Owo? What's this?

---

She’s so tall. She’s so much taller than me.

It’s difficult to keep that thought from filling my gaze with unwelcome awe as I stare across at her. My bully. No, my former bully. I need to remind myself of that. It’s been years. Still, I have to fight to keep my eyes narrowed with disinterested contempt, and my voice nothing more than businesslike.

“Ms. Robinson,” I say, straightening my back, “what makes you think you’d be suitable for this position?”

Ivy smiles, and her smile goes right through me. I have too many memories of being victim to that smile.

“Ms. Robinson?” she drawls. “C’mon, Olive. Is that really necessary?”

I twitch. “This is a job interview. Let’s keep things professional.”

Ivy shrugs. “Sure.”

I pause, waiting for her to answer. My patience breaks first. “Well? What makes you think you’d be suitable?”

“I think you’ll find I’m more than qualified,” comes her smooth reply.

She’s not wrong. It’s all on her résumé. For an entry-level position like this, she’s an outstanding candidate. When I was scanning through the stack of applications, that jumped out to me almost as much as her name did. Once I double-checked that it was actually her, I considered throwing her application straight into the trash. But I didn’t. I had to see her. Didn’t I?

She’s in really good shape. Way better shape than me. I bet she works out a lot.

“It’s about more than just educational background,” I retort, pushing down on that thought. “We take our work ethic very seriously here. You might be expected to work some long hours.”

Long, long hours. I can feel the heavy, gray bags hanging under my eyes. None of those on Ivy. She’s immaculate, as ever. Tonight will be another late one. I’ll have to tell Luna I won’t be home for dinner. She won’t like that, although I’m sure she’s getting used to it.

Maybe I should try harder to work less overtime. But…

“No problem,” Ivy assures me. “I work hard. You have my references?”

I do, and they’re all utterly hagiographic. Frankly, looking at it on paper, I have no reason to pass Ivy over. Looking at it otherwise, I have every reason. Christ, it’d be an HR disaster waiting to happen.

Her breasts. She’s so busty. So much bustier than me. How’s that fair? How does that even make sense? Isn’t she trans?

I push out my chest. “Well, you’d need to be a team player too. You’d be-“ I hesitate. “Ivy, you’d be working under me. For me. You get that, right?”

“Of course.” She’s unruffled.

“You understand that you’ll be my subordinate?”

For the briefest of moments, something glints in her eye. Something that frightens me. It passes. “Oh, yes. I understand perfectly.”

“And you’re… really OK with that?” I ask.

It’s difficult to believe. All through college, she took vindictive pride in having me wrapped around her little finger. I still remember how easily I fell for her. She offered me her hand in friendship whilst the clique of hyenas she kept around her barely hid their snickers. I was too stupid to realize what was going on. Too socially inept, as always, and too lonely. Too desperate for company.

Before I knew it, I was writing her assignments for her. She didn’t need that  - she’s smart - but she loved that I would. When she was tired after a soccer match, she’d make me rub her feet. And most of all, she’d make me buy things for her. All her meals, drinks at the bar, new clothes… whatever she wanted. Even drugs, I think. She’s always been into that scene.

I could have stopped whenever I wanted, I guess. But not really. I wasn’t strong enough, and we both knew it. She was in my head, completely and utterly. All my buttons were hers to push. I was intoxicated with Ivy Robinson. Probably, if you’d asked, I would have called her my best friend. Even as she took me to the brink of ruin.

God, I still remember that phone call I made back home, to my parents, asking for a little more allowance. Trying to laugh, trying to play off all my spending casually. Telling them I’d been going out a lot. Socializing. Enjoying myself. Overdoing it a bit. My folks didn’t question it too much. If I had to guess, I’d say they were just grateful their quiet, sheltered, weird, nerdy little girl was having a good time in college, not keeping herself cooped up alone like I always had in high school. They were inclined to be indulgent, but that didn’t mean my heart wasn’t pounding like crazy for the entire call.

Then, after our class graduated from college, it was all just over. Like it was a nightmare I was waking up from. I don’t think my heart has ever pounded like that since. Not even with my girlfriend.

Until here. Until now.

What do I look like, to her? I’m still so small everywhere. So mousy. I’m not athletic like her. Do I look just like I used to? Can she see how much I’ve grown? Can she?

“Why wouldn’t I be OK with that?” she’s asking me. She’s smiling.

What am I supposed to say? “We have some… personal history,” I settle on eventually.

She knew she was taking advantage of me. She always knew. I have no doubt about that.

But Ivy just shrugs. “Water under the bridge,” she replies easily. “I mean, unless you’re not OK with it.”

My heartbeat quickens even more. It’s an offhand comment, but I hear in it something more. A challenge: can I handle her?

Of course I can. All of that was ten years ago now. I’m a grown woman. I have a senior position here. I’m in charge.

“Don’t be silly,” I tell her, and smile. I feel good about being able to say it like that.

“Great!” Ivy beams back at me. “Do you have any more questions for me?”

“I don’t think so,” I reply, checking my notes. “Do you have any questions for us?”

She dials the job-winning smile up another notch. “Just one: when can I start?”

She’s so pretty. God, she’s so pretty. So much prettier than me.

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” I say stiffly. “There are many other candidates under consideration.”

But none of them are going to stick in my mind like Ivy does. I definitely shouldn’t hire her; that goes without saying. It’s just that there’s genuinely nobody more qualified, and that means if I don’t, I won’t be able to shake the feeling that it was because I’m afraid of her.

I’m not, I tell myself. That would be ridiculous. I know that, but I need to make sure Ivy knows it too.

Anyway, maybe I can take pleasure in it. In having her under my thumb for a change. Bossing her around. Treating her like shit. Making her fetch me coffee. Making her days long and miserable.

Yeah. That doesn’t sound too bad at all. It’s kind of embarrassing how good it sounds, actually. The thought fills me with a girlish thrill I haven’t known since college.

I stand up and offer Ivy my hand. “Well, in any case, you’ll hear from us soon.”

She nods, rises, smiles politely, and takes my hand. And as we shake, she has this look in her eyes like she already knows what I’ve decided.

***

It’s little surprise to me when, after just a few weeks, Ivy is the office darling. The queen bee. She’s still an assistant, nominally, but you wouldn’t think it from the way they all treat her. None of it challenges professional boundaries, of course. It’s simply that they like her, and they want her to like them.

How could they not? Ivy’s so striking. She’s tall, and the contrast between her dark skin and her platinum-bleached hair makes a statement of her confidence. And she dresses so well - never flashy, just magnificently stylish, in clothes that make little secret of her perfectly-maintained body. It makes me embarrassed of the way I dress each morning, grabbing one of my rote outfits from the closet as I hastily brush my mid-length, plain, brown hair into some semblance of neatness.

Her presence and her popularity itch at me. I was never outgoing in the first place, but now, more and more, I find myself retreating to my little corner office. When the door’s shut, nobody disturbs me. One of the privileges of being a manager. It’s like my little fortress. While I’m in here, I don’t have to think about Ivy. I don’t have to think about the contrast between us; about how damn boring my life is, while she’s chattering about weekend plans, or about how nobody looks adoringly at me the way they do at her. All I have to do in here is work.

And work. And work, and work, and work. More than ever. The company keeps asking for overtime - it’s a crunch period - and I say ‘yes’ more often than ‘no’, even though Luna wishes I wouldn’t. I’ve always been like this, a little. Working is one of the few things in life I’m truly good at. It’s nice to feel like I have a place. A purpose. An identity. Finding the right balance with that has always been a struggle, but Ivy being here has made it worse. I’m not exactly sure why. It’s not career ambition. I think maybe I’m trying to show her up, in a way. Prove I’m more hard-working. Come in earlier, stay later. Impress her with my dedication.

Not a good way to try and show her up, obviously. Out of sight in my office, behind a door. Just the only way I’ve got.

Anyway, it’s not all bad. There are small pleasures to having Ivy Robinson working as an assistant in my office. She’s polite. Deferential, even. She has to be. When I ask her to do things, I get to hear her say ‘Yes, Ms. Barnes’ in that coffee-smooth voice of hers, and it sends shivers down my spine. It makes me fantasize. And there’s such a thrill to the little ritual that plays out each morning, when she knocks at my door and waits to be told to enter so she can set down my coffee on my desk. That’s always the moment I’m glad I hired her. Ivy Robinson, my subordinate.

There’s that HR disaster waiting to happen.

We don’t talk much, outside of functional little work exchanges. It makes sense; I’m no conversationalist. Not until one evening, when she cracks open my door to tell me she’s going home. She catches me at the worst time, mid-phone call to my girlfriend.

“Again? Olive, you said you were almost done with this…”

“I know, I know. We were… are. Just… not quite yet.”

“They work you too hard, I swear.” A little laugh, mostly to conceal the fact that it’s not ‘them’ she’s unhappy with.

“Sorry, Luna,” I offer eventually.

“It’s OK. You… gotta do what you gotta do, right?”

“Yeah.”

“We should really do something romantic soon. Something intimate. It’s… it’s been a while.” It sounds like more of an ultimatum than she means it to. “I miss you.”

“We will,” I offer quickly. “Promise. I miss you too. All this will be over soon. I’m just… well, it’s a busy time of year.”

“Right.” Another pause. “Well, take care, OK?”

“You too.” I hesitate. “Bye.”

“Bye.”

She hangs up. I sigh - and then see who’s standing in my doorway. I freeze. I wonder how much she overheard. 

“I was just about to head home,” Ivy says, entirely professionally. “Working late again, Ms. Barnes?”

“Yeah,” I reply, and end up yawning my way through the word, embarrassingly.

“Oh no.” Ivy frowns. “You work too hard, Olive.”

I’m instantly suspicious, but she sounds so genuine in her sympathy. It seduces me. “I know, I know. I really do.”

“Everyone’s always talking about it.” Now it’s more than an exchange. It’s a conversation. Ivy takes a step into my office. Into my territory. “You’re the most dedicated worker here!”

My heart skips a beat. Is that respect I hear in her voice? Is Ivy Robinson impressed with me? I dare to hope. “Well, I… the higher-ups are depending on me. You know how it is.”

“Of course.” Ivy carefully closes the door behind her. “It’s what I expected, when I started working here! I remember you telling me about that. I was pretty surprised when it turned out to be just another email job.”

I frown. “What do you mean?”

“Oh, I just mean… sure, they always put out those calls for overtime,” Ivy says casually, stepping over toward my desk. “But it’s not like they’re compulsory. Hardly anyone takes them up, except you.”

“Maybe everybody else should start considering it,” I tell her tersely.

“Point taken,” she admits with a laugh. “It just makes me wonder why, you know?”

“I’m a team player, Ivy. A hard worker.” I fold my arms. I can’t resist taking a jab. “Maybe that’s why you’re out there on the floor, and I’m in here with the nice office.”

It doesn’t seem to land. Ivy ignores it. “A hard worker,” she mulls. “A team player. Yeah. Absolutely. Takes me back to college. All those long nights you spent out in the library.”

Doing Ivy’s assignments. That part remains unsaid. I start trembling. It’s been ten years, but suddenly it doesn’t feel like it at all.

“Is this import-“

I start to rebuke her, but then she perches on the edge of my desk, and in doing so, knocks over my stationary. Shifts a few papers, too. She lets out a little ‘oops’, but the look on her face says it’s no big deal.

But it is. At once, it starts to itch at me. My desk is painstakingly arranged. Every paper, every pen, every computer peripheral in its place. It’s how I like it. How I need it. And now it’s all wrong. Everything scattered and strewn. Pencils rolling haphazardly around.

It’s no big deal - not to her, and I wish it wasn’t to me either. I’m instantly upset by the unfairness of it. Why does it have to throw me off this bad?

“Honestly,” Ivy drawls, “it’s like you can’t help yourself! You’re not saving up for something big, are you?”

“No,” I blurt out in reply, before I can stop myself indulging her. Her presence is overbearing. Perched on my desk, she looms over me.

An apology is on the tip of my tongue. Why? Why do I want to say sorry? What would I even be apologizing for? For… myself?

“Didn’t think so,” she says. Her amusement is plain. “Wild. It made sense back then. I mean, it’s not like you had anything else to make time for, right? But now you have a girlfriend waiting for you at home. That’s a little sad, Olive.”

“This… this is inappropriate,” I tell her quietly, just barely managing to keep my voice measured. Even saying that is a gargantuan effort. Ivy’s attention is so potent. I can’t quite hate it, even when it’s too much, and her slight but palpable mockery is all it takes to make my head spin.

“I didn’t mean it like that!” Ivy laughs and holds up her hands. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful! Thanks to you pulling these crazy hours, the rest of us get to go home nice and early. You’re doing me a favor.”

“I am?” I squeak. “R-right.”

I didn’t think about it like that. But now I certainly am, and I know instantly I won’t be able to think of it any other way. Why did she have to put it like that? Why did she have to ruin it all for me?

Oh no. It’s happening again, isn’t it? It’s just like before. Nothing’s changed.

“Which, I mean, again, just like college,” Ivy remarks. She smiles. I twitch. I’m trying to marshal my thoughts, but it’s so hard. “Hey, why don’t we go out again sometime? It’ll be like old times. You clearly need to blow off some steam. Maybe spend some of all this overtime pay on some drinks and-“

“Ms. Robinson!” I yell abruptly, bolting to my feet. Ivy looks startled. I’m startled too; I didn’t mean to get angry like this. “This is inappropriate!”

I was this close to saying ‘yes’ to her. That’s what spurred me into action. That old instinct is rusty, perhaps, but it’s still there, oh yes, and everything Ivy said was helping to grease it up. I couldn’t take another word out of her. I’d break.

But that would be unbearable. It would make me the worst, irrecoverably. I’d never be able to forgive myself, and all the anger I’ve ever felt toward Ivy Robinson rose like a tide to save me.

Watching Ivy jump up and flinch back is like a red rag to a bull. I have to give everything not to let it all flow out of me. Everything I’ve been bottling up all these years. That little hint of fear in her face is the ultimate intoxicant. The only way I can keep control is by promising myself that there’s still more satisfaction to be found in holding the high ground.

“I am your superior,” I tell her sternly. I’ll make her listen. “You are my subordinate. I suggest you take that under consideration when you decide how to speak to me.”

“Woah.” Ivy throws up her hands. There’s still a kind of smirk on her face. I want to wipe it off. “It’s just a little reminiscing, that’s all! I didn’t mean anything by-“

“Enough!” I snap. “Yes, Ivy, you did. We both know it. Well, guess what? This isn’t college anymore. Grow up. I have.”

There’s a sudden, terrible darkening of Ivy’s face. It cuts through my anger. I’ve seen that look before. It’s the one she gets whenever she hears ‘no’.

“Be careful, Olive,” Ivy warns, her voice low, silky. “Why don’t you lower your voice? You wouldn’t want anyone to overhear us, would you?”

She’s wrong. I don’t care. Let them all hear. I want them to hear this bully getting put in her place. “That’s Ms. Barnes to you, Ivy. And if I have to remind you again, you’ll be looking for another job.”

Ivy stares daggers at me. I’m terrible with eye contact, but just this once, I push myself to my limit. I stare back at her, even though it makes me twitch a little.

When she blinks, I feel like a god.

“Of course.” Ivy nods her head submissively. “I’m sorry, Ms. Barnes.”

I want to smile and cheer and rub it in her face. Instead, I just keep staring. “Now get out.”

With that, I’m treated to the sight of the tall, busty, muscular, beautiful Ivy Robinson turning her back and fleeing out of my office. I can all but see the tail between her legs. Once she closes the door behind her, like she knows I want, the smile comes to my face. No, more than just a smile. A giddy, stupid, girlish grin I don’t think I’ve ever felt before. My hands are shaking up and down, overcome with the energy of the moment. I can’t stand still.

I did it. I beat her. I won.

Nothing could be more vindicating. Suddenly every single decision that led me here feels like the thread of destiny. It’s perfect. All of it.

And its glow keeps me warm even as I sit back down, fix my desk, and prepare myself for the long, lonely night ahead.

By the next morning, the glow has faded and curdled into trepidation. I have to see Ivy again. My rattled nerves tell me that she’ll have found some way to rally herself. To turn the tables once more, in the little psychological war between us. I’m far from best prepared for it. In the end, I crawled home for barely six hours of meager sleep. I barely got to speak to Luna.

When Ivy does make her appearance - not early, but certainly not late - my fears are banished. She’s dressed a touch more modestly than usual - black slacks, a plain blouse that buttons up very high - and she knocks on my door so meekly I don’t realize it’s her at first.

“Good morning, Ms. Barnes,” she says politely. “Your morning coffee.”

“Thank you.”

My eyes widen slightly as she sets it carefully down on the corner of my desk. It’s not the usual stuff from the shitty machine in the break room. I don’t recognize the cup, but the aroma tells me that it’s good. Pricey, I have to imagine.

“I thought you deserved something a bit nicer than instant,” Ivy says in answer to my questioning look. “Since you’ve been working so hard.”

Nothing on earth could keep my face from lighting up. At once, I get it: this is a peace offering. No, better. It’s tribute. She wants to get on my good side.

And why shouldn’t she? I’m Ivy’s boss. I gave her this job, and I can take it away. She’s in the palm of my hand. My hand. After all this time. Fuck, it feels better than I’d ever imagined.

Ivy’s watching me expectantly, and I don’t even mind that she’s seeing me with such a stupid, goofy grin on my face. Like I’m a kid opening her birthday presents while all her friends have to sit at the table and watch. Her watching is fine by me. I want to savor the moment, and I want her to marinate in it. So, I reach for the cup and drink. I hope Ivy will look relieved when she sees I’m enjoying it.

The flavor is wrong. It doesn’t match the aroma. The coffee is pleasant, but chasing on its heels is an aftertaste that’s faintly but unpleasantly chemical. Some kind of artificial sweetener? There’s no way it’s deliberate. If Ivy Robinson is lowering herself to bringing me a shitty cup of coffee as petty revenge, I’ve won by even more than I’d thought. Maybe it’s an acquired taste. In any case, it’s not that bad, and I really do need the caffeine. I drink more.

“How do you like it?” Ivy asks after a moment.

“It’s good,” I reply at first, reflexively, but the chemical taste is sticking in my mouth. I frown. Maybe I should just send her to get something from the machine. “It’s a bit…”

I look down at the cup and see two of them.

Two… cups?

No.

Double vision?

Why does it take me so long to think of that?

I’m so slow.

But then Ivy steps up to my desk, and she’s not slow at all. She’s quick and pretty and tall, taller than ever, and strong, and I can’t tell if there’s two of her, or five, or a dozen, or a hundred.

“Drink up, Olive,” she instructs.

And I do. I don’t want to, but I do. Ivy’s command is a weight on my back, one so much greater than I can bear. I sink to it. I bring the cup to my lips, slowly and clumsily, and slurp more of the coffee.

“Why does it taste like that?” I ask absently.

Why did I ask something so stupid?

There are a dozen more pressing questions I should be asking, but when I reach out for one, it slips through my fingers. Only the dull chemical taste in my mouth remains.

Stupid.

All the same, I look blearily up at Ivy for an explanation.

“Because it’s drugged,” Ivy tells me. “I put something in it on the way here. Something I got from a friend of a friend. I don’t think it has a street name yet. But it’s very strong.”

It’s… strong?

No, wait.

That’s not the important part.

But it’s so hard to tell, when everyone she’s saying is twinned too.

Echoing itself. Layering. Obliterating all sense.

“D… drugged?” I manage. The words ooze from my mouth.

I say them before I even remember what that means.

“Yeah.” Ivy is standing right next to me now. Above me. I look up, and the ceiling light behind her head forms a halo. It hurts to look at. “More specifically, you’re being put in a nice, calm, suggestible state. People have been using this to relax, but I have my own ideas about the kind of fun we can have with it.”

“Fun…” I echo dumbly. “R-relax?”

I smile, at first. That sounds nice.

Then I pull Ivy’s words apart, and the rest catches up with me.

“Sug… suggestible?” It takes two tries. The first time, my mouth ends up mangling the word. It’s like I’m drunk.

“That’s right. You know what that means, don’t you?” Condescension drips like overflowing venom from Ivy’s perfect lips. Yesterday, that would have made me angry. Today, it just makes me feel small. “It’s like… it’s like your mind is the kind of foam that holds its shape perfectly when you press into it. You know?”

Like… foam? I’m like foam?

I shake my head. Analogies are beyond me now.

Why? Why am I so stupid?

It must be the coffee. The drug.

That’s right. I’m drugged. Ivy drugged me. I almost forgot.

She laughs at my plight. “Don’t worry about it,” she says. That’s all it takes to quiet my mind. I can’t go against her. “You’ll see, soon enough. See, we need to have a little chat, Olive.”

I’m drugged. That thought is finally starting to stick.

That’s bad, right?

Out of the corner of my eye, I can see the door. It’s closed. Ivy must have closed it.

Is anyone coming to help me?

No. No way.

I could call out. Couldn’t I?

No. I can’t muster the will.

“I did a lot of thinking after I went home last night,” Ivy explains. Her voice isn’t loud, but it feels loud. Inside my head, it’s a cavernous, deafening sound. “About what we were talking about, Olive. Until you cut me off. That was very rude of you. Very rude.”

She says that with singular emphasis - and it hits me like a wave.

Rude. Very rude.

I cringe at myself as that conviction takes form.

I was rude. I shouldn’t be rude.

My wet lips shiver as they strain to form an apology. Ivy’s curl upwards. She can see the effect she’s having on me.

“All I was really getting at was: where’s the fun in your life, Olive?” Ivy asks. “The joy? The spark? When I took this job, I was curious to see how you’d turned out. But what’s there to see? You overwork yourself, day after day, in here, at this boring office job. You barely talk to anyone. You have a girlfriend at home that you barely see. I’d have guessed a lot of things for you, but not that you’d wind up this pathetic.”

I cringe and shrink back. Not from her words; no, when she speaks quickly like that, it’s all just meaningless sound.

I shrink from her tone. That serrated contempt that bites deep into me. I have no defense against it. My ego has been broken open. Ivy is pouring into it.

Her last word, though. That resounds.

Pathetic.

I whimper. Pathetic. It’s what I am.

“At first, I was confused,” Ivy goes on. “What makes you live like this, Olive? What makes you tick? But then I figured it out.”

I’m gasping like a fish.

She figured it out.

Figured… what?

Me?

Suddenly, it’s like I’m barely here. Like I have no substance at all. Ivy can see right through me.

“Oh, don’t look so scared,” Ivy admonishes. “I’m gonna help you out. We’re old friends, right? And that’s just what friends do.”

Friends. Yes.

I relax. We’re friends.

And she’ll… help? That’s so kind.

I soften. I exhale. The part of me that would normally see how insincere Ivy is has been smothered by her drug. Instead, I’m filled with naive, childlike gratitude.

Oh. That’s right. I’ve been drugged. She drugged me. I almost forgot.

“Thank you, Ivy,” I sigh fondly.

She laughs a little at that. “First things first,” Ivy says, fixing her gaze on me. “Let’s get something very important straight: I am superior to you, Olive.”

Her pronouncement is slow. Deliberate. She’s letting me drink in every word. Letting me absorb their meaning. Stew in their tremendous force.

Superior?

I feel it. Right away. Superior. Inferior. Just look at us. Look at her. So pretty, so tall, so strong. It’s only natural.

It certainly comes naturally to me.

“Y-you’re…” I babble. “S-superior?”

Ivy repeats it. Her words are like nails into my skull. “I am superior to you.”

Superior.

What does that mean?

It’s like something someone would say as a joke. But Ivy isn’t joking. And since she’s so completely and utterly sincere, my mind starts grappling with the task of absorbing her words as my new truth.

Superior. It’s such a big word. So encapsulating. My mind starts to race with the implications.

It’s one thing for someone to be better than you at something, or higher up in the company, or something like that. But superior? That’s something greater. It transcends any particulars. She is simply superior, and I am simply inferior. That’s a fixed point in our lives now. A guiding star. Something I can always look to. Something I can always know.

That way of thinking comes so easily for me. It’s not just the drug. It’s the fact that it’s just like riding a bicycle. It’s an old groove, easy to find once more, despite all the intervening years.

Superior. Inferior.

But then I learn that I’m not defenseless. Not quite. There it is again. That anger. It might not be enough to throw off the drug, but it proves to be enough to pierce the soporific veil it’s put over me. At least for a moment.

I can’t go back to that. To being inferior. I can’t.

“N-no,” I bleat. “I’m n-not.”

Ivy raises an eyebrow. “You’re not? Not what?”

“Not…” my voice trembles. Fighting her is so hard. “N-not inferior.”

Ivy laughs again, this time incredulously. Like my defiance impresses her. But she refuses me even a moment of indulgence.

“Olive,” she sings, “look at me, babe.”

I can’t resist two thoughts at once, so I look right at her, as close as I dare. Long practice has taught me how to fix my gaze just below someone’s eyes, sparing me direct contact.

“No, no, no,” Ivy chides. “Look at me. Properly.”

All of a sudden, her hand is on my chin. She grips it mercilessly. Her strength feels infinite as, between that and her words, she compels me to look directly into her eyes.

I start twitching. I’m not good with this. I’m really not good with this. And she knows it.

“You see?” Ivy coos, and her words are as soft as silk, threads pulling tight around me. “You can’t even look me in the eye. Can you?”

I can’t.

She relaxes her grip enough to let me shake my head. Maybe she makes me shake it. I can’t tell.

“Can’t even look a woman like me in the eye,” Ivy mocks. “How can you say you’re not inferior?”

How can I?

I…

Can’t. The words won’t come.

Her simple, brute demonstration has crushed whatever flickering spark of resistance had briefly flared. I could summon it again, but then I’d have to keep looking. I can’t handle that. It’s already unbearable. Her eyes are too sharp. They pierce me too deep.

“You can’t,” Ivy tells me. It’s a fact. More true than ever, now that it’s passed her lips. “Say it.”

“I can’t,” I repeat dully.

She rolls her eyes. “Not that, idiot. That I’m superior.”

“Oh.” My head spins briefly as I reel from my mistake. I’m an idiot. “You’re superior.”

She’s superior.

Instantly, it’s worse

Ivy was already taller, but now she towers over me. She was already hotter and stronger, but now she’s a goddess. The light behind her head was already bright; now it’s blinding, and it’s inside her, in her eyes and pouring out of her mouth as she speaks.

I’m lost to it.

“And…” she prompts, waiting for me to make the connection, before she realizes I’m way too fucked up for that. “You’re inferior.”

I nod. Even I can figure that out.

“I’m inferior,” I echo.

I am. It’s true.

I’m inferior.

Within an instant, that’s etched into every fiber of my being. Only, wasn’t it already? Wasn’t it always? When Ivy tells me that, it’s like connecting the last bit of a circuit. The Christmas tree inside me is lighting up.

Yes. I’m inferior.

And it’s so… comfortable.

How many times have I said that to myself over the years, inside my head or at the mirror? But now it’s more real than ever. Now there’s no doubt about it.

I’m inferior.

I’m inferior to Ivy Robinson.

She’s the one who puts me in my place.

“I’m taller,” Ivy pronounces slowly. Heavily. Letting each quality sink in. “Stronger. Hotter. Smarter. More confident. More sociable. More competent. More dominant. Superior.”

They build and build. My eyes widen, even though it hurts. They’re full of awe.

Stronger. Hotter. Smarter. Superior.

“Yes,” I whimper, because what else can do I for such a superior woman but agree? “Yes.”

“I’m so glad you get it.” Ivy releases me and turns away. Finally, I can breathe a little easier. Facing her is like being in the eye of the storm. I blink my eyes, grateful - pathetically grateful - for the respite. “Because that’s the key, really. To everything about you.”

That’s the key?

What is?

I don’t understand. It must be because I’m so inferior.

So stupid.

But that’s OK. I know Ivy will enlighten me.

“It’s like…” she pauses, considering, surely, how best to dumb down the concept for someone like me. “It’s like how, at a sports game, there are players and there are spectators. Both of them are having fun, but only players get to do. Spectators just get to watch. That’s you, Olive. You’re a spectator.”

Naturally, I nod. My mind is like the desert soil. Cracked, dry, parched. Eager to drink deep of whatever it’s fed. I absorb it all.

A spectator.

I just get to watch.

That’s right. That makes sense. I’m inferior, after all.

It hurts too, of course. What Ivy tells me digs into a wound that, in a way, has always been open. Since college, since high school, since before. But that doesn’t mean I’m resisting. My resistance has already been broken.

“That’s how you were in college, after all,” Ivy goes on. “My little spectator. Always watching. Always hanging on. Living vicariously, through me - because that’s simply the best you can do. That was exactly where you belonged.”

Exactly where I belonged.

I’m caught up in the terrible flow of her words now. It’s getting easier to follow, as my fragile self-esteem buckles and bends to Ivy’s will.

It’s where I belonged. Her spectator.

The notion feels so poisonously right. Didn’t I always enjoy it, a little? Ivy bullied me, yes, but there was a certain pleasure in being her hanger-on. I loved the little kiss of glamor it gave me. Made me seem progressive, too. And like there was more to me than just being some bookish, anti-social nerd.

I can’t tell if that’s the drug talking, or just me.

But if it wasn’t true before, it is now. My memories are already softening in their haste to conform to Ivy’s decrees. In my mind’s eye, those college days are already turning rosy and warm as a sickly kind of comfort colors them.

Yes, it was a shame that I couldn’t be a player. Couldn’t be like Ivy.

But at least she let me watch.

It’s where I belonged.

“Poor thing.” The faux-sympathy in Ivy’s voice makes me feel smaller still. “You’ve been lost without me, haven’t you? But don’t worry. I’m here now. I’ll give you something to latch on to.”

To latch on to.

It makes sense. That’s just what I need. A spectator like me. I need to live through Ivy.

I’m so grateful.

“I’m going to help you enjoy life,” Ivy drawls. Her face twists gleefully. “But I’m going to do it by taking away everything you have. Everything you’re too pathetic to enjoy properly by yourself. And you’re going to thank me for it.”

“Thank you,” I whisper at once.

Of course I’ll thank her.

I’d do anything for Ivy. My thanks are the least I have to give.

There’s a pit in my stomach, put there by insult piled atop insult, but a growing sense of anticipation takes the edge off the pain. I can’t wait for what Ivy’s going to do.

