I laid on my bed in the room I had rented in the tavern, petting Sasha’s long black hair and stroking her floppy ears as her head lay on my chest, all too aware of her softer and rounder chest pressing against me a bit lower. She was a cute dog-girl I had rescued— legally, my slave, but I took good care of her and gave her as much freedom as I could. Honestly, she was kinda dumb— without needing my orders to use her magic and with a bit of imagination, she could’ve been a top-tier sorcerer with her powers. But she was cute and loyal and warm and friendly and kind— she didn’t seem to mind being a slave, as long as it was to someone who treated her well, but the kingdom in general treated the animalfolk like shit.
I slept with her sometimes, but only when she initiated it, which was seldom— felt too rapey, otherwise, since she was my slave. She said it was fine, but she said a lot of things were fine and it was hard to tell exactly sometimes. She did like to cuddle often, though, and so did I, so the fact that my, how do you say, cock was rockhard was being studiously ignored by both of us... as it so often was.
“Fuck this is hard.” My mind was on things besides my cock right now, despite the physical reaction. “I don’t understand the political dynamics of this kingdom at all… I thought we’d just get Count Rushen in trouble by exposing his corruption, but it turns out his entire family has been thrown out of the nobility. I thought I was friends with Lady Wren, and I think she did too, but when I offered to give her some money to help her out after y’know, accidentally getting her family thrown out, she spit on me. Literally spit on me.”
“That does sound hard, Master. Is there anything I can do about it?”
I sighed. “Not really. It’s not like you could take my place. Heck, I’d rather be in your shoes right now than mine.”
“I’m… not wearing shoes?” She sounded a bit confused.
I laughed a little and scratched behind her ear gently.
“Just saying that if sounds nice if we could switch places.”
“Mmm, that does sound nice, Master….” There was something a little different about Sasha’s voice, but I was also getting sleepier so it was hard to place it exactly.
“What about you, Sasha? If you could have anything in the world, what would it be?”
“I’m sure you’ll give it to me.”
I smiled and yawned. “...yeah, anything for my cute little pet….”
That usually made her tail wag, but right now she just leaned in and kissed me on the lips, stroking my cheek— unusually bold, for her. I tried to blink awake— maybe we were actually going to do it tonight!
But as I looked up into her eyes as she drew back from the kiss, I found I couldn’t look anywhere else.
“It’s okay to just sleep for now, Master… that’s it… good girl….”
...why was Sasha calling me good girl, I wondered? But it was hard to focus, and being called ‘good’ felt nice at least… it’s not like I’d really mind being a girl… I drifted off to sleep.
When I awoke, I was lying on a warm chest— a man’s chest. I blinked and looked around, and there he was— me. Short blonde hair, blue eyes, an androgynous face…. The Hero. Me.
“Good morning, Sasha,” he said.
I did feel very well rested, but also… what? I felt softness on my chest, but… it was almost like it was my softness. I sat up and adjusted my negligee as I looked down at my body— indeed, my body was Sasha’s. Or… rather, the body I was in was Sasha’s. And my actual(?) body’s speech pattern sounded all wrong, almost feminine.
The Hero smiled, and reached out to hold my hand. “I granted your wish, Sasha— you’re my slave now. I don’t think being a slave is as easy as you might think, but you don’t seem like you’re able to handle responsibility, so I thought I’d take it, since you asked.”
...yeah. This almost sounded like Sasha, but more direct and less submissive, and with some qualities of my voice. “...Sasha?”
“Call me Master now, cutie.” The Hero(Sasha) stroked my hand with her(?) other hand.
“I’m not calling you Master, you’re—”
Her eyes shimmered, and the world got a bit hazy for a moment. “What will you call me, then?” She continued to pet my hand, not a care in the world.
“I’ll call you Master. Wait, no, Master? Master!” I actually started panicking now. Master had used her mind magic on me. This was one of the things I always thought would be scary about Sasha if she wasn’t collared and y’know, kinda dumb.
But I was starting to rethink that.
“That’s a good girl. You know, if you’re disobedient in any major way, I can just rewrite the ways you are allowed to behave. So you should be a very good girl for me, okay?”
Master pulled me closer with her hand, and I pulled back just for a moment, but she was stronger— The Hero’s body was far far stronger and faster than anyone in this world, and she pulled me on top of her herself effortlessly, my breasts down against her chest, and stroked my back and groped my butt as she smiled up at me.
My body felt really good, but it was probably just her mind magic doing this again.
“Master, please….” I looked down into her eyes, and looking back up at me I saw a smile and… sympathy, perhaps? Not enough of it.
“You’ll get used to it. I’ll be a nice Master for you. As long as you’re obedient and loyal, you can live a very happy life. Okay, Sasha?”
I whimpered, my ears and tail sinking… I didn’t have any leverage against her. I had the collar now, not her, so I couldn’t cast magic— not that I knew much. I had never needed to learn, being The Hero from Another World meant I was so much stronger and faster than the inhabitants of this one, that I could usually just dodge spells, or step in and catch someone’s arm before they even finished casting.
I was so ridiculously powerful that it was easy to be merciful, but I was always fucking up because … and now I had really fucked up. Master had complete control over me, and could overwrite whatever was left of my mind if she wanted. Maybe it would be better to just be perfectly obedient to her….
“Kiss me.” She stroked my chin gently and smiled up at me.
An order, but not one I had to follow. But if I didn’t… I swallowed, and leaned down to kiss her on the lips, and she scritched behind my ear and stroked my back, and I found myself relaxing against her, my body used to all of this.
She returned to groping my ass, and I moaned softly into the kiss, my nipples stiffening against her chest and getting a wet feeling between my legs… right. She had a pussy. Or, I had a pussy, now.
“Mmm, such a cute pet… wow, you’re getting aroused by this, aren’t you? Being my cute little slave girl~ If you had asked sooner, you could have enjoyed this for even longer.”
“I didn’t ask for this!”
“Didn’t you, though? Saying it would be nice if we could trade places… you said enough that the collar let me cast a spell to switch our minds, at least.” She ran her finger along my collar, and I swallowed, helpless.
“Your flushed cheeks are so cute… tell you what, Sasha. If you obey me all night until dawn and don’t cum, I’ll switch us back. But if you do cum, you stop complaining that I granted your wish, and do your best to be my cute loyal slave. Okay?”
“There’s no way you aren’t going to make me cum. You could use your mind magic.”
“Oh? The only thing I’ve used my mind magic for so far since you woke up is making you call me ‘Master’. And reading your thoughts a little, of course.” Frick, had I thought anything bad? At least I didn’t think of trying to murder her to get out of this… hey! This didn’t count! Even if I wanted to kill her, the physical differences between us and her magic… I had no chance against her… I started crying.
She let out a sigh and cuddled me close.
“It won’t be so bad, okay? You were always nice to me, so I’ll be nice to you. I think you will genuinely be happier this way— you’re not smart enough to navigate politics as The Hero needs to, and you’re always hurting yourself and people around you because of it.”
“I’m smarter than you!”
She smiled. “Are you? Are you really? Funny how I tended to come up with little naive suggestions whenever you were in big trouble, huh? That weren’t quite right, but pointed you in the right direction?”
“...what.” That couldn’t be. “You were deceiving me the entire time!?”
“Well, of course. Appearing too strong and smart would’ve made you worry I’d betray you. As long as I was dumb and loyal, I had nothing to fear from you— it just made you want to protect me.” She slid her hand up under my negligee, groping my bare ass, then slid her hand down between my legs, rubbing against my wet slit, causing me to gasp and stiffen a little at the sudden sensation.
“Just try it out for a bit before you decide it’s such a bad idea, okay?" She didn't stop groping me as she talked. "Think of it as a vacation, and maybe, just maybe, if you really hate it, I’ll swap us back— after I get that collar off that body, of course.”
“...really?” My ears perked up and I could feel something weird happening over my butt… oh. My tail was wagging!? It felt surprisingly natural, although my attention was immediately refocused on my slit as she rubbed her fingers against it, pressing up against my entrance.
“You’ve been good to me. I’m not going to leave you in a situation where you’re permanently miserable. That said, I do think power of all kinds is better in my hands than yours… but let’s talk about that tomorrow. For now just stop thinking like you wanted to, and I’ll give you orgasms until you beg me to stop. Okay?”
Fuck. She had got to be lying about not using her mind magic on me, that sounded really appealing. Like, really really appealing. I had been horny for her for months, and apparently that she had swapped our bodies didn’t change that.
“...Yes, Master.”
She started sliding two of her fingers into me expertly, and I squirmed against her as she hit very sensitive spots, moaning helplessly. I squirmed and panted against her, and very shortly I was cumming, screaming out in pleasure and arching my back as I grabbed onto the sheets on either side of her.
She gently pushed me off her, rolled over on top of me, naked, I realized, her hardon pressing against my pussy, and sucked and pulled on one of my nipples with her lips and teeth while her other hand groped and squeezed my other breast… those were things I had now, apparently, and fuck did she know exactly the pressure and how it felt best on my nipple, and fuck, it felt so good
“...how… how are you so good at this?” She giggled, a noise I wasn’t used to hearing in my voice.
“I know what that body likes best.” She went back to suckling and nuzzling at one breast as the other pinched and tugged at my nipple, and I cried out again, pressing up against her in ecstasy as my mind went into a pleasant blankness. I stared up at her hazily as I came down from my second orgasm, and she smiled down at me adoringly and petted my cheek, leaning down to give me a little kiss on my nose… and positioned her cockhead right in front of my pussy.
“Um… maybe we shouldn’t, I already came twice….” My pussy was very sensitive right now.
“Do you call that begging?” She thrust her cock into my pussy, and I cried out in overwhelmed pleasure, and she started fucking me hard, and my body felt so good it was uncomfortable, and I gasped and moaned and squirmed and opened my mouth to protest but she looked down at me commandingly, her eyes sparkling, and somehow I was unable to talk. Or vocalize at all. I writhed helplessly, lips parted in silent moans, as she thrust her cock deep into my pussy again and again, a steady rhythm that didn’t even stop when I came again and was in tears. She ripped orgasm after orgasm from my body, and I couldn’t beg with my voice stolen, and I just shuddered and writhed beneath her, a bundle of overwhelming pleasure bordering on pain, and I lost track of time and space and how many orgasms I had had, just floating in overwhelmed sensation as my body struggled instinctively.
Finally, she drove her cock deep inside me and filled me with her seed— something she had never let me do. She didn’t want to get pregnant, but apparently she was quite happy to get me pregnant. She snapped her fingers, and I sobbed softly, my voice breathy and helpless.
“Please Master… that felt good, but please no more… I’m going to lose my mind.…”
“Okay, my cute little pet… no more… for tonight. I would like to see you cum so much you lose your mind sometime, but let’s wait for another night.” It sounded like a joke, but after tonight, I wasn’t so sure.
I whimpered softly, and she rolled over, sliding me back to that familiar position with my head against her chest, and stroked my hair.
“It’ll be okay, my Sasha. Once you get used to this, you’ll be perfectly happy, one way or another….”
...so she’d use her mind magic to make me enjoy this if she had to. Probably already was, really, there’s no way I’d be so slutty towards someone who had just betrayed me… would I?
With those indistinct thoughts and my body pleasantly exhausted and occasionally twitching with sensation from little aftershocks, my eyes drifted close, and I fell asleep on Master’s chest.
When I woke up, Master was gone. I sat up and looked around frantically— had she suddenly abandoned me? She wouldn’t, would she? What could I do in this world alone, powerless, and looked down upon?
I saw a note on the table. “Went out to get some info. Be a good girl.” I wondered if she was going to one of my informants, or had some I didn’t know about, and sighed a little as I realized my tail was wagging from the "be a good girl" part. Some part of me really liked being a girl, huh? ...but was that my own mind, or…?
Well, not much point in worrying about it.
I got up and looked at my body in the full length mirror I had bought – surprisingly expensive, but I guess it was made of silver? I looked like Master… that is, Master’s old body in a negligee, smaller and softer and curvier than the one I was used to... although I had seldom seen her with such an uncertain look on her face, nor had I ever seen dried cum on her thighs. My hair was a bit messed up – which I had seen sometimes – so I searched around for the brush I bought for her, and finding it, brushed my hair until it looked all nice. I had brushed her hair before, but doing it myself with the mirror felt a bit different.
I then took a bath, flinching a little at the hot water against my pussy… I imagine it would’ve been a bit of a weird sensation even if Master hadn’t pounded it so hard last night. I didn’t know how I felt about that. I soaked for a while, letting my mind drift, and then focused on cleaning myself up, having to focus on my body again. I shouldn’t be so comfortable, stuck in a girl’s body, cute as it was.
I thought for a moment. Master went outside sometimes and things went fine, back when she was acting as my slave— I had given her blanket permission to defend herself if she needed to, but she never even got in fights. Therefore, I’d probably be fine going out too? Taking a walk in the park sounded nice.
I got out of the bath and dried myself off. My tail was harder to dry than I thought it would be, but nothing I couldn’t handle, and soon enough I had myself dressed up in the yellow sundress I had bought for Master, as well as a straw hat and sandals I thought the dress looked cute, but she had never liked it much and it looked cute on her body... and besides, the last few days had been very sunny and warm, it was as much practical as anything else.
I searched through Master’s purse she had left behind for her key, and it was still there, and I was about to put it in my pocket, when I realize I didn’t have any. After a moment of hesitation, I took her purse, putting the key back in it, and headed out, locking the door behind me, tail wagging slightly. I wasn’t as trapped as I thought, and in fact, I could leave right now if I wanted to. I could think about that during the walk.
I had always liked walks, right? That wasn’t a dog thing? Or a Master-enchanting-me thing? I thought back about my past decisions, and remembered going on walks a lot of times— maybe it had been partially for Master’s sake, making sure she got enough exercise, but I looked forwards to them as well. Okay. That part, at least, was me. Probably.
Unless she edited my memory too, but that seems like a lot of trouble for wanting to go on walks.
I locked the door behind me as I stepped out of the room, and as I walked down past him, the tavernkeeper didn’t really pay attention to me— we had been at the tavern long enough that he recognized me on sight, I guess, and it’s not like I was footing the bill.
A few other patrons of the tavern were looking at me, though... either other people who stayed there, or people who were getting their early daydrinking on. It wasn’t the same way as they had looked at me as a Hero— their looks were all on the spectrum of “hey, a cute puppy” to “I am thinking about fucking her”, and I kept my eyes ahead of me… looking back at that would only encourage them. Blushing probably wasn’t helping , either, but I couldn’t do much about that.
I noticed one exception among the looks— one man was staring at me as if he hated me, but it wasn’t really like he was looking at me, just… past me. Or through me. I couldn’t really place him. Probably reminded me of some slave he hated, or maybe he hated slaves in general, so I just moved on after half-glancing on his direction… it didn’t seem like he was going to act on it, and hanging around would just make things worse.
I let out my breath as I stepped outside, relaxing a little… only to realize the looks weren’t that different out here, although at least the area was busy enough I got less of them. There wasn’t really any social rule at staring against a slave, unless they were with their master and it pissed their master off. Or totally ignoring them, either, as some people seemed to do as I started to walk… it was my job to get out of the way, not theirs.
I noticed a few other sorts of looks, from those with collars, other slaves like me… mostly animalfolk, but a few humans… or at least humans as far as I could tell... and a few rarer species. It wasn’t the same sorts of look, though. Something along the lines of respect? Or… they looked up to her. I’d seen the same look directed at the Hero, so… maybe they looked up to her as someone who was the Hero’s slave? She had done a lot to fight against evil and protect all people alongside me, after all.
I walked with a bit more pride in my step, although I still had to give way to most of the humans that were milling through the street as I headed towards the park. Having got there, though, I came across a man who was beating a girl, who was just taking it, slowly standing back up each time she fell over… he was tall, but the girl was actually a little taller than he was, and he was just wailing away on her. She had pointy little ears and a striped ears, so, a cat girl, or, maybe a tiger girl…? Yeah, looked like tiger, that explained the size. Of course, that meant she was wearing a collar, too.
I had self-righteously strode up closer and closer, before realizing that I didn’t actually have anything. The law wasn’t on my side, I wasn’t The Hero so I couldn’t social brute force my way through it, and I didn’t have strength, or even magic. I couldn’t defend her, I couldn’t even defend myself.
But I felt the eyes of several other slaves on me… they expected me to do something. I don’t know what, exactly, but maybe this was the reason for their respect.
What did it, though, was that the girl was trying to get up while he kicked her, now. She was whimpering softly.
I don’t know if it was empathy, the social expectation of the other slaves here, my own expectation of ‘chivalry’ from myself, getting used to jumping into combat from when I was strong, or what, but I found myself walking even closer, my mind half-turning off as my body became imbued with adrenaline.
His eyes flickered up to me, and he sneered, giving her one last kick in the stomach before turning his attention back to me. “Just teaching my property a little lesson. What, you wanna get hit?”
I walked up to him, and looked up into his eyes steadily, even though my body was trembling slightly. “Yes.”
“...what?” His callous smile dropped away into a somewhat confused look, as he stared at me, trying to figure out what my game was.
I was also desperately trying to figure this out.
Another slave-owner nearby, holding his dogboy with his face buried to his chest, spoke up to another human woman nearby: “Really, it is in poor taste to beat a slave on such a nice day, so… vigorously.“ In poor taste, right. Perfectly within his rights, of course, but maybe embarrassment would shame him. That was the sort of thinking around here.
I curtseyed towards the man with his reddened knuckles.
“If you teach her much further through that method, I believe she will fall unconscious— perhaps you could hit me instead?” I tried to keep my voice steady and calm, but I heard a subservient and scared girl.
The woman stared at me. “...wait, isn’t that the Hero’s slave?”
Now literally everyone was looking at me and him, and he glanced around uneasily. Suddenly, he threw a slap at me cheek— a strong one, and I wasn’t used to taking hits. I found myself lying on the ground, vision blurred as I tried to refocus.
“Thanks. Such a good girl, trying to be helpful.” He smirked down at me, glanced over to his slave on the ground, and gave her another kick, but a little one.
She climbed to her feet, lurching as she tried to get up quickly despite her wounds. He walked off without looking back, her trying to catch up to his side while hanging her head and slouching as she tried to look small despite clearly being larger than him.
...I had saved her life, just maybe, for a little while, but I hadn’t really changed anything… she might get beat up to death today somewhere slightly less public, and there was literally nothing I could do about it.
I stood up, and walked back home, my own head hanging a little. I hadn’t been so powerless since I was back in my world… and even there, things had never been so fucked up… well, in some places I heard about, sure, but not right up in my face.
I got home, and hid under the covers, feeling sorry for myself. Feeling angry at myself for feeling sorry for myself. Feeling exasperated at myself for feeling angry at myself for feeling sorry for myself, because it’s not like that’d change anything either.
...maybe Master could fix things. Maybe if I asked her, she could go rescue that girl.
“No.”
“...what?” I looked up at her in confusion.
“No.”
“...why not? It’s not like she did anything bad as far as I know… she was being so obedient even though he might have been killing her….”
“Even less reason to save her, then.”
“What the fuck!?” I glared up at her. She rolled her eyes and pulled me into her lap, seating me with my back to her, facing the window, and gesturing out through it at the town we could see through it.
“Look, Sasha. There are countless slaves suffering in this kingdom. If I spend time trying to rescue every single one, one at a time, do you think I’ll get anywhere?”
“...I guess not, but that doesn’t mean… you used to help people, didn’t you? When I wasn’t around?” She inhaled. Exhaled. Squeezed me a bit closer… tightly. I wasn’t sure if she was punishing me for speaking up, or trying to comfort herself and forgetting how strong she was, but I accidentally let out a little squeak as I tried to open my mouth to complain, and she giggled, releasing me and rubbing my belly.
“Yes, when that’s all I had the power to do, it was a good use of my time. Now that I have the power to end slavery, it’s a waste of my time.”
“...maybe having me around is a waste of your time.”
“True.” She paused, uncomfortably long.
...maybe I should haven’t have said that. I shifted uncomfortably, and opened my mouth, then closed it. What could I say now?
“But,” she continued, “it helps remind me of why I’m doing this. Do you want me to sell you?”
I shook my head vigorously. Better the devil I knew than the one I didn’t.
“So you want to be my slave.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You really should. Your only job is to make me happy. Of course, if you’d rather get sold….” Her voice was teasing, but I thought this was really mean, and my eyes teared up.
“...I want to be your slave, Master.” My voice was soft and sullen. We both knew I didn’t mean it, so I guess it didn’t really matter to say the words.
“Yes, that’s my good girl... so obedient...” Her voice flowed like honey in a way mine never had in that body, and she scritched behind my ears with both hands, which felt amazing. I leaned back against her big strong body and panted softly, relaxing.
“Now. I’m going to need to figure out what sort of self-defense I can give you that I can trust you with. Until then, you’re going to need to stay close to me, and stay out of trouble, okay? I know ‘be a good girl’ was kind of an indistinct command for an idiot like you, but you get that I didn’t want you to go out and get yourself slapped by some random guy in public, right? That could’ve gone much worse.” She laughed softly.
“Sorry, Master… kind of lost track of myself and just reacted.”
“Such a strong sense of justice you have sometimes… do I need to take you around on a leash all day, pet?” Her hand stroked the side of my neck, while her other hand moved up to pet my bruised cheek. I winced at the itching as it quickly healed, the swelling reducing... I could stay still when she did it now, but it was still pretty uncomfortable. But then, the pain was entirely gone. My hand raised to feel my smooth cheek…. smooth other than the scar Sasha had gained before I owned her, that is.
“...No, Master… I’ll be good.…”
“Mmm, yes… good girl….” She started playing with my breasts and I slowly relaxed again, letting out a soft sigh.
“You’re sore from yesterday, right? I guess I should let you rest up for tonight. Or maybe….”
Her hand slid down between my legs, touching me through the cloth, and I could feel my pussy itching horribly, which was not a sensation I was used to at all. I writhed and squirmed in her lap, whining, but then I was healed there, too, and I panted softly again.
“But you’ve had a rough day from your stupidity, haven’t you?” She put her fingers up against my lips. “Suck like you mean it, and I won’t fuck you hard today.”
I wrapped my lips around her fingers and sucked with everything I had as she slowly slid them in and out of my mouth, feeling her cock grow hard against my ass at my devotion to her fingers. I started to get wet too, anticipating her cock inside me… it’s a physical reaction, so it’s not like I could help it….
She pulled her fingers back out, wiping my saliva off her fingers and onto my face, and then laid back on the bed, with me on top of her, cuddling me close.
“Okay, I’ll fuck you hard another night, then… wonder if I can fuck you so hard you actually lose the ability to form words for a bit, rather than needing to use Mind Magic for it.” She yawned and closed her eyes, turning on her side and spooning me.
I furrowed my eyebrows, a bit annoyed she had gotten me all horny for nothing… but after last night, I was afraid to ask for more. Also...
“...wait, is that something you’re into, Master? You made me not talk last night, too….”
“...huh. I don’t know, maybe? Mostly, you’re just cuter when you’re obediently being fucked without complaint rather than whining all the time.” She kissed the back of my head. “I’m sure you’ll get to where my happiness is more important than your comfort, one day.” A little shiver ran through my body. I’m pretty sure that was fear, but... maybe a little arousal, too. Fuck.
This talk was making her all relaxed, but it was mostly just making me nervous. I fell silent, and so did she.
Soon she was snoring softly with her arms wrapped around me. Wait, had I been snoring the entire time, or was this a thing about her in my body specifically? ...I didn’t suppose I could really ask.
I closed my eyes, and did my best to fall asleep.
“Okay, Sasha. Cast the spells you know, and tell me which ones you’re casting as you cast them.”
Master had released the control on my collar until sunset, and she sat in one of the chairs in our room, while I stood in front of her. Naked. I really didn’t get why I needed to be naked, and it was more than a little distracting.
“Mmm, I just know two spells: Fire,” I raised a finger and shaped my mana into the proper pattern, and a small gout of flame raised from my finger. I blinked a few times. That spell would usually just get a lighter-sized flame.
“That body’s mana is more concentrated than this one-- you’re going to have to use a small symbol to get the same effect. That’s why I didn’t want you wearing clothes for this.”
“So I have a battle spell!”
“...If you want to try to kill people in a slow and extremely painful way that doesn’t at all stop them from hurting you, sure. You were better off starting campfires with it.” Master considered this for a moment. “I suppose it’s also good for arson, now.”
I furrowed my brow at that, hoping her plans didn’t involve arson. I didn’t know if I could make myself put random people at risk like that.
“...can I put my clothes back on?” Master smiled at the very idea of that.
“No, of course not, pet.”
I flushed and rolled my eyes… I should have known it wasn’t just a safety concern.
“Um… my other spell is Wind.” A gust of wind flickered across the table, blowing a few sheets of paper onto the floor. Master narrowed her eyes at me a little.
“Pick those back up.”
