First: A beginning of a story which obnoxiously cuts off just before the description,
Previous: In Which Amrit Makes a Run For It.

Her captive was sitting in the shade of her biggest tree, his splinted leg stretched out in front of him. He was fiddling with the grass and rocks within reach and looking around, shifting his weight around, working his mouth around the gag like a horse champing at the bit.

She knew all this because she couldn’t focus. Mieve had found herself working in circles around him.
He’d promised not to run off… she made another circle. The bees were fine without her. The carrots and potatoes and turnips had been watered.

He hadn’t promised not to attack her… she made another circle. The squash had recently been debugged. (One of the advantages to post-hardware-store gardening she had and others didn’t: Abatu Panida, destroy animal, did wonders with a good book of garden pests for magical fumigation).

He had broken his own leg. There were so many ways that Working could have been twisted to attack her, and he’d done none of them. She made another circle, but there was nothing left that really needed plowing and there was nothing left to weed right now.

She could chop wood, but she’d have to go into the woods to do that. She made another loop. He was braiding bits of grass into sad little pieces of rope, holding down the end with a rope. He looked, she thought, miserable.

She made herself work on the garden for a few minutes. She could keep an eye on him there. She shoved the pitchfork into the rough soil she hadn’t planted this year and turned it over. She’d nearly slammed an ax into his leg. She’d nearly slammed an ax into his leg.

“Why?” Her voice was hoarse, and she wasn’t sure if she was asking him or herself. She felt as if she’d been screaming, when she’d been silently walking in circles.

He looked up, as if he’d been waiting for her to say something, and gestured at the gag with a shrug of both shoulders.

“Yeah, yeah.” She hadn’t really expected an answer, anyway. “That’s another why for another day.” She stared at the ground and thrust the pitchfork in again. There was still time for a few short-season crops, never mind that it gave her something safe to attack. The more food she had put away, the safer they would be when the winter came. And all the signs pointed at a bad winter.

“Do you ever stop working?” one of her early Kept had asked her. Implicit in the question – he’d been unused to any sort of hard work – had been another; did he ever get to stop working?

She’d grinned at him at the time, not because it was funny but because she’d spent the first year after the fall having the same argument with herself. “Winter,” she’d told him. “In winter we rest.”

Amrit gave her an answer, probably just to prove her wrong in not expecting one: he mimed eating and raised an eyebrow at her.

“Am I going to keep feeding you?” She stabbed the pitchfork into the ground again, turned over the soil, and stared at him. He was lean – no, skinny. There was muscle on his frame, but he’d clearly seen hungry days.

Everyone had, really. The world was not a kind place.

“Of course I’m going to feed you. You’ll eat what I eat – which, some days, might be a little thin, but I haven’t starved through a winter yet.”

He considered, then, after a moment, mimed something. He pulled one hand back to his ear and held the other one out, then pointed out the pointer finger near his ear.

It took her two repetitions to see the imaginary bow he was drawing and the imaginary arrow he was loosing. “Generally, I use snares,” she admitted. “Sometimes, if things are getting lean, I’ll use Workings, but it always seems creepy.” She leaned on her pitchfork. “You know, I’m really good at calling animals, so here I am, all Snow White – do you remember Snow White?”

He shrugged. That could mean anything. She explained anyway. “All musical princess, singing to the animals or something, and then, bam, killing them. Creepy.” She wrinkled her nose. “Although I’d be thrilled if I could find some chickens. Nobody wants to sell any.”

He looked up at the sky for a moment, then made an elaborate gesture. He repeated it twice, and, finally, Mieve saw the top hat he was taking off and the rabbit he was pulling out of his hat.

“Sadly, I don’t have the ‘create’ Word. You do, though, don’t you?”

He made a so-so gesture, and then made rabbit ears on top of his head. He followed that with a negation.

“Ah, so much more the pity.” She stabbed the pitchfork into the ground and turned over a few more feet. He couldn’t make animals. She couldn’t make animals. “I suppose I’ll just have to go out looking again, then.”

She surprised a frown on his face, or, at least, what she thought was probably a frown, since the gag obscured anything he was doing with his lips – by looking up at exactly the wrong moment. He shrugged and looked away, as if to say it was up to her.