“Let me see.” Ivy glances around my office. She’s wondering where to start. “I wonder how many nights you spend in here. Working hard, when you could be doing anything else instead - if you weren’t such a loser. It sounds miserable. But I guess you must have a little fun when nobody else is watching, right?”

I must?

I frown, confused. I want to say yes, to please her, but my sluggish mind can’t grasp what she’s referring to.

“Oh, you know.” Ivy laughs at my baffled look. “I can just picture you sitting behind your desk, late at night, hand shoved down your boring panties.”

Shoved down my panties?

What does that mean?

Once it hits me, I blush deep. I really do want to agree with her, but telling the truth to my superior seems more important.

“N-no!” I pant. “I… never… I couldn’t!”

Ivy snorts mockingly. “Guess a private office is wasted on you, then. Time to start, Olive. Right now.”

"W-what?”

My blush deepens as I’m stained through with shame at the very thought, but that doesn’t stop my hand from twitching downward, guided by Ivy’s command. She is utterly in control of me.

“Go on,” Ivy urges. “Do it. Touch yourself.”

The way she looks at me is at once lurid and dispassionate. It’s the way you’d stare at a particularly interesting bug before you swat it away. Those eyes leave me no room to squirm out of this. Already, my hands are fumbling clumsily with the hem of my pants.

But it doesn’t make sense.

There’s something missing.

“But…” I’m not so much protesting as questioning. “But, what…”

That’s it. I’m not aroused. That’s why this is so strange.

Ivy senses it at once. And she grins at me as she says: “Just look at me.”

It’s simultaneously a command and an explanation. She wants me to look at her, and so I do. But my chemically-shattered brain takes it another way.

Look at her.

Ivy is pretty. Hot. Tall. Strong. Superior.

No wonder I’m touching myself.

Now the arousal comes. I find that I’m wet and desperately sensitive. It’s been a long time since I’ve had any gratification in that department. Longer than I’d care to admit. Sex just isn’t a big part of my life. I’ve never had much of a sex drive.

But I sure do now.

Within moments, I’m frantically rubbing at myself, letting out choked gasps of pleasure as my back arches. Maybe it’s the drug. Maybe that’s why this is so intense.

Or maybe it’s just her.

I’m looking at Ivy the way I’ve never looked at another woman before, with the shameless, rabid gaze of a pervert. My bulging, bloodshot eyes flick back and forth across her body, seeking out details to make the object of my lust.

Her tits. Her waist. Her ass. Her face, her lips, her tongue. Her legs. Even her height, her strength, her makeup. All of it dazzles me. All of it arouses me like nothing ever has. I can feel the rabid heat Ivy’s inflicted on me dumbing me down. Making my thoughts lewd and coarse. Warping me to fit her shape.

“See?” Ivy says casually. “This is what I do to you.”

This is what she does to me.

That makes sense, doesn’t it? She’s so superior to me. Every part of her I look at isn’t just a source of arousal. It’s a point of comparison. And everywhere, I come up short.

It’s a double-edged sword. But the gnawing insecurity just spurs me on.

This is right. This is how I belong. A spectator. Inferior.

“Yeah.” Ivy sighs fondly. Pleased with her handiwork. “This is so you, Olive. Locked up in your office, getting yourself off under your desk, while everyone else is out having fun. I bet you do it all the time.”

I don’t - but I do now. Her words make it a part of my being.

I nod furiously.

“You know, there’s something else about this drug I should probably mention,” Ivy adds. “It makes it very, very easy to form psychological connections. To make sure your wires get crossed, so to speak. Especially when there’s a source of pleasure involved.”

Now that I’m busy fucking myself stupid, it takes me even longer to process that. Once I do, I realize the danger. I should stop. Right now.

I can’t.

She hasn’t told me to stop.

It feels too good.

“I’m actually priming you for it just by telling you that,” Ivy throws out. “And with that in mind, since we’ve established that you can’t get any real use out of all that overtime pay you’re earning, let’s give you a new way to enjoy it.”

Ivy reaches for my phone, set down on my desk. She holds it up to my face, letting the recognition software unlock it. She starts scrolling through apps. She finds what she’s looking for. She’s tapping the screen. Typing.

I don’t stop her. I don’t even consider it. This is my place. Watching. A woman like Ivy can do whatever she wants.

“Here.” After a moment, Ivy shows me my phone with a flourish. “This is what you’re going to do.”

It takes a long moment for my eyes to focus on the screen, especially with my fingers still in my cunt. Once they do, I see that it’s my payment app and that Ivy has set up a transaction from my account to hers. To send her my money.

And the sum is eye-watering. In the hundreds.

Disobeying Ivy is unthinkable, but going through with this is just as impossible to conceive of. How many hours of hard, boring, thankless work does that sum of money represent? Admittedly, it’s not set aside for anything in particular, but seeing my bank balance grow and grow has always been a source of satisfaction. It’s made it all make sense - all my hard work, all the overtime.

If I just give it to Ivy, just because she tells me to, then what was it all for?

“Don’t worry,” she promises. “I’ll spend it better than you could.”

I shiver.

That’s right. She’ll spend it better.

She’s superior.

“And this is just the first installment,” Ivy adds. “You’re going to start putting in even more overtime from now on.” She licks her lips. “Go ahead. Press it.”

The app needs my touch to authenticate the transaction. My fingerprint. A security measure. My free hand is already reaching out, helpless to fight Ivy’s superior will.

My other hand is, of course, still buried between my legs. Any protests I might hope to make, any questions I might hope to ask, all of them dissolve into pathetic moaning. The yawning anxiety I feel about giving Ivy all my money melds with my arousal, becoming something greater than either individual emotion. Something sharp-edged that bites deep into my psyche, making my heart pound and pump me full of adrenaline. Something that fills me with a thrill I haven’t known since college.

To my drug-addled mind, it’s confirmation.

Ivy, my new god, is in her heaven. All is right with the world.

And so I smile as I reach out and press my quivering fingertip to the touchscreen.

In an instant, the transaction is done. It cannot be undone. All that money, gone. Given. Tributed.

To her. To Ivy.

My stomach drops. I feel like I’m in freefall. The pleasure has never been greater. My fingers are furious as they plunge in and out of my cunt. When I look at Ivy, I see stars.

Ivy checks the phone screen and grins. I can already see that this isn’t satisfaction, for her. It’s not the end. This is just the beginning. Then she looks at me and spits the command that seals my fate, searing my newly-formed fetish for financial domination into my every brain cell.

“Cum.”

—

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“You win, Leinth. Well done.”

The five sweetest words in all the world. The words for which Leinth Aritimis would kill and die. The words around which she has rebuilt herself. Pursuit of them has driven her into her Genetor’s cockpit again and again, has made her fight harder and crueler than she ever did when the lives of her comrades were on the line. Leinth does not have comrades anymore. She has her Handler and she has Sartha, her packmate. She has the game that they play. Winning means exaltation. Losing means the pain she deserves, and the forgiveness that follows. Nothing else matters.

“You win, Leinth. Well done.”

How blissful those words sounded. How hollow they became.

As soon as Sartha was gone, it went sour. For a few deluded days, Leinth luxuriated in the fantasy that she might take her place as Handler’s beloved. As Her most faithful. Without Sartha to show her up, why shouldn’t she enjoy victory after victory—and the ensuing rewards?

Stupid. Naive. It should have been obvious. Winning only counts if there’s real competition.

Without Sartha, winning was meaningless. Winning was numb. Oh, Handler still offered her those sweet words—but winning didn’t warm her the way it should. Even the reward of her boot brought little satisfaction. Leinth has now realized: winning isn’t enough. She needs to be better. She needs to put that so-called hero of hers in her place. Without Sartha, it was all empty.

Worse, without Sartha, Leinth was left alone to bear all the groping hands and ravenous mouths of the Imperial pilots she fights alongside. They demand satisfaction. They demand to humiliate her. It doesn’t matter if Leinth is a winner; if there’s no loser for them to fuck, Leinth must play the role. An indignity she’s familiar with, certainly, but that didn’t make it burn any less.

Worst of all, even from afar, Sartha was the apple of Handler’s eye. Leinth can tell. She is infinitely attentive to Her every mood. While she would not say Handler has been neglectful of her—not that, never that—it’s undeniable that Her attention was elsewhere. Not on the other candidates filling the kennels’ cells. Not on the strange projects Her Imperial masters have assigned to Her. Certainly not on Leinth. She gave each of them their proper time, of course—but She took Her greatest pleasure in reviewing Her files on Sartha and her rescuer, in dissecting Her sparse communications with them, and in refining Her plans for what came next. Even when there’s nobody at Her side but Leinth, Leinth is not Her favorite.

And there was nothing she could do about it. Nothing but pour out all her misery and bitterness into whatever foes Handler sent her against, on far-flung battlefields carefully chosen to keep her out of the way of Handler’s plans. There, Leinth fought like a demon. She has honed her soul into a sharp, pointed thing, without room for hesitation or regret. It grows thinner and sharper with each sortie, and she is a better pilot than ever. Desperation has always lent Leinth strength, and it turns out that desperation to please is a better ally than desperation to save ever was. Unburdened from the need to act as a shield to others, Leinth can unleash Genetor’s true potential. It’s like a landslide: unstoppable, devastating, and three times faster than anyone believes possible. Leinth wields her colossal mech suit with a rare deftness, and she has long since lost count of the enemy machines that have been crushed beneath its feet.

But it was not enough. It’s never enough.

When Leinth was briefed on the assault on Leukon Base, she thought her moment had finally come. When she held that irritating red peacock of a mech in Genetor’s grasp and broke its wings, she felt true victory at hand. Sartha might be Handler’s favorite—but Leinth brought Sartha home. Shouldn’t that count for something? Surely with Sartha back, the old system would reassert itself—but with Leinth on top. She would receive the untainted blessing of Handler’s boot, and Sartha the role of Imperial stress relief.

Still so stupid. Still so naive. No such good fortune, of course. Sartha returned as much the golden girl as she left. Handler lavished attention upon her during her extensive reconditioning, and much of Her remaining time was spent with the other prisoner. The one Leinth quite literally dragged back to base in ignominy. And for Leinth herself?

Nothing. No reward. No special favor. With Sartha back, she’s even stopped winning. She is second best, once again.

Two wolves gnaw on the rotted strings in Leinth’s heart. One is violently angry. Not with Handler—never with Her—but with Sartha. It’s all her fault, isn’t it? It’s her fault for leaving, and her fault for coming back. Her fault for being so damn perfect all the time. Her fault for leading Leinth astray and taking her place in the spotlight. Somehow, deep down, Leinth knows that everything has always been Sartha’s fault. If only she could kick her like the dog she is.

The other is violently guilty instead. It is true, after all, that Sartha is better than Leinth. As a pilot, as a hero. If only Leinth could be so perfect—but she isn’t. She’s riven through with faults and imperfections. If only she could fix them. If only she could reach inside herself and carve them all away, one by one, until she’s as sleek and perfect as Sartha Thrace. But since she can’t, the punishment and the neglect is only right. It’s what she deserves. It’s what Leinth Aritimis always deserves.

Snarling and snapping at each other over every meager scrap of her soul, the beasts consume Leinth utterly. Their struggle keeps her preoccupied during the long spans of barren time between sorties. There are other distractions too, of course. Meals. Tests. Training exercises. Neuro-conditional maintenance. But those only eat up so much of the day. The rest of the time, Leinth sits patiently in the Kennels. She listens to Handler’s music: songs from the long-dead past, played on an old, crackling player. The music puts her into a stupor that keeps boredom and forbidden thoughts at bay. Listening to that music, Leinth can sit for hours and hours as identical days pass by in a blur, thinking of nothing at all, and letting her two wolves eat her heart until there’s nothing left.

Then one day Kione Monax comes waltzing into the rec room.

Leinth knows of the mercenary by combat and reputation but It’s the first time she’s seen her in the flesh, save for a few glimpses from across the hangar bay as they dismounted after Leukon. Then she had seemed so ashen and haggard, no better than a ghost. The Kione that Leinth sees now is both more and less. It’s clear that Kione takes a lazy, indulgent pleasure in the way her dark coat streams out behind her as she walks—and in the contrast between the black of its leather and the crimson of her jumpsuit, and in the menace commanded by that handler’s pin she wears so insolently on her collar. She relishes her power and her status. Her every step is an arrogant peacock’s strut, but she reminds Leinth more of some little poisonous creature, her bright colors and bold manner the aposematic warning of a danger that is all too real. Like Leinth, Kione has been whittled away to a fine point, sharp and deadly—but accordingly, there is a certain thinness to her being. A shallowness. Perhaps only somebody who has been dismantled like Leinth has could see it. Perhaps Kione’s keen awareness of it is why she makes such a performance of herself.

“Wow,” Kione snorts as she looks around the room and begins laughing. “You really do live like this. Amazing.”

She’s talking to Leinth, it seems. There’s nobody else here. Leinth can’t figure out what’s so funny, though. “Huh?” she says, annoyed.

“You don’t see it?” Kione snorts again, a decidedly ugly sound. “You can’t! She really did a number on you.”

“What are you talking about?” Leinth snaps.

“These crappy, sheet metal walls?” Kione runs a hand over the nearest one. “The shitty lights? All the old Thrace propaganda posters? Hell, it’s just like Leukon!” She turns to leer at Leinth, an awful, slouching smirk on her face. “They built you your own fake little rebel barracks.”

“That’s not... it’s...” Leinth frowns. Her head starts to throb. It’s just a normal room. A normal barracks. Isn’t it? “What are you talking about?”

“Oh, perfect,” Kione purrs sadistically. “You can’t even think about it, can you?”

A little whimper escapes Leinth’s throat. Of course she can—unless she can’t. There are some things she isn’t supposed to think about. Leinth knows that. She always keeps them out of her mind. She’s always on her best behavior. Is this one of those things? Leinth isn’t sure. It’s just a normal room. Right? Never mind that the other rooms on the base are nothing like it. It’s a perfectly normal room.

“Amazing,” Kione wolf-whistles appreciatively. “A whole room like this, just to keep you from ever thinking about what side you’re really on.”

Something within Leinth begins to froth over. Who does this bitch think she is? Waltzing in here in a uniform she doesn’t deserve, talking to Leinth that way? Kione might outrank her, but they’re way beyond military protocol. Leinth doesn’t have to take this lying down.

“And what about what side you’re on?” Leinth spits viciously. “Merc.”

More laughter, maddeningly. “Oh, this is gonna be good!” Kione snorts. “Come on, then. Let me have it. Tell me how you really feel, Leinth Aritimis.”

Leinth stands up and cracks her neck. Nothing would give her greater pleasure.

“Mercenaries like you,” she growls, “are nothing more than gods damned parasites. Leeches, looking to drain whoever’s got the most to give—or whoever can’t say no.” More laughter. That does nothing but piss Leinth off even more. “Your type always has a nose for desperation. Always turning up when we can’t quite afford to turn you away. And what does it cost? Oh, just all the precious resources we’ve spent months on end painstakingly salvaging and stockpiling. Every merc is offering the same deal: win the battle, lose the war. Disgusting.”

Kione strikes a little pose, all but cackling with mirth. “Yeah. I’m disgusting. Sure.”

“You’re the worst of them!” Leinth snarls. “A mercenary and a traitor! What’s the matter with you? The money wasn’t enough? You took Sartha away, and now you’re dressed like… like that. You’re nothing like Her! You’re just a fucking traitor.”

Still, Kione laughs. She seems to swell in stature with each piece of malice Leinth hurls at her, until she snags on a particularly juicy morsel to toss back into Leinth’s face.

“A traitor?” Kione replies with distinct pleasure. “And who exactly did I betray, hm?”

“Us!” Leinth exclaims. It’s obvious. “The r-“

She freezes. A short leash snapping taut. Her own tongue threatens to choke her. There it is. One of those things she cannot allow herself to think.

“What’s the matter?” Kione twists the knife, her face leering larger and closer. “Hound got your tongue?”

“Shut up!” Leinth spits, but she can’t summon the venom. She finds herself sweating feverishly.

“See, it’s funny for you to lecture me about sides and allegiances,” Kione purrs. “You don’t know the first thing about what side you’re on. You don’t know anything about yourself. But I do.”

Leinth’s head feels like it’s splitting in two. She’d give anything for Kione to stop talking right now.

“Asset Aritimis’s fixation on Asset Thrace has remained a key psychological pillar throughout her reconditioning,” Kione quotes. “Attempts to reconcile her admiration for Thrace with her disappointment at Thrace’s current status have been artificially stunted. Asset’s natural predisposition for feelings of guilt and responsibility have been successfully grafted to her self-conception as a responsible party in Thrace’s psychological breakdown. Her guilt complex now forms a stable equilibrium with her desire for cathartic anger-release. Recommended ego levers: forgiveness, superiority, guilt complex reconfirmation, religious upbringing, gender euphoria—see other transgender subjects.” Kione trails off as she finishes quoting. “See? I know you inside and out.”

“Shut up,” Leinth whimpers. Kione words keep making her head throb anew. Her mind contorts itself desperately to try to erase the forbidden knowledge it has just received, leaving Leinth seeing strange auras in the peripheries of her sight.

“C’mon, puppy,” Kione wheedles. “I asked you a question. Who’d I betray? C’mon! You can put the pieces together! You’ve got this!”

“Hnggh,” Leinth drools. An answer beats itself to the front of her overtaxed brain: Handler. She is the only person any of them are truly forbidden to betray, after all. That would make sense of her hatred for Kione. But it doesn’t seem right; there is another answer, or at least the shape of it, but Leinth is not permitted to grasp its substance.

“And how about this, huh?” Kione reaches out and raps obnoxiously on the tip of Leinth’s muzzle with her gloved knuckles. “What is this? Why are you wearing it? Do you even know that?”

“I…” Words stir in the base of Leinth’s brain stem. “It’s what I deserve! For hurting Sartha! You’d wear one too, if you had any shame.” Pride swells in her, as false and artificial as the words she speaks. It makes perfect sense to her and Leinth cannot help but expect praise for supplying the right answer—and cannot help but be disappointed when Kione simply continues mocking her.

“Oh my god. You really are fun! All wound up around yourself.” Kione licks her lips. “I can’t wait to get my fingers in your head.”

“Fuck you.” Leinth bristles instinctively at the suggestion. For all her anger and all her guilt, she still has a little pride. Handler is a living goddess. She has a right to Leinth’s devotion—She, and nobody else. “You’re even more wretched than me.”

Kione laughs again. “Not what it says right here, babe.” She taps the triangular badge on her collar—a fist, dangling a muzzle from above. “And you’re going to be a very good dog for me, whether you like it or not. It’s simply the way of the world. I’m better than you. Enjoy it! I can be sweet, I promise. Just ask Sartha.”

As Leinth’s headache abates, anger, thick and bloody, rushes to fill the gap. She needs to wipe that smirk off this bitch’s face. And she knows exactly how. “You’re better than me? Funny. That didn’t seem to stop me ripping you out of the sky and plucking you like a slaughtered chicken, did it?”

Kione stops laughing. Her face darkens. “Excuse me?” she warns.

Leinth doesn’t heed her. Feeling Kione’s overinflated ego crumple beneath the blow is far too satisfying. “That’s another thing about mercs. Never quite the pilots you wish you were, right? Especially not when it counts. All that fancy tech, and you couldn’t land a scratch. So which of us is better, really?”

It feels good. Really, it does. The pleasure lasts until Kione speaks again, her voice full of familiar promise. “You know,” Kione says dangerously, “you really shouldn’t speak to me like that, Leinth.”

Normally, Leinth would spit in the face of anyone in uniform telling her something like that. Not now. Suddenly Kione sounds different. Behind the theatricality lies the sharpness, now bared at Leinth’s throat.

Why does this awful woman suddenly sound so much like Her?

“Fuck you,” Leinth repeats. The defiance is instinctive, but her bravado is already gone.

“You should be careful,” Kione warns again. Her anger is real—and so is the threat. Leinth already regrets her taunts. Any pilot who lives long enough has a sixth sense for deadly situations. Hers is screaming. “You should speak to me with respect.”

Respect? Leinth can’t imagine respecting a woman who’s gotten this mad over a jab at her piloting. But that’s the old Leinth talking, and the old Leinth hasn’t mattered for a long time. The old Leinth is just a thin shell over the dog that remains, and the dog has long since learned a harsh lesson. There are only two kinds of people in the world: handlers and hounds. And Leinth knows what handlers can do.

“You can’t…” Leinth says quietly. A futile prayer. She refuses to accept that this awful, petty woman has this power over her.

“I can,” Kione promises menacingly. “She’s been working my voice sample into your conditioning for weeks.”

She doesn’t sound like she’s lying. Maybe Kione doesn’t need to lie anymore, not ever. Like Her. But that can’t be.

“Wanna put it to the test?”

Leinth shakes her head. This isn’t right. The great chain of being as she knows it is suddenly precarious. Surely this scumbag merc isn’t so far above her. “You can’t…”

Kione draws herself up, resplendent in her smugness, and speaks slowly to savor each and every one of the words that shred Leinth’s soul. “Leinth. Off The Leash.”

It works.

Leinth fights harder than she has in a long time to cling to the broken fragments of herself. Handler has, after all, preserved in her a certain, stubborn pride. It’s a useful thing, for a pilot. The thought of submitting her very personhood to someone like Kione Monax stirs her from the doldrums of fatalistic acceptance she’s spent months now languishing in. Leinth fights the way she fought the first few times, making an anthem, a mantra, of her simple refusal: not like this. Not like this. Not like this.

But another of the harsh lessons she’s had to learn is that all the faith in the world won’t save her down here, in the kennels. You cannot refuse reality, and the fact that Leinth Aritimis is no longer a person was etched deep into the world by the hand of an exquisite craftswoman. Kione is not Her, but she sits at Her right hand. She is permitted to wield Her chisel, and when She rams it home into Leinth’s brain, her stubbornness and pride endure for no more than a heartbeat. They are fractured, shattered, forgotten—just like all the rest of her.

Leinth Aritimis goes away, and the Hound wakes. More wretched than ever.

“There we go,” Kione coos, surveying Leinth’s obliteration with cloying interest. “Isn’t that a better look on your face?”

Hound says nothing. A discontented, embarrassed whine passes her throat. She now understands the blasphemy she has committed.

“Yes,” Kione purrs. “You get it now, don’t you? But let’s make sure. Sit.”

It’s automatic. Hound doesn’t need to think about it for even an instant. She drops to her knees in fervent obedience.

“Good dog,” Kione giggles. She reaches down and pets Hound’s head with a strange, sudden fondness. Hound stretches up into the touch, grateful for it despite herself. “On The Leash.”

As suddenly as she went away, Leinth crashes back into herself. She closes her eyes, opens them again, sees Kione’s face, and wishes she was dead. It’s not the impossible, infuriating smugness writ large on the former mercenary’s face, as bad as that is. It’s what Leinth suddenly feels towards Her.

Crushing, all-encompassing, awestruck reverence.

“You know, I didn’t come down here on a whim,” Kione tells her proudly. “She sent me. Said she wanted the two of us to get properly acquainted. After all, if I’m gonna supervise you in the field, you need to understand the proper pecking order.”

Leinth nods. “I’m sorry, sir,” she whimpers. The guilt falls across her like a familiar cloak. It’s comforting, in a way. Beneath the anguish, there is something irresistibly, miserably affirming to it. It feels natural. It feels right. “I didn’t…”

“No, you didn’t,” Kione agrees, with smooth menace. “But you’ve learned. Kicked dogs always do.”

Again, Leinth nods. She experiences, in real time, the complete reorganization of her own thoughts and feelings. Kione is a handler—a superior being. That is a fact, as undeniable as the fact that the sun rises and sets. Everything else bows to it. Leinth’s earlier attempts to stand up for herself are recast, in her mind’s eye, as senseless, inexcusable insolence. Kione’s wheedling and mockery as Her perfect right. There is a second power in heaven, as cruel as Handler is kind. The cosmic dualism of this new paradigm settles comfortably across Leinth. Within moments, it seems perfectly natural. There must be punishment as well as reward, and any punishment this new goddess hands down is justice incarnate. She owes Leinth nothing, and Leinth owes Her everything. Leinth might not like it. But it is the truth.

“Yes, sir,” Leinth replies dully. “I’ve learned.”

“Good. You know, I was really hoping the two of us could get along.” Kione places Her foot forward and uses the tip of Her boot to guide Leinth’s knees apart. “After all, not many girls like us around here.”

With Leinth’s legs spread, Kione presses the tip of Her boot against the faint bulge at the front of Leinth’s jumpsuit. Leinth lets out a gasping, rapturous moan. She cannot resist a handler’s touch. Even the scent of boot polish is enough to elicit a Pavlovian response. Leinth’s hips betray her, and she rolls them in sudden, shameless eagerness. Kione laughs again, and even Her laughter feels like a blessing.

“What do you think?” Kione says. “Girl talk? Painting each other’s nails? Trying on each other’s clothes?” Her face twists. She reaches down and fondles Leinth’s jumpsuit. “Guess not. You couldn’t bear to trade in one of your precious ego totems, even if you’ll never understand why. You’re just an animal. Nothing more.”

Leinth gasps and throbs. Kione’s degrading words pound in her ears. They feel so right. They make the shame of her earlier transgressions burn all the hotter. A need rises in her, eclipsing all else. “Please, sir,” Leinth whimpers. “Forgive me.”

“Oh, there it is!” Kione remarks sardonically. “Poor little guilty Leinth. Maybe I will. You’ll find that I’m not exactly like Her. I have my own way of doing things. I’ll make you work for it. But I can be generous, too.” She glances down and licks Her lips. “Take off your jumpsuit. To the waist, at least.”

Leinth practically jumps at the chance to obey. She unzips her jumpsuit and peels it as far away from her body as she can. Beneath, all she’s wearing is a tank top and underwear. She’s already hard, of course. Kione’s boots did that to her. Kione seems to enjoy the sight.

“And those.” Kione indicates Leinth’s underwear. “To one side.”

Leinth does as she is bid, releasing a sound that is at once a moan and a whine. This is not what she needs—but it doesn’t matter. Attention from a handler is like sparks to kindling.

“Good dog,” Kione tells her. Against all reason, those two words of praise prompt Leinth to giggle euphorically. “And good dogs get treats, don’t they?”

Before Leinth can answer, Kione lifts one foot a few inches into the air and places it down carefully on Leinth’s cock. Not hard—Kione keeps her foot at just the right height, so that the sole of her boot applies gentle, insistent pressure on Leinth’s cock. Leinth lets out an immediate, loud gasp and arches her back as pleasure shoots through her. The stimulation the coarse leather provides doesn’t feel good, exactly—except it does, it feels transcendent, because it’s a handler doing it. Better yet, it’s a treat! Kione said so. She’s a handler. Handlers are always right.

“Go on, Leinth,” Kione jeers. “Do what comes naturally.”

Leinth obeys, and starts fucking Kione’s boot.

The space between the sole of Kione’s boot and the floor forms a perfect little slot for Leinth to press her cock in and out of with each movement of her hips. The pleasure is blinding—how could it be anything less? This is a blessing. Divine magnanimity. Leinth’s animal instincts force her to avail herself, and the sheer bliss she experiences with each ugly, uncoordinated thrust welds her loyalties tighter and tighter to Kione. Within moments, Leinth is in heat—but she’s fighting to hold back. There’s something else she needs.

“P-please!” Leinth moans. “Forgive… me.”

It’s more important. Without that, the guilt within Leinth will grow and grow, a poisonous seed, knotting around her chest tighter and tighter until it brings her to collapse. Without forgiveness, Leinth will stew in her shame endlessly. Handler condemns her to that only as the most severe of punishments, and Leinth has not deserved one of those in quite some time.

“Forgive you?” Kione muses. “I’m not so sure. Is that really what you want, puppy?”

Leinth nods frantically, but her moans betray her. Her brain is being scrambled over and over again by her own urgent, whimpering thrusts. She can’t stop to think, and she can’t think to stop. Her brute, animal urges drive her onward, forcing her to pitch forward, propping her torso up with her arms and grinding her hips low against the ground for a more favorable angle.

She doesn’t care how dumb she looks or how loud Kione laughs. Leinth Aritimis is a bitch in heat. She needs whatever feels good. But she needs forgiveness too. It’s just difficult to keep it straight in her head. Leinth’s superego was torn to shreds a long time ago. Restraint is foreign to her, and with Kione egging her on, she’s a slave to her own cock and Kione’s bootheel.

“P-please,” Leinth gasps on the cusp. “F… fff… rrfff… rrruffff…”

‘Forgive me’—that’s what she’s trying to say, as she lapses into humiliating, animalistic grunts. To come like this, with her sin still as heavy as lead in her belly, would reduce Leinth to a wreck. Such an act of indulgence would be truly unforgivable, but her body doesn’t care. Even as she whines and yips in protest, her hips work overtime to grind her cock beneath Kione’s boot. A great tension within her is hitting its limit.

“Well, let’s see,” Kione says languidly, as Leinth begins to see white. She looms over her, imperious and invincible, and imbues Her next words with pointed significance. “Maybe. But I wonder… which of us is actually the better pilot, Leinth?”

The absolute pettiness of Her question completely fails to register with Leinth. She can no longer perceive Kione’s flaws. All she sees is a lifeline, and she takes to it with the eagerness of a woman drowning.

“Y-you are!” Leinth howls, desperately clamping down her pleasure for a few more precious moments in the hope of salvation. “You! You! Youuuu!”

“That’s right!” Kione cackles, a child-goddess drunk on Her own power. As Her mood waxes, it brings with it mercy. “Good dog. I forgive you.”

That’s all Leinth needed to hear. A wordless howl signals the limit of her endurance. She gives one more heaving thrust, and spills her seed all over the ground. Kione sniffs at her and carefully lifts her boot away from the mess. Then she giggles, and reaches down to pet Leinth again. “See? I told you I can be nice.”

Leinth nods, her gratitude infinite. She is rewarded. She is forgiven. It’s all she ever needs. Deep at the back of her brain, resentment and bitterness beat like a drum. It’s enough to make her tear up in frustration—but she will not listen to those feelings. With the ease of long practice, she shoves them back down into the abyss. She blinks away the tears.

“Thank you, sir,” Leinth bleats quietly, a dull, blissful smile spreading slowly across her face. “Thank you.”

The gratitude is the truth of her. The gratitude is binding. From now on, she is Handler Kione’s obedient dog.

