Before I start this chapter, I've decided to share this quote, so you will be able to understand the circumstances surrounding our heroine.

(And I do know that it had taken a long time to upload again, but this time, the reason is an extensive rewrite. Alva is alive for me, and she begs for this experience to be written.)

"You need chaos in your soul to give birth to a dancing star." – Friedrich Nietszhe

At precisely five in the morning, I woke up. I blinked my eyes, unbelieving in my situation. For some peculiar reason, I was looking forward to what the day would bring. Yesterday, Magda, the mistress of the inn, gave me a rundown of the duties I was to do in the inn. Generally, I was to be one of the serving girls of the inn. There were three of us. The last one had indeed run away, Magda related, and she was in dire need of help. She considered it lucky that I had come to her doorstep when she needed it the most.

The inn was quite prosperous, with plenty of customers at any given time. But, she said, it was during the evening when there were many customers. Not just those who stayed in the inn, but those who enjoyed the food in drink served. It was my task to entertain them, to serve them their drinks and food, to answer any inquiries. But Magda has excused me for the night, and explained that I probably needed some rest.

It had been quite magnanimous of her, especially for someone who had wanted me to work like a horse and not complain.

So I spent the rest of the night in a room as small as the one I had in Rista, but then, I didn't share the room with two other girls. I had not met them yet—or haven't spoken to them. When I had arrived in the inn yesterday, after a quick briefing, I was unceremoniously abandoned in the kitchen, with nothing with to do but wash dishes. Not that I was complaining. I had been slowly adapting to hard work, and this was kind compared to Lacrecia's orders, which were even crueller as it was tinged with sincere loathing. The whole day was spent washing dishes, which were considerably plenty with the continuous flow of guests. I hadn't had time to rest.

By the time the sun had almost set, Magda had given some dinner, then she showed me to my quarters. As I was about to enter, two girls who were about my age went out of the room. Both of them were quite pretty, and they smiled at my direction.

Magda had said their names, Penny and Julia, and with one quick movement, she had motioned them to go to the area for patrons. They had obeyed without a word for Magda, or a word for me.

It was certainly strange, the way Magda handled the inn with utmost efficiency, to the point of remoteness. There was not a warm spot in her. Everything she did had a rational reason. Magnanimous—indeed—but only because I needed rest for harder days.

"Practice your words, dear. I said your talk is too pretty—and no one will understand a peep from you."

She said "dear" without any warmth, like a mother or an aunt would have done. I had shuddered then because she reminded me of Lacrecia when she called me "girl".

I was being paranoid. Magda was certainly not like her.

The rest of the night had been spent practicing my speech—which did not progress. What did she mean "too pretty"? Was there "ugly speech"? Or "ugly words"? That night, I decided to be as mute as possible, to keep them from hearing my too pretty speech and somehow be offended. Let them think I was a partial mute (if there was a thing).

I was alone most of the night and I had finally fallen asleep despite the constant banging and boisterous laughter downstairs in the main area of the inn—and I had slept considerably deeply when I was awoken by the soft opening of the door. The moon had been high in the night sky, I could tell. There had been silence, far from the chaos that I experienced before falling into sleep. And I was asleep for so long that I could hardly open my eyes. But I knew what I saw. It was either Penny or Julia, and she was just entering the room. But it was just a disturbance. I was asleep before I knew it. I didn't wake when the other serving girl entered.

I knew they wouldn't be getting much sleep. Magda wanted us all awake by five in the morning.

Which I already was.

I glanced around, looking at the sleeping figure of my fellow serving maid. And I wondered, why had stayed so late in the night? So late that there were no longer people who were awake.

It dawned to me that this would be the life I would have for quite some time. Sleep would be allowed to serving girls when there would be no one to serve. And Penny and Julia and served until early in the morning, falling into an exhausted sleep after.

But it was only Penny in the room, and Julia was not in sight. Strange.

It would be despicable of me to wake Penny, but it would also be despicable if I allowed Magda to see them not awake. So with the lightest touch, I nudged Penny and whispered for her to wake.

