#waw2023

[gritpyre]

Whump Girl Summer Day 2 - Captivity whump pt 2

I liked this one enough to post by itself, I struggle lots with values but I’m trying to force myself to get better at it slowly

#waw2023 #whumpgirlsummer #whump #whump art #monster oc #monster whump #lady whump #digital art #art #werewolf #werejaguar #original art #captivity whump #beating #my art #my ocs #alma guerrero #asphyxos salazar

[rizzoto-whump]

@whumpawoman​ whump girl summer day 4 - Stress Position

@juneofdoom​ day 10 - Shackled

CW: Bruises, blood

#whump #whump prompt #whump art #fantasy whump #elf whumpee #juneofdoom #waw2023 #whumpgirlsummer #captivity whump #stress position #shackled #bruises #handcuffs #whump OC #restrained

[pigeonwhumps]

Routine

Finding Safety masterlist

Whump Girl Summer day 4: Rescue

Taglist: @littlespacecastle @whumpymirages @flowersarefreetherapy @painful-pooch

Pet thinks about her weekly routine, and eventually, with the help and encouragement of a nice delivery man and his cousin, makes a change to it.

3.3k

CWs: BBU, pet whump, conditioned whumpee, shock collar, implied rape/non-con, beating, dehumanisation, brief whumpee thinks caretaker is new master (at the end), mention of scarification, mention of public humiliation, mention of starvation

Pet's weekly routine doesn't change much. Every day, she wakes up in time to make Sir's breakfast (three rashers of bacon, two fried eggs, two slices of toast, and exactly eight ounces of orange juice) and get him ready for work. Sometimes, if she's good, he'll give her a pat on the head before leaving.

Sometimes, if she's not, he'll leave her with shoulders mottled and aching.

Then she has to clean the house until it's spotless, and everything's in the correct position. There's not a speck of dust to be seen once she's finished, not an object out of place.

On Mondays, the shopping's delivered. The doorbell is connected to her collar, the low shock making sure she knows it's been pressed, but the delivery man doesn't ring it anymore. She's not sure why.

It's always delivered by the same young man. He's nice, talks to her like she doesn't have a collar around her neck. Brings the shopping all the way into the kitchen when he doesn't have to. His name is Mr Jason.

One day, he hands her a slip of paper with a phone number on. Tells her that if it ever gets too much, this life, to call someone called Sandy on that number.

She's okay though. Why wouldn't she be? This is the life she chose.

She puts the shopping away perfectly, everything in its place, exactly where it should be. Exactly where Sir requires it.

She sorts, irons and stores the laundry twice a week, hers (maid outfits, which according to Sir's friend are fashionable) hanging in a small closet in his room. Everything that Sir gives her is in her closet. She doesn't have much – a pet bed, clothes, disciplinary tools that make her shiver to look at them so she tries not to unless it's absolutely necessary – but it's everything she needs. Sir takes care of her every need, she doesn't need anything of her own.

Sometimes she bakes. Sometimes she cooks. Sometimes she does neither. Sir doesn't always have a plan for his meals, and on those occasions, Pet knows she has to wait until he's home, until she can receive clues or instructions on what he wants. She always bakes on Thursdays, so he can have enough homemade snacks to sustain him throughout the week.

Once the day's chores are complete, she has to clean herself. That's important. Even if she will undo the work after Sir gets home, she has to be clean and presentable and smell nice for him when he does. Everything has to be perfect.

She washes herself, every nook and cranny, carefully scrubbing between her fingers and toes, making sure to use the strongly-scented soaps and conditioner that Sir likes so much.

Ten minutes before Sir is due to arrive home, Pet's shock collar goes off. It's a low setting, just to let her know Sir needs her. She inspects the house, making sure that everything's in its proper place. No room for sloppiness here.

Five minutes later, it goes off again. She starts the coffee maker. It takes five minutes to brew, and then it will be ready for her to pour him a cup when he gets home. She has to turn it on at exactly the right moment, his coffee mustn't be too hot or too cold. Then she kneels beside the front door, ready to welcome Sir home.

The first thing he does, once he's drunk his coffee, is inspect the house, and her, thoroughly. He strips and examines every part of her, and her clothes, and then does the same with the house. Every speck of dust missed, every part of the bathroom that isn't sparkling enough, every packet that isn't in exactly the right place, it all gets tallied up. Everything wrong with her, too, a slightly loose hair ribbon, a drop of damp left between her toes, a minute incorrection of posture, that all goes down. That's the number of hits her shoulders will take. Punishing her is, apparently, Sir's work de-stressor. That's what he said to his friend once, and Pet remembers. She always remembers. She has to, she can't afford to make mistakes.

The tally goes down on the big chart, too, along with anything unusually good she's done, in preparation for Sunday.

That evening, as every evening, she is at Sir's beck and call, serving his every request. Her collar vibrates frequently as he calls on her often, sometimes for drinks, food, company... and sometimes for other things.

Pet's collar is like a bell in those old-timey British films Sir likes to watch, she muses sometimes. It calls her to service. Only the collar is silent, and it hurts, too.

Silent. Silent like she is. Silent like she has to be, because that's the way Sir likes it. Unless Sir requests otherwise, of course. Silent movements, silent chores, silent as a mouse. Only squeaking for his amusement when her punishments become entertainment.

On Monday and Wednesday evenings, Sir takes her into his bed and has sex with her. He's talked about experimenting, he's used a few toys, but nothing major. Not yet.

She's not sure how she feels about that idea.

On Fridays, Sir works from home. She doesn't spend all day doing chores then, instead she waits on him, bringing him drinks and snacks and papers, whatever it is he needs when he calls for her. Stress relief, sometimes. If she's lucky it just involves roughly petting her, but it's often more than that. She's used to the taste by now, though, it's okay. Whatever Sir wants is what she wants. Even if it leaves her black and blue and red, or with a sour taste in her mouth and an aching jaw.

Her neck hurts the most on Fridays, shivering with phantom shocks for hours more that night, after even the mice have settled down and gone to sleep.

On alternating Saturdays, Sir goes out with his friends, or they visit each others' houses. Some of them have pets too. Some just like to play with her. She doesn't like it quite so much.

Her least favourite game is when they take the pets out someplace public, and she has to stay perfectly still and silent, perfectly secretive, as they do what they like to her. The first pet to cry out or be otherwise noticeable loses.

She doesn't like to lose. That's never good. Sir doesn't like it at all. It's especially bad if a member of the public notices, says something. She hates it when that happens.

Then come Sundays. A lazy lie in for Sir with plenty of sex, and then the charging of the three sets of shock collar batteries that have been used that week. That's when she gets her punishment.

It could be a reward, of course, in theory, if she made up enough good points on her tally, but she could never do that. She's not certain it's even possible, or if Sir rigs it. He might.

Sir has used lots of different punishments in the past. Stress positions, beatings, small cuts in sensitive places. Nothing that will scar.

The only scars she has are the section of her right shoulder that Sir and his friends use as an ashtray, and Sir's initials on her inner thigh, where no-one else can see. The latter, he called scarification, seeming very pleased when he did it.

She's not pleased. She thinks she should be, but she isn't.

Sir has a special wipe-clean room for Sunday punishments, in the basement, that she has to clean until it's spick and span. That's what he says, spick and span.

His current favourite punishment is to tie her spread-eagled to hooks in the floor and ceiling, upside-down and naked, and just beat on her with whatever's to hand. Sometimes, it is his hand. She's had broken bones a few times, although Sir usually tries not to do that. He says bruises make her look prettier, so they're fine, provided they can be mostly covered up. He tries to avoid them in the places her clothes won't cover.

Bruises are socially acceptable on pets, although not too many. Apparently.

Then, once the batteries are charged and the shock collar is back on, it's time for a film and a takeaway. If Pet's lucky, if she's affectionate enough, she'll be hand-fed the leftover crusts and crumbs. Otherwise, it's her usual pet food, ordered on a subscription from somewhere she can't read the logo of. Enough to keep her fed, bones peeping through the skin like they should in fashionable pets. That's what all the magazines show, the ones that Sir flicks through and then discards with a snort. But there's no variety, and sometimes she finds herself wishing that there was.

She ignores the look of pity the delivery man gives her as he hands over the bags of warm food. She always does. She's as wide-eyed and pleading as possible with Sir, so much nudging affection, and maybe, hopefully, this time she'll be allowed some of his tasty leftovers. Maybe even tasty food of her own, one day.

Sir's friend petsat once, and she got a pet ice cream from his girlfriend then. It was like a cloud on her tongue.

A cold cloud. Maybe clouds are cold, though, it's not like she's ever been up there.

Sometimes she daydreams about having an ice cream again.

She daydreams about clouds, too. She likes to watch them skud past. Shape them, mould them, name them. Pretend they're something they're not.

Sometimes she feels like she's pretending too. Waiting for a gust of wind to blow her out of this life and into another.

This is the life she chose. But she isn't sure she'd choose it again.

One Monday, Mr Jason arrives with the shopping. He looks at her, wearing a posture collar over her shock collar because Sir thinks she isn't good enough, bruises peeking out from under the sleeves and skirt hems. Everything aches, she could barely move for aching that morning, bruised stiffness setting in. She's one wrong step away from being sent to a retraining centre, though, and regardless of that she'd have to do her job, so she goes through the motions of it all.

And then there's a knock on the door, and her careful posture, the way she's holding herself to keep the weight away from the worst pain, almost breaks.

Mr Jason takes one look at her. Just one look, catching so much, and he says two words.

"Call xem."

So Pet does. After Mr Jason's left, she calls, doing her chores at the same time. She can't read the numbers but she copies the shapes into Sir's landline. They speak for hours, as Mx Sandy works out a plan.

Her beating that evening is worse than normal because of her inattention during the call, with a metal and leather cane as Sir orders her to select the weapon that will cause the most pain without scarring or breaking anything. She obeys, her posture apparently not at its best still. She'll have to work on that then.

The next day, Sir comes home with a yoke and a box of pet cams. He explains that they're so Sir can watch her at work, to see why she's misbehaving so much, and then he can send her to the trainers with appropriate instructions the next time he goes on a business trip. He says that he doesn't understand what's happened, but that her behaviour needs fixing.

Pet thinks that perhaps, if he was a little more careful with his Sunday punishments, then it would be easier for her to behave during the week.

