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Crossing Boundaries

Part Five

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Written by Arian Mabe (Amethyst Mare)

Commissioned by anonymous

Continued from part four…

The serpent, once a renowned battle mage and twisted into something darker and more insidious, rolled her hips back, a humanoid type who had grown legs in the evolution of her kind rather than keeping a tail. There were nagas too, of course, but they were not as in demand for seedy taverns where the rooms and the women within them could be hired out every night for a fee. Maybe only an hour or so too if the gentleman callers there only needed a moment to get their rocks off quickly.

She did not groan, her name lost and a new one given to her: Siderva. She didn't know whether she liked it or not, for emotion did not often come to her, not after all that had come to pass. It was easier, yes, in a way, to forget all that had taken place, the history that lay in her skin, which was already peeling, ready for another shed.

A rabbit had his cock plunged into her sex, tiny claws digging into her narrow hips, everything about her long and serpentine, elegant and appealing. Her snakeskin hide had deepened in shade with age with some lighter gems thrown in as if she was speckled, though her underbelly would forever remain lighter. Sometimes, it meant that others did not recognise her anymore, though Siderva did not believe that anyone honestly thought that she was innocent of the crimes that they believed her to be responsible for all those years ago.

She grunted in the back of her throat as the rabbit filled her, his shape blurred in the dull, dim room, his face featureless. She would forget him by the morn and all he would remember was that she was something to spend some fun with for a little coin, no more than that. He would soon be replaced by another and then another, filling up the night with suitors while she slept away the day in a stupor.

It got her a room. It got her enough coin to buy food with. Sometimes, never daring to touch her magic ever again, that was all that Siderva thought that she would ever be able to hope for. Getting through the day, getting through the night – and then doing it all over again, repeatedly, all the time.

Until she was no more.

That night was different, her services sold out so that there was more than one male with her at a time, the room filled with their stinking, staggering presence. They hardly knew what they were doing when they were that intoxicated, but she was there to satisfy their desires, her body an object of lust. Siderva did not even shiver when they ran their hands hungrily over her body anymore, whether they were mammal, reptile, avian or something else entirely. Anthro-kind had expanded over the years, opening the doors for so many more to take their leave and liberty of all that other countries had to offer, though there were pockets and towns, of course, where one species dominated still.

Siderva went wherever her services were needed, moving on when it pleased her. Drunk anthros, of course, were to be found anywhere, and a body like hers attracted them all, something a little exotic, for snakes tended to be more aloof than most. She didn't blame them. She had been the same before.

Eventually, however, drunkenness got the better of the males, slumping over on the bed, on the floor. To them, it was all the same. She was one of many females that they took and she doubted that she would ever make any kind of mark in their lives, regardless of how much she may have liked to form some kind of connection.

They snorted, slumped over her, one pinning her legs to the bed, her skin flaky and all. They didn't care how she felt about anything, as long as they got what they wanted out of it. Siderva grimaced, wriggling her way out, though she was sure she left some skin behind, their fluids drooling out of her. She didn't care so much about that anymore. She didn't care at all about very much in life.

They were catatonic, too out of it to remember her there as she took a swig from a stale bottle of beer, making a face. It tasted different to her tastebuds, as was the case with so many others too, a common issue with anthros, but it still dulled her senses a touch, gave her the impression that she too could slip away from her life so easily.

“Huh."

Collecting and slipping into her clothes left her covered but still bare in soul, her fingers found their wallets, picking through their clothes automatically. She didn't even need to think about it anymore, everything coming instinctively, robbing them, leaving the wallets, throwing everything back in the mess that she had found it in. It was the usual practice for her, but she would not stay, halfway dressed and stumbling.

The taste of liquor lingered in the back of her throat, anything to ease the pain. It was that which she had to do each day of her life, taking her pill as her due after all that she had done.

Was it her fault that she'd been controlled? Oh, who was to tell anymore? The serpent hissed. No one cared to hear her side of the story even as she stumbled down the hallway of the tavern, which was much more like a brothel than anything else, considering all that went on in their rooms.

