FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Nigrido: The Crucible

By Mint the Faithful

Chapter II - The Switch

Tansy was very shocked to awaken. Honestly, she had had no intention of falling asleep. At first she had forgotten where she was, in Anroko's dark dungeon... but now she remembered. And shuddered. Her mouth felt like it was full of broken glass, and she remembered that she had had nothing to drink for a very long time. Her wrists ached abominably from being confined so long, and her whole body felt sore from having slept in an upright position. Her back ached like a nest full of angry hornets, and tears sprang to her eyes unbidden as she remembered the intense whipping she had endured the day before.

"Ah, up I see?" Anroko's voice was as mockingly mirthful and faux-sweet as ever before. "Just what I've been waiting for..."

This somehow failed to comfort Tansy. She didn't have the strength to struggle as her bonds were released. She half-heartedly rubbed her wrists, longing for a drink of anything. She was so tired... so very tired...

"On your knees."

Why not? It was better than resisting and having her flesh lit up with the whip, wasn't it? Tansy was too exhausted to be leery or fearful, so she complied right away.

"Tilt your head back a ways. Open your mouth. I need a toilet."

Tansy was halfway through complying groggily before she stopped, stunned. She whispered, "Wait, wha..." Anroko didn't wait. She grabbed Tansy's head and forced it back, squatting down. Anroko had taken her shorts off, and she pressed her vagina right up to Tansy's mouth, which was still open in shock. The urine gushed, thick and fast, from within. Tansy coughed and spluttered, but could not move her head out of the way. She tried to close her mouth and eyes but her face got drenched in piss anyway. Tansy didn't have the presence of mind to dwell upon her earlier wish for a drink. The urination seemed to last forever, and even though Tansy's eyes had snapped shut they now stang with urine. Her mouth was filled with a mellow, bitter aftertaste that evoked within her the wicked urge to vomit. It was nearly thirty seconds from start to finish, and Tansy, tired and humiliated and willing herself not to think, could not shut a single strange thought from her mind... 'She was holding it.'

"Hmph. You make a disgraceful toilet, felar. You barely swallowed any of it at all. Well, go on then, clean up."

Tansy looked up, dumbfounded. Clean up? Surely Anroko didn't mean...

"Go. On your hands and knees, and use your tongue. And if there's a single drop left on the floor in oh, I'd say... fifteen minutes, you're going to be very sorry."

Tiredness does a strange thing to a person, and Tansy didn't even bother to doubt the seriousness or whimper in shock. She felt as though she were reduced to some baser version of herself... one without high intellect or thought processes. Little more than an animal. Tansy felt only one burning desire: to not be punished. She got to work. Her catlike tongue whisked across the floor, and she immediately winced and gagged. This was bad enough to drink the first time, and the stone floor was not filthy, but still not a surface one should like to lick. Tansy looked up, as though for help... but her eyes landed on the leather cuffs. The horrible ache in her back seemed even worse with the promise that it could be re-enflamed, and Tansy bent back down, licking desperately at the floor.

After the first couple of minutes, Tansy began to sob uncontrollably. Some combination of the awful taste of the yinn's urine, the hopelessness of her task and sheer depression set in. She licked with manic energy, but she soon realized that she had been an impossible task. Her fur was still dripping with urine, and the puddle on the ground was way too large to be cleaned in fifteen minutes... and on top of it all, her tongue was already tired and, despite the moisture of her task, it felt very dry and astringent. Tansy sat back, sobbing, resigned that she could not finish in time.

"Giving up already? Unacceptable." Anroko's voice didn't sound amused in the least. "How can you expect to become a yinn if you won't even try what is difficult?"

Tansy's eyes filled with tears. She was going to be whipped again, she knew it. "Please... please, no..."

"On all fours. Now. And lift your tail."

Tansy blinked rapidly, holding her tears back. She wasn't going to be cuffed and whipped? For some reason this did little to lift her spirits, and Anroko's words from the other day came booming into her head like an invader, 'There are punishments so much worse than a good whipping...'

However, by the look of anger on Anroko's face, Tansy was not about to disobey. She got on all fours, lifting her tail high in the air. She trembled softly, her urine-soaked fur and the drafty stone room the least of her worries... the icy fear in the pit of her stomach were causing these shivers.

"What? Little kitty afraid of a switching?" The smirk on Anroko's face didn't need to be seen. It was heard well enough. Still, Tansy couldn't believe her luck. Just a switching? Her mother used to switch her for staying out too late, and that wasn't so bad... But then, why wasn't the ice in her stomach clearing up?

