layout, if the Demon Queen means it about how much freedom she has. If every door isn't secretly locked.

Instead, she finds a nook with some insipid statue, pulls the statue out and pulls an empty bookshelf in front, and squeezes in to curl up and cry until her body stops shaking and her eyes burn slightly less.

She dozes off after that, wakes up - she doesn't know when. She has no idea how to track when it's morning, what time it is - there's neither a window nor clock that she can find.

She has no idea how to be here when the Demon Queen comes to look for her, except by just not leaving.

Which.

Fuck that.

Lily refuses to live in constant fear of what comes next, what 'displeased' will mean.

She gets up, dries her eyes, straightens out her rumbled dress, fixes her hair into its braids, and sets out to find the library.

There's a covered tray on a cart next to a pitcher of water and a glass by the door.

She hesitates at it, uncertain, then pours herself a glass of water and checks what's on the tray.

Bread, cheese, ham, fruit, a small salad, kept chilled by an ice bed.

She'll eat quickly - the fruit, and some bread and cheese - and drink some water, then continue down the hall in search of the library. She leaves everything else (including the emptied cup) on the tray.

It's a big castle, in both horizontal and vertical space. And there's no helpful signage, though possibly the somewhat-regularized wall frescoes and the way they blend together at corners has a meaning.

She does her best to memorize and analyze those, though she's getting increasingly tired.

Still. She wants to find the library.

Even if she passes a window that indicates the sky is getting increasingly lighter?

Even then.

Well then, with persistence she will be able to find the open doorway that leads to a large room, filled with shelves upon shelves upon shelves of books.

Woah.

She hardly knows where to start. She'll look first for any signs of a category system, but if one doesn't present itself soon will look for an interesting but readable book and a moderately hidden place to curl up with it.

No obvious category systems, plenty of interesting books and blind alleys, but also an open sitting space in the center...

...that is occupied.

...Rude.

Though it means Lily isn't 'late' yet.

She's not watching herself enough to be quiet when she encounters the Demon Queen.

She turns a page. "Twenty-five minutes," she says idly, not looking up.

She stiffens. That's not enough time to read. But - "I don't have a clock," she grumbles, nose in her book. 

"Does that room not?" She hums. "You'd best stay where I can see you, then."

She makes a rude noise.

At least she has enough energy for that.

What she doesn't have enough energy for is dealing with worrying - with fretting over time, or what the Demon Queen will do to her. She also doesn't have enough energy to keep watching the Demon Queen out of the corner of her eye like this, waiting for the other shoe to drop. (She doesn't know how to predict the woman.)

So, Lily retreats further into the false shelter of the aisles.

She will allow Lily to do so.

After the given amount of time has elapsed, she stands and goes over to Lily. "Up, child. Your training begins."

She stands with a sigh and a conflicted glance at her book. "Where do I put this?"

"Back on the shelf you got it from."

"Can I leave a bookmark in it?"

"You may."

She'd found one earlier, so she slips it into place and goes to put the book back where she found it. 

Then off to one of the training rooms, where the Demon Lord will recreate the situation where she first met Lily, and demonstrate each and every way she could have killed the girl, but didn't.

She fights back just as ferociously! (Though this time with something more like fear in her heart that escalates the longer the 'training' goes on - the repetition makes it worse and leaves her struggling to focus, to learn - her head unable to tell when and where she is - )

Learning is not exactly the goal at this moment, so.

She halts things in the early afternoon for a lunch break.

When the Demon Queen stops, Lily just sits there staring blankly into the distance. She doesn't make any effort to get up or eat.

Hmm. Suboptimal. Perhaps she's pushed too hard.

"Come, child. You've made it through the worst of today. Now eat. I will begin teaching you to properly wield that knife after."

She responds by curling in on herself a little. 

"By stabbing me with it?" she asks, so quietly she's nearly inaudible, though the bitterness in her tone is unmistakable.

"Not by stabbing you with it, no. We're going to try a different approach."

"All you've done."

"Not willing to take it on faith, hm? I suppose that's reasonable."

Extremely suspicious squint. 

"Perhaps you'd like to learn some magic, instead?"

She doesn't say anything, but her gaze is suddenly an interested kind of intent, rather than just eyeing the Demon Queen as if the woman is a venomous snake that's currently calm but was hissing and biting just a few minutes before. 

"I see I have your attention."

Noncommittal noise.

"It would be a theoretical discussion. No stabbing required. But I must insist you eat first."

