Kallie. Professional mind control/erotic horror writer. Trans lesbian. She/Her. Author of WARHOUND. Frequently described as a cognitohazard for muzzles, boots, leather, NTR, and other such delectable things. NSFW and strictly 18+
[Patreon] [Story Masterpost]
Hello! I'm Kallidora Rho, also known in these parts and others simply as Kallie. I write lesbian mind control and erotic horror fiction, mostly notably, the WARHOUND series, which has since birthed the 'mechsploitation' subgenre (and is, indeed, largely to blame for the proliferation of handler/hound posting)
And, if you'll forgive the shameless self-promotion, WARHOUND Volume One, collecting the first set of stories in the universe, is now available in fully-fledged ebook and paperback forms! And features the beautiful cover artwork of Esther Marie Elizabeth “boot rag” Thomas
I write as a full-time job, one that is largely sustained by my Patreon page. With that in mind, if you enjoy my work, I'd ask you to consider pledging to me on there. That support is necessary for me to keep doing this, and besides, you'll find there is a considerable (and growing!) quantity of writing available there and nowhere else. If you want immedate access to the next WARHOUND story or the next chapter of an ongoing piece, it can always be found there
That said, I do also release my writing for free, public readership in due course! You can read it on ROM, mcstories, Ao3 - or, indeed, right here! Beneath the cut is an index of a few of my stories on tumblr for your perusing pleasure, and I encourage you to wander through the garden and pick whichever fruit best takes your fancy. I offer only this warning: you may not be unchanged by the experience <3
SELECTED WORKS
WARHOUND - A set of stories set in a shared mecha universe, beginning with WARHOUND itself. Sartha Thrace, ace mech pilot, is always so confused. She’s a rebel, so why is she fighting on the wrong side? She’s a free woman, so why is she wearing a muzzle? She’s a hero, so why do her comrades treat her like a rabid dog? Sartha Thrace is so fortunate that her beloved Handler is always there to help her understand
The Subordinate - Olive, a mousy, workaholic middle manager with a strained relationship hires her old college bully as an assistant - and soon finds herself slipping back the abusive power dynamic they once shared
Gold - After being cheated on, Lara goes to a therapist to deal with the uncomfortable fantasies she's been experiencing. But Dr. Imani proves to have an unorthodox approach - and a golden, crystal pendant
Love The Bomb - Captain Leah Mandrake tries to save her girlfriend, Major Tao-jian Kong, from the sleazy, leering Bomb Handler who has transformed her into a living vessel of the apocaylpse. But does Tao still want to be saved? And how long does Leah have before the countdown runs out?
Failfate - An overtaxed heroine exchanges her noble destiny for the destiny of a debauched loser with no responsibilities… but learns that fate has a way of coming back to haunt you
Dragontaint - Princess Rhianwen is saved from a dragon's captivating spell by a heroic knight - but soon finds her rescuer exhibiting the same possessive, draconic tendencies as her captor
Mirror Shine - A conservative straight woman finds herself developing strange tastes and fixations after she spills coffee on a trans leatherdyke and is forced to polish her boots
Best Timeline- A magical girl is defeated by a time-warping villainess who alters the past in order to alter the magical girl’s personality
Shared Interests - Brittany snoops on her nerdy, perverted, slobbish little sister’s computer in a hunt for dirt - but thanks to a strange computer program, the two of them suddenly end up with a shared interest in hopeless masturbation
Halobreak- An angel in the process of falling comes to a demoness who offers to shatter her halo - and with it, her mind
Cerulean - A recent escapee attends a support group for victims of evil mind control… run by the strange, sinister and inimitable Dr. Amaranth Cerulean
After the war, an ex-pilot struggling to play the role of benevolent handler for a pack of hounds unable to adjust to civilian life begins to fall apart as she encounters the real thing
If you like my writing, please consider supporting me on Patreon! For less than the price of a cup of coffee each month, you can get immediate, early access to everything I write, including the latest chapters of all the multi-chapter stories I write. Your support helps me keep writing and is greatly appreciated, and you can even vote on which stories I write next, with this very story being one such example!
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Tonight is Ruby’s night.
I’m in no mood for it. Before I descend the tiled steps to my basement bar, I toss back dry a dick pill and two painkillers—one for the headache I already have, one for the headache the little blue performance-enhancer is going to give me—around the cigarette drooping from my lips. Once that burns out, I spit it to the ground and grind the butt into the filthy, half-melted snow beneath my combat boot. No matter how hard I try, one fag won’t last all night. I could light another, but there’s no sense putting it off.
Even on the worst days, my bar—my territory, if not my property—is an oasis, set against the smoke-sky shithole that is Arkturgrad. Out here, in the city, I’m just another demobbed dogface. I always keep my head down, but the way I pace my strides and hold my shoulders gives me away, and we all know they’d prefer we simply took ourselves off to die in some quiet, forgotten corner rather than blight the bright, red future they’re building. The one we broke ourselves fighting for. I’m one of the lucky few fit enough for a bureaucratic posting, but my new so-called comrades don’t spare more words than they have to in my direction. They look at me like they’re waiting for me to snap and try to rip out their throats—or my own.
Fine. So be it. Out here, I’m nobody. In there, I’m the whole world. Still, it takes me a moment to prepare. I force my aching back straight. I smooth my long, black coat with my hands and scrape the polluted slush from my soles against the last step. I pant into my hands to warm my face and then, most importantly of all, I let the expression of numb, non-threatening apathy slump from my countenance and replace it with a painstakingly-composed smirk of easy, confident command.
Once I am transformed, I open the door and cross the threshold. I step into my kingdom.
It’s a shit kingdom, I’m under no illusions about that. The wooden furniture is kitsch verging on parody, especially for the basement of a block of faceless, concrete apartments. I’ve no love for the checkerboard floor, or the humming, low-hanging lights, and still less for the stench of piss and cheap vodka. But what matters is that, as I enter, all heads turn. A few oddball regulars, a few stray civvies, the bartender, an old woman, a vet from an older war with a soft spot for us mutts—but most importantly, my pack.
“Scarlett,” I greet.
“Welcome, sir!” comes the reply.
“Bailey.”
“Welcome, sir!”
“Lola.”
“Mmrr.” Lola can’t talk much, most days, but her smile and crisp salute are sufficient.
“And…”
I scan the room. Ruby isn’t here yet. A calculated taunt, I’m sure. I sigh. More shit to deal with. Just what I need. The rest of my little pack is spread about lazily, and I elect to sit at the bar next to Scarlett while I wait. As I settle, she hails the bartender with a finger and, a moment later, places a glass of vodka in front of me.
“Your drink, sir,” she offers happily.
“Thank you,” I reply with a fond smile. A handler must distribute her affections carefully and evenly but inwardly I am not shy to say: Scarlett is my favorite. She and I share a bed most nights—to hold, far more often than to fuck.
“How was your day, sir?” Scarlett chirps. In my presence, her smile is brighter and, with her red-curled hair, she shines the way she should have done, if she hadn’t been forced into kennel and cockpit.
“It was… hard.” It slips out before I can still my tongue. I grimace and take a sip of vodka to keep it busy. No use. It’s already half-said. “Another headache day. I keep falling behind on my quotas.”
Scarlett’s brow softens in concern, but her doe eyes shine with an admiration undimmed. That’s a comfort. “I’m sorry, sir.” She gropes around for a solution, and finds something close. “May I polish your boots later?”
“You may.” They need it after today’s weather. So do I, and so does Scarlett. Service is her sweetness, and I am ever grateful to receive it. There’s little any of my poor mutts can do for me, in truth. Less of them made it out of the cockpits. It’s why I work, and why I wear the cap and the coat. Someone has to.
“Thank you, sir.” Her gratitude soon ebbs; fresh, anxious lines etch themselves into her pock-marked forehead. “Sir, I thought… I was hoping we might… have another scene together, soon?”
I stiffen the way I used to when I felt shells exploding against my mech’s armor. “Ah.”
Scarlett retreats a little. It pains me to see it. Why did she have to bring it up now, of all times? “Sorry, sir. It’s just… it’s been a little while.”
It has. I can’t hide from that. “I only just sat down, Scarlett,” I reply heavily.
She shrinks. “Sorry, sir.”
The silence that follows ties a knot in my breast.
“I can’t,” I tell her irritably, as if in reply. “It’s Ruby’s night. You know she’s been acting out.”
