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Crossing Boundaries

Part Eleven

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Written by Arian Mabe (Amethyst Mare)

Commissioned by anonymous

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Siderva groaned, the serpent-woman hunkering down before the university accommodation, Kael's abode at the end of a long corridor where servants, once, had been housed. It was the largest room there with a solid, wooden door, though she could have called on more aggressive magic to make it splinter into nothing, if she had been less discreet. It had been too long since the anthro snake, however, had used magic, she doubted she would even have a grip on it anymore. It was in a part of her brain that the human had broken, so many years ago, though she knew, intrinsically, that it was still there, that it could be, in some small way, used, if she did push for it.

But she could not break down every wall that lay in her way, for fear of leaving herself a broken wreck in the wake of it. She feared losing everything she was, being back in that dark place, though the confused part of her mind still craved pleasure that would not come. Why did it not come?

Ducking her head, she panted, tongue flickering in and out of her mouth, scraping over her lips. Dry, too dry. He had left her, that was to be expected, but…it hurt. It still hurt, that lack of pleasure. She could do without the human, but being trained and indoctrinated to serve in that way, her mind broken time after time again, had to leave scars, some so gaping and twisted that they were never even intended to heal.

It didn't help that she was sober, for once, though she had known that she had to be, to carry out the mission that she had appointed herself. Not keeping any liquor around her did not help in the slightest, the craving always there, though she only just about stopped herself from stopping in the inns on the way to the magic university, the greatest centre of study in the land, to make a bit of coin and satisfy the twisted sexual desire.

Not that it could be satisfied, of course. It only took the edge off a little and dulled it more when she was drunk.

One thing that Siderva was pleased with, however, was that she had managed to bypass the minor security of the university rather easily. They relied on guards mostly, a few barriers around the outskirts of the grounds, though there were no solid exterior walls, not when there were no serious threats to them. Not that would have stopped a mage, to be fair, but she did not look back at that time and see magic as a resource that she could tap into for aggression, not anymore. The notion of sending a fireball into the door was a fleeting one, one that came with a flash of pain, and she shoved it down into a deep, dark pit of her mind where she no longer had to think about it, something that she did not have to consider when the notion brought a flash of pain to her body.

But maybe…just maybe…this human would be able to change things for her, to bring back the pleasure. Sneaking through the grounds, she had been able to pull on some earth-shaping magic to hide between mounds of earth, moving leaves to cloak her – things that would not have been used in warfare. Or, at least, not things that humans had considered useful for warfare, for magic was far subtler than any of them had ever given it credit for. They did not know, they couldn't have known, for no one, apparently, besides that one human who had come to study there, had taken the time to delve into them, their history.

Maybe he'd even be able to tease out the pain in her that came when she ever tried to do any magic that was not deemed “seemly" but her previous master, the human who had enslaved her after the way. Siderva shuddered. No… No, that was too much to hope for. Just a hit of pleasure, yes, she had to lean into that, had to hope for whatever might be reasonable, what she had travelled so far for.

One thing Siderva had been able to do, however, had been to check on her daughter, the young mage looking strong and healthy, a red hue to her serpentine scales and black dots between her eyes. She had not seen her in so many years, but it had been the best choice, yes, to give her up, though she seemed to be doing as well for herself as the serpent-woman had hoped. To see her daughter living a long, healthy, happy life was all she'd wanted.

But that meant that her daughter could never know who she was and Siderva slipped away before anyone could raise any questions as to why an anthro serpent-woman with tattered robes and barely anything underneath was lurking around the university. She could not remain around the public places for long, lest she be caught exactly where she didn't want to be.

Besides, her daughter brought up too many painful memories for her. To keep her would have meant that she would have had to know, in one way or another, where she had come from. She couldn't do that to the little one, an innocent serpent who did not worry about the world, not in any way.

It wouldn't have been fair to the little one. And that was why she had to stay away.

Night wrapped around her, cloaking her softly, though she had seen the human, who seemed to go by Kael (a strange, human name) enter the abode some time ago – long enough for him to be asleep. There was also a dog, one that looked like an anthro yet would not be considered the same as any anthro species, with him, a guard German Shepherd with a look in her eye that spoke of inner strength. That was, at least, something that Siderva could still recognise, a little of her old self intact, despite the years.

The canine might be trouble, she thought to herself, though she couldn't stop shifting her wait back and forth, crouching low as her tail curled back and forth behind her. She wanted to flick her tongue out repeatedly, but she held it in, the nervous tick, too many old memories and feelings swirling within her, twisting her resolve.

Click.

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“Ah…"

That is better…

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The click of the lock was almost horrifically loud, though Siderva could not have honestly said that she knew what she was going to do on entering. Pausing there, as the door swung open a crack, she waited, listening intently. Serpents felt more through vibrations than pure sound, her tongue sweeping out to taste the air, picking up the tiniest of flickers of life, tremors. There were two bodies in there, all as she'd expected, the heat of them slow and sultry, the pounding of their hearts oddly in time.