I wanted to complain, but kneeled and picked them up obediently, placing them back on the table in a neat stack. Master reached down and petted my head, and when I tried to get up, gripped my hair and prevented me until I let myself stay kneeling, and then went back to petting me.
“That one is probably a better battle spell for you. Not a good one, but I’d rather have you throwing blasts of wind than blasts of fire without knowing what you’re doing. That said, neither is a good battle spell at all-- they’re wildly inefficient.”
My face fell.
“...oh.” I had learned those spells, at great effort and study, because I thought that having two elements at my command would make me a powerful battle mage, before I learned my magic pool was very… what was the word… well, it wasn’t very powerful, that’s for sure.
“On the plus side, they are absurdly simple. That’s probably a good thing to stay with for you.” Master looked up into the air, and waved her hand. “I’m gonna think for a moment, just wait there for my next words.”
I flushed, but continued to kneel. It wasn’t comfortable at all, physically or emotionally, kneeling naked on the wooden floor. I kind of wanted to ask if I could grab a pillow to kneel on or something, but also Master looked very thoughtful, and I didn’t want to disturb her... partially because I was scared what she'd do if I annoyed her, but mostly because I wanted the best spells possible from her brainstorming.
It took what seemed like eons, and by the end I was more focused on how much my knees hurt than my embarrassment at my lack of clothing or my eyes that were staring up at Master.
Her eyes slowly focused back down at me, and she smiled, petting my head. “Good girl.”
My tail started wagging, and I flushed, looking away.
“You can keep kneeling while I tell you what spells you’re going to learn, or you can sit in my lap.”
...she was absolutely going to touch me if I climbed into her lap, but her touch sounded a lot better than suffering kneeling on the floor any longer. I got to my feet with a bit of a wobble, and climbed up to sit in her lap across her thighs, my shoulder pressed against her firm chest.
She took my chin by the hand, and lifted it a little, turned it so I was looking up at her. “Now. First of all, you’ll learn Null. Null is basically offering mana to the void. If you can touch the core of a mana spell you can use Null to dispel it, but that’s usually impractical in a fight, and anything meant for long term will use the principles of magic worked into stone or metal or wood or the like, rather than mana. In short, it’s a spell that’s easy to practice having control over, because the only effect it will have is on your mana pool, and that means that casting it doesn’t tend to draw attention, because it doesn’t go anywhere… you can practice if I drag you along for the political necessities of long boring meetings and orgies and so forth. It’s also good to help you learn your mana pool.”
“It’s said that most sorcerers develop their abilities by repeatedly casting null, and the void responds by gifting them with their unique magic," she continued. "I don’t think this is true, but if it is, the odds of successfully doing it if you cast null all your life are infinitesimally small, so I wouldn’t worry about it.” She stroked down along the side of my neck and down along my arm, sending a little shiver through me.
She wrote the diagram for Null down on a piece of paper from several angles.
It was a fairly simple shape, and in under an hour I knew how to cast it… which was still too slow for her, she seemed to be getting a little frustrated by waiting for so long.
She groped my butt as I cast it the seventh time in a row, and I glared up at her.
“I’d be learning much faster if you weren’t groping me.”
She smiled and leaned in to kiss my temple, than said softly into my ear: “If you can’t cast something while you’re getting groped, you sure as hell aren’t going to be able to cast it in combat.”
“Well…” Okay, that was probably true, but she didn’t have to get so impatient about it.
“What other spells are you going to teach me?”
“What other spells are you going to teach me, Master,” she corrected.
“Well, you don’t have to call me ‘Master’,” came out of my mouth before I thought about it.
Suddenly her eyes narrowed, and she pinched my nipple hard, causing me to whine and squirm in her lap. “What was that, pet?”
“Sorry, Master!”
She let me go, and shook her head a little. “Okay. There’s three spells you’re going to learn other than that, in the near future: Wall, Heal, and Channel. Wall creates a flat, immobile magical wall. It’s upsides are that it is a very strong defensive spell that lets nothing pass through until destroyed, the downsides are it’s just as hard to take down for the one who created it, unless you just wait it out for the magic to dissipate. So don’t surround yourself with Wall spells in every direction, you’ll run out of fresh air and die. But it’s well suited to those with very concentrated mana pools.”
“...that sounds like a lot of downsides, honestly.”
“I’ve cast Heal on you before… it just creates an aura that accelerates healing in the touched area, and the power controls the radius of your hand. Do not use heal on a broken bone that hasn’t been set properly. If you cast it a little wrong, your hand will also itch. If you feel that, stop immediately if at all possible… you shouldn’t be accelerating your cell reproduction more than needed,” she stroked my belly at this. "...other kinds of reproduction, however...."
“...why are you trying to get me pregnant?”
Master smiled at that question.
“Sasha, I think you’re the sort of woman who, when carrying her lover’s child, would have little thought of betraying them as long as she and the child are protected.” I flushed bright red, but she just kept talking. “Becoming my pregnant concubine should make you nice and fully loyal to me.”
“I’m not a woman!” She slowly looked down along my naked body, then back up to my eyes, and smiled, petting my head.
“Mmm, well, I suppose if you can fully prove your loyalty to me in some other way, I can stop trying to get you pregnant… if you want. I do think our kid would be cute, don’t you?”
I was tensing up in her lap, and she stroked my back and leaned in to kiss my cheek, turning affectionate rather than directly sexual in her attentions to me as she tried to comfort me. “Mmm, it’ll be okay, pet… just trust me, okay?”
I inhaled, exhaled, trying to relax my body a little. “...tell me about the other spell. Channel?”
“Oh. Well, that one’s simple enough. Channel lets you fill someone else’s mana pool with your own mana. I’m far better at spellcasting than you, so having access to your mana pool would be of great benefit.”
I stared for a long moment. “...you only have my shitty mana pool now, huh?”
“Yes... but I can still do a lot with it, since I’m able to actually cast freely. It would be nice to have access to that body’s full power, however.” She teased her fingers through my hair softly, massaging my scalp, and I leaned against her a little.
“...you’re being nice to me today.”
“Of course I am.” She kissed the top of my head. “My cute little pet is obediently turning herself into a better tool for me. Isn’t that something that should be rewarded?” She raised my chin and looked down into my eyes at that. “Or do you have some plans to betray me with the magic I’m going to teach you?”
…seriously, how would I betray her with those spells? I guess I could... overtax her body with Heal, burn down a building with her in it with Fire, overfill her mana pool with Channel, knock her off a cliff she was dangling off of with Wind, or block off her escape with Wall.
“Yes, well, I guess you’re just smart enough to not give you full control over your magic at all times.” She sounded mildly disappointed.
“How foolish do you think I am!? I’d have to be an even bigger fool to try to kill you-- you’re the only one in the world that specifically wants me alive.”
“Mmm, symbiosis, huh? My cute little pet wants to prove she’s not a parasite? That she can support me?”
I nodded. “...you don’t have to put it like that.”
“But yes, you are turning yourself into a better tool for me. You’re going to practice making your body better for sex, turning yourself into my support caster in battle, and in all ways serving me, aren’t you, pet?”
“...you don’t have to put it like that….” I was tearing up, and she cooed softly and drew me close. “It’s okay if you want to be my tool, Sasha. You don’t have to think about complex things anymore… just follow my orders and serve me obediently, and I’ll fix everything.”
I hunched my shoulders a little, pouted. “...you’re just keeping me around because of my mana pool….”
“I’m sure I could find a slave with a better mana pool. But there’s no one in the world quite like you, in my eyes.” I blinked, and looked up at her… wait, did she like me, in some twisted, fucked up way?
“A little rude. But of course I like you, pet. You took the best care of me you could, in your foolish, bumbling way. You’re the only one who gets to stay around despite not being optimal. Everyone else in this world….” She smiled, staring off into the distance with fervor in her eyes, seeing some distant future I could not. “...Well, if they’re going to get in the way, their lives aren’t really that big of a deal, are they? But my cute little pet who took such good care of me and is learning to be my loyal tool? To be utterly devoted to me? My slut to use however I want?”
She stroked my sides, and smiled at me as I stared up at her with slightly parted lips, a bit overwhelmed and having no idea what to say.
“As long as she’s my good girl, I’m going to protect her,” she said softly.
A sudden submissive need to do whatever Master wanted flowed through me, as my mind grabbed onto that idea of being protected by Master. This world was scary, and Master was strong, so Master protecting me was… I shook my head a little, bewildered.
“Oh, I saw that, Sasha… and I’m going to make sure you feel that more and more….”
“...did… did you put that in my mind?”
“Why would I do that? Enchantments can be disenchanted. But an utterly loyal pet… well, she’ll return to her utterly loyal state no matter what enchantments are thrown on her, in time.”
“I’m going to train your mind, body, and soul that every bit of you belongs to me, and you’re going to love it. Okay? Mmm, yes, good girl… it’s okay to get excited….”
I… I was getting wet as she stroked my body, even though she wasn’t going anywhere particularly lewd with her hands? I squirmed out of her lap, and ran over to hide under the covers, trembling, as if it would protect me from her and her magic.
She laughed, but let me hide under the covers, letting me pretend that they were some form of real protection. That I had any protection from anything besides her.
It was morning, and I had just put my clothes on. Master had watched me the entire time with a languid smile, which didn’t make me exactly more comfortable when doing it, but given that she clicked her tongue at me when I tried to hide my body, I did my best not to actually cover myself up… although I did at least try to angle her at an angle that would be less revealing, since I doubt she’d figure that out just from the angle.
“Probably not, but you do remember I can hear your thoughts, right?” Fuck.
“Sorry, Master….” I turned to face her, and did my very best not to hide myself as I dressed. It was colder than yesterday, so I pulled on my black stockings, hooked them up to my garter belt, and pulled on a long, black and white dress that reminded me a little of the maid aesthetic. The skirt was split in the back to allow for a tail to poke out. Most clothing for animalfolk didn’t have any particular focus on being super private on how they let the tails out, rather, if anything, some flaunted it… I tried not to think about that….
Well, I reminded myself so as to refocus on something else, the maid aesthetic wasn’t an aesthetic here… maids weren’t a thing here, really, you had slaves, which could be told by their collars, and maybe personal guards for the very rich and paranoid, who would perform cleaning duties in addition to their other tasks– slaves were less trustworthy than wellpaid and respected people, it was generally agreed, just most people couldn’t reasonably afford the cost difference.
“That’s quite a tangent. Trying not to focus on the fact that you’re putting on a little show for me?”
“...um, wasn’t trying to in particular, Master, my mind just tends to wander, so….”
She smiled lazily. “I noticed… as I noticed your arousal.” She slowly sat up, stretched her arms over her head. “Much as I’d like to lie around and use my cute toy all day, I do have some business to get to, though.”
“So... I should just stay here all day?” I probably shouldn’t wander around right after yesterday, but I was still a little disappointed.
She pondered that for a moment, looking me over. “You can come if you promise to be perfectly, and I mean perfectly, obedient during it.”
...this was almost certainly a trap where she’d end up pinning me against a wall and fucking me… but I nodded anyway. It's not like any of my choices would stop her from doing whatever she wanted with me, so at least I could get a nice walk.
She smiled at me, and my tail started to wag a little. “Good girl. Today we’re going to take a carriage to meet an old acquaintance of ours.”
“Hold my hand.“
I hesitated for a moment, but it seemed silly to hesitate… maybe it was something that was needed for the spell to work. I reached out and took Master’s hand, and she lead me towards the tower, and we walked right past the two guards who were standing watching there, with them not seeming to even notice us– rather, they were quietly describing little details of the changing scenery to each other with a bit of bravado, as if it were a contest between the two. I tilted my head, a bit confused, but we kept on moving on.
“I guess you wouldn’t be used to it. It’s a game played by guards, the point is to see more things than your opponent. Most who can afford guards approve of it, or at least tolerate it, because it helps one practice alertnes and heightens a guard’s focus on their surroundings. It does take up a bit of your focus to play it for a while, though, which makes you become tired more quickly, and, as a bonus for us specifically, makes you weaker against mind magic. Not everyone’s minds find it quite as easy to surrender to magic as my pet’s.” I glared up at Master. She smiled, not looking at me, instead peering up the spiral staircase ahead of us.
“If your mind magic can’t fully overpower him, l don’t see the point of asking Count Rushen anything, Master– why would he talk to you after you ruined him?”
She smiled mysteriously and ruffled my hair. “Why indeed?”
Soon enough, we came to his cell, about midway up the tower, with no guard in front of it. It was isolated from the other cells, as were all cells in the Tower of Loneliness– the whole place seemed like constant solitary, this definitely would’ve counted as some sort of war crime or abuse in my world.
Count Rushen stood looking out of a small grated window in the cell, murmuring words softly to himself… I wondered if he had gone a little mad already, or if he was playing the same game as the guards outside in an attempt to keep his mind sharp.
Master started to pull her hand away, and I let go of her reluctantly, not feeling quite at easy in this place… at least it wasn’t very dirty? She bowed to Count Rushen.
“Your lordship.” There was genuine regret in her voice.
“You dare mention ‘Lordship’? From the one who stripped me of it?” Count Rushen– well, just plain old Antony Rushen now… Tony Rushen? Maybe that was too informal…
Antony turned around, and didn’t even look at me… I didn’t know if Master’s magic was keeping his eyes off me, or if I just didn’t count as significant in his eyes, being a slave and all. His once perfectly trimmed beard was now a little more unkempt, and his clothes were closer to a high servant’s than that of a noble’s.
Master placed a hand on her broad chest, and I was reminded I used to be inside that body. “I… was foolish. I don’t approve of what you did, but I didn’t expect your entire family to be expelled. From what I can tell, that’s not exactly the normal punishment for your level of corruption, either.”
Antony nodded once. “It’s just the slightest little bit unusual, yes.” His voice was acidic.
“So… I figure an enemy of your family must have orchestrated this…?” Master’s voice sounded a little confused and uncertain.
“It stands to reason.” He was sounding increasingly impatient.
“Sorry, your Lordship… Er, that is… well, I’m just sorry.” Master looked down at his hands, examining them for a moment, and I blinked as I realized this was something I did… not that I had done it recently, as that always reminded me of my hands being different, and also my breasts… not that this body was the worse, it was just… I realized I was getting distracted from the conversation at hand.
“Noted. Is there anything else you would like to add?”
“Well… I thought if I could find someone in another prominent family that had done the same level of corruption, prove it, and another, maybe the Rushen family would be reinstated…?”
“Yes… perhaps….” Antony looked out the window for a long moment. This is the same man who had had Master… no, not the current Master, nor me, precisely… had had this body kidnapped, at one point. This was why I had been so focused on exposing his corruption, but I turned up more dirt than I thought. Perhaps I shouldn’t have turned it over to the crown.
“It’s a solid plan”, he said after a while, but there was little hope in his voice. “I’ll tell you the two families that have some interesting little goings-on. Are you going to be able to remember this?”
“I’m not the best at memorizing long lists of details, that’s why I brought Sasha– she’s good at memorizing!”
Antony’s flickered over to me for a moment, but while there was a flicker of recognition, now that he noticed me, there was no emotion there– I was simply a tool to him, and he had no love or hatred of tools. “I see.”
He started to chant off an array of details of various laws and corruption scandals, in the softly-rhyming way that was used to memorize details in this world orally… books weren’t quite so ubiquitous in this world.
I nodded my head slightly in time to his rhythm as I had seen Master do when she was memorizing, but it was mostly in one ear and out the other, since I was missing both all the cultural references and laws he was citing.
Meanwhile Master watched with a slightly confused expression on her face, her head moving slightly in time to his rhythm despite her efforts to hold back– this sort of memorization was engraved in her, and here she was memorizing it.
Soon enough, though, the chant came to an end, and Antony raised an eyebrow.
“Are we finished?”
“Uh… yeah, sorry again about everything… I didn’t intend for things to go this far….”
“What’s done is done.”
“Is there anything else I can do for you?”
“You can slit your throat.” There was no malice in Antony’s voice.
“Well, that’s a little….” Master opened her mouth, paused, and then closed it, shifted her position a bit, looking particularly uncomfortable. I… I didn’t look that foolish when I messed up... did I?
Antony turned away regally, and looked back out the window without further comment.
Master looked down at me with a slight smile, and took my hand as we walked down the stairs, past the guards standing there and playing their little game, and back down the street, back to the carriage she had rented.
Once we were inside the carriage, she tilted her head to one side. “Do you understand what happened there?”
“Um… you got information so you could get the Ruthen family reinstated?”
“No, that royalty would reinstate them is, essentially, unthinkable. I floated that plan because I thought Count Ruthen would believe I believed it. Count Ruthen’s actual plan is to set me against his old enemies. He’s the sort of man who would set a ship on fire if he was dying on it.”
I stared at Master for a long moment. “So… why are you doing that?”
“Corruption matters little to me, in the greater scheme of things, but they’re either going to follow or not follow precedent with every following noble family. If they follow precedent, we get rid of a vast swathe of the current nobility, leaving a massive power vacuum. If they don’t, or better yet, only do for some, it will make the nobles paranoid. Either way, it will lead towards the sort of chaos that can turn into a nice war.”
“...isn’t war a bad thing, Master?”
“Undoubtedly, but it is one of the very best things for producing change. Maybe if we’re lucky, I can just pull off a coup.”
“You’re going to hurt a lot of people….”
Master shrugged and reached over to ruffle my hair. “A lot of people are hurt every day, cutie.”
“...yeah but… I don’t like you being a part of it….”
Master stared at me uncomprehendingly. “You used to hurt people every day."
“Yeah, but those were bad people, and…” I faltered. I certainly didn’t know how to explain normal morality to Master, and after a moment, I shook my head and switched topics. “...so, like, what was royalty’s goal in taking down the entire Ruthen family? Even if they were manipulated, they must have something they’re thinking of doing… otherwise why do something so potentially destabilizing?” Master blinked a few times, then smiled down at me with the sort of pride you’d have in your pet dog for figuring out a trick. Maybe she hadn’t even thought of that, and was trying to cover it up…?
At that thought, she laughed. “No, no, it’s just… that’s a good point, Sasha… I didn’t think you’d think of that.” She scritched behind my ears with both hands, and it felt really good and made it hard to think further. “But the answer, sadly, is that I don’t know the true answer to that question yet. Maybe I’ll find out in the process, but it’s more important that I have a good excuse to investigate everyone for corruption and call up a storm across this land.”
It was my turn to blink a few times. “...Like, literally...?”
“...no, that’s called a metaphor, pet. See, rather than the literal meaning–” I growled, cutting Master off.
“I know what a metaphor is!”
She smiled in response, and pulled me into her lap.
During the entire ride back, she was teasing me, both with her words and her hands, and so when she led me back towards our room at the tavern at a languid place, I was already wet. It’s not like I could resist her, so I might as well enjoy it, right…?
She took my shoulder and pinned me against the wall as she kissed me deeply, not caring if anyone else was in the hall to see, and I moaned into the kiss, only the fact that we were outside stopping me from touching myself as her tongue explored my mouth.
She pulled out her key and put it into the door, the door moved slightly open with a creak, and she suddenly pulled back, glancing around, and then looking over at the door. My eyes followed hers, and she pointed with her hand to the handle.
I realized there was a hole in the wood to the side of the door, splinters of woods on the ground, and the lock mechanism was still firmly in place– someone had broken into our room by physically forcing the door open, and the weakest part – apparently the flimsy frame, here – had cracked.
She waved her hand at me, and I stepped back, and she opened the door to our room, closed it, and started cursing under her breath. She shook her head, took my hand, opened the door, and stepped in. On the floor, with a cloak lying underneath her, was the tiger-girl I had seen getting beaten up earlier, curled up, with her tail around her. Up a bit closer now, and not hyperfocused on her aggressor, it was easier to see all her scars… and with all the bruises and wounds she had on her body, she seemed to be only adding to her collection.
“So this is the one you ‘rescued’? This is why you should never be nice to cats.” She shook her head. “So much for that incident remaining low-profile.”
I blinked a couple of times. “Why do you say that?”
“This woman was once one of the most infamous gladiators of all time– Valenz the Coward.”
We stood over the fallen tiger lady… she seemed to still be breathing, at least.
Master stared off into the distance with a slight smile and a sort of vacant expression.
I blinked… I hadn’t seen that look on her since she switched places with me. “...you okay there, Master?”
“Shhh, quiet, trying to think, Master.” From her superior tone, I gathered she hadn’t meant to say ‘Master’… actually, maybe she had said my original name instead, whatever that was. Maybe I should try to read her lips next time… but how would I even know when or if there would be a next time?
For a moment I felt adrift, more disconnected than ever from the world I had came from without even the knowledge of the name my parents had given me. Not that I thought much of them, but still. It was a bit lonely.
I looked down at the sleeping tiger. “Can you please heal her, Master? I know you care about slaves, whatever your... apparent prejudice against cats is.”
She looked over at me distractedly. “There’s nothing wrong with cats, there’s just… when growing up as a dog, you hear a lot of stuff, and it’s easy to come out when you’re angry.”
“Doesn’t that mean you are, on some subconscious level, prejudiced against them?”
“Sure, probably.” She rolled her eyes, and kneeled down next to the former gladiator once know as Valenz. Or currently known as Valenz?
“What’s her name now?”
“Valentine, Princess Asperia renamed her. I suppose I can tell you a highly abbreviated version of the story as I heal her, it’ll take a bit to do well, and she’s kinda famous among slaves.” She pulled a potion from her belt – mana potion maybe, judging from the color – and chugged it before making a face. I could sympathize. It’s not that the sickly sweet taste of mana potions tasted bad, but they always made you feel sick to your stomach a few hours after you drank them.
I sat down on the edge of the bed and watched as she ran her hands over Valentine’s body, but there was none of the lewdness she did to me in her hands, just purely a clinical thing as she tried to efficiently heal every part of the larger woman with the magic emanating from her hands. If anything, she looked a bit distracted. I didn’t know how to even approach feeling about this.
“It was a few years back when Valenz the Gladiator, as she was then known, first appeared in the arena. She had been trained for years, of course– all the gladiators were. Does your world have gladiators? They’re all slaves, live to fight each other… there’s a lot of casualties.” She ran her hand over Valentine’s brow.
“No serious head wound, it seems… that’s good… where was I…” She nods. “So, she first appeared in the arena there. She disarmed her opponent, and defended unarmed attack versus unarmed attack, but didn’t kill him despite it supposed to being a match to the death… now, this wasn’t that unusual in itself, fresh gladiators are sometimes more afraid to kill than die, so she was beaten a bit, and then thrown back into the queue for the arena. Most people, when people continually try to kill them and the crowds are chanting for death, learn to fight back. Not Valenz, though.”
“In match after match, even though the odds were more and more stacked against, her, she didn’t kill a single foe, neither person nor animal. Finally, she was matched up against a dragon, and the two just sat in the arena, neither willing to make an offensive move. She started singing to it, actually, and it sang back. They finished the song, and just… sat there. The arena was silent as the grave– no one knew how to react, although they certainly couldn’t claim it wasn’t a spectacle.”
“It was at this point that Princess Asperia jumped down into the arena, and walked up to her, and cast Amplify– a lot of nobles have learned Amplify, it’s a good way to speak to crowds. Valenz kneeled before her, and the Princess asked why Valenz never fought, despite facing death.
’I decided a long time ago not to kill others to live, your highness.’, stated Valenz nobly.
The Princess was a bit taken aback– one could say many incredible things about royalty, but not that they didn’t kill others to live. ‘You’re incredibly strong. Couldn’t you have fought and escaped, if you fought seriously?’
It was then that Valenz smiled. ‘I decided a long time ago not to kill others to live.”
There was a long silence in the arena on that day. This was completely unprecedented, and some felt a bit uncomfortable as they realized all the entertainment they took from the death of others, and some felt angry that they’d be implicitly accused by a mere slave. Still, they could hardly jeer with the Princess standing there, it could be taken as treason.
‘Would you rather be a sex slave than fight?’ Valenz stared at the Princess in disbelief, then kneeled before her and pressed her forehead against the ground.
‘Please, yes, your highness!’
‘I decree that, beginning next week, any foolish gladiator that wishes to become a sex slave rather than live the life of a gladiator, the most exalted and luxurious occupation a slave has… has that option. I’ll set up the details within the week. As for this girl… she’s named Valentine, now.’”
Master rolled Valentine over gently, and ran her hands along her back.
“By only disobeying one command over and over again, Valenz managed to change her path in life, something normally impossible for a slave… if only because of a literal Royalty Out Of The Sky scenario. Even those who think she’s foolish are impressed with her, especially slaves. There’s other less reliable tales about her, too.”
“...you don’t have the same hero worship?”
“I think she should have organized an escape, and killed as many of those who worked for the arena as possible on the way out. She was certainly strong enough to, but she chose keeping her own hands clean over the good of the many.” She paused in her healing for a moment, stared down at Valentine. “It was the Princess, not her, who opened up the way for others.”
“But… she was my role model, in a way, once upon a time. She showed me that if you keep on trying, there’s some sliver of a chance that you can accomplish the impossible. Even if you’re a slave.”
