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Taking the Blindfold, a story of Fae Apoc

May29

Erotic in tone, but with no sexual acts. Implied slavery of the consensual sort.

“You understand everything I’ve told you?” The docent’s voice was gentle, her expression neutral. Andrew nodded, gulped, and cleared his throat.

“I understand.” This wasn’t the sort of thing you could enter not understanding. They made sure of that. It might have been easier if he could have pretended, shut off some of his brain. It was a major commitment, after all. Five years. In five years, that would have been a fifth of his life.

“And you consent, as per the forms you have signed?”

That was the kicker. Other places took you unwilling. Other places didn’t always put time limits on it. The Museum only took those who walked in willingly, only took those who consented.

Andrew gulped. Saying the words was harder. “And I consent, yes.”

“Drop your Mask and strip your clothing off. Leave it here. You’ve put your affairs in order?”

“Such as they are, yes.” He pointed to the safety deposit box. “All my cash, my only belongings.”

“We will hold them here for you until your term is up. We swear to is, as per the paperwork.” The docent’s voice didn’t change in inflection, nor did her eyes stray from his face as he peeled off his clothing. Not until he dropped his Mask to reveal his true form did she look down.

“Nice.” Her voice never changed its infliction. “You should have no trouble attracting an Owner. Here.” She brought forth a blindfold. “This remains on until your new Owner removes it. To try to remove it yourself violates your contract. Do you understand?”

There had been nothing about a blindfold in the briefing. Andrew considered panicking. He considered backing out. But he’d come this far. He could keep going. He nodded. “I understand.” He bowed his head so she could slide the blindfold over his hair, and set it in place over his eyes. The world went black, the so-carefully-neutral layout of the waiting room gone.

A finger touched his lips. “You will do no Workings until you are under the care of your new Owner. Now walk forward. I will be by your side. Continue walking forward unless you are told to stop.”

Completely unwillingly, he licked his lips and, once again, he nodded. “I understand.” Now it would begin.

~

“You begin walking now.”

Andrew had been to the Museum before; anyone who had any interest on the … obscure… eventually visited here, no matter how far they had to come. He had lived across the street for years, in a tiny walk-up, working up some cash and working up the nerve, visiting the outer sanctum every Friday, visiting the bar almost every night.

He put one foot in front of the other, steady, slow, regular. The floor was cold under his feet, and very smooth. In front of him had been a wall, before the docent blindfolded him. He kept walking anyway. He wasn’t going to fail, not before he even started.

For all the time he had spent at the Museum, he had never been back into the Archives. You had to be buying or selling to get back there – or a docent, and they went wherever they pleased. The Museum itself – its exhibits, its classes, its collections – spawned rumors and whispers across the world. But the Archives? Andrew had only heard of its existence three months ago, when they had sent him a request for proposal.
The air whooshed across his face, and he kept walking. The docent’s gloved hand was on his shoulder, neither directing nor urging him along, simply there. The air changed, growing several degrees cooler, cool enough to be uncomfortable for his bare skin. The floor changed – a grating of some sort, not painful to step on, but not pleasant, either. It swayed, ever so slightly, under his feet. There was no sound, except a faint mechanical noise, muffled, as if a long way away.

“In three steps you will turn left.” The docent’s voice was closer than he expected; Andrew fought not to jump, and, this time, won.

One, two, three steps. He turned left, feeling another whoosh of air. And then, just at the edge of his hearing at first, voices. Murmurs, conversation, all in polite whispers, as at a golf course or a museum opening.

Museum opening. Of course. And he was on display. He nearly hesitated, nearly stopped. But it was too late to back out now. It had been too late when he signed the papers. Too late, if he was being honest, when he received the request for proposal.

Though he kept walking, the docent saw or sensed his moment of weakness. “I can tie your hands,” she whispered in his ear. “Or leash you.”

He didn’t shake his head, but he knew he pursed his lips. Consciously, carefully, he put one foot in front of the other. The voices were getting closer. He felt as if he could feel their breath on him, their gaze on him. How many? Was anyone he knew here? Would they tell stories, and, if so, to whom?

And would any of that matter to him, in five years? Step, step. The grating seemed harder, sharper. The voices seemed louder, and no more clear; he thought he heard an upturn of Russian, off to his left. The hand on his shoulder seemed firmer. Step, step, step…

“Stop.” That was the docent’s voice, in his ear again. He stopped, and did not ask questions, hard as it was.

