Ashley The Trans Snake

I need to hold you like my shotgun- to cradle you in my arms, to steady you against my shoulder, to point you at a target and watch the fear bloom across its face.

a couple weeks in I decided that enough is enough. if this was allowed to continue, some idiot might decide to put her out of her misery. I beat up the first fucker who suggested that, but ever since I was constantly afraid I wouldn’t catch the next dumbass who gets the bright idea. don’t they all see she’s still alive, even if she changed forever?

so I went and bought her a dog collar and a bowl. at first she didn’t understand what was going on, but when I forced her on a leash and told her to shut up and listen, her face changed. you had to be there to see it. her eyes lit up, she looked up at me and practically drooled. I told her she’s now my tool to maul the imperial mechs. I told her she’s going to sleep at my feet, eat on the ground and follow my every order. she looked at me like I hung the stars in the sky.

it took them all some time to adjust, of course. I was accused of being just as bad as the Empire a couple times, and some rebels are still clearly uncomfortable with the idea. my reputation ensures they’re at least quiet about that, though, and that’ll have to do.

she’s now sitting near my feet at our campfire, her head resting on my lap while I pet her hair. she was a menace in the last battle, so I attached a little medal to her collar, so everyone knows she’s been a very good hound. she was on the moon when I told her that. some more open-minded comrades are feeding her treats, which she picks up with her mouth. life is good.

"it's standard issue" you mean normal?

"eating my rations" those are honey nut cheerios

"I'm going to the commissary" you're at seven eleven

"taking my combat stims" that's fucking monster energy

Your daughter smiles when I tell her to lick my boot. She grins when I threaten her with electric shocks. When I put the barrel of a loaded gun in her mouth, she lets it go all the way to the base, her eyes fixed dead on the hammer.

Completely fine, yes; for a pilot of her station. She's doing exactly what she should be. But as a son? That poor, useless thing, working variably dead-eyed behind the counter at a dead-end job or nowhere at all? Entirely insufficient.

She talks about you sometimes. Not in any recognizable way, of course; nothing she could possibly understand as motherhood exists in her memories. Not of you, not of anyone. Just dreams. Dreams of a mysterious, distant woman and an unfamiliar voice telling her she's wrong. I'll admit, you've been useful at times; she is often wrong. But training out your unhelpful damage to her has been a hassle to say the least. I've never seen a pilot so reckless, so ignorant of its own pain, so tolerant of Hell, until I met your daughter.

I have no jurisdiction on Earth unless one of my pilots is stationed there. She has been instructed to stay far away from that planet, to keep you far away from her. These two things do not mean I would not gun you down the moment I saw you if I was given the opportunity. I suspect watching your limp, lifeless body, gushing blood from every bullet hole would heal Pilot #502 in a way no amount of forced amnesia, no amount of sedation, no amount of re-education ever could.

I'm sure you've heard the stories; you've probably shared some yourself. Young men disappear one day. A simple note, a calling card left in their place, emblazoned with the insignia of Station Delta. We have quite the reputation among broken mothers, blinded by the tears in their eyes and the fantasies they tell themselves, as nothing more than kidnappers. Some kind of wicked draft desperate to take their beloved sons from them; those sons they never gave another look to until they were already under our care.

We don't mind it. A scared populace is useful. But mark my words, and repeat them at your own peril:

She chose this.

They are incorrect.

She can understand why they believe that. It would be so easy to just think of the conditioning all hounds go through as a death. As if the person she once was is gone and what remains only happens to wear the same body. That she is gone and all the actions the hound has taken since then were not in fact her.

They would be wrong of course. She can remember everything.

She remembers growing up on that dying world and choking on the fumes from the factories that covered it. She remembers meeting her first friends at that bar she would later learn was the base for the local rebel cell. She remembers joining that very same cell out of a desperate hate at the empire's cruel rules imposed on her home.

She remembers finding out she had a talent for mech piloting and being snuck off world to take the fight to the empire.

She remembers the friends she discovered in her fellow pilots. The nights under the stars chatting with people who lived such different lives then her. Of the ones who died in pursuit of their collective goal. Of the quiet memorials they would hold for them.

She remembers the love that blossomed in between those moments of fighting for her life. The way her partner's black hair shone in fire light, the way her nose scrunched up when she laughed, the way she would stutter over her words when she was excited about the topic of discussion.

Then the hound was captured. That, she does not remember. She only remembers going to sleep one night and waking up in a cell.

The conditioning needed to make a hound was not what the hound expected. She expected pain for one. While there was a little of it, what really got to her was the isolation. They kept her in a single 10x10 room for almost two years. In the dark. Alone. The food would only show up when she slept. The only person she ever got to interact with was her handler and that was only once a week.