I was silent for a little while as I watched her heal Valentine, gently running her hands over her body. Perhaps this woman was the inspiration for Master to swap bodies with me… but I could hardly hold it against her. Rather, I felt a little shamed– there was no force pressing me to, since I was once strong beyond measure, and yet I had taken a fair number of lives ‘for the greater good’. Bad people, of course, or people who I had at least thought were bad, but… in a way, perhaps I was closer to Sasha than Valentine.
Finally, Master gently rolled Valentine on her front. “Get in front of her, and put your hand on her head as if you’re healing her, and I’ll remove the sleep spell. Everyone knows you as the healer, not I, and we have other things to focus on.” A thought occurred to me as I got into position.
“...wasn’t Princess Asperia the one summoned me?”
“Yes. Now make your best concerned expression.”
“I am concerned!”
"That's the spirit!"
I shook my head, and looked down at Valentine, letting my worry show on my face. Someone would have to be desperate to break into the Hero’s room halfdead, doubly so a slave.
Valentine’s eyes slowly fluttered open, and she smiled up at me.
“Oh, hey. It’s you again. Sasha, right?” She started to sit up, carefully, but seeing as her wounds were entirely healed, blinked a few times. “Your healing abilities really are top-notch.”
I flushed and nodded a little, receiving the praise for something I hadn’t done.
Master leaned in above us, and Valentine blinked, and quickly moved into a typical sex slave kneeling position with her legs spread and her hands on the floor in front of her, showing off her muscular thighs and arms in a way that I don’t think the pose was really meant to, but I certainly wasn’t about to complain about.
“O one who travels from the furthest reaches, thank you for allowing me in your room.”
Master blinked a few times, and tilted her head to one side.
I tried not to glare at her for playing dumb. “...is that some sort of formal address, Master…?” ...I still played along, though.
“Oh, that’s where I heard it! Um, hi, Valentine... please, be at ease. I’m no good with all that formal talk.” She laughed in a bit of a self-deprecating way, again mimicking me to an extent I was uncomfortable with.
Valentine moved into a more normal kneeling position, and looked up at her with professional submissiveness, like a friendly customer service worker or something I guess, only with a bit more respect and worship thrown.
Master looked down at her, and reached her hand towards her head. “Why did you come to me?” She pulled back her hand a little. “...ah, sorry, is it okay if I pet your head, Valentine?”
The tiger-girl blinked at the novelty of being asked permission for something, but managed to get her head together and respond almost immediately. “Of course,” she responded with a smile, seeming pleased.
Master started petting her head with clear satisfaction. I wanted to pet her head too! But it was hardly something I could ask for, nor could I ask for headpats of my own.
“As for why I came to you, sir…? My current Master believes I am an assassin, and since he could not get me to confess, tried to kill me. I figured I might as well run to someone and try to survive… it’s not like I could continually fend off my master’s attempts to kill me, after all. So I needed help.”
“Miss Sasha here saved my life before, and I have heard the rumors of you being very kind, and helping out slaves with no benefit to yourself at times… truly a hero among heroes… so I thought I’d come here. We were both chosen by Princess Asperia, as well, and I trust her judgement.”
Master furrowed her brow, looking down at Valentine with a mixture of concern and discomfort. “Yeah… I’m more the sort of person who fights, though, so I don’t know what you could do by my side… and more importantly, I don’t really know how to resolve legal problems…? Maybe you’d be better off going on your own, before I mess up and get you in trouble….”
“Why don’t we take her to Princess Asperia, Master?" I said. "It’d be a bit of travel, but we have reasons to speak with her, don’t we?”
Master looked over me, annoyance flickering over her face for just a moment before she nodded. “Yes, that seems like a good idea… if you’re okay with it, Miss Valentine? I want to protect you, but if you think your chances are better on your own….”
Valentine flushed a little and shook her head a little at the more formal address that wasn’t generally applied to slaves, disrupting Master’s continued petting of her head a little. “Ah, you certainly don’t need to call me ‘Miss’, Sir.”
“Oh, my bad… yeah, Sasha tells me that too… just feels weird to be treated with formal language sometimes, I guess.” Master laughed self-deprecatingly. “I’m going to go grab a quick disguise for you, and you figure out if there’s anything you need to do in town before we leave, okay?”
“Thank you, Sir!” Valentine's voice still had that cheerful further-than-customer-service sort of tone.
Master left, leaving the two of us alone in the room.
Valentine’s posture immediately relaxed, and she took my hands in mine, smiling at me. “Thank you so much! I’m glad to be in the hands of two trustworthy people like you.”
I inhaled and looked away… if I told Valentine, she’d be in danger.
Valentine blinked as she looked down at me. “...are you okay?”
My mind searched for some excuse. “Oh, just… you’re stronger than I am, I’m wondering if Master will discard me in favor of you.”
Valentine considered this for a moment. “Even if he decides to claim me, I’ll put in a good word for you and your abilities… but I don’t think he will. I’m not a healer like you, you’re more valuable in every sense than you think. You’re a little cutie, too, I can tell Sir is attracted to you. Me… he’s helping me because you helped me, I think, and because he’s just a helpful sort of guy. I’m not a warrior, and if he wanted a sex slave, he could have one.”
I flushed and studied the ceiling, causing Valentine to giggle a little and pet my head. “...yeah,” I agreed as I enjoyed her hand running over my hair and scritching behind my ear. “He really cares about slaves, in his own way.”
“I’ve heard the same about you. You’re a hero among slaves.”
I laughed awkwardly as I got credit once again for something I had little to do with. Master had always been trying to find better places for abused slaves to live and so forth, back when she was my slave, and I was just kind of pulled along by her enthusiasm. “Ah, well, I never really did much… just what I could, you know?”
“Nonsense. I think stories of you are spoken more of than me.”
“Well, they’re hardly likely to speak your own stories in front of you, are they…? Hard to ascertain the actual truth there….”
She blinked a few times, then nodded. “Yeah! You’re smart, too.”
Perhaps she was implying she had heard otherwise, though I didn’t hear it in her voice.
I smiled awkwardly. “Well, yeah, it’s... not good for a slave to appear too smart.”
“...yeah. I guess it would weaken people’s respect for your Master if it was known he followed your lead on some things.”
“...yeah.” Huh, so Master pretending she was dumb had probably helped me in some way… even if that wasn’t her intention. “...well, given recent events, having followed my advice might make a good excuse."
“...so demoting the Rushen family wasn’t intentional on his part.” Valentine didn't sound surprised.
“Yeah, she didn’t really plan for that.”
“...she?”
I grimaced. “...maybe I am dumb… don’t tell anyone, but I’m pretty sure Master… kinda thinks of herself as a girl. So, like… it slips out sometimes when I get too relaxed.”
Valentine tilted her head to one side, than the other. “Huh. She should see a transmutationist.” A little bit of panic ran through me. This was actually my body we’re talking about.
“Wouldn’t people see her as less of the Hero that way?”
“Nope! There’s been a few heroes who switched sexes. Now, Fallen Hero Azkael, that’s one she shouldn’t mimic.” I stared blankly, and she looked at me in disbelief.
“You know, the one who had himself changed into a wolf-boy. That sort of transmutation is forbidden. Ended up siding with the animalfolk, raising a revolution, and getting executed.” She stared at my face, and gently stroked my cheek. “You seem really worried by the idea of her changing shape even without the story of Fallen Hero Azkael… you know, she'll probably still be attracted to you if she changes....”
“Do I?” I reached up to touch my face.
Master could literally do whatever what she wanted with my body. My former body, too. What would that body that was once mine even look like as a girl…?
We set out after dressing Valentine in a large robe and mask. At the gate, one guard questioned it, but Master told her to remove her mask, and seeing what was beneath it, they immediately apologized and said she could put the mask back on… I assume Master was playing some visual trick on their mind.
Then we started our carriage ride towards the capital. We had a couple days. I was worried it was going to be awkward as hell – I did not know how to act as ‘Sasha’ around Master, really, even if she could copy me, and mostly fell silent and blushed, more conscious of my current status – but Valentine seemed to sense my unease, and lead light conversation on various topics, which Master could keep up with, at least, although she pretended to not know things a rather annoying amount of the time. This is me you’re representing here, darn it! The Hero From Another World is not completely ignorant! I sometimes contributed when I had a thought, but mostly, I left the conversation to them.
“Throw down your valuables, and you get to live!” came from outside. Master perked up immediately, and I became very alert, while Valentine frowned slightly and reached her hand towards the door.
Master shook her head. “I’ll take care of it…" she looked to Valentine and winked "...and don’t worry, I’ll do my best not to kill any of them.”
Master stepped outside, and after a moment there were screams, then quiet talking I couldn’t make out. Soon enough, Master was back in the carriage, and we were riding on. I looked up at her curiously… did really no one die there? Valentine was looking to Master expectantly as well, and Master looked between the two of us, then crossed her arms against her broad chest.
“Half of them fled once they realized who I was, the other half surrendered. I gave each of the surrendering ones a gold coin, and told them to find a better life than banditry. I’m not sure that they will, but it’s kind of the most I can reasonably do.”
Valentine smiled at Master, her eyes sparkling a little. “That’s very kind of you.” Her voice wasn’t flirtatious, exactly, but it still made me nervous… this was Master’s literal childhood hero here, whose life she had rescued, being impressed by her. She was stronger and tougher, more famous, more beautiful, in a rugged way, and would make an excellent symbol if she became Master’s slave. Sure, she refused to kill anyone, but it’s not like I had the ability to kill anyone who was halfway resisting in the first place in this body, and I was getting less eager to kill people now that I knew what it was like to be weak, too.
Master looked over to me and smiled, reaching over to ruffle my hair, and then pulled me close, cuddling me against her side. “Don’t look so worried… maybe some of them will listen. There’s good and obedient people everywhere, after all.”
I just got more nervous. I had been somewhat obedient, but that was more under duress than anything.
Still, nothing immediately to lose my status seemed to be forthcoming, and I ended up dozing against Master’s side as the two of them chatted.
It was evening when I woke again, and Master told Valentine to help our driver set up camp, he had something to talk about with me.
The driver flushed a little and looked with blushy nervousness towards me and Master, and I just smiled back at her– apparently lots of people hero-worshipped Valentine a little. Valentine moved a bit closer and sat down next to her on the ground and talked in calm tones, as if trying to soothe a nervous animal, and I watched for a moment, but soon enough, Master took my hand and drew me behind a copse of trees.
“I have no current intentions to replace you with Valentine,” Master informed me in a soft voice almost immediately. “You’re not wrong about her strengths – well, personally I think you’re cuter, both in looks and personality – but handling her would be a lot more work, and if she disagreed with my method, she’d be more likely to be disruptive.”
“Aren’t you just complimenting yourself there?”
Master smiled. “Halfway, sure, but the other half was specifically for you.”
I blushed and looked away at the swarm of butterflies landed on the tree, which certainly stood out. “Are they doing a migration?”
Master glanced over to them with disinterest. “No idea.” ...apparently her apparently encyclopedic knowledge on some things didn’t extend to butterflies.
“I only focus on learning useful things,” Master replied to my thought.
“Why did you take me out here?” I asked, tilting my head to one side.
“One, to reassure you. Two…” She took hold of my shoulder, and pushed me back against a tree, smiling down at me. “Valentine sort of interrupted things for us this morning, and I intended to use my cute little pet’s body.”
I flushed, getting wet almost immediately… I had to say something, quick. “Um, wait!”
Master covered my mouth with her other hand, and raised an eyebrow. “Quietly, pet.” She removed her hand and looked to me expectantly. Okay, I had no idea what to say, I just… things were happening very quickly. My mind searched recent history for what I could say.
“Body. There’s something important Valentine told me… you could go see a transmutationist, if you’re uncomfortable with your body.”
Master tilted her head to one side. “...wouldn’t that be more suspicious?”
“...no? You could justify some small behavior changes more easily, right?”
Master laughed, and leaned down and in to kiss me, slowly and langorously, keeping my shoulder pinned to the tree as her other hand ran up my thigh and side until she was gently groping my breast as I moaned into her mouth.
I was panting softly when she removed her mouth, and stared up at her, and she petted my head, scritching behind my ear.
“You’ve really accepted that we’ve exchanged bodies, haven’t you? Offering up your old body to be altered however I want.. just to make me more comfortable… what a loyal little slave….” My mind instinctively panicked at this entire line of reasoning.
“Um, no! Maybe I just want to be a girl!” Fuck.
Master stared down at me for a long moment, and smiled. “Well… I suppose you’re very welcome, then. I’m more than happy with this trade too.”
I opened my mouth, but couldn’t get the words out. I felt like I was blushing with my whole body. Master probably couldn’t read my thoughts, as I wasn’t having a coherent one.
She started groping me with both hands, focusing on my neck and breasts and thighs and ass and rubbing against my pussy, seemingly deliberately reminding how much of a girl I was right now, and how much under her power I was. My moans started getting louder, and I covered up my mouth with one hand, trying to muffle my increasingly loud moans that Valentine and our driver might here, but Master continued to grope me ruthlessly for a little while.
She took my chin in her hand and made me look up at her– which actually took me a little out of it, staring back at my own face. “I’m allowed to do absolutely whatever I want, right, pet? Both of these bodies belong entirely to me, isn’t that right?” I whined softly, scared, but nodded a little… Master had made it clear that I had to absolutely obey her beforehand, and maybe if I was a good girl, she’d make me feel good and keep me and I’d be safe… my tail thumped against the tree. Master laughed softly.
“Oh, my little pet is so excited…” She pushed me down to my knees, and pulled out her cock, rubbing it against my face and then pressing it against my lips. “I’m going to fuck your throat now, pet.”
It was an order, not a suggestion, and somehow this made me wetter. I liked girls! I just suggested she become a girl! But her cock pressing against my lips… well, I guess she was a girl, in a way… as I contemplated all of this, her cock slowly slid into my mouth as I didn’t resist, and then, without waiting, she slowly pressed it down my throat.
To my own surprise, I didn’t gag, but it was far from comfortable, and I could feel my eyes watering as she slowly pumped her cock up and down my throat, my hands gripping my thighs as I tried to stay as relaxed as I could in this situation, that she was relentlessly petting my head and scritching behind my ears as she fucked my throat definitely helping.
I seemed to just be getting more aroused… mind magic on her part, no doubt, or maybe all the petting and ear scritching, it was hard to tell, I felt dazed… and eventually she pulled her cock back out of my mouth, and I gasped for air.
“Very good, pet….” She lifted me to my feet and turned me around, pressing the side of my face and my chest against the smooth bark of the tree, and pulled up my skirt, pressing it into my hands. “Hold this up so I can fuck you.”
I gripped onto my skirt and she groped my ass a little, then parted my cheeks and started to press her cock, lubed up with the thick saliva of my throat or maybe some magic as well – it seemed more slippery than just saliva – and I tensed up, whining softly.
She petted my back, then pinned my shoulder against the tree hard and held a large hand around my neck, leaning in and speaking softly into my ear, “Just relax pet… your body has taken larger cocks up the ass than this, after all….”
With no other choice, I did my best to relax, my body trembling slightly as her lubed cock very slowly spread my ass open, and sunk deep into me, a little satisfied moan of hers in my ears as I panted and made some sort of noise, it was really hard to focus on anything my body was doing other than my Master holding me here pressed against the tree and her cock deep inside me in a way I had never felt before, which felt really weird.
However, I felt strangely relaxed and submissive, and she started slowly and gently fucking my ass, kissing and nipping at the back of my neck while she petted and groped me with her hand that wasn’t holding me against the tree, and I started to moan with increasing loudness and lack of shame, which she did nothing to dissuade.
She started to fuck me just a bit faster, and soon, buried her cock deep in my ass, and I could feel the heat of her cum flowing into me. I was a mixture of dazed and aroused right now, but it hadn’t been enough to make me cum, and I whined softly as she pulled her cock out of me, sinking helplessly to my knees against the tree as she stopped holding me up.
“Ah, you want to clean up for me? Good girl~” She held her cock to my lips, dripping with her cum and my saliva, and I hesitated for a moment.
“Mmm, still too dazed? Guess I’ll have to use your throat to clean it off….” That got me to focus, and I started licking her cock clean, and she petted my head… fuck, how did that feel so good? Was this an animalfolk thing, or is it just that no one before Master had ever petted me? I pressed my thighs together, rubbing them slightly against each other, and looked up at her pleadingly. She blinked, and looked down at me with confusion, which was definitely an act because she could read her mind.
“Is there something you want, pet?” I tried to glare up at her, but I don’t think it came across very angry, as she just giggled and scritched behind my ears.
I couldn't help but nuzzle against her hand as I looked up at her pleadingly. “Please, can I cum, Master…?”
She considered this for a long moment, petting me as she did. “Well, you have been very good and obedient today… other than this morning. You sort of invited Valentine along and decided our destination without asking me, didn’t you?”
“It… it was the right decision…?”
“Yes, but you shouldn’t have been so open with it, and you do need to fully understand your place as a slave girl… no more touching yourself or orgasms until we’ve parted with Valentine… well, I may call on you to serve me more, however….”
I whined softly and nuzzled my cheek against her thigh, and she stroked my other cheek and spoke to me with condescending affection.
“Yes, yes, I know it’s hard, pet… just know that you’re remaking yourself into a perfect little slave for me, okay?”
I wondered if I could hold out that long.
A little while later, Master led me by the hand back to camp on shaky legs, and Valentine and our driver were cuddled up by a roaring fire, both of their faces slightly flushed. I got the feeling that they had definitely heard my moans... hopefully that was all.
...well… at least they seemed to be turned on rather than disgusted.
The driver cleared her throat. “...O mighty hero, would it be untoward to ask if I might take Miss Valentine for a walk? I’ll pay you, of course...”
I blinked, a bit confused, but then seeing her flush further, and the querying way Valentine was looking up at Master, I came to realize that she intended to fuck her… or maybe be fucked by her, the way she was calling her Miss Valentine.
“Ah yes, since the fire’s ready, and everything’s set up… you two can feel free to do whatever you like with the rest of your evening. No payment necessary, I’ve been impressed by your driving.” Master smiled knowingly, and Valentine picked up the now beet-red driver into a bridal carry, and carried her off behind the copse of trees.
Chapter 7: In Which Sparring, Which Seemed Harmless At The Time, Leads To A Great Quandary
I awoke in the morning the sound of a loud thwack, two objects impacting each other at an incredibly high speed. My eyes flickered fully open, body surging with adrenaline, and I rushed over to peek outside of the tent.
There, Master and Valentine were fighting… the former, serious, moving so fast I often lost sight of her for a moment, the latter more casually parrying, laughing, and taking far more hits from Master’s staff then she managed to deal back. It took me a moment to realize they were sparring, and my jack-hammering heart calmed down… if they were using blades, Valentine would be dead now… or Master. Probably Valentine, it had been a long time since there wasn’t a foe I could overcome merely with my superior speed and strength.
...back when I was in that body, at least.
I slowly walked out, watching them, entranced, as I tried to follow the fight as best I could. Was this pacifist truly one of the best fighters in the kingdom? Well… it explained how she could survive the arena without killing anyone.
The driver gently elbowed me in the side, and handed me a bowl of porridge.
“Oh, thank you.” I looked over to her for a moment-- there were dark circles under her eyes, and her long brown hair was pulled back in a braid, but she had a slight smile, as if we shared a secret. Looks like she definitely got to cum last night, and I couldn’t help but be a little jealous, but I smiled back regardless. “What’s your name, by the way?”
“Miravel,” she responded. She looked back to the two of them sparring, and shook her head, marvelling at their prowess. “Aren’t the two of them amazing? We may have slept with the two most powerful people in the kingdom last night… well, you know, physically speaking.” Her voice was a mixture of proud and embarrassed, but from the way she was looking at Valentine, I could tell she was definitely more a fan of the larger woman.
My own eyes moved back to the two. Valentine was actually giving Master advice, a few basic ways for her to feint, what sort of moves people would rely on when they couldn’t see someone coming. I sat down on a log and listened as well as I ate my porridge, doing my best to listen to… it’s unlikely that I’d ever get my body back, and the advice seemed more tailored to her insane strength and speed, but despite that…
“Fuck, just look at her… too bad I have to drive.”
“Yeah, she’s incredibly hot.” My eyes widened and I tensed, glancing over to Miravel. “I mean--! Not that… I mean, I’m not interested in her in that way, you know? Just, like, aesthetically and stuff…” Miravel laughed.
“I know, I know, you have the Hero all to yourself. I’m not jealous anyways, though. Glad I got to sleep with her once, y’know? Just… incredibly strong and gentle… they’re both incredibly popular, really. How’d you hook the hero anyway?” She gave me a sideways glance.
“Honestly, I’m not quite sure. Just kinda… played out that way? Maybe it was meeting Master right after their arrival to the world, you know? As for sleeping with her once... well, it’s a two day journey, right, so maybe…? Do get a little actual sleep, though… ” ...did this count as girl talk? We were just talking about our lovers, though, so maybe not. I wasn’t really sure.
Miravel’s eyes brightened considerably. “That’s true!”
“So um… why a driver?”
“Loved horses as a girl. Was crazy about them. But basically, you’re either a carriage driver or some kinda nobility if you wanna interact with horses all day.” She shook her head a little, and looked back to the fight dreamily. “My parents used to take me to the arena sometimes a few years back, back when Miss Valentine was still there. I had the biggest crush on her… she’s still just as pretty now… well, maybe there’s more hope in her, you know?”
“Yes,” said a man’s voice behind us. “I used to see her at the arena a lot too. Always impressive. I think she elevated the arena beyond a mere blood sport, it’s weaker for her absence.”
We turned, and there was a grey-bearded, middle-aged man with gentle blue eyes in plate armor with a sword strapped to his side and heavy gauntlets on his arms, who smiled at us. “Sorry to barge in on your conversation, young ladies. I’m just waiting on those two to get finished, and didn’t want to stand around without making you aware of my presence, lest you notice and panic.” There was a blue raven painted on the chest of his armor, but I didn’t know what that heraldry meant.
My eyes flickered back up to him, though, and my mouth opened slightly. “Adarvuin?”
“The very same.”
The last time I had seen him, we had stood together against a small band of Revenants whose leader wanted to burn down a village for... some reason known only to the dead, they never bothered explaining it to us. He had gone out of his way to protect others, and between me and him, we had zero casualties in the village, and all the revenants dispersed.
Miravel curtseyed. “Would you like some porridge, Sir? I don’t know if you’ve had breakfast yet, but, it’s all the meager hospitality we have to offer.…”
“Ah, yes, sorry! Sir Adarvuin. I forgot myself.” I curtseyed as well.
He smiled gently. “Porridge would be lovely.”
Miravel returned with a bowl of porridge for him shortly, and he took a bite of it and smiled at her. “One of the better porridges I’ve had.” She smiled back, and bobbed her head.
“Thank you, sir.” Her attitude was a little more servile now, but not full on slave… just Customer Service mode, I guess.
The three of us ate porridge in silence and watched together a bit longer, until Master and Valentine finished and came back to us, and were also quickly offered bowls of porridge by Miravel.
Valentine’s body was peppered with bruises and she was bleeding, but she seemed cheerful and totally unconcerned by it.
Master had no visible wounds, but she was panting… she had exerted her body far more than it was used to. That body had never had to fight that long or that hard.
Valentine stayed silent, just tilting her head to one side and watching our new guest, the tip of her tail twitching behind her. Not knowing him, I guess she had no reason to trust him.
“Sir Adarvuin. A pleasure to see you again.” Master smiled innocently at him, and walked over to wrap him in a hug. He coughed, a little uneasy, and she let him go soon enough, stepping back. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“A pleasure… I wish I could say the same.” He finished his bowl of porridge, and put it aside with an almost mournful air.
“I was told by one of my subordinates that the odds were high a runaway slave was travelling with the Hero.”
“Ah, well that can’t be Valentine here-- we’re taking her back to her Mistress.” The lie flowed as easily from Master’s lips as water, and if I didn’t know better, I would’ve believed she absolutely believed what she was saying.
Both Valentine and Sir Adarvuin blinked a few times at that.
“No, her Master is back in Harrisdale, where you’ve been staying.”
Sir Adarvuin’s words didn’t shake Master at all, who shook her head confidently. “She’s been illegally captured. Sasha saw her beat up in a town square, and we ran across her later, which is when she asked us to return her to her Mistress.”
Valentine nodded confidently. “That’s right.” She kept her words to a minimum, perhaps she was not used to lying.
Sir Adarvuin took a scroll case from his belt, and pulled out a piece of paper, rolling it out for Master to see, and she looked at it carefully, then glanced over at me and Valentine. “Is… this legit?”
I looked it over. It was a request by the owner of a slave, one Valentine, to have her recaptured, and everything seemed properly signed, but... what did I know, honestly?
Master furrowed her brow. “Well, neither I nor Sasha are experts on this… are you sure someone hasn’t mislead you on this?”
