Warning: This Story Contains Excessive Violence, Including Implied Sexual Violence. Reader Discretion is Advised.
“For many years, I have been a servant. Since I was very young, I have obeyed orders and done my best to please the stupid, inane, and hedonistic desires of those with power and influence. It has been a difficult life, but it has allowed me to tread water comfortably, even while I’ve seen others drown. This said, in all my time serving, I have never before found someone so unreasonably devoted to sadism as we have here. Something must be done.”
As she finishes her speech, the lovely young maid seats herself, and a general murmur of agreement falls over the audience- a group of similar young maids, all of whom serve the same princess.
“So what are we going to do?” asks another, “If we try to do anything to her, we’ll all get punished for treason. Or worse.”
The murmuring quiets as everyone thinks, before a knock comes at the door, and a voice calls through, “Princess Vianta wants to see all of the servants in the lobby, and she sounds angry. You’d all better hurry there.”
A deathly silence falls over the group. Have they been found out already? Do the walls have eyes?
All rise, and file out through the door, joining a trickle of people walking down the hall. Several adjust their clothing- uniform violations are an inflammatory point for the princess.
When stepping into the hall, everyone can see the princess there, in her loose, thin sleepwear, holding a crying servant by long brunette hair. As sorry as they feel for the poor victim, the conspirators are glad that they are not the reason for this assembly.
When everyone is present, the princess yells out, in a surprisingly booming voice, “This clumsy little bitch was who I asked to brush my hair, but she did such a poor job that she needs to be punished!”
Everyone is used to the “Punishments”. Any tiny mistake is grounds for it, and they happen at least every day. If everyone performs flawlessly, a mistake will be invented.
It is unclear whether this girl has done anything wrong or not, even as the princess yells, “I do not like it when you pull my hair while brushing it, you know this!”
Crying, the held girl tries to plead, “I did my best! I don’t know how to work with your hair yet!”
“That’s not an excuse!” the princess yells, before putting her foot on the maid’s back. She pushes her down to the floor without ever letting go of her hair. Without warning, the princess yanks back on the hair in her grip, eliciting a yell from the girl on the ground, as her head jerks back, but the foot keeps her body down. Equally as abruptly, the princess lets the hair go, and the poor maid’s head hits the floor at high velocity, making the others wince.
As she grabs hair in her hand again, the princess asks, quieter, “How does it feel to have your hair pulled? Do you see how I feel?”
Gently, she pulls the maid’s head off the floor- blood from her nose and lower lip is mixing with tears. The princess smiles sweetly, taking her foot off the maid’s back and dragging her up to her knees.
“Now,” coos the princess, “Who thinks they can finish the job this one started, without fucking it up?”
I, the girl with soft auburn hair, raise my hand, and reply quickly, “I would be honored, your majesty. Please allow me.”
“Ruby! Yes! Finally, someone competent. It took my whore sister long enough to give you back.”
I bow softly and ask for Vianta’s hand. She gives it to me, but stops for a moment to address the assembled servants- “You’re dismissed. But don’t forget this. Work hard. Don’t disappoint me.”
With that, she walks off with me in hand.
In the chamber, Vianta bounces onto her bed, letting her long blonde hair fly up and then fall back to her body. I take the brush from her nightstand, and ask, “Do you have any requests tonight, your majesty?”
“You can drop the formal shit, Ruby,” she replies, “You’re special, you know that. But anyway, it’s just a normal brushing tonight.”
“Yeah, sure, no problem.” I sigh, and climb onto the bed. I take a long blonde lock in my hand- it feels soft, and it shines like gold, even in pale candlelight. I carefully, slowly run the brush down the lock, reciting an enchantment, watching the runes on the brush faintly glow.
When I reach the end of the lock, I put the brush on the back of her princess’s head, and run it slowly, gently, down the length of her hair. Vianta sighs happily, and shivers when the bristles run down her lower back. As I brush, I gently ask, “You know that maid was new, right? She looks like she’s without magical training as well, so you can’t expect her to compare to me.”
After a sigh of happiness, Vianta explains, “I know that. But I expected her to have at least a modicum of ability. Besides, I love it when I get to make new servants bleed for the first time. Red is my favorite color.”