“Turn to the left.” He almost turned, before realizing it was not his handler speaking. The voice was somewhere near his navel, male, deep, and warm.

“Turn,” the docent repeated, and Andrew turned.

“Lovely body. Kneel.”

Again, Andrew waited, and again, the docent repeated the order.

He dropped carefully to his knees. He expected the grating to be uncomfortable, and it was, but the moment was more than the discomfort, almost more than his fear. There was a hand on his chin. He wanted to pull back, to complain, but he didn’t. If this was against the rules, the docent would tell him.

“Lovely. I’d like to see that mouth stretched around a gag.” The voice was chill, colder even than the hand on his chin. “I bet we could stretch him out and peg him from all ends, and he wouldn’t make a single complaint. What do you think, dear?”

The second voice was a level alto, genderless to Andrew’s ear. “He’s pretty. He’s very pretty.” The speaker made it sound like a bad thing. “I’m in the mood for something more rugged.”

“I think this one is tougher than he looks.”

Andrew fought against an urge to lick his lips. These two were frightening him. There were rules, oaths one had to swear if one was going to buy a slave from the Archive. He had seen the contracts as part of his orientation. Nothing they were describing was against those rules – and he still wasn’t certain he could handle it.

This could have been a very, very bad idea. This could have been just a slow form of suicide. He gulped despite himself.

“Not this one,” the man decided. “Move on.”

“Stand,” the docent murmured, as she put a hand under Andrew’s armpit to help him to his feet.

Not this one was echoing in Andrew’s ears as he was steered along the path. Kneel, bend, turn around, stand, pose, open your mouth; he obeyed every command without flinching, withstood every touch without shying away, and was rejected, time and time again.

“Stop.” The voice made the docent stumble, and that, more than the chill in the order, made Andrew halt. He felt as if he was becoming numb, lost. They had not told him what happened to slaves who weren’t sold. He was thinking, now, that it would have been a good question to ask. “Kneel.”

He dropped to his knees, wondering if voices had always been this genderless, or if this was a feature of the blindfold, stripping away cues, or a feature of the audience, as fae as he was and more so in many cases (or so he’d been told. Only Fae could be so bound to their promises, after all).

“They see your fear.” A hand touched his cheek, and Andrew was suddenly, completely, bone-shakingly terrified. “And they think they could break you, until they see the set of your chin. Or they fear you will shatter, which is not the same thing at all.”

He couldn’t be the only one who was afraid? He licked his lips and did not speak, but the voice answered anyway.

“They’re all afraid. We’re all afraid. This place requires commitment, which is anathema to our souls. No, pretty one, it is the particular flavor of your fear they find problematic.”

He knew what words were coming next, but Andrew still held his breath, waiting to hear them.

“And it is that fear that I will take home with me. Bend your neck down here for my leash, boy.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/348264.html. You can comment here or there.

Addergoole Year Nine Character Profile: Wylie

May28

Addergoole Year Nine won the reader poll for “Next Year’s serial;” the story proper will begin the first full week of September.

In the meantime, please enjoy the first of twenty-something character profiles: Wylie.

b. August 10, 1988

Wylie is a middling-heighted boy (5’9”) with middling-brown hair and a middling build, with average grades and an average athletic ability. On paper, he is an entirely ordinary fifteen-year-old boy.

His blue eyes set him apart when one is looking at him; his propensity for puzzles and science set him apart in classes; his utter inability to pay attention to anything for more than five minutes set him apart (or, rather, push him aside) for most of his teachers. He doesn’t like reading but soaks up information when he does, for whatever brief period he can remain interested; he watches TV voraciously and soaks up information, generally while getting half-way through some other project.

His foster-mother, who he believes to be his real mother, and her husband, who he believes to be his father, have long since despaired of his finishing anything; mom Page keeps Legos around by the cubic yard to keep Wylie’s hands occupied (She packed a box of them in his luggage for Addergoole). Father Cedric has found that putting a notepad and pencil in reach of their son’s hands will sometimes generate fascinating things and other times generate complete crap; the rare nightmare-monster drawing is burned before Wylie notices what he’s done.

His best subjects are math and science; he’s rubbish at history and can’t sit through more than five minutes of English without getting distracted, although he likes old historical fantasy (Beowulf, for example, the worse the monster the better).

Physically, he’s pale-skinned and freckles, with pouty lips (not that he pouts much), still out-growing his baby fat in face and stomach, and tends towards plain t-shirts and loose-fitting jeans, or, when Page has been fussing, plain button-down shirts and loose-fitting khakis. If he has to engage in a sport, he prefers lacrosse.