“You’re welcome, puppy.” Kione messes her hair. “I knew the two of us would get along! I can’t wait to introduce you to Amynta. She’s doing so well. In fact, I must check on her. It wouldn’t do for her to be without me for so long. She gets so protective, you see.”

Leinth shudders, although she does not know why.

Kione turns to leave, but pauses at the last moment. She turns back to Leinth, and the smile that breaks across Her face as She indicates the puddle of thin, white liquid spreading across the ground is brighter and crueler than ever before.

“You win, Leinth. Well done. Now lick that up.”

—

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---

Is that what you want, Ki?

Well. Is it?

That’s what Kione keeps asking herself, over and over again as she stalks aimlessly around the rebel facility. Does she want Sartha Thrace, the hero of the rebellion, to take off with her as a fellow mercenary, going wherever the fighting is most profitable and leaving as soon as the credits run dry?

It’s a hell of a fucking prospect. Until about ten minutes ago, Kione hadn’t realized it was on the table. She’s never dared to give it any thought.

It should make her happy. Right? Sartha’s willing to give her everything. To drop everything for her. Isn’t that what Kione always wanted? Isn’t that devotion? The kind of devotion she’s always longed for? If Kione just said ‘yes’, maybe they’d finally be equals. Partners in crime. She once heard somebody say that was the most intimate relationship between two people.

It means Sartha loves her, doesn’t it?

The very idea tastes so rotten in Kione’s mouth, it makes her laugh darkly under her breath, inviting concerned looks from the rebels she passes by.

No. Not love. Something much, much worse.

But perhaps it could be. Perhaps if they simply got away from everything, even for the worst of reasons, Sartha could finally heal. Perhaps it’s just what she needs. Kione has seen first-hand how much Sartha struggles to bear the adoring, expectant looks from the rebels that surround her. She knows better than anyone how hard she’s finding it to slip back into those old shoes.

What if she didn’t have to? What if they were just… gone?

Kione pictures it for a moment. Ancyor marching across the horizon, nice and slow, cockpit open, letting Sartha taste the wind as it streams through her hair. In her mind’s eyes, Sartha smiles. It’s beautiful.

And it’s wrong.

Because Sartha Thrace never gives up. Sartha Thrace never leaves anybody behind. Sartha Thrace has never abandoned a single soul, and Kione knows she wouldn’t start by ditching everything she’s ever held dear.

But she would, if Kione told her to.

That’s a problem. Because any Sartha Thrace that would do that isn’t the real deal. And Kione won’t settle for a cheap imitation.

She makes her sick, actually. Sartha does. Right now, it’s all Kione can do not to throw up the meal that’s still working its way through her stomach. She’s not sure she’s ever been so disgusted with anyone—except maybe herself, for all these weeks spent pretending Sartha could still be the woman of her dreams.

Stupid. Fuck. She’s so gods-damned stupid.

It’s tempting to just climb in Theaboros and fly off. That thought is never far from Kione’s mind. It’s her baseline survival reflex. If in doubt, hit the bricks. Merc survival 101. This time, though, it doesn’t take. Kione knows she’s too weak for it. And she’s bound tight by the chain of her own promise.

I’ll save you, Sartha.

What does saving her even mean? Fixing her? Or simply making sure she gets to keep pretending? Kione doesn’t know. There are so many things she doesn’t know. She could, of course, go to Sartha. She could storm into her quarters again, and throw her against a wall, and demand that she explain why she’s so pathetic. Didn’t exactly get her very far the first time, though. One of the only things Kione does feel certain of is the fact that Sartha would just fawn and beg and apologize and it would all be completely fucking pointless.

Maybe that’s why Kione finds herself heading to the one place she got some answers before.

Ancyor.

In the hangar cavern it stands as tall and motionless as a statue, half its outer panels peeled away to facilitate the upgrade program the rebels have put into motion. The exposed inner skeleton makes it look even more monstrous than usual. It’s like one of those huge, animal-headed idols Kione has seen in the deserts half a world away. Just as dead, but only for the moment. The computer systems are still up and running, anyway, and as Kione clambers up into the cockpit, none of the mechanics do anything but wave and offer to help her on her way.

She’s Sartha’s partner. They’ve got no reason to raise an eyebrow.

Kione slips into the pilot's seat and closes the hatch. She boots up the electronics and starts picking her way through the data, mostly at random. It’s not like she knows what she’s looking for. She’s just hoping to find whatever missing piece will slot into place and help her understand.

What did they do to her? How did they make Sartha like this?

No, not they.

Her.

After a time, she finds herself thumbing through the comms system. It’s all still imperial tech, yet to be ripped out and replaced. The engineers and rebel commanders probably wouldn’t approve of Kione booting it up on a whim, but she’s beyond caring. She’s thumbing through old transmissions and tracking old signals, looking for something that isn’t hopelessly corrupted. Kione had thought she never wanted to see that imperial handler ever again, but at this point, she’d take anything. Any answer.

She almost jumps out of her skin when the comms console lights up with an incoming long-range transmission.

Briefly, Kione freezes. There are a hundred reasons she should ignore it. Another hundred why she should immediately alert whoever’s in charge of Ancyor’s refit. As far as Kione can tell, the equipment should be capable of two-way communication without transmitting any location data—but that’s only as far as she can tell. No matter how she looks at it, it’s an insane risk. And yet…

Fuck it.

In a moment of supreme, nihilistic impulse, Kione accepts the hail.

The viewscreen before her flickers into life. And it’s Her.

It’s Sartha’s handler. Kione has seen her before, on that recording, and she looks absolutely no different now; black leathers immaculately polished, not a single hair out of place beneath her cap. The signal is much clearer this time around, but the clarity does nothing to make the woman appear more human.

Just the opposite; the more Kione searches for flaws, blemishes, for signs of basic humanity, the more she finds them eerily lacking. Everything about the handler—the way she breaths, moves, trains her gaze, holds herself—is a little too perfect. Inhumanly immaculate. It’s all done with such clipped precision. Like how a machine moves. Even her eyes. There’s nothing human or feeling in her eyes at all.

Kione shivers as they’re trained on her. Before, when she watched the recording, she’d been struck by the irrational impression that the handler could see back into her through the screen and across time.

This time it’s much more than just an impression.

Ah. Kione Monax. As I expected.

Her tone makes Kione’s temper flare, as does the cold smile writ across her face.

“And who the fuck are you?” she demands.

You already know that.

She’s so pale, too. Bloodless. Like a corpse. It’s so easy to imagine that her veins have been drained empty, then filled with coolant and machine oil. How else does someone become like this?

“Shut up,” Kione snarls. It’s all she can do not to punch the screen in front of her. “You don’t know what I know. You don’t know anything about me.”

Of course I do, Kione. It is impossible to disbelieve her. My files on pilots such as yourself are very extensive, and they are never wrong. I know that you’re with Sartha. And I know that you’re sitting in Ancyor because you’re trying to understand her.

The air inside the cockpit suddenly feels dangerously thick.

“How…” Kione asks, before she can stop herself.

It’s not so difficult. I know that you were one of Sartha’s rescuers. I know that you recently participated in combat alongside her, and that you haven’t been seen elsewhere. I know that, during that action, Sartha fought with what the deceased imperial pilots described as an unnatural level of ferocity. I know that, a few weeks ago, our communications network picked up a weak, brief, damaged signal from Ancyor. As if someone careless was picking through its comms logs.

Kione wants very badly to tell her that she’s wrong. To rip away a little of that immaculateness. She can’t. She has nothing to say. She simply feels seen. She feels shame.

So, have you been taking good care of my hound?

The anger returns, and Kione is pitifully grateful for it.

“She’s not yours!” she spits.

Isn’t she?

“I—we—got her back.” Kione tries to match her supreme confidence. “I took her from you.”

Oh? Is that how you feel?

There’s a question behind the question: why doesn’t she feel that way? Why, now that Kione has Sartha in the palm of her hand, has she never felt more distant?

She doesn’t know.

Kione does know that she should put a stop to this at once. Terminate the transmission. Follow her instincts. Hit the bricks. Nothing good comes of talking to someone like this. To someone who knows things they shouldn’t. That impulse is like a bell ringing in Kione’s head: clear, strong, but diminishing a little with each echo as Kione feels herself sinking deeper into the eerie eyes of the handler. Holding her gaze, even though it’s making her clench her hands so hard her fingers ache.

Can’t blink. Can’t look away. Can’t leave. Can’t back down. Can’t show her that.

So focus, Ki.

“What did you do to her?” Kione says, voice as measured as she can make it.

What kind of answer are you looking for?

“Don’t bullshit me!” Kione snaps. She takes a deep breath. “Just tell me how you made her like this.”

An instruction manual, then? I’m afraid I doubt we have time for me to explain the entire process to you. But in a word: trauma. The way a human mind reshapes itself under sufficient duress is fascinating. Once the right pressure is applied, the cracks reveal themselves. Then all that’s needed is a wedge, a hammer and the skill to use them. Speaking metaphorically, of course.

Torture. Fundamentally, what she’s talking about is torture. Kione isn’t shocked that it happens. But something about the handler’s voice is more unnerving than Kione could ever put into words. Clinical, almost, like it’s nothing to her, but with an edge of pride. Of passion, even.

“You make it sound so…” Kione mutters.

Easy?

Kione nods. Yes, that’s what she had been about to say.

It is easy.

She freezes. What the fuck is she supposed to say to that?

The wrong word, perhaps. Simple, in a certain way. It merely requires a level of insight into people, and a willingness to do what needs to be done. But you already know that, don’t you Kione?

“I…” Kione is dying to get out of the cockpit.

You found the words from the communications logs, I suppose. And I see that you’ve put them to good use. Hound is impressive, isn’t she? My finest work.

“What the…” Kione breathes.

Impressive. It’s not the word Kione would choose to use. But it’s not wrong, either.

Have you fucked her?

Kione almost throws up right then and there. Obviously she wants to deny it. That’s instinctive. But it seems pointless, too.

Interesting. I imagined that you had. There’s no need to feel guilty for it, you know. Though I’m sure Sartha’s told you that for herself. She’s very well trained. And very useful. The other pilots always seemed to enjoy her.

Gods. That’s an image that brings the bile all the way into Kione’s throat.

“You’re a fucking freak,” Kione growls at the screen. “You’re a monster.”

I’ve never touched her.

Again, it is impossible to disbelieve her. The handler’s words feel like etchings into the stone of the world. Carved there, indelible. Kione can’t doubt them. She’s simply left to contemplate their awful meaning.

If the handler never touched Sartha that way, what does that say about Kione?

Is Kione worse than her?

No. No, that’s impossible.

“I just did what I had to do,” Kione tries. “Sartha needs to fight. We need her to fight. But you fucking broke her.”

You didn’t need to fuck her to make her fight—not, again, that you should feel guilty. And if that’s the case, why didn’t you tell anybody else about Hound? About her trigger phrase?

Kione’s heart is pounding. She knows. She really does know.

“I… couldn’t trust… they might’ve…” she bleats.

No. You wanted her for yourself.

Breathing hard now. Kione is all but tipping over into panic.

“I…”

Don’t be ashamed of your devotion, Kione. It’s a precious thing. You don’t often hear of a mercenary fighting out of love. And besides, it brought you to me.

To her? What does she think this is?

“Fuck this,” Kione spits. “I’m outta here.”

She reaches out to terminate the transmission but the handler’s voice, surprisingly earnest, calls her to attention.

There’s no need for that. I’ll help you. You came here for answers, and I will give you the answers you’re looking for.

A poisoned promise. Kione’s not so dumb she can’t see that. And yet…

“How do I fix her?” she asks. She doesn’t expect the truth. But anything she can extract from this woman might help her. Might help Sartha.

You can’t.

So much for that, then.

“What the fuck do you mean, can’t?” Kione demands. Her heart quickens dangerously. She can’t hear that. She can’t believe that.

She will never be the way you once saw her. Sartha Thrace will never be able to pilot without hearing those three words you’ve been making such good use of. She will never again be a hero.

It’s impossible to disbelieve her.

“Don’t fucking tell me that!” Kione yells. She slams her fist into the iron wall of the cockpit. “You’re the fucking expert on messing people’s heads, right? So tell me how to fix her. I’ll do whatever it takes. I swear, I’ll figure out how to use your… your ‘pressure’, or whatever other sick shit you like to do to people. I’ll play your game. I’ll use it to put Sartha back together again. I don’t fucking believe you when you tell me you broke her for good!”

It feels good to let a little of the anger out. Saying that reminds Kione what she’s here for. She needs to save Sartha. She needs to. It’s the only way she can redeem herself.

You misunderstand. I didn’t break her for good. She was already broken.

Kione snorts. She’s got no interest in sophistry.

“No, she wasn’t. She was beautiful. She was incredible. I saw it.”

You saw what you wanted to see.

“Bullshit.” Kione’s hackles are raised. She refuses to budge on this.

But the handler won’t stop smiling that thin, cruel smile.

Tell me, Kione. How does she look to you, when you use her trigger? When you remake her into a hound?

Happy. She looks happy. She looks like she’s just taken a hit of pure bliss.

“I’m not answering riddles,” Kione insists.

Doesn’t she look completely, perfectly relieved?

Yes. Exactly. Relieved. “That doesn’t matter,” Kione retorts. “You made her feel that way.”

I’ve made her feel so many things. But not that.

“You’re lying.” Kione wishes so bad that she could disbelieve her. “You ruined her.”

I tore her open and showed her the ruin of herself. But a house eaten through by termites is ruined long before you push against the walls and make them fall.

“But-“

The reason she’s relieved is because she’s found the path out of the ruin. The path I taught her. The path I gave her. In that moment, she is happy. She is free.

Free? Kione wants to laugh at the word—but she doesn’t. It plucks a chord in her, despite the absurdity. Isn’t that how Sartha looks, in a certain way? Free?

“You make it sound like you did her a favor,” Kione challenges.

Why do you think she’s so grateful to me?

Kione has never felt hotter, or colder. The curdling mixture of temperatures within her is something she only associates with the worst of fevers.

“She didn’t want this.” Kione needs to say it out loud. She needs to guard herself against the thought.

Remember what I told you. My method does not create cracks. It reveals them. Exploits them. But they must be there. If there was truly no part of Sartha Thrace that wanted this, I could not have forced it upon her. Not with all the will in the world.

It’s the truth. It has to be. Kione feels the truth of it—and besides, this monster in human skin never soils herself by speaking anything less. Kione already has that much of a measure of her. Coming to terms with it—that’s the hard part. Kione can already feel herself collapsing inward around the revelation. Remaining in control is impossible with this handler pouring her truth in her ear. She’s so angry. At herself, for being weak. At Sartha, for being weak. At this handler, for being anything but. But Kione is determined not to forget what she came for.

“Tell. Me. How. To. Fix. Her.” Kione forces out each word. It’s a mantra. It’s the only thing that counts.

The handler does not leave her wanting.

Find her crack. Her key. Once you know the secret that rules her, you can make her anything that you need her to be. Perhaps you can even make her a person again. Or something close to it.

Even now, as absurd as it may seem, it’s impossible to disbelieve her.

Kione sees at once that the handler is playing a game with her. It’s a taunt. A dare. Use my methods. Stain your hands, as I have. She can only guess at the reason. Maybe it’s a ploy to alienate her from the rebels. Maybe it’s a gamble, a way to trick Kione into reopening Sartha’s wounds so they don’t heal. It doesn’t matter.

What matters is that there’s hope.

You wanted this, Sartha? Fuck you. But I’m still not giving up on you.

“What’s the key?” Kione demands thickly. “The secret? Tell me.”

You don’t need me to tell you that, Kione. You can simply ask her yourself.

The transmission cuts out. But somehow, as Kione keeps staring dumbly at the blank screen before her, through the veil of her own falling tears, she can’t quite banish the image of that perfect face, those cold eyes, and that thin, cruel smile.

***

Sartha wanted it.

That simple fact—and it is, Kione accepts, a fact—assumes primacy in her mind as she sits in her quarters and waits for Sartha to come to her. She thought, yet again, about storming straight into Sartha’s quarters, but what good would that do? She’s played that song. She’s spun that wheel. Where did it take her? Plainly, the handler wants her angry. Off-balance. Irrational. Kione won’t let that happen. She’ll be in control. She can make herself cold too.

Not that easy to banish her anger completely, though. It sits beneath the surface as she waits. It ferments. Alchemizes. Kione pays close attention to that. She pays heed to her anger. Lets it sit with her. She embraces the source—cleanly, clearly. She mustn’t let things get out of hand. Not like before. But denying it would be just as meaningless. She will be one with her anger. She will make it true. She will be angry for all the people who will never know how deeply Sartha has betrayed them.

Kione says that over and over to herself.

For hours.

She’s sure Sartha is coming. Kione’s developed a keen sense of Sartha’s moods. She knows that after a training sortie like the one they aced earlier that day, Sartha will need the stability only submerging into Hound can grant her. She’ll wait until nightfall, though. For discretion’s sake. Kione impressed that on her.

Plenty of time for the mercenary to work on her script.

When the knock comes, she smiles. Kione always smiles for Sartha. She can’t help it. But this smile is different. Kione feels it frozen to her face like a gash in ice. That’s good. It needs to be cold, and a little cruel. It needs to be like hers.

You need a handler, Sartha? I’ll be a handler. I’ll be her, and more besides. I’ll be everything to you.

She opens the door—and there’s that smile on Sartha’s face. Eager. Almost frantic. Kione supposes that makes sense. Sartha did well today. She deserves a reward. That’s how it’s supposed to go, right? Good dogs get treats. It’s so simple.

She’s so simple.

Did she used to be more than this? Or was Kione just naive?

“Hey, Kione,” Sartha says, with that air of nervous, giddy excitement. Gods, she’s all but drooling. “Can I come in?”

Kione waits. Longer than usual. She makes a weapon of her patience. She wonders how long Sartha would squirm if Kione let her.

“Sure,” she tells her eventually. She’s not quite that cruel. Not yet. “Make yourself at home.”

She leads Sartha inside. The broken pilot follows her with a pathetic, grateful grin and pauses only to close the door behind herself. What passes between them is private. No prying eyes. Nobody knows.

Nobody. Not her. Not the handler. This does not belong to her.

“Stand at attention,” Kione commands.

Sartha looks surprised. She knows Kione usually likes to ease into it. Doesn’t hesitate, though. She snaps her legs together and her back straight in an instant. Ever the perfect little toy soldier.

Kione lets her stand like that until she knows Sartha’s legs must be aching. Until she knows she’s just dying to hear it.

“Is there something you want to ask me?” Kione begins.

Sartha blinks. “Um… are you alright, Ki?” she asks. “Earlier, in the canteen, you seemed a little…”

Kione scowls. She doesn’t want this concern. It’s off-script.

“That’s not really what you want to ask me, is it?” she replies softly.

Sartha’s lips part. Then, she relaxes. She can’t be ill at ease when Kione is acting like this. It feels too right.

“Was I good?” Sartha’s need eclipses her concern. “Did I do good today?”

Kione laughs quietly. So predictable. It’s too easy. She wonders if it was always easy for the handler. Did that take time? Or was it easy from the start?

“Yes,” Kione tells her. The cold smile on her face should frighten Sartha. It doesn’t. It reassures her. Kione can tell. “Oh yes. You were a very, very good dog, Sartha.”

Sartha Thrace grins, and it’s sunlight. She’s never looked so happy. And she’s a hero, right? When heroes smile, the world smiles with them. Once, Kione would have ridden into hell for a smile like that.

Now, she refuses to let it warm her.

“Thank you,” Sartha pants. She’s all but drooling. “Thank you. Thank you.”

It’s often like this. Sartha needs the praise. Kione needs to give it to her, and Sartha’s always so grateful to receive. It’s a kind of ritual. For a moment, Kione wants to push against that. To break the pattern. It might be safer.

She wants to pull Sartha back from the darkness, doesn’t she? Not drag her further in.

But it’s going to be hard. Kione needs strength. She needs the comfort ritual gives her. She knows by now that kindness will get her nowhere. Sartha doesn’t want kindness. The only way out is through, and Kione is determined not to falter along the way.

So she takes out Sartha’s muzzle.

“Good hound,” she soothes, holding it up to the light. “You want this. Don’t you?”

Of course she does. She stares at the gleaming bars of the muzzle with indescribable longing. The effect it has on Sartha is undeniably hypnotic. Kione can only imagine. To see the annihilation of yourself wrought in metal and held comfortably in the palm of a hand—and to crave its iron touch more than anything else in the world.

When she thinks about it like that, maybe she can do more than imagine. Kione’s no stranger to the siren call of her own firearm. She always resisted it, of course. If only Sartha was still capable of resisting.

“You’ve earned it.” Kione bats aside her ruminations. “Here.”

As always, slipping the muzzle on over Sartha’s face feels like a baptism—not that Kione means to be a priest. She means to be something infinitely worse. A god. She will steal the imperial handler’s fire. She will reach into Sartha’s soul and remake it. And gods mustn’t spoil their children. Kione forces herself to be brisk as she tightens the straps that bind the muzzle to her hound’s head. Tender, yes, but she doesn’t linger. Can’t let herself linger. The task ahead is too important.

Learning Sartha’s truth.

“Sartha,” Kione announces. “You’re going to tell me what happened to you when you were captured.”

Sartha’s eyes are wide. Her lips quiver. She looks almost betrayed as she stares at Kione.

“It’s… not easy to talk about,” she replies pitifully.

That look. More than once, it’s melted Kione’s heart and forestalled her questions. But not now. Not today.

“I don’t care,” Kione tells her. “You’re going to tell me anyway.”

Another lip quiver. Sartha’s face is full of shame. It’s funny; normally, once the muzzle goes on, she’s all but immune to that. Guess she must really have something to be ashamed of.

"I don’t remember that much,” Sartha pleads. “I-it’s difficult to remember anything too-“

Kione stops her with a simple, forceful gesture. She reaches up under the muzzle and seizes Sartha’s chin, and forces the pathetic, quivering pilot to meet her gaze.

“Remember,” she commands.

Sartha doesn’t have it in her to resist that. A direct order in a stern voice—and from her handler. Kione’s words reach into Sartha’s head and stir up her memories. Like stirring a fork through a soup with a thick skin of scum formed over its surface. The sheer pain of it makes Sartha grow absent in that strange way she does when she’s trying not to exist. When she speaks again, there is less of her than before.

“Yes, Kione,” Sartha says blankly.

Despite the awfulness of the task ahead, Kione grins. Sartha is hers. This is what it means to have her. She’s starting to make her peace with that. And to work her thoughts with the ease of a weaver at a loom—how could it not feel good? “How did they get into your head?” she asks.

“They took me…” Sartha replies slowly. “Got me out of Ancyor. Into an… interrogation? But no questions. Not real questions, anyway. They were all just about me. And the one asking them was…” She closes her eyes. “Her.”

The way she speaks makes Kione flash hot with jealousy. She crushes the emotion. One day, she vows, Sartha will speak her name in that same hushed, reverent tone.

A moment later, she feels ashamed of the promise. She’s meant to be fixing Sartha, isn’t she? Another moment, and she doesn’t. Yes, fixing her. That’s exactly why Kione will deserve it. She’ll be better than a handler.

A savior.

“Go on,” Kione orders. No mercy. No relenting.

“There was… they took me to a room.” Sartha’s brow twitches as the memories come. “Over and over again. For a long time. Put me on a… table? A chair? A slab. Like a doctor would have, or something. They made me look at things. They shone lights. And She was always there.”

Against her wishes, Kione shudders too. She’s felt what that woman can do over a comms transmission. In-person, it would be like staring straight at a black hole.

“She’d talk to me afterwards,” Sartha is saying. “And I didn’t feel right. I felt like… like somebody else. But She always knew what to say.” She trembles. There’s a tear in her eyes. “She made me feel whole again.”

The tear is gratitude, Kione realizes. Her fists clench. No, Sartha. Don’t you see? You’re not whole. You’ve never been further from whole. Don’t you see that?

“What did she say?” Kione demands.

Sartha squeezes her eyes closed, lost now to the recollection. She’s drowning in it, and it hurts. “She knew,” she confesses.

Here they are. Kione shivers—not from the horror, this time, but with the thrill. “She knew that you wanted it.”

Sartha’s eyes open. She’s confused. And then she’s not, and Kione loves that. She loves the implied acceptance.

Kione is her handler. Of course she already knew.

“Yes,” Sartha whispers. More shame. She can barely breathe for it. “I was just… it was just a small part, just a little voice, but… I thought I was weak. I thought I just needed to block it out. But She showed me. She taught me that voice was my true self. She promised me she could make its dreams real.”

Kione is in awe of that woman. She hates her, yes. But she’s in awe of her too.

“Why?” Kione leans in. This is what’s pivotal. The axis on which Sartha Thrace turns. “Why did you want it? Tell me.”

“I was so tired.” Sartha reaches up like she wants to bury her face in her hands. Instead, though, she presses the muzzle against her skin harder enough to leave marks. Her voice is quiet. Whispering, like she doesn’t want the gods to hear her confession. “That’s it, Kione. I was so tired of the way all of you look at me.”

Of you?

“What do you mean?”

“Whenever I walk into a room, everybody looks at me like I’m going to fix every single thing that’s wrong with the world.” Now that it’s coming out, Sartha sounds almost relieved. “But I can’t. I can’t fix anything at all. But they won’t stop looking. Stop expecting. That’s what a hero’s for, I suppose. But I… I’m tired of it. I couldn’t do it anymore.”

“Oh, Sartha,” Kione breathes.

It makes all the sense in the world. Kione has seen as much. She’s not surprised by what Sartha feels. Just that her imperial handler was able to grow so much from that poisoned seed. How did she do that, exactly? Duress, Kione was told. Sartha mentioned lights and images, and Kione’s sure drugs were involved too. Clearly it’s equal parts psychology and technology.

And artistry, of course.

“With her, it’s like… it’s like I’m everything and nothing. Whatever I need. Whatever She needs.” Sartha can’t stop herself. “She lets me feel like a hero, sometimes. But when I was with Her, nobody expected anything from me.” Behind her muzzle, Sartha smiles with a ghoulish fondness. “It was wonderful.”

Kione remembers what the handler said about how those imperials ‘used’ her. Oh yes, she bets they looked at her like she was anything but a hero.

“No wonder being rescued was so hard on you,” Kione murmurs. Her promise to be hard, to be ice, stops her from embracing Sartha—but this truth isn’t really so awful, is it? “Being surrounded by them again. They still look at you the same way, don’t they? Even after everything. I’ve told you, Sartha. You let them ask too much of you.”

Sartha goes oddly quiet for a long moment. As Kione wonders why, her hound’s earlier wording pricks at her.

“Hey,” Kione asks slowly, “you said ‘you’, earlier. You’re talking about the other rebels, aren’t you?”

A little war plays itself out in the empty space behind Sartha’s eyes. She really, really doesn’t want to say it. She doesn’t want to say anything that would displease her master. But the truth is being asked of her, and lies are no more a part of her nature than disobedience.

When she finally says it, the war is over. And she just seems so, so tired.

“Kione,” Sartha tells her. “You’re just like all the rest of them.”

Kione’s blood stops flowing.

“No, I’m not,” she retorts.

Sartha flinches a little at her firmness. “OK,” she agrees miserably.

Kione’s too angry to let that sit. “Fuck off,” she snarls. “What do you mean I’m just like the rest of them?”

Eyes closed again. It’s like Sartha can only say it if she pretends Kione isn’t there.

“You look at me like that.” Her voice is empty. “You need. You expect. You want me to be your hero.”

Kione shakes her head numbly. Sartha can’t see it.

“You just think you don’t because you’re not one of them,” Sartha drones on. “But it’s no different. I can feel it whenever we talk. Why do you think I always tried to talk you into joining up? It’s not because I need to say it. It’s because you need to hear it.”

“I…” Kione is shaking.

“You needed to hear that there was something to believe in. Even if you couldn’t quite buy it. You needed a reason to keep going. You were always searching for it. For me. You couldn’t leave me alone.” Sartha half-sobs. She can’t quite pretend she’s alone. She is painfully aware of the bridge she’s burning. “But I… I just hated it so much.”

“Shut up!”

Sartha’s lips clamp shut. Of course they do. It’s an order.

Kione’s veins are still frozen. She’s still wearing that cold smile, but only because every nerve in her body is lit up and paralyzed in awful shock. The ice in her veins is tearing her open. But all the same, seeing Sartha obey her provides a small spike of blissful dopamine. Kione clings to it. It’s the only thing that feels real. All the rest is merely a nightmare. It’s the only thing she can bear.

“Shut up,” she repeats. She starts pacing. Can’t bear to stand still. “Dogs can’t talk,” she snaps cruelly.

Sartha just nods. She’s silent—finally, thank the gods.

“Never say that to me again,” Kione adds furiously. “It’s not true. You hear me? It’s not true.”

At that moment, she catches the look in Sartha’s eyes. It’s devastating. It’s terrible. It’s miraculous.

Sartha believes her.

Despite everything, she believes her. Everything she just said? It’s not true. Not anymore. If it comes from Kione, if it’s an order, she’ll believe it. She’ll break her own brain just to believe it. That’s how desperate she is. That’s how much of a worthless, hopeless animal she is.

Now Kione gets it. To be a handler is to rewrite reality itself.

Right. That’s right. That’s the reason she has to be strong.

“She made you believe that,” Kione decides. It’s the only thing that makes sense. As if she’d ever need someone this worthless. “That woman. You believed anything she told you, right? She told you all that stuff. Poured it right in your ear. And you just lapped it up, huh?” Her smile widens as she sees Sartha accept it all. “Dumb mutt.”

Sartha whimpers a touch, but beneath that Kione can tell she’s drawing a kind of pleasure from the abasement. She longs to be put in her place, however twisted the reason. It’s what she deserves. What she wants too, apparently.

Easier to be a mutt than a hero.

“You gave into her because you’re stupid and weak,” Kione instructs Sartha. “How could you be so fucking pathetic? Idiot. Traitor.”

As one, they believe it. Sartha does because it’s coming from Kione. Kione does because it’s just so easy to believe. Look at her, sniveling behind that muzzle. She’s weak. It’s obvious she’s weak. How didn’t Kione see it before?

How did she ever look up to her so much?

“You need correction,” Kione announces. She smirks at her own cleverness. “That’s the kind of word the imperials love to throw around, right? Correction. You need some discipline. Dumb dog needs proper training.” The smirk becomes a sneer. “Don’t worry, Sartha. I promise. I’ll never look at you like you’re a hero again. I won’t make that fucking mistake.”