She opened her eyes so suddenly. "Oh!" she exclaimed, and then she muttered an oath. She looked around anxiously, her gray eyes wary. It appeared that she was satisfied by what she saw, for she gave a sigh and looked at me apologetically.

"Sorry," she said. "Thought it was Ma'am Magda waking me up."

For once, I wasn't able to say anything.

Penny pushed the blanket from her, and I saw she was still wearing her serving garb. She sat up in bed and stared at me. "Well, what are you looking at? You've got a problem?"

"No," I answered. "I'm sorry, it was rude of me to stare. I just thought that it would be more beneficial if I wake you up...rather than...Ma'am Magda." I remembered Lacrecia again, and how she would punish me if I had woken up a second later than what she had ordered.

To my surprise, she snorted. "She said your talk is too pretty. And it is. Too many words, you know?"

"Too many words?"

"Right. You can just say you want to wake me up rather than Ma'am Magda."

Apparently, the attention span for sentences was slim, I wanted to say. But then, that would prompt another comment from her.

"I'd better go downstairs," I answered, not wanting to extend the conversation about my speech.

I turned my back to go but her voice stopped. "Oh, don't go away in a huff!"

She had already jumped off the bed, and grabbed my arm. "I was just kidding. I don't know why you talk that way, but you'll learn," she told me optimistically.

"And what's so wrong, speaking the way that I am speaking?" I couldn't help but ask with a sort of frustrated tone.

Penny looked at me as if the answer was obvious. Well, it was probably obvious to her but not to me. "Pretty talk is not for serving girls, or any other guy or gal in town. That kind of talk is for the nobles—and you aren't, are you?"

"No, certainly not."

"There you go again."

"I can't help it. My...mother taught me to speak this way despite the fact that we aren't of nobility. She likes to pretend to be noble," I lied.

"That's gonna get you in trouble. Unlike your town, wherever you came from, folks here don't like people pretending to be who they are not. And a nice talking serving wench isn't an exception. They will think you are noble, and they'd hate you."

"Hate me?" I almost squeaked.

"Right. Hate you. Coz people here don't like to be talked down. A serving wench is a serving wench, not someone pretending to be noble. They'd think you think you're better than them."

"Oh," I said, somewhat understanding. "Then I better not speak."

"Better." She smiled at me, and proceeded to push me through the door. "We've got to go down now, or she'll have a fit!"

I voluntarily moved to exit the room rather than be pushed out by her. "She didn't tell me what to do during the morning. What should we do?"

"Well...she wants us to bathe first," she answered with a laugh. "You can't serve people if you're smelly. You'd make them puke with your smell."

"Excuse me!" I said, a bit offended.

"No, you're not, but for her you are. We all are unless we take a bath."

"Where's Julie?"

"In one of the rooms. I don't know," she answered.

"She has a different room?" I asked, vaguely remembering three beds in the room we had just vacated.

"No, she just sleeps in other rooms. Silly girl!"

I didn't say anything, and tried to forget what she said.

Magda—it was suddenly glaringly obvious—was quite obsessed when it came to cleanliness. She had setup bathing stations at the back of the inn, specifically for her employees. The rest of the rooms in the inn had their own bathing rooms, routinely cleaned by other staff of the inn. Had I mentioned that the inn was exceptionally well-populated and popular? There were about two cleaning ladies who came only at five in the morning, and Penny and I saw one of them in a room, daintily fixing the bedspread. There were many in the kitchen staff, mostly children who were apprentices of sorts to the main cook of the inn. And there were the serving girls, the three of us—who were supposed to be clean.

After the morning routine, as I had come to call it, Penny and I entered the main area of the inn, with our dresses as serving girls. Julie was not yet in sight.

"Won't she get in trouble?" I asked Penny, knowing that someone who was as strict in cleaning would most like be equally strict in punctuality. "Magda has said we must be ready by six in the morning sharp."

Penny shook her head. "There are exceptions."