“I haven’t done much exploring,” she mused. “All the years here and I go maybe four places, and that only when I have to.” She turned over a little more dirt, not looking at him. She wasn’t sure she wanted to see his expression. She was certain she wanted to know why he’d been frowning.

Finally, she gave in. She’d turned over a long patch of dirt, all of it a little more aggressively than it really needed. She wasn’t going to get anything else done while she was puzzling over her captive. Obsessing over him, if she was going to be honest with herself. She put the pitchfork back in the garage and gathered up her basket of walnuts.

“Bored?”

He snorted and nodded.

“All right.” She sat down beside him and handed him a chisel and hammer. “This basket needs shucking. This is how you do it.” She picked up a walnut and showed him how to crack the outer shell and get the green skin away from it. “Got it?”

He studied the chisel for a minute. Mieve’s heart was in her throat. Then he made a noise through the gag. It took her a moment to identify it as a chuckle.

Curiosity took only a few seconds to overcome caution, and she used a finger of telekinetic power to unlock his gag. He snorted in surprise as the gag fell out, caught it, and set it down next to him. It was harder than it ought to be; she should take it easy for a bit.

“Coulda used this instead of the ax,” he snorted at the chisel and hammer, and then chuckled again. Mieve stared at him for a moment before letting herself giggle
.
“Might’ve been easier,” she managed, before the giggle turned into a laugh.

He grinned at her, the grin turning quickly into another laugh, and before long, both of them were laughing and snorting.

It took Mieve a good few minutes to pull herself together and catch her breath. “So…” she offered. “Maybe we can skip the walnuts ‘till tomorrow.”

“Oh, I don’t know. Chiseling some shells might be fun. You trust me with this?”

“With a chisel? Yeah. I trusted you with an ax.”

“I was chained, before. And you hadn’t worn yourself out with Workings.”

She really wished he hadn’t noticed that. She knew she went still for a moment, and she knew he noticed, because his expression softened just a bit.

“It’s not like I can do much, my leg all a mess.” He gestured at it. “But, uh. Here. I promise for, um, the next month, I won’t attack you or, like, your bee hives or other things you need to survive, and I won’t, uh, use magic to try to escape or coerce you into letting me go.”

She stared at him. That was… “That’s kind,” she managed. “Thank you.”

He rolled his shoulders uncomfortably. “Yeah, well. I figure you didn’t, like, buy me to be a drain on your resources, and you didn’t buy me to chain me to your plow and make me do all your work. It’s not like you’re an awful person.”

“…I just broke your leg.” Why was she arguing with him?

“I just broke my leg.” He shrugged. “You’re not a jerk. I don’t have to be a jerk. I mean, I still want to leave. I don’t belong to you and I don’t want to be a slave. But I don’t have to be an ass, while I’m here.”

There was something he wasn’t telling her, but Mieve had a feeling she wouldn’t find out what it was by pushing him. She picked up the second chisel and hammer, instead, and started working on the walnuts.

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First: A beginning of a story which obnoxiously cuts off just before the description,
Previous: In Which Amrit and Mieve Share a Little.

His “owner” was in a foul mood when she chained him to the bed. Still, she’d given him time to brush his teeth and use the john, and she made sure the chains weren’t cutting into his skin.

Amrit couldn’t quite figure her. She didn’t like him. She didn’t trust him. She didn’t want him here – hell, they agreed on that, at least. She got pissed fine when he taunted her, but then she tucked him in like she was gonna give him a teddy bear and a bedtime story.

He pulled on the chains holding him. He wasn’t going to get out of them, not short of destroying his hands. He’d wait. Eventually, he could cut the shackle she used when he was working. A quick dash for the trees, and he’s never have to think about this place again.

The pie’d been good, though. All the food was good. The bed was comfortable. The gag was even comfortable, even it it sucked. The truth of the matter was, even with hard work, even with chains and a gag, she was giving him a better berth than anyplace he’d been since the world ended.

But there were chains. And a gag. And he really didn’t like being a slave.

“Uggit,” he muttered around the gag. He’d be gone as soon as he could. Someone else would give him a berth in return for food. Somewhere.