Kione makes a fist and punches Sartha in the gut.

With a silent gasp, she bends double and goes down on her knees. Didn’t see that one coming, huh? The expression on her face is so perfect. Shocked. Breathless. Wounded—but not physically. Spiritually. Punishment implies guilt.

Kione’s glad she can make Sartha feel that. It’s what she deserves.

“Weak,” Kione spits. She needs to make sure that sinks in. “You let her in your head. You let her break you. How could you? How could you do that to me?”

Just to make sure she doesn’t answer, Kione gives Sartha a firm kick in the ribs.

She sinks even lower, then slumps over on one side. Instinctively, she clutches at herself, trying to keep herself from crumpling completely. Still, no word passes her lips. No protest. Somehow, that makes Kione even madder.

Can’t this stupid bitch even muster the will to defend herself?

Guess not. Kione gives her another kick in the ribs, just because of how much that pisses her off.

“Can’t believe you let me believe in you all this time,” Kione snarls. “You should have shown me this side of you sooner, Sartha. We could’ve had more fun. I could’ve, at least. Could’ve wasted a lot less time fighting for lost causes.”

How many times did she agree to come to a battlefield, just because Sartha was there? How many times did she give up good money just because Sartha would’ve disapproved of who she’d have been fighting for? How many times did she risk her life for chump change, because she hoped Sartha might take notice?

Too many.

“You never believed in anything,” Kione decides. “All along. You were just this. You were just tricking me.”

It’s only half-true. She knows that. But the half is enough to hurt both of them.

At least Kione has a nice, willing victim for her to take out her pain on.

She hits Sartha again. Again, again, again. With her hands. With her feet. Whatever feels right. It all feels right. It feels natural. Who’d have thought Sartha Thrace made such a good punching bag? Every time she crumples beneath one of Kione’s blows, the mercenary stands a little taller. Feels a little bigger. Already, she can see bruises and welts rising on Sartha’s body here and there.

That feels better than good. She’s marking Sartha all over. Except the face, of course. It’s not just that the muzzle is in the way. Gotta keep the poster girl looking pretty, right?

“I won’t forgive you,” Kione promises, once her strength is spent and the willingness to keep throwing punches has all but left her. Her shoulders heave with each breath. Her words are ragged. “But I will make you better. Better than you ever were before.” No more cold smile. She’s grinning now. “Better than she could.”

It’s then that Kione realizes she’s never been more turned on in her life.

Playing with her puppy always gets her like this. So hard she’s already almost ready to blow. Normally, this is when she’d get Hound to work out some of her urges. Kione hadn’t been planning on that tonight. Getting matters straight with Sartha had been a clear priority. But now that she knows exactly what lurks at the bottom of her friend’s soul, she’s thinking: why not?

Clearly she’s done a lot worse for the other side. Anyway, doesn’t Kione deserve this? Don’t they deserve each other? They’re bonded in awfulness. Married in hell. When she looks down at Sartha, beaten and bruised, Kione knows she’s already crossed so many lines, she’ll never be able to forgive herself.

So why not take her pleasure where she can?

Kione thinks about reaching over to where she keeps Sartha’s strap. It’s not as appealing as usual. Kione has never seen a woman as pathetic as the one slumped on the ground before her, and the idea of letting a broken dog mount her makes her scowl in disdain.

No. There’s a better way. Time to flip things around a little.

“Get on the bed,” Kione snaps at Sartha.

Her lip curls as the worthless thing on the floor before her starts to haul herself to her feet. It’s plenty clear that Sartha’s in pain, but Kione won’t let that melt her heart. She sees past the pain, to the deep, noxious glow of masochistic release.

Kione knows exactly what’s going on in Sartha’s head. She’s glad that finally, at long last, she’s no longer Kione’s hero.

“Take everything off,” Kione orders. She laughs when she sees Sartha begin to weakly peel away that combat jacket she always wears. The ubiquitous near-uniform of the rebels. “You don’t deserve to wear it.”

Sartha seems almost numb as she strips. Not eager. Not resentful. Both of those emotions have been beaten out of her. She’s just resigned. She’s relieved that Kione sees her for what she is, to be sure, but Sartha craves a deeper submergence. Once she’s naked, she turns to Kione.

“Please,” she begs, in the smallest voice Kione has ever heard. “Use the words.”

Kione’s eyes widen for a moment. Sartha sounds so pitiful, it almost moves her. Then, she reminds herself. Be hard. Be ice. Be the handler Sartha needs.

“I told you,” Kione replies gruffly. “Dogs don’t talk.”

She reaches forward, plants her open hand on Sartha’s head, and forces her face down into the bedsheets. It takes Kione no more than a moment to shuck out of her clothes. She’s electric with need. She can’t even say she’s turned on, exactly. Something about Sartha is faintly disgusting to her. But her body’s urges can’t be denied.

As Kione positions her cock against Sartha’s cunt, she spares a moment to reflect that it’s a little embarrassing she hasn’t done this to Sartha or Hound before. She was clinging, she supposes, to a silly, girlish ideal. Topping Sartha had been a dream, and in the back of her mind, she’d thought that having the dream was better than fulfilling it.

Stupid. The dream was always made of smoke. There’s nothing to it. Certainly nothing that can match up against the pleasure of having Sartha Thrace wrapped around her cock.

The way Kione fucks her is nothing like the way she normally fucks girls. Normally, she sets a nice, slow, firm rhythm and lets it build until they’re begging. She loves the begging, and even more than that she loves leaving them with their minds blown. But with Sartha? Who cares. She doesn’t matter. She’s not a person. Fucking her feels as much like masturbation as it does like sex. Kione’s only reason to hold back is that she’s ready to blow her load as soon as she’s inside her. And she wants this to last.

“This is how you like it, right?” Kione mocks. “Doggy style?”

“P-please, Ki,” Sartha tries again. This physicality of sex has flipped a nauseating switch inside her. She’s hit her limit. “This is t-too much. I need it.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Kione laughs. “You can take it. You’ve taken worse.”

To drive the point home, she reaches under Sartha, grabs one of her tits, and pinches and twists the hard nub of her nipple so hard it makes her yelp in pain. Sartha’s strength gives out. Kione’s beating was no pantomime. Her legs splay out beneath her, ruining Kione’s rhythm.

“Gods damn it,” she grunts. “Can’t you even be a decent fuckhole?”

“Just… please…” Sartha gags. “U-use… it…”

“Dogs don’t fucking talk,” Kione snaps. “Don’t make me tell you again.” As she looks down at the weak, begging, beaten, sprawled-out Sartha, disgust wells up within her. The kind of disgust it feels good to indulge in. “Roll over, dog.”

Even though she’s at the very limit of her strength, Sartha obeys. She always will. She wants Hound’s oblivion, but she lacks the guile to bargain for it. She simply obeys, wincing from the pain as she turns onto her back. Kione wonders about that. How far would she go? Would she break a bone? Cut off a finger?

She hopes so.

“That’s better,” Kione announces, as she forces herself inside Sartha again. “Let me see those pretty eyes. Let me see how there’s nothing there.”

There really is nothing there. Sartha’s eyes are empty pools, made all the more ghoulish by the muzzle beneath them. She’s checked out. Actively trying to dissociate, probably. Only the barest glimmer remains. It threatens to slip away as Sartha slumps back and goes limp, but Kione won’t let that happen. She wants her friend to feel every moment of what’s happening to her.

“Hey,” Kione snaps mockingly. “Tighten up, stud. Make me feel it.”

Another gut punch. Kione waits for the moment after Sartha inhales a big, heaving breath, just so that her punch leaves her gagging and winded. Pain flares in those dead eyes. The physical sensation of it is inescapable. Sartha’s body throbs and arches as she coughs and whines. And, pleasingly, Kione feels her cunt contract sharply around her shaft.

That figures.

Unfortunately, being present makes Sartha start begging again. “Please, Ki!” she shrieks through sobs. “Pleasepleaseplease. J-just use the words on me, please, please drop me, please, I’ll do a-anything. I’ll do anything for you.”

Ah. She really means it. Isn’t that something? Her earnest submission almost makes Kione cum on the spot.

Bad news for Sartha is, that isn’t what she was asking for.

“I already told you, cunt,” Kione growls. “Shut. Your. Stupid. Lying. Mouth.”

She can already tell that Sartha isn’t going to. She can’t. She’s passed into a kind of insensate delirium. A panic attack, or something worse. The pleasure. The pain. The bliss of freedom from adoration. The agony of her trusted friend abusing her exactly the way she’s grown so used to. Poor little broken-brained Sartha Thrace just can’t take it. She needs to be Hound.

Too bad.

“I’m begging you K-“

Kione cuts her off. She clamps her hand down around Sartha’s throat, and squeezes as tight as she can.

“You don’t deserve it!” Kione yells, and the flow of abuse from her lips is pure id. “Feel it, Sartha. Feel what you are now. You betrayed me. You know that? You betrayed everybody. You don’t deserve to be so skullfucked you don’t even care.”

Sartha’s eyes bulge and tear up. Kione can't tell if that’s because of her words, or just because she’s cutting off her air.

She doesn’t care either. It feels good either way. Especially because of how tight Sartha’s pussy feels now.

“I know you’re already broken.” Kione wraps her other hand on top of the first and uses her choking grip on Sartha’s throat to force her limp body into the perfect rhythm. “I just have to break you even harder. I have to break her out of you.”

Sartha can’t do anything but gurgle weakly in reply. Her face is turning a deep, unhealthy red-purple.

“I will rip that fucking handler out of your head,” Kione vows. She’s almost as out of breath as Sartha. Puffing and panting her words between thrusts as she rams her cock in and out of the hero’s limp body. “Out of your heart. I promise, Sartha. Maybe I can’t save you from yourself. But I can save you from her. I’ll let you go on pretending to be a hero. I’ll make sure none of your precious rebels ever see you for what you really are.”

So close now. So fucking close. She can feel Sartha is too. Her brain is boiling from the lack of oxygen. She’s coming apart. Her lips still mouth incoherent begging. For air? For Hound? Kione isn’t sure.

She lets out a wild laugh. She thought she felt like a god before? Oh, no. That was nothing.

“All you need,” Kione promises, leaning over Sartha, bringing her face as close as she can to the broken woman’s. “All you’ll ever need is me.”

At that moment, Sartha thrashes again. A desperate, instinctive bid to get free, perhaps. Reflexively, Kione fights her. She squeezes down harder. Dangerously hard. Sartha’s eyes roll back. Too long without air. Spittle flies from her lips in a white foam. She looks awful. Like she’s dying.

It’s not the first time Kione’s choked a girl too hard, and in the stupid way where you crush the windpipe instead of the blood vessels. She made mistakes when she was younger, and too cocky for her own good—or her partners’. She grew up and learned, of course. With Sartha, it’s simply that she doesn’t care. Even so, learned instinct calls on Kione to pull back. To let Sartha breathe.

But… what if she just didn’t?

What if she kept going? Further. Harder. Tighter. What if she took them both all the way over the edge? Kione, into atrocity. Sartha, into… what? Oblivion? That’s exactly what she wants. Rest? Wouldn’t that be a kindness?

Isn’t an ending the only thing Kione has left to offer?

Kione squeezes tighter. She senses in Sartha’s manner a kind of yearning for it. For the end. Suicide, she assumes, is an impulse the handler has torn out of her. If she can’t put an end to herself, maybe Kione should do it instead. Kione tried offering her freedom on a long leash. It didn’t work out. It did her no good. Maybe this is the only way Sartha Thrace can be truly free.

Maybe it’s the only way Kione can be free.

As Sartha’s lungs begin to implode, Kione finds herself trapped in the horrifying moment, mesmerized by the spectacle of a body shutting down. There’s something clinical about it. Mechanical, even. Beautiful, even. The threshold calls to her, like it does at the edge of a very tall building. Kione isn’t sure she can resist. Not even when it’s clear there are only moments left to pull back from the brink.

In the end, stupidly, orgasm is what saves her.

Kione cums, finally, and the burst of pleasure snaps her out of her nihilistic headspace. Torn between ecstasy and horror, Kione lets up. She releases Sartha’s neck, planting her hands on the pillow beside her head to support herself as sheer instinct conjures from her a few more heavy, rutting thrusts that leave Sartha’s cunt painted with traces of her.

She’s marked now. Inside and out.

Despite it all, Kione laughs. She almost lost control. Almost—but didn’t. She passed the test. That’s what counts, right? Once she can see straight, she checks Sartha’s breathing. She’s alright. Probably unbearably light-headed, though, and barely conscious. She can’t open her eyes, really. Just flicker the lids apart for a moment or two, to peer at Kione, bleary and uncomprehending.

Now’s the time, Kione judges, to offer kindness.

“Off The Leash.”

Despite it all, Sartha’s eyes fly wide. Then, she’s not Sartha at all. She’s something even stupider. Even baser. Something that sees with perfect clarity all that Kione has just done, and is grateful for it.

She knows nothing else but gratitude to her handler.

Biology can’t be denied, of course. Hound is no more capable of remaining conscious than Sartha. Right away, sensing that their punishment is over for the night, Hound relaxes into the unconsciousness that rushes to claim her. She gives in to sleep. As she does, she pulls close to Kione. Seeking her warmth. Entrusting herself.

It’s enough to bring a little warmth to Kione’s heart. It’s wonderful. It’s love.

Hound loves her. Sartha loves her.

She must, mustn’t she?

And as she looks down at the hero now, red-faced, bruised, heaving, muzzled, drooling from her mouth and her cunt, it strikes Kione that there’s only one reason she’d even consider staying with such a ruin. The handler told her as much, and she’s never wrong.

“I love you,” Kione breathes. “I love you so much.”

It’s the most romantic moment of Kione Monax’s life.

—

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---

Nothing makes Leinth Aritimis feel good the way being saddled up in the cockpit of a huge mech suit does.

Except ‘good’ isn’t the right word at all. Leinth isn’t sure what would be. She doesn’t know how to describe the knife-edge, stomach-churning, nauseous thrill she feels as she sits in Genetor’s cockpit. It’s a superposition of guilt and vindication, threatening, at any moment, to crystallize into either one, and Leinth is constantly, achingly aware of just how narrow the tightrope she walks is.  She doesn’t know the name for a feeling like that. She just knows that she needs it. Leinth is long past mere addiction.  This feeling, as much as blood, is what flows through her veins. It keeps her alive. That was a hard lesson to learn, but she’s learnt it well. She won’t forget.

In exchange, there are so many other things she’s had to unlearn. Her whole life. Leinth often thinks it’s all gone, but somehow, each day, there’s more to lose. More to change. More to reframe and reinterpret. She has two lives now, but one is true, while the other is merely real. It’s confusing. Leinth can barely carry all that weight. Fortunately, Handler is always there to help.

Leinth trusts Her, of course. How could she not?

She even gave Genetor back to her. Genetor, repaired and refitted with Imperial tech. It stands ever so slightly taller and darker and prouder than before, and Leinth can pilot it, even if she doesn’t deserve to. Since she’s unworthy, she pays special care as she descends the steep slope into the Corlu Valley. Leinth doesn’t deserve any more second chances, not from anybody. A mech could easily lose footing on the loose shale and go crashing into the mountainside, but even a walking fortress like Genetor can be delicate in the right hands. Hell, with a pilot like Leinth, it can even be stealthy.

As the dawn just begins to break, the Corlu Valley is filled with rad-saturated fog. Looking down into it from the surrounding peaks, what you see is more like a lake than a valley. It feels that way, too, when you’re walking through it, and the visibility out of the viewports is almost non-existent. This dirty shit even plays havoc with sensors. Leinth finds herself jumping at shadows sometimes as the fog shifts and billows in unnatural formations. Fog isn’t supposed to move like that. It just blows gently with the wind as it settles down amongst the mountains.

Problem is, mechs like Genetor are mountains that move. And it’s not the only one down here.

Leinth is out hunting. They have intel and they can’t make too much noise on the way in, so there’s no one at her side. None of those unnervingly uniform, blackclad, Imperial Doru mechs Leinth has been getting used to fighting with. It’s a solo mission… almost. And she’s closing in on the designated position. If their intel is right, she’s only a mile or so away from them.

The enemy. The… who? Leinth frowns. She tries not to think about that part. Handler told her she doesn’t have to. But it still doesn’t sit quite right. She can’t help the stray worries that fog her head and turn her thoughts into a messy swarm of doubts. Handler says that’s OK too. She says Leinth just isn’t quite finished yet. She’s so kind.

Leinth reaches up and scratches a little at her muzzle.

“I’m in position,” she croaks into her radio as she brings Genetor to a halt and opens up a channel. “No contact.”

Good. Hold tight.

Leinth sits bolt upright, on the edge of her seat. Just those three words have her at attention, electrified - and all because it’s Her. Her voice. The voice of Leinth’s God. So she has to listen, every part of her, even the doubts and fears and rebellious instincts. Like the feeling of being within Genetor, it’s not all good. Leinth feels as much hate for Handler as she does love - but that’s not such a contradiction anymore. You can hate God and you can love God. It doesn’t change anything. Not what She is. Not what Leinth is.

Handler will love her all the same.

Leinth hates that Her voice reminds Leinth what she is. A sinner. An animal. That knowledge boils within her breast. Leinth feels herself stir and get hard. And she’s salivating so bad she’s actually drooling a little. All conditioned reflexes. It’s humiliating. It makes her angry. But she loves that even over the radio, Handler’s voice promises release. The gift only She can give.

But that’s for later. For now, Leinth needs to focus on the mission. And that means she needs to ask about her. The other one.

“Is she ready?” Leinth has to choke out the pronoun. The feelings that thinking about her summons are like bile.

Not yet. Still on the approach.

Leinth is first. She grins behind her muzzle. A small victory, but it still counts. They all count.

In this case, though, winning means sitting and waiting. Leinth doesn’t care for that. It’s not safe for her. Waiting means thinking. Thinking means temptation. If Leinth sits and waits for too long, she’ll find herself tempted to reach for something forbidden: her freedom.

Leinth has seen every inch of the rebuilt Genetor, inside and out, which is why she knows there’s no contingency plan. No hidden lockout or remote override. There is absolutely nothing to stop Leinth from marching her mech down into the valley, alerting the… enemy, switching sides, and repaying against Handler every little bit of the pain and torture Leinth has herself suffered.

She squirms. Just the thought is blasphemous. She’ll need to be punished later. More drool.

Only, what would happen if she did betray Handler? Most likely, the enemy would never trust her. She’s far too compromised. Oh, they’d make use of her intel as best they could - but then they’d lock her up for the rest of her days. Or worse, they’d execute her.

Leinth can’t handle the thought of that. It would be too kind.

And what if they believed her? Trusted her? Gave her a second chance? Then, things could be just like before - just like they had been before she fell, in the part of her life Leinth barely remembers. She could pilot Genetor on that side again. Fight the good fight once more. She’d be a hero again. A greater hero than ever, surely. The one who came back. The one who redeemed herself, and gave them all of Handler’s secrets. Before long, they’d have her face on the recruitment posters instead of Sartha’s.

And through it all, no matter what, they’d never know who she really is. They’d never know the weight of what she’s done, and the penance it demands. They’d never be able to forgive her.

No. Only Handler can do that. Leinth’s course is set.

She squeezes Genetor’s controls so tight her knuckles ache as she daydreams these useless, stillborn dreams.

Thanks to that, Leinth is ready to move at the first sound of artillery. An instant after the dull roar echoes off the mountain walls, the fog before Genetor parts in a spiral as the shell barrels toward her. Leinth reacts in time - but not to dodge. Genetor isn’t built that way. It’s built to take the hits. Leinth just raises an arm and lets the mass deflectors built into the mech’s structure absorb all the force and fire of the shell’s explosion.

Genetor shudders violently for a moment, but quickly stabilizes as the attitude control systems kick in. Within the cockpit, Leinth grins. Old instincts are coming to life. She knows exactly what to do. She knows she’ll win - and if she doesn’t, it’ll be a mercy.

It’s then that Leinth feels her footing beginning to slip underneath her. Her grin fades. She needs to focus. The earth beneath Leinth’s feet is beginning to collapse, and the only way for a mech as huge and unwieldy as Genetor not to go down is to let momentum keep it upright. That means heading in only one direction. Forward. Down.

Towards them.

Leinth brings her weapons to bear and snarls behind her muzzle. Where is she, damn it? This was supposed to be an ambush. There’s no telling how the enemy spotted her. Maybe Leinth fucked up. Maybe the plan was bad. Maybe it was just an unlucky patrol or sensor sweep.

Doesn’t matter now. Leinth is fighting for her life.

“I’m made,” Leinth hisses into the radio. “Engaging prey. Tell her to hurry the fuck up.”

She’s close. Again, Handler’s voice is magic. It turns Leinth into frozen steel. She regrets the instinctive profanity. If you need her, that is.

Leinth growls something fierce. Handler makes it sound like a perfectly neutral comment, but Leinth recognizes when her pride is being stoked. Doesn’t make it any less effective. But she doesn’t talk back, not to Handler.

Four shapes emerge from the fog as Leinth descends the valley’s slopes. An elite team. They’re who Leinth is supposed to be hunting. But four against one, without the advantage of surprise - those are long odds.

As Genetor crashes to a halt on level ground, two of them start to climb the slopes around Leinth. Before they can complete the flank, she picks one of the others, pushes Genetor’s motive plant into the red, and charges.

It’s funny. Leinth never used to fight like this. She was calmer. More methodical. That time, in the ruins, against Ancyor, she wondered how it was possible to make a machine seem so bestial. But now she has it too. That animal edge. She’s never been more dangerous behind the controls.

And Genetor is well-suited for it. It’s faster than people think - especially now. A few long, lurching steps is all it takes to close the gap. At the last possible moment, Leinth opens up with Genetor’s cannons and missile pods. She hopes she’s guessing the float time right. Her life depends on it.

The cannon shots go wide, unsurprisingly. That just leaves CQ. Leinth draws her chain hawk. Her opponent does the same with their saber. Here it is.

You! the other pilot howls over an unscreened channel, as their blades make contact and the whole valley seems to shake with clashing iron. Traitor!

Leinth flinches. She can’t help it. They always say that, and it always gets to her. She tries not to listen. Her axe swings are slow, relatively, but each one could take out a building. Her opponent needs to respect that, and does. They retreat. Leinth keeps moving forward. Down. Away from the rest of the squad.

How’d they get to you, Leinth? There’s bitter laughter, distorted by static. Can’t have paid you too fucking much if you’re still piloting.

That makes Leinth whine. It’s not about money. Was never about money. She longs to tell them. They deserve, at least, to know that she was never really one of them. She was a poison pill, forcing herself down their throats. She ruined one hero. She’d do the same to them all, in time. Why don’t they get it? It’s just better this way.

C’mon, how? The other pilot demands, as they riposte, taking a chunk out of Genetor’s shoulder. At least the machinery there is redundant - mostly. Don’t tell me you’re a true believer. Not you.

Leinth isn’t; that bothers her. What does she believe in? It’s strange how it hasn’t occurred to her in a very long time that there’s more at stake here than the psychodrama of her own soul. There’s a war going on out there, but that’s been out of view. Beyond what she deserves, why would she be fighting on this side? She doesn’t want them to win, does she?

They must have some sweet fucking perks, over there, Leinth’s opponent spits. That’s my bet. Better girls. Nicer quarters. Hot meals. Better than squatting in holes like a rebel rat. Am I right?

Rebels. Not just enemies. Rebels. That’s who Leinth is fighting against. The cause she used to be part of. She’s still moving forward. Down. Chain hawk still swinging in Genetor’s titanic hand. But her stomach feels like it’s being turned upside down.

For the first time in what feels like forever, it dawns on Leinth that she could just… not fight. She could take her hands off the controls, and let whatever happens happen. And why not? What would be so wrong with that? It seems nice, in a way. Peaceful. Maybe.

Leinth hesitates, and with that, she’s fucked. Her opponent is no rookie. A single opening is all they need. They reverse momentum in the span of a heartbeat, and suddenly their saber is coming straight at Genetor’s center of mass.

Then, the stars overhead fall out of the sky.

To her credit, Leinth nailed the float time. The distance too. When the missiles fall around her opponent like rain, they seem to come from nowhere. Part of that’s the projectile size. They’re small chaff rockets, meant for active defense. Against a mech, they won’t do more than disorient; against a good pilot, not even that. The rebel Leinth’s fighting doesn’t even flinch. They’re determined to make their strike hit home.

But Leinth doesn’t need them to flinch. She just needs to deploy Genetor’s stabilizer pylons for a moment while the mountainside collapses all around them.

From the intel, Leinth knows this terrain is just as foreign to the rebel team as it is to her, and Leinth has learned quickly how perilous it can be. When the shale splinters and shatters beneath her opponent, they’re not ready for it. They topple forward, and now, under gravity, their own mech’s bulk is their enemy. 

The rebel crashes hard, right on their front. Mechs like these don’t get up easy, especially not on this kind of terrain, but they start scrambling for a footing immediately. Leinth’s piloting instincts take hold again. She retracts her stabilizing pylons, walks forward, and stamps on the rebel mech’s leg.

Genetor is a fortress. Under its immense weight, the leg simply splits in two. The stump is a gory ruin of sparking wires and leaking hydraulic fluid. No getting up now.

But down doesn’t mean out. A fallen mech still has weapons. It’s still dangerous. That’s why Leinth needs to finish off her prey before the others are in position. She raises her axe over her head, ready to deliver the coup de grâce.

She hesitates again.

Why? Why do this? To win Handler’s blessing? To earn Her forgiveness? Perhaps, but what sense does it make to commit yet another sin for that cause? Doesn’t she already have enough on her ledger? Leinth knows, of course, that you need to sink in order to rise. If she won’t make herself do terrible things, there’s nothing to forgive - and forgiveness is everything. But… is that all her life will be? Misdeed after misdeed, all at Her command; a great hamster wheel of karma that she’s left running until she’s spent. Why do that? What’s the point?

For a single moment, Leinth achieves clarity. She sees that the control is the point. Nothing more. Whatever sick love Handler has for her is predicated on that. It’s fake. This is an unending purgatory; an Escher painting hell that Handler has crafted out of Leinth’s traumatized psyche. She can only be free if she stops. Now.

But then she comes. Sartha.

Ancyor falls from the fog overhead like a descending comet. Sartha must have leapt from some precipice a hundred feet above. The impact pulverizes the treacherous rock beneath Genetor’s feet, throwing her wildly off-balance and sending a spray of shattered pebbles in all directions.

Any pilot would lose control after a crash landing like that. Probably pass out from the shock, too. But somehow, Sartha Thrace doesn’t. She lands like the side of the mountain is nothing more than a springboard, and rebounds straight toward Leinth’s fallen foe. Ancyor’s engines howl as it extends its claws and buries them, all at once, into the mech’s cockpit. Then it rips.

The mech that was lunging at Leinth just seconds earlier comes apart in a wet shower of reactor coolant and superheated oil.

Even for a pilot of Leinth’s experience, it’s one hell of a fucking spectacle. Enough to stun her out of her previous train of thought. Before that moment of clarity slips away from her, though, she’s filled with a terrible sorrow, and gripped with the urge to train her weapons on Ancyor. To set Sartha free the only way she still can.

Then Sartha says something that sweeps all of that away.

One, she counts over the radio, in a low, smug growl that could have been either one of them.

Suddenly, all that Leinth felt before is gone, replaced with a vicious, petty jealousy. That was her prey. Her kill. Hers. Leinth took her down. It should be her tally.

But… does Handler know that?

“That was mine!” Leinth insists furiously. All of that stuff about control and trauma, it’s all forgotten. She needs the kill credit. She needs Handler to see what she’s done.

You were slow, Sartha tells her. It must be Sartha, Leinth decides. Still on the leash. She sounds just a hair too much like her old self. Like a hero lecturing a rookie, despite the absurd unworthiness of the argument

“I put her down,” Leinth snarls, “while you were blundering around in the fog!”

As they argue, they bring their mechs about to face their pursuers. The pendulum has already swung. Three against two now. And there’ll be no retreating, not now the rebels have lost one of their own.

I was following the plan, Sartha retorts. But you got spotted. I had to improvise.

The only reply Leinth has for her is a vicious growl that leaves loops of spittle drooling from the bars of her muzzle. Her head is getting dangerously fuzzy. Being around Sartha always does that to her. Once again, she can’t quite figure out what she wants.

She wants to punish Sartha. She wants Sartha to punish her. She wants Handler to punish them both. She wants Handler to forgive her.

Leinth headbutts the side of her cockpit in self-destructive frustration. It’s all mixed up. But… she has to be good. She has to be better. She knows that much. She has to win. Because what’s the point, if Handler won’t smile at her and mess her hair and tell her she’s done well?

That’s all Leinth lives for.

Why did she hesitate? Why did she fucking hesitate? Why does this all have to be so confusing?

Leinth? Are you alright?

Handler’s voice brings as much shame as comfort this time. She must have noticed the way Leinth is slipping. Hot tears well up in Leinth’s eyes. After all this time, she still can’t stop fucking up. It’s pitiful. She doesn’t deserve anything. Her vision is blurred and streaked as she tries to focus on the monitor in Genetor’s cockpit. She can barely tell Ancyor and the rebels apart.

“I… I-I…” she chokes out. She can’t hide it.

It’s OK, Handler promises. Leinth sobs, because she knows it is. Handler never lies to her. Do you want me to save you now?

“Yes!” Leinth seizes on that like she’s drowning. She’s never needed that sweet salvation quite so bad. “Yes. Please. Please. Yesyesyes.”

Mercifully, Handler doesn’t drag it out. She’s the kind of God that never lets you down.

Leinth. Sartha. Off The Leash.

Leinth feels her implosion happen in real-time. In that brief moment, she understands why it’s always so hard. It’s because there’s nothing at the heart of her. Not anymore. Handler stuck her fingers in her head and scooped it all out. Now she’ll always be empty. She should hate Handler for it, but she loves Her instead because Handler is the only way she’ll ever feel full again.

Full of love. Full of purpose. Full of pride. Leinth Aritimis may have ceased to be a real person, but there’s something left in the ruins of her personhood. Something animal and angry and oh-so very loyal to the master that holds her leash. In her last moments, the tears in Leinth’s eyes become joyful. It’s such a relief to let go of it all, and be the beast instead.

Leinth Artimis goes away, and Hound wakes up.