"For your failure to swallow my piss, your toilet privileges have been revoked for six hours. For speaking when not having been asked a question, an extra two hours for a total of eight. For your failure to clean up after I ordered you to, ten strokes of the willow switch. For your giving up, that punishment has been doubled to twenty strokes. For speaking when not having been asked a question, an extra five strokes for a total of twenty-five. You will close your eyes and keep your tail in the air. If I have to restrain your tail, another two hours will be added to your toilet revocation. Do you understand?"

Tansy couldn't answer for a few seconds, stunned by the surreal nature of the listing of her punishments. The impossibility again wanted to make her cry. To not move her tail during a switching? She could barely hold it still for one... she had thrashed viciously when getting six from her mother. Surely the yinn's would be worse? And what about...

"If you do not answer, I'll add another five strokes onto your switching."

Tansy closed her eyes, held her tail high clear of her tender backside, and said as levelly as she could, "Y, yes ma'am... I understa..."

*swish*CRACK*! A lightning bolt of pain went streaking up Tansy's spine to her brain, where it told her in no uncertain terms that a very bad thing was happening. Before Tansy could even think, her tail had slipped down to cover where a bright red welt was now forming below the fur on her bottom. A scream of anguished pain forced itself from her body and tears streamed down her face. "Hold your tail up." With a monumental effort, Tansy forced her tail to stay up. Just as she did so... *swish*CRACK*! Tansy howled. This sting had gone right across the first one with unbelievable accuracy. She dropped to the ground, her hands and tail covering her bottom as tears streamed down her cheeks and a horrible cry burned her chest as it escaped.

"So ten hours it is. Hold still." Tansy didn't have the heart to truly struggle as her hands were bound together in front of her and her tail restrained around her neck with a rope. "Now, if you can't stay on all fours we'll just have you hold it for twelve hours. Up."

Summoning what little remained of her willpower, Tansy forced herself upright. *swish*CRACK*! Vicious, intense pain. Screaming. *swish*CRACK*! An awful, swelling sense of foreboding, even through the vicious stinging of her welts... there were so many, many more to go... *swish*CRACK*! *swish*CRACK*! *swish*CRACK*! This was awful. Maybe not as bad as a whipping, but still awful. Her backside felt like it was on fire, her tail wrenching at its bonds to get away, her body squirming. She had fallen to the ground again, she realized with horror.

"Fine, fine, we can finish it this way," there was a cold triumph in the voice, "but I hope your bladder is strong for your sake."

*swish*CRACK*! *swish*CRACK*! *swish*CRACK*! Tansy lost count of her wounds, sobbing and crying pathetically. Anroko had even stepped on one of her legs to prevent her from rolling over. Tansy's fevered mind, however, believed that she had broken that leg in the ferocity of her beating. The welts grew, red and dark beneath her fur, and the horrible strokes of the cane just kept coming. Tansy finally felt as though she would have much preferred a whipping to spare her backside this horrible burning. She could not even feel the horrible ache in her back any more.

Anroko finally stopped. "That's twenty-two. You've got three more to go. But I think a little time to think about your failure is in order." That was all she said. And for minutes, the silence fell, punctuated only by Tansy's moaning and sobbing.

Inside, Tansy was shattered into a million pieces, her mind torn asunder between the intense pain that was causing her to squirm uncontrollably and the horrible fear of yet more punishment. Without a way to tell time, it felt like ages and ages before Anroko's weight shifted. Tansy barely had time to ready herself before *swish*CRACK*!! Oh the PAIN! It was unbearable! Anroko had struck very hard indeed. The pain was simply barbaric. *swish*CRACK*!! Tansy couldn't even bear to think, attempting to shut down her mind so that she would not know how much pain she was in. Her wrists tore at the ropes, struggling just to slip a little bit free and rub her poor bottom... *swish*CRACK*!!! There was a sick breaking noise, and Tansy fainted, positive that her tailbone had shattered. The last stroke had gone right along the base of her tail, and the intense pain coupled with the sharp snapping noise told Tansy all she needed to know. Unconsciousness welcomed her warmly.

When Tansy awoke, she was surprised to find herself untied. For one brief, tiny, shining glimmer of a moment, she thought that she had dreamed the whole thing... and then her bottom. Oh the *ache*. It was as though someone had ground her bottom into raw meat. And then there was the matter of her back, which was still nice and sore from the twenty-plus lashes it had taken the day before. And... what was that on the ground in front of her?

It was a willow switch, broken clean in two.

"I'm afraid there's not enough time left today for you to serve the rest of your punishment, so you'll take it tomorrow with additional penalties. In the meantime..." Anroko gestured toward a half-loaf of cold bread and a flask of cool water. Tansy didn't need any further bidding... she fell upon it voraciously.

Tansy huddled upon the cold floor that night, lying on her stomach. Her poor back and tail were so tender and sore... she thought it would take weeks for the burn to wear off. And she doubted she'd be left alone for weeks. She wept bitterly for some time, her only certain knowledge that tomorrow could be even worse.