“I… didn’t mean tonight,” Scarlett looks pained. Why? What’s she got to be pained over? “Just, soon.”
“I only just sat down,” I hiss. “We’ll talk about it later.”
“Yes, sir. I’m sorry, sir.”
That’ll be enough to quiet her for the night, but not enough for the tightness in my chest. Downing the rest of my drink doesn’t loosen it either, though I’m comforted by the thought that, in a few drinks’ time, I won’t feel it regardless. In the meantime, though, this murderous awkwardness demands filling, and my sour mood rushes to provide.
“I spend all day at work,” I growl. “Slaving away while all the rest of you do nothing. I finally clock off, I come back here to keep taking care of you, and all I have to hear about is what I’m not doing?”
“S-sorry.” Scarlett’s gentle voice cracks beneath the weight of my ire. She looks at me and sees God. It feels good that it’s so easy for me to hurt her. In here, I am powerful. “Sir, I…”
“I do everything for this pack.” There’s enough truth to it for the words to ring like thunder in both our ears—but that doesn’t make it fair. It’s not like they don’t work when they can, but shipbreaking at the yard is irregular at best and there’s little else they can manage. The half-healed port-scars on the back of Scarlett’s neck are an ever-present reminder of the fact that I’m one of the lucky ones. “Can’t I get a little patience in return?”
“O-of course, sir,” Scarlett trembles. I’m crossing a line, my inner voice says. Nobody’s been more patient with me than Scarlett. She has needs too. But I don’t want to listen to that voice. “I-it’s not important. You’re right. You do so much.”
“That’s right,” I sniff. “It’s not important.”
I hate to do this to her. I do—but there’s no other way. They don’t understand what it’s like to live under this kind of pressure. Not the danger of the foxhole or the vanguard, just the constant, grinding, everyday war of attrition against the entire world. They’re spared from facing it head-on—because I’m sparing them. If things would only let up, even for one day, it would all be so easy. I could give them all their fill. But it never does, so I ration myself out as best I can. And tonight is Ruby’s night.
My second drink arrives. I down it in moments. The crestfallen expression on Scarlett’s face presses into the side of mine like a rusted nail. My guilt and anger yawn apart to leave an empty chasm, and my mood starts plunging into it. Can’t she try to show me a good time? Can’t she smile? Can’t I see a nice, pretty, grateful smile? But then, what right do I have to expect that, given how long it’s been? I’ll have to make it her night soon. She deserves it. It won’t matter if it takes a little longer. We’re a pack, after all. A family.
And I’m all they have.
A breath of vile, icy air rushes through the room. I turn to see Ruby arriving, shit-eating grin exactly as wide as I expected. It’s time. Wish I had another drink in me—my headache is still beating against the inside of my forehead—but perhaps it’s for the best. I stand and compose myself for a moment. Once you’ve been crammed into enough death-trap cockpits, hunching to keep your head low comes as naturally as breathing; correcting the bad habit is a constant effort, but an important one. After all, She never hunched.
“Hey, girls,” Ruby tosses out. The daring look she throws me lets me know that I’m to consider myself included. “Sorry I’m late.”
She’s playing at nonchalance even though we all know she’s on tenterhooks. The first step of an old and tired dance. I approach her before she can sit down.
“I told you to present yourself at nineteen hundred hours,” I remind her tersely—but not angrily. Anger would be all wrong.
“Yeah, as I said.” Ruby laughs like she can blow me off with ease. “Sorry I’m late.”
She moves to push past me. I stand in her way, and we square off. She’s a short one, but spunky. A bratty little pug of a woman, from the soles of her combat boots to the frosty tips of her short hair. Every part of her is asking for what I’m going to give her.
“I don’t need stupid mutts who can’t follow simple instructions,” I hiss. “Are you stupid, Ruby?”
Ruby’s sapphire eyes shine with adrenaline. She draws herself up, challenging me. “You don’t need? Whatever.”
“Call me ‘sir’, when you speak to me, mutt.” How long will she draw this out today?
“Pfft,” Ruby scoffs. “C’mon, Thalia. No need to pretend, yeah? We all know you’re not a real handler.”
Ice hits my veins. It had to be this, tonight? I want to scream. I want to sigh and tell her to fuck off. But the rest of the pack is watching. She’s playing her role. I must play mine.
“What did you say to me, mutt?” The hate in my eyes as I stare daggers at her should be a warning, but it only serves to goad her on.
“You’re just like all the rest of us.” Ruby chews lazily on her words like they nothing to her, but the way she shivers lets me know she’s savoring each act of daring. The anticipation before the fall. “One of the people’s hounds, playing at being a person. Playing at being so high and mighty. Maybe I’m getting a little tired of it, is all.”
Shut up. I’m desperate for her to just shut up. Why does she have to be like this? Why does she get to be like this, and I just have to put up with it? Good thing I don’t. Not for much longer.
“Last chance, you worthless fucking mongrel,” I spit. “You will speak to me with respect. You will call me ‘sir’ or ‘Handler Thalia’, or I will send you to get put down like the useless waste of breath you really are. Understand me?”
The slight gasp that slips her pierced lips lets me know that I’m on the right track. This is what she wants. What she needs. My vitriol is her oxygen, and how does she thank me? By puffing herself up like an overinflated balloon, and meeting my gaze as level as she can.
“Make me, bitch,” she growls.
I punch her in the gut. Ruby stumbles back, winded. She can’t fight back—that’s one of the rules. I’m free to advance on her and hit her again, then grab a fistful of the short, pale fuzz on her head and use it to pin her up against the wall while I slap her across the face.
“Stupid dogs need to learn stupid lessons,” I sneer. The violence is invigorating. The adrenaline banishes my headache. I’m in the scene. “And if you’re too fucking lobotomized to understand a few words and numbers, I’ll speak in a language even an abused puppy understands.”
Another punch sends her to the ground. I don’t stop there. I kick her. And again. And again. And again. And again. The more I let loose, the more the heavy, black, leather coat draped across my shoulders feels like it weighs nothing at all. As Ruby’s bruised arms drop, letting my boot crash into her ribs, everything that’s been fermenting inside me all day comes uncoiled and releases itself. I look down at the bloody mess I am hammering my packmate into, and past the bruises, past the whimpering, past even the erection straining against her pants, I see worship. The look of daring is wiped from her eyes, leaving those brilliant, blue orbs dulled and glazed with utmost loyalty and adoration. Like Scarlett, she looks up at me, and sees God.
The transformation sends blood rushing exactly where I need it. The little blue pill is kicking in, right on time. With both bliss and poison singing in my veins, I grab a chair from a nearby table, sit down, and unzip. “Ready to make yourself useful, mutt?”
“Yyyyessssss, Handler T-Thalia,” Ruby bleats, hauling herself upright. The poor thing is lost to bliss now, her smirk melted into an expression of drooling, fawning lust. “I’mmmsoorryyysir.”
“Atta girl.”
I beckon for another glass. A risk, but I can probably finish before vodka dick gets the better of me. After a few moments, Scarlett presents me with a fresh glass. I down it and, as I do, study her face. She’s smiling now. My mood settles. All is right again. As Ruby goes to work between my legs, I glance around. They’re all smiling. Scarlett, Lola, Bailey—each of them is rapt, torn between envy and pride. I am their handler, and I always will be. I have forged myself into the star around which they orbit. And for that, for those looks of love in their eyes, no matter how hard it gets, it will always be worth it.
Tomorrow, I’ll try harder to remind myself of that.
***
Tonight is Bailey’s night.
Putting Ruby in her place earned me a few days’ good rest. The rest of them have been feeding on her defeat, chasing each other's tails with giddy teasing and fond recollection. All of them have been here waiting for me after work ever since, sparing me the need for any more theatrical confrontations. Ruby, above all, is glowing with the memory and on her best behavior. As meek as a comfort girl, and the bruises I left her with will keep her that way for at least a week.
But now Bailey is the squeaky wheel. She had a work placement interview this morning, and apparently it went badly. Little surprise, but it’s sent her spiraling. The kind of shit I deal with every single day would leave any of my packmates a wreck, and Bailey has a particular way of getting in her own head—which means I need to pull her out of it before she does something stupid again.
It always has to be me.