...Depends on if she can get food without getting within arms reach or within half the room's length of the Demon Queen. If not, she's staying in her far corner. 

She'll send the tray sliding down the floor over to Lily.

She'll pick at her food a little, then. Eat the fruit, possibly some bread. Drink some water. 

Good enough.

Then: magic time. How much does she know already?

...Not much, especially not that she'll volunteer. 

(She knows more about wards and the like, the kind of complicated working that underlaid her castle, though she has a frustratingly (to her) vague understanding of it. She's clearly curious, but no one in her immediate, living family used magic. They had no books they considered appropriate for her on it, and the books she stole weren't very helpful, many written in an archaic language she'd been struggling to understand in stolen moments of the night - which means that what arcane knowledge she does have is in that same ancient tongue.)

(This is present in the absences of what she says, mostly, revealed in the questions she asks and the questions she avoids. She's not willing to explain herself, her life, or her knowledge yet.)

She does recognize the language and several of the metaphors that reveal themselves in Lily's speech.

"I hadn't though there were that many copies of those books still extant. They were being burned, last I knew. Though I suppose that was farther north... Regardless. You could have worse foundations, and with this at least I remember what I was thinking well enough to bring you up to the modern interpretation."

" - Did you write them?"

"Long ago, yes."

Very conflicted noise. Then, hesitantly: "It'd have been bad if they all burned." 

"Some people are of the view that the source of knowledge taints the knowing."

"That's dumb," she says, before she can censor herself. 

"It's good you agree. That will make this easier."

She hesitates again, but... "They're good books," she says, quietly. "You know a lot about magic."

"It is a passion of mine. And I am in a somewhat unique position."

"As the Demon Queen?"

"Indeed. I have delved further and deeper than others."

"You'll teach me all of it?"

"As much as you can handle."

"So, all of it."

"If you live that long."

"I'm not going to be dumb."

"I do hope not."

"It'd be a waste of your investment?" she asks, sounding sarcastic. 

"Yes. I value my time, and would not see it wasted."

Scornful noise. 

"Have you forgotten to what purpose I brought you here?"

"So I can grow strong enough to be worth murdering."

"I'm not doing this for my health, you know."

"And yet you wasted a whole morning on being useless and mean."

"Mm. Yes. That was a mistake, an error of judgement, something to which not even I am immune."

She pretty clearly doesn't trust that. 

She is not required to.

Thence, to magic. The basis of magic is the power that flows forth from what are called wellsprings- fonts of mystic energy. Everyone has a wellspring within them, and attuning to that is the first step. But there are also naturally occurring wellsprings out in the world, spewing forth undirected magic that saturates the environment and eventually, coalesces into ley lines. When one's own wellspring is insufficient, these natural wellsprings can be called upon to augment the amount of magic available.

Like some ancestor did with her family's castle?

Yes. That was an example of what can be achieved with ritual magic, as such augmentation is called. A wide-scale, long-term, powerful effect.

Lily used it. Does that mean she's already attuned to her wellspring?

Partially, at least, if only on a subconscious level.

How does she attune all the way? 

Mindful self-awareness. Meditation, traditionally.

Lily's never meditated before. 

Then she'll have to teach her.

What's the first step? 

Get comfortable, breathe evenly, quiet your thoughts...

She's having the most trouble quieting her thoughts. It's unclear how much of that is a naturally busy mind and how much of that is her still being on high alert from the Demon Queen's presence and how much of that is her mind jumping back to recent distressing events (which is basically all that happens when she tries to clear her mind; the faces of her dead family, the events of this morning, the threats hanging over her all rush to fill the void left by other thoughts, and she can't get those to go away, and the more she tries the louder they get).

Some people find it helpful to occupy their body with activity, rather than sitting still. Stretches, kata, that sort of thing.

She's still not willing to get anywhere near the Demon Queen when weapons or combat are on the teaching table. And stretches sound boring. 

Then go for a walk or a run.

...Might need a run. She also used to ride her father's horses...

(Especially if her parents weren't there to scold her for giving their most spirited horse enough loose rein for a gallop.)

Perhaps they can investigate the stables tomorrow.

Where can she run now? 

She'll show Lily the track.

She runs like something's chasing her, with all the boundless energy of an athletic kid. The beating of her heart, the desperate gasp for air in her lungs successfully drives the thoughts from her head, and her entire world becomes the track before her, the movement of her muscles, the energy within her...