At least she won't have to go on the business trip. She feels sorry for the rental pet he'll undoubtedly get, though.

Then Sir makes her kneel and passes the yoke over her head, fastening it around her neck. The wooden sides sit on her shoulders, draping slightly over the very tops of her arms. It's not too bad like this, but then he fastens weights to it, and she struggles to keep her shoulders at the correct height.

This is to fix her posture. She's going to wear it for the next week and then they'll see how she is. Whether he also needs to spend money on training her in that, too.

The yoke worked on his friend's pet, apparently. DIY posture training. Pet remembers seeing it on him, at Sir's friend's house. It looked like it hurt.

She's grateful that she at least doesn't have to wear it at night. A small shock emits from her collar when it is to go on and off.

She can't read a clock, but she doesn't need to with her shock collar.

Sir's going to install the cameras the weekend after this, when his friend's free to help. Pet calls Mx Sandy the next day, making sure to be very careful with the landline, and xie moves the plan forward a week.

On Saturday, Sir's friends come to visit. Not the camera-installing one, thankfully. They laugh at Pet in her yoke, and hang weights from it and use it as an increasingly heavy table until she collapses. Then Sir, drunk Sir, the worst kind of Sir, breaks a glass on the back of her head, the one that cracked when she fell.

Now her head is covered in cuts and beer and then stinging cuts.

She hates them all. She knew it was coming, they did it to another pet before, but it still hurts. Why can't Sir care without hurting her? Is that the only way to be loved, as a pet?

It seems to take a very long time, but Monday finally comes. Mr Jason arrives at the normal time, his eyes widening when he sees her. She's glad he's not seeing her at her worst, at least.

He helps her put away the shopping quickly, side-by-side, exactly the way she'd do it alone. The longer time frame there is for an investigation into her departure, the better. Then he leads her outside.

They can't leave the yoke or collar here. Both are padlocked on, it would be obvious she had help.

"In here, until we get out of the gates. My cousin's in the back."

He helps her climb into the truck, where she collapses to her knees, the weight suddenly too much. The person who must be Mx Sandy peers out from behind a stack of crates.

"Hi. I'm Sandy. Let me help you get those things off?"

Pet nods, crawling as close as she can, and Mx Sandy meets her in the middle.

"Okay. Let's see if I can pick these locks. I'm going to come around behind you now, don't panic."

Pet nods, and Mx Sandy clambers behind her, fiddling with the locks on her yoke. Xie lifts the yoke off, and Pet's head sags. It feels suddenly weightless, but she's too weary to hold it up.

There's a tiny click and Pet's leather shock collar is peeled away. She swallows hard and doesn't feel the press of soft leather or plastic against her throat. It's strange.

"That's better, I bet. Put this jumper and shoes on. Maid outfits aren't uncommon with pets around here and I don't want people getting suspicious."

Pet nods and shrugs on the knee-length green jumper and trainers Mx Sandy hands her. They're surprisingly comfortable. She pulls down the sleeves until they're exactly even on both sides, and checks that the laces are symmetrical.

As clothes should be.

"Thank you, mx."

"Just Sandy. Ready?" Pet nods again, unsure what she's meant to be ready for, and Mx Sandy knocks hard on the metal dividing them from Mr Jason.

A few seconds later, the lorry comes to a stop, and Mr Jason rolls up the back of the lorry.

"We're walking the rest of the way," explains Mx Sandy– no, just Sandy. She has to be exactly right. She can't make another mistake. "Safer for Jay that way."

He holds out his hand to help Pet out, and she takes it, stepping down as gracefully as she can manage. "Good luck. See you next weekend, cuz."

Sandy makes a face at that. "Don't get caught."

Mr Jason (Jay?) climbs back into his lorry and drives away, leaving Pet alone with Sandy in the large, empty, secluded car park. Xie takes her hand before she can worry too much.

"Let's go. It's not far from here."

Pet keeps her head high as they walk, graceful, elegant. A good pet should always be so. Even, maybe especially, if everything still aches and she's struggling to hold herself up. That's good, it means she still knows how to behave, if she can do that.

They keep walking until they reach a brick house in a nondescript street, and Sandy unlocks the door, leading Pet inside.

There's nobody around, although there's signs of inhabitance everywhere. Clothes draped over doors, shoes piled by the entrance, a whiteboard covered in sheets of paper and pictures drawn in drywipe. She has the urge to tidy it all up before someone gets in trouble for it.

"Dryer's broken at the moment. I'll show you to your room, Tom's out at the moment so it's all yours. I suggest you change and take a nap before we do anything else."

Pet nods, and follows Sandy upstairs. The room is spacious, two single beds lined up neatly opposite each other. One has plain blue covers, neatly tucked, while the other's are a repeating safari pattern.

Pet's not sure what a safari is, or where the headache comes from, but she pushes it away as she has done so many times before.

The blue-covered bed has a neat pile of clothes at the end, and she picks them up, carefully changing into them as Sandy quickly turns xier back. The fleecy pyjamas are warm and soft, covering her nicely but leaving her forearms free. She certainly never had clothes this soft from Sir and she wraps her arms around herself, savouring the lack of thin, scratchy material that made up her usual outfit with Sir.

Pet notices a clock on the wall. That's reassuring, somehow. Maybe Sandy doesn't rely on electric shocks to tell xier pets the time.

"The bed's for you to sleep in. Take a nap for as long as you need, I don't intend on timing you or anything. You must be exhausted."

"Thank you, mx. What are my duties when I wake up?"

Sandy pauses for a moment. "We'll work that out when you're feeling better. Nothing more than anyone else here. One thing I'd like you to start thinking about is your name. I want you to choose one you like, rather than Pet. Is that okay?"

Pet nods. She's going to have to keep a close eye on Sandy to choose a name she can be sure xie'll like, but that's acceptable, if nerve-wracking. What if she chooses the wrong name?

Still, she can't disobey.

"Yes, mx."

At a gesture from Sandy she climbs into the bed, curling the duvet around herself until it covers her completely. She's so warm, she doesn't remember the last time she was so comfortably warm.

Sandy rests a hand on her head and she leans into it. She knows she'll have to pay for the non-earned kind touches later, but that's okay. They make her feel so much better that that's okay.

"Go to sleep, honey. We'll sort everything out when you wake up."

And she does. And for the first time in years, she sleeps without being awoken by a shock collar.

#whump #whump writing #sanctuary pigeonwhumps #xiu oc #sandy oc #jason oc #waw2023 #whumpgirlsummer #captivity #bbu #box boy universe #box babe #pet whump #lady whump #whumpee and whumper #whumpee and caretaker

[flowersarefreetherapy]

Begging

For @whumpawoman’s Whump Girl Summer: Day 4, Begging

CW: Degrading language, dehumanization, begging, BBU typical violence, threats of violence

“You know better than to speak like that,” Handler Ava snaps. 

“I’m sorry,” 327 whispers, staring hard at the tiled floor under her. “I’m sorry, I-I am sorry, I’m sorry, I-“

“If you want to keep those hands of yours, I suggest you shut your mouth.”

327 clamps her mouth shut. It’s been a long time since the handlers have threatened her hands. She’s being good, talented, smart, picking up on the language like they want her to. They can’t hurt her hands. She’ll lose her skill. She’ll stop being good. 

“Better.” Handler Ava grabs her hair and forces her head back. 327 swallows back a whimper of pain. “But not good enough. I think you can handle a few broken fingers. You don’t need your pinkie that badly, do you?”

“No, no, no, please!” 327 panics, shaking her head. Hair tears from her scalp and tears burn her eyes. The pounding of her heart is all she hears as her handler laughs. “Please, please don’t! I’ll be good! I-I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I was a stupid pet, I shouldn’t have said that!”

“And what did you say?”

She shakes her head. No, she knows this game. She can’t say it again. If she does–is she speaks the words they are trained to avoid at all costs–then she’ll be hurt and her handler will be mad and it isn’t good!

Just like you. Such a bad pet. You know you aren’t supposed to say that.

“What did you say?” Handler Ava snarls, tightening her grip. 327 flinches. “What did you say? Answer me!”

“No!” 327 shouts. Tears stream down her face. “I-I said-I said no! I said no and that was stupid! I’m a stupid pet! I don’t say no! I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!”

“And why don’t you say no?”

“Because I-I exist only to serve my master! My body and my wants are not-not my own! I exist only to serve my master!”

Handler Ava slaps her. The warm taste of copper fills her mouth, her cheek throbbing from the blow. It’s going to leave a bruise. Just another one to add to her already battered and tired body. She wants to crawl into a corner and cry. 

“Stop crying. I wanted to hear you admit your mistake, not blab on about how stupid you are.”

“Sorry,” 327 whispers. “I’m sorry, I-”

“Shut up, 327. No one cares what you have to say.” 

327 closes her mouth and nods. No one cares. Her hands are what are valuable. Her knowledge of the language is valuable. No one cares about her. All she is is a vessel. Something for the message to pass through. Like a wire, a transmission, a way for information to pass through without involving her. 

You aren’t important. The message is important. 

“No one cares what I have to say,” she repeats. “The message is what is important.”

“You are not important.” 

“I am not important,” she whispers. 

“Good pet.” Handler Ava steps back and rubs her hair. “You’re learning. Slowly, but you’re learning. Doing better than before, 327, which is good.”

“Thank you, handler.” 

