Craytia smiled at her, but it seemed more poisonous than genuine.

"I understand," Aysha managed to say.

Craytia let go of her throat. "I'm glad. I know I can trust you. You don't seem like the type to run. Take all the time you want to train, but a maid will come to get you to help prepare you for the party."

Aysha turned her body back to face the punching bag. She started punching it to get her rhythm. She already assumed that Craytia wanted her to kill someone. That wasn't odd, but why did Craytia feel the need to threaten her? Unless she wasn't just killing someone...Was it someone she knew?

Aysha searched through her memories, but there had never been anyone she was close with. In the short time she'd been in school, she didn't have any friends. She'd been shy and stayed away from others. Aysha still didn't know who it was and it worried her. She wasn't one to be in control. Most of the things in her life had happened without her controlling the events that led up to them. When she did take things into her hands, it was because the result was crucial and had to happen in that exact way. It worried her that in this situation, she didn't have a single advantage over Craytia. Craytia held all the cards and she knew this.

She punched the bag repeatedly letting her emotions take over. Since this was in the safety of a shelter, she could do this. In a real fight, she would either lose control or die. Two simple choices that could determine the course of everything else.

She punched the bag harder and harder.

More and more.

She let everything she felt flow out until she had a snap and thud. Aysha was breathing heavily, sweat glistening on her skin. She had punched the bag a few feet away from her. She tossed her head back and let out a frustrated sigh. She ran her hand through her messy curls and walked to the bag. She picked it up and hung it back on.

Aysha closed her eyes and took a deep breath. One, two, one, two. She found her rhythm again letting herself get lost in the silence. The pure unbridled silence. A silence that was lonely and sad. A silence that she knew all too well.

She shook her head and brought herself back. It didn't matter whether she was lonely or not, but she seemed to forget that humans were social creatures. No matter how much one isolates themself, at some point they crave the attention from others. They crave the feeling of knowing that someone is beside them. Without that one person beside them, they tended to drown inside themself without ever knowing it. With no one to pull them out, they lost all their oxygen and floated to the bottom, forgotten.

"Ma'am?"

Aysha turned around to see the maid holding a purse in her hand. She took off the gloves and hung them near the weapons. Who knew that it was already time to get ready for the party? Aysha steeled herself. She refused to look vulnerable. She was Aysha and she was ready to put her plan of killing Craytia into motion.

The maid turned around and led the way back to Aysha's bedroom.

"Please take off all your clothes, ma'am."

"I can dress myself," Aysha snapped at the woman. She wasn't trying to be rude, but she wasn't in a good mood.

Aysha knew the woman was used to being snapped at like this and she felt a tinge of guilt, but didn't apologize.

The maid dipped her head. "I understand ma'am, but the mistress has ordered me to do so."

Aysha's shoulders sagged. Of course she had. She waved her hand at the maid and said, "Go ahead."

It's not like she could refuse even if she wanted to. The maid would stay here stubbornly to fulfill her orders. The maid stripped her of her clothes. Aysha shimmied into the dress as the maid turned her around to make sure nothing was out of place. Afterward, she sat Aysha on her bed and told her to close her eyes. Aysha heard the clattering of different objects in the bag and immediately knew that it held makeup inside.

Aysha felt a soft brush tickling her lidded eyes. In a way, this was calming. The touch of the brush and the gentle fingers of the maid applying eyeshadow. She liked the feeling of the mascara on her eyelashes and the lipstick on her lips. The maid clasped earrings onto her ears and shoes onto her feet. Aysha could already feel the weight of them and knew that they were heels.

"You may open your eyes now ma'am." The maid

Aysha got up and stood in front of the full body mirror. She had silver eyeshadow, bold red lipstick, trimmed eyebrows that had obviously been lined by a pencil. Her curls framed her face, but not in a wild way. They were calm and beautiful. The dress hugged her in all the right places and her heels weren't as high as she had assumed.

Aysha let a small smile creep its way onto her face. She was gorgeous and she knew it.