Chapter 61: In Which I Wonder Why A Caged Bird Sings (Not Me, Though, I’m Puppy)

Princess was sitting up, propped up by a pile of pillows on her enormous bed, and I was lying on the bed half-curled up against her as she stroked my side idly, staring off into space with a slight smile.

When Kalei entered, she was clad in new, multi-hued clothes, and her tears were gone, and she moved with grace beyond what I thought was possible for a human, timidly fluttering around the room until Princess smiled at her and beckoned her closer.

Princess let out a gentle warbling and looked over to me, and Kalei's eyes went to me as well, and she smiled softly and glanced over to me as well, and from her lips spilled a chorus of fluid birdsong as she spoke to Princess. She settled into her lap and joined her in petting me, and her gaze and smile softly settled on me... it couldn't have been more than a couple hours, but other than the timidness, which seemed to come naturally to her, it was hard to believe this girl had been tortured.

Had she had some sort of potion to restore her vitality? Or perhaps she was just used to bearing pain...? I had no way to ask... not that it would've been a really appropriate situation to, either.

Princess and Kalei talked, Princess's voice, which I had previously thought as an elegant waterfall of birdsong, sounded rough and unkempt next to Kalei's perfect songbird voice, but the way they interacted was still so beautiful, Kalei submissive yet active, a little of that timidity still there, flitting around and changing positions naturally as she stroked Princess's body like it was worship and whispered in her ear and giggled and smiled at her, while Princess's strokes were a little less refined, possessive, her waterfall of words capturing the little songbird in her lap in a way I got a little jealous of, but endured... Kalei needed help more than I did, probably, she had endured more torture than I... why was she still so loyal to Princess Asperia, who had hurt her like this?

...why was I?

But I had learned not to think unloyal things in the presence of my betters, and it was simple training to relax and nuzzle a little against Princess's or Kalei's hand when they realized I was there again... both seemed entirely unruffled by my appearance, as if I really was just a cute little dog curled up at their side as the two beautiful lovers recemented their bonds...

After a little while, Princess slid up Kalei's skirt and started fingering her, and she gasped and moaned beautifully, arching her back and relaxing back against Princess in ways that seemed like beautiful works of art, and I wondered if it was all, on some level, an act, like a ballet dancer's smile, or if it was truly this effortless for her.

I could smell Kalei's arousal mixing with Princess's slightly muskier scent-- even her smell was like a work of art, strange scents I had never smelled before rising into the air, perhaps floral notes, a bit of brown sugar, but otherwise nothing I could place-- yet the unfamiliarity somehow making them intriguing rather than unpleasant.

Princess smiled, seeing me sniffing the air a little, and she beckoned me closer, spreading Kalei's pussy open, and I moved in obediently, starting to lick her, Princess giving my head a little pet and a bit of an earscritch of approval before her hands moved up to grope Kalei's breast and stroke the side of her neck.

She tasted delicious too, and I wondered if Kalei's mother had been bred specifically for this, or she was a species that had been summoned for this purpose, or if it just happened to be the way things came to be... was she a different species, in fact? It was hard to tell, but I kept on licking, Kalei's trills of pleasure literally music to my ears as I and the Princess who owned both of us focused on her pleasure.

Kalei came with a crescendo of ecstasy that seemed to thrum through my entire being, like a good song with the bass turned higher than is technically safe-- well, her voice was high-pitched, but still, it moved something deep within me, and I kept on licking eagerly to hear more until Princess tugged lightly on my collar, and I looked up, seeing Kalei's utterly exhausted but pleasured face as she relaxed against Princess, still looking a bit elegant, but no longer performing, if that's what she had been doing, no longer having the energy to hardly even move... the poor girl had been tortured for an entire day, after all, so it's not surprising... I imagined she could be made to cum multiple times under normal circumstances, and my tail wagged slightly at the idea of doing so.

Why was she not more popular? Were people jealous?

Kalei smiled at me langorously, and she pushed her skirt back down and beckoned me a bit closer, taking hold of my collar to guide my head to her lap again. I nuzzled against her thighs, and curled up a bit awkwardly, using her lap as my pillow, and she petted me, Princess's lazy bubbling and the song of her own warbling voice interchanging more on a similar level of energy now, the two of them in a duet, even falling into a harmony at times as they'd both speak things together, then let out soft, bubbling laughter.

I slowly half-drifted off, it's not like I could understand anything anyways, and it was nice to be curled up against two beautiful women idly petting me from time to time, even if their focus was more on each other.

Finally, Kalei got up, and kneeled down on the floor and took Princess's hand and kissed it, looking up at her fervently, and nodding several times fervently as she clung to her hand, a fire coming into her eyes... did our Princess manage to motivate her now, so she would forge her path further, and wouldn't be sad and alone?

...could this have been easily avoided, though, if Princess had paid a little more attention to her? It sounded like it... like she had fallen behind in priority behind more "useful" assets, even as I could see the desire and affection and possessiveness in Princess's eyes as she looked down on her slave.