#waw2023 #whumpgirlsummer #begging #day 4 #jenna my love #dehumanization #degrading language #threats of violence #bbu #bbu universe #pet whump #it's short; but inspiration was not my friend today

[galaxywhump]

Stargazing

[An Immortal Among Stars Masterlist]

A new story for the Whump Girl Summer event hosted by @whumpawoman, Day 1: Environmental Whump. I probably won't be able to fill too many of the prompts because of a lack of time, but I still wanted to share at least this short piece, even though it's mostly introspection.

contents: lady whump, immortal whumpee, imagined death.

~~~

Centuries too late, people gathered to see a dying star.

The explosion had wiped out some nearby planets, but that was back when most of the universe was out of reach. Several diviners attempted to establish a link to the area, and found that among the debris that was left behind there was nothing hinting at previous life, or even at the planets being able to sustain it at all. No guilt was involved in enjoying the spectacle, and everyone treated it as such.

There were vendors, music, laughter, mouth-watering smell of food permeating the air; those were contained in a smaller area, while the rest, a huge open field, was left for the crowd to gather, to stand or to sit down, and watch the clear night sky.

"Incredible, isn't it?" Daria's eyes reflected the stars. "It happened so long ago, long before any of us were born, and we only get to see it now."

Karita nodded. She realized that the arm she'd wrapped around her partner had tensed up, and she forced herself to relax her grip, not wanting it to become painful. Her gaze stayed fixed on the burst of light.

"It's weird," she said, "that there's a whole festival around it. It feels wrong."

"I felt that way too." Daria shrugged, then reached up to hold Karita's hand and keep her arm wrapped around her shoulders. "But there had been no one and nothing there, right? So try to think of this as a… show, I suppose. Everyone treats it that way, anyway."

I could've been there, Karita thought, but didn't say it out loud, and instead nodded again, hoping that her silence would be taken as a sign of amazement.

Well, not there. She hadn't been there for this particular star's explosion, though Daria would have been surprised to learn that less time had passed between that event and Karita's birth than she would've thought.

But she could have been there to witness other stars dying. She could still experience it. She stared at the explosion in the sky until her eyes became dry and she had to blink, and she couldn't help but imagine being there.

The explosion getting closer, blinding her. The ground shattering beneath her. Dying, multiple times, coming back to life and-

She inhaled sharply and shuddered, and Daria looked at her with concern.

"Are you alright?"

"Yeah, yeah," Karita sighed, bringing her hand up to her forehead. "I think I'll go grab something warm to drink, it's… kind of chilly." At least that wasn't a lie. "Do you want anything?"

"Hmm… Spiced hot chocolate. You should try it if you haven't already, it's amazing."

Karita mirrored her smile and gave her a kiss quick enough so Daria couldn't feel the tension that filled every nerve in her body.

"I'll be right back."

Even when she stopped looking at the star, it was still on her mind, fire, burning her to death, then leaving her at the mercy of space, ice, ice and loneliness, and vast emptiness all around her that she couldn't escape.

She hugged herself as she maneuvered among the other spectators. People. There were people around her, both a risk and a soothing constant. They didn't matter to her as much as they used to, but she found their presence calming regardless. For now she wasn't alone. For now she got two cups of spiced hot chocolate, returned to Daria, and smiled when she saw the way her face lit up.

Karita sat down behind her to wrap her hands around her and bury her face in the back. She heard Daria giggle.

“Wouldn’t you rather watch? It’s a once in a lifetime experience.”

“I know,” she muttered. “I just love you so much.”

“I love you too.” She could hear a smile in Daria’s voice.

She had eternity to watch stars die, but if she didn’t change her mind on keeping her immortality a secret, she had a few more years at most to be with Daria. The choice was obvious.

Holding Daria was like holding an anchor. There were other anchors before her, there would be many more after her, but that didn’t make it any more shallow. It was like a burst of love in Karita’s life, short but intense, like an exploding star, and then it would be gone.

The hot chocolate was heavenly. The night breeze made her skin rise in goosebumps.

Her mind and heart were heavy with memories and worry, no matter how much she tried to shut them out, but she was never going to stop trying.

#waw2023 #whumpgirlsummer #environmental #lady whump #immortal whumpee #oc: karita #oc: daria #until i come up with last names #and a title for the story #this is still a very loose concept but i'd love to write more about it #especially some whump with a whumper #my writing

[whump-me]

Unburied, Chapter 5

Chapter 5 of Unburied, my contribution to the Whump Girl Summer event hosted by @whumpawoman. Masterpost here.

Prompt: Traditions

Contains: spy whumpee, friendly whumper, female whumpee, female whumper, fantasy setting, magic, human sacrifice

---

“It didn’t work,” Kira said, or she tried. She mouthed the words, but all that came out was a bubbling rattle. But the grin she shot Leila, pained but triumphant, needed no translation.

She kept going, even though she was sure Leila couldn’t understand, even though every hiss of air across her parched and torn vocal cords was agony. “I won’t give you what you want. I’ll never die for you willingly.”

Either her rasps were more understandable than she had thought, or Leila was adept at reading lips, because Leila actually answered. “Oh, it’s not your choice anymore,” she said. “Or that’s the theory. It doesn’t matter what whether you want to help me. What you’ve just been through took a lot out of you, you know. Specifically, it took all the resistance you had in you. Burned it right out of your body. It doesn’t matter how much you want to resist—you don’t have the strength anymore.” She frowned. “At least, that’s how it’s supposed to work. I hope I got it right this time.”

Kira didn’t have it in her to offer any further words of defiance. But if she had, it wouldn’t have mattered, because Leila wasn’t listening anymore. She stood and walked away without a backward glance. She showed not the slightest bit of concern that the unrestrained Kira might surge up and wrap her bony hands around her neck.

Kira tried, of course. All she succeeded in doing was sending wrenching spasms down her back and out through her limbs. She fell heavily back down to the stone, her chest heaving with dry sobs.

She lay still and braced herself. She knew what was coming next, and she knew how she had fought it before. She didn’t have to kill Leila. All she had to do was resist. And with Edri… with Edri gone… Kira’s throat convulsed in a painful swallow. She forced herself to finish the thought. With Edri gone, Leila didn’t have any backup plan. Her internal damage would kill her soon enough. She would die here with Kira, and the weapon would go unused.

Was the best Kira could hope for. It was enough.

Until Provisha sent someone else out here. And Kira was fooling herself if she thought they wouldn’t. They had gotten a taste of magic, and the power it could give them. They would give up so easily.

Kira’s death would come to nothing. Edri’s death would come to nothing.

Another sob shook her body, this time one of despair. Exhaustion stole through her limbs, starting at her fingers and toes, creeping up her body until she didn’t think she could stay awake a second longer, let alone resist the invisible claws once they started trying to tear her life from her flesh.

With every ounce of ruthlessness she still had in her, she forced back thoughts of the future. It didn’t matter what happened next—she couldn’t control that. All she could control were the next few moments. All she could do was resist.

But the thoughts lingered at the edges of her consciousness, unwilling to let her banish them completely. The truth stuck in her mouth like a bitter taste, underneath the tang of her own blood. Edri had died for nothing. She would die for nothing.

Leila intoned the unfamiliar words from before. This time, Kira couldn’t raise her head to see what the other woman was doing. She stared up at the ceiling and watched the room fill with an unnatural glow as light spilled from the glyphs and across the lines in the floor. It brushed against her skin, drawing sharp lines of pain wherever it landed. Even that gentle touch was too much for her now.

The light tugged at her more insistently—not her abused body, although she felt it in every inch of abused muscle and every strained joint, but at the life that lay within. Kira squeezed her eyes shut and tried to wall off her soul, to warn away the light the way she had before. No. You can’t have me. But the words were just words, lacking even the substance of sound. There was no power behind them. The tugging grew more insistent, and no amount of mental screaming made it let up. This time, the gentle touches didn’t turn to sharp claws. The invisible fingers remained soft as they combed through her soul like they were carding wool.

As much as she screamed at herself not to let Leila win, not to let Edri’s death be in vain, her mind was as limp and yielding as her body. She felt her soul spilling loose from her skin, and knew she was helpless to stop it.

The worst part wasn’t the feeling of coming unmoored from her body in slow motion. Or the knowledge that her life force would go to power an ancient weapon that many people had died to ensure would never see the light of day again. The worst part was the shameful feeling of relief. At least the claws hadn’t come back this time. She’d had enough of pain. At least soon it would be over—and sooner than it would have been if her attempts at resistance had worked.

I’m sorry, Edri, she thought, too weak to even mouth the words.

The pain didn’t let up, but it felt distant now, like it didn’t really belong to her. The broken body barely felt like her own as her mind slipped free.

She tried to remind herself why Leila was doing this. She imagined the horror of the ancient weapon; she pictured her city gone, with nothing but a smooth expanse of glass in its place. She tried to muster up one last desperate spark of resistance.

She couldn’t. There was nothing left in her. The light grew brighter and brighter, until she could see it through her eyelids, until just looking at it became a pain of its own. But it didn’t matter. None of the pain mattered anymore.

“Oh,” she heard Leila breathe in a reverent whisper. “Oh. I understand.”

Kira had heard stories of the Buried City all her life, and of the ancient civilization that had once ruled from this place, grinding the world under its thumb with their cruel magic. First had come the children’s stories everyone had grown up with. Then, much later, the fragments of ancient history Edri had unearthed in the archives as they prepared for their journey. No two stories were identical, but they all shared many common threads. Among other things, they all said that either magic turned people cruel, or it took cruelty to discover the secrets of magic in the first place. Either way, the end result was that those ancient rulers had been cruel to the bone. Their cruelty was built into every stone of this place, permeating the floor like the remnants of Edri’s blood.

The ancient rulers had been monsters, a child’s fears, superstitions with more emotion than logic behind them. Or that was how it had felt to her, even as a child. No wonder her superiors hadn’t believed. The stories had turned them into caricatures, mere literary devices, with their endless appetite for death and suffering. But now here she was, inside the proof that the stories were true. Their appetites had not been exaggerated.

When Kira opened her eyes, she saw why the glow had intensified so much. The array of glyphs along the curved walls had all come to life. There wasn’t an inch of the wall not lit up by glowing lines, their curves and angles forming complex symbols she didn’t understand—symbols that pulsed with every tug she felt deep beneath her skin.

The light began to hum. That wasn’t quite right—she didn’t think she was hearing it with her ears—but it was closer to a sound than to anything else she might have described it as. It was a low and constant drone reverberating in her bones, and a soprano voice that moved up and down in a wordless discordant wail. It felt like being touched by something that had existed for a million years. Like a fossil in a museum opening its eyes and staring back. Like a god emerging from slumber. As the sound that wasn’t a sound shook Kira’s flesh right down to the bones, it began to feel as if her world had been the aberration, and now everything was going back to the way it had always been, the way it always should have been.

The world pulsed with the rhythm of the light, the rhythm of the wailing voice. This was the true rhythm of life, and it had been silent for too long. Kira couldn’t imagine how she had never been aware of it before. The pulse invaded her skin until her heartbeat slowed to match it. Her thoughts rose and fell in the same rhythm, until she struggled to hold an idea in her head for longer than the space of a heartbeat or a brief flare of light. Until she had to work to remember who she was beyond the rhythm in her bones.

“Can you sense it?” The cadence of Leila’s voice matched the pulse of the room. “No one knows exactly how long Norkhuggak ruled, but if my research can be believed, it was a longer time than our benighted civilizations are capable of envisioning.” Her voice sank into a reverent, ecstatic whisper. “My superiors have had it wrong all along. This isn’t an innovation. This is a return.”

Yes. Kira knew what she meant, understood it down to her bones, where the room’s rhythm pulsed. This was how the world had always been, except for the past thousand years, a brief blink of time compared to the sheer weight of history buried under the sand.

Some lives went to feed others. This was the natural order of things. This was how it had always been.

But she pictured Edri’s blood smeared across the floor, and something deep within her rebelled. She caught a small thread of her own mind, and held on tight to it, through the pulsing of the glyphs and the beating of her heart. She clung to it like it was a thin fraying rope, like that rope was all that stood between her and drowning.

And she kept her grip. She knew who she was now. She knew she wanted no part of this. But that alone didn’t give her enough strength to resist. Only enough that it no longer felt like peace as the invisible hands pulled her soul loose from her body. It only felt like death.

She tried to hold on to her body the way she held onto her mind. Her flesh was broken, but it was nothing but a source of pain, and there was a large part of her that would rather have been rid of it. But the rest of her wasn’t willing to let go that easily. She had earned every bit of that pain, earned it through her will and her defiance, and she wanted every last inch of her torn and abused flesh.