Leinth-Hound is young and immature, to be sure, but that just means she’s filled with an untested pup’s eagerness. Briefly, she regards the carcass of her prey and snarls at her packmate for stealing the prize of the kill. It’s not fair, but there’s no time to settle that now. Sartha-Hound is still one of hers. That’s what a pack is. And those rebels? They’re the other side. They’re for hunting.

The nascent Leinth-Hound guns Genetor’s motive plant in a way she’d never normally dare, right to its screaming limit. Explosive bolts light up like fireworks all over, and armor plates go flying into the fog, exposing emergency vents, specially designed and already white-hot. Leinth-Hound isn’t worried. She knows this iron body as well as she does her own. She knows it can take it.

Now, when Genetor moves forward, it’s not a fortress. It’s a thunderbolt. They don’t see it coming. But Sartha-Hound does; Ancyor is right at her side, moving in preternatural synchronicity. In moments like these, they don’t need to talk or plan. They’re animals. Their pack instinct speaks louder than words ever could. They are Handler’s perfect weapons, and they won’t let her down.

As fast as Genetor is now, Ancyor is faster still. Sartha-Hound uses the speed well, blitzing around a flank and picking the first target. By the time Leinth-Hound is upon them, there’s nowhere to go. Hammer and anvil. Unstoppable. The killing begins not long after.

Three against two. It was never going to be close.

***

Dismounting Genetor after it lumbers back into its hangar berth feels like emerging from a deep, timeless sleep. Not a restful one, though. Leinth’s heart quickens anxiously as she surveys the mess that’s been made of her pride and joy. Stripped paint, ashen blast-scars, jagged wounds in the armor, and… could that be blood?

Leinth hopes not, but the flashes she remembers of the battle make her tremble. She tries not to think about it. Instead, she does exactly what she’s been told, and looks for Her.

The hangar is a vast space, a chasm-like monument to the war machines that demand such excessive facilities. Looking up and trying to focus on the ceiling, so far above, makes Leinth’s eyes ache. In here, a person is no more than an ant and, unhelpfully, the hangar is swarming with them - mechanics, engineers, pilots from other teams. It looks like another cohort is returning to base at the same time as Leinth and Sartha. A small army is being disgorged into the hangar in order to see to refueling, repairing, rearming. It’s hard to pick out just one person amongst all that.

But Leinth’s ears soon prick up at the distinctive sound of those heavy boots clacking against the concrete.

As Handler approaches, Sartha leaps from cockpit of her Ancyor and lands just next to Leinth. The two mechs share a berth, just a little way apart from the others. A healthy separation. Leinth flashes Sartha a resentful look. She remembers enough to know that Sartha screwed her over. This isn’t the time or place to hash that out, though. Not in front of Handler. Leinth will just have to hope that She has the wisdom to see past it.

Leinth reaches up and adjusts her muzzle ever so slightly. She needs to be perfect in Her eyes.

Handler looks perfect, as always. There are no wrinkles in Her coat or blemishes on Her leathers. Her boots are perfectly clean, despite the oil and metal powder all over the ground. Every last long, pale hair on Her head is immaculate. Leinth remembers how, at first, she wondered how it was possible for a person to be so inhumanly composed. It seemed impossible. Miraculous.

Now she knows a little more. She knows that both she and Sartha labor for hours every night, polishing boots and tending to leather. Sometimes She even permits them to brush Her hair. But the weary knowledge of the service involved doesn’t make it any less miraculous. Gods have their followers. It’s just the way of things.

“Sartha,” Handler says as She approaches, looking between them. Assessing them. “Leinth. You did well. I’m pleased.”

Leinth closes her eyes and just lets that wash over her. For a moment, it cleanses her of all the shame of hesitation and all the frustration of being bested. All the guilt, too, which is most important thing of all. Leinth tries her very best to stretch that moment out into an eternity, counting all her heartbeats and the spaces in between. She knows, now, again, that she did the right thing. This is right where she’s supposed to be. No one but Handler could ever make her feel like this.

She’s smiling. Her face hurts from it. Leinth doesn’t care how stupid her dumb grin looks. Handler’s praise is worth more than any dignity. It helps to know that, standing right beside her, Sartha is smiling the very same smile. She doesn’t even mind the crowd that’s gathering around the three of them - at a respectful distance, of course. Pilots and mechanics alike, all smirking. They seem poised. Eager.

“Especially you, Leinth,” Handler says, and Leinth can barely believe her luck. Nothing has ever felt sweeter in her ears. There are tears in her eyes. “This is the first time I’ve needed to send you so far away from me. But you didn’t lose sight of what matters. You’re becoming a wonderful hound.”

“T-thank you, sir,” Leinth bleats in a small, girlish voice. She has to choke down on a sob. It’s all she’s ever wanted, even if she never knew it.

And now there’s a delicious little edge to the joy; she can hear a wounded, envious little rumble coming from Sartha’s throat. Perfect.

Before it’s ruined.

“Now,” Handler says expectantly to Leinth. “What’s your tally this time?”

Leinth’s blood runs cold. She was hoping that, on an unusual mission like this, Handler’s normal rules wouldn’t apply. She was wrong. She’ll have to face the consequences.

For just a brief moment, Leinth considers lying. Claiming the one Sartha stole out from under her. But that’s the kind of sin even she doesn’t get to commit, and so the ugly, bitter truth forces its way out of Leinth’s trembling lips.

“One.”

Just one, cored through with a solid round from Genetor at damn near point-blank range. A hell of a shot for most pilots, given that cannon’s heft and recoil. But for Leinth, it changes nothing. One is one. It’s not enough.

“I see,” Handler replies evenly. “And you, Sartha?”

“Three.” Sartha can say it proudly, with her chest puffed out. She’s won.

Leinth hates her for that. Truly hates her. For the pride she must feel, and the reward she’ll receive. It’s mutual, she knows. Once, Sartha was Handler’s only hound, and then the reward was always hers. Now it’s split, decided each time by competition. But Sartha usually wins, and Leinth overflows with resentment for her. Only Handler’s presence keeps the urge to lunge at her suppressed.

Then, moments later, the backlash. The cold flush of shame that howls at her for daring to feel even one little bit of anger or hate for Sartha Thrace. Did Leinth forget? Did she lose sight of the reason they’re here? Leinth made Sartha this way. It’s her fault - all her fault. She doesn’t deserve to hate.

But she does anyway. Once again, Leinth is reminded of just how low and vile she is. The abasement feels good, in a twisted kind of way. It’s freeing. There are no pretenses here. But it makes Leinth itch too. She needs Hander. She needs those magic words.

“I see,” Handler says again. “You know what that means, don’t you? Sartha has won.”

Leinth nods her head, ever so slightly. There’s no sense in denying it. No sense in being angry at Handler. She speaks with judgment’s impartial voice. That doesn’t mean Leinth needs to enjoy what happens next, of course.

“Sartha.” Handler beckons the other hound forward. “It’s time for your prize. Sit.”

Sartha takes one overeager step forward and then drops like a rock. She kneels like it’s her rightful place. She bends forward, pressing close to Handler, head so low her muzzle is almost scraping along the ground.

“Good hound.” Handler rests her hand on Sartha’s head and starts to pet. There’s a thin smile on her face - cruel, yes, but Leinth doesn’t mind, when she’s smiling at her. God can be cruel. “Good hound.”

Even from behind, Leinth can hear the ecstatic little whimper that erupts from Sartha. She’s in heaven. Who wouldn’t be?

All Leinth can do is watch, as every kind of bitterness curdles in her gut. As every cell in her body yearns to trade places. All those other pilots and mechanics are watching too. Laughing.

“Would you like your treat?” Handler asks Sartha.

“Y-yes, sir.” Sartha’s voice is trembling from the sheer thrill of the moment. She was a hero, once. It’s hard to believe that now. “Yes, sir. Please. P-please.”

Her eyes are fixed on a single spot. It’s the same place Leinth would be looking, if their positions were reversed.

Handler’s boots.

“Oh, this?” Handler makes a point of extending one foot forward. Her smile widens. “You want this?”

Sartha nods rapidly. She’s an overexcited child. “Yes. Yyyyes. Sir.”

Slurring her words. It’s undeniably pathetic. The entire watching crowd clearly thinks so. But yes, a hero, once. Until Leinth.

“Very well,” Handler says, with benevolent gravitas. “Good hounds get rewards, and you’ve been good. Sartha, Off The Leash.”

The words aren’t for Leinth so they don’t draw her under their power, but she still trembles at their force. Watching them work their way through Sartha is a terrible thing. For a moment she goes limp and sags, like she’s completely crumbling, and what comes alive within her after a mere instant has an unmistakably different presence; she’s hunched, hackles up, heaving with each panted breath as her tongue lolls, dog-like, out of her mouth. The new presence is dangerous, but not right now. She’s too caught up in adoration of her master.

It’s Hound. Sartha’s Hound.

“Good,” Handler says softly. She glanced down at Her extended boot. “Now go.”

Sartha-Hound shuffles forward in a frenzy, needy for her reward. As quickly as she can manage, she wraps around Handler’s leg, presses herself against Her boot, and starts to grind. The first sound out of her throat, loud even in the hangar, is a gratified moan so wild and pure it makes even the watching crowd of Imperials blush. It’s clear that she’s been yearning for this, and the yearning has made it all the sweeter.

This - humping the boot of the woman who broke her - is Sartha Thrace’s highest pleasure.

It’s Leinth’s too, of course. But she’s denied it. She didn’t win. Now, as Handler turns Her attention to Leinth, she braces herself.

It’s not that Handler wants to hurt her, of course. It’s just that Leinth needs to understand that she can do better.

Take your medicine, Leinth.

“You know what to do, Leinth.” Handler’s small smile fortifies her. “They’re waiting for you. Off you go.”

“Yes, sir.”

Leinth nods and turns, and her cheeks fill with the color of shame as she heads toward the waiting crowd. Their eyes are all lurid and full of humor. Apparently, they used to be afraid of Handler and Her hounds. They still fear Handler, and they still hate Leinth and Sartha, but something happened, and the pair of hounds are entirely declawed in their eyes. The terms of the contest help with that. It ensures steady familiarization. They’re well-used to Leinth by now, after all her defeats, but that doesn’t make it any less of a spectacle when Leinth begins to strip.

Unlike Sartha, Leinth has always favored a standard-issue, green piloting jumpsuit, although she can’t resist keeping it unzipped to the waist and tied loosely around her hips. Gets too damn hot in the cockpit otherwise. But now, as around two dozen Imperials watch and leer, she tugs it down her legs and steps out of it after first kicking away her boots.

Someone wolf-whistles.

Beneath that, Leinth always wears a synthetic bodyskin that clings tight to her form, black and sleek. It’s not modest, but that’s what the jumpsuit’s for, and it helps monitor her vitals and keeps her from scraping her skin against the cockpit instruments when Genetor takes a big hit. It unfastens from the back of her neck, and there’s no way to take it off in front of people that doesn’t end up looking like a strip show. Leinth just tries to make it quick, as she unzips it down to her ass and peels it away from her physique.

She has no love for these people. She acknowledges that they’re her comrades now, but only because of Handler. Leinth is just doing this because it’s what She wants.

Once the bodyskin is tossed aside, Leinth is left in nothing but her underwear. Those go quickly, and then she’s completely naked. She tries to hide herself; Handler doesn’t care. It doesn’t help. Trying to cover her body with her hands just makes Leinth feel young and small and like it’s her first time in the girls’ locker room again.

It doesn’t help that the hangar is damn cold.

Hopefully, it’ll be over quick.

“Go ahead,” Handler calls out. Her voice is mixed with the sounds Sartha-Hound makes as she humps Her boot. She’s practically dripping through her pants now. “She’s all yours.”

This time, She isn’t talking to Leinth. She’s talking to the crowd.

They all salute their thanks to Handler before surging forward toward Leinth; a seething mass of dirty, petty, horny pilots and mechanics. Within moments, they’re all around her, pressing in, each one of them desperate for their chance to grab, grope, touch, slap. Whatever trepidation they once had regarding Sartha is plainly long gone. To them, Leinth is just meat. They have seen with her own eyes that she’s no longer the rebel ace whose face she shares.

But that doesn’t mean they can’t take out their resentments on her.

“Rebel bitch!” Leinth hears, as she’s pushed this way and that by the crowd crush. “Not such a fucking hero now, huh? Glad you know your fucking place.”

She hears it from all around her; worse, too, all kinds of insults and terms of abuse, in voices that are full of nothing but mockery and contempt. It’s not long before it’s all just an overwhelming, incoherent din - but somehow, still, Handler’s voice cuts through it all, clear and strong. And as ever, her words deliver sweet mercy.

“Leinth. Off The Leash.”

Now, perhaps more than ever, Leinth welcomes the oblivion. Ego death is salvation. With each part of her that falls away, the sheer humiliation of what’s happening to her burns just a little less. Leinth yearns to be less. To be nothing at all, maybe, so that nothing hurts, but even if that’s too far, she knows that diminishing will set her free. As quickly as the trigger word works, she can still feel it coming for just a heartbeat; the threshold of transformation. It’s like an orgasm. She closes her eyes and lets it take her.

Leinth Aritimis goes away, and Hound wakes up.

It’s not like Hound enjoys what’s happening. At least, not at first. Waking up is always a little confusing, and the crowd of people accosting Hound make no concessions to her confusion. Before she can get her bearings, Hound finds herself forced to her knees as her legs are swept away. She snaps and growls her complaints at the women closest to her, but they just laugh. It’s an empty threat, and they know it. She can’t bite, and not just because of the muzzle. It’s because Handler wouldn’t like that.

“Dumb mutt,” someone jeers. Must be someone who’s been around long enough to know what’s what. Hound whines.

“Come here, dog.”

Hound can barely see amongst all the bodies pressing in on her from all sides, but a moment later, as she turns her head cluelessly from side to side, she feels someone grab hold of her muzzle and pull her towards them. Then, suddenly, there’s a boot between her legs, forcing her thighs apart, so rough it’s all but kicking her as it grinds against her cock.

Hound whines again. People laugh. “This is what you want, right?” someone jeers. “Sick fuck.”

It’s not. Not even close. This is just a mockery of the reward Sartha-Hound is receiving. Leinth-Hound can’t hear her cries of pleasure over the din of the mob, but she can certainly imagine. She knows how good it feels. Not like this at all. Handler is special.

Even Her boot.

But, entirely against her wishes, Hound’s body is beginning to respond to this rough treatment. Anger surges within her as she notices it: the rising heat that tempts her hips to buck and threatens to turn her whines into something like moans. It’s irresistible. Handler likes her with a hair trigger. Hounds need to be keen. She can’t help but feel good.

She does hate it, though. Hates it bitterly. Hound has little concept of humiliation or dignity, but she does have the instinct to fight, claw, win, dominate. To lead the pack. This pleasure flies in the face of all that. Hound wants to lash out, but she can’t. She’s powerless. She has to submit.

And they know it. Worse, they notice.

“Bitch in heat,” someone sneers. Hound catches a glimpse as they bend down to squeeze and maul her tits. A female pilot. “God. You’re actually enjoying this.”

Hound whines again, but her voice betrays her. More laughter.

“Think all the rebels are like this?” asks another woman.

“Definitely,” replies yet another. “You can tell, they keep letting us fuck ‘em out there.”

Laughter from every direction.

“C’mon, already,” calls a different voice, terse and irritated. “I’ve been scrubbing out cockpits all day. I need some stress relief.”

The crowd around Hound heaves as someone pushes their way to the front. Only the wall of bodies around her keeps her from slumping to the ground. It’s unbelievably hot, and the smell of sweat and machine oil is inescapable.

“And get this stupid fucking thing off her face,” the mechanic spits. “I want to use that.”

Hound yelps in distress as she feels her muzzle being pulled away from her face. The leather strips, still bound tight, bite painfully around her head, but it’s more than that. The muzzle is Handler’s gift. She’s not allowed to remove it. Her face is wrong without it. But the woman assaulting her doesn’t care, and try as Hound might to lunge for her treasure, within moments it's borne aloft and away by the mob. Hound hears it clatter to the ground somewhere nearby.

There’s no time to dwell on that agony. In just another moment, Hound feels a fist in her hair, gripping tight. In the next, she’s being yanked forward, and her face is immediately pressed between a pair of strong, muscular thighs. The mechanic has shucked her clothes down to around her knees. Her intentions are clear.

“Lick, slut,” she demands.

Hound doesn’t want to, but she knows she’s supposed to obey. Even a moment’s hesitance might displease Handler. So, she buries her tongue into the mechanic’s cunt and starts to lap with all the eagerness she can muster. Her reward is that the mechanic squeezes down on her even tighter and starts filling the air with smug, breathy grunts of pleasure. The others coo enviously, and the grabbing and groping intensifies. Everyone wants a piece.

This is what Hound is now. Stress relief. She’s everyone’s toy.

And inevitably, she’s beginning to enjoy it. Hound’s instincts cut both ways. Wanting to fight for dominance is one thing, but this treatment is making the pecking order nice and clear. A bitch like Hound can’t help but accept it. Can’t help but embrace her place at the very bottom. Besides, it’s not like she doesn’t enjoy eating pussy. Soon, Hound’s cock is fully hard, and drooling all over the hangar floor.

A few people laugh at the display of submissive need. One woman reaches down and jerks Hound off a few times, lazily, making her howl with the pleasure of it.

Why not? It’s just another toy.

It’s not long before Hound feels herself grabbed, pulled back, away from the mechanic she was servicing. She can’t tell if they got to finish or not. It doesn’t matter. There’s already something new in her face: a hand, this time, fingers, pressing down on her tongue, making her drool all over herself, daring her to bite. Someone grabs her wrist and makes Hound extend her arm until her hand ends up wrapped around a cock. She catches a glimpse; it’s one of the female pilots who was mocking her earlier. Hound starts obediently jacking her off.

She’s a prisoner to the energy of the crowd now. She is what they want her to be. And she won’t be done until they’re all satisfied.

Hound quickly becomes delirious. She’s turned on and exhausted and there’s too much going on around her to keep track of, so she stops trying. Her world becomes a seemingly never-ending kaleidoscope of bodies and flesh. Laughter and moaning. The hand retreats from her mouth, and something else is inserted. At first, Hound thinks it’s a cock. Then she realizes it’s a toy they want her to lube up with drool as they force it down her throat. At some point, her other hand is forced between a woman’s thighs so she can ride her Hound’s fingers. Her ass is red and bruised from all the people that keep slapping it. Her cock twitches violently every time it’s touched, but nobody in the crowd wants to be the one who lets her come.

Hound just accepts it. All of it. Right now, that’s what her mouth is for. What her hands are for. What her body is for. She’s a toy, and a spectacle. Most of the people who can’t get close enough to touch her are masturbating at the sight of someone who used to be a rebel ace be so completely defiled. Amidst the havoc, Hound loses track of how many people she’s eaten out or sucked off.

At some point, she becomes aware of something damp and sticky plastered down her front and across her chest, and realizes those female pilots have been coming all over her.

Hound welcomes it. Her animal moans are getting louder and more desperate with each passing moment. It feels good, and even the parts that don’t are gratifying. This is her penance. Her personal harrowing. It’s right. It’s what she deserves, even if she yearns so very desperately to be in Sartha’s place instead.

Can Handler see her? Does Handler know how good she’s being? Is Handler pleased?

Suddenly, an unnatural hush descends over the crowd, little by little, washing in like the tide. People start pulling away from Hound, whispering urgently to one another. Hound lets out a little keening whine. She hasn’t finished. She hasn’t done her job yet.

Then she sees why everyone has gone cold on her. There’s an officer on deck.

Not just an officer. The woman walking out into the hangar is the commander of this entire facility: Phylax-General Athina Kynilandre. She cuts an unmistakable figure; on a base full of young pilots, her silver hair and timeworn face mark her out, and her dress uniform, with its medals and lapels, makes it clear that she is not a woman to be trifled with.

Nor is she a woman that people wish to see them gangbanging a brainwashed rebel pilot.

There’s a lot of coughing and looking aside and surreptitious uniform-fixing as she withers the crowd with her disapproving glare. There are no words of reprimand, though. Not for them. General Kynilandre has eyes only for Handler. As she approaches Her, Sartha-Hound finally takes notice. She looks like she’s about to growl a warning, before Handler stays her with a single gesture.

“Tell me,” General Kynilandre demands of Handler, “is this the kind of conduct your practices encourage?”

Handler salutes politely. She is completely self-assured, even now. “It has its place. I’ve sanctioned their behavior. I ask you not to punish them.”

“Hm.” The general’s face is a thin, stern line. It’s plenty clear that there’s only one person she’d like to punish. After a moment, she glances at Leinth. “I came here to receive your report. I’m to evaluate your… new approach.”

"Of course.” Handler takes this all completely in stride. She’d never let Her hounds down. “Asset Aritimis performed well in the field. I expect that her reconditioning will be complete soon, as Asset Thrace’s is. Everything is proceeding smoothly. I’m sure the results of their latest sorties speak for themselves.”

“I’m not,” General Kynilandre retorts. The distaste she holds for Handler is plain and palpable enough to raise Hound’s hackles. “I’ve been reviewing cockpit recorder transcripts. I see clear evidence of a lack of unit cohesion between your two pets. Overcompetitiveness, resentment, petty jealousy - these are traits we actively discourage in pilots. This ought to concern you. Doesn’t it?”

She means this to humble Her. Instead, Handler smiles wider than ever before. “No.”

General Kynilandre raises a furious eyebrow. “No?”

“That’s right.” Hander nods.

“Explain yourself,” the general demands. Handler’s laconic comments are pissing her off.

Handler pauses for a moment. Considers.

“You know, they’d gladly kill me,” Handler says. “ My hounds, I mean. If they could.”

The general’s eyes widen. She seems faintly astonished by the confession. Pleased, though. She thinks it’s something she can use.

“Not easily, of course,” Handler muses. “They’d agonize and they’d hesitate and they’d sob. I’m not sure what they’d be able to do afterward. They’d need the moment to be perfect. But if their hands were around my neck? Yes, I think they’d squeeze down with all their strength. They hate me, after all. Even Sartha.”

Hound is violently horrified. She feels like she’s going to throw up. She would never. Could never. She wants to scream her denial out loud, but Handler’s words hold her under a strange spell.

“It’s only natural,” Handler continues. “They need to hate something. Everybody does. It’s a fundamental drive. They can’t hate the rebels. Not truly. That would unbalance everything. And think of all I’ve taken from them. Who would they hate but me?”

“You make a strong case for terminating your initiative,” General Kynilandre rumbles. “Reliance on such an unstable element is unacceptable.”

“That’s individually,” Handler notes. “Unstable? Yes, maybe. Sartha, I believe, is close to perfect. My finest. But even with her, I couldn’t be completely certain.” She turns her gaze to Leinth-Hound. “Until now.”

“Get to the point.”

Handler isn’t to be rushed. Her genius deserves space. “Now that I have two of them, they don’t need to hate me. They can hate each other instead.”

“Absurd,” the general sneers. “What kind of pilot team hates each other?”

“One you can trust,” is Handler’s answer. “Trust perfectly. They will never betray me. Never let me down. If they did, the other would be proven the better hound. And they can’t bear the thought of that.”

Now General Kynilandre goes quiet. She’s beginning to see.

“Repression is never completely successful,” Hander explains. “Better, then, to provide them with an outlet. Their animosity, petty as it may seem, allows them to sublimate their violent urges towards me. It was surprisingly easy to engineer. To Sartha, Leinth is someone who asked too much of her - and now, an interloper on our relationship. To Leinth, Sartha is someone who let her down and over whom she feels unfathomably guilty - and now, a rival who hoards my affection.”

Handler licks her lips. There’s something deeply unwholesome creeping into her voice. A kind of pride, in something nobody should be capable of taking pride in. A pleasure, too. Everyone listening can hear it. If it was anyone else, they’d accuse her of perversions, but Handler seems so far beyond that. She’s never touched Sartha or Leinth that way - unlike most of them. But all the same, it’s undeniable.

Handler enjoys her work. She enjoys it very much.

“Thanks to this dynamic, they strive like never before.” Hander isn’t just proud of herself. She's proud of her hounds too. Maybe that’s even creepier. “You will have seen their piloting metrics, general? They tell the whole story. Sartha Thrace and Leinth Aritimis have never been better pilots than they are right now, in hatred of each other.” Her smile is unnervingly bright. “And thanks to each other, they’re free to love me with all their hearts.”

“That’s…” General Kynilandre’s words die. She doesn’t know what it is. “How can you say that? They’re damned, broken wretches.”

“Do you think so?” Handler seems entertained by the general’s assessment. “I think they’re quite beautiful. If I do say so myself.”

General Kynilandre falls very quiet for a long moment. When she speaks again, her voice quakes with outrage - but everyone, even the lowest-ranking mechanics, recognizes her anger for what it is: impotent.

“This is no way to run a war,” she says quietly. “Using people like that. I don’t give a damn about the piloting metrics. I got my wings long before you were wearing that coat. We used to… It’s just wrong.”

She doesn’t give a damn about the piloting metrics. But others do, and they both know it. Handler is untouchable. There’s nothing more to be said.

“Will that be all, general?” Handler asks politely. She’s still smiling, though. “If you’d care for a hands-on demonstration of their eagerness, I’m sure Leinth would be more than willing-“

“Go fuck yourself,” General Kynilandre spits, before stalking back out of the hangar.

After she’s gone and the door slides shut behind her, the assembled crowd of pilots, mechanics, and other staff collectively let out the breaths they’ve been holding.  But not completely. No punishment is certainly a relief, but more than a few of them have been unnerved by Handler’s words. It’s spoiled the atmosphere.

Hound isn’t unnerved, though. Everything Handler said ended up washing over her like it was nothing. Like it was about someone else entirely.

She isn’t Leinth Aritimis. Not right now. She’s just a bitch.

Handler looks over the crowd. “You may continue,” she says.

She’s talking about Sartha-Hound too, and she does. Enthusiastically. The crowd is slower to get going. It takes a little while for them to shake off their inhibitions again. But, in the end, not one of them leaves or holds back. Nothing’s changed.

Hound is still a warm, willing body.

More or less.

***

Eventually, it ends. One by one, each of the bored, horny, frustrated base personnel spends their lust all over Hound’s body. Once they’ve had their fill, they fix their clothes and drift off to the mess, or their next duty shift, or back to their bunk. After enough of them leave, the party is over. The atmosphere dies, and the stragglers make a hasty exit. Nobody wants to be left alone with Handler and Her hounds.

They know attracting her attention is unwise. People still whisper about Meetra Kotys.

So in the end, it’s just the three of them. Handler stands impassive, as Sartha-Hound nuzzles and ruts and ruins her own clothes. The hound could go all day. She’s in heaven. Leinth-Hound isn’t so lucky. Wet and soiled and shivering, all she can do is remain splayed across the ground as she waits to be told what to do.

Everything aches. Her mouth. Her ass. Bruises all over. No gentleness was spared for her. At the end of it all, Hound’s torn between two feelings. One is a kind of weary acceptance. Her penance is done. She can be at peace with that. But the other is anything but peaceful. Hound craves release. Her body demands it. She’s still hard. She’s in heat.

More out of sheer, automatic reflex than anything else, Hound starts touching itself. She looks to Handler for permission as soon as she realizes what she’s doing. It’s pushing it, but she knows that at moments like this, She is inclined to be indulgent. The imperceptible nod Handler gives her is a gift from God.

Hound starts moving faster. She touches herself in a brute, stupid way, reaching down, pawing uselessly at herself, rubbing her cock against her own thigh. It’s all she’s capable of. She’s bruised all over. All her strength is spent. Even wrapping her hand around her shaft feels like too much. Her fingers are cramping.

She whines. She wails. It’s still enough. All her stamina is spent, too. She’s close.

But Handler has another gift.

“Leinth,” She says. She’s using that special voice of Hers. “On The Leash.”

Hound lets out a pained groan from the exertion as her shattered, overtaxed mind is forced to pull itself back together. Leinth doesn’t want to wake. She’d sooner stay buried. But Handler’s special words are like the tides. There’s no fighting them. So, after little more than an instant, Hound goes away, and Leinth awakens.

And finds herself in hell.

The first thing that hits is the pain. It hurts all over. The sheer exhaustion is agony; bone-deep and paralyzing. Next, it’s the cold, and the hard floor, and the wet, and the stickiness, all over her, and the stench of sex and sweat, inescapable. The visceral discomfort of it is staggering.

After just a couple of seconds, Leinth’s mind catches up. She remembers, vaguely, what’s happened to her. What she’s done. And the shame hits harder than anything.

She was used. By everyone. By people she vaguely remembers she’s supposed to detest. Like an animal. Like a toy. Now Leinth is slumped in the mess of it all, debased worse than any whore she’s ever seen soldiers use. And she’s touching herself.

And she can’t stop.

She just can’t. Leinth needs this too bad. In her body, but in her heart too. What if she stopped herself? What if she reclaimed that barest little shred of dignity and personhood? That little act of defiance would threaten to mean something, and Leinth doesn’t want that. She’s too tired for it. She can’t handle what might - should - come after.

Better to sink instead. To embrace what she’s doing. To just be this. It’s easy, in a way. It feels right - right for the guilt she feels over Sartha, and right because, deep down, she knows she’s become exactly the same kind of traitor. If Leinth makes herself come like this, she’s the worst. And she knows how to be the worst. Handler taught her. It makes sense.

Leinth needs permission, of course. She looks to Handler.

“Please…” she musters. Her voice is ragged. Her eyes ask the rest of the question.

Handler nods again. “You may.”

That’s all Leinth needs. She quickens her pace and, after just a couple of seconds, her pleasure peaks. After a couple more, she spills everything all over herself and all over the ground. Her cheeks burn with the humiliation of it.

The pleasure feels good. It’s what her body needs. The humiliation does too, in a way. But the emptiness that descends afterwards is terrible.

Handler doesn’t let her languish in it. She’s infinitely merciful.

Setting Sartha-Hound aside with a little gesture, She crosses the hangar floor to Leinth’s side. “Up,” She says. “Sit.”

Leinth thought she couldn’t move, but when Handler orders her, she finds the strength. Leinth fights her way up to her knees.

Handler reaches down and touches Leinth’s cheek, very lightly. Leinth shivers. It feels amazing. It’s Handler, and it’s the gentlest anyone has been with her in forever.

“Are you ready?” She asks.