His parents have told him that Addergoole is a school for “gifted” children, by which he believes they mean “screwed up.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/347876.html. You can comment here or there.

Touch

May28

For [personal profile] avia‘s request. Kendra’s Change is mouse-girl; Sylvanus’s is primatey.

“Lay down,” Kendra suggested, her hands on Sylvanus’s shoulders urging him towards the bed. “It doesn’t hurt, does it?”

“Hurt? No.” His voice had Changed with the rest of him, getting a bit higher-pitched [something something] and, right now, a bit panicked. Kendra liked it, though. He was nice and soft. “But, Kennie, I look funny.”

“You look wonderful.” She sat down next to him on the bed and stroked the light fur of his chest.

“I look like a monkey.”

“And I look like a mouse. That’s the norm, for Addergoole.” She let her hands drift to his ears, tracing the enlarged lobes. Cautiously, he returned the favor, brushing his hand against the outside of her ears.

“But you look adorable. Cute. I look…”

“I wonder how prehensile your tail is? Mine doesn’t do much, but yours, given the Change…” She pushed on his shoulder, urging him to roll over. “Your hands and feet are a bit bigger, too.”

“That’s not all that’s bigger.” His smile was both lewd and uncertain. Kendra responded by kissing him, learning the feel of his new lips. Only then did he roll over, with a reluctant sound. “Kennie…?”

“I like the tail.” She flipped hers into his hand and began stroking the new lines of his tail, brown-furred and soft. “I like this look on you.”

“Well… good?” His hand on her tail was cautious, almost tickling. “I mean, considering.”

She kept up the slow stroking of his new Changed parts. She knew it helped, to feel the touch on things that hadn’t existed before. “Good,” she agreed. “Considering.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/347642.html. You can comment here or there.

House-Schooling, a story of Addergoole-Apoc for the April Giraffe Call (@Rix_Scaedu)

May26

This story contains magic and references to Addergoole but no slavery, sex, or violence.

For rix_scaedu‘s Commissioned Prompt.

Faerie Apocalypse has a landing page here here (and on LJ).

After These Walls Can Talk, Housewarming, and As Safe as Houses

Dodger is from When the Gods Attacked..

Bethseda hadn’t meant to eavesdrop; it was just that the eaves and everything under them were her, and, like anyone, when her name came up, she paid attention.

So when Clare and Tobias started talking about her, and about houses that might bite (She would have been offended, but that grandmother who had become a castle? She’d heard some disturbing rumors about Grandma), and, more than that, when they had started hinting at what they thought they might be, she had devoted a little attention their way.

When they had mentioned Dodger, she knew she had to pay true attention. He had stopped by her place a time or two, the itinerant Crime Dog, and she always welcomed him with open doors and a warm bed. He had, learning what she was, tried to Mentor her – only to be pleasantly surprised to find out she was already an Adult, with her own Name and her own responsibilities.

(He had suggested she Keep someone to handle the sweeping and the errands. She was still considering it, but, unlike some of her classmates, she couldn’t very well go out to the bars looking).

If these two were “Students” of Dodger’s, they were going to need help. He did a good enough job at slapping down the basics, but basics was all he handled. And with a war going on… no wonder these kids were a little lost.

“I believe I can be of assistance,” she suggested. She thought probably Sana could as well, but it wasn’t her job to out people.

Tobias answered the door, uncertainly and very cautiously. “There’s no-one out here.”

“It seemed rude not to knock.” As a shrugging would be very disorienting for everyone, she settled for a sound like a chuckle. “I’m sorry. I know it can be disorienting to not have a face to talk to.”

“Do you have a face?” Clare glared at Tobias when he tch’d her. “It’s not a rude question. I don’t think it is…”

“I had one, once; this is my Change, after all. But now… not that you would find comfortable to look at, I’m afraid.”

“I knew it. You eat people.”

“No, I really don’t. I generally take in sustenance from the rain and the ground, more like a plant than a mammal. It was strange to get used to.” It had hurt, and she’d been sick over and over again. But she’d gotten used to it. “But I adjusted.”

“When you put it that way…” Tobias was clearly thinking of something. “It makes our Changes really not seem all that bad.”

“To!” Clare was half on her feet. “You can’t tell her that!”

“I think she already knows. And she did say she could help.”