But wanting wasn’t enough.

Slowly, gently, the tugging hands pinched off the connections between her body and the life within. Her flesh lay heavy on the stone, and she… she wasn’t entirely sure where she was. Her body was no longer her own, or not entirely—when she tried to twitch a single finger, nothing happened. The connections between her will and her flesh had all been severed. But the pain was still there, even if there was a wall between her and it that muted some of the intensity. And she didn’t float away from her body to look down at herself from far above, the way ghosts did in the stories. She hung where she was, inside the flesh she no longer controlled—slow, heavy, liquid.

The glyphs went out, one by one. The light dimmed to a faint glow. Leila blinked down at her, frowning in confusion. “It’s done?” she said, a question more than a statement. “But… but you’re still alive. And the weapon… it’s not…” Alarm flashed into her bewildered eyes. “No. I can’t have gotten it wrong again. Not after all this.”

Was she still alive? Yes, she supposed she was. She still saw through her eyes, still heard through her ears. She still felt her heartbeat in her temples and the tips of her fingers. The pain in her hip still made her want to scream. But she couldn’t scream, couldn’t speak, couldn’t flash a grin of victory up at Leila as panic grew in the other woman’s eyes.

She wasn’t dead—she could guess that much. But was this life? She wasn’t sure.

Leila doubled over coughing. It went on longer than ever this time, broken up briefly by a series of gasping breaths. For a moment, Kira held out hope that Leila would collapse to the floor and die right in front of her, spewing blood from her mouth until there was none left in her body. Kira could live with an eternity of hanging in this state that wasn’t quite life and wasn’t quite death, if it meant she got to witness Leila’s failure.

But Leila recovered. She stood with her hands on her knees, breathing slowly, until she was able to slowly straighten back up. “I need… excuse me.” Abruptly, she turned her back on Kira. “I need to check my translations. There must be something else I’m missing.” As she hurried away, Kira heard her mutter, “there must be.”

Kira stared up at the ceiling. She heard the frantic rustling of paper, and the occasional confused or thoughtful mutter from Leila. The longer she lay there, staring at nothing, the less sure she was that she was seeing through her physical eyes after all. Her vision seemed to have subtly expanded, showing her a broader view of the room with less effort, but the change was slight enough that she wasn’t sure whether anything had changed at all. Had she been able to make out the glyphs on the walls so clearly before? She tried to see the wall behind her head, and managed it—or thought she did—for a brief instant, before a wave of dizziness overcame her and her vision returned to normal. She suspected that if she tried, she might be able to look down at her own body—and not only the surface, but the muscle and bone on the inside, all the tiny points of damage under the skin. She didn’t try. The thought made her queasy, even though she wasn’t at all sure the sensation was coming from her actual stomach.

Maybe she was wrong. Maybe she wouldn’t be able to take an eternity of this after all—not even if it meant watching Leila die in front of her. Had Leila failed? Those troubled murmurs from across the room didn’t sound reassuring. And if Leila had failed, what did that mean? Would Kira stay in this in-between state forever, alone in the Buried City, until the next batch of fools came along to unearth the secrets of magic? If she was lucky, maybe she would die when her flesh rotted away. Either way, she felt a powerful nostalgia for her earlier list of horrible ways she might die. Any one of them would have been a kindness now.

“Oh!” came a soft exclamation from across the room. Leila sounded relieved, and an answering wave of relief spread through Kira. Maybe she wouldn’t stay here for eternity after all.

The relief curdled into a cold sweat when she remembered that the other option was for Leila to use her to power up the weapon. Was a chance at a merciful death worth it if it meant the remnants of her life would be used against her home?

It wasn’t as if it mattered—she would have no say in her fate either way.

“If this is meant to be literal…” Kira continued. “Oh. Oh, yes, that would make sense. If this isn’t about what happens after death, but before…” Leila let out a little huff of breath. “Oh. Well. That’s… well, I can certainly see how they got their reputation for cruelty. No wonder it’s impossible to do this on yourself.”

With her strangely enhanced senses, Kira felt the floor vibrate under Leila’s feet as Leila hurried over to her. Leila crouched next to her, her eyes bright with excitement. “I’m very sorry for the confusion,” she said. “There are some parts of the translation I thought were meant as religious imagery, or possibly funeral rites. In fact, when I thought I could use this on myself and power the device while I was still alive, I even wrote out a will, asking someone to bring me here and do it for me after the device finally used up enough of my life force to kill me. Just in case it was important.” A soft chuckle turned into a hacking cough.

When Leila had her breath back, she continued. “But I had it wrong. Again. No surprise, right? This has certainly been a humbling experience.” She shook her head ruefully. “It’s actually supposed to be done before you die.” The excitement in her eyes softened into a liquid pity. “And I’m very sorry about this, but it’s going to be bad.”

Leila actually looked a little queasy. Her face had gone a couple of shades paler, and her mouth was tight around the edges. And this was Leila, who could talk about vaporizing cities without flinching.

Leila shook her head again. “At least you’ll die at the end of it,” she said softly. “Body and soul both—so you won’t carry these memories into a future lifetime, if the people of Norkhuggak were right about the soul being reborn. Which will be a mercy, believe me.”

---

Tagged: @suspicious-whumping-egg

Ask to be added or removed from tag list.

#waw2023 #whumpgirlsummer #fantasy whump #my writing #my writing: Unburied #human sacrifice #magic whump

[1000-niche-interests]

Raindrops on Roses

And now that we have that oc post here is a story because? I can. There are no roses in this story, but I had of “Favorite Things” from sound of music stuck in my head while I was writing it.

Annabell stood in the corner of the dimly lit chamber, watching from the shadows as the healer checked Sara’s breathing and pulse again, indifferent to how this mousy, red-haired woman looked back at Annabell every now and again, as if to check that the vampire wasn’t about to pounce. She much preferred the older man who had been in here earlier; he hadn’t been quite so jumpy. 

Not that it mattered. Anna had been here long enough to be used to wary stares of others, especially the ones not familiar with the Queen’s court. Not familiar with the fact that, while Annabell was not human, while she possessed magic enough to kill everyone in the kingdom and then some… she wouldn’t. Because there was only one person on this earth she cared enough about to kill for, and that person was currently laid up in bed with fever. Besides, Annabell was no human, but she was not a monster, either. (Despite what some of the nobles whispered behind her back.)

“Um,” The red head muttered into the quiet room, and Annabell’s head snapped up at once. The medic took a step back from Sara’s bedside in a respectful bow. “Her fever is down from what Healer Rodney said it was earlier, so I believe it should break tonight. That’s good.” The girl did not make eye contact with Annabell as she spoke, and the vampire did not expect it. She simply nodded, brisk, and waited for the girl to continue her report or to leave, as she clearly wished to.

“Apologies, sorceress.” The young woman bowed, again, this time more of a curtsy. “For my… hesitation.” 

It took Annabell a moment to figure out what she meant, until she realized the healer was referring to how she so clearly stammered over her words in fear, and some such. But Annabell only felt one thing right now, and that was concern for Sara, so she didn’t dismiss or accept the girl’s apology, merely sat down in the chair she’d pulled up to her queen’s bedside, and cupped her cheek to check her fever herself with a cold, pale hand. Though Annabell emitted no body heat, she could feel heat perfectly well, and agreed with the healer’s analysis. When she looked up again, the red haired woman was gone, as she’d expected. Fine.

Now that they were truly alone, Annabell focused on the bond between herself and Sara, crimson eyes glowing bright red as she placed her hand on Sara’s chest, just above her heart. She could hear her lover’s heartbeat, even and steady, but that was not her focus. She concentrated on the sound of rushing blood until it filled her ears, until it was all she could hear. Blood, like waves on the ocean. Plasma of life, heartbeats entwined together for eternity. A blood pact like theirs wasn’t common-- actually it was unheard of, between human and vampire-- but it allowed Annabell much.

As her hearing returned, her thoughts felt slow and sluggish, a chill having swept through her body like an icy gale. They were not her feelings, but Sara’s-- Annabell added another blanket to the two quilts already present, and tucked Sara in more until the feeling abated in her own body, replaced by a pleasant feeling of warmth. Annabell shook her head to clear it, then poured a glass of water from the pitcher in the corner. Sara would need that too, when she woke, likely dehydrated alongside exhausted. As the feeling of Sara’s ills cleared, Annabell took her seat again. They felt much of the other’s feelings through the pact; though by virtue of her magic, Annabell could sense more than Sara. It was useful, Annabell felt, to know what Sara needed even when she was asleep. When Annabell would otherwise be helpless to assist her. She saw her dreams, too, when she fell asleep, as Sara did her’s, though the queen reported it as never anything she could make out. Perhaps that was a lie, but Annabell could never tell. She, on the other hand, got dreams of family gatherings and sword training. And the moment of Sara’s father’s assassination, over and over again. Replayed. Annabell had never told her that, though.

She wondered what Sara was dreaming about now. She could probe, find out if she was in distress, but she tried not to invade the other woman’s privacy when she could help it. Besides, her expression was peaceful, even with her fever. Annabell suspected her sleep was peaceful, which lightened her worries a little.

With Sara comfortable for the moment, Annabell turned her senses to the room around her, the hallway, and the outside world, keeping alert. She knew there were guards all around in the castle, of course, but Sara’s safety was of the utmost importance here, as usual. The hallway sounded normal, and raindrops from the storm outside splattered against the windowpane like blind birds, heavy and thick. In the quiet abyss of the room, Sara’s breathing the only noticeable sound, Annabell sighed. The storm had been raging for days, and in fact getting caught out in it had been the reason Sara had fallen ill. Well-- the stress of running a kingdom also contributed, but it was the rain that had made the queen so violently cough and shiver, unable to find warmth no matter how Annabell bundled her up in blankets. Not even Annabell could offer help, emanating no heat to warm her. That always made her feel a tinge of sadness-- even though no heat could have warmed Sara after the storm anyway, Annabell knew well that touching her was like touching the shade itself. Cold, and never comforting. 

Ah, but now was not the time for her thoughts to take over. The wet cloth on Sara’s forehead had begun to dry, so Annabell wrung it out, wet in the basin, wrung it again, and returned it to its place with the efficiency of a surgeon. Annabell hoped Sara’s fever would break tonight, as the healer hypothesized… Sara had already been ill too long for the vampire’s comfort.

A groan-- no, barely even that, a murmur, really-- broke Annabell away from her worrying, and for a moment Annabell held her breath, a reflexive action she’d picked up and yet, never intended to actually do. She concentrated on the sounds, the symphony of Sara’s body, her heart and her brain, and she read the signs correctly; a moment later, Sara Penderghast’s eyes fluttered open, revealing glassy, tired blue eyes, nonetheless trained immediately on her.

“Anna,” Sara muttered, a smile at the edge of her lips. “Good… evening? Is it evening?”

“Just about.” Annabell replied, with a smile of her own, fangs momentarily flashing in her relief. Not that that mattered, in front of Sara. “How are you feeling?” She asked a moment later, having handed Sara the glass of water, from which she sipped, the flush in her face seeming to decrease somewhat.

“Tired. But… warm. Not too warm, just… good-warm.” Annabell smiled again. Her normally eloquent queen, reduced to a few broken sentences in her exhaustion. Well, as long as she was comfortable. 

“I made sure you had enough blankets,” Annabell replied, and Sara nodded against her pillows. “Thank you… but I’m sure it was awful to feel what I felt, sick like this. I’m sorry.” Ah, leave it up to her queen to apologize for what she couldn’t control.

“Darling, it was nothing I couldn’t handle.” The vampire assured her, and Sara nodded again, eyes closing after a moment. 

“Mm… the last time I was awake was morning and I know you didn’t sleep last night,” Sara said, voice slightly slurring now but still regal. “Lay with me. You should rest.” 

For a moment, Annabell considered reminding her that as a vampire, she didn’t need nearly as much rest as humans did and she could still remain awake for several days if necessary… but didn’t. Sara was giving her an option, and Annabell truly did desire to lay beside her, cool her fever, if she could. Still, she hesitated.

“You won’t be cold?”

At that, Sara gave a little laugh, one that sounded like music even when her voice was so raspy. 

“Oh, Anna, there’s more than enough blankets. I promise.” 

“Alright, you win.”

“I usually do.” Sara huffed in an appropriately queenly manner as Annabell slipped under the covers, and Sara nestled in close to her. The oppressive heat of the fever soaked deep into the vampire’s bones but didn’t bother her. 

Nothing mattered, as long as she could hold Sara here, warm and safe, for as long as her queen needed.

#waw2023 #whumpgirlsummer #day 2 #sickfic #fever #oc Annabell #oc Sara #vampire oc #royalty oc #MY GIRLS

[gritpyre]

Whump Girl Summer Day 1 - Begging

AND SO it begins Alma’s terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week

#waw2023 #whumgirlsummer #begging #whump #whump art #lady whump #monster #buff women #artist #digital art #whump event #monster oc #monster whump #werewolf #werejaguar #lycanthrope #digital drawing #artwork #my art #my ocs #alma guerrero #asphyxos salazar

[pigeonwhumps]

Blackmail

Finding Safety masterlist

Whump Girl Summer day 6: Blackmail

