First: A beginning of a story which obnoxiously cuts off just before the description,
Previous: In Which Amrit Starts to Learn his Limits.
Fae Apoc, approx. now.

This particular story contains kidnapping and slavery, bondage, and will eventually contain violence & Stockholm Syndrome.

Mieve was a bit surprised – despite her confidence in the strength of the restraints and the bed – to find her new slave still where she’d left him, and, from the sounds of things, still sleeping. He snored. Maybe it was best she was leaving him in his own room.

She let him stay there until the smell of cooking breakfast woke him – and wouldn’t it be nice if he’d settle down enough that she could trust him with that chore? – and got him to the kitchen with very little argument or fight. She could hear the noises his stomach was making; hunger was a pretty good motivator.

She dished his meal before she undid the gag. “No Workings, nothing that even sounds like a Working,” she warned him, “or I cut off your air and put the gag back in.”

For once, he neither swore at her nor fought it. Mieve imagined it was the farmer’s breakfast – eggs, the last bit of bacon from her last trade, toast with honey – laid out before him.

He ate without words, wiped his mouth afterwards, and sipped the water she’d left for him as if it was the finest wine.

When their plates were both clean, she steepled her fingers and looked at him over them. “Okay, you’ve got two choices today. You can split wood or plow the field.”

He barely thought about it for a second. “Split wood.”

“Be forewarned.” She picked up the gag again. “If you use the axe to break your chain, I will break your leg.”

He didn’t flinch, but she noticed that he considered it. “Noted.” He nodded at her.

“Good.” Dead gods, he was going to make her do it, wasn’t he? Well, maybe she could gentle him before it came to that. She held up the gag towards him; he sighed and opened his mouth.

“This way.” Leading him around on a tether was going to get old fast; she could only hope it got old faster for him.

The firewood was a pile taller than either of them, heaped off to the side of the garage. There was already a loop set in the ground for his chain; she locked him in place before she handed him the ax. “If you fill this rack here before dinner time, I’ll give you an hour without the gag tonight.” It wouldn’t be an easy day, but it was well within her ability, and ought to be within his, too. “I’ll see you at noon for lunch.”

Mieve’s tiny farm took a lot of work. She spent an hour in the morning fashioning her captive a gag that wouldn’t cut his mouth open, the thwack of the ax into wood a constant background music. He worked fast, and he worked steadily. He probably hadn’t been enslaved long, then: he hadn’t been abused, he hadn’t been starved, and he hadn’t been broken of hope.

Once she was satisfied with her handiwork, Mieve went out to the field. There was still three hours before noon, and the field still needed to be plowed.

next: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/894415.html

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