Katharina was more obedient than ever.

  But punishments were dished out for even the slightest transgressions against perfection.

  And Furrom-Brows...

  Oh, she hated Furrow-Brows, and she was sure he hated her back, because more often than not, his lessons turned from picking clutter to running laps.

  And this week was no different than any other.

  This morning, she had finally solidified the words for "I am" in her vocabulary as "? ??". And could convey basic needs like 'I am ', 'I am ', but as she was running this third lap around the manor, she felt the gnawing frustration of not being able to convey 'I am pissed off at this grossly perfectionist old man, who has a feather kink.' but that sort of complex emotional conveyance would have to wait for another of Lian's language lessons.

  Katharina was drenched in sweat, making her way around the manor.

  As she turned a corner, the main entrance came into view once again. The stretch leading up was always the most nerve-racking, as whether another lap was due would become apparent here. And to Katharina's great relief, she felt the release of the figurative barbed arrow lodged in her shoulder slowly pulling out.

  As she approached the stairs, a figure came into view. Her brown dress and long hair caught in the wind as Lian turned to look at Katharina.

  That seemed unlikely. Lian always performed perfectly in whatever lesson they had.

  To the point where Katharina had a growing suspicion that this wasn't Lian's first rodeo.

  Katharina slowed as she went up the stairs, and their eyes met. Something was off about Lian; her usual expressionless demeanor was replaced with that of concern, maybe fright, even.

  She was just standing there unmoving, staring Katharina down. She looked ghostly like that, paler than usual.

  As Katharina ascended, she half expected Lian to descend the stairs and run, but she never did; instead, she grabbed Katharina's wrist firmly as soon as it was within reach and dragged her toward the manor.

  Everything about the situation was bizarre, and so had this morning also been.

  There had been a buzz in the manor for a few days, but it had been at its peak this morning. There were whispers about the arrival of Master Ravnsund; some sounded excited, others frightened. The reasons were lost on Katharina.

  Everything had culminated in the arrival of the tall woman in black at the entrance to the mess hall like a looming shadow.

  They were supposed to call her Madam R?fna, though Katharina found the pronunciation rather outlandish.

  A sudden silence fell over the hall.

  Katharina had wanted to ask what was happening, but Lian immediately stood. No protest, no glance back. Just left her bowl and Katharina behind and followed.

  A different and lower hum had started, and no longer was the name of the whispers; now it was .

  A hard yank pulled Katharina back to the moment, as she almost collided with a tall figure blocking the doorway.

  An icy shiver ran down Katharina's spine as she felt an immediate urge to prostrate herself in reverence of her master.

  For a moment, Katharina resisted the urge, just long enough to get a proper look at her master, Lord Ravnsund.

  His fiery red hair contrasted with his emerald green eyes, and he was sporting a pair of equally green round gemstone earrings. He looked young up close, like they might even be the same age.

  He was smiling down at her, neither welcoming nor in the way you would to a friend, but amused.

  "??χχ, ?木 ?? ??∞'? ?° χ???χ? Ω???χ? ?∞ ??? 木χ???."

  The moment was over as soon as Madam R?fna's stern eyes came into view behind Master Ravnsund. Both Katharina and Lian shufled backwards into deep bows, heads lowered, leaving the stairway open.

  First came the slow tread of his polished boots, measured but unhurried, like a man accustomed to leisure even in business. Then R?fna’s steps followed, precise, elegant, and firm.

  Katharina could feel Madam R?fna staring daggers at them as she passed.

  But a more haunting thought lurked at the back of Katharina's mind. Had Lian been taken aside this morning to speak with the master?

  Was this what the whispers talked about when they mentioned her name?

  Lian was dragging Katharina through the manor, but they weren’t heading back to Furrow-Brows.

  Although Katharina didn't mind.

  For some reason, the brand wasn't punishing their aimless wandering.

  As they made their way through the long hallways, Lian would stop at every unfamiliar item.

  They stopped before a large, beautifully woven picture hanging on the wall. The motif was that of an ethereal landscape with a woman feeding a winged beast.

  "This is a ??ψ????°", Lian said.