As I run the brush over my mistress’s temple, softly tempting a lock behind her ear, I don’t reply. Instead, I focus on the hair I’m working with- it is truly beautiful. I bundle the length in my hand for a few moments, and run my fingers through it. Softer and smoother than silk or cotton, and without a single tangle to catch on. A thin flowery fragrance dances in my senses before I put the hair down, and her brush beside my leg. When Vianta turns to me, I spot a stray strand, and push it behind her ear, in part just to feel the softness against my hand again.
Vianta grabs my cheeks, and she leans in to kiss me gently for a moment. When she withdraws, I ask, “You know I’m not attracted to you, right Vianta?”
“Why? You’re perfect in so many ways, so am I. It’s a natural pairing.”
“I’ve told you before, and you’ve never listened.”
“Yeah, you’re right. I don’t really care, since you can’t say no.”
As Vianta kisses me again, I looks outside, at the stars. A cold wind snuffs out the candle as I feel my shirt slipping off.
The next day, I wake up to shouting- she’s angry about something again. I sit up in the bed, and watch as Vianta yells at a crying servant, “Are you trying to burn me? This coffee is unacceptable! Do you know what would happen if I got hurt because you can’t be bothered to do this correctly?”
As I watch, Vianta takes the glass coffee cup, and shatters it over the poor servant’s head. I flinch and look away, but the screams reverberate across the room, and fill my ears. When I am able to look back, I see the servant crying, with red streaks of blood and burns down her face and neck. When the guards arrive, summoned by the scream, they escort her away without comment. Vianta turns to me after they leave, and presents her burned hand. I gently take it and focus, letting my magic run through her, repairing the skin and reducing the inflammation, before giving it back. She flexes her hand and wrist and smiles, saying, “You’re so useful, Ruby. I feel so free having you back.”
I don’t speak, only nodding respectfully.
Later in the day, I am meditating alone in my private quarters, when I hear something practically imperceptible. I look around as the faint sound grows louder, until it’s a whisper in my ear. “I feel your wrath. Your hatred is seething throughout your body.”
I try to shake the recognizable voice out of my head, but it keeps speaking, asking me, “Don’t you want to help all the poor girls getting abused? Don’t you want to help yourself?”
I sigh, as the apparition resembling Vianta appears in front of me, smiling. This demon has come to me many times before, trying to coax me into getting rid of Vianta, so that it can assume the throne instead.
“You can’t say I wouldn’t make a fairer, better princess just because I’m a demon. Humans have proved time and again that they can be so much worse.”
I try to ignore the voice, even as it continues, “I don’t even want your soul. I just want the throne. With that little switch, you save almost everyone suffering.”
I keep my head down. I don’t know how long I can keep refusing this offer. I don’t want to help a demon, but Vianta acts as if she is little better.
As I agonize, the demon asks, “What do you think she’s doing right now?”
The demon takes my hand, and pulls me along. I pass through a guard in the halls- I wonder what she has done to me. When we find Vianta, we watch her; she has a cute blonde girl by the arm and is dragging her along violently.
We watch as Vianta drags her into a room, and closes the door behind her. The demon and I pass through the door soundlessly, and stand in a corner, watching as she throws the girl in a chair, and begins tying her to it around the chest with a thick rope. By the end, the girl is clearly struggling to breathe, and Vianta has a smug smile on her face.
Letting words drip off her tongue like thick poison, she tells the girl, “The royal family is blonde, and as such, all the little muddy rats like yourself who want to work here must either have dark hair, or no hair. We can’t have anyone confusing you for someone important, can we?”
“I’m sorry” the girl pleads between pants, “I didn’t know. Please let me go, I’ll change my hair color to whatever you want!”
Vianta puts on a glove, and slaps the girl across the side of the face, leaving a red mark. She says, gently, “Now that you’re here, don’t speak unless I ask for it. You’re not any better than a dog, and speaking is a trick I did not ask for.”
With her gloved hand, Vianta grabs a cart full of hair cutting tools. The girl tries to turn to look at it, but Vianta pushes her head down with her other hand, and holds it there.
