by A. S. Etaski
She shook her head in denial, but I imagined she might have squeezed the phallus inside her then, testing to see if I reacted. If I felt it.
“Get off me, Sirana.”
It seemed I couldn’t fake it.
“Alright. You’ll have to tell me about that dream, though. It was a good one, I could tell.”
She didn’t reply, and I pulled out and released her without further posturing, except to stand up and turn around. I pulled out the large bulb before she suggested that, too, hiding my grimace from her.
Goddess, my slit throbbed. So unsatisfied.
I went to the cleanest basin I’d been using to bathe her and gave myself a cursory wipe before cleaning her Feldeu thoroughly and properly, the same as I had been taught to maintain any piece of equipment. Gaelan was quiet as I patted it dry and slipped it back into its silk pouch. I placed it atop the chest rather than put it back where I found it.
Pulling up my leathers only then, I glanced over. “Well? Say something.”
She shook her head, to refuse, I thought at first. But she had had enough time to back her questions up to the beginning. I was more impressed than I’d admit.
“How did I get there?”
I shrugged, sitting back down on her pallet. “Lead found me. She was leading you around by the arm, like you were in a trance. Told me to clean you up, watch you until something changed.”
She glanced to the top of her chest. “Did she also say to find my Feldeu and fuck me with it?”
“No.” I started to grin, mimicking Jaunda to hide my unease. “You suggested that.”
She pursed her lips, narrowing her eyes skeptically, but something kept her from blurting out whatever she was thinking. For a moment, she looked afraid again.
“We won?” she asked quietly. “Against the thralls. And flayers. You weren’t hurt?”
I nodded proudly. “We won. And I made it in one piece. It was almost a cycle ago, Gaelan. How long have you been in our Elders’ clutches?”
“Too accurate,” she grumbled, looking down at her naked body, lightly touching the damp folds I’d been clumsily prodding between without completion for either of us.
“You were moaning in Reverie,” I muttered, trying not to sound defensive. “And touching yourself. You liked me eating you. Then you got up on your knees and pointed your snatch at me. I… I thought I’d give it a try since the Feldeu was where you left it.”
Checking over the rest of her body, her face was very warm, Gaelan found herself cleaner than she might have recalled. She found herself unhurt, as I knew she would. Next, she studied the used basins and damp towels and sighed to herself. Perhaps she decided to take me at my word.
“Maybe soon,” she said. “But I know it’ll be better for you as well as me if I’m goddess-damned aware that we’re fucking, Sirana.”
I sucked the inside of one cheek, shrugging again with my arms folded. “Sometimes it can be. Other times your mind just goes elsewhere. Where in the Abyss was your mind, anyway?”
She stared determinedly at her bare feet. “Remembering someone I’m better off forgetting. Happens sometimes when D’Shea and Lelinahdara’s magic rides me for long enough. I relive my life, like walking in deep shadows. A deeper Reverie than most.”
“Huh,” I said, thinking over how sexy she’d been acting. “A bua, then? From when you were a commoner?”
Gaelan stiffened but gave me a nod.
“Is he still alive?”
The shake of her head was so slight as she stared into the void that I almost missed it.
“Oh. Well. At least you won’t run into him on a mission.”
Her throat flexed in a hard swallow, and she curled her lip like there was a bad taste in her mouth. She took a slow breath and let it out. “Do you feel lucky to be out of where you were?”
Odd change of subject.
“Yes,” I answered. “But I also wanted it enough. There’ve already been many chances to fail and die.”
“Yes,” she agreed soberly. “For all of us here. But some of us might have had more to lose than you did, taking those same chances.”
I watched her eyes, recalling how hers were the only ones to show any concern for me in my trials. Gaelan expressed more emotion than most Red Sisters—unwisely, perhaps—but then again, maybe it had something to do with her being a mage, or why Elder D’Shea would choose her to help when there were other mages with seniority.
I felt a pinch of unease at what I’d just done while she still recovered from whatever the Sorceress and Priestess had needed from her in their “weave.”
