Season 1: Survival of the Fittest

  Ch 9: Court Intrigue in the Canteen

  The next morning, Nysera returned to Crown & Hart with a new grimness etched into her spine. Her coffers were dry, her so-called tributes already devoured by the city’s endless appetites, and the cheap pastries she had dreamed of using to cement her first alliances were now a luxury she could barely afford to contempte. No matter. Strategy demanded reconnaissance before conquest.

  By midday, the cursed phone buzzed with a notification reminding her to take her allotted "lunch break," a concept she still found faintly degrading — as if time itself must be rationed by lesser mortals. She rose from her battered desk, smoothing the pin bck blouse she had salvaged from Mira’s meagre wardrobe, and made her way to the breakroom with the cautious precision of a scout entering enemy territory.

  It was worse than she had feared.

  The room was a battlefield of indignities. The stink of microwaved fish hung in the air like a hostile spell, clinging to the cheap linoleum floors and battered countertops. A man with a defeated posture aggressively stabbed a pstic fork into a leaking container, the smell blooming with every savage thrust. Crumpled notes pstered the ancient fridge like accusations hurled by cowards too timid to speak aloud. "If you didn’t buy it, don’t touch it." "Mugs don’t wash themselves, Brenda." "Tidy up after yourself. We’re not your mothers."

  In the corner, two women engaged in a silent battle over territory, one having left a tatty scarf draped over the prime seat by the window all morning, the other loitering close enough to suggest she might seize it the second the scarf’s owner faltered.

  Nysera stood perfectly still, surveying the wreckage of mortal civilisation with growing contempt. In her old world, insults were clean, decisive. Betrayal came with a dagger in the ribs, not a Sharpie scrawl about unwashed Tupperware. She had witnessed the colpse of empires with more dignity than this room.

  Suppressing a shudder, she crossed to the counter and retrieved a battered mug — chipped, slightly sticky — and filled it with the burnt remnants of the communal coffee pot. She sipped once, winced, and chose survival over pride.

  If this was to be her new court, she would first have to endure its savagery.

  Nysera lowered herself into a battered pstic chair, bancing the coffee like a weapon ready to be hurled at the first sign of further offence. Around her, the office’s lesser courtiers bickered through passive gnces and louder-than-necessary sighs, the very air vibrating with grievances too cowardly to voice properly.

  She pulled out the cursed phone, the screen flickering faintly from overuse and exhaustion, and opened the ptform where ViscountessV now held court. Her fingers hovered over the keyboard, contempt sparking with every heartbeat. If this world thrived on visibility, then she would give it something to witness.

  She tapped out her first post with swift, surgical precision:

  "Microwaving fish at 10AM should be a crime punishable by exile. You disgust me."

  A moment ter, another:

  "Imagine waging war over communal oat milk. Mortal weakness depresses me almost as much as the coffee here does."

  A third, colder:

  "Passive-aggressive fridge notes are not rebellion. They are the coward’s decration of war."

  And finally, for good measure:

  "This is not a job. This is a daycare for adults too timid to duel properly."

  Nysera sent them into the void without a second thought, sipping her burnt coffee with grim resignation. A few pings sounded almost immediately, faint and unimportant. She tucked the phone away again, assuming nothing would come of it. Mortals rarely recognised true authority unless it was screamed at them — or delivered in a polished chalice.

  By the time she returned to her desk twenty minutes ter, the notifications had multiplied. Hundreds of them.

  Her scathing observations were being reshared with glee, quoted by mortals trapped in their own dismal offices, celebrated as gospel by the suffering masses. Some hailed her as a "queen," others dubbed her "the only voice worth following," and many simply reposted her words with weeping emojis or gifs of fictional vilins appuding in slow, reverent approval.

  Nysera blinked once, then allowed herself a small, razor-thin smile. She had thrown her contempt into the world and mortals had flocked to it like moths to fme.

  Even without pastries. Even without coin. She was already building a following.

  They craved someone to say what they dared not. They always had.