Hm.

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Maybe that was something about dogs and their masters that she had overlooked before. She had not spent much time thinking about the dogs, shrugging off how closely in sync they seemed to be.

Slowly, patiently, still wondering what she hoped she glean, she told herself she would only get the lay of the land. She slipped inside, as quiet as the night itself, blinking as the room came into focus, though her night vision was better than most serpents, having both the traits of her natural species and what had been enhanced over generations.

She could mostly see in the dark, though colours were beyond her, always with weaker eyesight than, say, a wolf or a hawk anthro. Her tongue flickered out, sensing heat, gave her a better sense of what was around her, touch helping too, though she did not feel as if she was moving blind, not with the shapes of furniture around her, a living area of sorts opening up with a desk and a chair and a place to sit and read.

It was all… She shook her head, rocking back on her heels, a touch of the guard lifting from her shoulders. It was all so plain, so normal. Maybe that was because he was living in the abode of the university? That they had dressed it all for him?

She didn't know what she had expected, feeling rather foolish as her tongue brushed against her snout again, her senses as sharp as ever. Had she thought it would be as lavish as her master's and owner's before? He was a different kind of human, surely, but, truthfully, Siderva could not have known what to expect at all, because humans had not been present like Kael in the anthro lands at any time in history, not to learn, not to study.

He was unique. But she would have appreciated a little bit of excitement in there too, all so it did not look as plain as it was. Maybe that was for the best though.

She checked the room, sifting through papers, the window closed with the curtains drawn tightly across it. There was not even a sliver of moonlight in the crack, which raised her curiosity. There was nowhere that she had stayed during her travels, in the whore houses and the inns, that had curtains that closed like that, so threadbare, as if they were falling apart where she slept. His were rich, a subtle indicator of wealth where the finest things, even if she could not truly appreciate them, not in her station in life, came together for Kael, placed in his abode.

Her stomach twisted. She wondered if her daughter got the same treatment, but she doubted it, wondering if she was okay, where she slept. Maybe she should go check her again, make sure that there was nothing more she could do for the daughter that she had given up, though it was not as if she had any money to give her either. She had nothing. Which was why she'd given her up.

The snake's chest tightened. Oh, it was hard, so hard, her weight shifting, tail drawing in and coiling tightly around her thigh and down her leg, all so much so that it made it difficult to move. She didn't want to be back in her past, back in the realm of memories that didn't have any true place there, her chest tightening, her back arching.

If she didn't hold onto the present, she would be back in the past, she would be back as his slave. She craved the hit of pleasure, the thrill of it, anyway, but the training, the indoctrination, it was all lodged in her skull, a routine and repetition that she could never truly slither away from. Holding her breath, Siderva groaned, pain lancing behind her eyes, a headache pounding.

“No…" She whispered, unable to stop the hiss from escaping her lips. “No… Please… No…"

But she couldn't. Not as she rocked and not as she groaned, digging her fingers into her knees, hunched down. She had to fight it, though her breath came in short, sharp pants, the tightness in her chest increasing, heart fluttering, pounding, aching for something she could never have.

Maybe the human… She stumbled to her feet, eyes wide but not seeing. Maybe… Maybe him! Maybe he could help! The door to the bedroom, or further into the abode at least, lay before her, but, oddly it was already ajar.

Siderva blinked. And the next thing she knew was that there was a knife pressed to her throat, the dog that she had seen earlier behind her, holding her against her body.

“Who are you and what are you doing here?" Giselle hissed, the canine's voice low and dangerous, offering no compromise. “Speak quickly or I promise you will never have the chance to speak again!"

The dog growled lowly and she stiffened, the canine's naked body against her. It should have struck her as odd that the dog was nude, but she understood, in some way, that they were neither like anthros nor humans, even if they could have been like anthros. They, at least, walked and talked like anthros and the only difference that should have played into anything was the class difference: something that she was well enough familiar with after her time as a slave. Back then, Siderva had been treated as worse than a dog, though the dogs had all seemed quite happy with their stations in life. As if they had never been allowed to think about or consider anything else.

The knife pressed against her neck, drawing a trickle of blood through the scales. Siderva swallowed hard, reflexively, a lump moving down her throat.

“Speak!"

“I… I'm Siderva." As if her name would mean anything to them. “I came…to see…the human…Kael…"

Oh, she sounded foolish, though there was little she cared about, not as blood trickled down her neck. It was only a single droplet, but it was enough, a strange sense of calm washing over her, as if she had been doused by a softly pouring, cooling, bucket of water.

It was okay. Everything was okay. She couldn't reach for her magic, for she would be dead before she could even cast a spell to disable the dog – and anything aggressive was out of reach anyway. There was nothing she could do in such a position with the dog poised to end her life, settling herself, accepting her fate.

