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“You need discipline”, her Dad said, shoving her into the empty wine cellar.
He used to just exile her to her room, but she just learned to sneak out the window once he’d ensconced himself back in the study. Then it was the private cellar under the house- but then she smashed dozens of heirloom bottles in a fit of rage and drank a few more besides. She found a way to stack the empty casks and shimmy out of the high windows of the barred buttery, which was Thoreau’s next bright idea after she wriggled up the chimney of the locked guest room.
The constant refrain of her childhood was, “You need discipline, young lady”.
From toddling onwards they barked the word at her. Punishments for mouthing off or being places they didn’t want her, or in most cases not being places where they did want her. She understood fairly early that it was something they wanted her to have (like manners) even if she wasn’t very interested. After all, they were the ones giving up on her. And they were miserable fucks, so the concept didn’t seem too appealing.
“Beauregard, do you have any sense of discipline?” her schoolteacher railed once while she crouched on her chair during math lessons.
“No,” she drawled,” Why don’t you teach me what it means?”
It was an honest question, though. One she never got a satisfactory explanation for, not from Mistress Karenne. Not from anybody.
So they all assumed she was a thug; an aimless hellion. No moral backbone and no mental diligence. To them Beau was inconvenient at best and unpleasant at worst (unless they were Thoreau Lionett, who considered her a dismal disappointment). They didn’t listen as she recited the names of the Dwendalian Emperors in chronological order with the rest of the class while she stood in the corner for calling Emperor Julius, Third of His Name ‘Juli-ass the Turd’. They didn’t observe her tackling the older bullies who picked on the halfling kids in the schoolyard. They certainly wouldn’t have dreamt that she was capable of memorizing her father’s shipment ledger, then formulating when to intercept them based on the upcoming phase of the moon or where the Imperial Highway ran into the fens. Or when that became too risky, siphoning wine directly from the casks and smuggling it out in skins hidden under her coat.
She became the most capable bootlegger (and had the best right hook) in the Bromkiln hills and only got caught when the middleman grew annoyed with her bold upcharges for Lionett claret. Maybe she could have slipped the gaol if they hadn’t caught Tori, but only a total shithead leaves their best/girlfriend to take the fall.
“She’ll learn discipline,” Thoreau promised the Lawbearer of Kamordah as he slid a loaded purse to keep the matter away from public trial, to save the family name and business shame.
It took her Dad and four vineyard workers to cram her into the old cellar while she kicked, bit, and reminded them what fucking hypocrites they were. She never learned if the bribe was entirely about her being the magistrate's biggest pain in the ass, or if part of it was to send Tori away as well. She demanded to know what happened to her girlfriend. Discipline is denial, tutted her Dad's foreman as he seized her wrist after an attempted jab.
Beau didn’t see Tori again, and daylight for a week. Six nights and seven days of exhausting anxiety, knowing something was intended for her, but the particulars left blank. She wished she’d been kept in jail with her friends. Like every other house arrest, she busied herself with escape or vandalization. For a few days she kicked the walls searching for loose stones or tried to intimidate whatever poor sap had to slip her food and water hastily before barring the door. Then she spent a full painstaking day prying hardware out of the old door with her belt buckle and blunt nails in hopes of loosening the bolt or hinges. She stopped only when the splinters embedded in her fingers became too painful.
On the fourth day she screamed her displeasure to her familiar jailers while she did chinups off of the low ceiling beams. When she ran out of expletives in both Common and Halfling, creative schoolyard insults, and a few things she read in a Zemnian book, she switched to situps until she passed out.
On the fifth day she laid down on the solid rafters and stomped on the ceiling in hopes of making a racket upstairs. The chances of her parents hearing her were slim, but it felt good to cuss them out and try to convince Thoreau that she was a ghost intent on taking her revenge.
On the sixth day she tried the door again (just in case) after picking out what splinters she could feel in her mouth.
It was on the seventh day that she heard footsteps down the subterranean corridors, positioned on one of the rafters like a strung-out owl with three rusty nails between her knuckles for talons. Soldiers, imperial assassination squad, her grandma- whoever was on the other side of that door wasn’t going to take her down without a few holes in their neck.
She anticipated the door opening... but not the slim figure silhouetted by the light in the hall. After a week in darkness, Beau was blinded even by lanterns.
"So,” said the elf, warding the darkness with a lamp,” You’re the girl who needs purpose.”
“Wrong cellar,” she yelled from her perch, “I’m the girl who needs discipline, apparently.”
The blue clad monk smiled, "People mistake discipline for punishment. I have a feeling that people have been mistaken about you your whole life, Beauregard."
The monk was unarmed. They were calm. They were absolutely smoking hot. Beau decided to hop down, drop the nails, and listen to what they had to say.