But if a recruit was in a better place before facing the challenges of the Red Sisters, and taken away from it…
I didn’t see how it was possible that one might survive the loss of that old life unless she thought she could return to it.
She made it here only five turns before me. Maybe she does want to go back but keeps it secret.
“You seem to wear the Feldeu a lot when you’d rather not,” I said. “What’s keeping you from telling me the command word and getting what you want?”
“Elder D’Shea,” she said, arching an eyebrow. She’d told me that already.
“And what is she waiting for? What do I need to do? Can you give me a hint?”
Gaelan shook her head. I didn’t know whether that meant she knew or not, but either way, she couldn’t say a thing about it. My sigh sounded like a pouting growl even to me, just before my Sister’s stomach echoed the sentiment.
“Food here or at the Mess?” I asked, knowing it depended if she could face anyone outside this room after whatever she’d been through.
Gaelan watched me a few moments and seemed to read me. “The Mess.”
She stood up to dress, and I smirked, satisfied and once again impressed without saying.
A couple cycles passed without word about the battle’s aftermath. Elder D’Shea was regularly in meetings with Lelinahdara and Elder Rausery, and only glimpses of the latter’s face told me of the Prime’s impatience. That we were running out of time for something other than execution for our fallen Sisters.
Perhaps the Prime had already chosen. The guardsvrin at the infirmary had been heavy at first, but soon better uses were found for an experienced Sister’s time.
“Report to the infirmary, novice,” Elder Rausery said, the first direct words she’d spoken to me since I’d slept in her room just before the Worship Ball. “Keep the place clean until I come back around. Shouldn’t be long.”
“Yes, Elder.”
I sighed inwardly though I made my sign of respect and reported for duty. I took over for Moria, who was clearly glad for the relief. She shoved me toward the cleaning supplies, giving me a summary of how to use the storage and drainage closets. She directed me to the water source, large wash basins, the shelves of clean cloths and bedding, the bins holding those soiled, and the lines to which were clipped those washed and hanging to dry.
“Get started now, Sirana,” she said, “because at the very least, they’re going to piss their clouts again. Then you have to make sure they drink without choking so they can do it again. Like being a wet nurse for the wrong hole.”
She chuckled, and I wished—far from the first time—that I had learned even a few cantrips our House servants had used to keep up with the volume of dirty fabrics, dishes, and vessels generated by a mansion.
“Consider yourself lucky their bowels are as empty as their stomachs,” she growled on her way out.
I smiled. If you insist.
Moria had taken all she’d brought with her, and I removed and placed my own equipment on the hooks she’d just cleared. I worked on the soiled laundry, got a few clean lengths hung up to dry, and wandered back to the room containing the three cots. Their hair had been unwashed for several cycles but at least they were wiped down and not starting to shrivel from lack of water.
I went over to check their clouts for changing, b
riefly distracted by the tits of each in doing so. I hadn’t seen many bare Davrin breasts in a situation where they held still with nothing else going on so I could simply look at them. Curiosity had me comparing the lighter and darker shades of nipples, fuller and more pointed mounds, even the placement of each on their chest varied a bit.
Sister Feini. Sister Berayne. Corpora Reishel.
I watched them, and on impulse decided to check their eye shade in the better light. I’d never been able to do something so daring as peel back an eyelid on another sleeping female. As I studied the faces and eyes of the comatose caits, it returned to me that I’d just molested Gaelan in her sleep, too, with little hesitation, with no guilt until she woke and discovered me.
I could have done so with a Court male or two back then, but…
I didn’t. More appealing just watching the bua sleep, somehow.
It was an odd difference, perhaps, but I could compare it to my Sisters doing what they liked while I was under the Priestess’ influence as a new recruit.
Do as was done to me.