Maybe it was the fate that she had expected from the beginning.

Giselle growled, the sound rumbling in the back of her throat. She didn't trust the snake, not just because she was a snake, but dogs, well, they didn't particularly like serpents either. They set her hackles up, a threat before her, even though the serpent-woman evidently did not seem to be one of the kinds that had venom in them.

“If you do anything…" She warned her. “I will end your life. In a moment."

Siderva nodded shortly eyes still closed. What more did she have to look for?

“Master! Master – out here!"

Siderva stayed as still and as compliant as possible, not so much afraid, but wanting to comply. It didn't matter, really, that she could die there, for she had thought she would die so many times over in her life. It was a passing thought, almost something that she had wished for herself, though it had been a long, long time since she had gone down that dark road. If something happened to her, however, she wouldn't have minded, passively wishing for death even though the serpent had not made any moves to take her own life.

It would be a better death there, quicker and cleaner, in a way, than how she had imagined the end of her times would come, if she was entirely honest with herself. She'd always thought that the end of her days would come face down in a dirty, filthy alley strewn with waste and the stink of piss – something suitably fitting for the life that even she had to admit that she had been forced into. Probably stabbed in the gut, taken against her will, maybe even after simply drinking something that finally ended her, too much for her at the wrong time.

But, it seemed, that death was not yet coming as the human with light, dirty blonde hair entered, a night robe in long, flowing fabric spilling down around his legs, the chest open in a V-shape. It had been tied at the waist but only loosely as he rubbed sleep from his eyes, stifling a yawn.

“Giselle, what…"

He trailed off, stopping in the middle of the room. For Kael, it was just as well that Giselle was the guard and he was the owner, in that sense, for he would have walked straight into Siderva, warm and sluggish with sleep, clumsy immediately after waking. The canine growled, though her tail lifted a little and wagged, showing her friendliness towards him, even though she did not relinquish her grip on the serpent. One of her hands was around the serpent woman's skinny wrist, twisting her arm back behind her body, the other hand holding the knife pressed to the intruder's throat.

Yet it didn't appear as if the serpent-woman had put up any kind of resistance at all, which did seem strange, at least to him. He frowned, rubbing the back of his head, a little more wakeful, though it would take a lot more than that (and most likely some strong coffee at that time of the night) to bring him back to full consciousness with a working mind. Even his psychic powers felt as if they were still waking up, usually so close to the forefront of his mind that he could use them whenever needed. With something that came innately to human beings, it was strange to feel as if they were clunky, grinding a moment back in his mind from where they should have been.

“Giselle… I think you should let her sit down."

The dog gave him a look.

“Master… She slithered in here under the cover of darkness, we have no idea what her intentions are with you," Giselle argued back, her instinct to protect overcoming her natural obedience. “We cannot simply free her."

Kael shrugged, smiling a little. Giselle wouldn't have talked back to him like that when he had first met her and, honestly, he rather liked the change in her. Some of the dogs were far too compliant, doing exactly as they were asked. That was how some assassinations of those higher in the government had come to pass, the dogs that guarded them obeying their masters and stepping aside when the men, of course, had no reason to suspect that nefarious deeds were afoot. Though the dogs had known, all they had been able to do was obey, not knowing anything else. Of course, more of that was on the men who had fallen than it ever would be on the dogs, though it was a flaw that could only be rectified, by bonding truly with the dogs.

Maybe that was something that he should take back to his father, just in case he was targeted at some point…

“Master, I'm not letting her go."

Giselle growled, showing her teeth again, the fluttering of her lips curling into a snarl, though she remained as steady as a rock against the test of time, her head held proudly high. She would defend her master, yes, to the last, though the snake hadn't made a move against her. That didn't mean that the serpent wouldn't, however, her guard up, watching, waiting, ensuring that she was not caught out.

“Okay, Giselle," Kael said with a sigh. “Bind her hands if you must, but I think if she was going to do anything she already would have done so. Where did you find her? Who are you?"

He directed the first question at Giselle and the second at the serpent-woman. The snake swallowed obviously and shook her head slowly from side to side, the knife lifted away only enough for her to complete the motion.

“Siderva," she rasped, tongue flickering out of her mouth as she spoke. “I'm Siderva. I mean no harm."

“She was here," Giselle said, tail stiff with concern. “She was crouched down and then she stood oddly, swaying, tipping. She didn't look right. That was when I moved."

Kael nodded.

“You've done well, Giselle, thank you. Stay close to her and do what you believe is needed."

The canine wagged her tail happily, pleased to be serving her master, to be doing his bidding, though it was good, from her viewpoint, that he trusted her too. There was no good in having a master who did not trust their guard or servant, after all, though she was glad that her master knew that she took his safety as a matter of the highest priority. Autonomy to allow her training and her instincts to blend allowed the dog to behave more naturally, not simply waiting for a command. All she wanted to do was to protect her master.