In the first month she held strong. She was a lonely child and being around others was never her forte. But by the third month the only joy she got was with her handler. She started counting the seconds until her next visit. She would beg her handler not to go promising anything and everything. When her handler left she would sob for days begging her to come back.

By the time the first year ended she worshiped the voice that came over the intercom. She was after all the only thing worth living for in that empty room.

She was shocked when the door opened for the first time after that year. In walked her a woman she would later know as her handler. She just froze, unsure how to respond when the woman spoke in the same voice that she loved and needed so dearly before she petted her head. It was the first piece of physical contact she got since she entered that cell. It was euphoric. It was like all was right with the world.

Her handler would enter her cell and pet her every week for the next six months. She would give her rules and if she disobeyed the petting would stop. Rules such as only calling herself hound, or only barking and yipping unless explicitly ordered to speak, or always wearing her collar. Once when the hound continued to violate the rule on speaking even after the petting stopped her handler left for a month leaving her a broken pleading mess by the time she returned.

A total of a year and eight months had passed and they finally let her leave her cell. By that time she loved her handler. She needed her handler. Her voice was divine, parting her despair and breaking the quiet she now could not stand. Her touch was heaven pushing back the loneliness that she now feared above death.

When she danced in her mech killing her former comrades as they scream at her for treachery and promising to save her from her brainwashing she feels guilt but the guilt is nothing compared to the fear of being away from Her.

Her former friends call to her as they retreat. Telling her that one day they will break whatever the empire did to her and that the hound will remember them.

How can she explain that she does remember them and that she could easily switch sides? The empire does not lock her in her cell anymore. They do not stop her from wandering any city she is stationed at. The hound could just leave but that would mean leaving Her. Handler. Her voice in the dark.

It makes me really happy to see her so healthy, but...

Sometimes, when I'm admiring her pristine frame, I see a reflection in her surface.

Handler says im not allowed near mirrors. She says they cause me to think too much.

But when I stare into a reflection...someone is staring back

I dont know who they are, but they look at me, with so much hate. Like im, a monster.

I...

I should tell handler about this.

The doll is cleaning the kitchen, she's wiped down the counters, dusted the shelves in the cabinets, and has swept the floor. Now she's ready to get to mopping the floor. She knows that while she's done this before and messed it up, she knows she can make her owner proud this time! She's shown her how to do it right, to wring out the mop, to move it across the floor, she's positive she can do it.

The doll starts to mop, and shortly after beginning, she accidentally tips over the bucket and drenches the fabric of the legs. She doesn't want to inconvenience her owner with her mistakes again. She doesn't want to think that the time that was spent caring for her was wasted. She rushes to get towels to wipe up all the water on the floor. She doesn't want to be scolded and punished like her last owner did to her. Owner has forgiven the doll every time she's messed up but is worried she'll be really mad this time.

"Are you ok, doll? What's the matter?"

Dolls should be obedient. Dolls should accept everything as they come to them without complaint. It'll have to happen again.

"I tipped the bucket over while mopping the kitchen. I'm sorry, it won't happen again."

She will. "I can't help but make mistakes. She's going to be mad and I'm going to be punished.", she thinks. If a doll could cry, her eyes would be leaking tears.

"That's okay, doll. Do you want help wiping up the water?"

She stops and turns to her owner. Emotion breaks through her voice.

"You're not mad at me?"

She looks at her owner with concern on her face, concern for herself, worry that this is a trick of some kind. Her owner gets up from reading her book to hug her doll.

"I'm not, dear. What would I have to be mad at you for?" Her owner says.

"I made a mistake. Dolls shouldn't make mistakes. Dolls should be perfect. Dolls should not be a nuisance to their owners and should do everything right the first time. I apologize, I'll fix it right away. I'm sorry"

She starts to walk off to wipe up the water, but her owner grabs the collar of her shirt. She walks up to her doll, and gives her a hug.

"It's ok to mess up, doll. It's ok for you not to be perfect, it's ok for you to take a while to get something right. You're not a nuisance, I love you for everything you are, including what you think is wrong with you." The owner says this in a comforting tone, she wants her doll to feel safe, that she isn't a problem that her owner has to figure out.

The doll sniffs, she can't cry tears, but she would be right now if she could.

"But I've messed up so much. What if I never get it right? I mess up every time I clean, I get something wrong, I miss some spots, I drop plates, I've scolded your hands when I've poured tea, I don't want to be an issue." The doll says.

"You aren't an issue, and you aren't a problem. I want you to be happy, I want you to be loved. It's ok if you always mess up, it's ok if you never get something right, it's ok if you always get something wrong or never figure out something. I'll never be mad at you. You don't deserve to worry about those things, I'll always love you, alright?"

"Promise?"