“Absolutely. If there’s one thing I know, it’s paperwork.” It seemed Sir Adarvuin wasn’t going to back down that easily.
“Well, how about you go back and have it double-checked? It’s no mystery where we’re going, after all… Sir Adarvuin….” Everyone looked at me, perhaps a bit surprised that a subordinate slavegirl would speak up in such a situation with her Master literally right there… but I'm pretty sure Sasha had a reputation for being a bit of an idiot whose Master let her speak her mind too freely.
“That would be a problem, as it would go against the procedures in circumstances like this," Adarvuin replied. "The best I can offer is she returns with me, and if I am wrong, I will pay for her trip back myself. I will even accompany her on her way to make sure no untoward events happen to her, should such be the case... though I can say with almost complete certainty it is not.”
Valentine shook her head firmly. “Unacceptable, my devotion to my Mistress comes before all else.”
“Help me apprehend her. The law states clearly that we must.”
Master frowned at their words. “Well... you both seem trustworthy, though I’ve known neither of you for that long… I don’t know who to believe here.”
“Why would you want to apprehend her?” Miravel was speaking up, her voice both upset and disappointed. “I thought you were her fan!” Adarvuin slowly nodded and sighed.
“Yes. It saddens me to have to do this, but the law is more important than personal feelings." His eyes hardened a little as he said this, as if he was focused on some distant memory. "I traveled the recommended speed according to regulations, and arrived here to see you two sparring.” Apparently he had exactly followed the rules rather than truly try to capture us, out of respect to Valentine, Master, or both, I know not.
Master frowned. “Well, if we had done something illegal, we would have been in a hurry to not be caught, right? But we didn’t, so we weren’t. It was Valentine herself who suggested sparring.”
Adarvuin shook his head. “Hmm. You can say all the words you like, my duty does not change. Will you aid me, or stand in my way, Master?” ...I guess the word ‘Master’ blocking my original name was happening once again. Master shook her head.
“How can I raise arms against either of you when I don’t have a firm idea of the facts nor the legality of the situation?” She sounded confused, annoyed, and frustrated. She shook her head, standing up and beginning to pace. “I have no way to retrieve information, either.”
“Well,” Valentine said mildly, “It’s not like I’ve never fought for my life before. I don’t need you to protect me, Sir.” She stood up and walked back over to the circle of ragged dirt.
Sir Adarvuin frowned, and looked over to Master, calculating if she’d come to his aid… but apparently the answer he settled on was ‘no’. He drew his sword as she kicked up the two staves, one to each hand. “Don’t you need to heal up first, Valentine?” His voice was respectful.
“Healing me before combat could be taking as helping me resisting your arrest. If these charges stick, I mean. Uh, they’re clearly falsified charges, though… but sometimes people can be tricky with words and documents.”
Adarvuin nodded, and rushed forwards without any fear… and what did he have to fear? Valentine was infamous for never killing her opponents.
Nevertheless, he was on the ground in seconds, sword ten feet away and sticking in the dirt.
“You can’t capture me,” Valentine stated calmly.
“I’m beginning to see that. Nevertheless, I am dutybound to try.” He started to get up, and Valentine dropped the staves and rushed in, grabbing his neck in a choke-hold while another arm wrapped around his waist for some reason, hugging him close. He struggled briefly, but then went limp, and she carefully laid him on the ground on his back.
Miravel made a small noise next to me, and looking over at her, her eyes were shining. I didn’t know how to deal with a fangirl who had slept with her idol, so I walked over and pressed my fingers against his neck to check his pulse. Weak, but there. As I did, I glanced up at Valentine. “...why were you hugging him? You seemed to have the situation, well, under control.”
“Didn’t wanna damage his neck too badly while I was blood choking him.”
“...Ah. Well… he’s still alive, if not very steady… he’ll probably survive. Should probably retire, judging from his physical health and age.”
Valentine sighed, but nodded. “Best we can do, I guess. If you heal him, he might wake up… speaking of, could I trouble you for a little healing, Sasha?” She sat down next to me and smiled up at me all friendly-like, and suddenly, I was staring down at her like a deer in the headlights.
Master, when she was back in Sasha's body, was famous for her knowledge of healing spells, and I hadn’t even learned the most basic healing spell yet, which was literally just called Heal.
Fuck.
Chapter 8: In Which I Say Some Things That Were Perhaps Unwise To Think, Much Less Speak, But Am Eventually Shut Up With Master’s Assistance
Valentine was looking at me expectantly, waiting for her heals, and I couldn’t tell her I wasn’t running that spec, because– oh thank god, Master was coming over.
“Actually… could I heal you, Valentine, if you don’t mind? Sasha’s been teaching me a little healing magic, and I think I’m pretty decent, but the proof is in the ashes, as they say.” ...who the heck said that? I had to question some of this world’s idioms.
Valentine nodded, a bit more relaxed around Master now after their sparring and her not interfering with the whole Adarvuin situation, it seemed. “Sure, knock yourself out.”
Master ran her hands all over Valentine’s body, healing each wound and bruise she had caused, and I furrowed my eyebrows a bit, frowning… Valentine noticed, and mouthed “sorry” at me when Master’s back was turned, and I smiled at her. No, nothing was wrong at all. Everything’s fine here.
And with that, Master finished the healing with a little headpat on Valentine to heal a gash in her brow, and laughed. “Sorry, Sasha gets a little jealous sometimes.” She reached up to itch her hand, and then started giving me headpats.
“No, I wasn’t jealous, I was worried you were doing it wrong! And I was right, you are… your hand isn’t supposed to be itchy, and if it’s not an emergency, you should stop healing immediately in that situation and refocus.” I parroted Master’s earlier words back to her.
Master blinked a couple times, and laughed a bit uneasily. “Okay, yeah, I forgot that bit. I was trying not to think weird thoughts, that’s my bad.”
Valentine looked flattered. If these two ended up being a couple, I was going to… do nothing, I guess? I hated how powerless I was.
Master leaned in and gave me a little kiss on the lips, interrupting my thought process, and I looked up at her, surprised. Was that her way of trying to comfort me?
“There’s a town we’ll hit around noon. I suggest we visit it… well, me and Sasha and Milevar. If you go around it while we’re in it, Valentine, I think we can maybe set up some ambiguity of if you were with us. Can call Adarvuin a liar if necessary… though I’d prefer not to. Everyone believes in the righteousness of a guy whose famous for selling off his daughter when she turned out to be late-developing animalfolk, you know? And it’s not like his record has been blighted anywhere else that important.”
What.
How would that make anyone believe in someone’s righteousness? The values of his world were so fucked.
Valentine was even nodding, as if she half-respected Adarvuin’s choice there.
Unable to deal with this, I got up and walked back to the carriage, and got a little time to settle down. I realized as they came back that I hadn’t made myself useful in taking down the camp, but it was better than blowing up in front of everyone about something that should be “righteous”. Master smiled down at me as she came in, and cuddled me close with a lot of tenderness.
Soon enough we were on the road again, and Valentine was chatting with Master again, this time much more relaxed, more on the level of equals… apparently acting as sparring partners helped her put the Hero in a different category than she had before. She talked more about weapons and fighting and techniques, too, and I asked a few more questions… not that I understood more, but I wanted to understand more. I had kind of not bothered in the past with my ridiculous power, but that was gone now, and Master even seemed to be studying how to improve in fighting, much to my shame… it was time to learn at least the basics. Maybe I could defend myself against weaklings, with that and a few basic spells and a concentrated mana pool.
"I'd like it if you got naked now. That's not an order, though."
Wait, what? We were walking in the marketplace in town, hand in hand, and she said that out of nowhere? I could feel my body heating up as I flushed in embarrassment, and I pulled my hand away from hers. Master smiled down at me and messed up my hair, and I stared back at her in disbelief. She laughed softly.
“Don't you trust me?"
“You literally stabbed me in the back, why would I trust you?" She raised an eyebrow.
“"...literally?" I growled softly, but corrected myself.
"Fine, sure, metaphorically.... I never would've made you do something like this." Her smile faded a bit at my words.
"I'm not making you do anything right now, pet."
"Yes... but if I don't you'll punish me somehow, or maybe get rid of me if I'm never eager enough to do your whim."
"Ah, like you used to do to me. How unfair of me."
What. I stared at her in disbelief. She stared back with raised eyebrows.
"...wait, did you seriously not realize what you were doing?"
"I wasn't–!" My voice suddenly stopped, and I glared at her.
"Volume, girl. We're in public." Her tone was sweet, and she smiled down at me adoringly.
Her hand took mine again, and slowly tightened until it was a just a little painful.
"Oh, you think that's cruel? Should I show you a day under the life of a cruel master?" She sounded vindictive, almost eager. It would absolutely be a bad idea to agree to this.
"...no, please keep being kind to me me. Master." I tried to align my thoughts of wanting Master to just be gentle with me, soft kisses and headpats and so forth, rather than get angry about it, because she could read my mind. I was curious what she considered cruelty, but also I absolutely did not want to find out, doubly so when the target was myself.
"Adorable. And yes, I can. I'm being just as kind to you as you were once to me. Which, I would agree, we both treated each other very gently."
What.
"Unlike you, I never forced you to do anything sexual with me." I did my best to keep my voice level, as I started to get genuinely angry with her.
"True. You'd just pout or stop talking as much or start looking at other women more, or whatever, and let me know my position was in jeopardy. But you expected me to both always take the lead on initiating, and to always bow to your whims."
"I didn’t think I was doing that, and… well... it felt wrong to initiate things with you because of the difference of power."
"And yet you brought me in as support in battle without a second's thought."
"...I thought you liked fighting...?"
"You also thought I liked letting you top me. I'm an excellent actor." I almost yelled again. Inhaled. Exhaled.
"You got really wet and moaned and begged, what was I supposed to think? I'm a fool, you fooled me, you're a great actor, sure– I even thought you loved me." Her eyes, which were mostly amused until this moment despite the argument, narrowed, and she shrugged.
"Well, I certainly wouldn't put all this effort into anyone. But I'm trying to follow your example, and never beat or starve you, even if it would be so much quicker to make you realize where we stand. But even without that, I think you can be who I want you to be, eventually… with the right incentives. Which is why I'm making myself be so very very gentle with you." She squeezed my hand softly and continuously, making me aware of how I could only escape the handholding if she let me.
“And for the record, pet– every time we did it, I was fantasizing about what it would like if I had power over you. I did need to get wet and cum to make it convincing, after all. But we’ve accomplished our goal here, so let’s go back to Mireval.” I stared at her… seriously? Every time?
“So… what was our goal here, again? I don’t think you told me that part.”
“Do something attention-grabbing, basically. You getting naked in public would’ve been great, but having a public lover’s quarrel should turn up some juicy gossip, too.”
“...don’t you care about your reputation?” She smiled easily, as if none of the earlier conversation had bothered her, and I had no idea if she was pretending now or back then. I had to think… at least some of those words were her understanding of the situation, probably? I wasn’t sure how to clear up any of her misconceptions, though.
“It’s your reputation now, pet, such as it is. And I believe you’re the one with misconceptions.” She opened the carriage door for me, and helped me up before following me in.
A large hooded figure jumped down as the carriage turned around a bend, and my heart skipped a beat before I realized it was just Valentine in her disguise, such as it was. Miravel stopped the carriage, and scurried around to open the door for her, much more eager to do so for her than me or Master.
Valentine smiled at her flirtatiously, giving her braid a soft little tug, and then stepped into the carriage, and sat down across from me and Master, her eyes flickering between us. She opened her mouth, then closed it, clearly unsure if she should say something about the fact we were currently sitting maximum distance from each other that sitting on the same side of the carriage would allow, but then fell silent, staring out the window as she let the awkward silence continue.
Maybe I should’ve just gotten naked... Master knowing I was loyal to her was way more important than what a town or even a kingdom full of people thought of me, in terms of how well my future life would go. And I was loyal… if only because I had to be. If I blurted out and asked Valentine for help, what are the odds she’d actually pick a fight with another woman who had been raised a slave and climbed her way to the top? And… who else would actually side with me? And if they did, would Master kill them? Would they kill Master? I didn’t want either of these.
But all these thoughts were a little pointless, because Master could read my mind.
Hi, Master.
I hope you can forgive me. I’ll try not to think about how I didn’t think I did that much wrong. So… please be nice to me, okay?
“Well, if things are going to be this awkward anyways… Valentine, do you mind if Sasha gives me a blowjob as we go on our way?”
Valentine actually blushed a little at that, not expecting the forwardness, but smiled a little, genuinely not seeming to mind… and given her behavior in front of Adarvuin, I doubted she was as good an actor as Master.
“Ah, no, Sir… go ahead, by all means.”
“I’d offer to let you share, but my little pet has been getting so insecure recently… I want her to know all my attention is all on here.”
She patted her thigh.
“Here girl, come get your favorite treat!”
I flushed horribly. It absolutely was not my favorite treat, but giving Master a blowjob in front of Valentine was better than being naked in front of the entire town, I guessed. I climbed down and said a soft “Sorry” to Valentine, which she grinned and waved her hand at, dismissing it, before I climbed down between Master’s legs and undid her pants enough to get at her cock, nuzzling and licking it before she gently took hold of my head and drove her shaft down my throat, letting it sit there and petting my idly until I was getting a little dizzy, and then pulling my head off and letting me pant for a bit before shoving her cock back down my throat again
I could feel the carriage shaking beneath us slightly with each bump it hit better kneeled down on the floor like this, in a way that was somewhere between arousing and unpleasant.
“Wow, watch her tail wag,” commented Valentine. “I guess she really does love your cock.” The vulgar words rolled off her tongue easily… well, she had been raised among gladiators, and trained as a sex slave.
...fuck, my tail was wagging a little.
It was reassuring to know Master was focused on me, her gentle pets and praise as I endured her cock sitting my throat again and again, for what seemed like hours, until finally she fucked my throat gently for a little while, pulled my head back so she came in my mouth, coating it with the flavor of her cum, which I swallowed before resting my head against her thigh and panting as she rubbed her dripping cock against my cheek.
She reached down and pulled me up into her lap, licking her own cum off my cheek, snuggling me close and petting my body in a way that would be more platonic than sexual if she hadn’t just been fucking my throat for who knows how long and I wasn’t incredibly wet from it. I studied the intricacies of the ceiling tiles in the carriage, because there was no way I could look at Valentine right now.
I was embarrassed for all of us by what had just occurred, even if no one else in the carriage was, and I could tell Master was amused by it... which only served to embarrass me further.
Chapter 9: In Which I Share The Secret With Someone Else For The First Time, And Begin To Learn Something Even More Valuable
We stopped by another town on the way, at which Master said she had an errand– she did not elaborate, and no one asked her to.
Seeing how out of it I was after holding her cock in my throat for most of the ride over, Master left me with Valentine, and had Miravel take her into town. We watched over the town from a small cliff, and I dangled my feet over. I had intentionally overcome my fear of heights, among other things, when I had the power to fall from very high places without taking damage, and apparently it had stuck even when I was within this far weaker body.
Still, it’s not like I was about to fall off or anything… unless Valentine pushed me, but if Valentine wanted me dead – wildly improbable, given her history – a cliff or lack thereof wouldn’t matter.
Valentine handed me her waterskin and I took a gulp... I’d gotten used to the taste of water that’s been sitting in a waterskin for half a day. Rather, maybe I preferred it now to the lingering taste of my former body’s cum, reminding me of what happened. I hung my head a little.
“You okay?” Valentine was wearing her cloak plus mask combo, which made it her seem like some strange guardian rather than an actual person I had talked to, but her voice was inquisitive, sympathetic.
“I’m fine.”
“Oh, okay. I’m usually pretty good at reading girls, and I had always heard stories of how deeply in love Sasha was with her Master, but… stories always exaggerate things, huh?” I nodded, staring down, more focused on the town than the conversation–
“Yeah, I don’t think she ever loved me. Just saw herself as my slave and did her best to survive in that role. I didn’t see it, of course, fool that I was.”
There was a long pause as we both stared down at the town.
“...wait, you wanna run that by me again, Sasha? I’m pretty confused by what you just said.”
Frick.
“Okay, so uh…” I tried to think of a good cover story for this, then my shoulders drooped a little. Valentine was probably the safest person to tell, not that that was saying much… but I couldn’t really handle being one of the only two people in the universe who knew this. Maybe she could help me.
“Sasha has mind magic.”
“And you’re referring yourself to the third person why…?”
“Sasha is Master now. Master is Sasha.”
“...oh, fuck.”
Another long pause, and Valentine pulled off her mask and looked over to me, tilted her head a bit to one side as she studied my face.
“I’m guessing you were the one who saved me, then.” I nodded. “I was wondering why Sasha didn’t just use mind magic or something to make the situation go smoothly like she usually does.”
“Yeah.”
“...well, that’s stupid brave of you. I respect it, and that means you’re the second girl who’s saved my life… or, guy who saved my life, I guess? Either way… if I can help you, I will.”
I perked up a little. If Valentine could help me–
“As long as it doesn’t involve killing anyone, at least.” Right.
I started crying a little, and nodded. “I don’t know about gender stuff anymore, it’s gotten very confusing.”
Valentine wrapped her arms around me and held me close against her chest with surprising gentleness. “Hey, it’s okay. Cry all you need to.”
“I shouldn’t have told you… Master can read minds....”
“Oh, that’s easy. Against mindreaders, you just avoid thinking against stuff. I’ve fought a few.”
“...what.”
“You know, focus on something else?”
“Doesn’t that end up like ‘don’t think about pink elephants’?”
“Don’t… what? I’m confused. What’s an elephant?”
“...Nevermind.” I sniffled into her chest as she petted my head idly.
“Oh, I got it. I can just create something else for you to focus on.”
I pulled back and looked up at her in confusion, my gaze only flickering down to her lips for a moment… it was hard to ignore that we were very close….
“What, like magic...?” Valentine laughed.
“Of sorts.” She leaned in and kissed me deeply as she started to stroke my back and sides, and I blinked a few times, not knowing what to do, and she drew back a little, tilted her head to one side as she stared down at me.
“Oh, did you not want to kiss me? I’m usually good at reading girls.”
“Want to or not want to, do you think Master is going to be happy if you kissed me? It’s not really safer to focus on.”
“She was practically offering to let me fuck you on the ride over, which was what I was going to do, cause I thought you were into it. I don’t think a little kiss is going to be a big deal.”
“...maybe you’re right. Let’s not do the actual sex thing, though.” Although I was thinking about it all too clearly right now… how satisfied Miravel had looked… darn it, this was probably just because Master hadn’t let me cum and I was getting too horny. Like, muscular girls are hot, and she smelled good, in like, a slightly sweaty way… but still.
I started to slide back out of her lap, and she grabbed me suddenly and held me close, and I realized that like Master, Valentine could do basically whatever she wanted to me and I couldn’t meaningfully fight back… why was that arousing me? Why was I toying with the idea of belonging to Valentine, now, rather than freedom.
She wiggled back from the cliff a little ways, and set me down on the ground next to her. “Sorry, you gotta be careful how you disengage next to cliffs.”
“Um, yeah, thanks.” I stared off into the distance and tried to calm down my rapidly beating my heart and stop myself from getting too aroused. “...is there a way to break mind magic spells?”
“Absolutely. Some of them, at least. Can’t say I’m an expert on the subject. Want me to look into it for you if I get the chance?”
“Please.”
“Need another kiss to distract you from the planning?” Her voice was teasing.
“No, no... I think that was quite enough of that….”
We both fell silent, and watched the little town until the sun started to set.
I wondered how many other slaves were in it, and what their lives were like.
The carriage finally pulled up to the base of the cliff, and without warning, Valentine swept me up into her arms and jumped down the cliff, rolling with me as she hit the ground, and then back up onto her feet, setting me next to her– dizzy and terrified, I clung to her side for a moment before stabilizing myself.
Master looked completely unruffled as she approached. Miravel was back with the carriage, freeing the horses and so forth. I didn’t actually know the details, it never seemed that important when I could run faster than a horse... maybe I should bother to learn.
Valentine smiled at Master. “Errand go well?”
“Yes, perfectly, I think. Looks like you two have gotten close.”
I flushed and looked away, thinking about how Valentine had kissed me, and suddenly, Master’s eyes narrowed. “...what.”
Valentine blinked, and quickly kneeled down in her sex slave position and lowered her head. “It’s my fault for misreading Sir’s intention, please punish me however you like.”
Master smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes, and she raised a hand, almost savoring what she was about to do to Valentine, when I stepped in front of her without thinking about it.
She paused, eyes widening for a moment, then glared at me. “Are you seriously going to get in my way?”
“Does hurting Valentine help in your goal at all, Master?”
Master paused, and stared at me for a few moments, and then seemed to deflate a little, and shook her head. “No... you’re both right. I said vague things to Valentine, and harming her would be counter to my goal. I’m sorry, please forgive me.” Her voice sounded a bit like Sasha’s used to… maybe she just thought of apologizing as a servile thing to do, or maybe she was remembering what it was like to be on the other end.
Valentine smiled up at Master, seemingly genuinely impressed that she had held herself back from beating us up, and even gone so far as to apologize. “Thank you, Sir!”
“Thank you,” I echoed, not meaning it nearly as much. At least Master could recognize her faults, but she was getting a bit tyrannical.
“We’re going to the Night Court tomorrow night. According to my information, it’s run by Princess Asperia, and it should be a far easier way to get you in front of her to negotiate than going through the front gate of the castle.”
“...the Night Court? Don’t some people who go there never come back?” Valentine made it sound like a casual question rather than a critique of Master's plan.
Master shrugged. “That’s the only plan I have that involves protecting you. Take it or leave it.” She was still being snippy about it, even though she had practically offered my pussy to Valentine on the ride over.
Master reached over and petted my head with just a little more force than necessary, which I took to mean ‘don’t make me mad’.
Sorry, Master.
Okay, not thinking about things was actually hard. I defaulted to think about how soft Valentine’s lips were instead, and how her tongue had–
Master grabbed me by the arm. “I have a few things to discuss with Sasha here.”
“Of course!” Valentine smiled up at her guilelessly. Was she really that good at keeping thoughts out of her brain, or had she spilled it all?
I moved as best I could as Master half-dragged me back inside the carriage, pulled the blinds, and glared at me. “What did you two do?”
“She kissed me… I guess there was a little bit of petting, too? Didn’t get that serious, though, I let her know you probably wouldn’t appreciate it.”
Master furrowed her brow, searching my eyes, and I tried to keep my mind blank. “Why are you keeping your mind blank?”
“You get jealous when I think about the kiss with her.“
“Do I look like the sort of Master who gets jealous because her slave gets a little intimate with another slave?”
I stared up at her... as if she hadn’t just proved that fact twice over. I literally didn’t know how to respond, the truth was so obvious. She growled softly.
“...okay. Okay, that’s fair.” She took hold of my chin and looked down into my eyes. “ You’re mine, got it? Don’t ever do anything with anyone else without my permission.”
“...Yes, Master. I was trying to be a good girl for you, I promise.” ...was my tail wagging just from saying that? But I could feel that desperate devotion towards her again right now. “...um… are hugs okay?”
She rolled her eyes and let go of my chin. “Yes, platonic hugs are fine, sure.”
“But no kissing?”
“Obviously not…” She looked at me suspiciously “...is this fun for you?”
I blinked a couple of times. “I... guess a little bit? I didn’t think I’d live to see the day you actually apologized for anything after you took over.”
“I’m not used to having power, and even less used to having it challenged. I’ll do better next time. I learn quickly.. unlike some people.” Seemed like a fairly petty dig, but okay.
“...that reminds me, Master… can you please teach me the Heal spell?” She smirked at my question.
“...I thought you were going to beg me to let you cum.” She rubbed between my legs, and I couldn’t help but moan softly, wondering if she’d actually let me… but after a moment’s hesitation, I shook my head. She probably wouldn’t, and more importantly...
“I’d rather have the power to save lives, at the moment. And it’s an important element if you want to keep the fact that we swapped secret… I thought my cover I was completely blown this morning.”
Master stared for a moment, then nodded, and started going over the pattern with me, sketching it out with her hand in the air as she tried to get the abstract symbol across to me. It was hard to wrap my head around, doubly so because I was distracted from being worried that Master was still worried about me, or suspicious of something.
She was looking at my face a lot… did she think I liked Valentine? Was that the suspicion?
I mean, Valentine was kind of cute, but I wasn’t the sort of girl who would just throw myself at anyone. Or boy, for that matter. ...person?
She tapped my forehead softly with her finger. “Focus, or I’ll start edging you until you’ll offer me anything just to let you cum.”
“But everything I am is yours already, Master.” She smiled at that, and I relaxed a little. And I focused.
Magic was unintuitive as hell, and if I was going to learn this spell, we might have a long night ahead of us.
Chapter 10: In Which Master Gets Me All Riled Up, And We Bid Farewell To One Of Our Travelling Companions
I had fallen asleep, and woke up laid out on one of the carriage seats -- it was practically a couch on each side, really -- with my head in Master's lap. I could feel her cock hard against my cheek, and glanced up, but she was breathing easily... apparently asleep.