He watched, from a distance, as Giselle efficiently took care of binding the serpent woman's hands, her wrists placed together, though he was sure, with his knowledge of magic, that it would not be much of a deterrent. It would be enough, however, to allow Giselle to act – and that was all that would be needed. Even he with his abilities would be able to step in, though he still had to keep his attention on her. After all, a strange anthro that he did not know in his rooms in the middle of the night was not something that he could allow to pass without questioning.

He sat Siderva down in an armchair with a straight back that dwarfed even her, a fire flickering beside them, though he asked Giselle not to stoke it too high, for concern that they would be questioned as to why they were awake so late in the accommodation. They always kept their lamps low after a certain time, flames flickering, though Kael liked to keep a magical one in there after learning how to do that it. How long it burned was a good gauge of how his studies were coming along in the practice of applicable magic, seeing how long he could keep the flames alight. There were finer ways to do it, of course, but he would only learn to do that over the full course of his studies, how to set magic into objects so that they could be used even by those that were not trained as mages. It was quite ingenious, truly…

Siderva wriggled uncomfortably, the chair too large and too plush for her. She could not have said that she very much liked her hands being bound too, though it was not for her to say. She didn't exactly have all that much say in the matter after sneaking into his abode at night, though she had come too far to feel all that foolish about it. What was done was done. All she could do was go forward from there.

“Now…" Kael said, leaning over with his elbows on his knees, still only in his robe. “Can you tell me why you have come here, Siderva? Did someone send you? Why… Why are you here?"

Best to keep his questions short and simple, straight to the point, for the moment, he decided, though he had so many brimming over, darting to the tip of his tongue and poising there, ready to leap. He wanted to know everything about her, from an anthro perspective as well as an intruder perspective, though he could not honestly see her as a threat. She just didn't seem to have that about her, her clothes tattered and dirtied, though her scales were as clean as it seemed washing in rivers and the like could do. There was no air of soap about her, at least, though he could help her fix that, surely, before she had to be on her way. If she was even going on her way – who knew, at that point?

He sighed, leaning back, the serpent-woman taking her time to contemplate things. It probably wasn't for any good reason that she was there, though he still wanted to know her story. Giselle, of course, kept a watchful eye over everything, her tail stiff, standing with a slight bend in her legs. As always, she would be able to lunge at danger at a moment's notice. His heart warmed a little for her.

“I…" She shook her head, tail twitching back and forth where it hung, not loosely, against the armchair. “I am Siderva, though I have already introduced myself… I… Hm…"

What could she tell him? What should she tell him? There was so much of her story to tell, but, really, did he want to know all that about her? Her history was dark and the war, truthfully, was not all that long ago, not in her mind. It was long enough that those that were victorious had moved past it, clearly, but those that had been caught up in the thick of it, not understanding the fight or that it was a losing battle back then…

Siderva shuddered, Kael taking note of her discomfort. Yet it was something that he had to press into, at the very least to find out what she had been doing in his room so late at night. Not everything could be simply set aside, he was learning…

“I…" She gathered herself, taking a deep breath. Her chest was narrow and just taking the breath expanded her ribcage. “I… I was captured, in the war. I lived with a human for some time. Before that, I'd been a mage."

Of course, she was going out of order, but things didn't always work in a decipherable order in her mind, to be fair. Things were just like that, one thing stumbling over the other, always wanting precedence. All Siderva could do was go forward, word by word and step by step.

“When I was captured, he had me do things for him, in exchange for pleasure. In here." Siderva tried to be as discreet as possible, tapping her head to indicate her mind. “It made me trainable, like a slave. I was a slave, yes, for a long time. Eventually, the man had no further use for me. I don't know if they were ordered to release mage slaves captured in the war, but it does not matter. I was let go and then…I had to work for a living."

The serpent sighed and shook her head. Why must she go over her past? It was better to let it slip by and to gloss over the worst of it. There was no reason that the man there wanted to hear all of it. She couldn't even meet his eyes, her tongue flickering in and out of her mouth nervously, a tic that she couldn't at all control.

“I worked for a living, in inns and brothels," she said bluntly, rushing her words into a hiss in her haste to get them all out at once. “It was hard work, but it was all I could. No one there, at least, knew who I was, that I had been a war mage and that I had fallen. I would have been killed otherwise, I am confident of it. I worked and I drank… There were illegal substances too, though that should not come as any surprise… And I heard about you. I wanted to see you, to see if you were like the human that had kept me before, though…"

She trailed off, shaking her head. He wasn't like that, clearly not. Kael was so much younger than the man who had kept her, trained her, infiltrated her mind and done things to her. He was not someone who could use her like that and treat her as that man did, as her master had treated her. Even then, her mind longed for it, to kneel at his side, to do any manner of degrading, humiliating, belittling acts, all for the chance of that thrill of pleasure, touching that place inside her mind that no one else and no other body ever could. Sex and fucking in the brothels and back rooms of inns, selling her body, had given her a lower dose, much lower, hit of what she needed, yet it was not enough. It had always left her yearning, hungering, wanting something that was always out of reach, stretching out her fingertips to their greatest extent and yet never managing to get there.