And there, beneath the pulse of blood and heart, a slow, faint, seeping trickle with the whisper of intimation that it could be more...

She pulls air into her lungs, and her heartbeat rings in her ears, and she opens herself to that trickle and she runs and runs and runs faster - 

She's gliding, she's propelled by the trickle that's become a stream, she's flying.

It takes her only part of a moment to orient - and then she's soaring, laughing like she hasn't laughed in what feels like months or longer - certainly like she hasn't laughed (let alone smiled) since the Demon Queen took her. Her mind's utterly clear, the exultation of flight and magic sweeping away all thoughts beyond the sensory impression of the moment.

(Most new students - let alone most children trying to learn this - would have lost focus and crashed after that first startling realization of flight. Most wouldn't have achieved even brief flight this early. But Lily was never meant for anything less than the highest skies, and with her mind uncluttered by thoughts of the future or past she's able to respond quickly to this new world unfurling before her, getting the hang of maneuvering with remarkable speed.)

Very impressive. Speed and control, yes, one of the quicker attunements she's seen- though flight is expensive, and she estimates the girl has perhaps another minute before the drain exceeds her reservoir's capacity.

It will be interesting to see if she crashes, or lands before then.

The answer seems to be 'attempts to land, misjudges when exactly she'll run out, and then drops into a roll to recover (just like she learned from being thrown off horses).' She scowls as she recovers, between the desperate gasps for air.

"A fine first attempt," she calls. "Though you would be well served to keep a closer eye on your reserves in the future."

She's still running too much of that high to be annoyed, even with the let down of her reserves running out. She instead ends up trying (and only mostly succeeding) to suppress a bright grin at the praise.

And, once she has her breath back: "How do I fly longer?"

"Your capacity will increase as you grow, and when you cast consciously you can be more efficient about it. Or you could learn a ritual for shapeshifting that will give you wings."

" - How long can I fly with wings?" she asks, very carefully not bouncing as excitedly as she wants to. 

"Until you get physically tired."

She bites back a 'teach me that next,' but she doesn't want to ask - "I want to learn that next."

"Shapeshifting is difficult. There's a reason I'm the only one in the world with an army of demons."

"Isn't the whole point me challenging you? I want to start."

"Hm. Good. Very well, then."

She loses control just enough to give a few tired bounces. 

"There is a long way to go before you will be able to perform it. Not only theory, but the ritual takes a certain amount of magic to cast, beyond what you draw from the environment."

"I'll work hard on everything, and learn everything on the way."

"You will, yes."

There's a warm, bubbly glow in her chest. She shouldn't feel like this.

"And," she adds, "I will expect equal or greater progress on your other lessons."

"I'll keep up."

"See that you do. Come, you must eat to recover your strength."

She gets to her feet and follows - coming closer than she has since that morning. 

She puts a hand on the girl's back to steer her towards the refectory.

She tenses - and then permits the contact with a shiver, feeling odd - definitely hyperaware of the Demon Queen's touch, but... She doesn't pull away, reluctant to let go of that warm feeling in her chest at being praised. 

She lets the Demon Queen guide her the entire way.

As they get closer, other people appear in the hallways, bowing respectfully as the Demon Lord passes. (They seem human, for the most part. Maybe a little demonic around the edges or the teeth, but nothing like the army that burned Lily's home.)

Her expression firms, losing all of its uncertainty and vulnerability, all of its softness, and Lily becomes hard even for the Demon Queen to read. She gives off an impeccable air of a respectable child - submissive to the woman leading her about, well behaved, but confident before everyone else. Quiet and unexceptional, too, oddly easy to forget, like a passingly interesting and refined piece of furniture.

(She doesn't know how she feels about seeing other people, because Lily can't read herself either when she's like this.)

A neat trick, if she doesn't lose herself in it. Something to keep an eye on.

She's a lot easier to control like this, too, and will eat whatever the Demon Queen gives her without protest. 

...Yeah, she'll have to train the girl out of this. Not conducive to her plans.

After dinner, back to the library.

Her masks weaken, and she starts watching the Demon Queen with barely disguised wariness once they're alone again - it's unclear if she's reacting to her own obedience or if she picked up on the Demon Queen's displeasure. (Or... The wariness she's been watching with this entire time becomes more apparent, at least; that, too, is unclear.)

((If she doesn't train Lily out of that - the Demon Queen might, someday, need to watch her back for a small knife held by an exceptionally obedient girl.))

