NOVEL WEB Chapter 15: In Which I Learn There’s Something Terribly Romantic About Having Blades Pointed At Each Others Throats
I got up and walked over to within a few feet of Sasha, and her tail thumped against the couch as she looked up at me queasily.
“Sorry, Master, I didn’t mean to listen in… not that I really understood much of it… just, Master and her highness were having a conversation, and that’s more important….” I frowned a little at that reasoning.
Before I could open my mouth to protest, however, Princess Asperia stepped up to my side. “Understandable, and normally good etiquette for a slave… but we were waiting for you, as it turns out. There’s a death spell on your Master’s chains if the proper command word is spoken, so you may speak freely.”
I blinked and looked over to Princess Asperia.
She continued, “I just want to know if you truly care about her, or if that was just mind magic. Given how much your head hurts, there must have been quite a bit of mind magic on you.”
“Yes… Master helped keep away bad memories… love Master...” Sasha sniffled pathetically and rubbed her temple with one hand as she tried to sit up, but seemingly having trouble doing so, as if something had happened to her balance. Her ears and tail were drooping. It was hard to believe this was the same woman that had been pushing me around so arrogantly recently.
I looked over to the Princess, somewhat upset at how messed up Sasha was by this. “Are you satisfied? Can we be allies now?” My voice was acidic.
Princess Asperia smiled at me.
“Yes, I believe we can.” She reached over and petted Sasha’s head very softly, and looked over to me. “I’ll leave you with Sasha for a little while to help her get her mind back together, all right? And to think over my proposal….”
“And the chains?”
“Ah yes, my apologies. ‘Return to the fortune of the void’.” The words were spoken very openly and clearly, and the fetters opened, and the chains fell off of me, clanking on the floor.
“There, now you know the release phrase, so they can’t be effectively used against you.”
“It’d be nice if you didn’t secretly point more blades at my throat.”
She laughed softly. “It's not like it was just me... we had blades pointed at each other’s throat, darling… I think there’s something terribly romantic about that, don't you? But next time I point a blade at your throat, I’ll let you know, okay?” She took my hand and kissed the back of it while looking up into my eyes, and then left the room with a little wave of her hand and a swish of her hips.
I sat down next to Sasha. “Are you all right?”
She half-climbed up on me, whimpering softly, and put her chin on my shoulder and whispered softly, “She’s definitely still keeping track of us somehow. Release my magic so I can protect from that, and we can talk.”
I petted her head and whispered back, “For the next ten minutes, except on me, you can use magic.” She furrowed her brow for a moment, and then a bubble of mist surrounded us. She straightened up a little, still holding her head. “Why?”
I blinked. “...why what?”
“Why’d you come back for me, at such risk? Is it a revenge thing?”
“No. Actually, she was offering to kill me and take you on as her own, based on your proficiency with Mind Magic.”
Sasha shifted her brow a little, okay, that didn’t explain it enough.
“...and I let her know the ‘Hero’ was the one with mind magic.”
“...oh. So… I’d guess from how inexpertly it was done, she just shoved a Null spell into our head.”
“Got it in one.” I reached up to pet her cheek, and she looked at me in disbelief.
“Why?”
“Well, putting aside that I couldn’t really pretend to have mind magic long, I wanted to protect you.”
“Want to have your obedient little slave back that bad, huh.” She didn’t sound mad, just resigned. “...okay. Give me a little time to get my mental chambers properly sectioned.”
I shook my head. “Why does everything have to be about who has power over who? Can’t we just be equals?”
“How can a dog-girl slave and a human from another world ever be equal? One is the master, one is the servant, that’s inevitable.”
“I mean, between the two of them, they could be equals.”
“The actual balance of power will always be different. Even if they both pretend otherwise.”
“...that’s too bad, I was hoping you’d help me work through this.”
“...what, marrying the princess? Or getting adopted by her?”
“Partially that, yes. She said she’d get rid of slavery in her lifetime if I worked for her, she was quite impressed that I had picked up Mind Magic so quickly.”
Sasha pulled away from me a little and leaned back against the couch, closing her eyes. “Starting to sound like she just desperately needs someone with Mind Magic.”
“...maybe. Do you think we can trust her?”
“Maybe if you marry her. She’s closer to people she fucks than she is to her family, by all accounts from my information network.”
“...you have an information network!?”
She opened one eye and looked at me with something between disdain and amusement. “I told you, I’m far more suited to a role of power than you…” A slight pause, and she struggled to sit up straighter, reached up to trace a few fingers lightly under my chin. “Is that it, you want to be Sasha again? I can take over again and be the Hero… you don’t have to think about this complicated stuff anymore, and can just be good and obedient… doesn’t that sound nice?”
I flushed and glared at her. “Clearly, if this scenario has taught us anything, it’s that being a slave isn’t enough to get out of politics entirely.”
A slight shrug of her shoulders, and she let her hand fall. “Worth a try. So how are you going to keep up the ruse that you have mind magic?”
“Um… hadn’t thought that far ahead at all.”
“Again, simpler if you give that body back to me and take this one.”
