Season 1: Survival of the Fittest

  Ch 8: Payday and Pain

  Morning light, pale and half-hearted, spilled through the thin curtains of the ft. Nysera stirred on the battered sofa, the cheap bnket tangled around her ankles, the faint ache of unfamiliar mortality still a dull throb in her bones. She blinked once, gathering herself, then reached for the cursed phone resting on the rickety coffee table.

  The screen lit up instantly, flooding her with a cascade of unfamiliar sounds and blinking icons. At first, she braced for another series of worthless notifications — appointment reminders, unsolicited emails, dire warnings about overdrafts — but no. These were different. Tribute notifications, one after another, like banners of victory snapping on a cold morning breeze.

  She scrolled slowly, savouring each small conquest. ￡5. ￡10. ￡20. A few rger offerings, hesitant but growing, from trembling names she barely recognised. Drops of gold in a dry well.

  It was not wealth by any noble measure. In her old world, she could have spent these sums without blinking, tossing them at jewelers, tailors, informants. But here, in the lean, brutal economy Mira had scraped through, it was a tangible shift. Enough to secure real food, not the limp sandwiches that had mocked her dignity. Enough to buy cosmetics to armour her face properly, not with cheap smudged lines but with precision and power. Enough, perhaps, to repce the drab, threadbare clothes hanging like defeated soldiers in the wardrobe with a few sharp, simple pieces — sleek, dark, unyielding — that would allow her to walk into any room and command it without speaking a word.

  She cradled the phone lightly in her palm, allowing herself a small, private smile. The court she had begun to raise — crude, fumbling, imperfect — was paying tribute already. The battlefield had accepted her. The mortals, however unwittingly, had begun to kneel.

  She moved swiftly once the tribute payments cleared, fingers tapping through the cursed phone with crisp authority. No more limp sandwiches and miserable meal deals. She ordered from everywhere: rich, steaming ramen yered with soft egg and glistening pork; fragrant curry bright with spices that clung to the air like smoke; thick, bloody steak that promised true satisfaction. She ordered not in caution, but in abundance, as a queen might stockpile her rder before winter.

  Each order was dispatched from the Deliveroo ptform with the grim efficiency of sending couriers to distant provinces. Nysera paced the ft, her stomach growling in anticipation, her mind already sharpening for the battles ahead. If this world had pleasures to offer, she would seize them without apology.

  The first knock came barely twenty minutes ter. Nysera approached the door with the slow, commanding grace she had practised all her life, flipping the lock with a precise snap. The Deliveroo man stood there, a little uncertain, a pstic bag of fragrant steam clutched in his hand.

  "Uh, your food, miss."

  She opened the door fully and gestured imperiously to the floor at her feet. "Pce it here," she said, voice cool and absolute.

  The poor creature hesitated, cheeks flushing faintly. There was something about her, standing barefoot and sharp-eyed in her pin bck blouse, that seemed to rattle him. Slowly, awkwardly, he knelt and pced the bag before her like an offering at an altar.

  Nysera inclined her head graciously. "Good," she murmured.

  He lingered for a heartbeat too long, straightening, shuffling his feet, clutching his phone nervously. "Uh... sorry if this is weird, but—" he cleared his throat, cheeks darkening—"do you, like, have Insta or something? You’re—uh—you’re kind of intense, but like, in a cool way."

  Nysera studied him for a moment, then, with the benevolence of a monarch bestowing a favour, said, "Find me at ViscountessV."

  He blinked. "Is that on Insta?"

  "Tweeter," she said, already closing the door in his stunned face with a firm click.

  The ft was hers again, the heavy scents of mortal feasting filling the air. She spread the offerings across the rickety coffee table — ramen, curry, steak, naan bread, gyoza, rich sauces pooling in little pstic tubs — and sank onto the sofa with a satisfied sigh. She tasted everything: the slippery noodles, the sharp bite of cardamom and chili, the savoury blood of the rare steak. Each fvour was a conquest, a confirmation that this world, for all its indignities, could still be cimed piece by piece.

  Nysera wiped her mouth delicately on a paper napkin and leaned back, her stomach full, her body humming with a zy, victorious contentment.

  Tributes at her feet. Meals worthy of a minor feast. Followers gathering in the shadows of her command.

  The satisfaction of victory dulled slightly as Nysera wiped the st traces of sauce from her fingers and turned her attention once more to the cursed phone. Food was survival, but it was only the first step. If she was to thrive here, she needed armour — not flowing white robes or embroidered court gowns, but something darker, sharper, something that spoke of unapproachable power at a gnce.