I finally had some slim chance against her, but with Valentine in her current situation, she'd be an outlaw or something if she ran away with me. I mean, she was now already, but the idea was to see if we could get Princess Asperia to pull some strings and save her.
I realized Master's thighs were surprisingly soft beneath my head, and looking up, her face looked more feminine... was I projecting my preferences onto her body? Did that mean I was falling for her and looking at her with rose-colored glasses or something?
I think I loved her less than when she was my slave-- mostly because I thought she loved me, but also because she didn't torment me all the time. I do think she at least liked me, though, on some level. Even if only as a pet or toy or something. I stretched and shifted a little, and her cock twitched against my cheek at the stimulation through her pants.
Well... that's one way I could prove my devotion to her. She was complaining yesterday how I always let her initiate things, and now I could initiate something... I had always lowkey wanted to be woken up with oral, and waking her up with oral was getting me a little excited... probably her influence, but that didn't mean it was a bad idea.
I turned myself over, propping my front up on an elbow, and reached in to start undoing the tie on the front of her pants, rubbing her cock a little with the palm of my hand, eliciting a cute little moan from her... sounded almost submissive? I started to pull down her pants a little, and suddenly I felt her hand around my throat with crushing strength, and couldn't breathe or talk.
I was just trying to be a good girl and wake you up with a blowjob, Master! Please forgive me please forgive me please forgive me!
I tried to send all my submissive devotion and the scattered fragments of the love I had left for her towards her, and her hand slowly relaxed on my neck. I breathed shuddering painful breaths.
"...Oh. I'm sorry." Master stroked my neck gently all over, healing it back to normal. "With the... dreams I usually have, my instinct is to lash out when I feel something messing with me."
"Sorry, Master...."
"No, I should've told you... never thought you'd actually initiate anything, though. She petted my head and scratched behind my ears, and I nuzzled into her hands. "You're really trying my best for me, aren't you?"
"Yes, Master!" I buried all my other thoughts towards her underneath my desperate devotion to serve her and be accepted by her.
"Mmm... I think I've tortured your throat enough for this morning... since you're being so very good, I think I'll make an exception and let you cum. It will be very quick, though. How many times do you wanna cum, pet?"
"...three?" I was a little cautious, last time she had pretended to give me control over my orgasms, she had instead fucked me over and over again. But it would be nice to spend some time with her trying to pleasure me....
Master laughed a bit sadistically, my eyes widening as I looked up at her, and pulled me up in her lap, eagerly groping me all over... with the promise of orgasms, I was still very excited, rubbing my body against hers eagerly.
She leaned down to kiss me on my lips, and a spike of pleasure went from my lips straight down into my groin, my body tensing and spasming as my mind was overwhelmed by a bright burst of pleasure.
I moaned into her lips, panting breathily as she pulled back and petted my cheek, my body still twitching here and there with pleasure.
"One," she announced before leaning in to kiss my neck. A sensation of intense helplessness and pleasurable surrender flowed through me, overwhelming my mind and leaving my body twitching against hers again as my pussy leaked love juices that trickled down my thighs, whimpering moans escaping my lips.
"Two," she commented, before picking me up in the air and kissing me through my clothes right on my clit, that incredibly sensitive little button suddenly overwhelmed by intense pleasure, and I screamed as my body shook and I grabbed onto her shoulders with all my strength.
"Three... and there you go, Sasha." She snuggled me back down into her lap, a whimpering pleasured mess drooling from both my mouth and my lower mouth, trembling softly against her.
"Now, very quick, as I said, I'm going to need to focus undisturbed most of today... but if you keep being a good girl, I'll give you a long night full of attention once we're done with our mission, okay?"
I nodded a little against her chest, which drew a soft gasp from her.
I looked up at her quizzically, and she smiled down at me.
"You'll see soon enough. Let's go eat breakfast and get everyone together… we should make sure we’re on time to make it to Night Court, since we don’t know what all Adarvuin is doing behind us."
On the carriage ride, Master announced she needed to focus on her meditation, leaving me staring awkwardly out of the cart for most of the ride, while Valentine did some other sort of mental practice with her eyes closed. Maybe she was meditating too, it didn’t seem like the right time to ask.
Without the people I was with -- my world didn't really have animalfolk or people who could mind swap, as far as I knew -- we could’ve been traveling along any rustic road on my world… as long as I didn’t look too carefully at the crops or architectural style or anything, and just kept my gaze a bit unfocused. Then again, it’s not like I was an expert on what plants looked like… maybe there was somewhere these plants and this architectural style existed.
I practiced magic, looked up at the clouds and told myself stories of them, and thought uselessly about Princess Asperia and the Night Court.
Other than being pretty and kind to me other than ripping me out of my world, I didn’t really understand Princess Asperia’s personality. There were rumors of her doing all sorts of things, of course, but it was hard to sort out the actual events from the propaganda… she was the Crown Princess, but her younger sister Adeline was in many ways more accomplished and more popular, and the rumors were that there was something of a power struggle going between them.
If so, I think Princess Adeline was winning-- I never heard bad stories about her. Of course, I heard less stories about her in general… but that could be because people thought I was on Princess Asperia’s side, being summoned by her and all. I hadn’t really thought of myself as having a side, though, but it seemed like both Valentine and Master were heavily considering throwing in their lots with her.
My mind drifted back to the first times I had fought in this world-- easily dispatching and crippling my opponents when I was just trying to disable them, and vomiting afterwards. I still wasn’t used to the feel of the local fabric or anything then, and Princess Asperia had pretended not to notice my various inadequacies… either out of politeness, or because she didn’t want to have the responsibility of trying to fix them.
I had always found her hard to read, but at least I knew she was hard to read, unlike the whole situation with Master, where I used to think I knew her, and now I wasn’t sure if the face she was showing to me was her real face, either. It definitely seemed like she either liked me or had some use for me, though… maybe both.
The clouds were frustratingly abstract as I looked for shapes in them, maybe they mimicked alien shapes on this world which I hadn’t seen yet.
Maybe I could tell if Master liked me or simply wanted to use me if I defied her a bit more… but if she stopped liking me, or I stopped being convenient to use, that’d be a big problem, wouldn’t it?
I only had a chance against Master if I had the first strike, and I probably couldn’t bring myself to kill her… something about thinking about killing the woman who at least pretended to love me made me want to vomit again. Maybe this was some of her mind magic too.
I had practiced that tiny Heal spell dozens of times, now, and my finger wasn’t itching any of them. I should’ve asked to ride up front with Miravel or something. With nothing concrete for my mind to focus on, I became less and less focused as I stared off across the farmlands we were passing by.
A little tap to my forehead, and I woke up with a jolt to see Master smiling down at me… I had fallen asleep in the carriage, apparently, and I was being carried in her arms. She looked even prettier than this morning… wait, was she wearing makeup? She was absolutely wearing makeup, it wasn’t even that subtle. My mind squirmed uncertainly at the idea of the body that was once mine wearing makeup, but I quickly settled on the fact that newscasters and actors both wore makeup, and Master was certainly an actor, which helped distract me from being uncertain if I liked the idea or it caused unease in me.
Valentine had her hood and mask on again, and Miravel was cooing over her and flirting with her… it looked we had stopped outside of the stables, and this was where we’d part ways. Miravel spared a glance, smile, and wave for me before returning her attentions to Valentine.
After a few more moments of intimacy, Valentine reluctantly pulled away from her gentle grasp and came to join me and Master.
I glanced up at Valentine as Master set me down and we began to walk along the streets of Aifen in the setting sun… still a fairly nice part of the city, it looked like, although not the noble’s district, there were no trees lining the streets or fountains, but at least it was clean, and there were a lot of slaves around.
“Do you think you’ll see her again?”
Valentine shrugged under that bulky cloak. “Who can say what fate will bring?” She sounded a little wistful. I wondered if this was a special connection she had had with Miravel, or if she fell just a little in love with everyone she slept with. I thought a moment what it would like for her to be a little in love with me. Of what it would be like to watch her move on with the tides of destiny or whatever, drifting off out of my reach forever. Bittersweet.
Master reached over and ruffled my hair. “I’m sure Miravel will be fine. She has a less risky path than all of us, at least.”
As we traveled along, I saw an old dog-girl woman… dog-woman? Dog-lady…? ...regardless, she lay limp, and she was being carried by a man in a black hood in a fireman's carry, and all the other slaves were looking away from the two of them. I looked up to Master, and she turned her gaze away from mine, then over to Valentine, who turned her head away a little, though it was hard to tell where she was looking.
“What’s happening?” I certainly got the feeling that it couldn’t be anything good.
“Animalfolk,” said Valentine gently, “are only allowed to live while they’re owned. So if their owner decides to get rid of them, and there’s no real prospects to selling them… they’re usually taken for arena fodder.”
I narrowed my eyes, and started striding forwards, before immediately feeling myself stopped by Master’s grip on my shoulder.
“This happens every day, Sasha. What exactly are you planning on doing?” There was more anger in her voice than I expected.
“I don’t know, we just have to save her: she’s right in front of us.”
“To go where? Adventuring with us? That’s probably a death sentence too.”
“Who are we exactly if we don’t save someone who’s about to die right in front of us?” Master shook her head.
“How many people have you killed? Do you think none of them were forced into the life of banditry or to serve their lord or whatever?”
“That’s not the point! Maybe I fucked up before and hurt someone who didn’t deserve it, but I’m not going to this time!” I glared up at her, my vision of her blurry because of tears. We were drawing a lot of attention. I opened my mouth to speak again, but Master had taken away my words again… and her focus wasn’t even on me, she was glancing around the street we were in with furrowed brow.
“...where did Valentine go?”
Chapter 11: In Which The Cards Hit The Table, Metaphorically That Is, I Mean Like, There Aren’t Any Literal Cards
I glanced around, nervous– how had she just disappeared like that? Valentine was huge. No, wait– why had she disappeared like that? That was probably the more important question.
“...don’t worry, Sasha, if she was thinking about betraying us or something, I’d know.” Master took my hand and led me over to some sort of restaurant or cafe with outdoor seating – I don’t know the way to tell between those things on this world, if there even are separate conceptual ideas of them – and sat me down at one of the fancy metal seats, while I glanced around, a bit dazed.
I swallowed. Should I tell her? Well, now that I had thought that… besides, Valentine was absolutely the sort of person I couldn’t read. “Master, um, Valentine can simply choose not to think about things. She was trying to teach it to me.” I swallowed. “I… it sort of came out acidentally, and I told her. Sorry, Master.”
Master petted my head gently as she leaned in close, her voice soft and sweet. “Oh, I knew, basically. What I don’t know, is, why didn’t you immediately tell me?”
“I… was worried you’d hurt her, Master.”
“And you weren’t worried that it’d count as betrayal, making little plans with her? That I’d have to get rid of you?“ Her voice was just as quiet and gentle, but something in it made me think she had definitely considered it, and I started trembling in the chair I was sitting in.
“I’m… I’m sorry, Master.”
“Mmm, I should’ve gotten rid of you the moment you tried to do something behind my back… but I was feeling a bit soft-hearted, and wanted to see if you’d own up to your mistake. Seeing as you told me the moment it seemed dangerous, I think I’ll let you live. Don’t make another mistake like this again, though, Sasha.” She took my chin and raised it, and I looked up into her eyes, which were gazing down with somewhere between affection and contempt, utterly ruthless. “...okay, pet?”
I trembled violently and started crying, having no idea that I had gotten that close to Master disposing of me, and nodded. “I’ll be good!” I wanted to say, but I found I couldn’t speak words again… Master had taken away my voice.
I’ll strip right now if you want me to! I’ll do whatever you want, please don’t get rid of me!
She smiled softly and released my chin. “I know you will, pet. My affection for you must be overwhelming me, that I’m going so far to give you a second chance, and I’m sure you’ll find a way to repay my kindness to you. But don’t strip and yell and make a scene. I’m going to give back your voice, so you have to be quiet if you want to speak, okay?”
I nodded tearily, and reached out to take hold of her hand, searching her eyes with my hazy ones as best I could as I tried to tell if she was really serious about not getting rid of me… but it’s not like I’d ever been able to read Master, her face probably said exactly what she wanted it to say… that she cared about me, and she wasn’t mad, just disappointed.
Had the act of anger towards Valentine earlier just been a ruse to give me a chance to confess? I shuddered. I had no idea how she thought.
“You can tell by my actions, at least, can’t you? I’m not someone to carry around useless things, or show mercy when it’s not useful… and yet I’m keeping you by my side, even though you almost betrayed me. There are two things I want in this world: to end slavery, and you by my side, utterly devoted and obedient to me. Don’t go and make me regret the latter.”
...Wasn’t there some sort of contradiction in those two desires? No, sorry Master, I’ll try not to think that, I’ll be good! I clung to her hand, whimpering softly. She raised a hand and slowly and gently scratched behind my ear in just the right spot.
“Absolutely. But I don’t really care about something like ethical coherence. And if you still haven’t completely fallen for me by the time I’ve ended slavery, I’ll release you. I think you’re already happier then when I was your slave, though. Having to make tough decisions and so forth isn’t really the right thing for my fragile little plant, raised in a greenhouse like you were. Just find happiness in being protected and used and adored.” I sniffled.
“You… you won’t get rid of me when I’m old?” I had already forgotten about that old woman, concerned as I was for my own life, and felt guilty about it.
“Of course not, Sasha. I know magic to swap bodies, control minds, and alter forms… I’ll find a way to keep you by my side in a form I like.”
.,.alter forms? That was a new one.
“...that’s what you’re focusing on? I’ve been picking it up over the past day or so. Just know that I have no reason to ever get rid of you, as long as you remain loyal to me. Have I ever broken a promise to you, pet?”
“...not that I can recall…?”
“That’s not because I’m incapable of it, but because your trust means a great deal to me.”
...Master had said she’d kill me if I betrayed her.
“Ah, but you didn’t quite betray me, did you? And if you consider that a betrayal… well, maybe that I’m interpreting it in such a kind fashion should be of some reassurance to you. My patience isn’t limitless, but I know you’re still getting used to the idea that you prefer being my obedient pet to your previous life.” She stroked my side gently.
I swallowed and nodded a little. I just wanted to be in her arms, but it would be a bit awkward to climb into her lap here. We just sat, holding hands, my own hand quite sweaty from the fear, studying the face of my Master even though I couldn’t read her at all, and her looking down at me intermittently between glancing around, her pupils dilating just slightly as she focused down on me.
My heart beat a bit faster. That… that was a sign of affection, right? Maybe she could fake it, but… I didn’t want to think about that, I just wanted to know she loved me and would take care of me. I tried to hold back the desire to crawl into her lap and press close to her, I was a good girl, I wouldn’t make a scene….
There was a cough, and Master jumped up, interposing herself between me and a large, cloaked figure… Valentine, unless someone had taken her mask.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt, but there wasn’t really a good moment to interject. I went and saved the old lady for you, Sasha.” My heart leapt in my chest. Valentine was so good!
Master blinked a few times. “...why?”
“Well, the way I thought about it… it was utterly foolish of Sasha to save me in the way she did, and yet I’m very grateful she did. So, I can’t even save one life for her?”
I blinked, staring up at her in awe. “...how?”
“Oh, simple enough. I told the guy my Master wanted to buy her, handed him a little coin, woke her up, found out her skillset, and took her off to the house of one of my fans, who was willing to take her off my hands with a little sweet-talking.” As if it was all that casual.
“Not something I could pull off every day, mind you, but…” Valentine shrugged. “With you so intent on it, Sasha, I bothered to think if I had a way to make it happen, and I did. I had to act quick before I lost him, though, we’re pretty quick to the Arena. Sorry about just running out on you two like that, I do really appreciate you coming all this way for me.” A slight pause. “Don’t expect me to be able to pull something like that off every time we see a slave in trouble, though. My purse is not heavy, and the fans who will do anything for me are limited.”
I felt a rush of gratitude towards Valentine, and also a bit foolish… it was something like trying to rescue every dog in a pound, trying to protect all the animalfolk. The comparison made me uncomfortable, animalfolk were you know, people basically, and animals weren’t, but… without systematic reform, there was no real way to protect them all… right? So in a way Master was right, but I do wonder how many people would be killed in the process... but, I felt like someone in trouble right in front of me was something I just couldn’t ignore… even before I had the title of ‘Hero’, I had a strong sense of righteousness. Albeit highly localized... one couldn’t right all the wrongs of the world without power. But Master had power, now.
Master stroked my head. “Most non-slaves think of animalfolk here as little more than animals, really. I’m glad you’re not like them, pet.” She looked up at Valentine evenly, letting her know she knew.
“Yeah, well….” Valentine tilted her head a bit to one side. “Those who come from outside a system really see it different, huh?”
Master smiled. “I’m looking to get rid of slavery entirely. If you’re willing to kill for the cause, you could be a huge asset.”
Valentine was silent for a long moment. Perhaps she was seriously considering it, perhaps merely considering what to say. “That’s very brave of you… but, no. You’re not the first noble cause people have said that I could help change the world, if only I was willing to get my hands a little bloody. I can’t control the world, and trying will only let me hurt people. I can only control my own actions.”
Master sighed softly. “I figured. But don’t tell anyone about this.”
Valentine laughed, and tapped the side of her head with her finger. “Don’t worry, I’ll mostly forget this conversation even happened. Remembering the wrong things is never useful.”
“I suppose not, no.” Master looked over to a calico catgirl who was peering out of the door at she looked at the situation, and beckoned, and she slowly and warily moved up closer, and got our order, left us all with glasses of water.
Once she left, Master smiled. “Don’t worry, she didn’t overhear anything.” She sounded rather pleased with herself.
Valentine looked around, and then sat down on the ground, the chairs weren’t quite big enough to fit her. “We are kinda making a scene, though.”
“That’s fine. Princess Asperia likes making scenes… and if nothing else, it will draw her eye to us.”
I wiped my tears away with the back of my hand. Valentine knew, and it seemed like Master wasn’t going to kill her, so that was good… of course, if she was, she probably wouldn’t do it in front of me after seeing me defend her. Even if she did kill Valentine, the smart think to do would be just bow down to her and be her obedient little pet anyway… but I resolved that if she did, that would be the day I stopped obeying her.
Valentine was a far better person than she should be, growing up like she had, and I don’t think I could trust someone who could just throw away their noble childhood hero like that. I looked over to her mask. Somehow, she seemed more readable and approachable than Master, even with the mask… Master’s masks were far more elaborate and impenetrable.
Right now her eyes were fixed on Valentine's mask. “...what’s your read on Princess Asperia?”
Valentine tilted her head to one side, than the other. “She saved my life, and the life of every would-be gladiator who took her offer. Well… I don’t think it’s a deal fodder are allowed to accept, but they’d find some other way to eliminate them if the arena didn’t take them.”
I swallowed and nodded slowly.
“So, I basically worship her," said Valentine. "She’s done more for me and other gladiators than any god ever did, after all. My life was pretty decent until I got sold to my current master, and he started having suspicions.”
I leaned forwards a little. “Yeah, um, why does he think you’re an assassin?”
“A few people who openly opposed Princess Asperia died in the city recently, and I’m obviously very strong. It probably is an assassin of hers... but not me,” said the woman who had fought almost-equally with my master, had just said she worshiped Princess Asperia like a goddess, could conveniently forget things at will, and disappeared in the middle of a crowd like it was nothing despite towering over everyone here.
I took a sip of the water our waitress had brought us. I might have believed it if I had been in her master’s shoes, too. “...does it bother you that she probably has people assassinated?”
“Not really? People kill each other, it’s a fact of life. Just because I want to be outside of it doesn’t mean I don’t understand how useful it is. Same as Sir’s noble quest here… or should I be calling you Ma’am?”
Master laughed softly. “Sure... Ma’am is fine from now on."
Chapter 12: In Which I Am Sorry I Used The Metaphor Too Soon, This Time Literal Cards Are Hitting The Literal Table
The Royal Garden of Eusthyne, the place where those looking for admittance to the Night Court waited for their invitation. It was surprisingly unkempt, with plants growing all over the place in a lot of places, yet barren in other parts, stagnant pools of water filled with algae. We were dressed in black robes, which was the apparent custom of the Night Court to conceal identities, but Valentine still stood out thanks to her relatively huge size.
I looked around with a raised eyebrow.
Valentine laughed softly. “Guess I’m acting as tour guide. A few centuries ago, this garden was commissioned by King Dalyn as a gift for one of his slaves, who apparently asked for it to be put in the slums so everyone could enjoy it. He’s a revenant, so no one’s risked his wrath by replacing it, although apparently someone risked his wrath by letting it fall into disrepair at some point. I hear it was crazy expensive to keep up. Mostly these days it’s famous for being incredibly unsafe, and also for the Night Court.”
As if to punctuate the point, a few crossbow bolts flew threw the air towards another group of two black-robed people, and Master was there in an instant, knocking them out of the air.
“Don’t make me come over there,” Master stated loudly, and there were the sounds of retreat.
One of the black-robed people fell to their knees, arms wrapped around themselves and trembling, and Master checked them over. “Are you okay?”
“I think he’s just in shock,” noted a cultured feminine voice-- the other robed figure. “I don’t know why he insisted on coming.” She pulled her hood back enough to show her face to Master and looked up at her, and I saw a wisp of glacier-white hair, that is, there was a hint of blue to it. “I have no idea who you are, but I owe you one. If you ever wish to claim a favor from me, let me know.” Her words were very soft, but my ears could pick it up.
Master scratched the back of her head and laughed. “Don’t worry about it. I just couldn’t watch people get shot if I could stop it, you know?” Her voice had gotten notably more feminine, for whatever reason… maybe she was trying to disguise herself, although really, I don’t think anyone else in the world could move that fast. She curtseyed with her robe, and backed off, coming to rejoin us, and more vigilantly scanning the area for danger, as was Valentine.
I joined them too, and seeing someone in a black robe emerging from a vine-covered wall, tugged on Valentine’s robe… only for the new arrival to bow to us with almost mechanical precision, and gesture to the hidden stairwell they had just come out of, vines now just enough away from it to show the entrance.
After a moment’s hesitation, as one we started following the one who had invited us… if they were planning an ambush, it would be their own tragedy, and perhaps this was our invitation to the Night Court.
Down through the stairwell, the vines closing behind us on the wall to conceal the passage, and through a twisting maze of tunnels that I had no idea how we’d ever escape without help… if anything, brute forcing through the ceiling would probably be a better idea than trying to figure this out via retracing our steps. Eventually we came to a room where stars shone overhead, and I blinked a little as I looked up at them… wasn’t this horribly unstealthy, for all the subterfuge we went through, when the sky was right above us? Anyone could stumble across it and look down upon us… not that it was my place to say anything.
In the center of the room, a woman sat in front of the table, shuffling a deck of cards, dressed in a series of fancy veils of various covers that didn’t quite cover up the fact that she was entirely naked underneath them, and on the other side, there were three chairs.
Master walked up and sat in one of the chairs, and I followed suit. Valentine moved to sit on Master’s other side… but rather than sit on the chair, she sat on the floor in that formal sex slave position she seemed so fond of taking, although her posture was somewhat obscured by the black robes.
“We’ll start with you, Valentine,” announced the woman, and flipped three cards onto the table. One showed a giant dragon taking a second bite out of a moon while the other moon floated next to their head, entirely uneaten, one showed a crown with what seemed to be nobility impaled on it’s spikes, and one showed an arena filled with blood, in which appeared to be children were playing in. The fortune-teller – as that was what I was guessing she was – looked down at them with great interest.
“I must say, while it reveals the trouble you’re currently in, this doesn’t entirely reveal to me why you came here. Why don’t you put it into your own words?”
“I came here to ask for Princess Asperia – may her highness one day reign – to forcibly take my ownership from my current master.” The fortune-teller laughed softly.
“Oh? And why should she do that?”
“I am utterly loyal to Princess Asperia, worshiping her like a goddess, I am well trained in obedience and the arts of love, and I would do whatever she asked, besides kill. Despite this restriction, I would be an excellent bodyguard, and would willingly sacrifice my life for her, or anyone she told me to protect, if need be.”
“Mmm, I see. Strip, slave.” Without hesitation, Valentine tore off both he robe and the dress that was beneath it, and threw aside the mask, leaving her utterly naked, and looked up at the fortune-teller devotedly, full of hope… was even the Princess’s emissary enough to get this kind of blind loyalty?
The fortune-teller laughed. “She’s going to like you, I can tell… and I think her harem will, too. I’ll assign you as her harem guard, she can change your assignment if she feels the need.”
“Thank you!” Valentine absolutely would have been wagging her tail if she was a dog-girl, she was so excited and obedient, her face shining.
The fortune-teller waved her hand dismissively, and Valentine fell silent, continuing to look up at her with that utter devotion.
