Chapter 17: In Which We Come To A More Intimate Understanding Of What The Future Will Entail

There just wasn’t much to do, locked in a jail cell.

Eventually, I cried myself to sleep.

My eyes slowly fluttered open.

A hand that used to be mine was still around my neck, if a bit softer, and she was staring down at me with a blank expression. “That was just a few minutes. I can fit about a year of solitary confinement into a day. And the cot, the sunlight… those were all little gifts from me. It could be much, much worse.“

I swallowed, and she squeezed my neck a little, although it wasn’t the real threat.

I was utterly helpless in ways I hadn’t even understood before… assuming she wasn’t lying, but not exactly a bluff I wanted to call.

“Do you understand, Sasha?”

I tried not to think about how much I hated her, but not thinking about it was, in a way, thinking about it. At least I had had a day to calm down a little. I slowly breathed in, and out. “...Yes, Mistress.”

She blinked, her blank expression almost flickering into something else for a moment, but didn’t comment.

She leaned in closer. “Keep in mind that I have far crueler punishments than the experience of being utterly alone for a year, and start behaving yourself.”

“...Yes, Mistress.”

She let go of my neck, and I slid down onto the floor to kneel in front of her. She slowly stroked my head, scritched behind my ears.

“Good girl… this is harder for me than it is for you.”

I doubted that, I’d seen that smile a few times… part of her liked this. That exact smile rose to her lips.

“That’s true. And I suppose I’ve done it so many times already.” She sighed, shook her head. “I don’t want this to be a bad experience for you.”

Well, a bit too late on that.

“I suppose. You want to be alone the rest of today, I’m guessing?”

I had just spent an entire day alone, and was feeling a bit lonely, but I wasn’t going to choose to spend time with her, of all things. “Yes please, Mistress.”

“Okay. You’re not less safe here than you are anywhere else in Princess Asperia’s castle, so now that you’re being obedient, you can go anywhere within the public areas within it. Behave yourself, okay? Things like being allowed to go places and talk are privileges, not rights.”

I growled softly but nodded. “...I gave the cover story for me being locked in that I was jealous of your and Asperia’s marriage.” Which wasn’t true at all, I tried to project.

“A bit dangerous, but I suppose I hadn’t informed you otherwise. And you can’t address her like that, even in private-- call her highness or Princess Asperia. She’s particular about that sort of thing.” Already taking her side. I felt a little anger flare up.

“Yes. We’re her subordinates. Well, I’m her subordinate, and you’re my subordinate. It’s best you always remember that, the people you have to obey no matter what.” Yay, my chain of command was the two people I was most angry at right now… well, not that Princess Asperia had done anything to me directly.

“Sasha, if this fails, and you don’t die from the fallout, you’re going to end up with a new Master or Mistress. You want to be appropriately trained so you can survive. You also need to be appropriately trained so this is less likely to fail, which will also increase your survival rate. Since you don’t seem to fear death or your mind being changed anymore, know this-- if you deliberately betray me, I will make your life hell.” A bit of a sadistic smile played around her lips. “...since that’s something I enjoy, apparently.”

Her voice softened and grew quieter. “...well, it’s true I’ve wondered what your face would look like twisted in agony, I suppose.” She didn’t sound exactly happy about that. My Mistress was mildly reluctant to torture me. Yay.

She grabbed me by the hair and pulled my head back and up to look at her, and I winced. Her expression was blank again.

“Get your mind under better control, Sasha. It shows up on your face a little too. Every single slave here has learned to control their expressions, and the easiest way to do that is to control your thoughts.”

With a slight shake of her head, she let me go, and she was gone from the room, leaving me with no tangible object to direct my anger at.

Well, if I wanted to reverse the situation and get revenge on her… did I really want to get revenge on her? I at least want her to feel what it is was like to feel betrayed… but these weren’t good things to think about, it’d be easy to let such emotions take over my mind, and then she’d see them. I’d wait to decide to do with her to when I was in control of the situation again.

Anyways. If I wanted to reverse the situation and get revenge on her, it meant I needed to study a topic I had almost no background in. I looked through the bookshelf for something that looked promising.

“A Beginner’s Guide to Crafting“, bound in a thin worn leather, was about building permanent spells into things, but assumed you already understood all this background theory about how spells worked and just needed to figure out how to work that into items. Which was, in itself, a process… it seemed like the measurements were far more exact when making a magic item than they would be in a spell. “Unfortunately, mana is uniquely suited to casting spells…” Pfft, okay.

There were all these notes about how a spell’s basic measurements needed to be perfectly precise, and through that … maybe a book on measurement would prove useful?

“The Measurements of Spells”, bound in some sort of thick paper, had all the bits about how the shape of what you created interacted with the fundamental planes of reality. A bit dry, but I read and reread through the first chapter which gave a bit of an introduction, hoping to wrap my head around the basic concept of how spells worked.

There was a knock at my door, and I was about to answer it, when I realized it wasn’t my room.

“Sasha?” It was the familiar voice from outside the door.

I closed the book I was reading, leaving it on the bed next to a few others I had considered reading, and went over to open the door.

This short grey-haired rabbit-girl Velt was smiling up at me… apologetically?

“Well, so, here’s the thing… naturally, being loyal to Princess Asperia and all, I did have to tell her about your jealousy, cause it could cause issues… didn’t tell anyone else, so don’t worry about that… and, well, she kinda told me to invite you to her room.“

“...did she seem mad?”

Velt considered this for a moment, then shook her head as she took my hand and started to lead me down the hall. “I can’t talk about that.”

My hand tensed on hers, and she looked behind her, blew air out of her cheeks, and glanced around the empty hall.  She lowered her voice. “No, she wasn’t mad, you’re probably fine. If she was mad, you wouldn’t be meeting her in her bedroom. Don’t tell anyone I said any of that, by the way… I just don’t want you to be all nervous and make things worse…” She blinked, and smiled brightly. “...not that they’re bad! It’s probably fine!”