And... I theorized the chaos of the harem made it easy for those who didn't socialize to fall through the cracks, unless someone specifically reached out to them... a more imperfect society than I had thought than I had when Velt had guided me through it.

Velt... was she really going to come back as an undead now? I had fought undead before, and they were obsessive beings, unafraid of dying again, and willing to murder any number of the living to fulfil one of their ally's desires... I supposed those who had already died once had no reason to fear it, really... but also, I suppose the ones who wanted to contemplate the world in peace or felt positive about it wouldn't join together and try to destroy a village, come to think of it.

Kalei left, and Princess looked down at me and her stream seemed to be on the verge of laughing as she scritched my chin, and my tail thumped against the bed as she petted me, my thoughts for a moment gone except for how good it felt for Princess to touch me however she wanted.

Soon enough, Ava came in and kneeled, and our Princess rolled her eyes and made a rising motion with her palm, and Ava rose, and Princess took her hand, kissed the back of it entreatingly, and looked up at her, and they spoke... and really, I would've thought that Ava was the one with power in the relationship. Strangely, her voice sounded like a wounded bird, like water slowly trickling down out of a fracture in a glacier.

Ava sighed, and sat down beside her, taking her by the chin and kissing her in a surprisingly dominant way, pushing her down on the bed.

I stared at her, wondering at their relationship... wondering what Velt and her had had going on...

Ava noticed my gaze, and reached over, pulling the charm off of my collar. "You look like you want to ask me something-- is it about my relationship with Princess Asperia, or about how hard I hit you?"

"Both," I said confidently-- though it was, in fact, neither.

"I expect you to keep quiet about this," said Ava, "but sometimes Princess orders to behave in a dominant fashion towards her. It's a nice little variety for her, that's all."

"Orders, yes," said Princess, sounding amused. "Like you didn't beg me to let you fuck me."

Ava raised an eyebrow. "We both know--" She glanced back to me. "Let's not have this talk while your puppy can hear us, she's still learning to behave."

"Fine, fine," said Princess as she stroked Ava's thigh suggestively. "Carry on with your conversation."

Ava focused back on me. "As for how hard I hit you... I'm the one who was accused of attempting to murder you, which would give people pause to execute you if I seemed aggressive towards you, and also I ruptured your eardrum a little to throw off your balance, so you'd seem even more weak and pathetic."

"Hey!"

Ava shrugged slightly. "I've seen a lot of trial of hands, I know who survives and who doesn't. You survived, so you should thank me."

...did she not know about how my tattoo worked? I suppose Princess hadn't told her... I probably shouldn't either, given that I was now certain if she in fact had been the assassin in the past. "...Thank you, Ava."

I wrapped my arms around her, and hugged her, hard. "Do you still hate me?"

"...No. I... I know your situation now, and I know you risked death for it, so I don't hate you anymore. Rather... I felt for Velt's death too, even if I shouldn't, so I understand a little. You're one of my sisters now."

I felt my tail wag as I smiled up at her.

She took me by the chin and kissed me fiercely, then stared down into my eyes. "That said, if you ever insult Asp in my presence again, expect the outcome to be somewhere between an immediate harsh punishment and immediate death."

...Asp?

But that wasn't the important part of the message, and my tail and ears drooped immediately. "Of course not, Miss Ava! I'll never do it again! I'm very sorry...."

She smiled, though her eyes still seemed a bit tired, and petted me gently. "I know. There's a few other things I need to talk to Asp about, so unless you have anything else to say...."

"I told you not to call me 'Asp' in front of anyone else." Princess poked Ava's side, and she blinked, eyes widening.

"My apologies, Princess." Her eyes flickered back to me. "Keep that a secret too."

Princess squeezed her thigh gently. "I'd punish you, if I hadn't already just punished you far more than you deserved."

"I'll always accept any punishment you desire to give me, my Princess." I could feel some echo of the wounded bird in that voice... perhaps Ava's heart was still in some sense broken, though I couldn't tell if it was from Velt or something else.

Ava caught Princess's hand and tried to kiss the back of it, but Princess wrestled for control of it, trying to kiss the back of her hand, but Ava didn't let her, until they were rolling over the bed, Princess giggling, until she ended up on top of Ava and leaned down to kiss her on the lips.

"Thank you for staying with me, despite everything." Princess's voice was shy in a way I had never heard from her lips before.

"I still need to put the charm back on Sasha, you know," said Ava, holding it up, but I took it and put it on myself, and Ava smiled slightly at me and warbled briefly before returning her attention to her Princess.

For a little while, I watched as the two touched each other, sometimes a bit lewdly, but never leading to full sex, cuddled, looked into each other's eyes, and talked... Princess's stream of words flowed more easily before Ava than before Kalei before, seemingly at her most vulnerable.

Ava's on the other hand, were a little more restricted, the slower trickling of cold water, the cry of a lost bird, and I got the feeling there was something she was holding back.