~

The next three days passed in relative peace. Amrit did the work he was offered – plowing, chopping down trees, splitting firewood, He worked hard, and earned his hours without the gag in every evening.

She didn’t have much to say to him, after the first night, but the food stayed good and she kept her word.

He slept hard, chains or no. She was working him to exhaustion – he’d wonder if it was on purpose, to keep him docile, but she worked herself every bit as hard as she worked him, and then some. Amrit looked for openings to escape all day, but at night all he did was sleep.

Finally, four days after their first conversation, he had a moment where she was communing with her bees. The axe went down hard on the chain and split it in two strikes. Amrit started running the moment the chain split, leaving the axe where it had fallen.

He was out of practice, running, but it hadn’t been all that long that he’d been in chains. He stumbled once, caught himself, and was off again, as fast as he could move and as silently as he could make that speed. She was way on the other side of the clearing; he ought to be able to make it to the trees before-

He ran into a wall and fell backwards, sprawling. He pulled himself up to his feet and moved cautiously forward. There was nothing there, nothing visible, at least. But when he reached out his hand, just before the treeline was a wall as hard as rock.

He felt the grip around his neck before he noticed she was coming towards her. He held up both his hands in surrender.

“You’ve got an impressive swing. But you know what comes next.” She pulled him towards her as she walked to him, tugging on the invisible tether around his throat. “I warned you.”

She looked sad. For a moment, Amrit almost felt guilty. But she had … shit. His leg. And she was picking up the axe he’d dropped. Amrit bit hard on the gag. This was going to suck worse than getting kidnapped had. She was lifting the ax already, getting ready to swing.

The back of the axe was going to shatter his leg into pieces. Even with his healing, it was going to be a bitch to put it all back together, and it might never heal properly. She didn’t look like she liked the idea. She looked like she was steeling herself as much as Amrit was.

He took a gamble and held up both hands, grunting out the closest to wait he could manage.

She set the axe down. “I warned you what would happen,” she repeated.

He nodded. “Eh. Uh…” He whined in frustration. Making himself understood through this thing was frustrating in a good situation, and this didn’t count as good. He tapped at the gag. “Eee?” he pleased.

She frowned. “All right,” she allowed. Her telekinesis was still holding him firmly, and Amrit wouldn’t have tried moving even if it wasn’t, but she still circled him carefully, as if afraid he was going to attack.

He supposed it was a reasonable concern. Amrit held very still and tried to look as nonthreatening as possible.

“This is not the time for anything stupid,” she warned him, as the gag came out.

“No, I know, I won’t.” Amrit stayed still. “It’s… I heal fast?” he offered with a sigh, “so things heal bad really easy. And if you, well, here,” he held out his hand, where his pinkie finger had healed wrong years ago. “An axe, a hammer, anything, it’s going to be awful.”

He held up his hands to forestall whatever she was going to say. “Look. You said it, I did it anyway, I don’t mind taking my punishment. I’ll even fix the chain, if you want me to. But uh, I can break it. With a Working. And it’ll still be broken and it’ll still hurt like hell and… it won’t hurt for the rest of my life, is all I’m saying.”

Her face had softened, a bit, until he said Working He’d feared that would happen. “And if it’s a trap?”

“Then you knock me unconscious with your power there and smash my leg. Or both of them. You’re the boss. But it’s not. It’s really, just, I get freaked out by things like that because when they heal bad, it really sucks.” He rubbed at the side of his mouth surreptitiously.

Not subtly enough. She winced. “The new gag…”

“The new one’s nice. It doesn’t cut at all. The old one, that was bad.”

“If this is a trick, any sort of trick, then I am going to break both of your legs.” She looked him in the eyes. Amrit was suddenly glad that it wasn’t any sort of trick. “But you can do it.”

“Thank you.” He sounded a little pitiful. He was okay with that. “Can I, uh, may I sit down?”

“Yeah… yes. go ahead.” The TK she’d been holding at his throat loosened.

Amrit sat gingerly and stretched his left leg out straight in front of him. He said the Words carefully, so she didn’t have any question what he was doing: first an Idu, a Know, so he knew exactly what he was doing, and then a Tempero, shattering the bone in two places.