“Okay, we’ll go with you next, Master.” ...why was she calling her Master? Oh, that’s right, her… my name, that is, and anyone addressing her, would be replaced by ‘Master’.
Master bowed her head and threw off her robe, revealing the dress she was wearing beneath as well.
“Oh? Another addition to the Princess’s harem?”
“That was not my intent, your highness– merely I wished to show that I could exceed the capabilities of the heroes of the past. Despite having come from another world, I have learned the arts of the transmutationist in the past few months.” The fortune-teller blinked at being called ‘your highness’, and then laughed loudly. Wait… was this Princess Asperia herself, wearing hardly nothing as she sat before us on the other side of the table. She pulled a card from the deck, and stared at it for a few moments.
“I see. Well, you are certainly more useful out in the field. What is it you wish to bargain for? As I have no reason you are innately loyal to Princess Asperia, from what I have heard of you– you seem to have little plan beyond helping whoever is in front of you.”
“I believe… that slavery is a system that is not just immoral, but holding the country back.”
“Even were the queen to rise to the throne, attempts to overturn it would cause a lot of chaos.”
“Undoubtedly. I have heard, on the whole, that your highness is very fond of chaos.”
“That is very true.” She turned her gaze to me for a moment, and flipped a card showing a woman wearing seven colored veils but naked beneath it onto the table.
I was somewhat unsure if it was my turn to speak. “...am I supposed to take off my robe, your highness? This is the first time I’ve been to the night court.”
She laughed even more loudly than before. “Oh, you are a delight, Sasha.” She looked back to Master for a long moment. “For someone who would rid the kingdom of slavery, I must hear what their slave thinks of them. That sounds reasonable, does it not?”
Master looked over to me and furrowed her brow. “...I… I guess that makes sense? You’ll take good care of her?” Her voice sounded nothing more than innocent concern at my safety.
The woman pressed her hand against her chest, pressing the thin veils she was wearing closer and revealing her erect nipples underneath.
“You have my word. My guide will show you back out, O Hero of Another World. Valentine, Sasha, come with me.”
The three of us rose, and Master walked over to give me a quick hug. “While you are in the court of the queen, you are not allowed to use your magic, Sasha… I can give her no reason to accuse you of treachery.”
“I wasn’t about to use it for anything bad.”
“I know.” She kissed me softly on the lips, full of longing, like a lover might, and reluctantly let go of me, stepping back, and I stared up at her, flushed and somewhat confused… this was another face, I supposed. Trying to act like I might towards Sasha.
Valentine cleared her throat, and I hurried over to her side. We followed the fortune-teller through another set of tunnels, until we emerged into a rather opulent room, filled with silk couches.
Naked and half-naked women with slave collars were everywhere, some cuddling with each other, some just lounging around, eating snacks and drinking wine, playing board games, some even clearly just disengaged from a lewd act, all looking at Princess Asperia and Valentine with interest… much less attention was given to me.
Princess Asperia pulled off her veils and threw them to the side, leaving her wearing literally nothing but, rather stereotypically, an oddly shaped silver tiara with diamonds which held her long black-that-reflected-green-in-the-light hair back.
“All right, girls, I’ve acquired a new harem guard for you, since we had one of the positions open up… Valentine, a former gladiator of the arena who begged to serve me. You’re free to play with her as long as it doesn’t get in the way of either your nor her duties.” The naked Princess reached over and pulled off my robe, and I instinctively covered myself up... although I was just wearing normal clothing. This got some laughter from the room.
“This adorable little slave is Sasha, and I’m going to be talking to her privately in my room. We’ll see if she joins you or not, in the end.” There was a misaligned chorus of greetings as she took my hand and started leading me to another room.
“Welcome back, Princess!”
“Welcome, Valentine!”
“Welcome, Sasha!” ...okay, most of the cacophony of welcomes were in the previous two categories, but some of them were clearly welcoming me, and it warmed my heart a little that I rated enough for a welcome next to their literal owner and princess, and Valentine, both of whom were far more striking than I. My cheeks, of course, were already quite warm.
She lead me down a hall into another room with an opulent bed in it and no other seating, and I hesitantly sat down on the bed.
Princess Asperia looked at me expectantly for a moment before speaking. “I really shouldn’t have to tell you this, Sasha, but the polite thing to do here is to strip. It’s rather rude that you’re letting the country’s Crown Princess go nude while you wear full clothing, isn’t it?”
“Ah! Sorry, your highness!” I stripped, my hands trembling slightly, as it left us alone and naked together, in a room which dominated by a huge and luxurious bed, and even I could see the context here. It’s not like I had any room to refuse her anything, right?
She sat down next to me, and stroked my cheek, smiling at me with an adoring but mildly predatory look that reminded me of Master somehow. “Now, Sasha… I’m going to give you a degree of freedom you’ve probably never seen before in your life, and will probably never see again.”
I blinked at her a few times. If only she knew….
“Now. Depending on your words, I’ll either give you back to your Master, or have them executed and you can become my loyal slave instead. Out of the two of you, I’ve always seen you as the one with value. The Hero can always easily be replaced, once dead.” She leaned in close, stroking my thigh as I sputtered. “Whereas someone with Mind Magic… well, it’s known as the forbidden art for a reason. Most practitioners can’t resist it’s temptations.”
“T-temptations!?”
She laughed at my response, although gently. “If you choose to become my slave, I promise to treat you very well, and I don’t mind if you have little dalliances with Valentine or whoever else in my harem catches your eye… as long as you put me first. You won’t have to risk your life fighting.“
“So, my little slave... what will your one choice in your life be?”
Chapter 13: In Which I Stand In The Hallway With A Woman Whose Name I Don’t Know For A Very Awkward Five Minutes
It took me a moment to process that offer with a very hot and extremely naked Princess pressed up against my own naked body, but then:
“No.”
She blinked, tilted her head to one side, raising an eyebrow as she tapped my nose with her finger.
“I mean, no, sorry, your highness… anything that involves the death of Master is not something I’ll ever agree to.”
“Okay, I can respect that. What if your Master agreed to it?”
I blinked. It wasn’t impossible. “...In that case, I will follow Master’s will. But I don’t think I’m as useful as you think I am, your highness.”
“Oh? Isn’t a slave with Mind Magic super useful?”
I studiously avoided her gaze, and she pulled back from me a little. “...you don’t have it, do you? Then how…?”
“I… Master is the one with Mind Magic.”
“An otherworlder with mind magic… most impressive, to learn so quickly, and be so self-controlled.” She tilted her head a bit to one side, and petted my head. “So this little bitch has been enchanted to have overwhelming loyalty to her Master, is that it?”
“I… I don’t know, your highness. I don’t know where my will ends and the magic begins.” I started sniffling, trying not to cry in front of royalty, or, at the very least, trying not to cry so much it looked ugly. “But you see how you can’t kill her, right?” She looked a little pained.
“Sasha… you’re just as–” a slight pause “...just as straightforward as they say… had you considered that it might be the case that I already knew your Master probably had mind magic, and was just checking to make sure before I got rid of her if she did?” I stiffened and looked at her in horror and started crying more. The Princess Asperia sighed and petted me.
“Mmm, there there…” Her voice was like comforting a particularly stupid pet, but there was affection in it, at least. “I’m going to throw a Null spell in your head and wipe all your current Mind Magic enchantments, and once you recover, you’re going to tell me how loyal you’re feeling towards your master.”
I looked at her warily. “Um… I have no issue with that, your majesty. Thank you.”
She stared at me for a long moment, and then giggled. “I’m sorry, but you’re hilarious. Such a natural fool. I can see why your Master keeps you around.” She put her hand on my forehead. “That wasn’t an offer, by the way. I was just stating what was going to happen, so you’d have some idea what was going on when you woke up.”
The world erupted into unbearable pain and confusion, and I blacked out.
When I awoke, I was covered in sweat, and my body felt unwieldy… I was lying on the floor next to a chair in a bedroom… not one I was familiar with. I staggered to my feet, and… hmm. A smaller room than I was used to… no… something felt weird between my legs… and my breasts felt less heavy… I reached down, touched myself all over, more in confusion than anything, and realized I had smaller breasts, a stronger frame, and something between my legs, apparently Sasha’s transmutation hadn’t reached that far.
...All the mind magic had been wiped, and apparently, that included the body swap. I was free.
Sasha, on the other hand, was in Princess Asperia’s clutches. Exactly what the Princess wanted.
I could guess – but not be sure – that I had woken up first. Maybe experience with mind magic made you wake up first, but otherwise, this body from another world was way tougher in any number of ways than a local one.
I realized I could probably think of my name of the past, but also that I didn’t really want to, that I was deliberately avoiding it so far. Had I become that used to being Sasha? Or maybe that name was attached to all the foolish things I had done in this world when I was in charge.
Maybe I was worried that if I reached for that name, it just… wouldn’t be there anymore. That Sasha hadn’t so much enchanted that, as wiped it from my mind entirely.
Was Mind Magic able to do that? I had no idea.
I lay down on the bed, and stared up at the ceiling, in my body that now felt so unfamiliar, and not just because it had been changed.
I had three basic paths.
First, I could go to Princess Asperia and try to serve her, and accept she had Sasha. She seemed very willing to kill me, but as long as I was a loyal chess piece, I don’t think she’d go out of her way to kill me… if I handed over Sasha.
Second, I could demand Sasha back from her. I didn’t know if that would go well.
Third, I could go to Princess Adeline… but if Sasha joined Princess Asperia’s side, that’d mean we were enemies.
Well, it wasn’t like I could decide this alone. Sasha’s choices also mattered. She could probably negotiate for whatever she wanted, really. Maybe even mind-control Princess Asperia, depending on how having our minds switched and the control spells on the collar worked.
...where had Sasha left our body anyway?
I stood up, and walked over to look out the window. A… courtyard? Judging from the tower layout… yes, this was the royal castle. It had a name, but heck if I could remember what that name was at the moment.
My head still hurt, but the pain was already beginning to recede.
I strode out into the hall, and the guard standing there – a woman, I remember all of Princess Asperia’s staff I’ve seen being women, now that I thought about it – bowed to me.
“Good evening, Hero From Another World. Do you wish to wait somewhere else for Princess Asperia’s summons? Perhaps in the gardens, or the library?” She smiled a relaxed smile at me.
“Um…” Okay, she was making it really hard to threaten her. “I really need to speak to Princess Asperia right now.”
Her smile vanished. “I’m afraid that’s impossible. I thought you understood that. You must wait for her highness’s summons.”
“Well, I guess I’m going to have to look around, then.”
She moved to put her hand on her longsword, and I stepped forward and drew it from her scabbard before she did, took hold of it by the blade and offered it to her.
She hesitantly took the hilt, and I let go, leaving the blade in her hand.
“Look… I’d rather not fight. I’m sure you can call up an alarm, but if things actually start to get difficult, that just means I’ll have to be less gentle with the people who get in my way.”
“We’re all willing to fight to the death for her,” the Princess’s guard stated bravely.
“Look, I’m not even sure we’re enemies, just, I’ve gotten some information that she was talking about having me killed… let’s go find someone else to send as a messenger, and I’ll give her five minutes to arrive before I start doing things. Even if you’re all fanatically loyal, for some reason, I don’t see why you should throw away your lives when it might not have value.”
She furrowed her brow and stared at me for a moment, then nodded. “Carla!”
Another guardswoman came out of a nearby hall.
The guardswoman I had been chilling with didn't look away from me, but hearing her footsteps, said “Our guest is making threats if her highness doesn’t come talk to her in five minutes. Go tell her that.”
Carla glared at me, said “be safe” quietly to the first guardswoman, and rushed off.
We stood there for a bit. It was really awkward, actually. She had a dash of freckles across her cheeks, and green eyes… I couldn’t make out what her hair looked like with her helmet on. I finally broke the silence.
“So, um… what’s your name?”
“Does it really matter, Hero from Another World?”
“...well, if you don’t want to tell it to me… why are you all so loyal to Princess Asperia?”
“Why are your limbs so loyal to your body?”
I stared at her uncomprehendingly. She stared back. I cleared my throat. “...I don’t get it, sorry.”
“Look. If your head dies, the rest of your body dies too, right?”
“...I mean, yeah?”
“So guarding your head with your arm makes sense, even if you lose the arm.”
“Sure.”
“Now in this metaphor,” the guardswoman explained patiently, “Princess Asperia is the head.”
“...Ah.”
“...what happens in a succession dispute when the loser loses?” I shrugged helplessly.
The guardswoman stared. “...obviously, a lot of loser’s followers are executed, enslaved, exiled, or otherwise marginalized. The body comes to it’s end, as do most of it’s constituent parts.”
“Ah. That sort of succession dispute. So you have no choice but to be loyal.”
She stared at me. “I could in theory, maybe betray Princess Asperia, and maybe, just maybe, get a good deal for myself… but we’re like a family. I’d be selling out all of my sisters, as well as the Princess, who has done a lot for me. So if you threaten the Princess, you’re threatening all of us. Please remember that.”
I nodded, and shrugged a little. “I... don’t even want to fight her, I just don’t want her to kill me or Sasha. We came here to try to enter an alliance with her, and she’s gone all backstabby.”
“I see.”
Another short time passed, with her steadily keeping her gaze on me as I looked around the hall as if it would reveal some miracle.
I looked back over to her. “...do you have a watch?”
“As if I could afford such a thing. You don’t?”
“Mmm, never came up. I have no idea if it’s been five minutes.”
“It hasn’t.”
“Okay.”
Another short pause.
“Should I tell you when it has?”
“No, then I might feel I need to do something. I more meant ‘about five minutes’ rather than ‘exactly five minutes’, you know. Give it a sense of urgency.”
“Ah.”
Fuck this was awkward.
In what felt like eons, but was probably less then ten minutes, total, we heard footsteps. Princess Asperia arrived, wearing a much more formal-looking white dress with intricate little patterns of gems inlaid along it, as well as several women from both directions of the hall, all dressed differently, guards and mages and such I gathered, but my attention was focused on her.
Princess Asperia looked at me. “I had heard you were threatening my people.”
I smiled. “Funny, I had heard you were threatening my person.”
She blinked a few times. “What sort of magic…?”
“Why would I explain that to you? Now, do you want to talk this out like reasonable people, your highness? Your people seem cute, and I’d hate to harm them because a little mistake you made.”
Princess Asperia stared at me for a long moment, then waved her hand, and everyone else, including the guardswoman who had been guarding me, retreated down the hall a little ways. She walked closer to me and stared up into my eyes, but we both knew the situation of power had changed. She had literally placed herself in the palm of my hand, but despite this, a smile played around her lips. Maybe I wasn’t right about that.
“I’m sorry you heard that. If you were coming here to end slavery, and your slave said you deserved to die, you wouldn’t be worthy of keeping alive, would you? But she spoke fairly highly of you, considering what you did to her mind. Or because of what you did to her mind, perhaps? Worried her opinion of you will change without all your mind magic on her?” Fuck.
“I’m sure her opinion of me won’t have changed at all.”
“Why do you want to end slavery?”
“It’s wrong.”
“...wrong?”
“Evil?”
She shrugged. “All power has the potential to be abused. I’m quite kind to my slaves and other followers… and there isn’t as much difference in freedom between them as you might think.”
“Slaves who their masters don’t want are sold to the arena as fodder.”
“Yes, well, I do hate the arena, so we’re agreed in that area. If I had the power, I’d close it down… I’m sure there would be rioting.” She laughed at the idea, as if rioting was a delightful amusement, then shook her head and looked back in my eyes again.
“Still, the animalfolk do need to be kept down in some way. I’m not sure stuffing them all in some sort of… I don’t know, late-life orphanage where they wait for death would be much kinder.”
“...why do they need to be kept down? Why can’t they just be people like anyone else?”
She blinked. “Well, they’ll constantly try to get more and more power, become equals and all that, won’t they? Despite their inadequacies. The humans are used to them being inferior, and will try to grind them under the feet to keep their own status.” I tried to ignore her implicit support of their inferior status based in part on unstated "inadequacies", and instead focused on trying to convince her.
“...I thought you enjoyed chaos.”
She giggled. “Oh, yeah, that’s true, actually. I don’t do it for the fun of it, but if you’re going to do something, be good at it, and enjoy it, you know?”
“How about we go wait for Sasha to wake up together.”
“Mmm… sure, but you’re going without a weapon, and in chains.”
“...That hardly seems fair.”
She reached up and stroked my cheek. “We both know you can break chains regardless. I just need to have it look like I won in front of my followers, since you made such a big deal of it. Oh, while you’re at it, kneel in front of me.” I could feel my face getting hot, but… there wasn’t really a reason I needed to look like the winner here, while I had her at my mercy physically just by being within range of my attacks.
“...sure, fine.” I unbuckled my greatsword from my back, and let it drop to the ground, then kneeled in front of her, and Princess Asperia laughed delightedly, and gestured to the freckled guardswoman forwards to set manacles on my wrists and ankles, and chain them together.
Princess Asperia smiled down at me, and beckoned me to rise to my feet, which I did.
Her smile remained as she looked up into my eyes. “This little game is proving more amusing than I originally planned.”
Chapter 14: In Which, Despite Being Able To Presumably Kill Princess Asperia At Will, I Feel Very Much Not In Control Of The Situation
We were lead down into what looked like some sort of, I don’t know, alchemist’s place or something– vials and bottles and stranger glass devices everywhere. On top of a couch, which was inside a circle with all sorts of intricate glyph engraved on the stone around it, lay Sasha.
She was, apparently, asleep.
There were two rather nice chairs a bit of a distance away, and Princess Asperia sat in one, and gestured me towards the other. I started to walk towards Sasha, and she clicked her tongue. “We’re waiting until she wakes up, so we can see her without your influence.”
I stood for a moment, then nodded, and walked over to the other chair. “Your followers seem pretty fanatical, too, given their leader– mind if I hit one of them in the head with a null spell?”
“Certainly, that’s entirely fair," she replied without hesitation. "Choose whoever among my followers you want. A little headache is nothing to prove that they are truly loyal to me.” Agreeing without any hesitation at all, and indeed, all of her followers there looked ready to step forwards.
I looked between them and then shook my head, raising my hand. “That you’re all willing to have it done at the drop of the hat is enough proof for me. Can we talk alone?”
She smiled and waved her hand, and they all withdrew from the room, leaving us in the alchemist’s lab, which smelled like old wood and half a dozen smells I couldn’t even begin to place. “So, where did you get the idea to end slavery?”
Fuck. Where did Sasha get the idea to end slavery, I wondered? “Slavery is illegal in the world I come from.”
She blinked a few times. “You mean… no slavery at all…?” It seemed she was having trouble wrapping her head around this concept.
“...well… there’s illegal slaves that are kept under force of arms rather than law... and there’s people who are little more than slaves… and a few countries condone what is essentially slavery for prisoners… but other than that…?”
“If there’s still slaves, what’s the point? And more important, your Counts have that much individual power?”
“Ah, no, country is more like, a general term, applied to a… like a kingdom or whatever, but regardless of the form of government. As for the point… well, murder and theft are illegal, right? But they still happen, and depending who is doing it, maybe it’s not investigated too carefully it seems like, from what I’ve heard of the assassinations you’ve called out recently that got Valentine in so much trouble. But still, there’s less murder and theft than if they were just allowed, probably?”
She smiled, and gestured airily. “Yes, yes, that does make sense. I had nothing to do with those, by the way... it was probably one of my more fanatical supporters, really. If I knew who did it, I’d tell them to cool it, I didn’t need assassinations right there right now… it may have even been someone from the other side, sowing discord against me. People are already afraid of me, and they didn’t even hit important targets… not that I’m trying for assassinations right now, mind you.”
I raised an eyebrow and just looked at her for a little while, and she looked back, utterly without shame.
“O mighty hero from another world,” she managed to make this sound a bit sarcastic somehow, “are you really the sort of person who wishes to know how sausage gets made? Just accept that I may do some things you’d disapprove of, but if you want someone to end slavery, they’re going to have to do even more cruel and underhanded things than that… or let someone else do them for you.”
I frowned and nodded slowly. “I see. I may have questions later… but sure, let’s leave it for now.”
“Honestly, you’re going to have to be patient about that… I can promise you, if I stay in power for my entire life… well, and it’s as long as I hope it will be, I guess… that I will end slavery before the end of it, if it turns out I can trust you. But I’m hardly going to destabilize my country by suddenly outlawing it out of nowhere. There’s too many enemies around who would pounce on us if we did that.”
I raised an eyebrow. “All of your countries– all of your kingdoms are really that hostile to each other?”
“Not hostile, it’s just like wolves… if one weakens, the others will pounce on it and tear it apart.”
“...is this an arena thing? I’ve never heard of wolves doing that.”
“An arena thing, yes.”
“Probably wolves from different groups who are starved so as to be more ferocious than, wolves don’t act like that in the wild.”
“Ooh, look at who’s a wolf expert. How long have you been in our world, to figure out that about wolves on top of everything else?”
“We had wolves on my world. Have.”
“And they’re the same kind of wolves?”
“Well… they look much the same, and I haven’t seen that behavior in wild packs. Not that I’ve seen about it, but I read….”
She raised an eyebrow and I trailed off.
“Look, on my world I was more of an intellectual.”
“...hmm, sure. I guess I’ll have to ask the arenamaster about that sometime.”
“...you’re on speaking terms with an arenamaster?”
“...yes?”
“I thought you hated the arena.”
“I do, but it’s much easier to undercut him when he thinks I’m friendly.”
“’Keep your friends close and enemies closer’ sort of thing?” She sat up in her chair a little and smiled at me.
“Ooh, that’s catchy. I may steal it.”
“Go ahead, it’s merely a common saying on my world… but is that why you’re drawing me so close? Cause I’m an enemy?”
“No... someone who can murder an entire castle full of people just calls for different sorts of precautions, don’t you think?”
“...heroes have done that?”
“Multiple times. There’s a reason why hero summoning hasn’t been done in a century, it’s a wildly powerful pawn to place on the battlefield, but your control over it is very very tenuous. And you, with your easy command of magic… well, it’s not hard to see yourself promoting yourself to Queen.”
I smirked a little at that. “That some kind of marriage proposal?”
“Do you want a more formal one? I need to know you’re an ally, and marriage is the easiest way to do that.”
I flushed, open my mouth, closed it again. “...I’ll think about it. This is all very sudden from someone who wanted to kill me less than an hour ago.”
“’Wanted’ is such a strong term. More like ‘was afraid I might have to’. You’re extremely scary, you know that?” She stood up, and placidly walked up to sit in my lap. I moved my chained arms out of the way so she wouldn’t be uncomfort– no wait, what was I doing?
“Why are you sitting so close?”
“You can kill me wherever in the room I am, right?”
“...yes.”
“So why not sit in my fiance’s lap, if I might be murdered? Get to know her a little better?” She leaned in for a soft kiss on my cheek, and I gently put my hands on her shoulders and held her back a little.
“We aren’t fiances. I’d prefer if when Sasha wakes up, she doesn’t see you all over me.”
“...she’s literally your slave, and she may be a bit foolish, but she’s not completely ignorant. She knows real people get married. I’m not going to try to have her eliminated or anything… if anything, your bond with each other is the only reason I decided I might side with you.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“Really? You seem quite contemptuous of her.” My voice was cold.
She stroked my arm. “Don’t be like that, love. There’s nothing wrong with saying things like they are.”
I gently picked her up and set her back down in her chair in an instant, before walking back to my own… other than the loud clanking, the chains didn’t hinder me at all.
Within seconds, a few of her servitors immediately rushed in, but she waved them away again with a smile. “Look, I’m not going to get rid of your slave, if we become allies. It’s clear you two have a strong bond, and if that’s true even without your magic on her, then there's no reason to not have such a good and loyal girl around. I expect you’ll be similarly kind to my harem. You’ve already impressed me with how you handled my people. Was it efficient? No. But such a good way to prove that you’re my potential ally. To put trust in me, and ask me to put trust in you. If you treat guards and servants you’ve never meant so kindly, and are so loving towards a mere slave, it stands to reason you’ll treat your wife well, too, does it not?”
“Wife… is that the only way we’re going to be allies?”
“I’m willing to listen to counterproposals. Is that so bad, becoming my wife?”
“Yeah, well, look, you may be a princess, and you may be beautiful, but… I don’t know where I’m going with this. I need to think about this.”
“Oh, take your time, by all means. I guess I could adopt you, instead… of course, that would mean you’d be my subordinate. My hand in marriage is the only way you’ll ever be almost my equal, no matter how powerful you are in combat.”
I considered this for a moment. “Are heroes even adoptable?”
“No one’s ever done it, although a few have married them. I’m sure it would be a huge scandal.” She giggled and waved her hand. “Scandals are so much fun.”
“...doesn’t that hurt your chances for the throne?”
“Oh, I have no doubt it does. But as long as only one of the Princesses is standing at the end, she will be crowned the winner.”
“...you’re really okay with killing your sister?”
She shrugged. “Hey, she started it when she was 12 and I was 14, trying to have me murdered.” She shook her head contemptuously. “Really. It was a good setup, too.”
