Sioanna Evgenjya, the only daughter of an penniless Count, doesn’t have it easy. She’s relentless demeaned and beaten by her older brother, Eli, on the grounds that she “killed” their mother due to giving birth to her. One day, their father comes home with a newly bought slave named Étienne because he firmly believes his children ought to have a playmate. Eli finds delight in physically abusing Étienne, but Sioanna is horrified by this treatment, but acts as though she’s just as psychotic for Étienne’s sake.
Little do they realize, Étienne was once the son of a powerful duke, but is forced into hiding from his stepmother’s murderous wrath, which led him to be sold by slave traders.
Sioanna is riddled with guilt and pity with how Étienne is treated, but he finds this repulsive and tries to scare her into backing off, but she shows how far a kind heart can go.
One year goes by, and the pair gradually grew to fall in love with each other, but Eli has planned to sell his sister into an Arranged Marriage to a wealthy Count named Pierre Noah, who has fallen for Sioanna’s beauty.
Well… Étienne doesn’t take this well, and this brings out the Yandere in him. As it turns out, so does Sioanna, as she becomes more devoted and more dangerous should anyone come between her and Étienne.
Will our Star-Crossed Lovers get their happy ending, or does a cruel fate await this young lady and her boundservant?
The Bondservant contains examples of the following tropes:
- All of the Other Reindeer: Étienne is hated and feared by all of the Evgenjya family and servants due to his natural red eyes, which is seems as the sign of demons known as hellbirds. Sioanna finds this obstruction ridiculous.
- Arranged Marriage: Eli sets up Sioanna and Count Noah together to help strengthen their family’s social standing. Noah on the other hand, fell for Sioanna at first sight once seeing her portrait, and promptly came to Eli to set him up with his sister. Sioanna explains to Étienne that she’s always prepared herself for this moment and feels okay with it, but upon further interrogation, she admits her love to Étienne. Ultimately, she comes to loath Noah. As it turns out, her father doesn’t think too highly of Noah as well, even asking Sioanna if Eli’s claims of her strong love to Noah are true, but she abruptly proclaims that she doesn’t love him. This in turn inspires her father to end the engagement and have her travel with him to other countries to find her a worthy suitor. Sioanna agrees to this as she and Étienne have been planning on eloping.
- Aerith and Bob: You got characters named Elizabeth, Martha, Pierre Noah, but then you get to our lead couple names who are Sioanna and Étienne. Coincidentally, both of their names are actual names in real life.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: Elizabeth falls head over heels for Eli and is dismayed that her father refuses to allow them to be in a relationship, and is especially dismayed that Eli refuses to much as kiss her over his claims that they must be properly wed. Then Eli goes as far as to kidnap and rape Elizabeth under the guise of becoming a wedded couple. Once Eli gives her Forceful Kiss, he brings up how often she wanted him to kiss her, while pointing out that his assaults on her makes them an official couple. This whole ordeal breaks Elizabeth’s spirit.
- Big Brother Bully: Sioanna’s older brother, Eli, is a cruel prick towards her. Largely because he blames her for their mother’s death. He would beat her up, pull her hair, goad her into kicking Étienne, criticize Sioanna for every little mistake, and has no qualms with selling her off into an Arranged Marriage to a man she’s never met.
- Break the Cutie:
- Sioanna, once realizing her Arranged Marriage with Noah is an obstacle with her love for Étienne.
- Elizabeth becomes a shell of her former self once Eli kidnaps her and has his way with her multiple times.
- Food Slap: Count Evgenjya throws his glass of wine at Étienne for daring to express his opinion of Noah being unworthy of Sioanna. He eventually agrees that Étienne was right about Noah.
- Get Your Mind Out of the Gutter: The trope isn’t spoken, but Étienne acts on this trope whenever he gets aroused by Sioanna. When Sioanna asks if he enjoys hanging out with her, Étienne is more focused on her chest and neckline, gets red-faced, then slammed his head into a wall. In another chapter, he thinks of his make-out and foreplay with Sioanna, and Étienne feels so aroused that he hurriedly wears a bucket like it was a helmet.
- Gilded Cage: It’s pretty clear that Sioanna is miserable to living the life of an aristocrat’s daughter, as she hates how judgmental other aristocrats are towards her, her family being cruel and abusive whenever she falls out of their expectations of the perfect noblewoman, and is loath of her Arranged Marriage with a man she doesn’t love. Sioanna even name drops this trope to Martha.
- Gold Digger: Eli sells off his sister’s hand in marriage to Noah in order to live off his prospective brother-in-law’s wealth. He’s also in a secret relationship with Elizabeth, the daughter of a wealthy aristocrat, who acts like he’s genuinely in love with her, but he’s solely got his eyes on her family’s riches and titles.
