Ch 19/Interlude – The reason why brats should be gagged and serious discussions should take place outside of the bedroom.

[CW: whipping/spanking]

The slippery lizard was bound up tight, wiggling just in front of me as she tested my ropework. I wasn’t sure exactly how long I’d taken to get her strung up, but seeing her hanging helplessly before me made it worth it. The imbued spider silk rope weaved through her legs like a corded web, tethered to the thick metal hook in the ceiling. From there, it snaked down around her naked form, ending at her chest. Even her thick tail hadn’t escaped its hold.

Her legs were so thoroughly bound that I knew she had little chance of shifting them into a tail and slipping out. Instead, Nhlia swayed as she hung upside down in the middle of the room. Perhaps if she swung hard enough she could slip off the hook holding her, but I doubted it.

For a long moment, I eyed her nude form, admiring how the rope dug into her soft curves. My hand rose, gripped loosely around a leather flogger. Its familiar weight brought a sense of anticipation.

I swung.

The whip hummed through the air before giving a loud crack as it met her sensitive thighs. Nhlia let out a small yelp before wiggling once more in her bonds, and her short black hair swayed below her. Another red mark found its way onto her scaly, light-green skin. I watched as her body tried to shift and escape the ropes. Nhlia’s skin turned brown before fading back to green in what was probably some deeply buried instinct.

Tying her up like this was an idea taken from the vyxa and her roommate. I hadn’t seen the human woman ‘Lilis’ snatch the little demon up into the air, but the vyxa’s mind went to the incident enough times for me to get a good picture of what happened.

The claws of my other three hands pressed sharply into my palms as my mind drifted once more to the young demon. Mentally, I cursed the annoying little fiend. She just had to make this more complicated than it needed to be. The enchanted ring wouldn’t fix anything.

All I wanted to do was help her. But instead she chose to block me from her mind, at least partially. I still perceived a glimpse of her senses, especially sight, but I no longer was able to project thoughts into her mind. To say that I was frustrated was an understatement. After all the progress I’d made in creating a potion that would fix both our problems—problems that were ultimately her fault in the first place—she decided to insult me and push me out. Again.

As my mind plunged into brooding thoughts, Nhlia slowly twisted around to face me. Her bright blue eyes held a sharp, accusive glint. I should have blindfolded her.

The Htolian sighed. “You’re thinking about her again.” A statement rather than a question.

“Of course I am. It’s rather hard not to,” I grumbled and glared. Having wormed so thoroughly into my head, the vyxa was about all I could think about.

“I thought the point of this was to take your mind off of her.”

“The point was to let out some of my frustrations,” I answered, spinning her back around. Taking a step back, I went on, “And you’re doing a terrible job at being my submissive little slut. Where’s all the pleading and moaning?”

The flog smacked against her bottom. I regretted not using enough force to make her cry out.

“You’re not exactly doing a stellar job yourself,” she snarked back. “Besides, it’s difficult for me to get into that state of mind right now with your sour mood spoiling the air. And you know how I usually prefer to be the one dominating, regardless.”

I released a sigh. She was right. I wasn’t truly in the right headspace for this either. My mind just kept drifting back to the little red demon. The whip swung through the air for one last smack on her bottom before I stepped back and leaned against a table.

“Are you certain that you don’t want to talk about it?” she queried, seemingly unaffected.

“I don’t.”

Nhlia twirled until she faced me once more. I hadn’t a clue as to how she managed to keep it from spinning back and forth.

The persistent lizard appeared unconvinced. “She’s a young vyxa. Of course she’s going to make poor decisions. It’s in their nature.”

I gave her an unimpressed glare. “You know I don’t care for that sort of thinking. Besides, she’s still at least somewhat human in mind, if not in body.”

I wasn’t convinced that the vyxa weren’t nearly as brainless and helpless as others often made them out to be. Though we typically gave them little chance to prove as much. How much of their behavior was trained and taught rather than inherent?

“I’m also still not sure that they’re a woman at heart,” I diverted, though I’d admittedly begun to think of her as such, regardless. Her quick acceptance of the name ‘Ruby’ raised my suspicion. If she was being referred to as such by those around her, perhaps it made sense for us to do so as well? I supposed it mattered little so long as we couldn’t communicate.