He got through the Working before he swore, loud and without shame, a long line of ”Fuuuuck, fuck fuck fuuuuck.” He slammed the ground with both fists and leaned back, trying to find a position where it didn’t hurt.

“Can you set it?” She was crouching in front of him, her hands near but not touching the break. “Or do you need me to?”

Setting it, shit. “I… Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck… yeah. I can…” He gritted his teeth, pulled himself together, and did another Tempero Working to set it in place. “‘Bout… five days,” he told her through gritted teeth. “If it’s splinted or held together somehow. Longer if I jostle it.”

“Okay. Here, hold it still for a minute.” She picked up two boards from a stack near the door and muttered a Working on them, then shaped them around his leg as if they were putty. In two minutes, she’d entirely immobilized his left leg. “You really thought you could make it? Or you wanted to see if I’d do it?”

“Thought I could make it. You were… unh. All the way on the other side of the clearing. Talking to the bees. You go all not-there when you’re talking to them.” The splint took a little pressure off, and his body was already trying to repair the damage. “Gods. How’d you even see me?”

She stood off, brushing her hands off. “You’re going to need crutches… I didn’t. See you, that is. You’re right. I got buzzy when I’m talking to them. One reason I don’t talk to people much.”

“…You didn’t?” She was already Working some wood into a pair of crutches. He noticed when she faltered halfway through the Working, and put two and two together. “Have you been keeping up some sort of…”

“Shield. Here, try these for size.”

“That’s nuts.” He took the crutches and began pulling himself to his feet. It hurt; he bit his tongue and hissed. “…That’s fucking nuts.”

“You weren’t exactly cooperative.”

“No, I mean. Well, I mean it’s nuts. I wasn’t cooperative, sure, but you had me chained.”

“And you broke the chain the minute I stopped paying attention.”

“Well, yeah, but… how much energy have you been pouring into that?” He got himself onto the crutches and tested them with a couple steps.

“It doesn’t seem all that wise to tell you that, now does it?”

“I mean… this is a good height on the crutches. Shit. Okay.” He leaned against the woodpile to get his weight off his leg. “I, uh. Well, I can’t go anywhere for a few days, but for…. the next month, I promise not to leave the clearing without your permission, okay?”

She stared at him. “What? Why?”

“Because you’re swaying on your feet from a minor Working and that’s dumb! And, uh. I don’t want to be here, don’t get me wrong. But I’m not going anywhere until I heal up anyway.” He looked at the woodpile. “I guess you can put the gag back on me and I can try splitting some more wood.”

She hadn’t stopped staring at him. “All that fighting and you just agree, like that?”

“Well…” Amrit glowered. She wasn’t going to stop talking about it. He was going to have to explain.

He really missed living out in the wilderness. Alone. In the cold, with the bugs and the rain. “I lost, right? You won. I’m stuck here. And I even did it to myself.” He shrugged shortly. “And you need your energy. That’s why you were looking for a Kept, right? Because you need more energy than you have in a day?”

“Yes, but…”

“Right, I don’t care.” He raspberried. “I don’t like being bought and sold. But I’m not a total asshole, all right? You feed me, you shelter me. Eventually, I’m going to escape. But until then, I mean, why should I be an actual drain on your resources?”

Was that enough? She was still frowning. Amrit shut up and hoped she’d accept it.

“You… have an interesting way of looking at the world. I accept your promise. Want to throw in one about not attacking me, and I can leave the gag off?”

He studied the gag, studied her. “Hrmff… put the gag back in for now. I’ll think about it tonight.”

She didn’t look disappointed, which was interesting. “All right.” The gag went back in, with the now-familiar mouth-stretching feeling and the slight sensation like he’d eaten too much. “Take a break for the rest of the day. Give your leg a little time to heal before you try to chop wood on it.”

He wanted to complain, but he’d already let her put the gag in. He gestured, to the gag, to the woodpile.

“You heal in record time,” she pointed out. “There has to be some punishment to trying to run away.”

Amrit huffed and agreed, or at least nodded at her.

“Find a place to sit down. Have no fear, I’ll have enough work for you once you’re healed up.”

Fuck you, Amrit thought, but he didn’t bother to vocalize it this time.