Taglist: @littlespacecastle @whumpymirages @flowersarefreetherapy @painful-pooch (plus @justplainwhump bc you've been waiting for this)

While at university in Canada, Aaliyah is forcefully reminded of her past as a pet.

Set a few years after Cass and Aaliyah move to Canada. Aaliyah's in her second year.

1.8k

CWs: BBU, pet whump, rape/non-con, sexual slurs, flashbacks, conditioned whumpee, degradation, self-degradation, blackmail, non-con nude photos, discrimination, briefly implied homophobia, dehumanisation

Aaliyah closes her laptop and removes her headphones, stretching widely. She's enjoying researching for this essay but despite her ability to stay in one place for hours at a time she's getting stiff. And her ears are aching.

Her roommate Zac looks up from his own textbook. "You want to take a break? We have plenty of time."

She picks up her tablet and chooses her words from the symbols. Zac waits patiently, something he's good at and which she's always grateful for, given how some people act about her AAC software.

"Get water. Will be quick."

"Take as long as you need, I'll look after your stuff."

"Thank you."

She heads out of the library and crosses the corridor to the water fountain, drinking as much as she can and splashing a little on her face too. It feels nice.

She hears footsteps behind her and moves out of the way in case whoever it is wants to use the water fountain.

They don't. Instead, they bark out an order.

"Respect."

Aaliyah drops to her knees before she even knows what's happening. No, this can't happen here. She didn't even realise she still did that.

She tries to get up but her body's locked. If she gets up before Master says she can–

No. No, she's not there, she's safe, Master isn't here. He never will be.

So why can't she move?

"I thought so," says a confident, sneering voice from behind her. "See, my cousin's studying in the States, and his frat house just bought a box boy. So cute and eager to please. Combination of some sort, I think. Apparently you're not gay if it's a boxie you're fucking. Anyway, he showed me their pet on a video call and it's funny. The way you cock your head, your inability to read and write, and you always cover your left forearm, no matter how warm it is or what else you're wearing. You're a WRU slut, aren't you?"

Aaliyah doesn't respond. She doesn't reach for her tablet, or move her head, or try to get up. She can't do anything, and that's probably enough of an indictment by itself.

"I knew it." The voice is gleeful now, and he grabs her arm in a bruising grip, pulling her up and pushing her along. "Disabled restroom should be free, right?"

Distantly, Aaliyah realises she should resist. Master isn't here anymore to make her do this. She doesn't want to do this.

But she's not a person. And it has never mattered what she wants.

The boy shoves her into the bathroom and she tumbles to the floor, ending up sprawled on the tiles.

She hears the lock click with a dreadful finality.

"Now, I don't know any of the positions, but I want you on your hands and knees. I'm sure you know how to do that, at least. Oh yeah. And strip."

Aaliyah obeys with shaking hands, throat tight. She wishes the floor wasn't so white and the light wasn't so bright, it reminds her too much of the facility.

She flushes as he looks her up and down. She's not sure how he knows her, but she recognises him from somewhere. The name will come eventually, she thinks.

She doesn't want him seeing her. This isn't like when she plays with Cass and Calixte, this is different, it's like she's a pet again.

No, not just a pet. Owned.

"You really are hot. No wonder you volunteered to be a slut, your looks are your best asset. I don't see why you hide them, I mean most Romantics don't, right? They seduce and manipulate using them. Your looks might not be your very best asset though, I think I'd like to try you out now. You're bottoming, obviously. Let's see how good a slut you can be for me."

Aaliyah holds back her tears as the boy climbs on top of her. She's been taught how to hide her emotions, she's an expert at it, and she blinks her eyelashes seductively at him as he positions her to his liking. She ends up on her back, legs spread between his. He looks at her like she's a banquet.

"Oh, you really are a nice-looking pet. Keep your eyes on me, I want to see your face while I fuck you. I hear you Romantics are trained to love your owners, and really, that sounds ideal."

He's not her owner. He's not. But as he opens the lube in his pocket and slicks her up, teasing her with his finger, she finds that difficult to remember.

He positions himself and slides his cock inside with a wink. Fuck. She hates this. She wishes she could go back to not caring, but now she knows what it's like not to have to do this, not to believe it's all she's worth, not to have an owner (and that's the most important thing she's learnt, and the most painful), it seems impossible to do. The boy isn't her owner, but he feels that way.

So many people fucked her in training, and then there was Jacob, too, so maybe it doesn't matter if he's her owner anyway. She's a WRU slut at heart, after all, and with her owner gone it would make sense that she's a general slut for everyone now.

No... no, that wouldn't make sense. Not the way she'd like. She has Cass and Calixte, although she doesn't want to think of them right now, doesn't want them associated with this.

She buries her emotions deep down where they can't show, covering her anger and sorrow and utter terror with a veil of pleasure. She desperately wants to curl up in a ball and cry it out but she can't. She has to behave, and do what she was made to do.

She's a good pet at heart, after all.

He fucks into her, not caring how she feels about it, and she turns the small moans and sobs that escape into sounds of enjoyment.

"Oh, you're so good at this pet, my god. Keep doing that, this is good."

Aaliyah wants to stop. Just stop, stop giving him this, stop giving in, kick him and stop him from ever doing it again. But she's a good pet, so she won't. The lights are bright and it's so white and she knows she can't disobey or she'll get shocked. The handlers will use their batons if she fights back.

No. No, she's not there, she's free. Free and still a pet and still being fucked against her will.

A hand slaps her cheek, the stinging pain bringing her back to the present.

"Hey. Bitch. Don't zone out on me now, I was enjoying your attention."

Aaliyah bats her eyelids and does what she should. It hurts, but she's made to take that, so she does, even if she desperately wishes she was somewhere else. Anywhere else.

Almost anywhere.

It seems like an eternity before he comes inside her, which is usually permission for her to orgasm too. The boy sighs blissfully and withdraws.

"You are an excellent pet slut." He does up his trousers and pulls his phone out of his pocket, cocky grin back on his face. "Just gotta do something."

Later Aaliyah will wish she had punched him or covered her face or run or something, but right now she just lets herself be manouvred. She's a pet, she doesn't have any free will, and anyway she can't bring herself to move. It's all too much, all over again. He takes photos of her face and her barcode and the two together, and other parts too, making it very clear who and what she is, and what she's done.

"Nice photos. I won't share them so long as you don't tell anyone about this. And, well. I might come up with more terms later. Gotta finish college before I can move and get a Romantic of my own, after all. Do we have a deal?"

Aaliyah nods, barely keeping the tears at bay. How did she end up like this?

"Great. See ya."

He stalks out of the bathroom without so much as a backward glance, and Aaliyah locks the door again before sinking to the floor. Now, the tears come. They can, now he's gone, she doesn't need to keep such a tight rein on her emotions now she's alone.

She didn't... how did this happen? How could she let something like this happen? She's not a person, this is a clear reminder of that, because a person wouldn't be so useless. They wouldn't have a barcode that makes them so easy to control. Master's dead and she's still a pet, still owned in every sense except the completely literal one. She scrunches up under the sink, giving herself a few minutes to cry messily, snottily. Not silently pretty, as a Romantic should.

She takes a deep breath, then another. Then she gets up and leans over the sink, scrubbing her face, wiping away the tears, making her eyes less puffy.

Maybe Zac will assume she's had a panic attack and not ask too many questions. She hopes so.

She dresses hurriedly with shaking hands, wanting nothing more than to go home and curl up in Cass' arms. But she can't do that, because then he'd ask and she'd tell him and she can't risk those photos being shared.

As a pet, she's not allowed wants anyway.

She brushes herself down, takes another deep breath, and heads back out.

Zac spots her as she re-enters the library and frowns. As soon as she's close enough, he murmurs, "Are you okay?" She nods. She's fine, she always is. "Okay. If you say so. Another half hour, then we'll go get food?" She nods again. She's in no shape to use her tablet to communicate right now. Zac squeezes her shoulder and looks back down at his textbook, frowning thoughtfully and highlighting another line.

Aaliyah opens up her laptop and puts on her headphones, pressing play. She prepares to draw down her notes and bookmark the sections she needs for her essay.

It's hard, so much harder than earlier. She was enjoying it before but now she can barely concentrate. Her head swims as she tries to settle back into the research. She has to rewind the audio of her textbook several times as she zones out, constantly replaying the last half hour or so. It hurts, physically, mentally, everything, she was hoping she'd never feel that hurt again.

She's useless. She can't concentrate, can't even read or write. She doesn't know things that everyone else finds obvious, that they all stare at her for not understanding. She's trying, she really is, but she's hopeless at it.

She's been pretending to be a person for a while now, but she's not. She never will be. She's a pet, and that's all she'll ever be.

#whumpgirlsummer #waw2023 #emotional whump #whump #whump writing #bbu #box boy universe #box babe #lady whump #whumpee and whumper #conditioned whumpee #pet whump #disabled whumpee #aac using whumpee #i think ive mentioned to a few people about aaliyah commuting to uni but ive changed my mind from her second yr #she shares a room with zac from 2nd yr onwards and honestly hes a pretty good guy #and her friend #more observant than shed like though 😅 #sanctuary pigeonwhumps #aaliyah oc #zac oc

[flowersarefreetherapy]

Blackmail

For @whumpawoman's Whump Girl Summer: Day 6, Blackmail

Valerian Ainsworth (mentioned) belongs to @wildfaewhump. Christopher Wickham (mentioned) belongs to @for-the-love-of-angst. 

CW: Sexually degrading language, blackmail, implied past noncon, panic attack

Robin pulls out their phone as they walk into the house. It’s silent, the ticking of the clock on the wall the only sound. They hum under their breath as they look through their emails, glancing at coupons from companies they’ve never bought from but for some reason still have their information.

There’s two voicemails in their inbox. One is from Gary, which they listen to first. He’s asking when is a good time to meet, preferably without the client there. Client. It sounds so sterile. So . . . detached. Client. 

Robin quickly calls Gary back. No answer, but they leave a voicemail agreeing to the plan. They are fine with not seeing Wick look like that again. The one time was almost too much. 

The second voicemail is from an unfamiliar number. Robin hangs their keys up next to the door and sits in the living room. They nearly delete it, but pause. Maybe it’s someone with information? Someone from Ezra’s work? What if something happened to their kids? 

They turn up the volume on their phone and hit play. 

I know you think you’re so high and mighty, taking on the whore case and making it seem like Wickham is the victim. 

The voice is garbled, scratchy, and echoes as if the speaker is standing at the end of a long tunnel. Robin grips their phone, desperate to turn it off, to stop themself from hearing the deluge that is coming, but they can’t. Their body refuses to move, trapped in place by their own fear. 

I know the truth. We all know the truth. Drop the case. You’re not clever enough to win. Mx. Ainsworth has friends in very high places, heights you could never dream of. If you don’t back down, you know what’ll happen to you. You’ve seen the videos. You want that to be you? 

Ice rushes through their veins. Breathe. In. Out. Again. Again. Turn off the voicemail, call Thad, stop listening, stop listening, stop listening, stop listening! 

Better yet, what about those little boys of yours? I’m sure Mx. Ainsworth would love to have them too. Hear them screaming? You’ve already seen Wickham whore himself out. I’m sure seeing your other strays do so would be nothing new. 

Robin can’t breathe. They know about my kids. They know about my kids. I’ve failed. They know about my kids. 

It would be so bad if this information were to get out to the public. You have such a cute little law firm set up and your husband looks so happy playing with the children. It would be such a shame to have all of that taken away. 

You’re a smart one. You know what to do. This is not a case you want to take on. If you do, there’s no telling what will happen to those you consider family. Just know that there are many people who will pay to see . . . certain videos of you. Just consider it very, very carefully. 

Have a good evening. 

The voicemail ends with a scratching click. Robin stares at the carpet, clutching their phone. They fight to draw in a breath. Then another. Then another. Keep breathing. Don’t stop. Keep breathing. 

They lean forward, letting out a gasping breath. Their head falls heavily into their hands and a broken sob slips from their lips. Ice coats their veins. Their heart shatters into hundreds of little shards. 

Call Thad. Call Thad. Call Thad. You know he’ll be able to help you. Call Thad. 

Their hands shake. They drop their phone to the carpet. 

I can’t. I can’t do this. 

They curl up on the couch and sob until they can’t breathe. When Thad comes home, they have pulled themself together enough to make it through the evening. They don’t need to tell him. There is no need to get him involved. 

They can handle this, just as they always have. One little phone call isn’t enough to scare them off. Not when this family is involved. 

Stick with the case, consequences be damned. Do this for Wick. Show them their threats mean nothing. Ainsworth has no power over you or your family. This is merely an empty threat. 

A desperate threat from a desperate person. Nothing more. 

#waw2023 #whumpgirlsummer #day 6 #blackmail #robin #sexually degrading language #implied past noncon #angst #panic attack #bbu #bbu universe #i have been waiting to post this one for so long

[galaxywhump]

Thunderstorm

[An Immortal Among Stars Masterlist]

Alternate prompt for Day 4 (Captivity Whump) of @whumpawoman's Whump Girl Summer event.

contents: lady whump, immortal whumpee, past captivity, death, starvation, isolation.