  She opened one of the mortal marketpces — endless scrolls of clothing, some so offensively bright and flimsy she nearly threw the phone across the room. She filtered ruthlessly: bck, dark grey, navy. No pastel abominations, no fluttering silhouettes that would betray the severity she intended to embody.

  Her thumb moved with swift, decisive precision, selecting sleek, structured blouses with high colrs, sharply cut jackets with minimal embellishment, skirts that skimmed the body like polished steel. Clean lines, unyielding fabrics. She chose simple gold jewellery — small, elegant, uncompromising — pieces that suggested power without begging for attention. Boots, not heels, because she knew the value of sure footing, even on a different kind of battlefield.

  For a moment, she hesitated, lingering on a soft white shirt that would not have been out of pce in her former life, a garment that whispered of past grandeur, of the White Veil and the vision she had once carried like a torch.

  She swiped it away.

  She would not be a relic in this world. She would not cling to ghosts.

  Here, she would be something else entirely.

  She finalised the orders and set the phone down with a quiet, satisfied tap, as if sealing a contract. The tributes from her trembling court would dress her, feed her, sustain her. And in turn, she would become an image they could fear, crave, and obey.

  Nysera leaned back, the city humming faintly beyond the grimy windowpane, and allowed herself a rare moment of pure, burning anticipation.

  By te afternoon, restless energy thrummed under Nysera’s skin. She had eaten well, secured her new raiment, commanded tribute from the weak — it was time to survey her domain in person. She slipped into the pin bck blouse and trousers she had salvaged from Mira’s wardrobe and pulled on her scuffed boots, disguising their pitiful state with an imperious tilt of her chin.

  The streets were alive with the grim symphony of London’s te-day chaos. Crowds surged past in shifting tides, faces sullen and determined, the air thick with the fumes of buses and the sharp metallic scent of imminent rain. Nysera navigated through them with practiced disdain, no different to weaving through court crowds — heads down, eyes averted, all desperate to be somewhere else.

  She found herself outside a small boutique, the kind that seemed designed to look exclusive while still selling to the desperate middle csses. The window dispyed mannequins in clean, crisp lines of bck and navy — clothes not so different from the new armour she had chosen online, but tangible, ready to be cimed now.

  Inside, the air was cool and perfumed, false luxury clinging to the walls. Nysera selected a high-colred blouse and a dark, tailored skirt with quick, sure movements. The shop attendant eyed her with thinly veiled suspicion, but Nysera met her gaze with such cold indifference that the woman shrank back behind her counter without a word.

  At the till, Nysera retrieved Mira’s battered debit card and, with the same unbending dignity she would have used to present a royal signet, tapped it against the machine.

  A shrill beep. The screen fshed: DECLINED.

  For a moment, she simply stood there, blinking at it. The machine beeped again, impatient and shrill, drawing the curious attention of a customer behind her.

  Nysera forced herself to move slowly, carefully, plucking the card back from the terminal with the air of someone inconvenienced by mortal incompetence. "Try it again," she said, tone arctic.

  The attendant did. Again: DECLINED.

  The attendant’s mouth twisted into a brittle, polite smile. "Maybe... you want to check with your bank?"

  Nysera gave a tight nod, gathered the dignity she could, and swept out of the shop without another word.

  Outside, hidden from the eyes of the commoners, she pulled out the cursed phone and opened Mira’s banking app.

  The screen flickered, sluggish from too many open apps and too little charge. Then, like a bde sliding between ribs, the truth appeared:

  Current bance: -￡37.52.

  Her gaze sharpened. She scrolled furiously. The tribute payments had been real — but every pound she had summoned had already been spent, devoured by the Deliveroo feasts, the online clothing orders, and a series of automatic charges Mira had apparently racked up in her desperate, crumbling life.

  Nysera stared at the negative bance in silence.

  The ft would need rent soon. The cursed utilities demanded their due. The city itself seemed built like a siege engine, designed to starve those who stumbled.

  The tributes would need to increase. The court she had gathered would need to be grown and harvested properly. There was no choice. Survival in this hellscape would not be a single battle, but an endless war of attrition.

  She closed the app with cold precision and slid the phone into her pocket.

  Let London come for her.

  Let poverty scrape at her heels.

  Nysera had been a Viscountess without mercy before.

  She would become an empress of this new realm — or she would burn it to the ground trying.