Those were accepted crimes, however. No one cared about those that were hurt because of those.

Her dishevelled state revealed to anyone that cared to notice what she had been doing, but everyone knew what went on there. What did it matter? They didn't care for her smoother, flatter chest, the lack of breasts, but eyes did roam over her slim, lithe body, admiring her thighs, the curve of her buttocks accentuated by her tail. There would always be a sinuous air to her, but it was only after her grand fall that it had become a deceiving air too.

Stumbling back to her room, she gathered up her bag, the narrow bed holding little appeal to her even then. It was time to go, time to move on, for there was no more money to be made in a tavern like that after robbing her last companions, if they could be called that, blind. They'd wake with confusion and everyone would tell them that they should have expected their lot in life from the decisions they'd made. They'd said the same to Siderva too, but the snake hadn't heard them.

“Time always passes."

She knew that much at least, reasonably dressed, a stolen cape hanging over her shoulders. She'd made sure to take one that didn't remind her of her past, that was not the typical colours chosen by mages, for the drab and the dreary was not what those of her past stature chose. Siderva swallowed, throat moving without anything actually going down it, yet the tension there, the feeling of stiffness was still the same.

Anything of her past had no purpose with her anymore.

Before leaving, she took another slug of beer from the bottle she'd stolen, even though it was not really to her taste. Beggars could not be choosers and a chooser Siderva most certainly was not. Let that be for someone else.

“You…"

The article was tucked in her pocket, crinkled and creased but still readable, something that had sparked the change in her direction, giving some order to her moving from tavern to tavern, from one brothel to the next. Roughly ripped out of a paper that had been bought by someone else, the magic university was splashed across the colour page, the quotes and accolades of no interest to her. No, what she had an interest in was just why they said it was a step forward in relations with the human lands, their power source, anger twisting in the pit of her stomach at the mere thought of it.

Imbeciles. Heathens. Did they not have any idea at all just who and what they were colluding with? Inviting a human to attend their university! Why, it was even the very same one, many years ago, that she had intended! It made a mockery of their magic, of everything they had held dear and that the humans had sought to abolish, to slam down into the ground and grind out every last hint of.

Did no one remember? Did no one remember everything that they'd given up trying to protect anthro-kind? Siderva's guts heaved and she tried not to think of it, even though it was humorous too in a way. She'd always had a sick kind of humour. Maybe the humans would seek to make them their pets, their servants, just like those strange dogs that served them. They couldn't see the dogs as equals to anthros, not in any way, but that was all fair to them, considering their strange allegiance.

Maybe things could have been different with the dogs in charge, she pondered darkly, tongue flickering out to slip against the side of her muzzle even as she made her way from the hallway, down the back stairs of the tavern, as stealthy as the night itself. They could have bonded, could have made alliances of their own. There was a strange friendliness to them that was oddly attractive, as if they could work with anyone, form ties with anyone, even though they were supposedly like the wolves and other canids that were anthro species too. They were not supposed to be a far cry from anthros but, somehow, had become domesticated in the process, tongues lolling, their friendliness rolling forth with every lolloping stride of theirs. She hadn't even seen them express any cruelty or ill-feeling towards those that had been taking prisoner in the war, the elite that had been ransomed off, brought through to strict, stringent alliances.

She shook her head lightly, checking that the courtyard was clear of transport of any kind before she made her move, moonlight glinting off the water but not the rough ground where travellers arrived and left. The humans, on the other hand… They were something else entirely. And to say that, even after all that she had been through, working with them, parts of her memory blank and black for no reason, she understood them, well: that was a lie. But it was a lie that gave her comfort, a lie that made her think that, in some way, she was better than those for the suffering she'd gone through.