~~~

Karita woke up to new sounds.

Well, maybe not entirely new. She knew this sound, but she hadn't heard it in ages. Maybe it was a sound from an era long passed, like many. It was always startling to realize that some sounds and smells and flavors had disappeared completely after being present in her life for years, but… this sound was different. She could swear she used to hear it constantly, no matter the decade.

She pushed herself up from the couch and immediately stumbled. She felt weak, which was nothing new - she was starving, she was going to die soon, come back to life feeling marginally better, and the cycle would be repeated. At least she had access to water; she’d gotten used to the odd earthy taste, and it was her lifesaver, a way to temporarily cheat her hunger pangs.

The sounds continued, rhythmic tapping outside, and they filled her mind with longing for home, even though she hadn't had one in ages. She refused to call this prison home.

Looking around, she saw the same thick white fabric she'd always seen, a lounge, a kitchenette which had been stocked with food at some point, but she couldn't even remember what that was like. There were also hatches leading to two bathrooms and two bedrooms with bunk beds, but she'd decided to sleep in the lounge instead. Being the only person in a bedroom meant for eight people made her feel even more lonely than usual. Besides, most of the time she had been chained to her bunk at night. That was never pleasant, and not something she wanted to mentally go back to.

The tapping continued, but the dull pounding in her head made it hard to think. Her steps shaky, she walked over to the sink to drink some water. It helped, a little bit, and when she turned it off and watched the stream get thinner and thinner until it turned into occasional dripping, her eyes went wide with realization, confirmed by the unmistakable roar of thunder.

It was raining. It was storming.

Momentarily overcoming her weakened state, she ran towards the exit of the domed tent. The wait for the door to open felt endless, and she wasted no time getting outside and looking up at the sky.

The rain on her face felt incredible, refreshing and so new after the grim routine of the past several years. She opened her mouth to catch some raindrops, and for the first time in ages she couldn’t help but smile. The rain tasted so different to the water she usually drank, the barren planet was suddenly more alive, the rain mixing with the omnipresent dust, the temperature brought down slightly. Karita's heart was beating fast with excitement and joy, and she foolishly wanted to get lost in it, having forgotten what rain meant here, why she hadn't heard it in so long.

When she remembered, she couldn’t breathe.

"It only rains here every fifty years or so. That's why we need this bad boy." Zax slapped the machinery set on the ground, which was already hard at work, digging deep to reach the water reserves hidden far below the surface. "This and the condenser. Without them we'd be fucked."

"And when was the last time it rained here?" 

"Three months ago. Talk about unlucky."

"Fifty years," she whispered. Her legs gave out and she collapsed to her knees, her eyes still fixed on the sky. "Fifty fucking years."

Forty-nine years on her own.

"Wake up! Wake up, you bastard!"

He never did, and neither did any other member of the crew. She remembered kneeling there among corpses, too shocked to cry. That would come later, way later, when no one answered her SOS signal, when she realized she was eventually going to run out of food, when she scanned the planet and confirmed that there was no-one and nothing else there, just dust, rocks, and a single base camp of people working under the radar.