“...what if it was a setup by someone who wanted you two to fight?”
She considered this for a moment. “You know, if you had told that to 14-year-old me, you might have made a good point. But at this point… what if it was a setup? We’ve done so much to each other and each other’s people I don’t think there can ever be real trust between us now.”
“That’s too bad if so.”
“Perhaps. But she lacks both social graces and patience. If it wasn’t for her being a Seer, literally no one would put up with her. If she had been quiet and obedient, I may have allowed her to live.”
I tried not to think about that part too hard. “...how do you even think you’re going to win against a seer?”
“Okay, so, for a Seer, they see the possibilities of the future, right?”
“...sure?”
“The more possibilities, the harder it is to see. For my survival, the more possibilities that exist, the better.”
“Ah.”
“Exactly. Thus: chaos.”
“...does seeing the future in itself change it?”
A blank stare. “...I beg your pardon?”
“Well, in my world, there’s this branch of… magic, let’s call it, known as ‘quantum physics’, not that I know more than the basics. Observing a particle affects it’s behavior, and moreover, you can set up experiments where the particle inaccurately predicts the future. I think one thought experiment was called the Elitzur-Vaidman bomb tester, where… okay, I’m not sure I can explain this to you, it’s hard enough to explain to people from my world, but basically it has a chance of blowing up a bomb, but also, because of this, it has a chance of telling you the thing you are pointing it at is a bomb. I am vastly oversimplifying this.”
She laughed. “A rather elegant way to test bombs, to see if they explode. Why not just have a seer check the future for you?”
“Um, we don’t have that branch of magic.”
She looked to me with interest. “...do you have any magic from your home world?”
...could I even figure out anything useful about science to tell her? “...no comment.”
“...ahhh. I believe that would explain it. The magicians… ‘scientists’, I believe your people call them… we haven’t had one of those before. So you, a magician, comes to this world, and of course studying magic comes quickly to you, because the skills overlap somewhat. You keep on becoming more valuable.”
I was sweating slightly. Oops. I hoped she didn't expect too much from my patchy half-understanding of pop science.
“We should definitely get married. You’re a crazy valuable piece.”
“That’s not exactly flattering.”
“Well, you’re a very hot piece of ass, too. I’d rather you were my wife than my daughter, honestly.”
She winked, and my face heated up, and I put my head in my hands. “...please wake up soon, Sasha.”
From the couch, a weak voice spoke up.
“...Master?”
I got up and walked over to within a few feet of Sasha, and her tail thumped against the couch as she looked up at me queasily.
“Sorry, Master, I didn’t mean to listen in… not that I really understood much of it… just, Master and her highness were having a conversation, and that’s more important….” I frowned a little at that reasoning.
Before I could open my mouth to protest, however, Princess Asperia stepped up to my side. “Understandable, and normally good etiquette for a slave… but we were waiting for you, as it turns out. There’s a death spell on your Master’s chains if the proper command word is spoken, so you may speak freely.”
I blinked and looked over to Princess Asperia.
She continued, “I just want to know if you truly care about her, or if that was just mind magic. Given how much your head hurts, there must have been quite a bit of mind magic on you.”
“Yes… Master helped keep away bad memories… love Master...” Sasha sniffled pathetically and rubbed her temple with one hand as she tried to sit up, but seemingly having trouble doing so, as if something had happened to her balance. Her ears and tail were drooping. It was hard to believe this was the same woman that had been pushing me around so arrogantly recently.
I looked over to the Princess, somewhat upset at how messed up Sasha was by this. “Are you satisfied? Can we be allies now?” My voice was acidic.
Princess Asperia smiled at me.
“Yes, I believe we can.” She reached over and petted Sasha’s head very softly, and looked over to me. “I’ll leave you with Sasha for a little while to help her get her mind back together, all right? And to think over my proposal….”
“And the chains?”
“Ah yes, my apologies. ‘Return to the fortune of the void’.” The words were spoken very openly and clearly, and the fetters opened, and the chains fell off of me, clanking on the floor.
“There, now you know the release phrase, so they can’t be effectively used against you.”
“It’d be nice if you didn’t secretly point more blades at my throat.”
She laughed softly. “It's not like it was just me... we had blades pointed at each other’s throat, darling… I think there’s something terribly romantic about that, don't you? But next time I point a blade at your throat, I’ll let you know, okay?” She took my hand and kissed the back of it while looking up into my eyes, and then left the room with a little wave of her hand and a swish of her hips.
I sat down next to Sasha. “Are you all right?”
She half-climbed up on me, whimpering softly, and put her chin on my shoulder and whispered softly, “She’s definitely still keeping track of us somehow. Release my magic so I can protect from that, and we can talk.”
I petted her head and whispered back, “For the next ten minutes, except on me, you can use magic.” She furrowed her brow for a moment, and then a bubble of mist surrounded us. She straightened up a little, still holding her head. “Why?”
I blinked. “...why what?”
“Why’d you come back for me, at such risk? Is it a revenge thing?”
“No. Actually, she was offering to kill me and take you on as her own, based on your proficiency with Mind Magic.”
Sasha shifted her brow a little, okay, that didn’t explain it enough.
“...and I let her know the ‘Hero’ was the one with mind magic.”
“...oh. So… I’d guess from how inexpertly it was done, she just shoved a Null spell into our head.”
“Got it in one.” I reached up to pet her cheek, and she looked at me in disbelief.
“Why?”
“Well, putting aside that I couldn’t really pretend to have mind magic long, I wanted to protect you.”
“Want to have your obedient little slave back that bad, huh.” She didn’t sound mad, just resigned. “...okay. Give me a little time to get my mental chambers properly sectioned.”
I shook my head. “Why does everything have to be about who has power over who? Can’t we just be equals?”
“How can a dog-girl slave and a human from another world ever be equal? One is the master, one is the servant, that’s inevitable.”
“I mean, between the two of them, they could be equals.”
“The actual balance of power will always be different. Even if they both pretend otherwise.”
“...that’s too bad, I was hoping you’d help me work through this.”
“...what, marrying the princess? Or getting adopted by her?”
“Partially that, yes. She said she’d get rid of slavery in her lifetime if I worked for her, she was quite impressed that I had picked up Mind Magic so quickly.”
Sasha pulled away from me a little and leaned back against the couch, closing her eyes. “Starting to sound like she just desperately needs someone with Mind Magic.”
“...maybe. Do you think we can trust her?”
“Maybe if you marry her. She’s closer to people she fucks than she is to her family, by all accounts from my information network.”
“...you have an information network!?”
She opened one eye and looked at me with something between disdain and amusement. “I told you, I’m far more suited to a role of power than you…” A slight pause, and she struggled to sit up straighter, reached up to trace a few fingers lightly under my chin. “Is that it, you want to be Sasha again? I can take over again and be the Hero… you don’t have to think about this complicated stuff anymore, and can just be good and obedient… doesn’t that sound nice?”
I flushed and glared at her. “Clearly, if this scenario has taught us anything, it’s that being a slave isn’t enough to get out of politics entirely.”
A slight shrug of her shoulders, and she let her hand fall. “Worth a try. So how are you going to keep up the ruse that you have mind magic?”
“Um… hadn’t thought that far ahead at all.”
“Again, simpler if you give that body back to me and take this one.”
“Aren’t you going to treat me like shit again if I do?” She looked over at me, expression a bit dazed as she tried to make sense of that.
“...what? I didn’t starve you, beat you, overwrite your mind with magic… I was being absurdly gentle, and you’re still upset by the treatment?”
“You were constantly threatening me and saying I was happier and making me do stuff with my body and the like.”
“...well, of course. How do you think you train a slave without using Mind Magic? It’s a slow, gradual breaking of their will, using a little stick and as much carrot as you can. Will isn’t a good thing to have, for a slave. Just makes them suffer.”
“Strange to hear, coming from you.”
Sasha sighed. “My Master used to make me train and retrain slaves. My… reward, I guess… was I was allowed to use a little mind magic and forget the worst parts of it. Now it’s all flooding back, and… trust me, you got off easy.”
“Can’t we just be allies?” She stared at me for a long moment, then smiled a little, somewhere between sad and amused.
“Sure, sure… give me back my body, and I’ll do my best to treat you that way… you’ll have proven you’re my loyal slave, for sure.” She didn’t sound like she expected it at all.
I furrowed my brow. Giving up all power to her… just seemed like a bad idea. But she was far more expert at using it. If I wanted to survive among people like Princess Asperia and Princess Adeline, and truly make an impact on this world, end slavery, be something like an equal to Sasha rather than her Master or her Slave….
“Yeah, give me a moment to think about that.” She blinked, and stared in disbelief, and then a smile spread across her face, a bit of that confidence coming back to her.
“Sure. I’ll work on fixing my mental chambers in the meantime.”
I stared into the mists. I… this body was so much of a responsibility. It was a weapon, and I felt I had the obligation to use it to fix things and make things better for people.
I was maybe a girl, but… that didn’t really matter, Sasha could transform me either way, and probably would. “Would you let me take whatever form I wanted as your slave?”
After a few moments, she opened an eye. “...there’s spells that make turning into a human from an animalfolk a very risky thing. Not directly, but--”
“No, no, I mean, if I wanted you know, a male body. Or whatever.”
“Oh, sure. I want you to be comfortable, knock yourself out. Can give you bigger boobs if you want, too.” I flushed at her words.
She opened her other eye. “...you’re seriously thinking about this, aren’t you? Aren’t you worried if you deliver yourself into someone’s power, they’ll betray you?”
“I think you were trying your best, in your own fucked up way, and you’ve told me you’d do better… and besides, otherwise we need to figure out what to do with the whole ‘me having mind magic’ thing.”
“Yeah, teaching you would take some time. And you might lose your mind. Probably not, but you know, maybe. Mind Magic requires an extremely strong will… not to use it in itself, but to use it semi-responsibly.”
“I have a strong will!”
She rolled her eyes. “Sasha, you rolled over the moment I took control, and you came in here with chains on you when I have no doubt you were in the superior position. You’re naturally obedient and submissive, is what you are.”
“If I give you the ability to cast magic whenever and however you want, will you leave me with this body?”
“I… I guess if you want? I don’t want you to feel I’ve betrayed your trust. You know, again. I do think you’d be happier as my slave, though.”
“Okay. You may cast magic however you want, on whoever you want, for all eternity.” I tensed up a little. Nothing happened, and I relaxed.
She sighed. “You trust people too easily.”
I smiled with easy confidence. Even moreso than before, I was sure she genuinely loved me. “Perhaps. But I’m right this time.”
“...Maybe.”
“You really do care about me, don’t you?”
She glared at me, seeming offended. “Yes? I told you that multiple times.”
“I thought it might be another way to control me.”
“Of course it was... but that doesn’t mean I was lying about it.” She lowered her voice a little. “There’s no one besides you I’ve ever felt comfortable lying next to.”
I snuggled up closer to her, and she flushed a little. I smiled a bit. “...okay, maybe Princess Asperia is right. There’s something a little romantic at having metaphorical blades pointed at each other’s throats.”
She shook her head. “I don’t like it.”
“You’ll get used to it.” I yawned softly.
“No, if someone has a blade at my throat, or I have it at their throat, the situation is simple. We know who’s in charge. If we both have it at each other’s… there’s always a chance someone’s going to lash out. It’s stressful. I can’t handle it, least of all with you.”
Everything was getting a little hazy.
“I don’t… wait, Sasha, you aren’t… I trusted…” Wait, I could still command her magic. “...you are no longer able--” Suddenly, I wasn’t able to form words anymore, and I reached up towards her throat, and put my hand around it, but couldn’t bring myself to crush it, as she looked back into my eyes with a complicated expression.
“You’re too naive. You’ll get yourself killed, if you keep on leaving openings like that.” She stroked my head. “It would be one thing if it was just me, but Princess Asperia could’ve killed you at any time after you put yourself in her chains. She's a hundred times more dangerous than you think.”
I couldn't respond.
“Don’t worry,” she said with a bit of a smile, “I’ll take good care of you, Sasha.”
She was the only one I had ever felt comfortable lying next to, too.
But I had been a fool to trust her.
And despite everything, I still couldn’t bring myself to kill her.
I let my hand fall, and drifted off into sleep against her smaller body.
In Which I Have A Conversation Through The Door, And Wait For That Person’s Return
My body felt heavy and someone’s hand was gently holding mine. Everything was soft and warm, I seemed to be sleeping in a very comfortable bed. My eyes slowly blinked open.
The person formerly know as Sasha who was currently inhabiting my body smiled down at me tenderly. “Hey, pet… you okay?” She petted my arm softly with her free hand, and I pulled away my hand from hers, which she didn’t stop, although she frowned slightly.
“You aren’t still upset, are you? I have to take control if we’re both going to survive… you see that, right?”
I looked away from her. “Shut up.”
She sighed. “Watch your tone, Sasha." I growled at her calling me ‘Sasha’, but she continued, "I really just want to make tonight as pleasant as possible for you, you know that, right?”
“I don’t know, seems I can’t trust your words at all… I thought you didn’t want to betray me again.”
“And I didn’t.”
“What the fuck do you call what you did, then.”
“Just… necessary. I was hoping you’d understand that once you got some rest.”
“Yeah, well… fuck you.”
She stared at me, a little confused, and then smiled, drawing closer. “...I’d be glad to make love, pet, you only needed to ask….”
I put my hand on her forehead to hold her back, and she let me stop her, though she looked increasingly annoyed. I was pretty annoyed myself. “No, that was my bad, ‘fuck you’ is an idiom from my world, it more means… some sort of curse.”
“Ah.” She furrowed her brow.
I crossed my arms against my chest. “You just want me for my body anyway.”
She frowned. “That’s not true… how can I make you believe me?”
“I mean, you have mind magic, you can make me believe whatever you want.”
“I don’t want to overwrite your mind, Sasha….”
“Coulda fooled me.” A soft growl came from between her lips, and her hand was suddenly gripping the top of my head, palm against my forehead, and I glared up at her as best I could with her arm half-obscuring my vision.
“Yeah? Go ahead, it’s the only way I’ll ever care about you again.”
For a long moment, we stayed there, our gazes locked. Was she already starting to alter her mind? I couldn’t tell.
Finally, she took her hand away, holding it in her other hand as if she had hurt herself, and shook her head, looking away from me.
“I’ll... give you a little time to cool off. Don’t do anything stupider than usual.” She stood up and was gone in an instant, leaving a blur behind her before I could respond.
“That desperate to get in the last word, huh?” I asked the empty air.
I stood up and paced for a bit, looking around the room. Given the décor and the sheer quality of the bed, it felt like it was one of the nicer rooms in her harem. There were windows to outside with natural light filtering in, but when I went out to feel them, there was no breeze or change of heat… some sort of magical wall made to look like windows, then.
I went to open the door– locked. Ugh. I walked over to the bed and threw myself down on it, punching it, but it was soft and not very satisfying at all.
How could I have been so stupid as to trust her?
I needed someone to vent to, but I didn’t trust anyone.
When it came down to it, that was the issue, wasn’t it? She was the only person in the world I could trust to protect me, and she constantly betrayed my trust in every other way.
I wanted to believe her, because I didn’t have any other options for someone to cling to.
Fuck.
But first I’d have to escape from this room. I could bust it down the door if I was willing to expend some mana, but that wouldn’t be the first.
“Can you quiet it down? You’re supposed to be in there, and if you keep it up, I’ll have to call the guard.” A feminine voice, but so was everyone’s here. Hmm.
“Who’s on duty right now?”
“Valentine and Eskra.”
“Can you get Valentine for me?”
“...just cause she’s a softy doesn’t mean she’s going to let you out.”
“Yeah, just….”
“Fine, fine, but don’t tell anyone I was being soft on you.”
“I don’t event know who you are.”
“Velt. You’re Sasha, right? Pretty famous.”
“...yeah.”
“So what’s the story with your Master locking you in there? The stories always said you two were close.”
“...we had a bit of a disagreement recently.” She let out a low whistle.
“Openly disagreeing with your master? I dunno if you’re brave or stupid.”
“She’s just using me for my body.”
“That’s pretty normal, though, right? She takes fairly good care of you… or are those stories all inaccurate too?”
“She tries, I guess.”
“See? So you’ve got it good.”
“No, I don’t… just get Valentine, please.”
“Ohhh, are you jealous of her upcoming engagement to her highness?”
What.
Oh. Oh, right. She was in that body now, so… I slumped against the door. Fuck. “...yeah. I always thought I was her number one, and now it feels like I’ve just been being used this entire time.”
“It’s politics, what’re you going to do? Everything I’ve heard neither of them plan on casting you out or anything like that… you’ll still probably spend more time with your Master than our Princess does… or any of us get to spend with our Princess, for that matter. Maybe just make some other friends with your newfound free time? I’d like to get to know you a bit better myself.” There was a flirtatious lilt to Velt’s voice.
“Probably a bad idea, she got all jealous when another girl kissed me, after basically saying she wouldn’t mind if she fucked me.”
“Ooh, yeah, the possessive type, ouchie. I hope she doesn’t get that way about our Princess. Her highness is a bit of a free spirit, you know?” There was a bit of wistful amusement in her words. “Well, don’t worry too much, Sasha… I’m sure we can get you some access to some good sex toys for when you’re alone, at least.” Not really my concern right now, honestly, but...
“Yeah, I appreciate the thought.”
“Who kissed you anyways?”
“Valentine. Speaking of, do you think you could finally go get her?”
“...I think that wouldn’t be wise, if your Master got all jealous over a kiss and you just fought.”
I sighed. “Probably not smart, no, just…”
“Yeah, I get it. You want to see her jealous and know you matter. But you gotta be careful with stuff like that. A couple of girls have gotten executed with going too far in their pursuit of the Princess.”
“...what!? I thought she liked her girls!”
“Well, yeah, she does… but if you betray her or hurt someone else out of jealousy, she’s probably going to kill you. One time this one girl stabbed me just to get a moment of her attention, and she had her executed by a guard without even going to see her. It was rough. Even I was asking her to at least see her one last time if she refused to forgive her, and the Princess was crying, but she said she couldn’t be gentle with this sort of thing.”
“...wow, yeah, I don’t know how I’d handle that. You okay now?”
“I feel bad for the dead girl, but… yeah. I think Princess Asperia was sort of avoiding me for a year or so there – y’know, not my fault, but made her remember – but she’s warmed up to me again. She even called me over to lick her pussy last week! Gave me lots of pets and affection. It was really nice. I was so horny afterwards I had to ask my girlfriend to fuck me, even though I usually top her.”
“...you get to have girlfriends?”
“Oh, yeah, sorry. I guess you don’t? Her highness doesn’t care what we do as long as it’s not with outsiders and we put her first. She’s really the best Mistress a slave could have… and sorry, here I am bragging while you’re feeling shitty about your Master.”
And that made tears rise to my eyes for some stupid reason, although I did my best not to cry. “Yeah… you’re fine, though. I wonder if I’ll be able to at least be able to hang out with you girls sometimes when the two of them marry.”
“Probably, she can’t be that jealous, right? She let Valentine travel all the way with you after she kissed you, after all. That’s some spicy gossip, right there… I’m going to have to tell everyone.”
“...can you not?”
“Awwh, but it would be so much fun. What’s the worst thing that could happen?”
“Other girls think I’m loose, one makes a move on me, I give in because I’m lonely and mad at Master, and then…”
“Ooh, yeah, okay, I’ll wait at least a week on that one. Don’t want another dead girl’s blood in my hands, after all!”
“Why do you sound cheerful about that?”
“I mean... gotta have a little humor of the graveyard as a slave, you know? Even if we’re fairly safe here in her highness’s little garden, we’ve all been just a few wrong steps from death before.”
She giggled as if this was itself a joke. I didn’t get it. “...mmm, okay. I’ll keep that in mind.” I wiped my tears away, for all the good it was doing me.
“...not around non-slaves, of course… but it does really help to be able to make light of things a little… Master keeping you pretty close to his side, huh?”
“Hers, actually. And yeah.”
“...shouldn’t it be Mistress, then?”
“...yeah, that’s a good question. Not that I care how she wants to be addressed right now.”
“...wow, your Master – or Mistress – really lets you get away with a lot, huh? Her highness loves all of us, but she wouldn’t let even a little disrespect just slide.”
“Otherworlders, you know? Probably why she’s so possessive, too.” ...why was she so possessive, come to think of it? And why hadn’t she rewrote my mind? Would that mess with the mind-swapping spell?
“Mmm, yeah… I wonder what it’s like being a slave in the other world.”
“Apparently there’s a lot less of them there. It’s mostly illegal or something?
“Oh, awesome! Wow, that’d be such a popular destination, if we could go there instead of pulling people from there, and also if slaves were allowed to actually freely cast magic.”
“...yeah, I’m sure it would be.” I thought back to my world. The planes, cars, apartments, convenience stores… it all felt kinda distant now, unreal. I was the only living person who remembered them, and I’d never meet another Hero if the requirement for a new one being summoned was the current one died.
“Hey now, I can hear you crying… try to pull yourself together, yeah? And oh no, it looks like someone’s carrying something huge, I was never here, talk to you later, bye!”
A set of swift footsteps, and then heavier ones, walking at an even pace. I scurried back to sit on the bed.
That person unlocked the door, opened it, and brought an entire bookshelf loaded with books in, set it down against one of the walls, covering up part of the beautiful mural there, but nothing else. She looked down at me with an even expression.
“These are magic books. You can study them all you like. If you can figure out a decent way to get rid of the body swap spell, and actually pull it off without me stopping you, you’ve proven yourself, and this body is all yours.” Null spell through my head?
“Not a null spell through your head. That’s easy, and also it’s really bad for you. It’s like being stuck in manacles of glass, and your solution is to grab a sledgehammer.” ...ah.
“Let’s see. You can’t cast magic with the intent of harming me, nor can you cast Null to disenchant yourself or myself, nor can you use any other brute force method of removing Mind Magic. Other than that stipulation, you can cast magic wherever and on whoever you want, forever, for eternity.”
She stared down at me impassively. “Is your little tantrum mollified?”
I glared up at her, and then shook my head after a moment… it didn’t really do my any good to hold a grudge, and technically she was giving me a way out of this. “Close enough. I sort of forgive you.”
“Good.” In a moment, Master was next to me, hand loosely around my throat, eyes staring mercilessly down into mine. “Because I expect good behavior from here on out. If you ever act like this again, you can expect to get punished for real. And if that doesn’t work, I’ll rework bits of mind until you’re obedient, if I have to. I'm not going to have your foolishness screwing up our chances for survival, or everyone chance's for freedom”
I swallowed, heart beating quicker, and rolled my eyes. “I know you aren’t going to choke me to death, so it’s kind of pointless to–”
I woke up in a stone room with bars, a prison cell, it seemed, and a hallway leading away. There were a few slits up above me, opening just a bit of the cell to natural light and the blue sky outside… although I wondered if it was just another magical thing, it was high enough I couldn’t reach it.
The only furniture was a little cot on the floor that I was sitting on, and the blanket upon it.
Was this a punishment?
I tried to practice my magic, but found, for whatever reason, I couldn’t cast magic at all.
I sat in it and waited.
I thought about my life and waited.
I exercised and waited.
I rolled around and waited.
I touched myself and waited.
It was finally evening, judging from the sun, and it felt like it had taken eons.
I had never been so bored in my life.
How long was this going to go on?
I shoved her up against the wall, clicking handcuffs on her wrists behind her back before she could react.
She blinked as her face was pressed up to the ancient slightly grimy wall of the abandoned subway station, and inhaled sharply in pain, then laughed. "Cold iron handcuffs? Such a bad girl... guess someone's really happy to see me again."
I tilted my head to one side. "Too much?" I kept her shoulder pressed against the wall as my other hand fished inside my purse for the key.
"No, you're good, cutie." She suddenly pushed against me and tried to run, but I shoved her against the wall and kissed her. I shoved my tongue inside her mouth only to taste copper and the sun and the grass and the world that existed far before and would exist far after humanity-- and realized she bit her tongue, and I had to turn my head, and after a moment, spit the blood out. Such a waste, I did truly want her inside me. "Really? Hospitality clause?"
The woman laughed again. "You're always so quick, I like that about you." Her voice was teasing
I shoved her against the wall and started groping her thigh. "Did you like the pictures I sent you?" My voice was low and breathy.
"Mm-hmm." She tried to push me off with all her strength, but of course it couldn't compare to mine.
I pinned her to the wall by her throat, not pressing too hard, and she stopped struggling as I pushed up her dress and started rubbing my fingers against her already wet pussy... she never wore underwear, she said because she couldn't get used to it, but I think it was just because she was that slutty... not that I could pretend to take the moral high ground there, if there even was one.
This was all just a game to us, just like me writing this little biography of a slice of my life.
We were, after all, immortal.
I had first met Aurelie some centuries back, coming out of a tavern in some country -- Ireland, maybe? No, Australia. ...maybe it was Austria? It all blends together sometimes.