No matter of that, however. She would have to keep going. The humans… What she'd seen of them was cold and clinical, like icy hands in a medical facility. There was nothing warm about them and their bare skin set her snakeskin crawling as if ants layered her body from head to toe. She didn't have toes, so to speak, actually, pressed together into a slipper-like foot, though that was merely one way in which serpent-kind had evolved. Humans with their small wriggling toes were disturbing to her, distrustful in something that served such little purpose, that brought them down so low that there never again seemed to be any way to rise from it.

They should have been weaker, but they weren't. That didn't make sense to her. She'd been assigned as a slave to one human soldier, a man whose name she never knew, and shuddered from the thought of his cold, dark eyes, how he'd always seemed to be looking down on her. He'd never have seen her or any other anthro as an equal, a particular lack of sympathy lining the hard set of his body, muscles rigid as if every last one of them was constantly held in a state of contraction.

He was ready, watching her, even if he didn't see her as a threat. And yet he would pet his personal dog as if they were unthinking, Siderva leaning away as he stroked the canine behind the ears. There was a warmth there and a companionship, but that most certainly too did not make it equal at all.

On her way, she hit the road, her feet bare but not really caring. No one was there to see her, the moonlight illuminating the path beneath her feet, seeing just as well with her senses in the dark, though her eyes were not her primary source of feeling out the world around her. Siderva scented the air, tongue flickering out darkly to slap against her nose, tasting the air, the lingering emotions on it. Drunks. All as expected.

Humans had not understood that part of her either. They had called what they did to her “enthralling". To her, there was nothing enthralling about it, but she had no say in that matter, used as a living weapon, remembering little and wanting to forget the rest where her memory was too clear, too sharp.

That could have been the end of it… But it wasn't.

Her step quickened. If she was swift enough, maybe she could run from it. Though the memories of the past, the feeling of needing that high… Oh, it always caught up from her. Yet she had to try.

Experiments. As far as she was aware, they were not carried out on any other captured anthro, only her. But who was to say? It started slowly, with small tasks, and then escalated. His touch on her mind was familiar by that time, even if loathed, yet he could affect her in other ways too, making her feel…good. Was that the right way to think about it? The curling warmth, a sense of deeply rooted, an insidious pleasure that was not hers to take?

She'd hated his fingers on her skull, stroking her like a mere creature with no thoughts, no feelings. He'd changed that. He'd penetrated her mind, violated her, given her a hit of ecstasy, the rush of a high, at the same time as his fingers ran over her skin. Siderva, even then, had not been able to stop herself from hissing in pleasure, demonstrating too much to him vocally, the human smirking, knowing that he'd had her.

From there, it had grown, step by step and day by day. He made her do more and more as she became addicted to that pleasure, the feeling of it creeping through her, how it made her skin tingled, something strange happening to her guts. It was not something she could control and that was, perhaps, why Siderva sought to control it, hungry for it, desperate for it, an addict in every sense of the word.

She didn't realise when the pleasure grew less, associating the task, like a trained pet, with the reward, eventually, whether or not the reward itself came. That was strange, very strange, but something that she dealt with, simply by way of living. He knew what he was doing, evidently, even if Siderva had realised afterwards and hated herself for going along with it, yet she just couldn't seem to find any way to stop.

That was why she travelled. On and on, keeping in motion. She had to try to find it again, the need to please, the need to feel the pleasure… Siderva closed her jaws against a whimper. Oh, even then she needed it, but her mind showed her flashes of the things she'd done, the others she had killed. She could not even honestly say that she'd been enthralled, under his mind control, when she'd done so, desperate to get a hit of her addiction, to know that she was doing good, that her master was pleased with her. She needed it, whether the reward of performing for him or the tangible ecstasy he planted into her mind, digging the roots of it deep, leaving nothing of the serpent that she'd once been.

Siderva had changed her name after that had ended. With him, her name had died anyway. But she could not flee from her past so easily. The cravings had still come, whether or not he was rewarding her, panting heavily, twisting on her small, narrow bed at night, eager for it, craving it, whimpering for it. All for him, always for him, wanting his approval, his hand touching her head.