"Your hiding is exceptionally practiced, child," she says when there's no one else around. "But I prefer honesty."

...Why does she want to make the Demon Queen happy with her. That's bad and weird and not good. Why is she happy about yet another compliment. Why is she upset she might've done something wrong. Why is her brain doing this.

"Why should I care what you prefer?" she asks, sharply, burying her reaction to the Demon Queen's words, though less of her reaction to her own reaction.

"Because, child, you are utterly within my power."

That hits her like a shock of cold water, and her thoughts tumble over each other in a brief panicked reorientation. She masks a lot of that, though not all, and then even more sharply than before - "Don't think I'll be a challenge if you know what I'm thinking."

"The exact contents of your thoughts matter less than that you continue to in fact have them."

"Then why say you care about honesty?"

"Do not lie to me that your head is empty."

- She hesitates. "What will you do to me if I do?"

"Whatever is required to provoke a reaction."

She looks hunted, a deep fear lurking under what cracks through to her expression. "Why?"

"To be sure your hatred is not lost."

"I wasn't even masking at you!" she protests, trying to buy time while she scrambles mentally for an argument that'll let her keep her mental privacy in general. 

"Then it is the presence of others you object to?"

...She isn't going to get out of this without explaining her brain, is she - she's too weak to just defend herself -

"I don't want people knowing things about me unless I let them. It's - worse - with strangers. Or the more people there are."

"Then I will ensure we have sufficient time alone for me to be comfortable."

Her breath rushes out of her, relieved, though she's still shaking a bit with the aftermath of her fear. But... "You won't let me hide from you?"

"Not for long."

"You won't have to worry about me not hating you, then."

"That will not be why I do it, so long as I have other options."

She wavers -

- And then flings herself at the Demon Queen's midriff, hugging her and bursting into messy, uncontrolled tears.

...Unexpected.

Pat pat.

Snuggle sob. (She tries to curl into a more comfortable position.)

Ugh.

All right. How about if she deposits the girl in one of the reading chairs, how about that.

Noooo she's clinging.

Guhhhh okay sixty seconds more then she's getting pushed off.

Before that sixty seconds is up: "Why do you want me to hate you?" she asks, voice still thick with tears. 

"Mmm. Mythic resonance. There is a limit to how much power can feasibly be drawn from the environment and oneself, which means that at the very high end of ritual magic... alternative... sources must also be employed."

"You're going to sacrifice me?"

"I am going to use your power to increase my own."

"Which will kill me?"

"Ideally, yes."

She doesn't stop clinging. "Why ideally?"

"Because then the ritual will have worked at full power."

Nnnn. This is hard to wrap her mind around when she's this upset. But... There's something that's easier to think and say when she's rubbed raw like this, and that's: "Do I have to hate you?"

(Being hurt repeatedly, seriously enough to keep her hatred up, sounds horrible right now, the worst part of this, though might sound less bad if she wasn't so emotionally drained that she didn't know if she still hated the Demon Queen or not. (Because if her hatred has actually waned, and she isn't just tired, then - then her life will get a lot lot worse, if today and yesterday weren't enough.))

"At the end, yes."

"...Not right now?

"...As long as you can go back later."

...That's a very very hard implied question. "Dunno," she mutters. "Could tomorrow. Probably could in years, but - dunno." (The kind of adulthood where people normally go off to war and fight and kill is more than her entire life again away from her, and a far greater multiple of the life she remembers. Even a single year feels like an eternity in which anything can happen.)

"We'll revisit the topic later, then."

"...Kay."

For now, the hug will be allowed to continue.

Good.

Though both being alone with her thoughts and serious talking hurt right now. So - can the Demon Queen tell her more about magic? (While hugging.)

That seems like an efficient use of time.

Heeee. Then: magic! (Lily is a lot more open with her thoughts currently, though her general exhaustion is making having those hard. Still, she pushes through it.)

They'll go until Lily starts falling asleep.

Which she tries her best to push back (this is nice, and she's learning so much, and she doesn't want to find out what tomorrow holds).

Unfortunately for Lily, sleepiness does not tip the power imbalance in her favor. She's going to get carried to bed.

She's pretty sleepy by the time she loses the fight to stay awake and alert, having run down her reserves. Sleepy enough that without thinking she mumurs, softly into the Demon Queen's shoulder: "Wish you were my mom..."

...Yep, she's just going to put the girl in her bed and retreat to the door.

"No you don't, child," she murmurs, before leaving and closing the door behind her.