“We don’t need any help.”

“We need something. We know how to not die. Barely. I think we can do better than that. Think about the fight we saw, when we were leaving Philly… if the monsters and the angels are the same sort of thing…”

Now they were beginning to understand. Bethseda made a noise of agreement. “Then you can learn to be an angel, yes. And I can help you learn.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/347359.html. You can comment here or there.

Breeding Plan

May13

For [personal profile] clare_dragonfly‘s Prompt.

Addergoole has a landing page here.

Ambrus brought sandwiches to the table, listening as Regine and her brother pored over her charts and notes.

“The idea, in each case, is to find individuals who are, although half-breeds, exemplary of certain characteristics of each ‘breed.'” Regine pointed at a series of symbols on one page. “Thank you, Ambrus. Falk, don’t forget to eat. So we have, for instance, this gentleman…”

“You can hardly call him that.”

“I need his services. I will call him whatever it suits him to be called. His Name is ‘The Traveling Salesman,’ and it appears that he has made a life and a reputation of, ah…”

“Ah, indeed.” Ambrus might not be able to read much off of his mistress, but her brother was not as blank. He was embarrassed, and mildly titillated.

“Housewife’s helper?” Ambrus offered his former Master’s term.

“Exactly, thank you, Ambrus. Yes. He’s a very popular salesman on his route, I’ve been told.”

“What, exactly, does he sell?” Falk scrambled for safe conversational footing and found quicksand.

“Ah, marital aids, among other things. I’m not certain he bothers with a pitch or a product, these days.”

“And he is…”

“…exemplary of certain Daeva traits.”

“Traits you want to replicate?” Falk was, Ambrus was learning, more than a bit of a prude. He sat down to watch the show with a half a sandwich.

“Well, yes.” Regine deigned to show an emotion – amusement. “I’d say that would be a very useful trait for our project, if it breeds true.”

“And… Jezebel, Regine? I met her last night at Lady Maureen’s. She’s…”

“Exactly what we’re looking for. She will have no problem spreading her legs for money, after all.”

“And so you want to breed the child of a whore and a gigolo.”

“I’d be careful where you use those words. You might offend somebody. Yes. The gigolo and several different women of negotiable virtue, as well as… have you met Aza?”

“Aza?” Falk pursed his lips. Ambrus smiled around his sandwich. He’d met Aza. She was a beautiful, quiet, artistic woman – a florist and a painter. “She seems shy” was Falk’s opinion.

“She is an artist. I believe their child will be something special.” Regine smiled at her charts. “But I believe many of these children will be something very special. I am eager to see how they turn out.”

Edited to add: I meant to put a footnote on here and then I forgot.

Jamian of Addergoole is Aza’s son by the Travelling Salesman. Ivette is his daughter by Lady Maureen; Joff is his son by Jezebel.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/338433.html. You can comment here or there.

Cursed

May12

For rix_scaedu‘s Prompt.

Addergoole has a landing pagehere.

Before Monster.

“Monster.” The witch twisted in Barypos’ arms and spat in his face. “Monster. Cretin. Beast.”

He lay his knife at her throat. “Soldier.” Her language wasn’t his, but they were close enough, and a warrior learned what he had to, fighting in these lands that weren’t home. “Father. Son.” He shrugged in apology. “I fight where I have to.”

“You killed my husband. My son. My baby.”

“They would have killed me. There is a war going on.” He was not very good with words, in any language, but she should understand that. Instead, she clawed at his wrists, trying to get free. “Hold still, and I won’t have to hurt you.”

“Won’t have to hurt me?” She stared at him in naked pain. “You’ve taken everything. What do I care what you do with this body, when you’ve already taken the heart from it?”

“Widows live.” He knew this. “Your people will need their sons and daughters. Stop fighting, and live again. The war will end eventually.”

It did no good. She fought and spat against him and, when that did no good, she began swearing, cursing him. It was only when she had gone deep into her own language that he recognized Words in the curses. By then, it was too late.

“What you have taken, you will lose. What you have stolen, I’ll steal from you.” He dropped her, but he had no Words against this. He hadn’t know this could be done. She was Working against his future. Against his soul. “No love. No kin. No home. No warm memories of fire. No hearth to sleep near. No wife to keep you warm. All this, monster, I take from you. All that you have taken… until you have paid for every life of my people you have stolen.”

She kept speaking, but it was lost on Barypos. Her curse was already twisting his mind, and her words were like the jibbering of beasts to his ears.