  And Katharina would parrot back, “This is a tapestry.”

  Whatever this word game was, the brand allowed it. And to Katharina, it felt like fun.

  The manor held so many things she didn’t know the names for.

  She couldn’t possibly remember them all, but getting to hear Lian’s melodic voice pick out the next one and echo it back like a game felt like a playful dance.

  Lian’s smile made it worth it, every little syllable at a time.

  By the time evening rolled around, Katharina’s mind was brimming with new words, and she had forgotten the dreadful punishment of the morning.

  Already during breakfast, the game was on again. Lian had playfully grabbed Kathatina's spoon "一 spoon." Then she took her own and placed it next to the first on the table "二 spoons."

  Lian was counting the spoons of the table "一, 二,三, +...", and Katharina would count along. It felt like being back in elementary school, learning the numbers in German or English for the first time. It didn't feel demeaning; it just felt new.

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  During their dance lesson, the game shifted.

  When Katharina and Lian were paired, Lian continued her intensity with their language lessons, counting steps in a whisper.

  The sudden counting made Katharnia's eyes flicker up in fright; even if Lian's words were low, the teacher would know.

  But the teacher's eyes were fixed on her book, leaving Lian to count their waltz.

  "?∞?, ???, ?????."

  "One, ???, ?????."

  "One, two, three."

  Then she would look at Katharina with urging eyes, as if to say ''. Katharina shook her head. This was going to end badly; it might not be Furrow-Brows' lessons, but messing up in dance still meant being reprimanded with the hard cover of the book or having to stay behind and repeat the moves until they were perfect.

  And as far as Katharina knew, they hadn't seen the full extent of the punishments this silent teacher might deal.

  Lian was now tugging on Katharina's hand as they spun around each other, "No." Katharina whispered as they got in close. "Yes!" Came as a snaring retort. Lian's eyes rose. Katharina carefully let hers follow Lian's gaze and found the teacher. Who exchanged a short glance with Lian, then nodded before lazily looking back down at her book.

  After the dance lesson, the game continued, but this time, it wasn’t new words.

  Lian dragged Katharina down a hallway they had walked the day before, her grip firmer than usual.

  Every few steps, she would point to something, an embroidered curtain, a tall wooden carving, a small table, and look at Katharina expectantly.

  “What is this?” she asked, motioning to the intricate side table in front of them.

  Katharina hesitated. “...table?”

  Lian nodded in hesitant approval.

  They turned another corner, and there it was again: the beautiful woven image of the woman feeding the winged beast.

  Lian stopped abruptly in front of the beast. She pointed at it. “What is this?”

  Katharina stared at the image. She shrugged, uncertain of what either of those words would be.

  Lian sighed, exasperated, like it had been building for hours.

  “This is a tapestry.”

  Katharina nodded. Unsure of the importance of the 'Tapestry'.

  But Lian didn’t move to the next item.

  “Say it,” she said. Her tone had changed, no longer playful. “Katharina, say it!” Lian’s voice was low but commanding.

  Katharina was taken aback by the sudden change in Lian's voice.

  "Tapestry...?" It came out so unnaturally, but the sound was right. Katharina felt as though the woman in the image was judging her poor display.

  A look of relief came over Lian, and she moved on to the next little item in the hallway, as though this exchange had not been very odd.

  The next day came with its ugly ukulele and another stream of new words that Lian was determined to shove into Katharina's vocabulary.

  The difficulty was jumping once again. They were moving through Lian's impromptu syllabus with lightning speed, and now was the time for verbs.

  Lian would lean in and whisper to Katharina, "I am ψχ?°?∞Ω." And then demonstrate by playing her instrument.

  Then point to the teacher "??? ?? ?????∞Ω.", mimicking the turning of pages with a soft flick of the wrist.

  To Katharina, it felt as though numerous steps had been skipped. She barely knew how to say "I am", and now it felt as though they were moving into territory where words like "she", "they", and the different grammatical rules for "to be" were needed to create the meaning Lian was seeking. Why was she suddenly moving so fast? They had spent the better part of what had to be a month and a half practicing simple idioms and the necessities to make her way through the day. What was the sudden hurry?