She never lost hope, she sent signal after signal, arranged rocks in a cry for help, their sharp edges cutting her hands, but as more and more time passed, her hope slowly grew dimmer.

Forty-nine years. Who knew how many more to come.

Her tears mixed with the raindrops on her face, and her scream, several decades’ worth of pent up grief, was drowned out by the thunder.

#waw2023 #whumpgirlsummer #captivity whump #lady whump #immortal whumpee #death #starvation #oc: karita #oc: zax #my writing #honestly i'm having a lot of fun writing this #maybe i just missed writing shorter stories #idk just wanted to share

[whump-me]

Unburied, Chapter 4

Chapter 4 of Unburied, my contribution to the Whump Girl Summer event hosted by @whumpawoman. Masterpost here.

Prompt: Stress Position

Contains: defiant whumpee, spy whumpee, friendly whumper, female whumpee, female whumper, fantasy setting, magic, human sacrifice, stress position, hallucinations

---

Kira hung from the ceiling, far above the stone indentation where she had been bound. Her wrists were tied above her head, wrapped in a thick set of stone cuffs bound to a miraculously unrusted steel chain. Now Kira understood why she hadn’t been able to find the locking mechanism—the cuffs locked and unlocked with a glyph, sealing together to form an unbroken circle of stone.

She had a matching set around her ankles, stretching her legs out above her at a painfully awkward angle. The end result left her dangling from the ceiling with her belly arched downward. A third piece of chain was wrapped around her neck. It attached to the ceiling somewhere between her wrists and her ankles. The loop of chain dug in under her chin, forcing her head up and increasing the arch of her back. Just looking down was enough to make the metal dig painfully into her skin.

But she kept looking down anyway. She couldn’t help herself. She kept staring at the place where Edri’s blood should have been. Little by little, the stone floor had absorbed it, until it looked as pristine as ever. Until there was no sign of where Edri had died.

The room looked different from up here, now that she could see everything. She had spent a lot of time studying it since Leila had first bound her up here. It made a decent distraction from the pain in her arms… in her legs… in her back, which was bent so deeply that Kira wondered how much it could take before it snapped. Better not to think about that. She focused on what she could see, since it was the only distraction she had available to her.

From down below, the jagged lines had looked random. Now she could see they were arranged in an intricate pattern, like angular lacework, or a far larger and more complicated glyph than the ones on the walls. Looking at the pattern for too long made her vision swim, like she was out in the desert again, feeling her brain cooking inside her skull.

The indentation at the center of the floor was smaller than she had thought—or the room was larger. There were a lot more of those little bowls surrounding it than she had realized, too. Dozens of them. She still didn’t know what they were for.

And there, by the doorway—there was the spot she her eyes kept coming back to. The spot where Edri had died.

But maybe it was for the best that she couldn’t look away. Because even though all evidence of Edri’s death was gone, Kira could still see her lying there, as clearly as if Leila had never dragged her body away, as if the floor had never soaked up her blood. She could still see that determined look in Edri’s eyes, hear her final grunt changing to a choked whimper of pain as the blade sank deep into her flesh.

She hadn’t looked afraid, at the end.

This—dangling here from the ceiling, with her back ready to snap and her arms and legs slowly sliding out of their sockets—this was the preparation Leila had spoken of. Prepare the mind by preparing the body, Leila had said. She apparently had the impression that after a long enough time up here, Kira would agree to anything she wanted.

Maybe it would have worked if not for Edri. Maybe after another few hours up here, Kira would have been willing to power up any number of city-melting weapons if it meant an end to the pain, if it meant she wouldn’t actually have to feel her bones snap out of their sockets or her vertebrae pull apart. But not with the memory of Edri’s death fresh in her mind. She would endure this for as long as she had to, if it meant Edri’s death wouldn’t be in vain.

It was actually easier than she had expected. From the way Leila talked, Kira had anticipated some sort of horrible torture, not simply being tied up and left alone.

Not the pain wasn’t bad. Bad was hardly the word for it. She wasn’t sure there were words. She knew how to describe pain in terms of degree—agonizing, excruciating, unendurable. But there was nothing, so far as she knew, to distinguish a stab wound to the gut—which she had experienced no less than three times—from the pain of feeling her shoulders bones grind together in their sockets as they slowly but inexorably slipped free. There was no word to set the pain of lying in an enemy dungeon with both femurs broken apart from the dull but persistent screaming in her back. The actual pain wasn’t as immediate, but it brought with it a full-body feeling of dread at what that pain would become if allowed to persist for hours or days or even a few more minutes.

Kira was beginning to think her vocabulary of pain was woefully inadequate.

But one thing she had learned in her long and brutal training period was that a person could get used to just about anything. And although it seemed impossible at the start, she was getting used to this. At times, her desperate attempts at distraction even worked, however briefly.

But she had already memorized the pattern of lines on the floor. She needed something new to distract herself. Something other than the high-pitched shrieking in her ankles as they stretched under the cuffs. Something other than the bite of the chain at her neck…

Don’t think about the pain. Think about something else. Think about what’s waiting for you when you get out of here.

Would she ever get out of here, though? Even if she somehow managed to overpower Leila, even if she was quick enough to grab one of these chains and wrap it around Leila’s neck until Leila’s eyes bulged and her swollen tongue lolled from her mouth—the thought brought a brief grin to Kira’s face—she didn’t know how she would make it home. She and Edri hadn’t expected to run through their supplies quite so quickly; they had thought they would have something left for the return journey. They had also had vague thoughts of stealing from the Provishan expedition—stay unseen, take detailed notes on their activities, steal enough of their food and water for the journey back. In retrospect, it had been a thin and desperate plan, all but doomed to fail.

But Kira was used to having the resources of the Stosta Intelligence Service behind her. If they had only listened to her, she would have had a better plan.

If they had only listened, Edri wouldn’t be dead right now.

Say she overpowered Leila and found whatever device down here could make water in exchange for a few drops of blood. If she had enough water, she could make the journey home on an empty stomach. It would be punishingly difficult, but not impossible. Survival and the hope of seeing home again were both powerful incentives.

Her one fatal lack wasn’t food; it was Edri. Edri was the one who had known how to navigate the flat expanse of desert. Without her, the best Kira could hope for was a few days of wandering in circles and then a slow death in the heat. She had already gotten a taste of what that death would be like. Only this time, she would be dying alone.

Don’t think about it.

Her limbs were as weak as they had been back there in the desert. Spasms ran through her body, seemingly at random, a different location every time. Also like those last hours in the desert. Lingering damage from the heat, or an effect of the punishing shape Leila had wrenched her body into?

Her wrists and ankles both felt ready to rip from their joints. How long could she hang here before they came loose? Maybe they never would—the stone cuffs felt like they were doing something to hold the joints in place. Kira wondered how much the cuffs would do if the bones ripped out of their sockets hard enough to tear flesh and muscle, depositing her on the floor minus her hands and feet.

No, that wouldn’t happen. The chain around her neck would strangle her first.

Which, upon reflection, might not be such a bad way to go, compared to her other options. Maybe that—unlikely as it was, not to mention grisly—was actually the best she could hope for.

So far, Kara’s distractions were proving worse than the pain itself.

Her eyelids drooped as a sudden wave of exhaustion swept over her. Maybe her body really was permanently weakened from the heat damage, because otherwise, how could she possibly be tired while hanging like this? She could barely keep her eyes open. She felt like she hadn’t slept in days. Had it been days? How long had she been dangling here?

Don’t think about it.

The future was proving to be an altogether depressing distraction. The past, then—a memory from before, since she doubted she had any after to look forward to. But all the memories that came to her were of Edri. Edri being assigned to her as a trainee, over Kira’s loud and profuse objections. Edri standing silently with her chin lifted and that stubborn look in her eyes as Kira warned her she didn’t have the patience for teaching.

Edri had deserved better than Kira.

“You shouldn’t have followed me,” Kira said into the empty air. Only the increased pressure of the chain around her neck let her know she had actually spoken the words aloud. “Just look where it got you.”

“But you needed me,” said Edri. “You needed me to do it.”

“You deserved better,” Kira whispered. For a second, she thought she felt the rush of Edri’s warm hand against her cheek. But of course, Edri’s hands would never be warm again. And there was no one else here with her. There was only a warm wetness running down her chin as her body wasted its precious water on tears.

Edri’s hand traced the path of the tears. Kira knew it wasn’t real, but the touch seemed to grow more solid as Edri’s fingers brushed the line of Kira’s jaw. She grasped Kira’s chin between her fingers, then lowered her hand slightly and tightened her grip. She squeezed.

“Please,” Kira tried to gasp, but she couldn’t force the words out through Edri’s iron grip. “Please, I’m sorry—”

Kira’s eyes snapped open. Her head jerked up, blessedly loosening the pressure on her neck. She gulped in air in a series of desperate, grateful gasps.

She had fallen asleep. How had she fallen asleep hanging like this?

That was enough distraction. She couldn’t risk thinking about something more pleasant, or she might drift off again and wake up choking. Better to think about the pain after all. The pain would keep her awake. She let her consciousness roam freely through her body, cataloguing every agonizing detail. The smoothness of the chain as it rubbed against the fresh bruise it had left. The way the cuff around her left ankle dug into the ankle bone, while the right pressed into a fleshy section of her leg, cutting off the blood flow and leaving a numb island in a sea of tender bruised agony. The creaking of her vertebrae every time she shifted infinitesimally in a vain attempt to ease the pressure. Were they actually creaking, or was she imagining the sound?

Would her back really snap if she hung here for long enough? Or would her feet and hands tear off first? Or would she fall asleep again, and this time not wake up before she strangled?

Those options would all be better than dying to fuel Leila’s weapon. Which meant she should probably be open for at least one of those things to happen. Funny—she had always known she would die at the hands of an enemy, but she had imagined something like bleeding out slowly from a gut wound in an alley somewhere. That used to sound like a horrific way to die. Now it sounded downright pleasant.

Maybe she could rank the deaths available to her, from most unpleasant to least, or the other way around. Not that she would have much choice in how it happened. But it would be a way to occupy her time. Keep herself awake for a little longer.