Maybe it was her fate. She closed her eyes, slumping in her chair. Maybe it was all her due for failing in the war, for falling so easily. It was all a blur, back then, but she could not even remember, once the war had begun, what part she had played in it. She'd been high-powered, she knew that much, though it was all so fuzzy, a mess of explosions and burning buildings, searing, simmering skin as flesh and fur burned.

And the screams. Siderva tried not to remember the screams, hunkering in on herself, her breathing short and shallow, ragged as it clawed its way in and out of her chest. She didn't want to remember the screams, not the cries of all the anthros she had failed.

If she had been better, maybe she would have been able to protect them. If she had done more, maybe things would have been different. That was what her mind tried to tell her, the broken, twisted part of it, logic also too far out of reach, where the serpent instinctively knew that there was also nothing that could be done against a human with psychic abilities. And that was all of them. It was humiliating how she had been toyed with and ordered about – in a non-sexual manner, just treated as a slave – by a child in the dwelling too, though she could not recall their face. It was not important for her to be able to recall things like that, after all, only for her to obey. And, when she had resisted the most basic of chores, unwilling to bend her knee to the whim of a child that had no right to speak over her, the human had forced their way into her mind, twisting her to do their bidding as if they had any right in the world to do it.

A child. A child had been able to break into her mind. And the man, perhaps his father, had spent more than enough time in her mind, setting her walls to crumble, training her for his use and pleasure, his passing fancy, for her to know that there was nowhere to hide from that penetrating force.

That meant nothing to her and everything at the same time. Logically, she knew that could not be so, but the words that had once been so familiar to her no longer made sense in the broken span of her mind, no longer her own mind. Maybe it had never been her mind and she had spent too much time telling a stranger, a human nonetheless, her life story without considering that he could use it against her. Just because he was younger than the man who had owned her and claimed her did not mean that he was not capable of controlling her, which had already been shown.

She looked up at him, his serious expression, even the canine sitting beside him still and quiet, her tail softer and looser than before. Siderva did not truthfully know or understand all that much about canine behaviour and what their tails meant – it was different between different anthro species – but she did wonder at her closeness. She was still nude, but she didn't seem to realise it, the faint buds of nipples showing through her fur, her coat gleaming, in the light of the lantern that the man had lit, with good health. She looked well cared for – but to what extent did dogs look after themselves? She didn't want to undermine their intelligence; wolves, for example, were such a proud race that it was considered highly unbecoming to speak badly of them and dogs looked somewhat the same in presentation. But it was not something that the serpent-woman had ever seen a rulebook for, nothing in her guides and nothing in their anthro histories about dogs.

Her curiosity may have been perked about the one that Kael had called Giselle, but her eyes, of course, wandered back to him. He had a strong line to his jaw, a brief haze of stubble around his chin, though his eyes looked tired. She couldn't remember seeing a human that looked like that before, assuming that they lived such lives that tiredness wasn't really something that entered their daily lives, raising her interest further. His hair perhaps needed a trim, though she did not know what styles humans went for those days, whether they strove for a neater look or long and wild, like some anthros.

Silence. It stretched out, allowing her mind to wander, shifting her weight uncomfortably, conscious of how her hands were bound. Her tail, however, was not, curling back and forth, though it pressed against the armchair that she was sitting in as if it too craved some sense of stability and solidness.

She'd left out any mention of her daughter, of course, in retelling her shorter story to Kael, though there was still a part of Siderva that felt as if she had said to much. She didn't know him and she couldn't imagine repeating any part of that story aloud without a good dose of alcohol working its way through her system, her stomach panging, even then, with the longing for a drink. It was all she needed and, still, she needed so much more than that, her body as broken as her mind was, though no one had ever expected good of her.

Siderva pressed her fingers, hands bound together, to her forehead, rubbing back to one side of her temples.

“When I found a human attending the university…" She said, her voice weak, failing as if the words would not spill from her tongue anymore. “I knew I had to meet you. I know that all of that most likely does not make any sense at all to you and I understand that. This must seem…insane. But I am not insane. Or, if I am, I do not know that I am."

Kael shifted his weight, matching Siderva's attitude without even realising it, mirroring her. It was…uncomfortable, to say the least, and he could only assume the horrors that she had gone through, owned by a human. Slavery was still something that happened in both human and anthro lands – the dogs were a prime example – but that did not mean that he agreed with it. It was just not something that had ever come into his life all that strongly, to be honest, only something that had lingered in the background the whole time, a lurking presence that hinted at something darker.

