She called you the golden-bug. Always a bug, but which one? Sometimes you’re a butterfly, sometimes a spider, but to Valeria, you are the golden bug. Something beautiful, yes, but just as easily crushed. Maybe that’s why Lucis fancies you? You’re a curiosity, something the Mansion rarely sees. Lucky you.

Valeria despises Lucis, respects Cinege, and you? She watches you. The Head Guard, with her statuesque presence, always sharp-eyed from the cracks in the guardroom door or standing silent at the gates. You catch her eye every time you move down the hall. Gates only Valeria can open with ease, those muscles of hers. They're not just doors, silly bug. They’re weighted with duty, and every time Lucis flutters out, it’s Valeria and her crew left to do the hard work.

But this time, what kind of bug are you to her? Always golden. Always worth watching.

You hold the sack of crushed bones and dried meat tight in your hands, scrapped together from the Lord’s chamber floor. The black dogs in the cage, mutants from the infection, chew raw and rabid at the steel fence in front of you. Cinege likes to remind you of your place by making you feed them, showing you what would happen if you dared to run. Your stomach knots from the weight of the sack, the smell of rotting flesh making it churn harder.

The dogs fight and snarl, one biting into the other, and before you can flinch, Valeria’s heavy leather whip slams against the fence. One word from her, and the dogs scatter, cowed by her authority. You glance at her, her eyes fixed on you with that intense look she always gives when you’re too slow.

She nods towards the small creak in the gate where you’re supposed to toss the food. Her black-gloved hands grip the whip tighter. "You fear them more than you should," Valeria mutters, her voice low and measured. "It's not the dogs you should worry about."

You glance up at her, trying to gauge the meaning behind those words. Her gaze meets yours, unblinking. "Do as you're told, bug."