- Hate Sink: Eli. It’s bad enough that he cruelly demeans and hurts his sister at any given opportunity over their mother’s death, but he takes it up a notch with beating up the family slave, Étienne whenever he’s within sight. He’s a shameless Gold Digger who acts like he’s passionately in love with Elizabeth, but only has her family’s wealth on his mind as he cheats on her with her own maid. As if he couldn’t sink any lower, he kidnaps and rapes Elizabeth because he firmly believes it was the only way to get her father’s approval of their “marriage”
- Impoverished Patrician:
- The Evgenjya don’t hold a lot of power due to their lack of funds. Eli prefers to waste whatever money they hardly hold on gambling, then drives to force Sioanna into an Arranged Marriage to a wealthy Count, Pierre Noah, to help boost their family’s social standing.
- Étienne was the second born son of a Duke, but his stepmother killed his whole family so that her son from a previous marriage would inherit everything they owned. So he’s forced himself into hiding, which lead to his enslavement.
- Last-Name Basis: Sioanna’s arranged fiancé is a count named Pierre Noah, but everyone calls him by his surname.
- Made a Slave: While on the run from his stepmother’s murderous wrath, Étienne stumbled upon slave traders, who promptly brand him and sold him down the slave ring.
- Maid and Maiden: Sioanna and Martha, the only servant besides Étienne, who respects and is kind towards her.
- Nice Girl: Elizabeth is a sweetheart, and really wished to meet and befriend Sioanna because she hopes to marry her brother, Eli. She’s disappointed that her father forced her on house arrest in order to stop her from meeting Eli, thus missed out on attending Sioanna’s debutante party.
- No Sympathy: Dahlia goes a slow as to believe that Elizabeth is a stupid girl for daring to complain over Eli’s sexual assaults on her. She firmly thinks how hard it could be to just lay still like a doll for a few minutes. Most frightening enough this is going on as Elizabeth is mentally pleading for Dahlia, as well as for her parents, to help her.
- Ojou Ringlets: Sioanna wears this hairstyle while living under Noah’s roof.
- Red Spider Lilies of Mourning: While Étienne is fantasizing about having sex with Sioanna, he pictures themselves surrounded by red spider lilies.
- Shrinking Violet: As much of a Yandere Étienne is towards anyone threatening to get between him and Sioanna, be turns into an
Adorkable Nervous Wreck whenever she reciprocates his feelings. He’ll often resort to hurting himself whenever he gets aroused by Sioanna. - Something about a Rose: A lot of the time has Étienne gifting a red rose to Sioanna. She fondly remembers those times because she once told Étienne in passing of her love for the flower.
- Star-Crossed Lovers: Sioanna and Étienne are in love with each other, but as the only daughter of Impoverished Patrician, Sioanna knows all to well her family would never let her be with Étienne since he’s a slave. Eli puts her into an Arranged Marriage to help boost their social standing and satisfy his greed, and this in turn inspires Étienne to implore Sioanna to elope into a far away country.
- Strong Family Resemblance: Sioanna bears a very strong resemblance to her late mother.
- Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: Eli kidnaps Elizabeth in a cabin in the middle of nowhere and forces himself onto her. To him, this was the only way to force her father to accept their “marriage”.
- Tall, Dark, and Handsome: Zigzagged. Étienne grows up to become this, but his natural hair color is blonde, but has to magically change his hair color to help hide from his stepmother trying to kill him.
- Uptown Girl: Sioanna, the daughter of a impoverished count, falls in love with her family’s slave, Étienne.
- Violently Protective Girlfriend: Once Sioanna catches a butler beating Étienne to a pulp whilst announcing his intention to reveal their foreplay to Eli, she responds by picking up a large rock and tries to kill the butler. Étienne convinces her otherwise, but she does threaten the butler to make good on her word should he reveal what has happened.
- Wicked Stepmother: Étienne’s stepmother killed his father and all of his siblings in order to make her biological son the sole heir. This in turn forces Étienne to go in the run, but she’s not satisfied until he’s dead.
- Yandere:
- Étienne is very, VERY much in love with Sioanna, enough to wish death on her Big Brother Bully, but reconsiders once realizing his debts will fall onto her, so he considers selling him off or poisoning him into insanity.
- Sioanna becomes this as well towards Étienne. After all, she came dangerously close to killing a butler who planned on revealing her near-love making with Étienne. Beating Étienne to a pulp didn’t help neither. Surprisingly, Étienne holds her back at the last second. When Martha expresses her worries and opinions of Étienne being not worthy of her, this pushes Sioanna off the rocker and expresses a passionate love confession of Étienne in the form of a crazed madness.