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First: A beginning of a story which obnoxiously cuts off just before the description,
Previous: In Which Amrit & Mieve have a quiet evening .

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

Mieve

Her captive — Amrit, his name was Amrit, and how her fingers were itching to get to her dictionaries and her baby name books, to see what that name could hold in store for her — Amrit was quiet now, looking rather thoughtful.

Mieve was not stupid. She didn’t think this was more the the calm before the storm, but she had had too many storms in the last few months. She’d take any calm she could get.

“The first one was a bit of an accident,” she offered after a while. “After school, I didn’t think I’d ever Keep someone again. I didn’t really mean to. But I recognized him — he’d been at school with me, four years after me — and I, I don’t know, I felt like I had to get him out of there. I couldn’t leave someone I knew in the slave market.”

“You went to a school with other fae?” He worked his mouth again, like he was feeling at the edges where the gag had rubbed. She wondered if he knew she’d noticed how fast he healed, now that the poison of the hawthorn was getting out of his system.

“I did. A boarding school for Ellehemaei. It — well, like your Mentor, ours set us up with practice Keepings. But ours weren’t just for a month. The school year, usually.”

“Sounds like a hell of a school.”

“Well… It taught me enough that I’m still here. I found this place when I was running, and for the first two years I just kept waiting for the owners to find it. I guess they never made it out.” She was still both sad and relieved about that. “But I had to stay alive long enough to get here. And then, once I was here…”

He nodded. “Lots of people died, yeah? Couldn’t hack it, couldn’t figure it out.” He shrugged jerkily. “I probably wouldn’t’ve, but I’m tough.”

“I’ve noticed. And then, what? The slavers…?”

His face tightened. “Yeah. Caught me in my sleep, fuckers. And then you bought me.” He tugged on the chain. “And here I am. Chopping firewood.”

“The pie’s ready. Can you smell it?”

He sniffed the air, caught off-guard. “Yeah. Yeah, it smells good.” He leaned forward in his chair. “You’re really gonna give me some?”

“I’m not going to offer you something and then take it away.” She was a little offended, and then a little amused at herself for being offended.

“Don’t see why not.” The more he talked, the younger he seemed. She wondered if he’d even been Changed when the world had ended. “Lots of people do.”

“That’s not who I want to be.” She unlocked his chain. “Come on.”

“It’s gonna get pretty tiresome, leading me around on a leash all the time.”

“Oh, it will. I imagine it will get pretty boring being led around on that leash, too. Give me your word not to run away?”

“Yeah, right. Leashes can break.” He sneered it at her, even as he was moving placidly enough to the table. “Promises can’t. I’m not stupid.”

“No, I don’t think you are. And you don’t trust me to release you from your oath, and you don’t want to put a time limit on it.”

“I don’t want to be here. Pie or not.” He flopped down angrily in his chair. “I got kidnapped, wrapped up in chains, and sold. That does not make me cooperative.”

Mieve held up her hands, even as her TK locked his tether to the bolt in the floor. “I know, I know. I’d be cranky, too. I was cranky, when it was my time. But it doesn’t mean I don’t want to explore the options that don’t lead to you being on a leash the whole time you’re here.”

“Why?” He glared at the pie as she floated it to the table.

“Because it’s a pain in the ass.” It wasn’t good for him, either, but she wasn’t in the mood to have that scoffed at. “For both of us. That, the gag… not being able to trust you with Workings…”

“See? You don’t trust me either!”

“And I have you living in my house, in my hidden sanctuary.” She dished out two generous slices of pie and passed him a fork.

“Hey, you brought me here.”

“I did.” She was going to leave that slave-master with pants so full of bees he’d never be able to walk again. Maybe he was allergic. Maybe it would kill him. “And now we’re both stuck with it.”

“Just let me go, then.”

“No.” She glared at him. “Honey is worth a lot these days, and I spent a lot of honey on you. Besides, you’re not even all the way healed up.”

“Suddenly you care about my welfare,” he sneered.

Mieve sighed. She was going to have face the possibility “Eat your pie. I want to go to bed.”

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First: A beginning of a story which obnoxiously cuts off just before the description,
Previous: In Which Mieve Explains Some Things.