Since Bailey isn’t one to force it the way Ruby does, though, I’m free to relax and gird my loins at my own pace. So I sit in my bar, waiting for the painkillers to pick in, listening to one of the old songs playing over the radio. Some kind of warbling, revolutionary ballad that gets on my nerves, even as it leaves me with a strange fondness. Maybe I knew the song, once. Maybe it’s what got me to join up.
“Your food, sir.”
“Thank you, Scarlett.”
Scarlett smiles and sets down a bowl for me. Beet soup and a lump of old rye bread. About all we can afford. Nothing grows on this lump of ice. We fought for the future, but now they have to build it—and since it isn’t built yet, every food shipment has to go a long way. The real kicker is that under the so-called ‘Transitional Economic System’, you still need to earn every scrap. The future belongs to the workers, so if you don’t work, you don’t eat. So much for our sacrifice—not that I’m inclined to whine about the food, really. It’s the kind of thing they fed us in the kennels. I’m used to it. Anything finer and I’d spend all night nursing my stomach. Besides, Scarlett is a dab hand in the kitchen. She makes a little go a long way when she has the energy. I should give her that scene soon. She’s earned it.
That prospect sits heavy in my belly as I gnaw on the dry bread. Another task for the list. A handler’s work is never done. Speaking of which: huddled in the corner at the far end of the bar is yet another thing I need to take care of.
My pack has long since learned to be wary of strangers. Anyone who wanders into a bar like this is either lost or looking for trouble. I need to figure out which applies to the squat figure currently hunched over her drink, head down. She’s ex-military; I can always tell. Could be she’s nothing more than a soldier come to drown her sorrows. In that case, there’s no bother. Could also be she’s a hound like us. In that case, it gets complicated. Some of us are more damaged than others. If she’s looking for a new pack, I need to make sure she’s not a walking disaster, and even if she’s not, it’ll be complicated. Pack dynamics are fragile, and a new dog is a new mouth to feed—in every sense. Fortunately, I got a look at the back of her neck the last time she got up to piss. No scars. No hound.
There’s one more possibility, of course.
I’ve heard stories about ex-handlers trawling bars, looking for victims. I don’t know if I believe them, but I do know what kind of monsters they are and I’m not taking any chances. I remember Her. She didn’t make it through the war, thank fuck, but plenty of Her ilk did, and the revolutionary government is even more eager to sweep them under the rug than it is us. No justice for us martyrs. Handlers are still out there, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let one just waltz into my bar and start sinking their hooks into my girls’ heads.
Once I’m done mopping up the dregs of soup with my bread, I stand and ease myself over to where the stranger is perched. “Hey,” I hail, friendly as my mood permits. “I can’t offer to buy you a drink, but I wouldn’t mind a little company for the one I’m about to have.”
“Suit yourself,” grunts the large woman buried under the shapeless jacket.
Once it’s clear that’s all I’m going to get, I sit down beside her and rap my knuckles on the bar to summon a glass of vodka. “Mind if I ask your name?” I ask as it arrives.
The hunched pile of ill-fitting clothing next to me shakes as she laughs. “Looking for someone to warm your bed?” Her voice, a bitter gurgle, tells me she’s spent plenty of nights alone, and expects plenty more.
“Scoping out prospects, let’s call it,” I reply jovially. We both know I’m giving her the third degree, but there’s no harm in keeping it friendly. Luckily she seems to see it the same way.
“Call me Val,” she offers. “And you?”
“Thalia.” She isn’t interested, but again: what’s the harm? “What brings you here, Val?”
“This.” She lifts her glass, half-empty, and taps it twice against the counter.
That’s all the answer I get. Maybe all the answer I need. This woman looks nothing like a handler. She’s heavyset, and the way she carries it suggests she’s gained the weight recently. A handler would never—nor would they let their cheeks glow rosy and their breath stink from the booze. Her hair, faded tawny and shoulder-length, is a mess, and on her hand I can see the spot a wedding ring used to sit. She’s a mess, all in all. “Fair enough.” I down my drink, then make to stand. “Thank you for your service, eh?”
Something about that grabs Val by the ear. She turns her head sharply to look at me and now that it’s not tucked behind her collar I get to see her face, wrinkled and puckered like an old apple, and behind it, the small, dark pips of her eyes. She drinks in the coat and the cap, and the redness fades from her face like autumn turning to winter. It’s like she’s staring down a nightmare—but she’s quick to hide her horror behind a mask of alcoholic indifference.
“What’s the matter?” I press, smirking. I just can’t help it. “Seen someone like me before?”
“No,” Val replies, a little too quickly. I grin. Her fear is tastier than the borscht. A petty pleasure? Certainly, but I’ve earned it. My guess is that Val served alongside a dog team at some point and saw more than enough. I’m sure I wouldn’t cop to it either.
“Glad to hear it,” I tell her. “Enjoy your drink, Val. I’ll see you around.”
I shouldn’t needle her. It’s not smart. But it doesn’t matter. She’s clearly harmless.
That’s one task off the list. Soon, the other—but first, more drinks. One shot of vodka, then two, then three. Each one sounds like a better idea than the last, until I’m stumbling drunk—and then it’s showtime. Bailey’s night.
Bailey, my poor, sad little puppy. Always hiding—in the corner, or behind me, or behind her own hair, although that’s mostly to cover what a cockpit fire did to half her face. Given a chance, she’ll simply fade into the background, and then out of the room, and then you won’t see nor hear from her in a month until she’s coming out of a facility with a fresh grid of scars all over her thighs. But I won’t give her that chance. She’s one of my pack. I won’t leave her behind. I’ll give her what she needs, and what she needs is simple: attention. She needs to be seen and touched and caressed and beheld and fucked, until her own reflection in my handler’s eye drags her out of herself and into the real. It’s beautiful, the moment the chains on her soul shatter beneath my hands and she breaches, like a moth from a cocoon, into something glowing and sensual and present. It’s beautiful—and it’s hard. She can go for hours sometimes, and I’m already fading.
Nothing for it but to get it over with. My back hurts and my head throbs and the room is spinning, but I am a handler. I am perfection. I call Bailey to my side, bend her over a table and begin to ravish her in front of everyone—in front of my adoring hounds, in front of the bartender who’s seen it all before, and in front of Val, pretending not to stare over her glass. Let them watch. Let them all watch. Let them see what I can do to a girl. What a handler can do to a hound.
After a brief orgy of fumbling, Bailey’s haggard fatigues are torn away and her slender body is bared to me. I warm her against the cold. My fingers and my lips and my tongue beat the frost and the shame aside, until she is red and raw with longing more than embarrassment. Her green eyes glow, her ginger hair is strewn a mane, and all over she is as bright and rich as summer’s memory. But still, she needs more of me. Always more. I strain until I ache to give her pleasure, and I wonder, when will it be my turn? When will I lie back, easy, drowning in another? I should be now, but the battle against the alcohol in my system makes my every effort torturously mechanical. Get it up, handler. Don’t fuck up, handler. Don’t let them down, handler. I set myself against the task until it is all the same, all the ugly flesh, all the ugly noise, all the sticky tabletops and dusty floortiles, with Bailey at the heart of it, and I her shadow, and against her light I fade, and I-
I come to in my own bed.
It’s later. Much later. I passed out at some point, I guess, but the throbbing inside my skull brought me around. Someone must have poured me here. As I stir and groan, she appears: Scarlett, eyes full of worry.
“Water,” I croak.
“Yes, sir.” It’s there at once; I’m infinitely grateful. “And…” More painkillers. Scarlett is too good to me.
“Thank you,” I manage. It’s so kind of her to do this, and almost embarrassing how much of a mercy it is to have Scarlett here to see to these little things—not that my quarters are deserving of a maid. All of us hounds live at assigned dormitories in requisitioned residential blocks. Each of us has little more than a kitchen unit and a bed. On my wage and their pensions, we can’t afford a real apartment to share. Still, with Scarlett busying herself under the ailing, orange glow of the old stove, it almost feels like home.
“This’ll help, sir. For your stomach.” Scarlett’s next blessing is a cup of apple tea mixed with honey and cinnamon. A rare treat; even if it’s only from a stale bag, the tea’s sweetness is enough to revive me and settle my belly. Scarlett knows how I get when I drink, and she doesn’t want to see her beet soup again.
“Thank you,” I repeat, then sit up in bed. Even now, I cannot fade into rest. Anxiety, my bosom companion, gnaws at my chest. “How did it go? With Bailey?”
“Well enough,” says Scarlett, even though her face says: not quite. “She was happy.”