  It was, after all, the simplest principle of rulership: voice what they fear, shape what they need, and they will crown you themselves.

  The lesson was clear, and Nysera learned quickly. Mortals, for all their cowardice, adored those who wielded the bde they dared not touch. If she could command devotion through mere contempt online, she could command fear and respect in this crumbling court of Crown & Hart just as easily.

  The opportunity presented itself that very afternoon.

  Ben — her unfortunate line manager, still slightly shell-shocked from the SmartBin deck incident — summoned the team to a casual "stand-up" meeting near the main conference table. Nysera joined the small, bored cluster of junior strategists and marketing assistants, arms folded neatly behind her back, expression bnk and unreadable.

  Ben fumbled with his notes, expining in excruciating jargon how upper management wanted to "pivot content strategies toward a more omnichannel touchpoint engagement matrix." Half the room gzed over immediately; one of the assistants stared at the carpet like it might offer a better future.

  Nysera listened for exactly one minute longer than courtesy required, then tilted her head slightly and spoke, voice crisp enough to cut gss.

  "Forgive me, Ben," she said, tone dripping with a politeness so sharp it could barely disguise the bde underneath. "Would you mind crifying how, exactly, an 'omnichannel touchpoint engagement matrix' differs from simply posting better content on multiple ptforms?"

  There was a long, stunned silence. One of the assistants snorted into their coffee. Someone else choked slightly. The sound of stifled ughter rippled through the group.

  Ben flushed a mottled red. "Well, I mean, it's—uh—" He trailed off, clearly scrambling for footing on a battlefield he hadn’t even realised he was standing on.

  Nysera smiled — a small, cool, devastating thing — and lowered her gaze demurely, as if granting him mercy by not pressing further.

  Above Ben’s head, she noticed Jess, the Senior Brand Manager, standing by the gss wall of her office, watching the scene unfold with a look of faint, calcuting amusement.

  Good. Let them watch.

  Ben, desperate to salvage authority, mumbled something about "looping back offline" and dismissed the meeting. The junior staff dispersed rapidly, most of them shooting Nysera furtive looks — half in awe, half in terrified admiration.

  Nysera returned to her desk in silence, sitting with the effortless poise of someone who had never, even for a second, considered herself the lesser in any room.

  The end of the workday came not with ceremony but with the low, desperate shuffle of tired mortals fleeing toward their homes. Nysera gathered Mira’s battered bag, slung it over her shoulder with something resembling dignity, and made her way down into the gaping maw of the Underground once again.

  The journey was no less offensive than the first time. The signage remained an act of war against reason, issuing cryptic commands like "Way Out" and "Mind the Gap" with the casual arrogance of a kingdom that had long abandoned the art of clear navigation. Nysera seethed inwardly every time the disembodied voice chirped instructions without so much as an honourable herald to expin their true meaning.

  She boarded the train, crushed between a man loudly discussing cryptocurrency and a woman battling a pram and a rageful toddler. The stench of too many bodies packed into too little space clung to the air. Nysera tightened her grip on the overhead rail and considered, not for the first time, how easy it would be to rule this city if its popuce were not already halfway to colpse.

  The cursed phone buzzed impatiently in her pocket.

  She retrieved it, prepared to ignore another round of pointless notifications — until she saw it.

  A direct message. From one of her trembling, eager followers. And this one was different.

  The man’s message was short, but heavy with the scent of desperation: "Mistress, may I request a private session? I will pay tribute — real tribute — for your attention. ￡300 for half an hour. More if you command it."

  Nysera read it twice, the numbers searing themselves into her mind. Enough to cw herself out of Mira’s overdraft. Enough to eat like a queen for a week. Enough to breathe a little freer in this merciless city.

  A slow, predatory smile curled across her lips as the train jolted beneath her.

  Perhaps the gods of this world had not entirely abandoned her after all.

  She slipped the phone back into her pocket and leaned against the cold gss of the carriage door, already pnning how she would answer.

  Tomorrow, London would still be a battlefield.

  But tonight?

  Tonight, she would rule.