Leinth gasps. She knows what comes next, and she needs it. Bad. “Yes. Please. I n-need it.”

“I forgive you,” Handler says softly.

Those three words mean everything to Leinth. Her entire body goes rigid. She tears up. She closes her eyes. Everything. Leinth is forgiven for all her failures. For losing today’s contest. For not living up to Handler’s expectations. For being the worse hound. But for much more than that, too. She’s forgiven for trying to escape, long ago. She’s forgiven for every time she ever cursed Handler’s name. She’s forgiven for being a rebel, and for betraying them. She’s forgiven for it all.

Handler has that godlike power. Leinth feels the weight of every sin she’s ever committed as they’re lifted from her shoulders - for a little while, anyway. Until they come back, she can bask in this. In her slate washed clean. In perfect atonement. She’s never felt so free.

“Thank you,” she weeps. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Handler replies. “I’m sure you’ll do better next time, Leinth. Now, come along.”

Handler turns and begins to walk away. She doesn’t need to look back. At once, Sartha is at Her heel. Leinth leaps to her feet, but before she returns to her rightful place, she dashes a few paces away from Handler.

She hasn’t forgotten. She needs it. Her muzzle.

As quickly as she can, Leinth fits it back into place over her mouth. Wearing it makes her just that little bit less anxious. Everything is right again. She’s forgiven. Once again, she’s a good hound. Good hounds wear their muzzle. Handler will inspect the straps later, and She expects them to be perfect. Leinth won’t disappoint her. Not ever again. Leinth knows she’s just a stupid dog, but she’s very, very determined to learn today’s lesson.

Leinth thinks back to the mission, and to what she did wrong. She makes a vow to herself, in Handler’s name.

Next time, she will not hesitate.

—

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Nothing makes Leinth Aritimis feel good the way being saddled up in the cockpit of a huge mech suit does.

It’s not a rare refrain for a pilot. Most are enraptured by the sheer power it brings. You can feel it in your gut; the thrum of the engine, the shaking of the earth, the divine thunder of artillery. It’s never been that for Leinth, though. Truth be told, the noise and fury of her own Genetor still frightens her at times. But what really matters is what it lets her do.

Fight.

Leinth never set out to be a hero herself. She just wanted to be a little like her own heroes. To do her part. That was the least anyone could do, and the duty had grown heavy in her belly during the last years of her adolescence, until she was finally old enough to join up. The war isn’t going well. They’re always on the back foot. But that means Leinth always has something to defend, and knowing that makes her strong. The looks of hope and relief she sees on peoples’ faces when she dismounts after a long, hard-fought battle - that’s what feels good.

Now, after a couple of years, people were starting to call her a hero. Crazy.

She doesn’t deserve it, and she always tells them so. She’s no Sartha Thrace, and her Genetor is certainly no Ancyor. Ancyor is a proud old beast. Genetor is a slab. A fortress as much as a vehicle. Huge, angular, unwieldy - but not for Leinth. She’s learned well how to wield it. In her hands, the rebel prototype is a bulwark. She takes pride in that, and she’s proud of her machine in turn. Proud of the way it keeps moving even now, with an awful, jagged chunk taken out of its right leg.

Leinth reaches up overhead and punches a few switches, shunting power into the sensor suite for one more sweep. A few moments later, it clicks back its report. Nothing. No movement. That’s a  relief. Maybe it’s actually over.

“Genetor reporting,” she says into her radio. “Sector is clear. I’m gonna stay out just a little longer. Make sure the bastards are gone for good.”

You got it, comes the warm reply, after a brief burst of static. But I think we got ‘em, Leinth. Don’t wear yourself out.

Right now there’s little choice but to take the sensors at their word. No use looking outside, that’s for damn sure. The day’s fighting has turned the cityscape into a blackened ruin where ash hangs in the air like fog, billowing on unnatural winds. What tall buildings remain are nothing more than burnt rebar skeletons ; in amongst them are the carcasses of mechs that haven’t quite managed to fall, looming over the shattered concrete like strange, harrowed statues. Most of them are so ravaged by the firestorm, Imperial and rebel models look exactly alike.

It’s demoralizing. But as long as there’s land and there’s people, they can rebuild. Leinth always insists upon that, to herself.

It’s been bad here. Intense. A fresh Imperial offensive. There’s no telling how much worse tomorrow might be. This could have been the final battle or merely an opening skirmish. Sometimes the resources and reserves at the enemy’s disposal seem all but unlimited. There’s a push-pull logic to the ever-moving front lines that Leinth can’t perceive. It’s not her job to, as a pilot. But like everyone else, she knows that they are not winning.

Maybe they can win here. Maybe Leinth can be the rock on which the tide breaks. She’s the one who never loses faith.

The falling dusk is a mercy, in a way. It hides the worst of the damage, and the most heartbreaking details. The contents of a wardrobe and a life ripped out of a building by an artillery shell and strewn all over the ashen ground. No good comes from looking. Those things - the human traces, the human remains - are too small for most mech pilots to notice. But in quiet moments, Leinth finds herself looking, magnifying them to fill the Genetor’s viewscreen. It’s a bad habit, and the darkness of night saves her from it. If she indulges, it’s too easy to let her thoughts turn to dark things.

Dark things like Sartha Thrace.

It’s been months since she disappeared. She went out like a hero. Her Ancyor was last seen plunging deep into the enemy’s lines to fight a furious rearguard. She’s listed as MIA not KIA, technically, but Leinth has done her best to make her peace with her hero’s passing. The rumors are making it damn hard, though. Rumors about seeing the Ancyor back in service on the wrong side of the war. Rumors about it moving the way only she could make it move.

Leinth hates hearing that shit. She’s said so often enough and angrily enough that no one says it to her face anymore. But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t overhear when people are whispering about it. And it’s hard as hell to get it out of her head. Sartha Thrace means the world to her. Meant the world to her. That poster above her bunk in the barracks. An idol. Even Leinth’s transition goal, in the early days before she knew better. Now the kind thing to do is to let her memory rest until the time comes when they can honor it properly.

It’s not that she doesn’t wish Sartha Thrace was still alive. She wishes that more than anything. Especially in battles like these, it sure would be nice to have a hero to believe in.

Genetor! Headed your way! Leinth!

The urgency of her CO’s voice on the radio catches her attention just as much as her name. Leinth snaps back to attention and looks down at her scope - and then freezes. Her first response - her rational response - is that it’s a glitch. It has to be. It doesn’t make sense for a heat signature like that to be moving that fast. Then instinct takes flight. Leinth can feel it already. The vibrations. The heat in the air. She brings Genetor around to face the new threat, brings her weapons up, and kicks her searchlights up to max.

It’s too late. No time to brace herself. Ancyor is upon her.

Leinth would recognize its savage face anywhere, even here, and it makes her hesitate. If she wasn’t already screwed, that pause is what screws her. Once Leinth can make her hands move, it’s far too late to make use of Genetor’s shields. And Ancyor doesn’t stop to launch a blow. It simply barrels into her. With a raw howl of steel on steel, the mechs collide. Genetor might be a slab, but Ancyor is monstrously strong and it has momentum. There’s no contest. The impact sends Leinth off-balance. The ACS screams at her, but there’s nothing to be done.

Genetor topples over. The bastion falls.

And it will not be allowed to stand. Ancyor is still on her, driving its massive chainblades into the prone mech’s limbs. Leinth cries out in panic. She feels the severance in her own flesh. The rattling, the noise, the flashing lights as Genetor’s systems struggle to shunt power to the cockpit - it’s a nightmare. She already knows she’s lost. There’s no coming back from this.

But it gets worse. Ancyor rears up, and amongst the ashen city, lit only by Genetor’s flickering searchlights, it looks truly awful in its lupine fury. Then it brings its fist down, right on the cockpit. The sound of the blow is an awful crunch; a noise no metal should ever make. Leinth screams as the wall of her cockpit starts to bow in against her. Genetor holds, but only just. Another blow has it convulse, and Leinth’s scream is silenced when her head is thrown back against the back of the cockpit. No ACS to compensate now.

She starts seeing in black and white. Not good. Concussion, at least. It happened so fast. Leinth is still struggling to believe in what she’s seeing and feeling. It doesn’t make sense.

There’s only one woman who can pilot Ancyor like this. But it’s not her. It’s not her.

There’s no third blow. Or if there is, Leinth is too far gone to feel it. She hears something, though. Other vehicles approaching. Not mechs. Smaller. They get close, then stop, then Leinth hears scrambling. Shouting. Climbing. The realization of what’s happening makes her breath catch with fear, but she’s beyond even adrenaline now. Darkness is here for her.

The last thing she feels before oblivion is the Imperial engineers starting to drill their way into Genetor’s cockpit.

***

There is no time, in the room. No daylight, no clock. Leinth has been counting sleeps and by that tally it’s been fifteen days, but that’s surely off by a day or more. Especially given how hard she got knocked around.

Leinth remembers being pulled from Genetor’s cockpit. She remembers being bound and guarded and dragged into an infirmary, to receive only the most basic medical care. Leinth had been in and out for most of that, twitching and shouting whenever she was close to consciousness, but then they gave her something that brought her all the way back up to uncomfortably sharp awareness. Then, an interrogation. Noise, bright lights, sternness, threats - the usual. Crude. Blunt. Like all pilots, Leinth has prepared herself for this long ago. They got nothing from her.

She’d been bracing herself for torture to follow - but no. At least, not that kind of torture. Something had interrupted the proceedings. There had been a whisper in an ear, and then a strange ripple had gone through her interrogators. With fresh urgency, they’d dragged her to her feet and she’d been taken somewhere else. Somewhere down, under the hangar, far beneath the rest of the Imperial base.

It’s strange here. The walls are dark, and it’s much too quiet. None of the hustle and bustle that’s everywhere in any normal military facility. Since then, nothing. Leinth has been left to sit and rot in her uncertainty and her boredom. The solitude is maddening. There is nothing to disturb it except occasional meals given at irregular intervals through a slot in the door.

From how it leaves her feeling, Leinth is pretty sure the food is drugged. She eats most of it anyway. Tricking her into starving herself could be another way of softening her up.

The sound of locking bolts retracting into the wall heralds change. At once, Leinth is completely focused. Any information about her situation, any stimulation at all, is a sweetness she’s desperate for. When the heavy cell door swings open, she catches sight of the person holding the key. Immediately she regrets her eagerness. This is almost more disconcerting than seeing nothing at all.

The menial standing before her had once been an Imperial pilot, judging from the uniform and the wings on her lapel. Once, but no longer. There’s something unmistakably broken about her. Her uniform is wearing thin from neglect and she moves with a strange, stooped, shambling gait that just doesn’t look right on a person. She’s like an animal that’s been beaten one too many times. Leinth wishes she could see her face, if only to verify her humanity, but she can’t. The menial is wearing an awful hood that hides her face - leather, perhaps, and fashioned to look like a dog’s head.

It’s some sick shit, even for Imperials, and Leinth doesn’t have a clue what it means.

All is forgotten, though, when the menial steps aside and reveals Leinth’s visitor.

Sartha Thrace.

Her presence is electricity on Leinth’s skin, and for that reason she knows she’s real even before she pinches herself and blinks - three times, four times, five times. It’s impossible, but she’d know that face anywhere, even here, even in the dim glow of the cell’s lights. It’s the real deal. Leinth believes it with her whole heart, especially when Sartha Thrace flashes her a classic smile and reaches up to rake back her messy blonde hair. Somehow, in the flesh, she’s even more beautiful than she is on the posters.

“Leinth Aritimis?” Sartha says. “Looks like you got scooped up pretty rough, huh?”

“I… I… you…” Leinth’s mouth is struggling to catch up with her brain. There are too many questions, and the first to fall from her lips is embarrassingly juvenile. “You… know who I am?”

“Sure.” Sartha walks into the cell - ushered in, it seems - and the door closes behind her. “We fought together, right? The Dacian salient?”

Leinth nods numbly. She remembered. She actually remembered. They’d only met in passing, as two pilots amongst many, and Leinth had been nobody then. She’d assumed Sartha Thrace had taken no notice of her. She feels - and notes with humor - a faint flicker of gratitude for her captivity.

Then she blinks. She remembers her place.

“I should…” Leinth stands and salutes as best she can. “Captain!”

“Woah, easy.” Sartha laughs and waves her off. “I’ve never been a stickler, Leinth, and it doesn’t seem to make much sense here. Just call me ‘Sartha’.”

Leinth nods. She can barely believe her luck. It’s like a dream come true - circumstances notwithstanding.

“So they… they got you?” Leinth asks slowly, as Sartha walks over and sits next to her on the long bench that’s one of the cell’s only features. “We all thought you were dead.”

“Yeah.” Sartha smiles faintly. “I guess they did.”

“I saw Ancyor out there,” Leinth says. “It’s what took me down. I guess they… gods.”

Sartha doesn’t reply. She just looks down. In the dim light, Leinth can see there’s a strange look in her eye. Distant. Glassy. She’s not herself, in that moment.

Leinth can’t blame her for it. She doesn’t want to think about how she’d feel if she knew someone else had taken Genetor from her. Was using it against her people. The violation would be monstrous. She silently prays her mech was too damaged for that.

“So,” she says, hoping to bring Sartha back. “What happens now? To us. To… me.”

“Wish I could tell you.” Sartha looks up. She sounds OK again. “I don’t even know how long I’ve been here.”

“Did…” Leinth is afraid to ask, but she needs to know. “Have they done something to you? Anything I should prepare myself for?”

Sartha looks down again. “I don’t… know.”

Leinth has no words for that. She shivers. She clamps down hard on her own, faint disappointment. She tries to remind herself that Sartha Thrace is more than a hero on a poster above Leinth’s bunk. She’s been through hell. Anyone would be in pieces after months down here.

“But,” Sartha adds after a long moment, “you’ll be OK. I remember how I felt when they first put me down here. You’re strong. This is not the end. I’m still here, aren’t I? And now there’s two of us. It’ll be easier.”

Now Leinth feels ashamed of even that initial flicker of disappointment. She can hear the grit in Sartha Thrace’s voice. She can feel the warmth, and she is warmed by it. Thanks to her - thanks only to her - this chthonic hell feels bearable. She’s gonna get through this. They’re going to get through this. She can believe that, with a hero at her side. Leinth is so very grateful for Sartha’s presence.

But that begs a question.

“Thank you,” Leinth says, but frowns. “Why do you think they put us together like this?”

“Dunno,” Sartha replies. “She didn’t tell me anything.”

She? Who? The menial? Maybe, but there’s something about how Sartha said it. It’s probably not important.

“Could be they want to get us talking?” Leinth glances around. “This place could be wired for sound. Maybe they’re hoping we’ll let something slip.”

“Maybe.”

“Let’s keep it light, eh?” Leinth says. “Just in case. No secrets.”

“You got it,” Sartha agrees. “I have something important to ask you though.”

“OK.” Leinth glances around again. She decides to trust Sartha’s judgment, but just in case, she leans in so they can whisper to one another. “What?”

“Have you met Her yet?”

“No,” Leinth answers, before thinking. The question puts a nasty feeling in her gut. “Who?”

“Her.”

That one little word contains within it an ocean of feeling. Sartha quivers with excitement as she speaks it. She can barely contain herself. It’s a prayer, swelling with reverence, bursting with unnatural devotion. Leinth can sense already that Sartha is consumed by this ‘Her’. Nothing she said to Leinth before matters. Whatever - whoever - she’s talking about is utterly totalizing.

“Sartha,” Leinth says hesitantly. “What are you talking about?”

Sartha Thrace smiles, and now her smile is all wrong. It’s too serene. “Ah. You haven’t. You’d know if you had. Don’t worry. I’m sure it won’t be long.”

“Sartha…” Leinth’s stomach is plummeting. She’s panicking again. This isn’t right. “What the fuck?”

“She’ll explain everything,” Sartha assures her, and it’s like she thinks Leinth will be grateful for the assurance. “Once She talks to you, everything will make sense. You’ll make sense.”

“Stop talking like this!” Leinth pleads. “Just… just tell me what’s going on.”

Sartha pauses and restrains herself. Leinth can still see the light of energy and enthusiasm brimming within her, though. She’s just holding back because she can see Leinth isn’t ready yet.

“Handler,” she explains. Her tone is worshipful. “Oh, Leinth. You have no idea how wonderful she is!”

“Your…” Leinth feels like she’s going to throw up. “Sartha. Out there. The Ancyor. That… please. Please don’t tell me that was you.”

“It was.” Sartha tilts her head. Her eyes grow distant. “Well. In a way.” 

Leinth doesn’t know what the fuck that means, but she’s heard more than enough. She springs to her feet. Leaps away. Anger is clawing at the inside of her skin.

“Traitor!” she snarls. “How… how could you? How did they… no, no, it doesn’t fucking matter. You betrayed us all!”

Sartha looks saddened, a little. Not enough to doubt herself. “She said you’d say that. But it’s OK. She said that I don’t need to listen. I think she just wants me to help you.”

“Help me? What the…”

Leinth doesn’t want to hear that. It’s awful - that whoever this ‘She’ is, all she has to do is say one word, and Sartha shuts off? That’s inhuman.

“Help you,” Sartha repeats. “It’s… an adjustment. Being with Her. I struggled with it too, at first. At least, I think so. She says I don’t have to remember anymore. But once you accept it - once you accept Her - everything gets better. You’ll see.”

Obviously they’ve done something to her. Brainwashing. Obviously she’s a victim too. Leinth knows that - but knowing isn’t enough. She would have kissed the ground Sartha Thrace walked on. She would have given everything for her. Now she’s with them. Leinth starts to shed tears as her voice becomes a bitter, frigid growl.

“Traitor,” she spits, hoping she can inject enough venom into her voice to make it sting. “You’re a fucking traitor.”

It works. Sartha looks offended. Wounded. She looks away, like she’s trying to go distant again, but she can’t quite manage it. Even now, even after whatever the fuck they did to her, she has just a little bit too much fight for that. She needs to retort.

“You shouldn’t call me that,” Sartha says defensively. “I’m not a… I’m a hero, right? You know that. The way you looked at me, it’s… I’m just here because…”

Because? Leinth can see gears spinning in her head, but she’s going nowhere. She doesn’t know why she’s here, or what she’s doing. Not really. She looks so lost.

“I-I have to do what She says.” Sartha sounds almost pleading now. “It’s not like I’m… we’re soldiers, aren’t we? We follow orders. And Her orders are special.” It’s like she’s tricking herself. Searching for justification. She’s found one now, however thin and false. Her distress abates. “If you just met Her, you’d understand…”

Her confusion is so obvious it hurts to witness. It’s embarrassing. Sartha Thrace is meant to be a hero. She’s meant to be better than this. Contradicting feelings tear into Leinth’s mind. She wants to forgive the confused woman in front of her. Their captors must have done something truly awful to her. But that also makes her presence hard to bear. Is it a warning of what fate they have in store for Leinth? Leinth doesn’t want to think about that. Not for one second.

Sartha Thrace is meant to be better. She’s meant to be the hero on the poster. Not this. Leinth doesn’t want to see her like this.

“Just leave me alone,” Leinth says quietly. When she catches Sartha looking sadly at her, she balls her hands into fists. It pisses her off. “Get the fuck out already! Go. It’s not like you’re a prisoner here, right? I don’t want to fucking look at you.”

She laughs bitterly at that. Sartha looks sorry for both Leinth and herself. She stands.

“I’m sorry you feel that way,” Sartha says stiffly. “I’ll be back, though. I promise. I don’t want to leave you all on your own down here. And I really think She wants me to help you. To look after you. She’s so kind, you see.”

Leinth just stares at the wall, so Sartha walks over to the door of the cell. She bangs on it twice with her fist and the door opens. Leinth stays dead still until she leaves and the door closes again behind her. Then she buries her head in her hands and starts to sob.

Fuck.

***

After that, it all changes. The solitude and boredom, as interminable as it was, is something Leinth comes to miss. Because after Sartha’s first visit, they start torturing her.

That’s how Leinth chooses to think of it, anyway - torture. She’s not sure what else she’d call it. It’s not a kind of torture she’d ever prepared herself for, though. It’s not an interrogation. There are no questions. It’s not pain for pain’s sake, either. Sometimes it doesn’t hurt at all. They drug her with drugs that make her feel like nothing else. They hook her up to strange machines that seem to do nothing and everything. They shine bright, flickering lights into her eyes, and it’s like they’re projecting something, like an old movie on film, and only part of her mind is able to see it.

Other times, it hurts worse than Leinth could ever describe.

Either way, by the time Leinth is dragged back to the cell she feels like her skin’s been ripped inside out. She feels like one of those mech carcasses, still standing even though they’ve been burned to ash on the inside. All she can do is collapse and lie shivering on the floor of her cell, trying to piece herself back together. Sometimes, all the sensations they inflict on her seem to linger on in her body, burrowing deeper, until she can remind herself they’re not real. Sometimes, the drugs leave her with an impossible euphoria that makes Leinth feel like she can’t trust any of her own thoughts.

At those times, when Leinth is at her very lowest, Sartha Thrace comes to visit. 

The first few times, at least, Leinth finds the strength to tell her to fuck off. To her credit, she does. But Sartha keeps coming and eventually, in a moment of weakness, she relents. It was meant to be just that once, but after that Sartha always ends up staying. Leinth is not made of stone. Without Sartha, she’d never see a single soul except for the hooded menials that drag her from her cell each day, and they barely seem to count as human.

She takes infinite comfort simply in sharing her cell, for a time, with another, familiar person. Just seeing Sartha’s face, seeing her little human gestures like the way she adjusts her clothes and rakes back her hair, makes Leinth feel less crazy. Less alone and forgotten, like she’s died and gone to her own private hell.

Sartha’s good company, too. Even though she’s a traitor. She only wants to talk if Leinth does. She’s never pushy. She’ll put up with Leinth’s insults and anger. And sometimes, it even feels like Leinth is getting through to her.

She’s so beautiful, too. That helps.

After a time, it becomes a rhythm. Torture, then Sartha. The rhythm makes it easier to bear. No matter what they do to her, no matter how it feels, after a while Sartha will be there. They can talk if Leinth needs to hear her voice, or not if Leinth needs quiet. Eventually, her anger abates. There’s no point being angry at Sartha Thrace. They’re both in hell. Maybe Sartha’s just in a little deeper.

The rhythm does trouble her, though. She’s not blind to all the ways it could be used against her. Everything that’s happening to her in this place seems as regular as clockwork, but sometimes Leinth senses something behind that. A presence. A person. The rhythm’s conductor, perhaps. It might even be that mysterious ‘she’ Sartha sometimes refers to.

Or it might not. Maybe Leinth is just losing her mind.

Talking helps with that. It feels like it helps, anyway. Not that there’s much to talk about. Mostly, Leinth talks about herself. Sometimes they talk about the war, although it’s difficult to draw Sartha out on that topic. It’s like she doesn’t want to think about what’s happening, or what side she’s really on. It’s like she prefers to be confused. Leinth learns that if she presses too hard Sartha might shut down on her, or worse, leave, and so Leinth learns not to. She finds the line where she can draw out Sartha’s sense of contradiction without scaring her off.

And sometimes there are glimpses of the old Sartha. Of someone bright and brilliant, full of charisma and heroism. Leinth comes to live for those glimpses. Even now, Sartha is a kind of hero to her.

“’In a way’,” Leinth says slowly, one day, thinking back to their very first conversation. “What did that mean?”

“Huh?” Sartha, sitting just along from her in the cell, turns her head.

“When I asked you about piloting Ancyor,” Leinth presses. “You said it was you - ‘in a way’. Tell me what that means.”

Sartha looks away. “I was… nothing. It was me.”

“Bullshit.” Leinth has learned what it looks like when Sartha doesn’t want to think about something. “Tell me. Stop hiding something.”

Now Sartha sighs. “I’m not… hiding. You just wouldn’t understand.”

“Try me.”

It’s possible she’s pushing too hard, but the question has been burning inside Leinth. After a short time, Sartha sighs.

“It’s like… it’s like there’s someone else in my head,” she says slowly. Then, realizing how that sounds: “I mean, it’s still me. Obviously. But sometimes I can… let them take over. When She wants me to.”

Leinth doesn’t need to say anything. Her expression does all the talking. Sartha gets defensive.

“I-It’s not how it sounds,” Sartha insists. “I’m just not explaining it well. It’s like… it’s like how, sometimes, in the heat of battle, you just go on autopilot. You know that feeling, right?”

Leinth nods.

“It’s just… one step further than that.” She’s grasping and she knows it. Leinth can tell. “It’s better this way. A clearer separation.” Sartha taps her foot restlessly. “I wish She was here. If She explained it to you, you’d understand perfectly.”

“Why do you need to be separated?” Leinth argues back. “I don’t. I want to be me. When I’m piloting. When I’m fighting. I want to know what I’m fighting for. Don’t you?”

“I…” Sartha taps her foot faster. Agitated. “N-no. No, it gets distracting. Better to keep it separate. Better to focus. Better to ignore everything, except orders. Her orders. She says I don’t need to think, and the other me makes it easier. It’s better this way!”

By the end, she’s almost shouting. It’s the first time Sartha’s seen her get so worked up. She wants to push further, but she can sense this is the limit - for now, at least. Maybe Sartha’s mistress doesn’t realize how fragile she is. Maybe Leinth is starting to figure out where the cracks are.

But she’ll be smart about it. Rhythms go both ways. Now she can be the one to provide comfort. She slides along the bench and rests her arm across Sartha’s shoulder. She squeezes her. Sartha relaxes. She welcomes the touch.

“You know,” Leinth says slowly, after a minute or more has passed, “that it wasn’t always like this, right?”

“Yeah.” Sartha’s voice is empty.

“And…” Leinth takes a deep breath. “And you know it’s not like this for most people, don’t you? You know it’s not right.”

Sartha plants her head in her hands. She might be crying. Then slowly, finally, she nods.

***

Time passes. It goes on. It gets worse. Whatever they’re doing to Leinth, it’s getting more intense. Not more painful - no, that would be preferable. Increasingly, instead of agonizing memories that reverberate yet more pain, Leinth is left with no memories at all. She’s left without clarity. Often for hours, even after she’s returned to her cell. Blackouts. Lost time. It’s like her mind, her life, is being packed into smaller and smaller boxes. Each day, less space remains. Less of her is able to survive. The rest is all an endless, wandering fog. Each memory and each clear thought becomes a hard-fought battle.

It’s a war. And Leinth is losing this war too.

The pilot has no defenses against this. She knows how to be strong, but strength isn’t enough. Leinth’s emotions are starting to fray. She screams. She wails. She sobs. She bangs her fists on the cell walls until her skin breaks.

Leinth can’t even count the hours or the days. She can’t tell if she’s putting up a good fight. What haunts her more than anything is that all of this could have been no more than a couple of weeks. What if she’s falling apart like this in just two weeks.

It brings her to despair. Only Sartha Thrace can comfort her.

Leinth is lying across her lap, resting her head in the softness and warmth of her former hero. It’s the only soft thing she ever gets to touch. When the inside of her own head feels like a hive of bees or a yawning abyss, she can lose herself in the slightly scratchy texture of Sartha’s clothes. She can become something that only exists in the present tense, without her past to grasp at and her future to dread.

She can’t remember when she lost enough of her pride to accept this embrace, from a woman she’s called a traitor. But Leinth is glad she did. Without this, she couldn’t make it. Her very worst fear is that one day, Sartha will simply stop appearing at the door of her cell. She just has to pray they won’t start using that against her.

Sometimes they talk. Not often, though. What’s there to talk about? Nothing changes down here. Leinth tries to keep working Sartha, though. Putting her fingers in those cracks. Pulling them apart. She thinks it's working - not that she trusts herself to judge. But Sartha talks less about ‘Her’. She seems more uncomfortable, whenever Leinth questions. That’s something, right? That’s hope?

None of that today, though. Leinth isn’t together enough for it. All she can do is rest her head in Sartha’s lap and sob.

She tries to sob silently and cover the shaking motions she makes when her breath catches awkwardly in her throat. Maybe she doesn’t want to cry so nakedly in front of an enemy. Maybe she doesn’t want to cry so nakedly in front of her hero. Either way, she keeps her face turned away and hopes Sartha can’t quite see her in the dark.

Then it strikes her: of course she can. It’s dim in here, but not pitch black. And Sartha’s head is right above her. Of course she can see.

Leinth pulls her arms and legs in tighter. She tucks in her head. “Sorry,” she says quietly.

Mercifully, Sartha doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t even make some condescending, cooing little noise. She just, very gently, reaches down and starts to stroke Leinth’s hair.

Leinth closes her eyes. At first in shame, but slowly she relaxes. Sartha’s touch is startlingly pleasant. It feels like an angel’s touch. Suddenly, Leinth is struck with a kind of vision.

She imagines that it’s the Sartha Thrace from the poster, sitting above her, stroking her hair. Sartha Thrace as she once was. Always victorious. Always right. Resplendent in her heroism. Her stirring beauty shining like the sun. Smiling a cocksure smile that lets everyone with her know that it’s going to be OK.

The fantasy is a little childish, she guesses. But she needs it right now. Leinth gives herself over to the pleasant daydream. It makes her feel like it’s going to be OK.

Eventually, after a long while, she manages to make herself still. She stops crying. She’s shed enough tears for the day. But there’s no escaping the knowledge that tomorrow will be the same. Fresh torments. And once they’re over, even less of her will remain.

“Sartha,” Leinth says. Her voice is shaky and hoarse. “I’m not going to make it in here. I’m going to end up like you. Or worse.”

There’s a long pause. Then: “I know.”

Leinth summons up her courage. “Will you help me escape?”

A longer pause. Then:

“Yeah.”

***

They make a plan, that night. It’s a simple one. No time for refinements. Leinth is desperate to get out and, frankly, she can’t trust Sartha to keep her word.

From what she’s said, simple should be good enough. This part of the base - the ‘kennels’, Sartha calls them - is large, but has only a small contingent of those dog-hooded menials. Sartha can send them away once the cell door is unlocked, and then she can lead Leinth to freedom. They shouldn’t encounter anyone else on their way to the hangar. All Leinth has to do is steal an Imperial mech and run like hell.

It sounds a little too good to be true. But what choice does Leinth have but to put her faith in Sartha, and hope she has enough of her own strength left to overcome any unexpected challenges?