Reishel’s pupils reacted to the candlelight in what seemed to me a normal way, contracting smooth and timely, but Feini’s and Berayne’s didn’t. Theirs were sluggish and remained open far too long in light that should have stung. The eyelids on all three stayed open when I lifted them; they only closed if I brushed them back down, which I did for each. Their bodies were whole, no visible injuries, nothing seemed wrong, yet they weren’t aware. They breathed but otherwise made no noise, no moans or grunts. Some similarity to a corpse perhaps, but too warm, and clearly the body functions still worked.
I stayed closer to the Corpora, taking a seat on a squat stool next to her simply because I was better able to picture the exact shade of her eyes and their normal response to the light. The silence was heavy excepting the muffled activity of other Sisters outside, deeper in the Cloister, and there was only so much work or cleaning I could do.
I kept guard, trying to put myself back in that calm mindset I’d learned being on stake-out for multiple cycles watching House Itlaun. It wasn’t easy. I was tense and distracted, and I didn’t understand why.
It’s only been a few marks. I could be here for a span easily. Nothing to do except think about buas.
I thought about them—a lot. Micraen, Reaf, Tohni, Yeri… that ass-raping, cowardly wizard and that stunning, Braqth-damned Consort.
Eventually, I would weigh pleasuring myself to pass some time with not knowing the next time the Prime or the Elders might step in and catch me with wet fingers and pants down. I might get off lighter with the Elders, depending on the mood they were in, but the Prime…
She just waits for an excuse.
A rush suddenly swept my body, and I sucked in air, leaving my pants in place.
Only once I’d “fought” the Prime in a grossly imbalanced match, and Elder Rausery had needed to drag me out to wash and heal. It had taken so little to earn the eldest’s sneer, her brutal hand and burning Feldeu; the Prime’s boredom and displeasure meant only my pain. There was no subtlety, no game to play. Just dominance and submission; all I could do was stop fighting and hope I survived.
That terror and defenselessness was only half a turn old, but it seized on another invasion not many spans earlier.
The Tragar. Kain.
Our bodies linked by Elven magic, our minds bound in Dwarven hatred, both of us pushed to simultaneous peaks of terrified ecstasy, our free wills lost, sanity threatened. The raw holes and thick semen coating my insides had been the least of my worries. I couldn’t submit and hope to survive that time; one of us had to die to break that endless loop.
It wasn’t me. I won that fight.
I wondered if it took something like that to persuade the Prime that a Red Sister wasn’t soft just because she was new, or a Noble?
I’m still alive, am I not?
I hadn’t told anyone about Kain. I feared what they’d do to me. What I’d be blamed for.
Corpora Reishel moaned, and I looked over at her. Her mouth was closed, and she hadn’t moved that I could tell, yet for a moment it seemed she had. That sound had come from an open mouth.
*Help…*
I frowned at the voice. It was not an Elder or a Lead using a magic pellet to summon me. I looked around the empty room even as my heart sped up. I knew it was pointless. Much as I feared to accept it, I knew the voice had come from the bed next to me.
Slowly, I turned in my stool toward her. Corpora?
Another moan. Her mouth was still closed. Her voice box didn’t flinch. My heart began to race as if I fled through the wilderness tunnels once again.
Stupid. She could be passing air.
I smelled no gut gas even as I sniffed. Again, I reached to peel up her eyelid, standing to lean over and look at her pupil. At how it responded to the light, if it was the same as before.
“Corpora Reishel?”
Pure terror punched through an unseen barrier, rushing straight down my spine; abruptly Reishel’s red-violet eye focused on me.
She saw me.
I threw myself back from the cot as she bolted straight up, starting to scream. I stumbled backward onto the floor, staring at her as she shrieked wordless sounds. Bumps arose on my arms and legs; my weapons were still hanging on the wall.
“What in Braqth’s web?” someone shouted in the hall.
“Sirana?” Sister Delia called. “Sirana!”
“She’s awake!” I cried. “One of them woke up!”