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

Amrit

He kept expecting her to shove the gag back in his mouth. He’d just told her that she couldn’t trust him, that he wouldn’t promise even to not attack her. She knew he would try to escape given the slightest chance.

But she put the pie in the oven and dried the dishes he’d washed, put away her pottery like it wasn’t the end of the world, like she didn’t have someone chained up in her kitchen, and then she’d led him into her living room. (Floor plan — http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/890220.html )

She had those floor bolts everywhere. Not that Amrit was surprised, not if he wasn’t the first person she’d collared. She led him to a nice soft armchair near the wood stove, locked his chain to the floor, and taken the other chair herself.

“No Workings,” she warned him, “or the gag goes back in.” Amrit waved the warning away with a dismissive hand; he got the point already. He’d have to get the gag out when she wasn’t listening.

He worked his mouth while she picked up her knitting — really? She was going to sit by the fire and knit? Could she be any more homey? — feeling around the edges of his lips. He was starting to heal already. The hawthorn had to be working its way out of his system. Once it was mostly gone — once he could cut himself and have the mark vanish in less than twenty minutes — then he could make his escape.

“This a normal evening for you?” He hadn’t meant to say anything at all, but the silence seemed to ask for it.

She looked up at him, her fingers still working on her knitting. “Most nights. Sometimes I read. Sometimes… well, but that’s not going to happen.”

The room was only dimly lit, two flickering gas lamps and the fire casting everything into ruddy shadows, but it seemed as if she might be blushing. Amrit coughed. “Sometimes…?” he prompted.

“Sometimes I have more cooperative Kept.”

“I’m not your Kept.”

She snorted. That hadn’t been been the response he’d been expecting. “I noticed, trust me. Some day, that slave factor is going to find his pants full of annoyed bees.”

“What, you were expecting a Kept?” He tugged at the chain. You didn’t normally have to tie Kept up.

“…Second one was human,” she explained. “Humans require a bit more, ah, patience. Well, than a Kept.” She smiled crookedly at him. “I’d say you require enough patience for any three humans.”

“Hey!” He glared at her. “It’s not like I asked for this. Any of it. And it’s not like you’re being like the height of patience and tolerance here.” She really was being more patient than he’d thought she’d be… but there was no need to say that.

“It’s not as if the slave markets come with provenance and papers on people. Some of them do volunteer, you know.”

“Who the fuck would volunteer for a collar and a leash and…” Amrit twisted his face up – being owned?“

“Well, let’s see.” She ticked off on her fingers. “People who don’t know how to survive in the world as it’s ended up. People who want to escape the world they’re in – or the people they’re with, or something like it – enough that they’re willing to give up freedom. People who are just that naturally submissive. The Departed Gods made Keeping for a reason, and it wasn’t to sell people in slave markets, you know.”

Amrit blinked at her. “Thorough.” He sneered. “None of that’s me, though.”

“Been Kept before, have you?” She asked it far too casually.

Amrit tugged on the chain on his leg. It was starting to chafe. “For like a month. Something my Mentor set up after he released me. Tricked me into it and everything. I didn’t know,” he added defensively. “If I’d known it’d just be a month, I might’ve…”

She was raising her eyebrows at him. He could tell that even in the flickering gaslight. “Fuck you, lady,” he muttered.

“Mieve,” she corrected, far too serenely. “My name is Mieve. Fuck you, too.”

She made it sound like a benediction. “Amrit,” he offered, in lieu of an amen. “My name is Amrit.”

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First: A beginning of a story which obnoxiously cuts off just before the description,
Previous: In Which Amrit is Confused.

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

Mieve

Dinner went quietly. Mieve was exhausted, and she imagined her new slave was as well. He ate slowly and steadily, spoon to mouth, scooping up the rice-and-beans she had made wordlessly, sipping the beer she set in front of him, not looking like he was tasting any of it.

He was watching her cautiously between bites, like he was trying to figure her out. That expression Mieve was used to. Most of the Kept she’d brought had that look in their face for at least a while. She kept her face neutral and non-threatening. Not that she probably wouldn’t have to hurt him again before he settled, but she wasn’t going to hurt him now. Hopefully.