Maybe next time the Demon Queen should kidnap someone with higher standards.

She falls into a deep sleep, and wakes up late - if the Demon Queen doesn't wake her up first. 

Homework. Be prepared to summarize back to me what you've read. Meditation practice at the track, 3 PM.

Her eyes go a bit wide, and she stares at the books and clock uncertainly. ...And then her stomach growls.

Lily wolfs down some of the food and drink, almost reluctantly, then puts it well out of her way and dives into the books. 

They're mostly covering what was talked about yesterday in terms of fundamentals, with more details and examples and written-out calculations.

That makes reading and processing them quickly easier, and helps fix what she learned yesterday in her head. 

- Does she have a notebook?

One is available, yes.

She scribbles her thoughts as she goes, as well as notes on what look like highlights to her. Her notes are fairly disorganized, which frustrates her, but... She doesn't want to stop reading to fix them. She gets a pretty significant way through the stack that way by the time her stomach gets hungry for lunch, at which point she looks at the clock - not three yet - and gets up and stretches and drinks some room temperature water and wonders if lunch will be brought to her. 

Signs point to no, as the minutes slip past with nothing appearing.

Well, she didn't finish breakfast, and Lily is used to getting by on fairly little food. She'll polish off the water and the bread and cheese she hadn't touched, and then she'll read more - though this time with frequent glances at the clock, since she doesn't actually know the route to the track well. Once the hour ticks to two o'clock, she'll reluctantly slip a bookmark in her current book and another in her notebook, tuck both under her arm, and head out in search of the track. 

She'll probably even be there early. 

Then when she arrives, she has the room to herself still.

She'll get through as much of the rest of her book as she can before the Demon Queen arrives. 

Which is not very.

"Good, you're here already. Tell me what reading you've got through while you start warming up."

She bookmarks it and sets it and her journal aside carefully, then stands and starts stretching and talking as she does, though it's hard to focus on both at once. (The answer: that was the only book she hadn't at least finished a surface reading, though she's already skimmed for any diagrams or outlines or chapter titles so she'll know what's where in the book. This means her head's kind of full of unsorted knowledge she hasn't had a chance to really ponder or pick apart, but she can summarize it more or less decently, even if not concisely, and there's a small handful of words she only kind of understood and wasn't able to look up. Her memory of what she read seems perfect right now.)

Her questions are aimed at key concepts, highlighting the areas for further study and creating connections for Lily to follow. She also mixes in corrections on Lily's stance and motions. Learning to move and think at the same time is important for combat magic.

Her complicated emotions threaten to crack out of where they buried themselves whenever the Demon Queen gets close to her, which is... Distracting, at the least. She's mostly able to focus, though, and she's a quick study. (The strongest - or, not strongest, but closest to the surface - emotion is fear, an uneasy dread of whether she'll be hurt today. The second is a desperate need to be good and perfect and desirable. The third is a seething resentment, something like hate folded into confusion and tangled with her own self-reproach. That one's deep enough very few could see it - Lily's used to letting her resentment sink into the depths of her mind, layers and layers of old slights building on each other in the dark.)

She stays out of arm's reach. directing the girl with words alone.

She nearly gets through the lesson before losing her grip on her words and snapping, "Why are you being so nice?"

"You're no good to me broken."

'I'm not that weak' would probably count as self sabotage so Lily shouldn't say that, even though she wants to. 'You're nicer than anyone who's ever had power over me, and I'm not broken yet' would be much the same. So she just frowns a little and turns away. 

"Back to work, child."

She does so, though her wariness is a bit more pronounced now. 

Hopefully she concentrates enough to learn, regardless.

Little fear of her not learning, though the wariness does slow her down a little. 

The Demon Queen expects the best, so that might earn some sharp words about paying attention.

Well if the Demon Queen wants all of Lily's inconvenient emotions vanishing so deep under her masks that she can't feel them...

Perhaps that's enough for the day, then.

She wants to keep studying. 

Then they can move on to knives.

...Fine.

(She won't make the child bleed too much.)

Lily seems possibly less bothered by getting slashed when she fumbles than by more ambiguous touch, actually, and the way she watches the Demon Queen is actually useful here. 

Hm. Good to know.

She isn't nearly as good at fighting as at pure magic, but - she finds it nearly as meditative as running, though in a different way, and she's certainly motivated. 

Then she's likely to get very tired out by the time the Demon Queen calls a halt for the night.