Both Elders Rausery and D’Shea asked me for the details leading to Reishel coming aware. The Corpora had been removed from the infirmary down to the holding cells where her cries went unheard by the rest of the Cloister. If she couldn’t calm down or speak intelligibly, if she didn’t know who she was or remember her training, then she wasn’t worth keeping alive any more than the two who lay unmoving and pissing their cots.
“We can give our Sister some time to get her head together, but not a lot,” Rausery said.
I was in a closed room with them just down the hall, and Rausery looked over her shoulder as if expecting the Prime to enter any moment. A lot more Sisters were guarding the infirmary and holding cell all of a sudden, and one should expect whispers to spread.
“If you can give us something to work with, novice—?”
“Even the smaller details might offer insight,” the Sorceress said.
“I was finished cleaning,” I said, knowing what I had wouldn’t help. “I…checked their eyes.”
“Why?”
“Um. I was bored. I wanted to watch their pupils in the light.”
“What would that have told you?” D’Shea asked me with apparent curiosity.
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I noticed only Reishel’s eyes were normal. The other two were…sluggish.”
“Did you do anything else to them? Hit or shake them?”
“No, Elder. I just looked at them.”
She stared at me, waiting to see if I’d squirm in a lie. I didn’t, because it wasn’t a lie.
“You were sitting next to Reishel,” Rausery said, having noted the overturned stool when she had come in; I nodded. “Any warning she was about to wake up? Movement? Complaining?”
“I heard some moaning,” I said.
D’Shea hadn’t blinked. “You were to report any response.”
“It happened too quickly, Elder.”
“Moaning to screaming and thrashing?”
“Yes, Elder.”
I recited the moments as they ordered, and the Elders listened to the details, which I knew wouldn’t help them or Reishel. There was nothing to see, nothing to describe except that chilling feeling when I looked into my Sisters eyes. And neither of us were mages.
I spent the next three cycles tending the other two. I avoided peeling back their eyelids again. The mood outside the infirmary varied, but I caught a few words once, standing next to the door.
; “She’s coming back,” Corpora Cilyan said, sounding glad about it. “She recognized me and the last three Sisters to tend her, and I even heard her humming a tune she likes.”
“But is she a Red Sister…?”
The voices had faded down the hall past my hearing, but I considered it good news. The other two weren’t so well, but one was strengthening. That made the Sisterhood better off than we were immediately after the battle, even just by one.
The Prime arrived, scowling at me, at the cots and the sheets hanging to dry. I was already on my feet at attention.
“Nothing?” she asked.
I weighed lying to delay her until Rausery could come by but was too afraid. “No change, Prime.”
With a nod, she drew a long dagger and approached the cots. I wanted to back away but remained where I was. She spun the naked blade on her palm, letting it rest to offer me the hilt.
No…
I glanced from blade to her hardened face. She was smiling a little.
“Permission to touch your weapon, Prime,” I said, hoping it was just a test of obedience and not an execution order.
“Heh. Permission granted, novice.”
Fuck. Fuck…
I took firm hold of the thick handle, lifting the heavy dagger into my hand. I was cold but desperate to hide any uncertainty from her.
“Orders, Prime?” I asked.
She tilted her head just a bit. “Kill them, novice.”
The subtle shaking began despite my efforts. I’d only killed two with a blade before the battle with the sightless thralls. Both of them had been staring me in the eyes.
My sister. And Kain.
These Red Sisters wouldn’t be staring at me. Did that make them more like the thralls? It didn’t feel like it; we’d met eyes before, and like Kaltra and the Tragar, Feini and Berayne had cum on me, too.
The Prime narrowed her eyes dangerously and drew breath to repeat her order.
I acted before she could. I made it quick.
Elder D’Shea gestured for me to follow her one eve, about a span after Reishel could speak again from the holding cell. I obeyed without speaking. Her gait was leisurely and swaying as if she were in her silken robes instead of her reds. I’d just returned from the outskirts of Sivaraus, and from the smell of her, the Sorceress had been somewhere in the center. She didn’t speak at all until we reached her quarters; I followed her lead in that as well.