“That’s good.” I can’t remember more than flashes. Based on those, I have my doubts, but for now I decide to believe Scarlett. She’s a good girl. “That’s good.”
“She’s very grateful for what you do, sir.” I set down my tea on the bedside table, and Scarlett climbs up into my bed. There’s scarcely room for us both, but we make do. “We all are.”
“Right.” They’re all grateful—and they all want more. The dozens of things I could say tie my tongue, so I slump back once more and let Scarlett settle against me as I stare dizzily up at the yellowed ceiling, at the peeling beige flowers of the wallpaper, at the white, lacy curtain over the window, its corners already given to ice and mold.
This is an awful place. I’ve hated it since the day I arrived. This planet. This city. This room. But my Scarlett is here.
“Sir,” she ventures carefully, just as I was drifting off. “Perhaps… would this be a good time to talk about our next scene?”
My mood plummets. The end of the day, and I still have something to worry about? I tense, though if Scarlett feels it, she doesn’t let it show. For some reason, even her patience is starting to piss me off. I bet it feels like a luxury—or charity. Or maybe it’s malice; why does she only ever bring it up at the worst times?
“Later,” I murmur drunkenly, trying to banish that unworthy thought. “Another time.”
Scarlett says nothing. Eventually, once my nausea passes, unconsciousness claims me anew.
***
Tonight is Lola’s night.
A regularly scheduled event. Lola can’t express her needs the way the others do, so I make sure to give her time each and every week. For her, it’s maintenance—and for me, a chance to redeem myself. I can’t be blamed for struggling under the weight of all the burdens I carry. I know that and so do my hounds, but I cannot stand the way they look at me as I stumble, as I must have done with Bailey while I was blackout drunk. I don’t remember, but the pity in their eyes rains down on me harder than any barrage and colder than any snowfall. I see, reflected back, all of the excuses and lackluster nights, all the missed scenes and disappointments. I need to banish them. I need to remind them that I am their master and their handler, and that they should look upon me with awe.
Tonight I will. I have the skills. No drinking beforehand. I’ll turn my dingy, shitty little basement bar into a concert hall where I stand, at the head, conducting their cries of adulation. Let them see. Let them all see what I can do.
Lola is perfect for showing off with. Her craving is restraint. She needs the nights she can let the animal inside herself out. Where she can buck and writhe against her bonds and feel that she will not slip, will not be allowed to fall, and once she is done and all her strength is spent, she goes limp and weak, tongue lolling out of her mouth, and looks up at me in unadulterated worship. There are a dozen ways to do it. A straitjacket Lola took with her on her way out from the military. A set of leather cuffs and restraints I made for her from scraps and cheap hardware. But the best—the most impressive—is what I have with me now tucked away in my coat’s voluminous pockets: jute rope, neatly stowed in several tight hanks, ready to be wrapped around Lola’s form.
I run a hand over the rope, savoring the sensation, imagining how they will look and feel against Lola’s skin, while the other brings my cigarette to my lips. I’ve stepped out for a moment to smoke. Not necessary, really—I could smoke inside, as others do—but I enjoy the quiet peace of it. Quiet as the winter wind allows, anyway. I’m chilled to the bone out here, but all the same, I make the cigarette last. Tonight, nicotine’s fading headrush will be my only ally in the war against my throbbing migraine. I linger until I can draw no more from the ashen stump between my lips, then toss it aside. Time to get on-mission.
The warm air inside rushes to meet me as I open the door, tasting of stale vodka and the cheap fuel oil burning in the corner stove. Eyes turn to meet me too. A dozen pairs. packmates and regulars alike. Val has rapidly become one of those. That seat at the end of the bar now has her name on it; she sits, she drinks, she says little, but she watches my pack and I with obsessive interest. I’ve been enjoying her impotent little fascination. Lola bounds toward me, eager as a fresh pup; she always knows when it’s her night. I muss her hair fondly for a moment before donning the arrogant, dispassionate mask she longs to see.
“Heel, Lola,” I tell her. She’s at my side already, but the word calms her. Stills her. “Good girl. Now strip.”
That’s a command every hound has learned well. Lola makes quick work of her clothing; she’s bundled up in layers of it against the cold, and underneath there are layers more of fat and muscle. Lola’s a big girl, especially for a hound. Probably one of the reasons the cockpit wasn’t kind to her. Adorable as she is now, sometimes I wonder what she was like before. Maybe that pretty face was once sharp and expressive instead of slack. Maybe those brown eyes saw more than stars. She could have been quite the Amazonian beauty, but now her long, tawny hair is a perpetually-knotted bush that hangs lopsided around her.
I extinguish that train of thought before it takes me anywhere dark. For us, there is no before and no after.
“Up,” is my next command, once Lola is naked. I rap my knuckles against the top of an unused table, then snap my fingers. “C’mon, girl. Up.”
Though a little clumsy, Lola manages to scramble her way onto the table without unbalancing it. With every instruction obeyed, her smile shines brighter. She becomes the fireplace around which the room gravitates. All eyes on her. Something prickly stirs in my heart. Don’t they see me, too? Don’t they see that this is my light? My heat?
I extinguish that train of thought too. Why can’t I focus?
“Paw,” I tell Lola. “Both of them”, I clarify, when she only offers the one hand. I retrieve one of the short hanks of rope, unravel it, and bring Lola’s wrists behind her so I can wrap it around them, watching as she shivers at the jute’s coarse kiss. She’s in paradise already. Even my calling them her paws has her radiating euphoria. As I tie the knots, I spare a glance at the room. I want to see the admiring looks on my pack’s faces. I want to see the strangers and regulars watching in terrified awe of my power.
I look at Ruby, then Bailey, and then my eyes seek Scarlett. She isn’t with the others. At first I worry she’s missing, but then I find her.
Scarlett is sitting at the end of the bar, cosied up with Val.
It could be nothing. It could be—but I see instantly that it’s not. However innocent the outward appearance, in Scarlett’s heart it’s anything but. I recognize the way she presses close to Val, starry-eyed, attentive, smiling and doting. I recognize the way that, as Val finishes her glass, Scarlett hastens to ensure it’s filled again immediately.
That is my smile. My service. My hound.
Fury rises incandescent in my gut. My nostrils flare—but beyond that, I show nothing. It wouldn’t do. In this place I am master, and a handler does not fear things like a hound pouring another woman a drink. Scarlett is mine, I tell myself. I have nothing to worry about, I tell myself. And moreover, I have a job to do.
Resolutely, I plow ahead with the scene and begin to lay rope across Lola’s body, ready to transform her into a work of living art that will quiver and whine and moan to the beat I set. At least, that’s what’s supposed to happen. As I begin to work a longer piece of rope around Lola’s arms in a series of loops, pulling back her shoulders, and binding them tight, the realization hits me: I have not done this in months. Too many lapsed sessions, too many nights spent too tired to practice. The skill, hard-won, has slipped through my fingers—fingers that now turn numb and cold as I clumsily twine and intertwine the ropes, hoping against hope that the muscle memory will come.
It doesn’t. And everyone is watching.
I am watching.
Watching Scarlett and Val. My memory is a patchwork blanket, but every look between them is emblazoned there in fire. They lean in and share a comment, then a laugh, and I boil with sticky need to know what’s being said. What’s the joke? Who is it about? The way they sit now, you’d think they’d known each other for years. Scarlett is a flower in spring’s full blossom, proud to be plucked and worn abreast. Val is a fat, fledgling bird of prey, bared to spread her feathered wings around my little light. The simmering affection of the scene sends me into shellshock. I feel like I’m the cockpit again, hell before me and following with me, just a scared dog, and I-
“Mrrraf!”
Lola’s pained cry jolts me awake. I look down and see that I have been pulling too tight. Her shoulders are pulled back at an atrocious, dangerous angle while her head is craned to look at me, trusting, puppy-dog eyes full of wounded confusion. I look at the ropes I’ve been laying and knotting. They’re a tangled mess. They resemble not at all the intricate tie I was supposed to weave. I glance around the room. Bailey and Ruby look at me with eyes full of concern—and worse, fear. Not fear of me, but rather existential dread at the thought that their god, their star, is so fallible. Then I look to the end of the bar. Scarlett hasn’t even noticed. But Val? She’s looking straight at me, and her lips are turning upward into a smile.