“Aren’t you going to treat me like shit again if I do?” She looked over at me, expression a bit dazed as she tried to make sense of that.
“...what? I didn’t starve you, beat you, overwrite your mind with magic… I was being absurdly gentle, and you’re still upset by the treatment?”
“You were constantly threatening me and saying I was happier and making me do stuff with my body and the like.”
“...well, of course. How do you think you train a slave without using Mind Magic? It’s a slow, gradual breaking of their will, using a little stick and as much carrot as you can. Will isn’t a good thing to have, for a slave. Just makes them suffer.”
“Strange to hear, coming from you.”
Sasha sighed. “My Master used to make me train and retrain slaves. My… reward, I guess… was I was allowed to use a little mind magic and forget the worst parts of it. Now it’s all flooding back, and… trust me, you got off easy.”
“Can’t we just be allies?” She stared at me for a long moment, then smiled a little, somewhere between sad and amused.
“Sure, sure… give me back my body, and I’ll do my best to treat you that way… you’ll have proven you’re my loyal slave, for sure.” She didn’t sound like she expected it at all.
I furrowed my brow. Giving up all power to her… just seemed like a bad idea. But she was far more expert at using it. If I wanted to survive among people like Princess Asperia and Princess Adeline, and truly make an impact on this world, end slavery, be something like an equal to Sasha rather than her Master or her Slave….
“Yeah, give me a moment to think about that.” She blinked, and stared in disbelief, and then a smile spread across her face, a bit of that confidence coming back to her.
“Sure. I’ll work on fixing my mental chambers in the meantime.”
I stared into the mists. I… this body was so much of a responsibility. It was a weapon, and I felt I had the obligation to use it to fix things and make things better for people.
I was maybe a girl, but… that didn’t really matter, Sasha could transform me either way, and probably would. “Would you let me take whatever form I wanted as your slave?”
After a few moments, she opened an eye. “...there’s spells that make turning into a human from an animalfolk a very risky thing. Not directly, but--”
“No, no, I mean, if I wanted you know, a male body. Or whatever.”
“Oh, sure. I want you to be comfortable, knock yourself out. Can give you bigger boobs if you want, too.” I flushed at her words.
She opened her other eye. “...you’re seriously thinking about this, aren’t you? Aren’t you worried if you deliver yourself into someone’s power, they’ll betray you?”
“I think you were trying your best, in your own fucked up way, and you’ve told me you’d do better… and besides, otherwise we need to figure out what to do with the whole ‘me having mind magic’ thing.”
“Yeah, teaching you would take some time. And you might lose your mind. Probably not, but you know, maybe. Mind Magic requires an extremely strong will… not to use it in itself, but to use it semi-responsibly.”
“I have a strong will!”
She rolled her eyes. “Sasha, you rolled over the moment I took control, and you came in here with chains on you when I have no doubt you were in the superior position. You’re naturally obedient and submissive, is what you are.”
“If I give you the ability to cast magic whenever and however you want, will you leave me with this body?”
“I… I guess if you want? I don’t want you to feel I’ve betrayed your trust. You know, again. I do think you’d be happier as my slave, though.”
“Okay. You may cast magic however you want, on whoever you want, for all eternity.” I tensed up a little. Nothing happened, and I relaxed.
She sighed. “You trust people too easily.”
I smiled with easy confidence. Even moreso than before, I was sure she genuinely loved me. “Perhaps. But I’m right this time.”
“...Maybe.”
“You really do care about me, don’t you?”
She glared at me, seeming offended. “Yes? I told you that multiple times.”
“I thought it might be another way to control me.”
“Of course it was... but that doesn’t mean I was lying about it.” She lowered her voice a little. “There’s no one besides you I’ve ever felt comfortable lying next to.”
I snuggled up closer to her, and she flushed a little. I smiled a bit. “...okay, maybe Princess Asperia is right. There’s something a little romantic at having metaphorical blades pointed at each other’s throats.”
She shook her head. “I don’t like it.”
“You’ll get used to it.” I yawned softly.
“No, if someone has a blade at my throat, or I have it at their throat, the situation is simple. We know who’s in charge. If we both have it at each other’s… there’s always a chance someone’s going to lash out. It’s stressful. I can’t handle it, least of all with you.”
Everything was getting a little hazy.
“I don’t… wait, Sasha, you aren’t… I trusted…” Wait, I could still command her magic. “...you are no longer able--” Suddenly, I wasn’t able to form words anymore, and I reached up towards her throat, and put my hand around it, but couldn’t bring myself to crush it, as she looked back into my eyes with a complicated expression.
“You’re too naive. You’ll get yourself killed, if you keep on leaving openings like that.” She stroked my head. “It would be one thing if it was just me, but Princess Asperia could’ve killed you at any time after you put yourself in her chains. She's a hundred times more dangerous than you think.”
I couldn't respond.
“Don’t worry,” she said with a bit of a smile, “I’ll take good care of you, Sasha.”
She was the only one I had ever felt comfortable lying next to, too.
But I had been a fool to trust her.
And despite everything, I still couldn’t bring myself to kill her.
I let my hand fall, and drifted off into sleep against her smaller body.