The real sticking point is Sartha herself. She says all this like she’s not coming. Leinth senses that she shouldn’t ask. Now more than ever, she can’t afford to push Sartha to breaking point. She can see, plain as day, all the fear and doubt inside the captured hero. For all her reputation, she’s like an abused puppy now. She isn’t just thinking running away will earn her another kick. She’s thinking that running away will mean she’s nothing at all.

Leinth wants to prove her wrong. She’s nursing a hope that, at the very last moment, when they’re standing at the threshold, Sartha will choose to take her hand. They have a connection, as pilots and fellow prisoners. Whatever Sartha’s done, she can still be redeemed. She can be whole again. A hero once more.

And Leinth can be the one to take her back into the light. It feels like fate, in a way. Maybe that’s why her chest is filling with tentative confidence.

The moment comes. Leinth hears the lock on her cell door disengage. There’s a pause - longer than usual - before it opens. Sartha is standing in the doorway. No one’s behind her. Sartha steps back, beckoning Leinth. Leinth’s heart starts to race. It’s happening. It’s real.

“This way,” Sartha says.

They start moving quickly, not quite running for fear that their feet pounding the concrete will alert something or someone. It’s just as dark out of Leinth’s cell as it is inside it, and to her the dark corridors and passageways Sartha is leading her through are utterly indistinguishable. She’s tried mapping the place based on what she sees when the menials drag her out each day, but no luck. There’s too little light, and their work leaves her far, far too disoriented.

Sartha appears to know them intimately, though. She leads and Leinth follows, and eventually she senses that they are sloping upward. It takes longer than she’d hoped, though. How big is this part of the base? Is this sprawling complex just for prisoners like her and Sartha? There’s no sense to it than she can discern.

She can puzzle that out later, though. Now she just needs to escape.

They round a corner and Leinth almost runs headfirst into Sartha’s back. She’s stopped. Leinth can immediately see why. For the first time, they can see light - not the light of day, but the bright, harsh light of the mech hangar, and that’s close enough. It’s still distant and faint but it’s closer than had Leinth dared hope for.

But that’s not why Sartha froze. There’s something else. Someone standing between them and freedom. Not one of the menials. Leinth immediately knows who this is.

It’s Her.

Sartha’s handler. The woman she seems utterly in awe of. There’s no one else it could be. She’s wearing a strange kind of uniform - black leathers and a dark cap, with a long coat that lends her a formidable silhouette. Hair is platinum, almost white, as cold as her eyes. She wears a thin smile as she stares down the escapees.

This is bad. Leinth knows that right away. But she’s already running the numbers. This woman’s no bigger than she is. Even if Sartha freezes up, which seems likely, it’s a fair fight. Leinth can win those.

Sartha Thrace does something much worse than freezing up.

“Well done, Sartha,” the handler says. She gestures down. “Now. Heel.”

Leinth is frozen in horror as Sartha rushes across to the handler’s side and kneels.

Her obedience isn’t the worst part, much as Leinth wishes it was. The worst part is how bursting with energy Sartha is. With certainty. There’s no hint of doubt or shame or guilt in her demeanor. She’s rushing forward. Practically wagging her tail. So eager it’s embarrassing.

If she was going to betray Leinth again, the least she could have done was hesitate.

“Good girl,” the handler says as Sartha throws herself at her feet. She reaches down and blesses her head with a couple of fond pats. Leinth is grateful she can’t see the look on Sartha’s face. She’s sure it would break her heart. “Hello, Leinth Aritimis.”

Leinth grits her teeth. This is as bad as it gets. She needs to get her head into gear. This is combat. She should run. But she needs to ask the question.

“What did you do to her?”

Handler takes her time. She tilts her head. Considering, perhaps, how to answer. "I gave her a gift,” she says. “The kind of gift that wins anybody over. I made her perfectly happy.”

Anger swelled in Leinth’s bosom. “You’re sick.”

The slight smile on the handler’s face is maddening. “Do you think so? I believe I’d like to give you the same gift, Leinth.”

That makes her skin crawl. “She’s not happy, you piece of shit.”

“Doesn’t she look happy to you?” the handler replies. She extends her palm, and Sartha stretches her neck to rest her chin on her hand. There’s nothing more Leinth wants than to rush over and break the handler’s jaw. But who knows how Sartha would react to that?

“I’ve seen what she’s like,” Leinth growls. “It’s no gift. She’s suffering. She’s in anguish. I’ve seen it. Half the time, she’s falling apart!”

“Indeed,” the handler muses. “She struggles without me, doesn’t she? But she put up with it so bravely. I’m so proud of her.”

The emotion dripping from her lips is a sickening mixture of mocking condescension and genuine affection. Leinth has never heard anything like it.

“Sir,” Sartha pipes up. She has eyes only for her handler and she seems nervous about speaking, but excitement at the praise has overcome her. “May I have it back?”

The handler smiles down benevolently at her. She’s so proud. “Of course you can, Sartha.”

She reaches into one of her coat pockets and retrieves something - a small, elongated, metal cage with a pair of leather straps mounted to it.

A muzzle.

Sartha presents herself and keeps dead still as her handler bends down and affixes it to her face, taking care to brush her hair out of the way and make sure the straps are exactly as tight as they need to be. It’s as loving as a kiss. As twisted as a curse.

“Up,” the handler says once she’s done.

Sartha rises to her feet. She turns to look at Leinth but barely seems to register her presence. The muzzle jutting out of her face is grotesque. Leinth can’t help but notice how serene she is now. Sartha’s face is clear of doubt, wracked by none of the confusion that had plagued her whenever they’d spoken in Leinth’s cell.

Was it an act? Or does the handler’s presence simply have this much sway over her?

Which is worse?

Leinth swears to herself and spits on the ground. Fuck this. Fuck whatever this is. She’s not going to fall to pieces over this. She’s not going to stand here and stare and let this woman play games with her head. She’s getting out of here.

“See you in hell, freak,” she snarls, and breaks into a sprint.

All she needs to do is put the handler down and run. Leinth can figure the rest out on her own. Sartha isn’t going to help her. Not now.

She makes it a few paces before the handler reacts. She doesn’t panic, though, or raise her arms to defend herself. She just says something to Sartha in a firm, clear voice.

“Off The Leash.”

The next thing Leinth knows, she’s on the ground. It’s just like when she got laid out by Ancyor. Something is on top of her. Something panting and violent and angry. It’s Sartha.

Except it isn’t.

Nobody could go from zero to sixty that fast. Nobody. No person. But Sartha doesn’t really count as one of those anymore. She’s staring down at Leinth with a look of impossible, bestial hate, eyes as furious as they are shallow. Her hackles are raised and her back is arched, and her lips are drawn back to expose snarling teeth. There’s a sound coming from the back of her throat; a low, rumbling growl, like the rolling of thunder. It’s a sound that has no business coming from a human.

This is her. The other self Sartha was talking about before. Leinth knows it. Not a person. Just a honed instrument of her handler’s violent will.

A hound.

"Easy, Hound,” the handler says. “I don’t want her harmed.”

Hound eases off - but only just. The hate burning in her eyes as she looks at Leinth is so singular. It’s utterly totalizing. Leinth tried to desecrate her goddess. That’s all there is to it. The depth of her devotion is so unnatural it makes Leinth’s skin crawl.

The handler moves to stand over her, looking down at her. “You will not escape from here,” she pronounces. “You will never leave this place again. Not unless I permit it. Understand?”

Her manner demands an answer. Leinth doesn’t have one, not even a foul spit of defiance. She’s just trying not to fall to pieces. She’s cursing herself for her optimism. For not seeing the signs. She’s trying not to tear up too, because that would just be too pathetic. She doesn’t want to give this woman the satisfaction. But for that strength, she needs hope. And there’s precious little to hope for, now.

Only Sartha.

There has to be something left of her, right? You can’t just take a human being and take them apart and put them back together like this. Right? Right? You can’t just make a person this small.

There’s something left. Leinth just needs to get through to her.

“Please,” she mouths silently at the hound. She tries to meet her gaze, hard as it is. So much hate, in eyes that had become so familiar. Her muzzle disfigures her. It’s hard to look past that and see the face of a hero. But Leinth is determined to try.

“You have such faith in her.” The handler’s lips curl. “Don’t you see? She’s mine now.”

“No!” Leinth cries, although her voice is weak. “She… she wants to leave with me. She knows this is wrong. She knows you’re her enemy. I saw it.”

The handler arches an eyebrow. “Hound. Up.”

Hound rises to her feet instantly, offering Leinth one last warning growl. Leinth knows better than to try to stand.

“Take off your jacket,” the handler instructs.

Again, Hound obeys without thought. She discards the military jacket she was once so proud of like it’s nothing. Underneath she’s wearing a simple, khaki tank top. The handler lifts the hem to Hound’s chest and uses her other hand to fondly touch the pilot’s abs, feeling at their definition. She’s enjoying them - her smirk makes no secret of that - but this is all for Leinth’s benefit. She’s trying to piss Leinth off. Showing her that only she gets to touch Sartha Thrace this way.

It’s working.

Then the handler makes her hand into a fist and punches Hound in the gut.

She may not be a pilot, but she’s a military woman and her form is good. And more to the point, Hound makes no attempt to defend herself. The blow leaves her bent double, retching and heaving, before her legs give way and she sinks to her knees. She looks like she’s in agony.

Leinth is sure that Sartha Thrace - Hound - whatever - is quick enough to have sensed the blow coming. But she didn’t brace herself. Didn’t even tense her muscles or expel the air from her lungs.

What the fuck kind of control is that? Control on an instinctive level. In her nerves, her muscles, her reflexes.

And that’s not the end. After watching Hound contort and groan for a few moments, the handler lowers the offending fist to Hound’s lips and pushes her muzzle aside.

Hound kisses it.

The kiss is almost innocent. It’s like a knight kissing her liege’s ring. Knowing it's the hand that just left a mean bruise on Hound’s stomach makes it twisted. It gets worse when the handler extends her fingers and uses them to pry Hound’s lips apart, running her fingertips over her teeth, pinching her tongue, smearing drool across her face.

Depraved. There’s no other word for it.

“Do you still think she wants to leave?” the handler asks as she pulls back and fixes Hound’s muzzle.

“Yes, damn it!” Leinth’s wishes her voice sounded firmer. “You’ve done something to her. That… thing is not Sartha Thrace. It’s just something you put in her head. It’s not her.”

“Would it help to hear it from her own lips?” the handler asks. “I’m trying to help you see the truth of her, Leinth. She doesn’t deserve your faith.” She turns to Hound. “On The Leash.”

Light returns to her eyes - a semblance of it, at least, but smothered by the handler’s presence. It’s Sartha again. The muzzle, though, still ruins her face.

“Sartha,” the handler says. Sartha’s ears prick up, grateful merely for the attention. “Do you want to leave me?”

“No!”

The word bursts from her lips, an explosion, before she can catch herself and add the appropriate ‘sir’. Sartha is suddenly desperate. Panicked, far more so than she’d ever been with Leinth in her cell. Her eyes register a wounded confusion.

Is she being abandoned? What did she do wrong?

“No, sir!” Sartha repeats. Her eyes flick and flit manically. She’s on the brink of collapse. “P-please…”

“Don’t worry.” The handler pets her head again. “You don’t have to leave, Sartha.”

All at once, the hero relaxes. Shoulders sink, muscles release all their tension. Her face slumps into a glowing smile. This is all she needs. God is in her heaven; all is right with the world.

And Leinth’s faint hopes grow fainter still.

“That’s… not…” She feels the need to set this to right, somehow. To explain it away. To make an excuse. “You’re in her head! You have been for months, you sick freak. Whatever fucking game you’re playing with her doesn’t change the fact that she’s still Sartha Thrace!”

“Hmm.” The handler looks impressed, or something like it. “You believe in her so very much. More than I’d expected.”

Leinth would be proud. She takes faith as a mark of strength. For rebels like her, faith in one other is indispensable. She would be proud, if not for how pleased the handler seemed.

“Where does that come from, I wonder?” the handler muses. “Loyalty and admiration so fervent it persists in defiance of reality itself. You can understand, I’m sure, why I might take a professional interest.”

Leinth spits. She’s sure this woman knows absolutely nothing about loyalty. Less than nothing.

“The way you look at her is fascinating,” the handler goes on. She’s bending down a little, peering at the pilot. “Respect. Faith. But other things, too. Envy? That’s normal, between pilots. Who wouldn’t envy my hound?”

At that, Leinth just snorts. It’s nothing she hasn’t thought about before. ‘Do I want to be her friend, or do I just want to be her?’ She’s at peace with it.

“And,” the handler adds. “Lust. You want her.”

“W-what?” Leinth feels something pull tight in her chest, even as she laughs and scoffs. “Don’t be stupid.”

“You do,” the handler decides. She says it so academically. Like she’s putting together a puzzle. Like she’s dissecting a frog. “Why deny it? We know your inclinations. She’s attractive, isn’t she?”

“I didn’t mean…” Leinth glances at Sartha. She has eyes only for her handler, even now, but surely she can hear both of them. “Of course, but-“

“The way you look at her is obvious,” the handler interrupts. She glances at Sartha. “It’s obvious to her, too.”

Leinth’s eyes flash wide. That’s… no. No. She’s lying. The handler is messing with her, that much is obvious. And Leinth was always so careful. She never let those feelings reach her face.

Except…

She can’t be quite so confident, can she? Trying to sort through her own memories of her captivity is like trying to grasp at water. At times, she was all but delirious from the pain and the drugs. Did she let something slip? Did something filthy reveal itself in her gaze?

Leinth looks to Sartha, hoping for confirmation. She’s unreadable. She’s in a blissful daze, shining with gladness at the reunion with her handler and her muzzle.

“Tell me, Leinth,” the handler says. “That poster, above your bunk. Did you ever look at it while you touched yourself?”

Leinth recoils like she’s been struck. Cold washes over her, turning all the hairs along her spine into little icicles. “How do you know about that?”

“Our methods are very effective for extracting information,” the handler tells her. “Did you think that my staff were merely amusing themselves?”

Panic. More panic. Leinth scrambles away across the concrete floor. Suddenly the handler’s eyes on her skin are unbearable. What else might she know? Leinth tries to reach back into memory and find pieces of herself. She finds a black hole. She can’t remember spilling any secrets - but clearly she has.

Who has she betrayed? Please let it only be herself. Please let it not be anyone else.

“I think I can take that as confirmation,” the handler says. “Not that I needed any. You want her.” Her smile widens. “You could have her, you know.”

Leinth goes very still. “What?”

“Is that what would make you happy, I wonder?” The handler reaches out to Sartha again; a light touch across her torso, where a bruise is already beginning to rise. “All I’d need to do is say the word.”

“No! Fuck - no.” Leinth’s stomach churns at the suggestion. “I would never… fuck, she would never.”

“Not at all.” The handler’s confidence is supreme. “If I ordered you to, you’d give yourself to Leinth. Wouldn’t you, Sartha.”

“Yes, sir.”

She doesn’t hesitate before answering, of course. Leinth is just about prepared for that, but she isn’t prepared at all for how plainly eager Sartha is. She’s looking at her handler with hope in her eyes. She wants her handler to say the word. She wants to be given a chance to obey.

No matter what.

Leinth can’t tell if it’s too hot or too cold now. She starts to clamber to her feet, leaning heavily on the nearby wall for support. She feels dizzy. She feels like up is down and down is up. Before she knows it, the handler is right there, merely a kiss away, her eyes inescapable.

“Do you want her, Leinth?” she asks, voice barely a whisper, like what she proposes could be a secret, safely told. “Do you want her body?” She puts her lips against Leinth’s skin. “Do you want her to suck your cock?”

The handler is a pillar of ice, but somehow, just for that one, simple question, she makes her voice impossibly sinful and tempting, like warm syrup being poured into Leinth’s ear. It sticks to her. It makes Leinth’s body stir. Leinth recoils violently, thrown into panic, trying to flee - but she’s already against the wall, there’s nowhere to go.

She can’t let it show. She can’t. But it’s too late, of course.

Disgusting. She’s disgusting. The handler’s disgusting. Hound is disgusting. This is all disgusting.

“You could go down on her too, of course,” the handler adds. “If that’s more to your taste. But I think… yes. This is what you want. Sartha Thrace, on her knees, before you. Warm. Eager. Welcoming.”

“N-no!”

Leinth’s voice trembles. She squeezes her eyes shut. Her fantasies are turning against her and all she can do is turn inward, trying to obliterate them with white-hot shame.

“Well, let’s see.” The handler is ice again as she steps back and beckons Sartha forward. “Here, Sartha. Come. Kneel. Remove your muzzle. Open your mouth.”

“Yes, sir!”

Leinth can hear the eagerness of Sartha’s obedience as she rushes and falls, and briefly fumbles with the strap of her muzzle. Her mind’s eye does the rest, and the picture it paints makes her shiver.

“Look,” the handler commands, and the sheer force of will in her voice is irresistible. “Open your eyes.”

Leinth holds firm for a few moments but it only takes one lapse. One moment of weakness - or perhaps, she fears, of curiosity.  Once her lids part, there’s no going back. She’s transfixed. Sartha Thrace is kneeling before her. Her mouth is open. Waiting. She is ready to receive. There’s a warm smile on her face - it’s for her handler, of course, but it could so easily be for Leinth. It would be so easy to pretend. A fantasy, a wet dream, could never be so vivid and so real.

If it wasn’t already too late to pretend, it is now. Leinth is hard. Her clothes aren’t tight, but it’s still obvious.

“There.” The handler says. She’s not smug, just sure. She doesn’t need to be smug. She knew exactly what was going to happen. “Now, Leinth. Should I say the word?”

Leinth shakes her head in mute horror. If she answered ‘yes’, if she even considered it, she’d become something unforgivable.

“Why not?” The handler asks. “You want to. She wants to.”

“She- ah!”

The handler interrupts her by resting her hand on the back of Sartha’s face and pushing her forward until Sartha’s face is pressed against Leinth’s front. The touch is sparks to dry kindling. Leinth twitches awkwardly, trying to shrink back, but there’s nowhere to go and the handler won’t let her.

Sartha, sensing her handler’s intent, starts rubbing and nuzzling, eager, happy to be of use, and that makes it even worse.

“S-she,” Leinth stammers, struggling to keep the thread of her reason taut. “She doesn’t! She’s… you made her like this! It’s your fault! She doesn’t - Sartha Thrace would never - want this.”

“That doesn’t matter.” The handler shuts her down brutally. “Who knows why anyone wants what they want? It doesn’t matter. Look at the woman in front of you.” She turns to Sartha. “Sartha, would you like to clean my boot?”

“Yes, sir!”

Leinth winces. More of that bubbling, twisted eagerness. Each time is another knife.

“Then do so.”

She extends a foot forward pointedly. Again, there’s no hesitation. Sartha bends forward, prostrate, as if in prayer, and puts her lips to the tip of the handler’s long, tall, black, leather boots and begins to kiss. The wet licking sounds that follow stroke Leinth’s imagination.

Leinth wishes she could look away. But Sartha Thrace’s fall is transfixing. It’s a solar eclipse. She’ll take a punch and thank her handler for it. She’ll kiss her boot like it’s a lover. She’ll make herself a whore at her handler’s command. Is there anything she wouldn’t do for that woman? Any limit?

The question provokes an uncomfortable curiosity.

“That will do, Sartha,” the handler says, after several long seconds. “Stand.”

“Yes, sir.”

Sartha’s voice is breathy with excitement. When she stands, Leinth can see that the handler’s boot is shiny with her spit. She keeps staring.

“Look at her, Leinth,” the handler chides. “Not at my boot. Look at her.”

Leinth doesn’t. She doesn’t want to. The handler doesn’t fight her on it. She has other tactics.

“Sartha,” she says. “Kiss her.”

“Hu-“

Leinth can barely breathe before Sartha, her hero, is pressing against her. Their lips meet. Sartha is insistent, and Leinth doesn’t have the strength to push her away. The kiss isn’t chaste or robotic or forced. Sartha sinks into it, willingly embracing her duty. She’s passionate. Eager. After a moment, Leinth sinks too. The fantasy is too nice, even though there’s one unmistakable difference between this and her fond daydreams.

Sartha’s lips taste like leather and boot polish.

Sartha is the one who pulls away in the end, which is its own kind of humiliation. In the moments after the kiss, with her face inches from Leinth’s, she looks breathy. Flushed. It’s enough to make Leinth pine.

“Do you see it yet?” The handler’s voice breaks the moment. It’s as final as a sunset. “She’s not your Sartha Thrace. Not anymore. So why not enjoy her, if it pleases you?” Her smile ticks upwards. “Many have.”

A spike of anger brings with it a kind of clarity. This is wrong. It’s not even a fantasy anymore. Whatever daydreams and intimate thoughts Leinth has succumbed to, here and there, she never wanted this for Sartha. Never.

Many have.

It makes Leinth shudder. This isn’t a wet dream. This isn’t her long-treasured fantasy. This is just… cheap. Cheap titillation. It’s unworthy of her. It’s even more unworthy of Sartha Thrace.

“No!” Leinth cries. She finds her voice for the first time in what feels like an age, and the force in her denial drives Sartha back an uncertain step. The handler looks at her - surprised, perhaps, although more curious than afraid.

“No?” she asks.

“Just go fuck yourself already!” Leinth screams. It feels good to scream. “You can throw me back in the damn cell, but you’re not gonna get me to… to…” She just looks at Sartha. “I don’t know how you got so twisted that you get off on this sick shit, but I’m better than that. She is better than that.”

“She is not.” The handler says it with a knowing smile, like she’s the one who has grasped Sartha’s soul in her hands, and that pisses Leinth off even more.

“Yes she is!” Leinth insists. “She’s Sartha god damn Thrace! She’s a hero. She’s the hero. You can change a lot of things but you can’t change that!”

It feels good to say it to her face. Everything’s fucked up right now, but not Leinth’s faith in Sartha. She’s placing that beyond reach. Her faith is the midday sun, boiling away the morning fog. If nothing else, she can make sure the handler goes to her grave knowing that she was never able to tarnish it.

“There will always be people out there - rebels out there - fighting because they were inspired by her.” Leinth is finding her theme and her voice. “Her face and her name are on recruitment posters all over the planet. People will always believe in her. I will always believe in her. No matter what you make her say or do, people will always know: it’s not real. It’s not her. The real Sartha Thrace was always a hero.”

For the first time, the handler is silent. Her silence is intoxicating. Seeing her, of all people, seemingly lost for words is almost as rewarding as freedom itself. It’s tempting to keep going, to rub her face in it, but there’s something far more important at stake. Leinth turns, again, to Sartha. She steps forward and clasps her hero by her shoulders, pulling her close.

“And you,” Leinth says. “Listen to me. You will always be a hero. I know that’s not getting through to you right now because of how badly they’ve fucked with your head. But it’s true. We spent a lot of time talking down in that cell. It wasn’t all fake. You can’t tell me that. You’re still in there, somewhere. And one day, you’re gonna get out. You’re gonna escape. You’re gonna find your way back to yourself. It’ll be hard, it’ll be painful, but I know you’ll do it, because that’s what a hero does. And when that day comes, you’ll… you’ll…”

She trails off. There’s something in Sartha’s eyes. She’s listening to her now. Leinth’s words have made it through. The look dawning on her face is real, and that’s exactly what makes it so devastating.

Sartha Thrace looks pained.

It’s a bone-deep, weary kind of pain. Suddenly she doesn’t look like a captured hero or a brainwashed hound. She just looks tired. Like she’s a woman who’s been ground down and chewed up by the world. And now, just by talking, Leinth has become one of the teeth. She’s hurting her. Sartha just wants her to stop.

Leinth can’t go on. She didn’t think it would be like this. In the face of this mysterious wound in Sartha, she’s powerless.

But now, of course, the handler has something to say.

“There’s a chink in the armor of every single human being.” The handler speaks slowly. She wants every word to sink in. “At least one. And if you pry it open, you find a void. If you can fill that void, then they are yours. Right down to their soul. She is the chink in your armor.”

Leinth closes her eyes. She doesn’t want to hear this. She doesn’t want to know that all this, all her defiance, was just another part of this woman’s dance.

“You have such faith in her,” the handler says. “You think it makes you strong. It just makes you brittle. You can think you can handle seeing her broken and dirtied and disappointing. Perhaps. But you cannot handle the real truth of Sartha Thrace.”

It’s that pain. It has to be. Leinth wants to close her heart off to it. To make a hated enemy of Sartha in her head. Then she wouldn’t need to care. She can’t do it, of course.

“The chink in Sartha’s armor,” the handler tells her, “was you.”

Leinth opens her eyes in disbelief.

“Not just you, of course,” the handler adds. “Not you personally. But all of you who call her a hero and worship the ground she walks on. All that faith. All those expectations. Did you think she could carry that much weight? That she didn’t notice? That it didn’t drag her down with every step? She was tired of it, Leinth. Deep in her soul, she was tired of it. She wanted to be free of it. She would never have admitted it out loud, of course. But she knew it all the same. And when I offered her freedom, something deep inside her reached out and took it. That is how I made her mine.”

Leinth is frozen. She never thought about it. Not once. To her, Sartha was always a woman on a poster. Why didn’t she ever…

“I should thank you, shouldn’t I?” The handler says it without mirth. “For helping to wear her down. For helping to deliver her into my arms. And after that little speech, I think she’s more mine than she’s ever been.”

Sometimes, when Leinth pilots Genetor, she takes some pretty fucking big hits. It’s part of the job, after all. Genetor was built for it. It’s the kind of machine that was designed to stare down an avalanche and dare the mountain the do its worst. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t feel like shit, though. It doesn’t matter how heavily built a machine is. When you get hit by heavy ordnance, the force has to go somewhere. It goes through you. And the noise. It’s deafening, in the most literal sense. After some battles, Leinth can’t hear properly for hours afterward. There’s nothing in her ears but a skull-splitting mosquito whine of complaint.

Even that doesn’t compare to how bad her head is ringing now.

It was her fault?

She looks at Sartha once again. That’s the only thing that can save her now. Sartha telling her that it’s a lie. That she never felt that way. That she was OK with it. But Sartha avoids her gaze, and her shame speaks louder than any words.

And that’s the problem, isn’t it? She’s still just looking to Sartha to save her.

“A hero, a martyr, or a traitor,” the handler muses. “Those are the only fates you left her with. No wonder it was so easy to make her a hound instead.”

Leinth gets it now. There are no heroes down here. Not a one.

“Sartha,” the handler says once she’s sure it’s all sunk in. She knows the signs. The slumped shoulders. The sagging, lightless eyes. “Off The Leash. You can take Leinth to my room now. She’s ready for my personal attention.”

It’s a mercy to be faced with Hound instead of Sartha. Hound knows no shame, and no judgment either. Hound doesn’t hesitate. She just puts a hand on Leinth’s shoulder and starts guiding her, unresisting, away from the light and deeper into the catacombs beneath the base.

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Walking across the floor of the colossal hangar bay feels like navigating a forest. On every side, the legs of iron titans stretch up to the sky, and up above their hulking bodies blot out the distant overhead lights. The hangar is a space scaled to proportions so far beyond that of a single person that it becomes unnerving, hostile. It’s all the worse when you think about how all these mechanical trees can move.

Normally, like any reasonable person, Sergeant Meetra Kotys dislikes it here. It’s uncomfortable even for a pilot, at least until she is strapped into her other body. Her war body, her machine body. It’s one of the ones looming overhead, although Kotys can’t pick it out at the moment. It’s standard-issue and just like the others, an Imperial AS Doru, special simply because it's hers.

In the hangar, only the monstrous Ancyor stands apart from the rest. Normally, Kotys hates to look at the thing. Today, it makes her smile.

And today, as she walks, Kotys leaves her mark on the hangar’s vast space. She clacks her boots on the ground, marking each step with a sound that echoes far too far, blasphemous in its loudness. It reminds Kotys of how the handler walks. For herself, at least, she knows it’s just an affectation, but it’s one she feels entitled to. Sergeant Kotys is overcome with daring.

What happened the day before, after the battle, with the hound, changed her. She can feel it. Hell, everyone can feel it. Since then, the other pilots in Kotys’s unit have given her a wide berth. They don’t want to speak with her. This morning, in the canteen, they wouldn’t sit at the same table. As a soldier, sticking out from the pack isn’t smart, normally, but Kotys has evolved beyond caring. It doesn’t matter to her if they want to do this school clique bullshit, and it doesn’t matter to her if they’re scared of her or creeped out by her.

After all, that’s just another thing that reminds her of the handler. That’s how everyone feels about the handlers.

And, fuck, if nothing else, what a feeling! It was so worth it. Even if it came to nothing, it was worth it. Even if it got her executed - maybe even then, it would have been worth it. Kotys had never imagined that Sartha fucking Thrace, out of everyone, would be the catalyst for her ascension; for her claiming the fate, the specialness, she’d known since girlhood was hers. But inside her warm, wet, receiving mouth Kotys touched something beautiful and now she is so very hungry for more.

That is why the handler has summoned her to the Kennels. She could tell. It has passed between them. They are of a kind now.

The Kennels are beneath the rest of the base, on a lower level accessible only through a tunnel on the floor of the hangar. It makes the Kennels feel like a dungeon, although Kotys knows that it is mostly simply a prudent separation. It’s best the other soldiers on base not think too much about the Kennels’ dogs.

The tunnel is dark and unnervingly clean, and takes Sergeant Kotys deeper. Eventually there is a door, big and heavy, and Kotys is still deciding whether to knock or announce herself when it opens to receive her.

Beyond is an office that is almost normal. It was too luxurious, though, and unnerving in its details, especially the warren of claustrophobic passageways that Kotys can see leading off from it, each one lined with cells and other, more sinister facilities. There’s no time to dwell on that, though, because the handler from yesterday is standing there, waiting for her.

Behind the handler stands Sartha Thrace.

Sergeant Kotys can’t look anywhere but at her. She looks the same as yesterday, but different. The same clothing, the same face, the same muzzle, but there is nothing lurking behind those things. She’s too placid and her eyes register no curiosity at Kotys’s arrival; instead she’s still staring at a wall, looking but not seeing.

Kotys has seen other dogs before, on the base, between missions. They’re always like this. They’re… dormant is the word, she guesses. God knows what it takes to reduce a person to this for days, weeks on end. Heavy tranquilizers are the least unsettling possibility. Dormancy makes sense, even if it is creepy as shit. It’s like looking at a ghost instead of a human being, so numb you’d think their skin was cold to the touch.