Before I know what’s happening, my hands beat the door aside, my feet scrape against the icy steps, and I’m out into the Arkturgrad winter.
With moons and stars overhead choked by smog, there is no telling how long I spend racing through the snow-carpet streets, gripped by a panic I have not felt since I was a pilot. That was years ago now—years spent rebuilding, but now all that is in ruins. The blocky buildings that rise all around me seem to taunt me with it. They, too, are years in the rebuilding. This is the future we fought for, but it rests beyond my horizon. I’m one of the lucky ones. I have more than most. A pack, a family—but I can’t keep my shit together well enough to enjoy it. I have one job. To be their handler. It’s all I want and need, but each day I fall a little further apart, and all the people living in these concrete apartments would shun me if they saw my coat or the scars on the back of my neck. What am I for, if not this? What is my place, if not at the head of the pack?
They are the only people I can remember who have ever needed me.
After what is surely hour of wandering, I arrive back at the bar. Where else? Besides work and a meager home, there is no other place for me. Head down, I glance around only long enough to confirm that my pack isn’t here. They’re out looking for me, most likely. I should repay the favor. Instead, I huddle down at the bar and order a drink.
Then five more. My world shrinks to the shimmer of vodka on the surface of my ever-dwindling glass. It’s good for me. Keeps me warm and quiet on the inside. Keeps me from looking around the room. I don’t want to know if the other patrons are staring at me. I just keep drinking, and cantankerously wave the bartender away when she tells me it’s time to close up. She can let me do it. It’s not the first time. She douses the stinking heater on her way out, leaving the room dimly-lit, and leaves a tall glass of water next to me along with the bottle of vodka. It’s a kindness, I suppose. For some reason it just pisses me off.
Once the twilight before dawn arrives, there is so much vodka in me that my bitterness is drowned ocean-deep. I feel only the faint currents that rise to the surface, churning eddies that make me sway and retch. Fatigue nips at my heels, and my headache is worse than ever. The bar is growing cold and so am I, however tight I pull my coat. I need to be in bed. Any bed. But first I need to piss, and I’ll be damned before I let Scarlett catch me at my apartment with it running down my leg.
The bar’s bathroom is never heated and rarely cleaned, meaning it’s as cold and filthy as outdoors. It sits on the corner of the building, light filtering through frosted, high-placed windows, now a cold blue as morning’s first fingers reach down through the snowfall. Though more asleep than awake, I manage my business, then step up to wash my hands. The sight of myself in the ancient, dusty mirror feels like a shard of glass being pressed into my eyeball. I’m a ruin clinging to an outfit, and seeing the rest of the filthy bathroom reflected behind me is far more than my damaged, drunken mind can take. My stomach churns in warning. I clutch at my temples.
“Headache? From the implant?”
I nod.
“Here, there’s… won’t mean much, but this is what I always used to do for mine.”
A meaty hand feels its way up the back of my neck. I bristle at first, but the touch has a certain quality to it that sets my nerves at ease. Fingertips feel at my scars, then the points nearby where bones meet. Suddenly they press hard, and I feel a great source of tension inside me loosen. I sigh, grateful for the respite.
Then I process that I am not alone.
“Get… fffuck!” I whimper, stumbling back. I turn and, in the dark, see the worst face it could have been.
“Easy,” Val says, voice all gentle warmth. “You’re deep in the glass tonight. Take it easy.”
“F-fuck off,” I hiccup. “What’s it to you?”
Val recoils, and has the temerity to look wounded. “Just… I’ve been there too. Frequently.”
“You…” I scoff; does she think she knows anything about me? I hate that there is anyone here to see me like this. I hate Val for being the one to see it. Then I remember what I saw earlier. “Get the fuck away from m-my hound!”
“Your…” Val’s face twists for a moment, then slackens. She retreats, palms raised and cheeks flushed. “It’s not like that, alright? We were just talking.”
“Jjjjust.” I know what I saw. Talking? Please. Nobody talks to us. I break out in uneven laughter. “Bullshit! You know what we… we…”
I frown. Val knows what we are. But she knows more than that. What she just did to my neck—no regular soldier would know a thing like that. Only one person touches a hound that way, even if mine never bothered.
“Handler,” I hiss. “You’re a fucking handler.”
“W-woah, I’m not!” Val replies, but the fear in her eyes tells it all. “No, that’s all-”
“Yes!” I seize on her recalcitrance; once again, I feel powerful. “I should—we should—fucking gut you, bitch.”
“I’m not a…” Val shakes her head furiously. “I’m not. That’s not who I am.”
“You were,” I sneer. “Now you’re… fuck… fucking… hanging around us. Some kind of hound chaser?”
“No!”
“Didn’t get enough of it in the war?” I leer. “What, your… your wife’s pussy not good enough after a few years of dog dick?”
“Careful!” Val growls. Her defensiveness delights me.
“O-Or let me guess,” I snort. “You just like to watch. Hear… hear that one a lot. Or maybe you just fucking… can’t even get it up without a bunch of trannies like me licking your boots, huh?”
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Val’s properly angry now. Good. That’s good. “I was trying to help you!”
“Bet you were hoping I’d fall at your feet over it,” I sneer. I’m still drunk, but the adrenaline hitting my system makes me confident. In here, pale blue light dancing off my leathers, I am taller. Stronger. “Why else would… would you keep lurking around us?”
At last, the monster before me has the decency to look ashamed. “I-I-I thought you might understand!” she bleats. “Outside, I’ve never seen another… I-I, I don’t know. You seemed like y-you had something figured out, maybe. I thought… I thought you might…”
She trails off, but I can hear what’s on the tip of her tongue. “Help you?” My face twists in mockery; my reflection in the mirror is a leering gargoyle. “Accept you?” Ugly, uneven laughter erupts from my throat. “We hate you! We hate all of you! Look what you did to us! If you had… had any fucking decency you’d have given your service weapon a blowjob on the way out!”
Val goes quiet for a moment. Her face is veiled in the shadow of her jacket’s collar. Then: “That’s fucking rich, given how you’re dressed up.”
I shake as if struck. “What the… fuck did you say?”
“You hate handlers, but you’re dressed up like one?” Val’s humorless laughter is the sound of something dark uncoiling. “What, that’s the only way they can get off? If you’re playing pretend? Or maybe it’s more about you. Maybe you’re the one who needs to pretend.”
Despite all I’ve drunk, fury brings clarity, not cloudiness. Val’s forgotten something. Before anything else, I am a beast of war. “I’ll fucking kill you.”
I fly at her, hands raised. I might not be at my most coordinated, but I’m more than strong enough. Val’s been drinking too, and handlers never were ones to get their own hands dirty. I beat her arms aside with ease, then begin to rain blows down on her heavyset body. She slumps back against the wall, letting out ugly grunts. I press forward. I keep hitting. It’s easy. It’s so easy. Why didn’t we do this all along? She’s only human. I can make her small. I can make her afraid—just like I’ve been afraid all these years.
“S-s-stop!” Val coughs. “I-I’m sorry!”
“Fuck you.” I spit. I won’t stop. Doesn’t she know? None of it ever stops. Not the bad dreams, not the shitty days, not the headaches and humiliations. Why should any of it ever stop? Ever since the war, everything’s been upside down. I spend all day getting kicked by my hounds, so now I get to kick her. I get to let it out—and the best part is, nobody will ever blame me. This is exactly as right as it feels. When I’m done, my hounds will clean the blood from my boots, and there will be one less war criminal in the world. They look at me and see God again. Even the exertion the beating feels good. I’m nauseous, yes, and my head pounds, but I’m hot and full and eager again, and with each blow, I feel something passing from her to me, some essential mote of power, like the very personhood She took from me is something I can dig out of Val’s broken ribs and cram back into my skull and maybe then I’ll-
“Hound! Failsafe: Syem-Na-Tset.”
Everything stops.
The code word slams into my head like a hammer blow, leaving me a rung bell, shaking, limbs otherwise frozen. The voice of the people is the voice of God—that’s what they drilled into us, and the woman before me speaks now with all of that authority, stirring in me a loyalty that glows brighter than fresh-forged steel. I remember this feeling better than I remember my own mama’s embrace—yet years of dormancy have blunted the effect of the brainwashing. I can tell. The pressure, the compulsion, the paralysis—it’s not what it once was. I could resist. I could fight this.
“On your knees, mutt.”
Obediently, I sink.