How quickly things had changed. She'd never thought she would let things go that far. But her own mind had not even been under her control back then. She still blamed herself.

Siderva even pushed her body up against his, some seedy part of her thinking that it was what he wanted, the next big thing that she had to do for her master. Her hand had grasped between his legs – and been shoved away. The humans were not interested in her for that, strangely enough, and that night had brought the worst withdrawal symptoms of all, though the withdrawal from her unchosen drug was not something that would ever stop coming. It would roll on and on, making her twist and writhe, a helpless, hapless slave to his power, her magic training and past as a battle mage lost to her.

He never once took off his helmet. He didn't even grace his “addicted pet" with that, mocking her in public, a trained slave, a killing machine, nightmares clawing her from reality and back again, repeatedly.

That was until the war ended, though it was not as if that brought a close to the dreams, the sense of need, the anxiety, the distrust, the fear. Her own kind didn't care for her anymore, knowing of her deeds, what she had done, and they did not understand what it was to be enthralled either. Without anyone and everyone experiencing it for themselves, it was impossible to convey the lack of being able to resist that.

The military, her sector of battle mages, accepted what she had done: they had faced the enthrallment of the humans most stringently. Her head had hung that day. It didn't fix anything. Nothing could ever fix anything like that, not ever again. The humans had not cared for the lingering trauma in her mind, her body holding it too in unneeded contracts, the canny elegance and sense of sinuousness lots from her body. Anthros too wondered if she had turned sides. Sometimes, Siderva did not even know if that was true or not.

She didn't blame her military for dismissing her from service when she was not able to train, to perform, to be as she used to be. Siderva was no longer the serpent that she had been. The stipend had helped, a little, but most of it had been lost in the bottom of the next bottle.

And the next.

And the next.

The cravings lingered. The edge could be taken off by the expected vices: sex, drugs and alcohol, the usual trifecta. There was always that need in her, what would have had her sweating if she had possessed sweat glands, left with a strange sense of prickling heat in her naturally cold-blooded body. Siderva brushed at her skin, thinking that insects were crawling on her, tossing and turning at night, everything feeling too sensitive, everything uncomfortable.

Nothing was safe and nothing was sane. There was no pleasure to be taken anymore on a sunny day, her head bowed, eyes closed against it. The feel of water flowing over her feet and legs as she stood in a stream did not bring her anything either, detached from sensation, normal things dulled, pleasures that could have been taken before softening and easing until the pleasure that they had once held came with the quality of a dream. Her vices took the edge off the sickening cravings, the need to experience…something. Anything.

The results? Those varied. But she couldn't stop.

She sighed, trying to count her steps. Maybe that would keep her from dipping too far into the dark depths of her mind. Maybe. Probably not. But maybe.

One-two-three-four, one-two-three-four, one-two-three-four.

She could count and count, but she'd never count out her past.

Siderva, once, had gotten into human territory, thinking that it was the only way to get back what she'd lost, what she'd been trained and conditioned, irrevocably, to need as much as she needed the air in her lungs. She'd made other attempts to get there, to get near humans, but that had not come as easily, being turned back. Humans did not want her kind there, having taken what they needed from them, though she finally confirmed that her kind was seen as even lower as their dog servants, the strange slaves in their employ.

“Please!"

Oh, how she'd flung herself on the floor, begging, pleading, clawing at his clothes. The man had not worn a helm, treating her to a full show of his face twisted in disgust. The grime on her skin, the dirt muddying her clothes… She was nothing to him. No one cared, no one wanted her. The dog guards patrolled the human side of the border and anthro guards patrolled the anthro side of the border, catching her every other time. The once that she had gotten through, she had been sent back with a warning, another stab into her mind seeing her as nothing more than a sad addict, useless to anyone's needs. Unstable, useless… A disgraced battle mage was not to be let anywhere near a human, not under any circumstances.