With her gloved hand, Vianta grabs a pair of scissors, and pushes them up to the girl’s nape, opening and closing them quickly, throwing clumps of hair down both sides of her neck, and down to the floor around the chair, beginning a fluffy pile. Vianta quickly runs the scissors over to the side of the girl’s head, flittering them open and closed, letting blonde locks fall haphazardly. She runs the scissors through her bangs, clipping them against the girl’s forehead, building a small pile in the girl’s lap. Vianta smiles widely when the girl starts to let tears fall down her face, relishing in watching thick, fluffy strands of blonde hair falling down her victim’s face. After quickly shearing up the other side, Vianta puts the scissors down on the table and smiles mockingly at the girl in the chair. The girl’s hair is an uneven mess with no real rhyme or reason, and Vianta points it out as she runs her fingers through it- “You know, you had pretty hair. Nothing like mine, of course, but not bad- I almost feel like I’m being too mean to a pretty girl. Oh well. You’re not pretty anymore, so I shouldn’t feel as bad.”
Vianta picks up and flicks on a pair of clippers from her table, and the girl’s tears intensify as clippers run up her nape, shearing away the mess and leaving a close-clipped pale stubble behind. Vianta flicks the clippers to the side and dumps a clump of hair onto the pile on the floor, quickly running the clippers up the left part of the nape and dumping another clump. With a few smooth motions, she cleans up the entire left side of the nape, running the clippers up behind the girl’s ear several times to make sure it is completely buzzed. She runs her free hand over the clipped area, seemingly showing a bit of kindness with a gentle touch. She leans in, and blows a few stray hairs away from the area, eliciting a shiver from the tied girl. Quickly, she resumes the haircut, shearing the rest of the nape, tucking the right ear down to ensure that the clippers running up it multiple times don’t miss anything. She also runs the clippers up the pale nape several times, ensuring there is absolutely nothing left that can be claimed by the blades.
Quietly, Vianta stalks around the girl, clippers still running. She grabs the girl’s chin with her bare hand and holds it up, so that the girl is looking into her eyes.
“Are you having fun?” she quietly asks, putting the clippers against the girl’s forehead, and shoving them forward, letting their sound lower as they chew through blonde hair. When she reaches the crown and pulls the clippers up, Vianta asks irritatedly, “I asked you a question! Don’t ignore me!”
She stomp’s on the girl’s foot, eliciting more crying, but no response.
Vianta rolls her eyes, and pushes the clippers down the girl’s head several more times, dumping clumps of hair down her back. Soon, she cleans up the sides, and after a few cleaning passes, she powers the clippers down. The girl looks bald from a few feet away.
Apparently, that’s not good enough. Vianta takes out a straight razor and examines its sharpness.
Apparently satisfied, she asks her victim, “Would you like to be shaved before we make sure this is never a problem again? Or do you want to just get the experimental depilatory cream over with?”
Between sobs, the girl asks, “Please, just… Get it over with.”
“Like I was actually going to give you a choice. You’re such a dreamer.”
Vianta coats the girl’s head with cream using a brush, before putting the razor against her nape. With skill and precision, the razor runs up her head, Vianta cleaning it on a towel every few seconds. Time ticks by, as Vianta shaves slowly but thoroughly, leaving nothing behind. Eventually, she grabs her cream brush again, and runs it above the girl’s eyes several times.
Initially, she seems confused, before she gasps and says, “Wait, please, at least leave me some dignity!”
“No.”
Vianta carefully shaves away the girl’s left eyebrow, careful not to cut the thin skin. She moves to the right without lifting her razor, carefully running it above the bridge of the girl’s nose, and into the bulk of the second eyebrow. Quickly, it’s done. Vianta uses a towel to clean away any residual cream, and runs her hand over the girl’s bald head several times. It’s clearly uncomfortable, but pleasant in a different way. The girl shivers uncontrollably. When Vianta pulls her hand away, she leaves the girl panting harder than usual- then screaming, after Vianta smacks the back of her head with her gloved hand, hard enough to leave a big red mark on her pale, smooth skin.
“Wow, it looks horrible on you,” Vianta drawls, filling a bucket of water. “I’m probably the only one in this entire kingdom who finds this attractive.” She chuckles as the girl starts crying, and comes back with the bucket of water in hand.
“Hold your breath,” she commands.
The girl tries but finds herself gasping for breath quickly. Vianta dumps the water on her as she struggles, forcing her to choke on water, making her face turn red.
“This cream the doctor gave me apparently works better if it’s applied on a wet surface. Thanks for being the guinea pig for that! This cream, if it works correctly, should make sure that you stay this smooth for the rest of your life. The only bad thing is that we won’t be able to do this again.”