I could fight this. But countless drinks, a throbbing migraine, and twenty hours awake have taken their toll on me as well. The willpower I need to struggle is buried beyond my reach. I can’t find my fire. What would I be fighting for? More nights like these? I promised myself I’d never kneel again, but instead of that promise it is the the handler’s command that echoes through my damaged skull, and from my knees I am awash in the presence of something greater.
Rising to her full height before me is Colonel Valentina Karahalios, her name one of many etched into my subconsciousness. She towers now like a mountain above the horizon, a volcano erupting with a great, unfathomable force once bound up tight within. Before her, I am in abject terror—but more than anger, her manner speaks to the poisonous ease of a lapsed addiction. Her face is dark, but the blue light of morning halos her in a shimmering aurora that peels away at the edges of my vision.
“You’ve taken something that doesn’t belong to you,” the handler thunders. “Bad dog.”
“N-no,” I whimper, scrambling backwards until I hit the wall. Her slightest disapproval would have me quivering. Her palpable anger is an atrocity.
“I’m going to take it back.”
“N-n-no, please!”
My stuck pig’s shriek echoes around the empty bathroom, but there is none to hear it. None but the monster before me, who now bends down to plant a hand on my face. She pries my unresisting lips apart, then pushes fingertips deep, deep, deep into the core of my being. I begin to buck wildly, weakly, as I feel something rising to meet her, a heat so great it burns my throat—and in its absence, leaves me cold.
“There we go,” the handler tells me mockingly. There are more words too, but those somehow pass beneath my perception, sewn like poisoned seeds and turned under the soil. “Go on, girl. Go on. That’s it. Drop it. Give it up. Let it go.”
The heat passes into my mouth and then spews forth, and the last thing I remember is a great, blazing light filling the room as Colonel Valentina Karahalios plucks something from my lips; a spark, bright as the sun, that I reach for one final time as she bears it up, up, and away forever into the deep black shadow She casts over all.
***
Tonight is Scarlett’s night.
That one thought presses itself to the front of my hungover awareness as I wake to discover myself still slumped on the bathroom floor, my own vomit half-frozen down my front. As I scramble through filth up to my knees, limbs aching from a night spent on hard tiles, I’m left with a murky awareness of danger.
There is a handler preying on us. She’s going to take something from me. And Scarlett might be slipping through my fingers.
I dare not look at my own reflection. With what few paper towels I can scrounge, I try to wipe the sickness from my chin and clothing but succeed only in smearing it everywhere. My shame grows in tandem with my fear. I can’t let Scarlett see me like this. I need to be perfect for her. Which means I need a change of clothes—which means I need to go to work, where I have some spare shirts in a locker.
Mercifully, the bar is yet to open. I’m free to lock up without another soul to see and head out once more. The winter chill has never bitten deeper, and my head is so painful I consider going to the nearest clinic, but the hours of waiting are more than I can bear. It’s already noon, if the glow through the smog is anything to judge by. I shuffle to the monolithic government building I work at, but fail to slip in and out unseen. I’m forced to make my excuses to my supervisor whilst the other workers peer at me. The world around me is still spinning. A kaleidoscope of pitying faces—pitying, but not surprised. It’s like they all always knew this day would come. As soon as I change clothes, I flee home with my head down. Each step I climb on the way up to my dormitory takes an hour’s strength, and I pause outside my door for a long moment, catching my breath and bracing myself.
Wear the mask, Thalia. You’ve done it a thousand times. It’s all she needs.
My key turns the lock. Inside, it’s already warm. Scarlett stands at the stove over a pot of apple tea kept at a simmer. She turns to look at me, smiling, though her eyes are big, round, anxious headlamps.
“Welcome home,” she says, veiling worry with warmth. “Tea?”
I eye her warily. This isn’t how I meant to begin, but the aroma calls to my unsettled stomach. “Please,” I blurt out.
Good as gold, Scarlett is quick to settle me at the small table beside the stove. The cup of apple tea tastes of home itself. “There we go,” Scarlett murmurs gently, taking her seat opposite. “Thalia, I’m so glad you’re safe. We were all so worried.”
I nod guiltily. The tea and the tone of her voice transport me back to all the other times we’ve had conversations like these. “How’s Lola?”
“She’s fine,” Scarlett promises softly. “Worried, mostly. Not injured.”
“Good,” I murmur. “That’s good.”
Whilst I sip, Scarlett begins to hum to me. A little old folk song. The words, if I ever knew them, are long since lost to me, but the melody still stirs within me a sense of childlike comfort. I’m so, so tired, but closing my eyes for so much as a moment makes me so dizzy that the painful cacophony raging against the inside of my skull begins to raise yet louder complaints. Scarlett notices my plight and slides a pair of pills across the table toward me.
“Let’s get you into bed,” Scarlett suggests, as I swallow the painkillers. “You need your rest.”
At first, I nod agreeably. Here, all is normal and safe. Now that I have warmed up from the winter cold, I can feel a fever beginning to flicker to life within me. Bedrest is my only choice—but before my anxiety is blanketed by fatigue, it nips at my heel once more.
“No,” I protest. “First, you and I need to-”
To my shock, Scarlett interrupts me with a click of her tongue. “Thalia, please. Whatever it is, I’m sure it can wait. You don’t seem well.”
Her unprecedented insubordination bolsters my resolve—and awakens in me an uncomfortable awareness of something terribly, terribly wrong. “What did you just call me?”
Scarlett blinks innocently. “Thalia?”
The chair rattles against the floor as I bolt to my feet. “You will call me ‘sir’ or ‘Handler Thalia’, mutt.”
The very proclamation drains what little strength I’ve recovered, but that momentary weakness is nothing compared to how it feels when Scarlett, calm and unmoved, fixes me with a warm, loving, but pitying little smile. “I don’t think we need to play that game anymore, my darling.”
At once, the fever surges to claim me. It’s all I can manage not to slump against the wall as I burn up from the inside. “I-I am your handler. I own you. You’ll… you’ll…”
“Thalia, listen.” Scarlett sighs in sympathy. Her smile, disgustingly genuine, is a hot knife carved into my swimming vision. “It’s OK. It’s all OK. You don’t need to push yourself anymore.”
“Push?” I am a pane of glass, red-hot from the kiln. Scarlett can see straight through me as my edges warp and peel. “That’s… have you been talking to Val?”
“So you do know!” Scarlett’s smile widens; I groan softly as its edges draw blood. “Yes. We spoke at the bar, then she came to see me late last night. We talked everything through. Things will be so much better from now on.”
“She did something to you!” I launch myself at Scarlett wide-eyed, grabbing her by the shoulder. She doesn’t flinch. “S-she has some… some failsafe! Some codeword they left in our heads.”
“She used no such thing,” Scarlett insists. How can she be so blind? There’s no way Val would have let her remember.
“S-she told you what she is?” The fear in my belly curdles to fury. “Y-y-you should’ve… Scarlett, you know what they did to us! How can you talk about her like… like…”
Scarlett simply shakes her head. “It doesn’t matter anymore. Don’t you see, Thalia? She’s like us. She’s one of us. With her, we can be a real pack again. Even you.”
“N-n-no!” Mere minutes ago, I was a block of ice. Now, my forehead is drenched in sweat. Weakly, I lean forward, bearing my weight against Scarlett to try to push her to her knees. “W-we are a real pack! I. Am. Your. Handler!”
“Thalia…” That look of pity. It unmakes me.
“Call me ‘sir’!” I bark. “You… you… w-we promised.”
That is all I have to fall back on now. A promise made in the long, withering days after the victory, when it was clear none of us would make it through without each other. I wish I had more. I wish I had the authority of the coat I wear. But Scarlett remembers our promise, doesn’t she?
“Alright, Thalia.” Scarlett does not buckle under my weight, but her voice signals a kind of weary acceptance. “Alright.”
“I just told you what to call me,” I hiss. “M-mutt.”
My voice lacks conviction and I wince at the way it cracks, but Scarlett is kind enough not to react. She simply closes her eyes, then opens them again. Our scene begins. “Yes, sir.”
“I should put you in your place.” That’s what she wants, isn’t it? What does she want? “I should…” What should I do? The words will not come. There must be something. I fall back on what’s easy. “Kneel.”
“Yes, sir.”
In a smooth motion, Scarlett folds her long, pleated skirt beneath her and falls to her knees. Her face gives nothing away, neither resistance nor enjoyment. She is as perfect for me as she ever was. A perfect submissive—and a perfect mirror. In her, I see my reflection. In her, I see nothing.