Her fingers drifted to her stomach. There was one good thing, even if she could not quite say how it had happened. It had to have occurred before she'd begun downing the potion to stop herself from conceiving but, of course, it was inevitable with all the sex she dragged her body into that she had fallen pregnant. In a way, that had been a turning point for her, staying away from drugs and drinking, howling and snarling through the night against the nightmares.

One daughter had come and she was the most beautiful serpent that Siderva could have ever dreamed of, a lone soul who knew nothing at all of her past. It was hardly a good world for her to grow up in but Siderva worked hard for her, finding a job, staying clean, though she still disturbed her daughter every night with gasps and grunts, howling cries.

Her step quickened again, nearly in a light run, though that would have drawn attention to herself. She could have found transport to the next inn, the next tavern, but she didn't want to be around others except when it was under her choosing. That was her choice. It was one of the few choices left to her that she thought she could make – and even then Siderva was not certain.

She'd backslid, of course. Without support, she'd not been able to stay clean, though her work continued, offering her body for coin. While feeding her addiction, she at least ensured that her daughter was provided for, making sure she was educated, that no one knew who her mother was.

The little, bright-eyed serpent… Siderva's chest tightened. She'd turned out better than she could ever have hoped, gloriously bright, sharp, intelligent. Her wit was keen and her tongue quick, eager to stand up for herself and set up with firm, fast friends. Siderva was glad of that, though she could only hope they were genuine friendships. The preservation of one's self sometimes came at a cost, yet Siderva could only do all that she could for her, staying out of her daughter's way for the rest.

Of course, it could not last. Siderva struggled more and more and to drag her daughter down with her would have been a travesty that she was not willing to commit. Her life was lost, no longer her own, and she signed everything in her legal name away to her daughter, her accounts, the small house – everything. There was nothing left to Siderva and yet the greatest sense of loss came from leaving her daughter, even if it was for her own good. All she had managed to do was provide her with money, the bare essentials, and what kind of mother did that make her? Neglect did not come merely from cruel words and raised fists and providing the essentials was not enough.

There'd been a note but not even Siderva could remember writing it. That was fine. Her daughter had more than what she had been able to give her growing up and, as a legal adult, would be in better stead without an addict of a mother to drag her down, waylaying her future. A pack of belongings had been all that had gone with Siderva, allowing her to wander, to flee from her demons, embodying her vices day in and day out. That was okay. She could only do so much. Sometimes, one had to simply give up on trying to save themselves and continue as they were.

At least, that was what she'd come to believe.

Sometimes, still, she checked up on her daughter, always ensuring that there was no way that she would be discovered. The pride… The warm glow of it was something that she still enjoyed, a strange pleasure that came without addiction, and yet still left her feeling like she wanted more of it. Siderva distrusted the feeling, though her daughter getting into a magic university – was it the best one? It had to be – was still something that had to be objectively good.

She'd done so well…in spite of her mother. For that, Siderva would be forever grateful for her daughter's resilience.

She didn't know why she wanted to see her again and the human at the same university. All Siderva knew that there was a deeply seated need at the core of her being that kept her putting one foot in front of the other, keeping on and on. She had to go, had to keep going, had to see, ensuring that her daughter was safe, that she was well. Maybe she could not tell whether she was happy or not, but she could try.

Whether she would approach the human or not was another question. And the answer would only come when she saw him.

She took a deep breath, lungs filling with air, her skin rustling and flaking where it came away from her body. A shed would be cleansing, but it would not cleanse the horror from her soul.

Little did she know that not all was bad and not all was lost. Her daughter was out there, looking up at the same moon and stars that she was. She was warm in her daughter's thoughts, knowing that there was more to what her mother had and had not done than she'd let on. She remembered warmth, compassion and, above all else, love. Even if that love had shown itself, on one occasion, in her mother drunkenly throwing lightning-bolts of magic at a spider that had scared her daughter. There were very few instances of the former battle mage using her magic and that drunken episode had not been one that she'd remembered.

Still, there was hope. Where there was life, the light of the moon and stars, there would always be hope.

That was one thing that the humans had not managed to take from Siderva and her family.