They finished dinner in silence, with no catastrophes and no arguments. Mieve cleared the table, loading the dishes into a sink of hot soapy water.

Even with her back turned, she could hear when he pushed his chair back, when he stood up, and when he sat back down again, remembering, she assumed, that he was tethered to the floor. He cleared his throat. “I could — I could help with that.”

She hadn’t expected that. “If you do the dishes,” she said, thinking it through quickly. No knives in reach. There was another chain-loop by the sink. The skillet could be a weapon, but not a threat; you couldn’t hold a frying pan to someone’s throat. “If you get the dishes all done and put away, that gives me time to make a dessert.” She turned the oven on to pre-heat. It was a pity she didn’t trust him to use Words; he might have the right one to refill her propane tanks.

She used a thread of telekinesis to unlock his tether from the floor bolt and waited for him as he stood, looking surprised and cautious. “Just like that?”

“I like dessert, too, and I hate doing dishes. Why do you think I bought a slave, anyway?”

He nearly stopped walking; she could see the way his shoulders hitched. “Fuck you, lady.”

“Does that mean you don’t want to do the dishes?” She was level-voiced and calm; being sworn at might irritate her but it wasn’t going to break her stride.

“…Fuck it. You going to share that dessert?”

“Of course.”

“Then I’ll do the damn dishes.” It was a small kitchen; it didn’t really give him room to stomp, but he stomped the two steps to the sink anyway. Mieve relocked his tether and ignored him. There were apples to peel, there was pastry to roll.

“…Did you really buy a slave just to have someone to do your dishes?”

“Yes, of course I did.” She sliced the apples into broad chunks. “I bought a slave just for the dishes.” She dripped sarcasm into every word, and then regretted it. “No, but in a sense, yes. I need help with the farm. Firewood. Plowing. Hunting.” Not that she’d trust him with a weapon any time soon.

“Hunh. Why not hire someone – no, never mind.” He shook his head. “Makes sense.” He was washing slowly now, watching her. “What happened to your last Kept? You had one, didn’t you?”

“I freed him.” She’d had four, here in this cottage. “I Kept him for a year and a half and then I freed him.”

“Hunh. Wasn’t working out?”

She shook her head. “No, we got along all right. But a year and a half covers the cost of his purchase in terms of work, and people… people shouldn’t be collared for the long-term without getting a chance to decide that for themselves.”

“Hunh.” He thought about that, or at least was quiet, while he washed the last of the dishes. Mieve cut the rest of the apples and tossed everything in a bit of cinnamon she still had left. “I’m still not going to Belong to you.”

“It’ll be a long year and a half in the gag and leash.” She poured in a bit of honey and a bit of maple syrup. “Promise me you won’t use Workings?”

“No fucking way.”

“Promise me you won’t run off?”

“No way in fucking hell.”

She rolled out the crust and fitted it into her pan. “Promise me you won’t attack me?”

“…not likely.”

“It’s going to be a long year and a half then.” She poured the filling into the pie shell, making sure to get every drop. “But I think you knew that.”

I haven’t tried this recipe yet, but the pie is something like this

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First: A beginning of a story which obnoxiously cuts off just before the description,
Previous: Amrit Splits Wood.

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

Mieve
Her new slave’s mouth was stained with blood, his lips cracked open. That gag was truly a nasty thing.

Meive watched him drink his water and cataloged his body. Nice muscle, no scarring, none of the lopsided development slaves sometimes got. Tanned, but it had that look of someone who had tanned to look good, before the End. Or maybe he just had a Working for it. What damage had been done to him was beginning to heal already, and he was, if not so blasted frustrating, rather handsome.

She waited until he finished the water. He handed it over and waited, silently this time. His eyes were on the gag in her hand, and his tongue darted out to touch the wounds on the sides of his mouth.

She dropped the gag into the pocket of her work apron and pulled, from the same pocket, the hopefully-gentler piece she’d fashioned in the early morning. His eyes followed every movement. He licked his lips again. He looked like he was thinking. “What-?” he tried. He paused, watching her. She gestured, please continue. No Working started with Wha-

“What is that?”

Meive held up the gag. “It’s a gag.” She tried not to sound perplexed.