“Never more will any man want to call you brother,” she hissed in his unknowing ear, sealing her curse for the millenia.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/337480.html. You can comment here or there.

As Safe as Houses, a story of Fae Apoc for the April Giraffe Call

May11

AfterHousewarming, from stryck‘s commissioned prompt. Dodger is from When the Gods Attacked..

“We need a place to stay.”

“We don’t need a place that talks to us.”

“Better than a place that bites us. Or a place where the other people stab us.” They were keeping their voices at a low hiss, hoping that Bethseda was busily distracted talking to Sana and her children about her garden.

“What’s to say she won’t start biting?”

“I don’t think this is like Hansel and Gretel, Clare.” Tobias flopped into the far-too-comfortable armchair in his room- his room! and sighed in exasperation. “Running water. Food. A door that locks. A bed all to yourself.”

“What’s the point of a lock when the house is alive?” Clare shook her head. “I mean, she says she’s not like those monsters…”

“Come on, Clare, you know we’re not that different.” That, he barely mouthed out loud.

“We are NOT like those things!” Clare didn’t have a quiet setting, not when she was upset. “I’m not!” she insisted, her hands clenching into fists. Tobias imagined what those hands looked like, under her Mask, and hurriedly crossed the room to force her hands open. Small lines of blood dripped down her fingers.

“So maybe neither is she.” He wrapped his already-stained handkerchief around one of Clare’s hands, and patted at the other one with a tissue. “What do we know about any of that?”

“The monsters came and turned everyone crazy. Crazy enough that a talking house sounds sane. What else do we need to know?” She batted his hands away. “What else do we even need to think about?”

“What we are. What she is. What it has to do with the monsters.” He shrugged, as always on the defensive when it came to Clare and… what they were. Whatever they were.

“Look. Dodger told us what we were. He told us to hide from the monsters. What else do we need to know?”

“Everything?” He stood to pace. Maybe he could think better that way.

“Well, I know that we’re not hiding very well from the monsters inside a talking house.” She stood up. “Come on. I’m leaving.”

“Claaaarre.”

“Look, don’t you want to know if we even can leave?”

“Clare, what I really want is a warm meal and a bed to sleep in. If she’s not going to let me leave, well, at least I’m not dying cold in an alleyway. Which in my book puts this place one hundred percent above any other place we’ve stayed in the last three years.” He stood anyway. Once she got her mind on something, there was no stopping her.

“I don’t like feeling trapped, Toby.” She threw the rest of her clothes into her backpack. “You know that. It’s why we didn’t stay in that shelter.”

“In any of the first seven shelters we had as an option. The eighth and ninth had the creepy people and the tenth had fleas. Clare, we’re down to sleeping in doorways – or this house. I like this better.”

A knock at the door startled both of them. “Excuse me,” the house’s voice called. “Perhaps I can be of assistance.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/336003.html. You can comment here or there.

Derailed, Part 4, a story of #Addergoole Apoc

May7

After Part One, Part Two, and Part Three

“Shit.” He skidded downwards, feet first, plowing towards his sudden and unexpected assailant, hoping to knock her off guard. She fired, the bullet ricocheting off the metal window frame, and swore back at him. In Russian, no less.

In the moment it took her to shift her grip on the gun, Luke dove for her wrist and managed, barely, to grab it. She was fast, violent, and clearly intent on doing him damage. “Damnit, stop that.” He grabbed both of her wrists and tried to bend the bayonet out of her grip with a foot. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“I want to hurt you.” Her accent was thicker than Agmund’s, but Luke had figured out worse. “I want to kill you.” She made it sound downright gleeful.

“I don’t want to die, sorry.” He peeled the gun out of her hand, finally. Where was Agmund? He dodged her teeth and a kick aimed at his nuts. He was going to need at least four hands to handle her. “Look, I’m just here to pick up a package.”

“Everything is like that to you. Package. Shipment. You are no better than the rest.” Her teeth caught him on the bicep and went for blood; Luke gritted his teeth and held on tight. If he lost her wrists, she was going to be in the wind.

“Agmund!” He shouted as loud as he could. “Damn it, Bear! I need a hand!”

“You will need two soon.” She was, Luke realized, trying to gnaw off his arm. He wondered idly if she had the ability to do so. Less idly, he wondered where the hell the Bear was.