A good kind of tired out - and sore, too, and bleeding from multiple cuts off varying depth. (She's smiling, though, at least a little.)

"Healing spells in the morning, I think."

"Will you heal me tonight?" she asks, something about the pain and exhaustion making her languid and almost tempted to cling. She doesn't like it, but...

"Are you asking nicely?"

Normally it feels mean when adults say that, but the Demon Queen sounds - Lily isn't sure, but. Different from most adults. "Please heal me?" she asks, and flops tiredly against her teacher. Maybe she'll get a smile or another headpat.

How about a tap on the forehead and a feeling like a full-body splash of warm water that leaves her muscles loosened and skin healed?

Oh wow.

"Better?"

"Yeah," she says, leaning into the Demon Queen even more. 

"Good. Off to bed with you."

"Can you teach me more about magic first?" (She's not very tired...)

"Not tonight. Read your books if you want more."

Siiiigh. "Can I have more books?"

"You know where the library is."

Grumble. "Will I have more homework tomorrow?"

"No, I will resume our lessons then."

"Early?"

"By nine."

Nod! (That should be enough time for her to reread the books a little. The interesting parts, at least. And read her notes.)

"Well then. Be off with you."

...She reluctantly steps back, then heads to her room with a few glances over her shoulder before she leaves the Demon Queen's presence. (And, once in her room, she has a few spinning attempts to sort out her thoughts before instead just reading until she falls asleep.)

Meanwhile...

Eldarra has a meeting scheduled with her lieutenant.

Who is as delighted to see her Majesty as always. "How goes training the new recruit?" she asks, once initial greetings are out of the way. 

"Hm. More... challenging than I'd anticipated. She's clever, but- fragile in some ways."

"Do you think she is a poor candidate after all?"

"No, she does have the potential. I'm not ready to give up just yet. There's still ten years to develop her."

"And those with the potential have proven rare," she says, somewhat self-deprecatingly. "In what ways is she fragile?"

Quick kiss.

"Psychologically, more than physically- vulnerable to approval."

Kiss! "Perhaps difficult to navigate, but I'm sure you can be a harsh enough taskmistress when teaching. And it's a weakness she could hate you for exploiting."

"She also has a tendency to close herself off. Bury emotions."

"More difficult to control her, then- though not insurmountable for the ritual, if you think you can make her hate you again no matter what's under the surface."

Sigh. "It was much easier with the older girls."

" - Are you - having trouble?"

"All my instincts are backwards when she's this small," Eldarra complains.

"I can hurt her on your command," she says with a shrug. "That would be enough for most."

"This one isn't most. But thank you."

"You think she would fail to hate you if you didn't wield the knife yourself, then?"

"It is a possibility."

Hum. "She'll be one of those older girls when she's ready for the ritual," she says. "If you have trouble now - you can torture her until she hates you once we're ready. A perceived betrayal might make the resonance more effective, too..."

"Always finding the bright side."

Grin. "And if you earn enough of her loyalty, she might be useful as more than future fodder in the meantime, if her potential is truly so high."

"What's another ten or twenty years, after all." Kiss. "My hero, coming to my rescue once again."

Delighted kiss! And, since the serious business seems out of the way...

Mm, yes, she must be sure her lieutenant hasn't been feeling neglected.

Neglect is the only thing she'd ever hold against her Lady. 

Eldarra can think of one or two other things she'd like the fallen hero to hold against her.

She's welcome to try. 

Surely she's learned by now that Eldarra always succeeds in the end. Is a fresh set of lessons required?

Getting her lieutenant to dislike anything Eldarra does to her seems like it might be the only achievement out of her reach.

A challenge, then.

One she's up for her side of. 

Excellent.

(She's going to need a significantly stronger healing spell by the end of the night than Lily did.)

A sure sign it was a good night.

(And, alas, Eldarra doesn't discover anything other than enthusiastic consent by the time she gets tired. Maybe she'll have better luck next time.)

Continual experimentation is key.

She's still in a very good mood when it comes time for Lily's lesson.

Lily finds that pretty suspicious at first. 

That seems like a her problem.

Hmm. She lets it drop, mostly, focusing on learning magic - but, over lunch, she keeps glancing at the Demon Queen until blurting out, "Are you going to start hurting me again?"

"Well, as to that... I'm considering two options there. Would you like to help me choose?"

...Slow nod. "Yeah." 

"The first option is that I continue to cultivate your hatred during the entire course of your training. The second... is that I ensure it all at once, at the end."