Okay, her name wasn't Aurelie, but it has been changed, not so much I'm worried that you'll find her -- if you have the knowhow to find her, you'll know better than to get involved, but more that people can't pronounce her name, so I'm not going to write it down. Aurelie is cute, she said it was fine, we're going with it.
Similarly, I'm not going to match the era of speech. I mess up my words enough as is, I don't need to remember how "thou/thee" works or whatever... well. It's good to use on your close friends and lovers, but someone who's not close to you is going to take it as an insult. There, that's literally all you have to remember to about "thou/thee", the important bit that's going to make people warm up or beat you up, depending.
Where was I?
So, I had been walking outside a tavern to look at the moon and regret not being turned into one of the moonchasers instead... something about that feralness, losing my mind once a month, my hunger being something that I had no control over... it was dreadfully romantic.
Looking down from the murky clouds that covered an almost-full moon... oh, let's say it was all the way full, just for vibes. The moon shone as bright as day. Yeah, that sounds suitably romantic.
As my eyes lowered from the once-in-a-decade beauty of the moon, I saw her, and if I had breath, it would've stopped. She was dancing by a stream and singing a song, and I knew she wasn't of this world, but I was drunk and melancholy.
I had been unalive for a century then-- all my friends had told me not to keep track, that it just became more depressing if you paid attention to it year by year... but you know, it wasn't my fault I easily memorized dates.
Many of those I knew also said I shouldn't have been turned... but it hadn't been my call, and it was a little late for that.
I walked over and sat down on the ground, and watched her for a little while, twirling and singing like it was the most natural thing in the world. No one else intruded on us... I don't know because they were all too drunk and melancholic, or because they had better sense, or maybe my eyes pierced some sort of veil.
Finally, she sat down in front of me crosslegged, and tilted her head to one side, exposing her neck. "Can I help you with anything?"
I tried not to look at her neck. I was hungry, I hadn't eaten for days. If I fed from her, she could probably do whatever she wanted to me... but fuck it, that sounded better than being half-alive like I was now. I wanted the ineffable will inside her that made her sing and dance despite quite possibly being a thousand times as old as I, or more.
She was obviously trying to taunt me into it, regardless of if she knew that I knew what she was, roughly, or not.
I, being drunk, young (relatively), and foolish, leaned in, and sank my teeth into her neck. And she tasted amazing. I kept drinking for a little while, and her blood kept coursing into her mouth, until I finally pulled back, panting for breath. I didn't even need to breathe. Not usually, at least.
"You've taken hospitality without asking for it," she said sweetly, "which means you're mine now."
I smiled at her. "Okay."
She pouted. "You knew in the first place? How bad is your life, that you'd offer it up to a fae for a sip of blood?"
"For you, my lady, even looking upon you would be enough to utterly ensnare me." I took her hand and kissed it all over.
She giggled, gently pushing my shoulder back with her other hand, although not enough to really impede my actions. "Oh, you." Had she meant to stop me, it would've been trivially easily for her to do so.
Undeterred, I continued to kiss up all over her arm with exaggerated kissing noises, and she giggled more, rolling over on top of me and rubbing her hand down against my cock.
I had gone through some cultivation and drank mare urine and so forth, and forced my dead body into one more curved, one I felt more at home in, but it didn't do anything about my cock... well, I kinda liked having a cock anyways, sometimes. Made me feel vulnerable, having something outside myself that people could abuse or pleasure as they desired.
She didn't look surprised at all, though, stroking me and leaning down to kiss me on the lips.
"Do you really want to be mine that much?"
"Sort of? I don't know, we just met. But... what's life but a series of impulsive mistakes?"
Her smile widened far beyond what a human's mouth could, and for a moment, I was afraid. "One could ask the same of death."
But then I saw the light dancing in her eyes, and my heart danced with her. If she killed me, it would be playfully, and maybe that was my melancholy, but it was hard to be scared of that. Don't get me wrong, I wanted to live -- if you could call it a life -- but you get depressed enough, and it's hard to be actively scared of that.
That's not to say vampires can't live real lives, just that a mixture of holing up in an abandoned house, selling small valuables for coin, and pickling myself in the local tavern wasn't exactly what I'd call "living".
It was more of a holding pattern as I tried to pull myself together, really.
She tapped my nose. "I can see how uncertain you are, that desire to truly live in the mortal realm. I'll wait to take your life -- one way or another -- until you've offered it to me three times. And you won't see me again until your life is more together."
I laughed. "Do you think I'll be so foolish as to offer you my life three times?"
"Yes." Her fingers trailed along my cheek, then my lips. "You think I'm pretty, and if I judge correctly, you've done many foolish things to romance pretty girls."
I licked her fingers and smiled. "...do you really think I'm going to get my life more together?"
She raised an eyebrow. "There's not much to go except upwards from your current point."
It was hard to argue against that.
She removed her clothes and straddled my face, and I remember little else of that night but breathing her fragrance and driving my tongue into her, and her sweet moans, my body writhing against the earth and vines as my cock was hard but unpleasured under my skirt.
Maybe it was a performance, but I liked to imagine I really did bring her to orgasm countless times as time told still underneath that dusky sky.
...I mean that bright sky. We're pretending it's bright, for poetry, right?
Look, I'll be honest with you: I'm going to skip over a lot of stuff, and romanticise other parts. But these little lies are going to make the story closer to true, closer to real.
Just like her little illusions covering up her true, horrifyingly beautiful form that I only felt or glimpsed for almost imperceptible moments, just made her more real, realer than real.
If someone wears a mask every day you see them, after all, which is true: their mask, or the face beneath it?
There's no real answer, but I choose the better story... the more beautiful, the more romantic, even if it's foolish and dangerous, and, from a technical standpoint, more fabrication than not.
The world is so much wider and more strange and impossible than you imagine, and the little arbitrary rules of society are merely rituals that could be disrupted so easily let you live your entire little lives around them... you need bigger stories, ones that widen your mind beyond your current possibilities, and let you seize hold of the world as it could be, because that is so much more powerful source of change than the world as it is.
Unfortunately for you, this is a pretty small tale of a rather cute vampire (me) and the fae princess/abomination/whatever it is they/she are that she fell in love with (Aurelie) ((Not her real name, but you know that)).
So just pretend it's a real account of true things, and I think you'll enjoy it more.
...or maybe it'll disturb you more?
Either way, please feel stronger emotions. Everything flows from emotions... including this story....
...where was I?
Right.
So when I woke up, I was in a ditch, my tongue tired, my crotch aching from lack of release, feeling utterly crap and hung over, and my coinpurse was missing.
After all, there had been a ditch there by where she had been dancing, not a river. In the "real world", at least, as they called it.
As I struggled up into a sitting position, I felt like crap, and my body ached all over, and I winced as I saw the sun beginning to peek up over the horizon... not that it'd kill me, but it wasn't pleasant to look at after so much drinking.
We'll pretend I didn't puke, and just say I crawled back to my little abandoned house.
But there was a little smile on my face.
Despite it all, I had seen a touch of the sublime.
Despite it all, I had fallen in love for the first time in decades.
I shoved her up against the wall firmly, rubbing my cock between her thighs, wedged up against her pussy, and she moaned needily, trying to entice me with her voice that she needed me inside her.
Of course, she had earlier suggested that if I put my cock inside her that would count as some sort of hospitality, so I couldn't do that, and merely held her in place and mercilessly thrust my cock between her thighs again and again until I came over all the dirty subway wall in front of her.
I pushed her down between my legs, holding onto her hair cruelly, and she licked my cock clean and looked up at me submissively.
I tugged on her hair just a little, and she winced and struggled back to her feet... only for me to shove her against the wall again, unlocking the cuffs from her and putting them back inside my purse.
She pouted. "Aren't you going to kidnap me and make me your prisoner? Torture me and use my body and break my wings and... I don't know what you mortals do with them, actually."
I kissed her nose. "We just do catch and release, you know that. And I think it's for alchemy? ...Do you even have wings?"
"Even you have wings... how do you think some vampires fly?" I'm like, ninety percent sure that was a lie, but let's pretend it was true.
Vampires can fly, if they only realize they have wings...
It felt romantic.
I pulled my lipstick out of my purse and fixed her makeup a little... it was a similar enough color to pass at a glance.
"Wanna go out for brunch?"
"Oh, god, yes please. Some asshole just took advantage of me and fucked me for her own pleasure."
She smiled, and I laughed as I tucked a strand of her hair back into place.
I wished she actually liked me.
Maybe you're asking yourself, "Wait, I thought vampires couldn't eat, how could you have brunch?"
Or maybe you're not-- I don't know what knowledge or halftruths you have been fed... other than the halftruths I've fed you so far in this book itself, of course.
Come to think of it, if foodplay really turns you off, you might want to skip to the next chapter? It wasn't usually my favorite kink... but when it came to Aurelie....
Truth is, I got vicarious enjoyment from watching Aurelie eat. I'm not even sure it was particularly sexual, at least, usually.
I don't know if it was the sheer emotion expressed across her face at every bite, my lifethreatening crush on her, the fact that I tended to imagine what things tasted like when I saw people eat them, or that she was using some sort of Fae powers to share her senses with me, but regardless, it was more satisfying to watch her eat than to eat myself.
Technically, I could like, lick things, and pick up the flavor... but somehow it just wasn't the same. If I had still been a mortal, I probably could have starved to death while watching her eat.
Aurelie opened the door for me, technically inviting me in, and we both sat down in an out of the way booth as Aurelie made eye contact with the waitress. She came, soon, and we ordered-- her: pancakes, with a variety of fruit syrups, coffee miel(that's coffee sweetened with honey), and several side orders of bacon. Me: a couple of fruit danishes (apple and cherry), a cream soda, the corned beef hash with toast and eggs.
Going together, we both got to look normal, me, despite eating nothing, and Aurelie, despite devouring everything. I suspected, given how Fae interacted with reality, she could've devoured every last bit of food in the cafe with equal gusto, and maybe all the staff, as well... but she was always a very delicate eater.
She looked over to me with a smile, and tapped her fingertips on the table. "Would it be too cruel...?"
It wasn't clear if she was talking to me or herself, or what her plan was, but I smiled confidently, and waved my hand airily. "Go for it."
"I didn't get to cum yet. So I'm not going to start eating until you get underneath the table and start licking me."
I was taken aback. "That's hardly fair..." Getting to see Aurelie eat was one of my great joys in life, and she'd deprive me of it!? Maybe I should've made her cum before just using her body as my masturbation toy, though. "...besides, the tablecloth isn't that long-- what if the waitress checks back on us?"
"What if she does?" A playful smile danced across Aurelie's lips. "The food will get cold."
"If we can't come back here," I retorted as I slid down under the table and pushed up her dress again, "I'm blaming you."
"Blame away. You better make me cum quick before I finish everything."
Despite her words, I wasn't that aggressive-- it's not like Aurelie could be won out by sheer force, regardless, and I wanted to make her impressed with me even more than I wanted to watch her eat.
I kissed and nibbled softly at her inner thigh as I slid my hands over her hips, and then gave her pussy lips closed-lip but passionate kisses, before returning to tease her thighs again. I was happy to tease her for minutes, getting just a taste of the honey that was gathering between her legs before returning to nibbling at her inner thighs, and I could hear her breathing getting unsteady between bites of the food I should rightfully be watching her eat.
Finally, she grabbed me by the air, and shoved me hard against her pussy, and I started to eat her out in earnest, now licking and thrusting my tongue inside her aggressively.
One advantage of being a vampire, or I suppose some other kind of undead, is that you don't need to breathe-- I could continually use my full abilities against her as she held my head against her crotch, and I could hear her softly moaning, muffled, her mouth perhaps covered with the back of her hand or one of the place's red cloth napkins.
I heard approaching footsteps, and the waitress's voice, "Ah, I can see you're still busy with your food, I'll check back with you later." She sounded a little flustered... no doubt I was not entirely invisible under this table, but with my head between Aurelie's legs, I couldn't really judge that.
"No, no... come closer." Aurelie's voice was utterly enchanting, possibly literally, and I devoted my tongue to her anew as she noisily kissed our waitress... no doubt she had reached up and taking her by the hair, just as she had me, and now her lips were kissing her.
I was annoyed, this was supposed to be our time together, and I didn't know why she was toying with me like this... but it was arousing, too. I wished I had at least paid more attention to what our waitress had looked like, so I could better visualize and imagine the taste the two of them kissing.
"Jealous? It's not like we're in an exclusive relationship." She said my name here, but my name actually can't be displayed in any form of text. That includes nicknames, I could call myself -----, but as soon as I thought of it as something to reference me by, it'd just come out as ----- no matter how many times I tried to type it. See? It's happening already. So we'll just leave my name out of it.
I couldn't answer her, so I started to try to pull my head back, but she just shoved me more viciously against her pussy and crossed her legs behind me, making it perfectly clear that she wasn't going to let me go until I made her cum.
Her thighs pressed against either side of my head, threatening me, perhaps, with her strength, she could easily crush me if she wanted, and I was helpless to do anything but continue to lick her.
I reached beneath my own skirt to rub at my very hard cock as I continued to pleasure her, doing my utmost to thrust my tongue just where I thought she wanted, until finally she came, screaming out in pleasure, and squeezed her thighs against my head until everything turned white in pain and pleasure, and I thought I was going to die even as I came all over my skirt and the floor and the wood of the booth in front of me.
Her legs slowly loosened, and I panted -- yes, yes, I don't need to breathe, really, but sometimes you're just overwhelmed by an experience, you know?
"Lick all your cum up, we don't want anyone to catch on," said Aurelie pleasantly, putting her booted foot on my head and pressing it down right to where my cum had spilled on the floor. I obeyed her, cleaning up my cum for her, than even licked my hand and the wood, and pulled my skirt up to lick it as well, before sliding out from under the booth and looking up at the waitress, who was staring down at me as I came out, red-faced. She looked like the sort of woman who you'd expect to see in a 1950s pinup, body-wise, although she was dressed a lot more conservatively.
Yes, I was paying attention now, just in case Aurelie kissed her again.
"If you want us to come back sometime," Aurelie said conversationally to her, "just tell everyone I stabbed myself with my fork. If you don't, say the truth, and we'll probably get kicked out for good." She cut a piece of pancake off with her knife and fork... clearly it was well-buttered, topped with strawberry syrup, and a dollop of whipped cream as well, I hadn't even noticed it came with whipped cream...
Aurelie licked off a bit of the cream before holding it up to our waitress on her very sharp-looking knife, not the butterknife we were served. "C'mon. You know you're going to cum three times to this tonight, you might as well be our partner in crime."
The waitress hesitantly leaned forwards and very carefully ate the bite of pancake off the knife, her eyes not leaving Aurelie's for a moment. A little tremor ran through her body, and she gasped and blushed, and pulled back, bleeding slightly from her lip where the knife had cut.
Aurelie offered the knife to me, and I licked it clean. She tasted pretty good, clearly healthy and active from the taste, and I got a hint of butter and strawberry flavor along with the much richer and more savory flavor of blood... but it just made me glance over to Aurelie, thinking of the one night so many years ago when I had drank her blood. Compared to that, our waitress's blood hardly compared.
Our waitress looked between us with wide eyes, and finally managed to get out, "Will there be anything else?"
"No," said Aurelie firmly. "Not for today. We have quite a bit of food left to finish, after all." She reached into her purse and pulled out a hundred dollar bill, pressing it into the waitress's hand, and ran her fingers up her arm slightly. "Whatever is left over is your tip. Have yourself a good time tonight."
Our waitress nodded, and backed off quickly, a mixture of disappointment and relief on her face.
"I wonder what her name was," I said conversationally as I watched Aurelie eat a bite of strawberry-syrup soaked pancake, her eyes closing for a moment with utter joy as the flavors swept through her mouth.
She finished her bite slowly and deliberately. "Oh, it was Jenny."
It wasn't. I also changed our waitress's name, just to be nice... still, Jenny sounds like the sort of name she'd have, right? So let's call her Jenny.
I stared at her, impressed. "...you just know these things?"
She laughed merrily. "No-- she has a nametag. Is your head okay?"
I tilted it to one side and then the other, carefully, experimentally. "It'll regenerate."
She took a strip of bacon and took a delicate bite from it, her body wriggling slightly in joy from the fat and the crunch and the joy of being part of the cycle of life through the devouring of other creatures.
This is why I had to watch her. How can you be alive for so many millennia and still take utter joy in the small things?
Even other Fae I had met in passing weren't like this. But then... maybe this was all an act put on to enchant me.
If it was, it was working pretty well... really, I was willing to believe wholeheartedly in any illusion she showed me, if it made her happy.
After brunch, my high SPF sunscreen was beginning to come off a little -- wearing it outside during the day made me look even paler, but whatever, I just played it up by wearing light goth makeup otherwise -- and I bid Aurelie fairwell, and returned to my apartment.
My roommate was lying on the couch, and gave me a confident little smile and wave. I felt kinda awkward at the look in her eyes, as I so often did, I was pretty sure she had a crush on me, but like, I was more focused on Aurelie romantically?
...yeah, come to think of it, if you don't like blood drinking, you might wanna skip this chapter... I don't know why you're reading a book about a vampire, but hey, just saying.
Come to think of it, blood drinking is a kind of foodplay too, at least for vampires... do I have a big thing for foodplay?
Anyways, back on topic, my roommate -- lets call her Bloodpack, as I try not to romanticize the situation further -- was a girl I had picked her up off the street after sucking her blood too much, and taken her home just to make sure she didn't you know, die. It was pretty embarrassing, like, when you're new at vampiring and almost kill people because you get carried away by the sensation, that's terrifying, but it's at least understandable. I just got distracted thinking about if I had paid my bills for a moment, and then this homeless girl I had charmed was near death.
She had been kicked out by her parents for being a lesbian when she came of age, and had thought I had picked her up to make me into her blood pet, and I was too embarrassed to tell her what had actually happened and kinda felt bad about it, so I let her crash... but then she kept staying, and when I kept not sucking her blood, she started wearing provocative clothing, you know, the kinds that highlight neck and wrists, and I, being a simple woman, fell for it a few times, and now she thinks I'm just really nice and pins me down and insists I suck her blood when I don't drink from her enough or she's worried that I haven't been eating enough recently.
"Hey, Bloodpack," I said, and she smiled up at me even more, beckoning me closer. I rolled my eyes, but stepped closer, only for my breath to catch as she pulled her top down to expose her shoulder and half of her neck. She took my wrist, pulling me in softly until I was practically on top of her, and ran her fingers through my hair, pulling me in a bit closer for a soft kiss... and then pouted as she tasted someone else's blood on my lips.
"You already ate?"
"Yeah, more or less," I said, having picked up the unfortunate habit of reflexively not technically lying from Aurelie. It's a bad idea to outright lie to fae, since they take offense... but playing around with the truth is a game for them, so that's fine... maybe preferred, even?
Everything is games for the fae.
I was trying not to look at Bloodpack's neck, and from our close contact I could feel her blood flowing more quickly through her body.
"Anyways, I should probably take a shower..." Her hand slid up under my skirt along my thigh, and I gasped -- yes, yes, I hadn't needed to for hundreds of years, but please play along here. My heart skipped a beat, there, more realistic for you?
Suffice to say, Aurelie's presence didn't exactly get me in a less amorous mood, and here was a girl I did genuinely like who was only inches away from rubbing my cock, which was new, and it was getting hard, and I was hungry, I wanted to drink her blood.
"My job is keeping you fed," she said, as she softly whispered my name in my ear. She liked saying this, and took it to heart, in that she didn't otherwise help out much beyond cleaning up after herself sometimes, but did take really good care of her health and did all sorts of dietary and cultivation things to give her the best quality and tasting blood.
Her blood wasn't ambrosial, like Aurelie's, but it was still gourmet food I could never get tired of in a world filled with the junk food of people who didn't take care of their health or did eat garlic or didn't cleanse their chi or whatever.
"If you don't start sucking my blood right now," she threatened, rubbing my inner thigh softly, "I'm going to start stroking your cock."
Now, technically speaking, I could disentangle right now, but she'd be hurt and I did like her, and I was hungry, and having an eager blood pet who practically dominated me into sucking her blood and was cool with me being trans as well as me being a vampire... look, I dunno, I did the easy thing and sunk my fangs into her neck, causing a soft aroused moan to arise from her lips.
I knew Aurelie wouldn't even mind if we fucked all night, and that just made me care more about not crossing the line into sex with Bloodpack somehow, even if sucking her blood felt like transgression enough. I knew Aurelie wouldn't mind that either... it conflicted with my romantic heart that I couldn't fully devote myself to my beloved, though. Maybe I was old-fashioned.
Bloodpack tasted amazing, of course, but I pulled back from her neck after I had a good snack in, and she smiled up at me happily, wrapping her arms around my shoulder and pulling me in for another kiss, this time to taste her own blood on my lips.
"You sure you don't wanna do more? Either drinking my blood or doing other things to my body?"
"No, that's more than enough... I wouldn't even have drank your blood if you hadn't forced me, really."
She smirked up at me. "You're like, easily ten times stronger than I am. But you let me pin you down all the time... because you like it."
Let's pretend I had a good comeback for that rather than staring up at her, gaping helplessly.
Her hands slid down and gently stroked my back and hips, her touch gentle and just bordering on sexual. "Want me to do things to your body instead?"
"Sorry, but I love Aurelie."
She blinked at that, but let me go. "I know? You two are eternal, I'm just a little pet that's sharing your life for a few decades, maybe a couple centuries if I'm really lucky... we both know I'm not good enough at cultivation to last eternally." She sat up and patted the couch next to her. "Sit down and talk."
I sighed and sat down, trying to sit just far enough to not be flirtatious without trying to look like I was actually avoiding her.
"Are you going to try to talk me into making you a vampire again?"
"...no. You need to drink from someone, and it might as well be me, right? We both know you want me."
"Look, I can't buy into my own, you know, vampire cursed eternal brooding thing if I'm also happily fucking my roommate and drinking her blood." I reached over and ruffled her hair. "Plus, you should be off seeking other methods of mortality or transcendence, not wasting the few hundred years you have on feeding me."
"I'd have a normal human lifespan if you hadn't taken me in... and maybe not even that, really, living on the street and all. Promise you'll become my slave if I become immortal, and I'll go quest for that longshot."
I sputtered. "You know I can't do that."
She leaned against me suddenly, side of her arm thumping against mine as she rested her head on my shoulder. "But you like me."
"Yes, but it's more of a mother-daughter or... maybe a student-master thing."
She stared up at me with big eyes. "You won't take my virginity, Mommy?"
I stared up at the ceiling. "...we both know you're not a virgin."
"Anally I am! Won't you take my anal virginity, Master?" She slid up into my lap, wigging her butt against my thighs and my erection tenting my skirt.
"...why are you like this."
"I mean, would you not fall for someone beautiful if, at your absolute lowest point, she came up to you like magic, and gave you hope for your future?"
"Okay, that's kind of the situation Aurelie and I are in." I picked her up and set her back down at my side gently. "So I get it, I really do. But... sorry, I still hold a candle for her."
She narrowed her eyes and stood up. "Well, maybe I'll just go seduce Aurelie, then." She stood up and walked towards the door.
"Hey, Bloodpack-- don't you just stop the conversation there... don't you open that door... don't you go seduce that fae, she's dangerous... don't close that--" I sighed as the door slammed close. Odds are she couldn't even find Aurelie, but that didn't mean she wasn't dangerous.
I pulled my phone out of my purse and texted Aurelie: "Hey, if Bloodpack comes by, please don't kill her or curse her or anything?"
"Why not? :) :) :) :) :)"
"She's family, sort of. I guess? Closest thing I have to it now."
"So? I've done all sorts of terrible things to family members. :D"
"Please? What can I do so that you ensure her safety?"
"XD XD XD... You really going to ask a boon of me just like that?"
"Yes."
"You owe me one?"
"Sure."
"Say it."
"I owe you one."
"No, I mean in real life. 'I owe Aurelie any one boon or request she makes.'"
I sighed and spoke up: "I owe Aurelie any one boon or request she makes."
My phone beeped again. "Our deal is sealed. No permanent nor longlasting harm will come to your Bloodpack by my hand. :3"
"Thanks, Aurelie."
"Oh, don't thank me yet... she is going to stay over tonight."
"...what."
"Yeah. Non-vampires girls night. <3"
"Thanks for the qualifier, I guess?" I'd rather be excluded for being a vampire rather than not being a girl.
"Hey, I'd invite you over, except for two reasons."
I waited for a few minutes for her to continue, but she didn't. Finally: "...being?"
">:3 >:3 >;3"
Oh no.
"Aurelie, what are you planning?"
There was no response.
I sat back heavily on the couch. The two women I cared about the most were definitely going to gossip behind my back. Maybe trade tips on how to manipulate me. Maybe make out.
I was utterly powerless to their plans, just because I cared about them.
I felt upset and worried and helpless... but also, let's be honest, pretty fucking aroused.