What We Do to Survive

Miranda looked around furtively then knocked twice on the door, waited a moment, and knocked again. When there was no response, she reached into her dress through the long slit down its side and firmly grasped one of the silver plates Orion had made for her. Channeling just a touch of mana into it with one hand, she used the other to turn the doorknob and slipped silently into the room.

Glancing around, she quickly confirmed that Orion was not around. Feeling for the bond between them, she concluded that he was probably still out in the city. Well, either that or he’d ventured to one of the more distant greenhouses or training grounds outside of Avalon’s main building. She could feel that he was relatively far away, but not how far.

“Good morning, Rea,” she called out quietly. The other girl briefly glanced in her direction, then returned to her work. Rea was sitting in the center of the room on a small rug, staring intently at a globe of water floating motionlessly over an empty basin. Miranda could just barely feel her fellow slave’s mana moving in thin, rippling bands around the globe, keeping the water perfectly contained within them without letting even a single drop escape.

It was an impressive display, particularly since Miranda knew Rea had only been seriously practicing magic without the help of spell forms for a few short weeks. That she could manage something like that, a feat she doubted all of her current classmates could match without practice, was downright incredible. The purple-skinned girl might only have the mana reserves of a first-circle mage, but her control was growing by leaps and bounds with every passing day.

Well, she supposed it was to be expected. Not only did she have Orion’s personal tutelage in a skill he’d mastered like no one else she knew their age, but she knew that Rea poured an immense amount of time into her training. There was only so much cleaning and other busy work to be done in Orion’s sparsely furnished room, so Rea spent almost all her time while Orion was absent honing her mana control.

“I’ll leave you to it,” Miranda mumbled, and this time Rea didn’t even bother looking towards her.

Miranda didn’t mind, she’d grown used to the younger girl’s single minded focus on whatever task she was currently working on. She threw herself fully into every little thing Orion told her to do, always striving to be better for her master. Miranda might have said something about it once, but she was also not immune to her master’s influences. Ever since she’d bound herself ever closer to Orion’s will, she’d found herself dedicating a much greater portion of her time towards self improvement. Whenever she considered slacking off or taking things easy, she could feel his disapproval at the idea and would almost always get right back to work.

She made a wide loop around the focused girl, doing her best to ignore the bound elves as she walked past them. Even now, knowing that Orion cared for her and considered her more useful to him as she was now, she tried to avoid thinking about what he’d done to two of their classmates. Growing up she’d been told time and time again how potentially valuable her unique combination of natural abilities made her, and how she should avoid ambitious mages looking to take her magic for themselves.

She didn’t think she would ever forget seeing the half-butchered bodies of her aunties, nor the tubs of still-bleeding limbs and preserved organs in her ‘sponsors’ workshop as the aging mage helped her fill out her Avalon application. She didn’t know what had convinced the man to spare her life, nor why he’d done so much to care for her in the wake of hunting down and rendering her entire flock down into alchemical ingredients.

Miranda squeezed her eyes shut and forced the memories out of her mind. She wished she could convince herself that Orion wouldn’t do something like that, but she couldn’t. Just as the bond between them had taught Orion more about his new slave, it had also given Miranda a much clearer picture of the man who owned her in every way possible. If Orion had sudden need of a pile of siren hearts, he wouldn’t have thought twice about slaughtering her family down to the last elder and child. Maybe he would feel bad about it, but he would do it in a heartbeat.

The well-organized cabinet in which Orion kept his finished potions was in the same place as it always was and Miranda quickly retrieved one of the tall vials of pale pink liquid that Orion had prepared for her. She did her best to ignore the row of metal capsules lined up in a row beside them, each etched with a loop of stasis spells around the cap. Those were not for her, no matter how much she wished they were. Even just seeing them had her mouth watering and the memories of the few times Orion had shared one with her would have had her soaking her panties if she had ever bothered to wear undergarments.

She closed the cabinet door and deliberately turned away, trying to ignore the rising heat in her chest. Long nails dug sharply into the palm of her hand and her grip tightened around the vial. She exhaled slowly, then walked over to the bathroom and stepped inside, though she didn’t bother closing the door behind her.