She didn't say anything, and I no longer wanted to probe.

Magda entered the main room of the inn, and went to our direction. As she went our way, she checked the tables for dust, adjusted the chairs to a precise distance from each other, and looked for anything untoward. Nothing missed her sharp eyes.

By the time she reached us, the inn looked better, in a marginal degree for the normal being or in an exponentially better one to the eyes of an obsessive person. She looked at Penny and I with a curious expression I couldn't understand. Then she said: "Good enough. Carry on with your work."

"What did she mean?" I asked Penny when Magda left us to observe the kitchen.

"She only means we're pretty enough, and it's time to work."

"Must we be pretty?"

She looked at me as if I was daft. Then I realized that Penny was exceptionally beautiful, with her large grey eyes and curling blonde hair. There was a certain kind of liveliness in her face, emphasized by her round cheeks and bright disposition. And then I realized that the answer was that we must be pretty. It wasn't an option. It was a requirement. How it applied to me, I couldn't begin to fathom.

"We must," I said.

"Yes," Penny answered. "We must. Because if we are hags, no one will come. No one wants an ugly girl serving them."

I could only nod.

She suddenly held my hand sympathetically. "I had the same reaction when the first week I was here. You think you're more than your looks, but you're not. It's either you're pretty or ugly. And sometimes, it's good to be pretty, sometimes it's not. In this case, you can't really know, you know."

"You get a job when you're pretty?"

"Aren't you lucky you are?" she told me, instead of answering directly. And with that, Penny gave a sort of bitter smile, and left me standing alone. She approached a group of travellers who had just entered the inn. Her bright tinkling laugh was heard by everyone in the inn, but then, it was just I who was listening, and perhaps Magda had heard as well.

I was not worth my looks, I wanted to say. But of course, if one needed food, if one needed a place to stay, what more could that person give except what she has? In this case, I was desperate, and I needed a place to stay, so must I complain? Must I assert my belief that looks could not determine one's fate in life? But the truth was, I couldn't. Had Magda thought me pretty, then I would be in the streets once more, figuring out how to find the proper means to arrive in my grandparents' manor.

So what had happened to some earlier discourse on worthiness? All this time, I had believed that it was intellect that was needed to progress in the world. One needed only education. And I had immersed myself in the study of books, in learning, in hopes that through the things I have read, I would gain experience and credibility. I would gain my worth through learning, and not through lovely dresses and frivolous pastimes.

But I was standing in this inn, the contradiction of everything I had believed in. I had tried to learn more and more with the world—only to find out that it didn't matter that I knew something about the civil wars of Miseth or the religious struggle in Rosea. It didn't matter that I could do mathematics, or I could quote lines of poetry. It didn't matter that I could engage in intelligent conversation, it didn't matter that I could sustain a debate concerning Trylan politics—as I had thought.

Silly, silly Alva. Was it about time I was to learn that a life dedicated to books was meaningless in the world outside Rista? Was I only worth my looks? Were women worth only their looks—the way they spent hours and hours in front of the mirror, naive to everything except their fashion and face, and apathetic to anything that did not tickle their trivial vanities?

"Alva!" I heard Magda say. I looked to the door of the inn, and I realized that a new group had entered.

No one wants an ugly girl to serve them, I recalled Penny's words. Suddenly, I wanted to make myself ugly. I wanted to dirty my cheeks, blacken a tooth, dishevel my hair—cut it even. Anything to be ugly, just to prove that it didn't matter as long as I provided them with excellent service.

But deep in my mind, I knew. I knew that it did matter, and I needed the benefits that would come to me if I served them well and served them prettily.

Ironically, I must be pretty, but I couldn't talk "pretty".

I swallowed my words and banished my thoughts, and walked to the direction of the guests.

"Good day," I greeted, in the liveliest voice I could muster, while thinking of ways to proving to them that I was not my looks. I was my conversation, my intellect, my wit—but for now...for now, only, I needed to work to accomplish the rest of things I must do.