“You…”
Scarlett will do anything I command. Of that, I’m sure. But what should I have her do? What does she want? I know her well enough—or so I think, but as I look at her now, she proves strangely inscrutable. My every notion is stillborn, counterbalanced into the abyss by a thousand tiny worries and anxieties until I am left utterly paralyzed. Perhaps it’s the wrong question. What Scarlett wants shouldn’t matter, should it? Then, what do I want?
I don’t know that either. I’m tired. I’m running a fever. I want to rest.
But I can’t.
“Suck my cock,” I blurt out uncertainly. It’s the first thing that comes into my head, but as soon as the demand leaves my lips, it feels childish. Crude. Embarrassment makes the heat inside me burn all the hotter.
“Yes, sir.” If Scarlett frowns on the order she doesn’t show it. Instead, obediently, she shuffles forward and begins to unfasten my belt. The sight of her on her knees before me, submissive and eager to please, should stir something in me.
It should. But it doesn’t.
As Scarlett frees my cock from its confines, I try to comfort myself with the thought that I can settle into this pleasure for as long as I need to awaken my spark—but then I discover, to my horror, that her expert touch leaves me just as cold as everything else about the moment. As Scarlett runs her fingers over my soft nub, trying to coax it to life, I close my eyes and try desperately to think about anything at all that might strike my passion. Anything except Her, anyway. But the minutes wear on and the mood sours awkwardly, and when I open my eyes I find that the smile on Scarlett’s face has become one of pitying comfort as she plants little kisses on my still-soft cock, a tender but patronizing facsimile of the voracious service I demanded.
There is no use pretending this will work. I can’t get hard.
That’s to be expected, I tell myself, after what I’ve been through. I don’t have the blue pills that usually help; even without those, I could normally muster something, but the sickness burning behind my brow makes it impossible. It’s not my fault, but this was a bad idea. I need to try something else.
“Stop,” I instruct. Scarlett does so. She looks at me with big, expectant eyes; I brace myself for mockery, but none comes. She is too good for that. Too loyal. And yet, I feel nothing. What’s wrong with me? This is a nightmare. A fever dream. “G-good girl,” I tell her weakly, as though it were a task completed and not a mutual humiliation.
“Yes, sir.” I almost wish for mockery instead. Maybe then I’d feel that urge to put her in her place. Instead, I’m left casting about for something to do. Anything. Since Scarlett’s mind and mine are equally opaque, all I can think to do is desperately search the whirling room around me for inspiration. I find the answer at my own feet.
“My boots,” I spit, before mastering myself. “Polish my boots, m-mutt.”
“Yes, sir.”
That’s all I’ve heard from her this entire scene. Against my wishes, as Scarlett goes to retrieve her cleaning kit, a knot of resentment begins to form in my belly. It’s so easy for her. All she has to do is whatever she’s told. She’s free all the agonies of choice. All the burdens of leadership. She can simply obey, and enjoy the blissful feeling of reward submission provides. It’s been years, but its taste still lingers on my tongue. It always has. Why has it never been my turn? If only all I had to do was kneel, and say ‘yes, sir,’ and-
No. I can’t let myself think that way. I don’t think that way. It’s the fever talking. It has to be—or else it’s what Val did to me. If I don’t believe that, I’m letting them win. Not just Val, but Her. All those monsters. If I don’t believe that, I’m admitting I’ll never be more than what they made me. But however much that stiffens my resolve, it isn’t enough to keep me from recoiling slightly as Scarlett brings a damp rag to my boots and begins her work.
After a night in the bar bathroom and a morning of Arkturgrad’s snow and filth, they need the attention more than ever. As Scarlett busies herself with the task, though, it proves no different from the misguided blowjob. Standing over her, watching, I feel strangely restless. I cannot shake the sense that I should be doing something. My hands twitch; they want for a task to work at. I try to stifle the impulse with affirmation: this is exactly how it should be. I, her handler, receiving the service that she, my hound, provides. It doesn’t work. I’m uneasy. Like my fever, my anxiety keeps rising.
Am I doing a good enough job? Am I playing my role? Is Scarlett enjoying herself? Would she enjoy something else more? Is this form of service too selfish? Is it too much like the chores she performs for me each day? Do I need to make it more exciting for her? Should I care? Would She? Would Val? What would Val make her do? What has Val already made her do?
When I confront her, will her boots be polished to a perfect, mirror shine?
“I-I need to sit down,” I pant, the fever-heat within me growing strange as I dwell on the mental image. Scarlett watches me, concerned, as I slump back into the chair, one arm draped limply across the back.
“Are you sure you don’t need to rest, Thalia?” Scarlett begs. She’s so worried about me, and it’s making this so hard.
“S-s-sir!” I cry. “Keep going, m-mutt. If my boots go to damp, I’ll… I’ll… just, get them perfect.”
Scarlett purses her lips for a long, worried moment, before the: “Yes, sir,” comes. Then she crafts her lips into a smile, as if to reassure me. Do I look like I need to be reassured?
Though she returns her attention to my boots soon after, I cannot shake the feeling that she has seen right through me. I am not enjoying this. I should be. I always did—even if, sometimes, it was a battle to find the strength to hold up my end of our pack’s bargain. When I put myself forward as handler, it was because I alone was suited for it. I had the spark—but now it’s gone. Burnt out by the years, final embers snuffed out between Val’s fingertips. It’s never been further from me. I feel the space in my breast where it once blazed, a damp, hollow spot, the absent desire giving way to a corrosive yearning. It grows colder and hungrier with each passing moment, yet everything else is so hot I want to start tearing at my sweaty skin for relief.
“Are these clean to your satisfaction, sir?” Scarlett asks.
I look down at her. My vision is like an oil slick. I can’t see my boots. The only thing I can see is Scarlett’s smile—and now I see it for what it truly is: patronizing. She is humoring me, like a mother with a stubborn child. She’s kind, oh yes, but when she looks at me, she does not see God. And she never will again.
“Y-y-yes,” I bleat. I’m on fire. My entire life is burning down. “Good… good dog.”
“Yes, sir.” That smile, that maddening smile! “With your permission, I’ll polish them now.”
The most I can manage is a curt nod, and even that sends sweat dripping from my brow and leaves me perilously light-headed. The leftover scent of apples and spices is too much, somehow; cloying and sickly, and when Scarlett opens her tin of boot polish, the acrid scent sends me into paroxysms of nausea. I’m melting down. I am succumbing to sickness. Too late, I realize that I need water. I force myself to my feet; too late, I realize that I should have ordered Scarlett to get it for me. I collapse against the table, sending my teacup falling until it shatters against the tiles. I almost follow but Scarlett, my Scarlett, is there to catch me. Slight but strong, she bears me upright again.
“Alright,” she tells me, with firmness I haven’t heard in an eon. “That’s enough.”
“N-n-n-no,” I whimper. “N-no, this… this is… t-this…”
This was my last chance. I see that now. I neglected Scarlett for too long, and now she’s slipping from my grip. I keep up my stammered, incoherent protest all the way to my sickbed as Scarlett drags me there, but I have not the strength to resist her as she lies me down and fusses over me.
“Don’t worry,” Scarlett tells me lovingly. “Don’t worry, Thalia. It’s all going to be alright.”
I nod feverishly, fervent in my eagerness to believe her. I cannot believe otherwise. It would rip me in half.
“I… l-love… you,” I risk. Those words have often been on my lips these difficult years, but they’ve never left them. Not until now. A handler shouldn’t. But I must tell her. I must make her see what she means to me.
And she does. Her eyes widen in surprise, then soften in affection. She coos as she sets a glass of water at my bedside, helps me out of my sodden clothes, then presses a damp rag, blissfully cool, against my forehead. “I love you too,” Scarlett replies. “That’s so… yes, my love, it’s going to be alright. Don’t worry. We’ll be together soon. You, and I, and all of us.”
“S-s-s-sssooon?” I drool. The sheets beneath me are already soaked with sweat. My own skin is a marsh. “N-no… s-stay, stay!”
“I can’t, my love,” Scarlett says apologetically, as she furnishes me with medicine. “She told me to go to Her.”
“H-her?” At that, I go still. The trembling reverence in Scarlett’s voice is fuel to this new, awful fire. My thoughts begin to grow dim as they consume themselves, fighting for air. Anxiety, hope, envy, dread, each battling for primacy.