Setting the vial down in a conveniently placed rack, she briskly pushed the straps holding her dress up out of the way and pulled the top down past her chest before letting the shimmery fabric slide the rest of the way down to pool on the floor. Then she slid her feet out of the tall heels she was wearing and stepped down onto the bare stone floor.

The shock of the cold stone against her skin was enough to momentarily make her pause. She took a long, slow breath, then bent down and picked up the dress. Iceworm silk might not wrinkle as badly as its more mundane variants, but that was no reason not to be careful with her clothing. She gently hung the dress and only then snatched up the vial and hurried into the shower stall.

The first time Miranda had come to Orion’s room to feed, she’d drunk the vial while standing next to the cabinet. That had certainly been a mistake, and it was only Rea’s fast reactions that had stopped her from braining herself on Orion’s desk. The second time, she’d sat down on the edge of his bed. That had certainly gone slightly better, but Rea hadn’t been happy having to strip down and replace the soaked-through sheets.

The third time, the usually timid girl had been busily harvesting Orion’s elven cattle when Miranda had come in, and had used the metal crop in her hand to menace Miranda into the bathroom. Sitting on cold tile wasn’t the most pleasant experience, but Miranda had seen the marks Rea’s crop left on unnaturally durable elven skin and wasn’t keen on seeing what it would do to her. Well… her already soaked pussy clenched as an image flashed through her mind. Not unless it was Orion wielding the crop. If nothing else, it made cleaning up much easier.

Miranda sat down quickly in the corner of the stall, back against the smooth stone wall and legs stretched out along the floor. She could barely feel the cold of the floor through the feverish heat of anticipation burning through her body. With shaky fingers she removed the stopper from the vial and lifted it slowly to her mouth.

The smell and mana of it hit her all at once, a heady mix of pain, pleasure, and desperation that was even more overwhelming than it had been on that very first day when Orion had tied her down and poured a full vial of it down her throat. She breathed in deeply, eyes rolling back in her head and a dopey smile on her face as she savored the flavor of it

The first time around she hadn’t known what it was, and had been in no state to really think about what exactly she was drinking. For weeks, she’d thought that Orion had somehow managed to synthesize some sort of artificial substitute for her need to feed on others. At the time, the thought had terrified her. It had seemed like the first step to ending up like Mistletoe and Verdan, bound in torturous silence and darkness untill she’d outlived her usefulness.

When he’d brought her to his room for the new binding she’d almost instantly realized what exactly it was she’d been fed. The smell of it was thick in the air, invisible to her normal senses but blindingly obvious to her succubus heritage. She was glad Orion had agreed to provide her with a steady stream of it. She’d never tasted a more potent source of mana-charged sexual fluids and even that single original taste had empowered her as much as a week of ordinary feeding would.

Leaning her head back, Miranda hurriedly poured the entire vial down her throat in two large gulps. A moment later, the vial slipped out from between her suddenly limp fingers and clattered away across the floor, but Miranda was in no shape to think about that.

Her entire body convulsed, arms twitching and legs thrashing against the stone uncontrollably as she wailed in overwhelming pleasure. She came almost instantly, then again a moment later, and again, and again. Time lost all meaning as pure bliss washed through her, shoving aside any conscious thoughts or worries in a haze of ecstasy.

It was incredible, perfect, wondrous. Better than any sex Miranda had ever had, be that with her sisters in the flock or the many man and women she’d fucked and fed on since she’d come to Avalon. It almost made her wish she could be like one of them, bound, teased, and toyed with at any hour, completely helpless, at the mercy of the whims of her master and his other slaves. Almost.

Slowly the sensation receded as her body absorbed and processed the sudden deluge of mana. Miranda didn’t move, just letting herself luxuriate in the afterglow of it all. Eventually however, like all good things it was over and Miranda found herself lying on the cold tiles, body soaked in sweat and the sticky residue of her repeated orgasms. She reached up shakily, barely able to control her leaden arm, but on her third try managed to snag one of the handles that controlled the shower.

Ice-cold water poured down on top of her and she shrieked in surprise, banging her head against the wall as she tried to scramble away from the sudden deluge. She hadn’t thought to check the water temperature before sitting down, not having expected it to be set to anything different than Orion’s preferred near-boiling heat. A thin strand of mana wrapped around the other handle and wrenched it to the side. Instantly the water changed from freezing to steaming and Miranda sighed blissfully as hot water pounded down on her heaving chest.