“I hope your back snaps first, and then your feet tear off your body,” Edri’s cold voice said in her ear. “But not your hands. That way you’ll be able to keep yourself from strangling, but only by holding himself up by your wrist chains. I hope you dangle like that for hours, in horrible pain, trying to get up the nerve to let go but never quite finding the courage to do it. You deserve all that and more, because it’s your fault I’m dead.” She hissed the last few words into Kira’s ear as her hand tightened around the chain, pulling it taut.

Kira woke up choking.

Stay awake.

“I’m so sorry, Kira.” Edri’s voice came from the other side this time. “I tried to save you. Why didn’t you try? Why didn’t you save me?”

Kira’s eyes snapped open. When she yanked her head back up, the sensation of pressure remained. If she looked, she knew she would see a massive bruise taking up most of her neck, swollen and purple. Her throat was thick with the swelling. Even if she pulled her head up as far as she could, far enough that it sent spasms of pain down her neck muscles and into her back, she still couldn’t suck in a full breath.

Stay awake. Stay—

“You needed me to do it.” This time, Edri’s voice came from everywhere at once. “You needed me, because you were weak. Your weakness killed me. Not Leila. Not me. You.”

Kira tried to answer. She tried to apologize, to say she wouldn’t be weak anymore, that she would hold out against Leila for as long as it took. But she couldn’t talk, she couldn’t breathe—

She snapped awake again. This time, she raised her head sluggishly. Instead of a deep, grateful breath, she pulled in an exhausted wheeze. How long before she woke from one of those half-dreams but didn’t have the energy to save herself from choking to death?

Maybe that would be the best way to go. Even if it meant Edri’s hand around her neck, Edri’s words of recrimination in her ear. Maybe it was nothing more than she deserved.

“Don’t say that,” Edri said fiercely. “It’s not too late. Come on—one last push.”

Edri’s tears wet Kira’s cheeks—or was Kira crying again? No, it wasn’t her, because she didn’t have any water left in her to cry.

She opened her eyes. Edri’s voice disappeared. The wetness remained.

Slowly, her exhausted eyes focused. She tried to make sense of what she saw. Leila was standing underneath her, holding up another wet cloth, this time on a stick long enough to reach her. That was what she felt against her cheek.

“Drink,” Leila ordered. “You’ll die of dehydration if you go much longer without water. Especially considering how little you’ve had lately.”

Kira frowned. That couldn’t be right. A person could go days without water. She hadn’t been up here for days.

Had she?

As some detached part of her mind occupied itself with the question, the rest of her sucked desperately at the cloth. She closed her eyes in bliss as the liquid wet her tongue. When she could draw no more water from the fabric, she chewed at it in frustration, trying to get out one more drop. Just one more.

“That’s enough.” Leila pulled the cloth down. Kira tried to follow it with her mouth, and then drew back with a strangled moan of pain as her neck collided with the chain. She let out another moan as she watched the cloth disappear off the stick and into Leila’s hands.

She tried to ask for more water, but all that came out was a rasping croak. Her throat was too dry to speak, or too swollen from the chain, or both. It was just as well—in the next instant, a hot rush of shame washed through her. Was she really far gone enough that she was willing to beg Leila for anything?

“You see?” Edri said in her ear. “You’re weak. This is why I had to die.”

Kira didn’t remember closing her eyes. But between one instant and the next, Leila disappeared. Had she fallen asleep again? She had the vague memory of choking on the chain, of trying desperately to breathe. Could she breathe now? Was she still choking? She didn’t know.

Was that Leila standing underneath her, holding up a wet cloth Kira couldn’t reach no matter how hard she strained?

Was that Edri lying by the doorway, bleeding out as Kira screamed?

She had to stay awake. Had to focus.

But why? Wouldn’t it be better to die here? To give up? If she did, she could guarantee Leila would never use her to fuel her weapon.

It made sense to Kira’s exhausted brain. Maybe it was even good strategy. But something that ran deeper than logic rejected the idea. Kira had never given up in her life. She didn’t know how.

It was how she had ended up here.

“That’s not true,” Edri hissed, her voice cold and unforgiving, nothing like the real Edri. “You gave in once.”

And Edri had died for it.

“Give up now or give up later. Either way, you’ve failed.”

No. Stay awake. Focus.

She no longer whether she wanted to stay awake, or whether she wanted to stay alive. All she knew was that she didn’t know how to let herself die.

Stay awake. Focus on the pain. Focus, damn it.

The worst of the pain was in her hips now. Her sluggish brain struggled to understand why. Why not her shoulders, which still felt ready to pop out of joint? Why not her ankles, her wrists? But she could barely even find any other parts of her body now. Nothing existed but the screaming burn in her hips. Her left hip scraped back and forth, shrieking like Kira had when Edri had died, grating out the horrible sound of bone on bone. The sound was probably her imagination. A person couldn’t actually hear that kind of thing. But it didn’t matter, because she did hear it. She—

She screamed, or she tried, as a lightning bolt of fresh pain shot through her hip and whited out her vision. Only a choked gurgle left her throat.

Her vision cleared before her mind did. The room looked different, off by a fraction of an inch. Why did it look different? Why, all of a sudden, did her stomach feel ready to expel the few precious drops of water Leila had given her?

Her hip had popped out of joint. She was hanging at a slight angle now—that was why the room looked different. As her frozen muscles were forced into a new configuration, shooting pains ran through her arms, her legs, her back.

Every time a fresh wave of pain started, she tried and failed to scream. Every time the wave passed, she drew in a desperate gasp of relief—only to let out another dry rasp when the next wave hit.

As her voice tried in vain to work, her throat vibrated against the smooth metal of the chain.

And through it all, through every fresh wave of lightning coursing through her body, the pain in her dislocated hip remained a constant wail. It might not have been so bad if she hadn’t still had a chain wrapped around that ankle, pulling it further and further out of place. With each spasm that rolled through her, she felt more muscles in her hip and thigh tear in horrible slow motion.

Well, at least now she wouldn’t fall asleep.

A person could get used to anything. That was what she had told herself a few minutes ago, wasn’t it? Or had been a few hours? A few days?

A person could get used to anything. She could get used to this.

Or else she would pass out from the pain first, and choke to death before she could wake up.

She hoped that was how it would happen. It was looking more and more like her other alternative was to hang here until the pressure pulled her body apart bit by bit. Her hip first. Then maybe the other hip. Then every joint in her body, one by one, until something crucial inside her ripped open or she died from the sheer onslaught of pain.

Or Leila would come back first, and lower her to the cool embrace of the stone floor.

But she wouldn’t give Leila what she wanted. Not even now. Not even if it meant lying on the stone below and no longer feeling her hip being slowly torn from her body. Not even if it meant a quick death from the invisible claws of light. Not even if it meant a moment to rest—just one moment, just one.

She would not give in. If she did, it meant the cruel voice in her ear was right about her.

“You will,” Edri whispered. “You will give in, just like you did before. You’re not strong enough. You weren’t strong enough to save me.”

She woke up choking.

“It’s okay,” Edri’s whisper was soft this time, as soft as her ghostly fingers brushing Kira’s cheek. “It’s okay to give in. No one can hold out forever. Not even you.”

She woke up choking again. As the pain in her hip rushed back into her consciousness, the pressure of the chain and the rough desert in her throat were the only reasons she didn’t scream.

Then Leila was below her again, with another wet cloth. Kira sucked it dry. Leila disappeared. Then she was back again, even though it seemed like no time had passed, and the cloth was no longer dry but sodden with water, and Leila was urging her to drink, drink before she withered away, because after all, Leila still needed her.

She drank. When she blinked, Leila was gone. She blinked again, and Leila was back.

The water was never enough. Kira knew how she was going to die now—she was going to dry up into a desiccated husk, like a snake’s discarded skin. At least it was better than being ripped apart.

Sometimes she couldn’t suck in the water because she was screaming. Sometimes she couldn’t scream because her throat was so dry.

She blinked again, and Leila was gone. She blinked again, and Leila was back.

She woke up choking. And woke up choking again. And again.

Then Leila came back, but there was no cloth, no stick. No water. Kira moan in despair—she needed that water, could think of nothing else with Leila standing below her—but her throat was too dry to let any sound escape. And the chain pressed into her neck, cutting off what little noise she might have made. She couldn’t raise her head high enough to find relief anymore.

Leila looked up at her in silence for a long moment, head tilted, tapping her chin. Then she walked away without a word.

Kira tried to call after her. No sound came out. The effort tore something in her parched throat. She tasted blood.

Speaking words Kira didn’t understand, Leila touched a glyph on the opposite side of the arched doorway. Kira heard a click, and the stone cuffs released, all of them at once. At the same moment, the chain rattled and fell away from her neck.

She opened her mouth in a silent scream as her muscles released, her limbs moving in ways they had forgotten how to move.

As Kira fell, she hoped her head would split open when she hit the hard stone floor, or that her neck would crack on impact. Neither of her wishes were granted. Something caught her in midair, a soft invisible surface that stretched lightly when she landed. Even that small amount of pressure was intolerable. She tried to scream. All that came out was a bloody gurgle.

The invisible hands holding her lowered her slowly into the stone indentation in the floor. The stone cuffs clasp around her wrists and ankles and midsection this time, even though she waited for them. She could have stood up any time, if only she could have forced her body to move.

But even the slightest twitch of her foot forced another futile attempt at a scream from her throat. Every movement tore her abused muscles apart in new ways until she was surprised her skin didn’t show the damage. The dark purple bruises she could see were nothing compared to the ruin her body felt like on the inside.

She gave up moving, and lay as still as she could on the stone, trying not to cry. Then she gave up on up on that too, and let her body shake with dry sobs—she didn’t have enough water in her for actual tears. Every spasm made her body cry out in protest. Her vertebrae scraped against one another. Her hip hung loose, out of its joint, in unspeakable agony where it touched the stone.

A blurry shape hovered above her. When her vision cleared, she saw Leila’s thoughtful face. “I hope that was long enough,” she said, and then let out a horrible series of barking coughs. “You certainly don’t look like you’re in any shape to resist. I’d hate to ruin things all over again by moving on to the next phase too early. But… I’m afraid I’m a little… short on time.”

She gasped the last words out. Her next sprayed drops of hot blood across Kira’s face. Even though Kira’s arms were free, she didn’t so much as try to wipe it away.

---

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