He could not blame Siderva for defending her home and her lands in the war, though he ached to ask her about her role in it, to see if there were any secrets of magic that he could bring into his own learning, as untried and as untested as he was. But the whole thing, even in his realm of hindsight, was not something that had to have happened. The war did not have to have happened. But, of course, no one in the human lands said that it was so. They laughed at the ridiculous audacity of the anthros for invading and thinking that they could take any kind of foothold in the human lands, boasting of how easily they had swept the anthros back and pushed away their resistance as easily as one may swat away a bug.

Was it becoming of a man or any human to boast like that? To brag about lives taken and to boast of lands stolen, when no blood ever had to be shed? He knew how easily he had disabled Oshun, even if he had been clumsy about it, in the training session, but wouldn't it have been possible too for humans to merely freeze the anthros fighting back or even attacking on the shore that first time until they could talk? It would have been the outmatched power of the humans that came out on top, of course, based on his experience with it and magic so far, but there were other ways to do things, better ways.

And it left a foul taste in his mouth, sour and bitter, clinging to the back of his throat where he could not simply swallow it away. He could not ignore what humans, his people, had done, even though there was a big part of him that quite honestly did not and could not see them as his people, not after all that. But humankind was his tribe and he could never separate himself from them, even if he might well have been in ever so slightly a better position to do better and, maybe as the son of the ambassador, do something about changing it.

Not many would have thought like that, but Kael did. Because that was simply who he was, even if he still was a young man with his hand clenched into a fist on the arm of the small sofa, the dog at his side, wondering at how on earth a man like him with only a few years on him was meant to do anything to change the world? Still, he knew that he had to try, had to do something, had to look, perhaps, more into the world of politics that his father had been trying to force him into for years. Kael might surprise him on that count.

Giselle sat quietly, though her sympathy for the serpent-woman only stretched as far as she knew that her owner and master, Kael, was safe. Of course, he was already so much more than that to her, as his protector, but she knew who he really was, where everyone else would see her place in the world, even though anthros and humans did not see eye to eye. She was still more interested in making sure that Kael was protected than listening to her, though she did sympathise. It did not sound like any kind of life that she, as a dog, would have wanted to lead, and she sent up a quick prayer of thanks to her canine protectors, somewhere in the heavens of the deities, for setting her up for life with Kael. If she never again had to go without her human and her master, she would be a very happy and a very thankful canine indeed.

In the corner of her eye, she took note of Kael taking a deep breath. Whereas she didn't like that there was tension in her master to begin with, she liked that the sigh softened a little of his demeanour, sitting up a little straighter as if to shake off some of the heavy, weighted tension in his shoulders. She didn't want him to be worried or stressed, though even she had to admit that there was something inherently worrying about someone breaking into their accommodation in the middle of the night. In the morning, as soon as Kael would allow it, she would re-visit their security, even though Giselle privately wished that she was threatening security enough for dissuading anyone, whether anthro or human, from trying anything untoward.

Kael rubbed the back of his head, fingers brushing through his short hair, though they naturally came back to rest on either side of his temples.

“Siderva…" He began, trying to find the words even though they most likely would probably never leap to his lips as easily as he wanted them to. “I cannot begin to imagine what you went through, though, after all that, it sounds like you would have been far better placed than many to want to kill me. I'm surprised, honestly, that you do not seem to. Do you want to kill me?"

Giselle growled, her hackles up, though Kael put a hand on her shoulder, rubbing soothingly.

“Easy, Giselle," he breathed, calling her attention back to him. “It's okay, everything's okay… You are keeping me safe."

The German Shepherd's growl, however, did not soften, eyes fixed on the serpent-woman as if the dog thought that she could cross the space between them in a slithering wipe that would see her master laid out and bleeding on the floor without her being able to do anything about it. No! No, she would not allow that to happen, not as long as there was still breath in her lungs and fire in her heart with which to defend her master.

Always. She stood tall and straight, though unconsciously leaned back into his soothing, gentle touch, his hand running down her spine to settle, comfortably, in the small of her back. Once there, he rubbed small, softening circles, encouraging her to relax even when she could not. Giselle did not shrug him off, though a touch of the tension about her jaw and muzzle did soften.

Siderva blinked. Why would a man apologise to her, or even struggle to get there while grappling with what she had said? Maybe she had said too much, it had been a long while since she had talked so openly about things…

“Why are you looking at me like that?"

Kael studied her.

“You have a lot on you," he said with surprising gentleness in his tone. “I don't think I can atone for all that has been done, but I think I know, at least in a tiny way, what you have gone through. Not because I've experienced it for myself, but I, of course, know how our abilities work. Though there have not been many cases known of them being used for ill means…it can happen. It clearly has happened, to you and others."