“I’ve given you my thoughts,” Nhlia retorted. Which was true. Nhlia was convinced the magical change to a female vyxa was no mistake. A gut feeling of her’s, she claimed. “Really, what I’m curious about is what you’re going to do now. Little Ruby has made it quite clear that she has no intention of listening to you. What of that potion the human healer is making? Will it work?”

“Doubtful. At best, it’s likely a simple change of outward appearance.” Not that there was anything wrong with that, though I doubted it was what the human-turned-vyxa was looking for.

“Given her now-magical nature, it may not even be very effective. As for my plans,” I deflated with a sigh. “I don’t know. We may need to go back to the city. I think I’ve run out of options with what we have here.”

She raised a brow, though it looked a tad silly upside down. “Is that really a good idea? Your family might find you and drag you back.”

“It’s a risk I’ll have to take. Besides, at this point, I doubt they’re still searching very hard.”

Nhlia snorted. “Flauri’el, you’re far too optimistic. I still think you should reconsider bringing the vyxa here.”

“I’m not her caretaker, and I don’t intend to be,” I argued.

“And yet you still intend to search for a way to help her, I’m sure.”

“You don’t have to look so smug about it,” I said to the bound Htolian, the conniving little slut.

My claws bit into my skin once again as my frustration built.

“How much success do you think you’ll have while she’s fighting you the whole way—not to mention across realms? I know you’re an optimist, Flauri, but you can’t just expect things to fall magically into place. She’s made her choice, and I doubt a few words whispered into her head will change it.”

I wasn’t an optimist. It was simply prudent to explore the simpler solutions first. Ripping a hole between the realms was not a simple solution, in my mind. It was a dangerous one. You couldn’t predict when something else might come crawling through.

“I truly do think that bringing her here is the best option,” Nhlia said suddenly, breaking me once more out of my thoughts. “Removing the ring would be trivial. You could force the potion down her throat, even if she continues to be so stubborn. She’d thank you for it in the end.”

I frowned. “I’m not doing that.”

Nhlia shrugged, or gave an approximation of one, at least. I could tell she was getting uncomfortable, all tied up and hanging upside down as she was. But she had it coming for insisting on having this conversation now of all times.

“It would be cruel to end your link and just abandon her there.” Her words stung.

“I know that,” I hissed. “Do you think this is what I wanted to happen?”

“Are you sure that she even truly wants to be human again? What if she ends up liking her new body more?”

My wings flared outward and my antennae vibrated. All four of my eyes glared at the dangling lizard. “Why are you asking me as though it's somehow my responsibility? You know I couldn’t possibly know the answer. That’s something she’ll have to figure out herself, and deal with the consequences for.” Despite my insistence, the words left a bitter taste in my mouth. “I can’t fix this.”

“But you can, Flauri. I think it’s quite clear that we have a better idea of what’s best for her than she does.”

I opened my mouth to protest only to pause. Typically, I would argue against such a presumption, but this time… Perhaps Nhlia was right. Ruby had made her decision, terrible as it was. It was time I made mine.

I wouldn’t risk abandoning her there. And Nhlia had claimed she could get a permit to make it properly legal. The potion plan had always been dubious from the start, really. It relied on too much going right: finding or creating something that might work, convincing her to then make it, hoping that she could locate the necessary ingredients, successfully brewing it, hoping that it changes her back into a human, and then hoping that said transformation also succeeds in breaking our animus link.

Perhaps Nhlia was right. I’d been a bit too optimistic. A potion like that could take decades to get right, or longer, if it was even truly possible. My fatigue and mental exhaustion had made me delirious. Then by the time I’d gained my senses back, I’d been too stubborn to abandon my meager ‘progress.’

“Fine,” I said.

“Fine?”

“We’ll bring her here. As much as I hate to admit it, you’re right. I detest her, but I don’t want to just abandon her there, a vyxa trapped among humans. She doesn’t deserve that. And unfortunately, bringing her here is an easy way of solving things. Assuming she actually wants to be human again, we’ll just have to find a way to send her back that won’t cause us any problems.”

“Finally!” Nhlia exclaimed.

I wanted to hate how right it felt to assert my control over the stubborn vyxa. I hadn’t even truly done anything yet, but already a sense of satisfaction rolled within me.

She’s not mine, I insisted to myself. There was nothing to be excited about.

“Are you going to let me down now?” Nhlia grumbled and reached past her rough horns to the floor below. My eyes narrowed as I wondered how she’d slipped her arms from the rope binding them.

“Shut up and take your whips.”