“So like… if she was mad, I’d be meeting her in some kind of torture room or something?”

“Either that or for lunch, yeah!”

Velt came up to a slightly open door with two guards – female humans, of course, though I recognized neither of them – standing on either side of it. “Your highness, the slave you requested is here.”

“Send her in.” Princess Asperia’s voice was more relaxed than imperious.

Velt grinned and gave me a little push on my back to guide me into the room, and I followed suit, looking around… it was very purple, this room.

Lush purple carpeting, purple drapes, a dark wooden bedframe with purple sheets and a purple canopy… it was a backdrop of purple, which might be overwhelming in itself if for the fact that one corner of the room wasn’t filled with gold coins and jewels and other treasures. Princess Asperia was naked, other than her tiara, and laying on top of all that wealth languidly.

...did rich people actually do that? It couldn’t be comfortable.

She glanced up to me, and I moved closer, stopping at the edge of the treasure pile. If she wasn’t actually relaxed on top of it, she was doing a very good impression of it.

I kneeled in front of the treasure pile. “I’m sorry, your highness.”

“A bit informal, but since you are new here, I’ll let it slide. What have you chosen to apologize about?”

“I’m sorry-- that is, I apologize for being jealous of you, and letting it affect things between Mistress and myself.”

“Yes, she mentioned it too… quite the troublesome little slave, aren’t you?”

I swallowed and lowered my eyes. “...she’s been treating me as if I wasn’t a slave, since she’s an outworlder and all, and I forgot my place.” I dipped my head. “I apologize again.”

“Mmm, it’s okay… so you just love her so so much and are worried her attention will turn away from you?”

I bit my lip and looked away. That was not really my worry, but… “Yes, that’s right… my apologies….”

“I don’t think that is the truth. She truly seems worried about you. She talked to her fiance about how her slave was worried… how ridiculous. And equally ridiculous that I’ve sent for you to talk.”

“Sorry, your highness.”

“No worries. You’re just going to have to get acquainted with me, like any other animal.” She stood up and walked over to the bed, sitting down on it, and tapped the bed next to her. “Come here.”

I slowly walked over and sat down next to her, a few inches apart. “You’re going to rudely leave your clothes on again? I really shouldn’t have to tell you twice.”

“Sorry, Princess!”

I quickly disrobed and sat right next to her, flushed.

“That’s a good girl….” She snuggled me close and started petting me idly, apparently completely unconcerned by our mutual nudity… then again, she seemed pretty comfortable with nudity in general so far. I was unsure if that was a cultural thing, or just a Princess Asperia thing specifically.

She flopped back onto the bed, and smiled up at me. “You can sniff me wherever you want.”

I flushed bright red. “I don’t want to sniff you!” it took me only a moment to remember to add “...your highness!”

“Good save. Except you’re not going to reject a royal favor given by your Mistress’s fiance, are you? That would be terribly rude….”

“...sorry Princess.” I moved in closer, practically on top of her, and sniffed at her neck, which she encouraged by lazily stroking my head. She smelled good, like a slightly musky perfume and fresh bread and a scent I couldn’t place… maybe it was some element of the perfume? I sniffed a little more, and she giggled.

“You can smell elsewhere too, you know…” She placed her hand on my head as she said that, and slowly guided my head downwards, and I sniffed at her breasts(larger than mine), her belly, with a little muscle tone now that I was focused on it that surprised me, and then getting lower towards her crotch where another odor was rising… she was definitely getting aroused by this, or already had been. I sniffed at her crotch obediently as she held me there, and she scritched behind my ears. “Good girl.”

My tail started wagging slightly, and I was getting a little wet. Was I really this simple and easy? Maybe I was just desperate for intimacy with anyone. “What do you want me to do, your highness?”

“Mmm, call me Princess.”

“...yes, Princess. What do you want me to do, Princess?”

She laughed. “...you really are a dumb bitch, aren’t you?” Her words somehow sounded flirtatious rather than degrading, despite the inherently degrading message there. I flushed as she continued, “Go ahead and start licking at my pussy.”

I hesitated. “...Mistress said not to do anything beyond hugging with anyone without her permission.”

“So loyal, even when you’re mad at her… but she’s my fiance, and her property is my property. And if you don’t start, I’m going to make you do a lot more than just licking.” I swallowed and slowly lowered my mouth to her pussy, started lapping up along it with my tongue. It wasn’t like I knew much about this… but at least my tongue was broad and strong, and I at least knew to lick steadily. She held on my head and guided me a little by it, moaning softly as I lapped up her juices, and giving me little directions on exactly how to move my tongue and to speed up or slow down and so forth.

I was getting increasingly needy for something myself, but doing my best to focus just on pleasuring her.

Soon enough I was rewarded with louder moans, more of her juices, and her hand gripping onto my head roughly as she climaxed against my mouth. I kept on steadily licking her until she calmed down.

“...All right, you may cease your efforts, Sasha.” Her voice was breathy. “Are you still jealous after licking my pussy?” Heck if I knew. I was panting softly, I felt a bit dazed myself after being more focused on licking than air, and my mouth still full of her lewd flavor.

“Um… maybe less so, your highness?”

“Wow, so stupidly honest… I love that about you.”

My tail wagged even though it was more insult than compliment… her tone was so affectionate, and I desperately wanted affection right now.

She petted my head with both hands and smiled up at me as I looked down into her eyes, licking my lips since they were still a little wet from her pussy. “I guess we shall have to do more together until you get entirely over that jealousy.”

“Yes M-- yes, Princess!” Fuck, I had almost called her Mistress now.