The serpent-woman pulled back, tongue flickering against her lips. He looked at her like she was a person, not a thing, something that she couldn't understand, not when it came from a human, not when he looked as he did. Wasn't Kael the ambassador's son or something? She should really be referring to him by his proper title, if that was the case, something of respect. Who knew what was going to happen to her for having the audacity to break into his home at the university? Unease stirred in her stomach, a beast digging its claws into her, burrowing into the deep, dark pit of her being. She should never have come there. Whereas Siderva did not fear death, being tortured or dragged before a human court for her crimes set her heart racing. If she could sweat she would have been doing so. As it was, her snakeskin itched fiercely as if she was about to shed.

“I want…" He struggled to find the words, Giselle casting him a questioning look. “I want to help you, Siderva. You don't have to go through this forever… Surely not? I don't know if I can help, not really, but…I have to try, right?"

It sounded like he was trying to talk himself into it, even to his own ears, faulting and flummoxed, a groan in the back of his throat. His skills were not as honed as they would become later in life, but there was something in him that urged him and pushed him to do more, to be more, to do good by those that had been wronged. It was probably not a trait that would get him very far in life, but things like that were simply how people were. Or weren't, in most cases.

“Siderva…" He leaned forward, as if to implore her to allow him to assist. “Please. Let me try to help you. I want to use my powers on your mind. I want to see what I can do to reverse this, if I can even try. I don't know…"

He trailed off, shaking his head. He'd tried to keep his words plain to make sure that he was conveying everything clearly to her, wanting consent to be at the forefront of everyone's mind, but he stumbled over his words anyway. It was such a big task, a huge undertaken, a part of her mind quite literally re-written with a craving that had broken her in heart, mind, soul and, most likely, her body too.

Siderva coughed a hoarse laugh, raspy with smoke that had filled the inns over her many, many years of using her body for work, trying to wave a hand but struggling with both bound. A nod from Kael, however, was all that was needed for Giselle, however cautiously, to slit the rope there, freeing her. At the very least, she was of no immediate threat to either of them and that was more than good enough for Kael.

“I do not know why you are asking me permission," Siderva said slowly, licking her lips. “But you may, if you want. I don't think it will do anything, however."

She didn't know how it worked, only shuddering from the previous, looming, overbearing presence of feeling someone and something else in her mind, like a spike of presence and power that she couldn't shake free. It had lingered there, a memory that brought with it great pain and fear, and yet the serpent-woman did not at all feel as if she could tell him, “no," that she could stop Kael from entering her mind.

She didn't want it, didn't want anyone in her mind, but she still nodded compliantly, her hand loosely folded in her lap. Her smallest finger toyed with a rip in her robes, though the long, flowing fabric no longer hung correctly on her body and its original colour was nothing more than a memory. She was nothing to the human and she was nothing even to herself. So why even bother standing up for herself, in portraying even a scrap of worry about what was going to happen to her?

One thing she had learned about humans was that they got whatever they wanted, no questions asked. There was never any doubt about that.

Besides, her obedience was still locked into her, at least where it came from humans.

She was fortunate, anyway, that Kael had not simply used his power to disable her or end her life – she did not know the true limits of psychic abilities, to be fair to her – or, well, just ordered the dog to kill her. She was sure that the German Shepherd, thick with muscle even if she still had quite a feminine shape, could have torn her entirely in half if she wanted to, though Siderva did not contemplate her own death with any sense of concern. What could she possibly have to be concerned about there, after all?

No. No, there was nothing, nothing at all. She lowered her head obediently for him, Kael crouching before her. Siderva had not even seen him crossing the room, she must have been losing her touch. But her senses were dulled after so many years, the craving for alcohol and something beyond her reach, that flash of pleasure, simmering down her soul, bit by bit. Maybe, after time, even her soul would be reduced to nothing, leaving her whimpering, whining, craving something that would never come, that was never hers to take.

Ah, there went her thoughts again, one after the other, nothing really making any sense at all. She didn't know how she could think like that, her brain more scrambled than ever, settling, trying to calm and open her mind, to be peaceful, even if it was only for a little while.

Kael didn't like one bit how Siderva was acting, more subservient than a dog. It did not take someone that had lived as many years as the eldest of humans to know a broken soul when he saw one and his heart ached for her, burning and flaring up, his heart pounding. How could someone have done this to her? How could someone do such a thing to any other being, whether they were a human, an anthro or a dog?

He didn't know and he couldn't see it, not for himself. But he could try, slipping into her mind, using the touch of his fingers to her forehead to connect them. He didn't need to do that, of course, but he wanted her to know that he wasn't there to hurt her and a cold stab of mental penetration lancing right past her defences most likely wasn't the way to go.