He picked his words with care again. “Why – why a new one?” His tongue darted out again and he licked the wounds.

“Because you’re not going to cooperate easily.” She knew she sounded tired. She felt tired. And it was only noon. “And the old one was cutting your mouth.”

“What does this one do?”

Mieve raised her eyebrows. He sounded so resigned. She didn’t believe it, not for a minute, but she responded carefully, as if she did. “It’s softer, so it won’t cut your mouth, and it shouldn’t cut your face or your tongue.”

“…why?”

“Because whether or not you’ll accept it, you’re my responsibility.”

He grinned suddenly and fiercely. “Careful,” he warned. “I might do something bad with that.”

“I don’t doubt you would. Let me gag you, and you can get back to that pile of wood.”

He hesitated, not moving towards her but not clamping his jaw shut either. His tongue darted out again. “Lunch?” He added, very careful-sounding, “please?”

Mieve relented, if only a little. she pulled a meat roll from her apron pocket, split it in two, and handed him half. “Some lunch, if only because you said please.”

“Fu -” He took the roll carefully. “Thank you.”

He ate it slowly, the first bite cautious and the next bites as if he was savoring it. Mieve matched his pace, nibbling slowly on the roll. They were one of her favorite things to make, but they didn’t keep well and they didn’t last. Some days, she really missed proper refrigeration. Or a Kept who knew refrigeration Workings.

Her captive looked more alive when he finished his roll. His eyes darted to the water bottle.

Mieve passed it over without comment and let him sip and rinse his mouth. She had sympathy for his position – but she couldn’t risk her own. “Time for the gag.” She tried to make her voice gentle this time.

“Fuck you, lady.” His voice held no heat, and he opened his mouth without further complaint.

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First: A beginning of a story which obnoxiously cuts off just before the description,
Previous: A Bit of a Transitional Chapter, where Amrit and Mieve start to work .

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

She was plowing. Amrit had looked up from his log-splitting – looking, of course, to see if he had an opening for escape – to see his captor pushing a plow through the field. When she’d given him his choice of tasks, he hadn’t really expected her to take the other option.

She didn’t look strong enough to push that thing through the dirt like that. Maybe she was using her telekinesis, or whatever it was? Whatever it was, she was plowing up furrows nearly as quickly as Amrit was splitting wood.

She’d set him a goal. It wasn’t going to be an easy goal, and he didn’t think she’d meant it to be. But the more he split, the more Amrit realized it was a do-able goal; and he thought she’d done that on purpose, too.

What sort of woman was she? Amrit watched her as he split, as he stacked wood, as he set another log on the block and swung the ax, as he worried his mouth around the gag. He couldn’t be her first slave. But the room he was sleeping in had no signs of recent inhabitence.

He split wood, he stacked wood, he split some more wood, he chewed on the gag and tasted blood. At the rate he was going, the pile she’d set him in front of would take him a week, maybe more. The last settlement he’d lived in had heated with wood; this much could heat a place the size of her cabin for the whole winter.

Of course, he wouldn’t be here by then. He’d be long gone, somewhere far away from gags and chains and slave-owners.

The sun was high in the sky when she came over to him, and Amrit was dripping sweat despite the cool air. So, he noted, was she. She offered him a canteen, seeming unworried about the ax in his hands. Well, of course. She could take it from him.

Amrit set it down before she decided to, and gestured to the gag.

“Kneel.”

There was no point in arguing that; she was nearly as tall as he was, but it would still be easier for her to work the lock from above. Amrit knelt, a Working forming in his mind.

She hesitated with her hand on the lock. “Remember. No Workings, or I take your air.”

He could Work faster than she could steal his air. He grunted assent, and waited for the moment of freedom.

He didn’t even get out Meentik; he got as far as Mee when an invisible hand lifted him in the air, choking him. He saw spots in front of his eyes; his sinuses felt as if they were going to explode.

And then she set him down and handed him the canteen. “Drink fast.” If Amrit didn’t know better, he’d think she was angry with him. “I suppose we’ll skip lunch.”

“Fuck you, lady.” At least no Workings started with fuh. Amrit chugged down the water and waited for the gag.

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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.

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