“Need something?” It wasn’t the Bear, but it was the next best thing right now: Caity popped up behind him. “Oh, you made a friend.” With surprising strength, the tiny woman grabbed the back of the girl’s hair and pulled, muttering Words under her breath as she did so. “Oh!”

The girl’s face was red with Luke’s blood when Caity finally forced it up, but that wasn’t, Luke was pretty sure, why she’d exclaimed. They’d seen those eyes before. “I guess you found her.”
.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/333888.html. You can comment here or there.

Addergoole Sillyfic

May4

“Aw, that’s adorable. Look at those little ears.”

“Adorable, I’ll give you adorable!”

“Shh, don’t talk. It ruins the effect. Man, that’s adorable. Clothes off.”

“mmngg..”

“Oh, come here, I want to pet you. You look adorable, you really doo… and that frown. That’s the cutest frown I’ve ever seen. Maybe a badger Change? Or one of the mystery Changes, I suppose. At least you’re not a skunk or something. Let me pet you. Forget sex, I could just pet you all day…. Ow! What the hell, what did you do to me? Are those… ow! Quills, ow, shit… OW!”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/332969.html. You can comment here or there.

Beer

May4

“I need a beer,” Cya informed her Kept.

“So go get one.” Fafnir had not yet, in the week since Hell Night, adjusted to being Kept; indeed, he was, if anything, adjusting in the other direction. “Better yet, get me one, too.”

He would have to learn. She had. Then again, she’d never required that much correction.

And Dysmas’ hand had been subtle, subtle enough that it had taken her all of last year to work out everything he’d trained into her – and she was still finding pit-traps.

She stared at her Kept for a moment, wondering how she was going to handle him. She didn’t have her former Keeper’s subtlety.

She didn’t have to be subtle, she realized. She didn’t want a pet, and she didn’t want Fafnir cleaning up messes in his brain for the rest of his school time. She hadn’t exactly been tidy with Cabal, after all.

He still talked to her. She couldn’t have done that badly, right?

“What?” She was, she realized, still staring at this Kept. Deciding what to do with him.

“When you are Keeper, you get to tell your Kept what to do. Right now, I’m Keeper. That means I get to tell you what to do.”

“Oh, come on, Cya, don’t…”

She frowned repressively at him, and was mildly surprised to see that it worked. “Do not tell me what to do.”

He jerked a little as the order hit home. “Cy…” The order cut him short and he settled for glaring at her.

“If I need to give you a direct order every time I want you to do something, I will. It is my preference that you learn to anticipate.”

“I’m not your fucking slave!”

“I could release you and go get someone else to Keep.” She didn’t normally snap like that; maybe she should try with someone else.

“Or we could just go back to dating. The dating was nice.”

“This is how things are done in Addergoole. This is dating, for here.” She closed the distance between them, looking down at him. She didn’t want to trade him in; she just wanted him to act like a proper Kept. “Go get me a beer, Fafnir.”

He stood up as if he was on puppet strings. “Goddamnit, Cya, what the hell?”

“And don’t complain about it,” she added, possibly a little vindictively. “If you can manage to not make sullen miserable faces the whole time, you can get yourself a beer as well.”

His shifted his face into a rictus grin and then, after a moment of apparent thought, managed a halfway decent normal expression. “Better?”

She wondered if he’d realized he had to go past her crew to get the beer. “Better. Get yourself one, too, if you want.”

He didn’t say thank you, but she didn’t really blame him. She watched him go, contemplating his tail and the nice ass underneath. Maybe next year she should get someone who didn’t want to fight it the whole time. There were nice subby boys out there, plenty of them at Addergoole, and as a fourth-year student – a fourth-year student in Boom, no less – nobody was going to mess with what she wanted.

But right now she had Fafnir, heading back with two beers and not-quite-a-scowl, and she needed to deal with him. “Thank you.” He’d even remembered which beer she liked.

“Cya…” He paused, with an expression she recognized as finding-the-edges-of-an-order. “Why are you doing this to me?”

It was a fair question. Did she have a fair answer? She ran her hands down his back a few times while she thought about that. Because this is the way it is didn’t quite seem like enough.

“Because I need you to not fight this, to not fight me.” That, at least, was honest. “Because, Fafnir… you are what I get to have for myself, in this place. Next year, if you have your own Kept, you’ll understand, maybe. But this year. This year, I need you to be mine.”

He turned to face her, resting his forehead on her shoulder. “I don’t like it,” he muttered. “But…”

The but, she knew, was when she had him. She fell silent, and let him surrender on his own.

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