She stiffened as he entered her mind and he murmured apologies, trying to be as light and as gentle as he could, as if he was only there to look and not to touch anything. Yet he was used to seeking out certain points, for example, to levitate another, to find what made them weightless, or to disable them, pinning their arms neatly to their sides. It was all about the mind and what triggers could be tapped, buttons pushed, in there, though it was more intuitive, not something that anyone could learn from a book. Some elder humans taught so that those that wished could increase their skills perhaps even beyond their natural abilities, but it was less that a human could not do something in most cases but that they would not do something. When they didn't need to, why would they, after all?

Not everything had to be done, after all, not every skill had to be used. Yet humans, in a way, had become slow and lazy, not understanding what they were all about, their abilities casually used. Anthros, at least, had spent centuries learning their species, evolving, growing as different species. And what did that leave humans behind as?

He did not have a fixed point to focus on, it being the first time that he had reached into another being's mind for that long. The effects he had placed on another human, long before, playing with friends, had been fleeting at best, though he had played most with trying to replicate magic with his psychic abilities before. That had always been his interest, but, in the ways of his mind, it would not be of any help there.

Mentally, Kael frowned. It was an unfamiliar landscape in there, floating and drifting, not knowing where he was going. There was a sense of memory around him, thoughts whipping by, but he did not look at them, for that was not his goal. In the pit of his stomach, something told him that he couldn't do anything to help her, not with what he knew so far, but he stubbornly pressed on, fighting against his intuition.

If anthros could build so much more of themselves when they did not have psychic abilities and still thrive, maybe there was another way in which he could help the serpent-woman, one way or another. That was what he believed and he plunged on whole-heartedly, sending reaching, searching tendrils into her, feeding through emotions.

Pain.

Hurt.

Craving.

Oh, so much craving. He had to pull back from that emotion of hers, for it was too much for him to handle, reeling with a sympathetic hiss, shaking his head.

Not in the mental world but the physical one, Giselle rose with a low growl, wanting to help her master, though she was not all that much in a position to do so. Her tail stiffened, wanting to tuck down unhappily, though all the canine could do was stand right there at his shoulder, her teeth and claws poised to act – a knife would have taken too long when she had to be up close. And Kael had not ordered her to get a knife out. Whereas she was comfortable enough protecting her master to go against orders like that when she thought that it would benefit him, she didn't want to push her master in a way that he would not want her to. Still, keeping him alive was more important than anything else…

There was nothing in the serpent woman's mind, however, that led Kael to the source of her pain, the pain-pleasure, the training that he wanted to undo. She should never be craving something like that, which had then so cruelly been taken out of her reach, anger twisting in him. Or maybe it was more anger at himself, knowing that he couldn't do anything, frustrated at himself and the limitations of his power.

Yet, in the back of his mind, he knew that if the training and “brokenness" had been planted in her mind in the first place that there had to be a way to undo it too. Intrinsically, that made sense. Intuitively, he knew that was true. How to do it, however, when his psychic abilities were still in their infancy, he did not know.

He sighed as he withdrew, surprised to see Giselle so close to him, though he supposed that he should have expected that. She was still nude, however, and that was a little distracting to him, even if casual nudity amongst dogs was hardly unusual in the slightest. It was still unusual to him, enough so that he was at least a little bit distracted, preferring to spend his attention on Giselle, even though there was someone right there before him who needed his help rather desperately.

He couldn't help, after all, that he was still a young man with needs…and he did adore Giselle rather a lot.

“I'm sorry, Siderva," he said with difficulty, the snake's dark eyes fixed on his, though they lacked a human definition to them, setting his back up a little. “I can't do it. I'm sorry. But…maybe I can find someone who can fix it, fix the problem… I mean, I know it's much more than a little problem to you, it's not a mistake… But maybe there's a way for you to be back as you used to be, healthy and you again."

Siderva half-shrugged. There was no sense of disappointment in her, but, to be fair, it had been a long, long time indeed since she had felt something like that. With the cravings, the need always there, she had to deal with some feelings being stronger than others. When she did not hope for anything, however, disappointment was not something that she felt at all.

How strange…

_ _

She smiled, sitting back as he gave her space, though Kael stood, staying there, his expression twisted, lips pressed together. She tried to fish through her memory for what that expression meant, but she had never honestly seen upset on a human face without anger, anger directed at her, swiftly following it. Unconsciously, she tensed, though her mind also knew that there was nothing she could do about it. With trained animals, not anthros, it was something called “learned helplessness" or “tonic immobility", depending on how it presented itself, though Siderva had never heard the term to understand it.

“That is quite fine," she said softly, slowly, not wanting to incite him. “I am sorry if I have angered you, Kael. But I do not think there is changing anything in my mind."

He stared at her, blinking slowly.

“You can't want to live like that…"

“No," she said with a shake of her head. “But what sense is there in hoping for something that's not going to come? I was wondering though…" She took a breath: that was harder to get through than she had expected. “You are a human… Can you give me that…what the human soldier gave to me? Can you make me feel that pleasure again?"