There is one particular detail that stands out to Kotys, red-hot, bright as a fresh brand. Amongst the bruises and scars and war wounds on Thrace’s face, one is special. A split lip. It wasn’t there when she dismounted her Ancyor yesterday. It’s Kotys’s handiwork. She’d been too rough with the barrel of her handgun.

It’s her mark.

That gets Kotys excited. It gets her wet.

But the handler cannot be ignored for long. Her presence is overbearing. Platinum hair and fair skin aside, all of her is black, from her cap to her leathers to her hulking coat. It’s a uniform, of a kind. It makes handlers look like fear itself, although Kotys is no longer scared. She envies it, and she envies the way that just from how she’s standing, it’s obvious that Thrace is hers; her thing, her creature.

“Sergeant Meetra Kotys,” the handler says. Her expression is another thing Kotys envies. It’s powerful in its detached, knowing amusement. “Tell me, why have you come here?”

Kotys salutes, of course. “Reporting as ordered, sir,” she responds crisply.

The handler waves her hand in that way that means ‘at ease’. “Is that the only reason why?”

“No, sir.” Kotys chooses her words carefully. “I’m… curious.”

That gets a small laugh, but not an unkind one. “You were more than curious yesterday, I think.”

“Yes, sir.” Kotys hopes she isn’t blushing. She might be. It’s too cold down here to tell.

“I am inclined to indulge your curiosity.” Kotys can’t tell if the handler is mocking her. “Ask.”

There is a question that burns a hole in Kotys’s mind more than any other. Maybe the handler already knows what it is. She glances at Thrace again. “Does… it always feel like that?”

The handler laughs. It’s an approving laugh, maybe. She is a difficult woman to read. “Perhaps. That depends on a great many things. On your perspective.”

“My perspective, sir?”

“It’s what I’ve ordered you here to assess.” The handler opens her hands, inviting. “And with it, your suitability.”

Jubilation surges inside Kotys. She knew it. Yesterday was her moment, and this is her chance. She lets herself grin; surely this handler was once here, in her place, surely she once knew how it felt.

Kotys salutes too, of course. “I’ll do everything I can to live up to your expectations, sir.”

“Hm,” is all the handler says to that. “Then let’s begin with some simple instruction.” She gestures to Sartha Thrace. “What is she?”

Kotys cannot help but flush with the memory of her, and vibrates the way any eager student would. She remembers this well, and will never forget it.

“She isn’t Sartha Thrace,” Kotys recites. “Not anymore. She isn’t even a person.”

“I’m glad you were listening,” the handler says. “But that’s only what she is not. Now tell me what she is.”

Kotys winces. She should have foreseen the real thrust of the question. It was never going to be this easy. She isn’t in basic anymore. She needs to do better, and so she looks at Thrace more closely. There is another obvious answer, but if this is a riddle and she is chosen, then her obvious answer might be the truth.

“She’s a dog,” Kotys answers. “A hound.”

The handler laughs again. This laugh is less kind.

“A child could see that.” Handler reaches up and touches Thrace’s muzzle. She dotes on her for a long moment, caressing where iron meets skin. That brings Thrace to life, just a little, just enough to nuzzle back, the ghostly nothing on her face becoming a ghostly smile.

“A pet,” Kotys corrects herself hastily. “Your hound.”

“No.” The handler’s sharpness cracks like a whip across Kotys’s pride. “Think. Feel. Don’t just blurt out whatever comes into your head.”

Kotys tries to think. She forces herself, as hard as it is with humiliation still echoing through her. No defeat in combat has ever tasted so sour. “She’s an enemy. A rebel. We must always remember that.”

“Wrong,” the handler tells her flatly. “She is broken. Domesticated.”

Now Kotys starts to panic. She’s scrambling. What else is Sartha Thrace? “A… a pilot. That’s why she’s useful to us.”

The handler sighs, and the regret on her face makes Kotys wince. “Close enough, I suppose. She is useful to us, yes. A tool. A single cog, in the empire’s machine of war. She is a weapon. A thing to be used.”

Kotys nods as if she understands, but she can’t help but rile against the unfairness of it. How was she supposed to guess that answer, of all answers?

“And,” the handler adds, “what are you, Sergeant Meetra Kotys?”

She feels able to relax into this answer. “I’m like her, sir. A cog in a machine.”

It’s a good soldier's answer, one drilled into her ever since basic. Which makes it all the more dispiriting when the handler sneers as if disgusted.

“I hope not,” the hander tells her. “If you’re just a cog in a machine then you are wasting my time.”

“I’m a pilot.” Kotys’s hands are balled into petulant little fists at her sides. “Sir.”

“How curious.” The handler’s smile is back, and it is not welcome. “You said that she’s a pilot. Does that make you like her?”

“No!” Kotys yells. “Fuck no!”

Where is the handler from yesterday? The one who gave her permission. The one who shared that knowing smirk with her. The one who baptized her. It’s the same woman, but now she’s like a demon. It’s like Kotys is her victim instead of Thrace. Instead of the enemy.

“No,” the handler muses. “No, I suppose not. After all, Sartha Thrace is an undisputed ace. She’s one of the greatest pilots the Earth has ever seen. I thought it best to stop her from counting her kills, but I’m sure her tally would be in the hundreds.”

As she says this, she’s caressing Thrace again. She goes further, bringing her hand up to stroke and mess her hair, and then down to scratch gently behind her ears. Like everything else between them, it’s ghoulish. A kind of fondness only fit for beasts. You’d never treat a person that way. A person would never let themselves be treated this way.

But from the dreamy smile on Sartha Thrace’s face, it’s clear she’s in heaven. Kotys doubts she knows where she is, or if it’s day or night, but she knows that her handler, the center of her world, is praising and adoring her.

She looks like she’s about to cum.

“And then there’s you,” the handler says to Kotys, her voice freezing over. “I reviewed your file. You are average. A pilot of unremarkable skill. You have reasonable experience, but no particular accolades or achievements. There is nothing to distinguish you from any other pilot.”

That stings worse than anything else, and the deepest pain is that there is nothing Kotys can call upon to answer her. There’s nothing she can do at all, except stew. Under the weight of her own impotence, her anger curdles into petty, uncontrolled frustration. It feels like tears are about to well up in the pilot’s eyes and she hates herself for that. She doesn’t just cry. She’s no crybaby.

It’s the handler, of course. She has that way about her. She makes you care about what she thinks. It’s an awful power.

Kotys decides to let herself get angry instead.

“I didn’t come here to be abused,” she says. “Sir. And I didn’t come here to play games. You seem to know exactly what you think I am. So tell me.”

The handler let out a long, loud laugh. Kotys hopes that she wasn’t simply testing to see if Kotys would eventually stand up for herself. That’s the very worst and most cliché kind of test. A stupid person’s idea of a smart trick.

“You’re a person, Sergeant Kotys.” The handler shows teeth. “Or at least, that’s what I’m hoping.”

Kotys simply blinks.

“A tool needs a hand,” the handler explains. “A wielder. You can’t own another human being’s soul if you’re just a cog in a machine. You must demonstrate that you’re capable of grasping the weapon.”

“I am, damn it!” Kotys knows she is. She feels it deep within herself. It’s a power she’s already tapped into once. “You’ve seen that I am. You know I am. That’s why you called me here, right? So just tell me how to fucking prove it.”

The handler takes her time in answering. She turns her back and walks over to her desk, Sartha Thrace following at her heel. She carefully picks up something, a small case, and then opens it and turns to face Sergeant Kotys once again.

“You have to stake your humanity.”

Inside the case is an old-fashioned metal needle and syringe, menacingly long and thick, and contained within the tube, visible through a slim glass panel, is a liquid so green it is plainly unnatural.

Something about it makes Kotys shiver.

“What is that?” she demands. “Is it…”

Her eyes betray her, and she glances nervously at Thrace.

“A tool,” the handler tells her. “One of many. There are other drugs and other methods. Perhaps soon, you’ll be instructed in their use. If.” The handler’s smile curls. “If you’re what I hope you are.”

“A person, right?” Kotys grimaces. She doesn’t know how the hell this is meant to prove that, but she knows one thing: she’ll succeed. She’s special. She’s different. There were two dozen pilots watching Sartha Thrace and the handler the day before. She alone stood forward. That means something. “Fine. Let’s do it.”

As much as she dreads the green fluid she can see sloshing around in the large syringe, part of her is hoping that the handler will lash out and jab it into her before she can think twice. There’s no such kindness. Instead, the handler simply offers it to her. Kotys takes it, of course.

“In the neck,” she instructs. “Find your large vein.”

Like any pilot, Kotys has done enough medic training to know how. When you’re sealed into a cockpit, it’s not like anyone else is going to be there to patch you up. Carefully, she curls her fingers in the metal loops of the syringe and brings the needle’s point against her skin. She pauses. She breaths.

This is just another battle. When she says it herself like that, adrenaline is her ally. It gives her the courage to make herself grin and look the handler dead in the eyes.

Then, she pushes the needle into her skin and pushes down on the plunger with all of her strength.

She’s used combat stims before, so the sensation of something cold flowing in her veins isn’t unfamiliar. Neither is the sudden, uncomfortable awareness of her heartbeat that it brings. Kotys closes her eyes to balance herself. One beat of her heart brings the drug into her chest. The next expels it and sends it rushing throughout her body. Kotys feels something. But what? Is it the weakness in her legs? The tingling in her fingertips? How long does it take this drug to take effect?

Kotys is getting lightheaded. As moments pass, she’s increasingly certain of that. She feels herself spinning even with both feet firmly on the ground. The shape of the room around her is disappearing into nothing. She needs to open her eyes, but when she does, she seems Handler.

Handler is made of stars.

Kotys has seen stars just once, transiting from orbit. From the surface, they’re almost never visible through the dust storms. That memory has always stayed with her, and she feels it again as she looks at Handler now, every point on Her skin twinkling with light. She is flesh and blood and stars, and when She looks intently at Kotys, the drugged pilot feels the entire weight of the cosmos bearing down on her.

“Good,” Handler says, after peering at Koty’s pupils. Kotys flinches under Her gaze. “You’re taking to it well, I see.”

Kotys nods, because how can she do anything else? She’s so small.

“Then let’s begin,” Handler says. Kotys is losing herself in Her smile. “Down.”

“D-“ Handler’s words snatch back Kotys’s attention. “W-what?”

“On the ground.” Handler helpfully indicates with Her hand. “Down. Now.”

It does not occur to Kotys that disobedience is a possibility. She’s a leaf in a stream, and Handler is the current. When Handler tells her to go down, it’s like she’s feeling gravity for the very first time. And so, she sinks unsteadily to her knees. The ground is hard and cold but she’s numb to all of that. The numbness is a reminder of the drug coursing through her veins, otherwise seductively easy to forget.

“You’re much more obedient than you were yesterday,” Handler comments. “Aren’t you, dog?”

Kotys slow-blinks again. Dog? This feels like something she should question, but it’s hard to be sure. She’s trying to find her booze legs but being drunk has never been this confusing. “I’m… a…?”

“A dog,” Handler confirms for her. “You’re a dog.”

This thunderous proclamation rolls slowly through Kotys’s mind. Once again, disobedience or disagreement does not occur to her as a possibility. Not when it’s coming from this god-like, star-like woman who sounds so implacably certain. Instead her mind buckles, warping itself into a new shape, and ‘dog’ is its central pillar.

How does that feel? Kotys can’t decide. It feels humiliating, vaguely, but she’s numb even to that, and being upset with it strikes her as just as futile as being upset at the weather. She is a dog. It’s a brute fact, even if it’s also a new one. But what does that actually mean? She doesn’t know, and the uncertainty makes her nervous. This is too important not to know.

So, she glances, again, at Sartha Thrace. The hierarchy between them, so sure and vivid until moments ago, is now in question. But maybe this other dog, this hound, will help her understand.

“No,” Handler adds, Her voice firm. She repeats things, the way you do with stupid children. Or pets. “No. No, not like her.”

Kotys slumps. If not like her, then what? She’s becoming desperate to understand. Ever since she walked in, she’s been craving Handler’s approval, but now the need for her smile, her nod, her agreement has become all-encompassing. The lack of that is like a physical pain, like her stomach is cramping up from famine. It’s the one thing she’s not numb to.

“She’s a hound,” Handler explains kindly, as Kotys just looks up at her, stupefied. She reaches for Thrace once more, petting, fawning, and now Kotys wishes so very badly that it could be her instead. She wants that care from Handler. That love. “She’s well-trained. I domesticated her myself, and she has never let me down since. My hound is a very, very good girl.”

A little whine threatens to escape Koty’s throat. She can only imagine the perfect, encompassing affirmation that such a comment might bring. It would be enough to warm her through any cold. She’s drowning in longing.

“But you?” Handler’s attention falls back on Kotys, and it is cold. “You aren’t trained. You aren’t domesticated. You are not special. You are nothing. Just an average pilot.”

Kotys thought that comment had hurt before. Now, it stings infinitely worse. She doesn’t have anger to insulate her. She can’t be angry. Not at Handler. In her eyes, Handler is still all stars and light.

“You’re no hound,” Handler mocks - and it is mockery, her tone makes that plain. The cruelty of it is unbearable. “You’re a mutt.”

At this, Kotys doubles over in anguish. The approval she craves has never felt further away. She’s left with nothing. She’s a mutt. She’s a mutt, and Sartha Thrace is a hound. That’s a fresh knife into her heart. She’s lower than Thrace now, and she’s already seen how low Thrace can be. A broken thing with a broken mind, but Kotys is lower still. How will Handler ever love her if she’s just a mutt?

“So.” Handler folds Her arms as if the matter is settled. As if Kotys is a piece of trash She’s thrown away. “What do you want, mutt? What are you doing here?”

Kotys has to answer, because Handler’s questions need to be answered. To do that she needs to peer inside herself, and to her surprise, that rouses something. A memory. An impulse. She was here for something, before the drug and before she awoke to Handler’s true greatness.

She’s here to prove her humanity.

Only now does she realize what that means, but the realization doesn’t make the task seem easier. Her humanity has never felt further away. Hasn’t she already given in? She’s on the floor like a dog, just because Handler told her that’s what she is. Wouldn’t it be easier to just let herself sink into the abasement? She’s touched a hint of the bliss that comes with it, and it’s just as dangerously alluring as what she touched the day before, with her gun in Sartha Thrace’s mouth.

But something inside Sergeant Meetra Kotys isn’t ready to give up that easily. She’s a pilot, after all.

So, she dares to straighten her back and look up. “I’m n-not,” she says, in a drooling, unsteady voice, her conviction already wavering in the face of Handler’s glorious stature, “a m-mutt.”

Handler just hits her.

Kotys barely feels the blow, and only pieces together what happened once she’s already sprawled out on the ground. But the reprimand of being struck by Handler - that hurts. Handler is special. She’s made of stars. She’s at the center of the world. And She hit her.

The tears start forming behind her eyes again.

“You’re a mutt.” Handler’s words are thunderous, even though she doesn’t raise her voice. She doesn’t need to. “That’s all you’ll ever be.”

It’s a gut punch far worse than Handler’s clean blow to the side of Kotys’s face. She whimpers, and can’t help but notice how pathetic and canine she sounds. But still, she finds something stubborn within herself, and lifts her head.

“N-n-nooo,” Kotys tries to insist.

Handler advances on her, and with each step, the weight of Her presence bears down on Kotys. It’s like gravity is getting stronger, pulling her downward, encouraging her to slump to the floor and plead and beg. It’s frightening and awe-inspiring and beautiful all at once. Kotys has never known a woman like this. A woman with the gravity of stars at Her command. It feels like blasphemy to question her. Like hubris.

“You’re a mutt,” Handler insists. The fact that She needs to repeat herself makes Kotys feel shameful in her stupidity. “I saw you, yesterday. I know what you are. You’re just an animal who couldn’t resist her own urges. You couldn’t control yourself. Just a beast in heat.”

To punctuate Her statement, to make sure even a stupid dog like Kotys understands, Handler takes a deliberate step forward and places her boot between Kotys’s thighs.

Kotys’s clothes do nothing to dull the sensation. Her drug-induced numbness is instantly a thing of the past. She wasn’t horny before, as far as she can tell, but she sure is now, more than she’s ever been before. This arousal is different. Special. Because of Handler. It’s not just that there’s something against her, touching her. It’s that it’s Her. Her touch is a blessing. Even when it’s cruel.

“Go ahead.” Handler’s lips curl up into that mocking smile that Kotys still adores. “You know what you want to do. I’m giving you permission.”

Kotys’s body betrays her with a twitch, and the twitch brings bliss as the single, half-voluntary movement presses her cunt against Handler’s boot. They both know what she wants, and the knowledge that Handler is giving her permission is nothing but torment. The voice of temptation is already whispering to her, telling her just once, one time, maybe it’ll take the edge off, and when her head is full of clouds and haze it’s very hard to remember that the voice of temptation isn’t all she has. Isn’t this right, for a dog like her?

But she knows that if she does it just once, one time, she’ll never be able to stop.

And there’s no mistaking what that would mean.

Kotys can’t quite bring herself to pull away, though.

“Oh?” Handler laughs at her paralysis. “Little mutt doesn’t know what she’s doing, does she?”

“Iiii…” Kotys can’t speak when Handler is this close. Her mouth is dry, and the words just drool uselessly out of her mouth as soon as she opens it. Words are so far beyond her now.

“What’s the matter?” Handler’s cruel delight is plain, and that’s another temptation. It’s tempting to give in, just to delight Her more. “Don’t you want to enjoy your treat?”

There is no chance that Kotys can deny wanting Handler right now. So instead, she just whines.

“I guess not,” Handler decides for her. She retracts Her boot. Another whine. “Perhaps you’re more interested in my hound instead, like you were yesterday.”

Kotys groans like a drunk. She doesn’t know anymore, and it’s easier to just wait for Handler to tell her. That’s always easier, for dogs. The emptiness inside her head keeps getting worse. She realizes she’s only just hitting the peak. She needs to remember what she came here for.

“Sartha.”

Handler makes an expectant tongue-clicking noise, and that seems to rouse Sartha Thrace. Her eyes clear of fog, if not of delusion. It’s not like waking up, really. She doesn’t look around to get her bearings. She looks up at Handler, and an expression dawns on her face that’s so hopeful it’s almost pleading. Kotys knows exactly what Thrace is hoping for. She’s hoping for an order, because an order is a chance to win Handler’s approval.

It’s disturbing to Kotys how effortlessly she understands Thrace now.

“Sir?” Thrace ventures eagerly.

“Off The Leash.”

Before her eyes, Thrace transforms. No. Thrace dies. Kotys catches it; the moment her eyes go wide and dark before the whole of this woman, this hero, crumbles from within. Implosion follows. She goes slack, loose, empty. A shell. A scarecrow. It’s terrifying to behold, like the death of a sun. It makes Kotys tremble. It’s not exciting the way it was before. It’s too close to home.

But then she comes to life again with a false life, so artificial and constructed the strings are all but visible. Her shoulders slump lazily and her mouth hangs open. There’s a light there, a spark, but it’s Handlers; an electric candle facsimile of a soul. In a way, it’s brighter than before. She’s more alert. More aware. But in another way, she’s so much dimmer. Her thoughts are crude and simple. She growls instead of speaking.

This is Hound.

She is not pleased to see Kotys. There’s something vicious and possessive about the way she leans close to Handler and glares at Kotys, her lips pulled back in a snarl. She’s territorial.

A dog who’s caught the scent of a rival dog.

“This is what you want, correct?” Handler says to Kotys. As She does She pets Thrace’s head, and that takes the edge off her snarl. “I know how much you pilots love to blow off steam and compare body counts. Maybe you’re not so average in that department, mutt. You seemed keen enough with my hound yesterday. Perhaps you need her to scratch your itch?”

Each of Her words is dripping with mocking condescension and it makes Kotys churn with conflicting emotions. She doesn’t want Handler to mock her. She wants Handler to love her, the same way She loves Her hound. But mockery is still attention, and this attention in particular makes Kotys’s brain buzz with something warm and suffocating.

Wait. No. She doesn’t want Handler to love her. She wants Handler to… what? To accept her? To train her? To respect her? It’s slippery. But she needs to try to keep hold of it.

“N. Nnnooo,” Kotys forces herself to say. It wants to come out as a pathetic bleat. Or a bark.

“I think you do.” When Handler decides for her, the decision is settled. “Hound.”

Hound goes very still as Handler calls her to attention.

Handler’s smile goes very thin and wider than ever as she nods to Kotys. “Fuck her.”

Kotys isn’t prepared for what happens next. Hound flies at her faster than she can think. There’s nothing to hold her back - no shame, no inhibition, no self-preservation. Just a fervent need to obey and please. Hound throws herself on top of Kotys, pinning her to the ground, and is on her in a frenzy, hands tearing and muzzle scraping. It’s like how she’s forgotten how to remove clothes, and so instead she’s just tugging and ripping until buttons pop and seams come apart.

And Kotys can’t resist, because she’s blinded by starlight.

Now even Hound seems like she’s made of stars. She’s not Handler, of course. She’s not special like Handler. But she’s an instrument of Handler’s will and, perhaps because of that, she partakes in some of Her radiance. She’s flush with it; it makes her seem faster, stronger, harder to fight.

Or maybe it’s just the way she’s already forcing a hand between Kotys’s legs, touching her, forcing her way inside her, forcing her to feel just how greedy her own body is. The pleasure alone is blinding. She held back from the edge earlier, with Handler. Now Hound is going to make sure she falls.

Kotys doesn’t notice herself making noise before she notices her throat has started to hurt from moaning.

Even in her drugfucked brain, she hasn’t lost sight of how humiliating this reversal is. Just one day ago, she’d had her gun in Hound’s mouth. She’d watched Hound suck and mewl and drool and it had felt glorious. She’d felt like she mastered her. Like she’d finally beaten the great Sartha Thrace - if not in combat, then in something even more fundamental.

But now she’s the one mewling.

So maybe it was nothing. A fluke. Or worse, a gift. Handler’s charity. Power that wasn’t real. That feels more true now, now that she’s dripping on Hound’s hand while the brainwashed hero puts savage, messy hickeys all over her collar. Hound is rougher than any woman Kotys has ever had. She was told to fuck Kotys, but not to be gentle about it. This barely feels like sex. It feels like rutting.

Handler stands above it all, watching, her smile unreadable. She ordered this depravity, but she isn’t tainted by it. Not one fleck of dirt or drool or wetness has soiled her boots. She’s judging Kotys, of course, and that makes her feel all the more like a goddess.

Kotys can’t meet her gaze. She can just arch her back and buck her hips and moan and drool and scream and try her hardest not to beg for more.

She’s going to lose.

She can feel that more keenly now than ever. She’s already hitting her limit. Hound is teasing it out of her. If Kotys cums, if she cums from this, then there’s truly no difference between the two of them. If she cums from this, she’s truly a mutt. She’ll have lost something forever, she feels. In Handler’s eyes especially.

And then… what? She’ll just go back to her dormitory and her unit. They’ll take her back, probably. They’ll pretend to forget. It’ll be like nothing ever happened. Except for the moments she thinks back and remembers the time she touched glory and let it slip through her fingers. In those moments, she’ll know that she failed to become what she was always meant to be.

Sergeant Meetra Kotys can’t face that.

She digs deep within herself and finds reserves - not of dignity, but of strength, and a ferocity close to that she can see on Hound’s face. Acting on some instinct that Handler’s drug hasn’t quite dulled, she reaches up and puts her hand into Hound’s matted blonde hair, and makes a tight fist. Hound steels herself, ready to resist if she’s pushed away, but Kotys isn’t pushing away.

She’s pushing down.

Hound isn’t ready for this and so, for just a moment, her balance slips. She’s still fighting tooth and nail but Kotys is no slouch in a brawl, and the lapse lets her shove Hound far enough down that she can hook her thighs around her head and trap her there. It doesn’t bring any relief - Hound’s hand is still halfway inside her cunt - but it helps her bruised ego.

Hound is furious. She writhes like a kicked dog, but she can’t really fight back. Handler told her to fuck Kotys, and Handler hasn’t told her she can stop. At least half her attention is on keeping her hand moving and bringing Kotys to the edge.

An addled grin comes to Kotys’s face as she sees Hound accept this new position. It’s not much, but it’s something. A foothold. That victory immediately goes to her head. She turns euphoric. The drug makes it easy to let the feeling sweep her away. It helps that this is what Handler wants from her too. A turning of the tables. It’s starting to make sense. This is how she proves her humanity.

She needs to show Hound who’s really the mutt.

That strengthens her resolve. Now, riding high on dominance, she can simply do what comes naturally. Kotys reaches her other hand down and slips her fingers through the thin metal bars of Hound’s muzzle. Then, once her grip is solid, she pulls. Hard.

Hound lets out two cries as the muzzle, already punishingly tight, slips free and goes flying across the room. The first is pain. The second, louder and worse, is from grief and fear and uncertainty. Kotys is sure Handler doesn’t let her be without her muzzle. But she doesn’t care. She needs to prove that Handler isn’t the only one in charge, as blasphemous as that might feel. She forces Hound’s face between her legs.

“Here,” she growls. “Lick.”

Kotys squeezes down with her thighs to make sure Hound cannot possibly escape. Hound whines a few times, but eventually accedes. She’s been told to fuck Kotys and she’ll obey, even if her tongue is all she can use. When Kotys feels it inside her, it’s so good she starts to laugh and giggle. This is even better, maybe, than making her suck her gun barrel. This is true mastery.

Sartha Thrace, the rebel hero, obediently licking her cunt.

“That’s better,” Kotys snarls. “Lick, bitch.”

Dominating the hound between Kotys’s legs is effortless now. She’s found her flow. She’s not sure if the drug is wearing off or simply taking her to fresh heights, but she feels more focused than ever. Now it’s like she’s the one made of stars. She can do anything. Already, she’s picturing herself in Handler’s garb, in that black coat and cap and boots.

Maybe Hound is picturing her that way too. Maybe that’s why she seems so servile now. She’s pressing her face into Kotys’s body, greedily licking and lapping, tonguefucking her like it’s the only way she can breathe. Hound has accepted her place. Her purpose.

Pleasing Kotys.

It’s something close to the thrill of piloting a mech. Every pilot knows it; the feeling of striding across the world like a god, armored in invincible steel, armed with the power to blow mountains apart. It’s the thrill of domination. Kotys knows a lot of pilots who sleep around, but she doesn’t know any who’d take sex over the chance to put an enemy machine in the dirt. It’s just that addictive.

Kotys has always been an average pilot. Fine. She can accept that. But now she sees. Piloting was never her true calling. This is.

And it’s better.

Kotys rolls over suddenly, keeping Hound pinned beneath her body, grinding her cunt furiously on the brainwashed woman’s face. She’s going to cum, but it’s going to be on her terms.

“You can do better than that,” she snarls. “Bitch. Fuck me.”

Hound responds exactly as she’d hoped: with submission. That’s how Kotys knows she’s won. Hound is her creature now. Her plaything, straining to eat her out deeper and better. Kotys has passed the test. The euphoria bubbling through her brain tells the whole story.

Which means there’s no more reason to hold back.

Kotys lets herself cum all over Hound’s face. She rides her to the very end, eager to milk every last drop of pleasure out of her victory. She’s earned it, after all, just as she’s earned the right to buck her hips and fill the room with her ragged screams of bliss.

Fuck. She’s so alive.

This is real triumph. A medal on her chest wouldn’t even come close. Neither would any other sex Kotys has ever had. None of it means the same. Handler spoke earlier of owning another human being’s soul. Now, Kotys understands. She understands how awe-inspiring the feeling is. She understands that she needs it more, forever. The addiction is instantly. The craving is almost enough to make her want to ride Hound’s face a second time.

But she didn’t come here for just sex. So after Hound goes limp, Kotys extracts herself and clambers wearily to her feet. She chooses to savor the moment and so, unhurried, she takes a long while to fix her clothes before she turns to address Handler. But when she does, the expression she sees is worse than any she might have dreaded.

Boredom. Crushing, total boredom.

“How very disappointing,” Hander sighs.

That chills Kotys all the way through. Maybe the drug isn’t quite out of her system yet, because she feels the reprimand as a stab. An icicle in her chest. What’s going on? It can’t go wrong. Not again.

“B-but I…” she splutters. Her power, her dominance, is a lost memory, snatched away in three words. “I…”

“You. Failed.” Handler says each word so very clearly.

“N-no,” Kotys pleads. “No, I-“

She trips backward and is sent sprawling again. Handler seems to loom above her. It’s obvious to anyone that She has already passed judgment, but Kotys is already far beyond dignity.

“I beat her!” Kotys whines. “I did! I made her-“

“You rolled around on the ground like a pair of stupid animals.” Handler delivers the verdict clinically. “Is that what you suppose I wanted to see, Sergeant Kotys?”

Like before, all Kotys can do is turn her uncontrollable shame into anger. “B-but that’s what you do!” she babbles. “You freaks. Down here. We’re the same!”

That, at long last, earns something more than bored contempt. It earns a little anger, and even that little is terrifyingly worse. In a swift, disciplinarian movement, Handler steps forwards and grabs Kotys by her messed-up hair, and wrenches her head upwards so hard it makes her neck scream.

“Unlike you,” Handler hisses at her, “I don’t fuck dogs.”

Again, she’s a god. A star-being. Under her gaze, Kotys crumples. She knows in her heart that Hander is right. She’s always right. She’s right that they are not the same. Handler possesses a dominance beyond strength, and it is hers. Kotys was just a brat She was indulging. And for her hubris, she deserves all of this punishment.

“I-I-I’ll go,” Kotys blubbers, fighting to stand. She wants to collapse and pass out, but she wants to be away from Handler even more. “I’m sorry. Sir. I’ll go. B-back to my-“

“No.” Handler smiles cruelly at her. “You won’t. You’re ruined for that now. I’ve already arranged your transfer, Sergeant Kotys. We have uses for mutts, down here.”

She clicks her tongue again, and Hound is upon Kotys. This time, Hound isn’t play fighting. She’s as strong as a demon and there is no resisting her - not that it matters. Kotys has no resistance left. A glorious destiny will never be hers. She was a pilot - an average pilot, yes, but still a pilot - and now she’s nothing. She threw it away. There’s nothing left to fight for. It’s done. She doesn’t know what happens to mutts, but whatever it is, she’ll accept it.

After all, Handler knows best for all her dogs.

The broken pilot sobs as Hound begins to drag her deeper into the Kennels.

—

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