She looked towards the door when she heard someone moving and found Rea standing at the entrance to the bathroom, shoulders shaking as the white-haired girl laughed silently. “You did that on purpose, didn’t you?” Miranda asked with narrowed eyes.

Rea nodded her head quickly, then began to giggle out loud.

“Brat. I’ll get you for that.” Miranda made to stand up, but her legs were nowhere near ready to support her weight and she quickly sank back down to the floor before she collapsed. “Later. I’ll get you later.” Rea’s giggling only got louder. She sighed again, this time in exasperation. She would have to be more careful next time.

Miranda was just finishing up brushing out her hair when she heard the outer door slam open and shut. Heavy footsteps rang through the room and she leaned back and looked through the bathroom door to find a furious looking Orion storming towards his desk. His teeth were clenched, hands balled up into fists, and he was growling something incomprehensible under his breath. An oppressive weight seemed to hang over him, pushing aside the supernatural taste of elven pleasure with a wrathful, burning stench. Reaching for their bond she felt a wave of furiously roiling anger flood through the connection and nearly overwhelm her before she could pull back.

Dropping the brush, Miranda rushed into the main room, her bare feet leaving wet footprints on the stone. Rea was still sitting in the center of the room, but the sphere of water she’d been working with had fallen, splattering both her and the rug she knelt. “Orion?” Miranda called out worriedly, concern welling up within her, “What happened? Are you alright? Do you––”

Orion turned to stare at her and Miranda’s mouth closed with a snap and she froze mid step as she physically felt his attention shift towards her. “I’m going to kill that bitch,” he said simply, his tone perfectly calm and even and completely at odds with the obvious fury on his face. “And then I’m going to find someone to bring her back and kill her again. And again. Until she learns her lesson.”

Miranda wasn’t sure how to respond to that and simply stood silently for a moment as Orion dug through the drawers of his desk and began to pile an eclectic heap of small enchanted objects at the center of the table.

“Who?” she eventually managed, forcing the word out between leaden lips.

“Brenda,” Orion answered simply in that same too-calm tone of voice. “I gave her what she wanted and what does she do? That worthless elf-spawn went after the one…”

His words devolved into more growling mutters, but Miranda had heard enough. It didn’t take much effort to connect the dots on what had happened. Orion had gone into the city and somehow discovered that it had been Brenda that had ordered the attack on that Leana girl.

The words welled up inside her throat before Miranda even finished consciously considering what to do. Her duty was to work in the best interest of her Master. She could not deceive her master, nor manipulate him towards a specific goal, but in this instance she was certain it was simply a matter of calming him down.

“Orion, please!” she called out loudly, filling her voice with every bit of allure she could muster, “you’re not thinking clearly!”

Orion’s eyes snapped back towards her and, for the second time in as many minutes, she found herself frozen in place under his gaze. “I. Am. Calm,” he growled through clenched teeth. “That. Bitch. Is going to. Die.”

“Please!” she called out again the moment she could move, “think about what you’re doing. How you’re doing it! Brenda deserves every punishment you can think up for her, but not like this! This is not how you do things, Master!”

She rushed forward and pressed herself against his side, his arm nestled between her breasts and her cheek against his shoulder. “Master,” she begged again, “I will do whatever you command, but this is not what you want, I’m sure of it!”

He shoved her away roughly and turned towards the door. Miranda stumbled backwards and tried to catch herself, but her wet feet slipped on the well-polished floor and she fell onto the hard floor with a heavy slap of bare flesh on stone. Miranda’s heart dropped as she saw him moving away from her, but then she felt Orion’s end of their bond… shift slightly.

Orion stopped and leaned against the wall beside him, pressing his forehead against the cold rock. He sighed heavily and some of the weight pressing down on her shoulders receded. “Fuck,” he swore quietly, his voice heavy. “I hate this. I hate this place.”

Miranda pushed herself shakily to her feet and walked up to him, the pad of her bare feet unusually loud in the sudden stillness. She stopped an arms length away, simply standing with her hands folded behind her back and her head bowed.

“Gods above,” he mumbled quietly, then shook his head. “What would I do without you guys. Best decision I ever made.”