Vianta uses her gloved hand to apply a large dollop of cream to the girl’s head, rubbing it in thoroughly over her entire scalp, and forehead. The girl continues to cry, and Vianta continues to taunt her- “I’ve seen enough,” I tell the demon, “I can’t let this continue anymore. I’ll help you. Let’s just… get out of here, please.”
The demon apparition smiles at me, and I wake up as if from a dream, crumpled on the floor, in my quarters.
I look up to the apparition offering me a hand. I grasp it and stand, and tell it with certainty, “Tonight. I will make sure Vianta is no longer an issue. You need to be here to take her place.”
The apparition smiles broader, and says faintly, “We won’t have a problem.”
I gather a few of my most trusted friends in the ranks of the servants- I can’t do this alone. Before I can bring on the last one I want, though, a girl with bandaging on her forehead approaches me- I recognize her, if nothing else, from the four burn marks running down her face. I understand immediately.
“Nina,” I try to tell her, “You don’t have to be part of this. You’re young, you don’t need to be charged with treason if we end up screwing this up.”
“I’d rather die than live with her.”
I’m taken aback, but decide that I obviously can’t talk her out of this, so I accept her help.
That night, as I stand outside Vianta’s door, I contemplate what I’m about to do. I’ve always hated her, but it’s treason to act against her. Maybe it’s treachery too since I’ve never spoken up, but I can’t reasonably do that when I know she’d only use it as an excuse to hurt me.
I take a deep breath, before bursting into her room, asking her, “Princess, we’re in a grave situation! You must come with me immediately! Please!”
I’ve caught her completely off-guard. Her eyes are wide and she’s confused. Good. I grab her hand, and she doesn’t resist too much as I pull her out of the room in her nightgown, and run her down the hall.
“This is horrible, Princess,” I continued, “there are forces at work beyond your comprehension conspiring to hurt you! I can’t let that happen!”
“What’s going on?” I hear her ask. I can feel her trembling even as I pull her along.
“There’s no time to explain!” I tell her, as I look for the right door- it’s there.
I pull her into the inconspicuous side room quickly, and close the door behind us. It’s dark.
There’s a struggle, and when the lights flip on, one of my friends has a hand over her mouth.
I let some of the tension out of my body. This part of the plan worked fine.
I jump when I feel a cold hand on my shoulder. Turning to look, the apparition is beside me, smiling. “What are you going to do with her?” it asks. I’m not sure if it’s curious, or if it’s vetting our plan.
“We’re going to make her look like another servant,” I respond curtly. “You won’t have any trouble with her.”
The apparition smiles at me, and I look away. Quickly, my friends tape over her mouth, and take away Vianta’s nightwear. The apparition takes it and puts it on, doing a twirl to let the outfit settle. It smiles even broader at me.
“One last thing,” it tells me as my friends tie Vianta’s legs and arms together, “I need the voice. It won’t hurt her, she’ll just be mute.”
I close my eyes and nod.
The apparition walks to Vianta, and I watch as it leans down and tells her clearly, “Listen very closely to me. I am going to take away your ability to speak. These will be your last spoken words. Make them worthwhile.”
Vianta watches with fear in her eyes as the being puts its fingers on the tape, and rips it off quickly. She yelps, but quickly suppresses it. Tears flood out of her eyes, but she looks up to me immediately, and asks, “Ruby… what’s going on? Aren’t you going to protect me?”
I look into her eyes- she may be a monster, but at this moment, it’s hard to remember that.
“Vianta,” I start- “I’m sorry it came to this. But it’s really not our fault.”
She looks like she’s about to say something, but then she stops and turns her head down. The apparition puts its finger up to her throat, but she leans her head down and bites it, apparently with enough force to make it bleed. The apparition withdraws its bleeding finger, and looks at me, unamused.
“Would you please restrain her properly?” it asks.
I hold Vianta’s chin up so that the apparition can perform its magic. It’s over quickly and apparently is painless, but I can feel Vianta glaring at me through the whole procedure.
Then I hear her voice clearly, “Thank you Ruby! Now this will fool almost anyone. I’m ready to assume my position!”
I still have Vianta’s mouth closed- I look up. The apparition is speaking to me. It points its bloody finger at me and asks, “Could you please deal with this before I bleed on my clothing?”
I reach out to oblige, but the finger repairs itself before my eyes. I let my hands fall.
The apparition giggles, and turns around.
“I’ll see you tomorrow! Remember to get rid of the imposter!”