  And to Katharina's displeasure, Lian's expectations only seemed to grow by the day.

  On the fourth day since the run-in with their master on the stairs, they were done with lessons for the week and left to do all the grueling housework.

  Master Ravnsund had already left the manor by now, but a new buzz was left in his wake, and all the eyes of the manor seemed to follow Katharina and Lian everywhere they went.

  To Katharina, it seemed like Lian's language quest had something to do with this whisper among the inhabitants of the manor.

  But now wasn't the time for contemplation; it was time for "I am sweeping", "I am scrubbing", and constant testing to see if she could still remember the words she had heard the days before.

  For each failure on Katharina's part to produce the correct answer to Lian's increasingly hard questions, she felt Lian exhibiting an, in her opinion, unfounded frustration.

  But without the ability to express the need to slow down, Katharina was left on the receiving end of what seemed to be a growing anger in Lian. Every little snap from Lian was building up to crush the initial feeling of victory there had been when new words entered her vocabulary.

  By the evening of day five, there was no fun left.

  They were back in their little, cramped room. Lian sat on the edge of her mattress, hands folded in front of her face.

  It felt like an intervention; all day, Lian seemed like she had something important they had to talk about.

  "[Katharina, sit."

  The command was that, a command, and Katharina sat.

  Whatever was coming, Katharina had the feeling it had to do with all the odd behavior Lian had exhibited the last few days. Sure, it had been fun at first to be drilled in words, and she had felt real progress at times.

  But today, Lian had been scary.

  "Katharina, say 'I am Katharina'."

  Katharina repeated, "I am Katharina." What was this about?

  Lian's brows were crinkled right above her squinting eyes. "Good... good... ∞??, say 'I am sitting ?∞ ? ????????.'"

  Lian was ramping up the difficulty fast,

  "I am sitting ?∞ ? ????.. ???.."

  "No!" Lian wasn't even looking up at Katharina; she just shook her head behind her folded hands. "????.. ????." Her head flew up, and she rested her eyes on Katharina. "Say it." Lian's hands moved to jab at the mattress she was sitting on. "????.. ????, matt.. ress."

  "I am sitting ?∞ ? mattress."

  Lian was just sitting there shifting through expressions, crinkled brows, biting her lips as she silently mouthed whatever the next order should be. Lian's behavior, the silence, made the walls feel like they were moving in on them, cramping the room even tighter.

  "Katharina say,

  'I am a mirror,

  Mirrors ??木χ?ナ? ????? master’s ???????.' "

  Katharina recognized the lines. The mantra Madam R?fna would recite at every lesson in the mirror room. Katharina was still unsure of the entire meaning. But she knew they tasted like obedience in the cold air.

  It was the sound of oppression.

  She repeated as best she could, but without understanding the words, it was hard to get them perfect. Lian was not impressed, not in the least.

  "No! Katharina, you must ??木χ?ナ? °??? master's ???????." Lian stood, her face turning red. Katharina had never seen her like this. "Katharina, do you

  "Yes, I must ??木χ????" Katharina was really trying, but the sound was still not correct, and Lian grabbed her shoulders as she repeated the word for Katharina.

  "??- 木χ?ナ?, ??- 木χ?- ナ?, ??木χ?ナ?!" Lian was shaking Katharina along to the rhythm of the syllables. Katharina felt tears pressing. Why was Lian acting like this? Why was the stupid mantra so important?

  "Lian! You am.. bad?"

  "I am bad?" Lian looked incredulously at Katharina, and an angry expression was forming on her face. "???°" Lian pointed aggressively toward the door of their little room. "??χχ ??χχ you." Her finger moved to jab firmly at her own brand, then pointed down at Katharina. A pause filled the air, and Lian stared into Katharina's eyes, as if to telepathically make her understand. "?? ? bad, bad Master."

  Even if Katharina didn't understand all of the words, the expression in Lian's eyes could not be mistaken. There was something at stake here, something beyond her understanding, but it clearly involved her and an awful Master.

  And Lian… Lian was doing her damnedest to help her.

  I'll let the description of this one speak for itself, and then just also note that this author has other amazing stories.