The door closes, and we all look at Vianta. Bound and unable to speak. I watch Nina approaching her with a rope. “What are you doing?” I ask, slowly. She doesn’t respond.
I stop her from moving, and she looks at me, pleading with her eyes.
Eventually, she says, “I want to kill her. Please.”
“We’re not killing her,” I tell her, with authority, batting the rope out of her hands. Tears well up in her eyes, and she buries her face in my chest.
“I’m sorry!” she says through sobs, “I’m just so angry! These scars are permanent! She doesn’t care when she hurts people- in fact, it only makes her happy! Why shouldn’t we kill her?”
I pet Nina’s head, responding coolly, “Because you don’t want blood on your hands as she has on hers. Killing someone will change you, and you don’t deserve that.”
She wipes away tears, and nods.
I stand up. “We do need to make her look more like a servant, though. Servants don’t have thick, lush, shiny hair. And they certainly don’t have blonde hair. Milly, did you find her stash?”
Milly nods excitedly and pulls from behind a curtain a cart full off haircutting instruments.
I smile- this, I have been looking forward to. I take a hair band and the scissors from the cart, and ask the assembled girls, “If you don’t mind, I’d like to be the first one to cut her hair.”
Everyone nods respectfully, and Vianta glares at me. I flip her onto her stomach, and begin smoothing her hair, and bundling it. I roughly pull on the strands, jerking her head around several times, before I put the band into the assembled hair, forming a big, thick ponytail. As I put the scissors against the base of her nape, I relish in the feeling of power I have. I hold the ponytail up as I crunch the scissors together, again and again, as close to the nape as possible every time. Before long, the ponytail detaches from her head, and I hold it in my hands. It’s more than a foot long, and still so soft. I secure it with a second band, and put it on a nearby table.
When I turn back to the other girls, I gesture toward Vianta, indicating that they can do what they will. Milly picks up the scissors mischeviously, and starts cutting away at the bangs, tickling Vianta’s nose with them before dropping them on the floor. Nina starts with the clippers, running them up the hairs left at the back of Vianta’s head, and buzzing her clean. The other girl is putting cream over Vianta’s eyebrows, and quickly following it up with a razor against her skin. She has nowhere near Vianta’s skill, though, and ends up nicking several times. I find myself feeling just a little bit sorry for Vianta as I watch her start to cry, but thinking about it, I’m not sure she deserves my pity. Once everyone has had their fun, I shoo them off and properly clip the long hairs away from Vianta’s head. I run them up her left side, and her right side, then several times over the top of her head, letting little blonde locks fall around her. Nina did a good, meticulous job on the back, so I’m quickly able to power down the clippers. I rub the fuzzy scalp tenderly for a moment afterward, before drawing my hand back and smacking her scalp with force.
She tries to yelp, and is unable. The tears streaming from her eyes get more intense. I smiled a bit- I don’t know why sadism is fun in this case. Maybe it’s just because of who it is.
I coat her head in cream, and whisper an incantation to the razor- it shouldn’t cut her now. But it should be nice and warm, in contrast to cold cream. Maybe she’ll have some fun.
I carefully run the razor up her nape, stopping quickly to wipe it off, then proceeding again, slowly. After a little while, the other girls get bored, and leave me with her. I continue my meticulous shaving, running it up the left side of her head gently, and then up the right side. I shave the top of her head from the sides to the top, leaving a small stripe of a blonde mohawk at the very top. I run my finger down it gently, teasing her, “I think this is a good look for you. Too bad we can’t keep something fancy like this.”
I don’t think she’s amused, based on her tears, but I chuckle at myself. Quickly, I shave away the mohawk and repair the nicks where her eyebrows used to be. With a clean, wet towel, I rub her bald head down, leaving her not only smooth, but shiny. I run my fingers down her nape, and she shivers.
Quickly, I apply a healthy dose of the experimental hair treatment. I’d rather not have to shave her every day, so I hope it works. Her scalp seems to accept it readily, and I have a good feeling.
When I’m done, I lean in and tell her, slowly, “I think we’re done. I’m going to release you, as a servant, now. Don’t do anything you’ll regret- a servant attacking me, or another servant, will get them punished. Keep that in mind, please. I don’t really want you to get hurt.”
I smile at her, and she glares at me. I think to myself about how much better things will be as I untie her, and I sleep happily after showing her to her new quarters.