“You can come too. As soon as you’re better. She told me as much.” With infinite tenderness, Scarlett lingers for a moment at my bedside; as I reach for her, infant-weak, she squeezes my hand in hers, then bends to kiss my cheek. But after, as her lips graze my ear, her whispered voice is honey and thunder and merciless promise. “You’ll see. She’s so much better than you.”
My entire body betrays me. In one motion, I spasm, limbs stiff and back arched. My eyes begin to roll back to behold the inferno of my broken mind, each muscle whining pitifully against the way I seize and contort, and now—now!—I feel myself growing so stiff with need that I rub myself to near-climax against the itchy, woolen bedsheets, Scarlett’s testament to Val’s superiority ringing in my ears.
Now, at last, Scarlett permits herself a faint giggle at my pathetic display. “Goodbye, Thalia,” she says as she rises to her feet and away. For all that she has been through, she wears the face of a maiden again, ready to walk her wedding aisle like they did in the days the churches still stood. “Come for me, my love. We’ll be waiting.”
As Scarlett departs, so too does my conscious mind—but sleep is not rest. In fitful, feverish dreams, I dwell in fire. I dwell in Val and Scarlett’s awful dance, and in their heat, I am melted and remolded. All that is impotent and needless runs away like snow in spring, like a dream that never truly was, and what remains is stamped with a white-hot brand, inscribing, in place of an old, seeping scar, a new name. A new purpose. A new master. As the brand goes cool, I am cleansed—and I am lit from within by a flame that will burn eternal.
***
Tonight is my night.
I sleep for a full day and awake the next evening, and once I do the world feels more like a fantasy than any nightly phantasm ever has. My fever is broken. My headache is gone. My body is light. With a blissful smile settled on my face, I prepare myself. I dress as nicely as I’m able, while my coat and cap rest on a dresser, long forgotten. I don't need them anymore, not even as proof against the winter cold. My new faith keeps me warm. It is only excitement that leaves me shivering as I walk the virgin snows covering the empty streets that lead me all the way to the bar.
To Her bar.
From outside, I see that the heater is burning bright. Raucous sounds leak from within. Chatter, moaning, music, clattering glasses. The place seems, for once, like more than a graveyard for soldiers yet lingering. It seems alive. I am late to the party, but I feel neither shame nor envy. It’s my night. The party is for me. I savor one last breath of night, descend the steps, and enter. Once I see Her, my eyes go wide in rapture.
Colonel Valentina Karahalios sits at the center of Her bar with all the majesty and authority of one of the kings we fought to bury. She occupies an entire table to herself, laden with as lavish a meal as the bar’s kitchen can furnish; nobody dares sit beside Her, but the whole room turns on the axis of Her moods, Her laughs, Her stray comments, Her sheer presence. She is arrayed in full leather panoply: cap, coat, boots, pants, vest, all bearing the scars of years spent folded in a footlocker yet now radiant black from a fresh conditioning. They have never suited anyone better. This is not the same Val I intimidated with ease a few days ago. This is something else. A monster come unshackled. An awful light freed from its bushel. Legs spread, She now bears Her bulk with ease, like She deserves all the space She takes up and more, and Her weary, wary face has relaxed into a thin smile of supreme, aristocratic authority.
I look at Her, and I see God.
“Welcome, mutt,” our handler says. “Good of you to join us.”
An eager, taunting titter goes up around Her pack.
Her pack, not mine. They draw close to Her now, Her inner circle, eyeing me warily as though unsure if I am intruder or supplicant. Ruby stands behind Her, hair a mess, face sporting a fresh black eye, and she has clearly never been happier for it. Bailey knees before Her, thighs wrapped around Her boot, her rhythmic humping and panting as much music as what’s playing over the sound system. Lola is at Her other side, resting on haunches, a leash wrapped around her neck and a blissed-out-grin on her face. And then there is Scarlett, my Scarlett.
Scarlett stands just beside Lola, vodka bottle in hand, ready to refill Valentina’s cup at any moment. As She notices my gaze lingering on her, Valentina’s thick branch of an arm snares her waist and pulls her, giggling, into Her lap. Our handler makes no secret of the way She gropes Scarlett, nor why; She stares at me the entire time, taking pleasure in both my stunned response and in the way Scarlett melds and folds against her like a doting lover.
Like flint against steel, the moment strikes a green spark of jealousy—but it finds no purchase within me. I am a spent pyre. I see in Handler Valentina Karahalios all I once had and held dear. All I once took pride in. If I were even half a person, I would hate Her for it. Instead, I look back on all those years of pack leadership, on all the love and affection, on all the desperation and struggle, and I see it for what it ever was: an inevitable interstice.
This is what we need. She is what I need. And so I watch, as She takes whatever She wants from the girl I love.
“Kneel,” our handler commands, as She turns to me, Scarlett still purring eagerly in Her embrace.
I obey.
The feeling that floods me as I yield to that one, simple command is indescribable. It’s like a muscle deep within me, held tense for years without relent, has finally been permitted to relax. The sheer, screaming relief puts grateful tears in my eyes. This moment is a homecoming. I fold my legs beneath me, a pose of perfect submission that has never faded from my muscle memory, and I understand that the handler’s guise I wore never felt so right as this.
“Good mutt,” She tells me. Now the tears fall. “Let’s see if you’re still worthy of being a hound. Strip.”
From my knees, I tear my clothes away from my body in a frenzy. Even the nakedness feels right. She should be clothed; I should not. Every contrast between us is a fresh, joyful revelation. Absent my unearned leather coat, beneath the loose-fitting dress uniform I now toss aside, I am thin and wan. I pale by comparison.
“Good.” Even that one word lights me up with gratitude. “Now bark, mutt.”
Without hesitation, I rock back on my haunches, push my snout into the air, and part my lips. “Rrrarf! Raf! Rrrrrraf!”
More laughter from my pack, Scarlett included. They are fully at ease now. I no longer command the respect to be considered an adversary; instead, they can simply delight in seeing me laid low and humiliated. But I know them as well as they know themselves, and in their eyes I see more than schadenfreude. I see love. I see welcoming. This ritual debasement is a necessary castigation. I must be stripped of the walls of pretension I have built around myself. Only then can I join them anew. Each derisive giggle is an embrace.
That doesn’t mean they don’t burn like Hell’s own fire. In their contorted, mocking faces, I see the ghosts of the awestruck, worshipful masks they used to wear each time I called their names. I was the star around which they revolved—and now I’m a joke. I have dealt each of them humiliation and punishment in my time, and to have it all thrown back at me before them leaves me infinitely more naked than simply removing my clothes ever could. With each peal of laughter, the ghosts fade. I will never see those adoring looks again. At least, not for me. The weight of what I am losing seizes my heart in a vice. There is so much I treasured about being their handler. Really, truly treasured. So much pride and pleasure.
But deep down I know: this is better. And so I say goodbye to it all with a delirious smile on my face.
“My, you are an eager one.” Amusement dances in Handler Valentina’s eyes, and I am simply pleased to have pleased Her. She works up a wad of saliva in her mouth and spits it onto the ground in front of me. “Lick that up.”
Worse and worse. Better and better. I dive forward, pressing my tongue to the ground to lap at her bodily waste. The checkered floor tiles are filthy. Years of dust, cigarette ash, and sticky, spilled-drink stains assault my tongue and turn my stomach, but I push past it. I have found a reservoir of strength within me, devoted only to submission. For another taste of Her body, I would do this and more a thousand times. I must prove myself. I must satisfy Her. I wonder, distantly, if this is punishment. If She is spiteful. I find it difficult to assign Her such a lowly motive, though, and in truth, it does not matter. If She is, I deserve it for how I treated Her. If She is not, I deserve it still in exchange for Her mercy. Once the tile is spotless, I look up, breath bated for Her approval.
“Come here,” our handler instructs. “Bring me that,” She tells Ruby, gesturing to my clothing while I crawl to Her side adoringly. In Her every command, I see the vastness of the distance between us. To me, dominance was tensing a muscle. To Her, it is relaxing it. “Hm.” She makes a displeased sound as She rifles through my pockets and discovers my cigarettes and lighter. “This is a filthy habit,” She pronounces. “I won’t tolerate it.”
“Yes, sir.” How natural it feels, to call Her that! “I’m sorry, sir.” With Her very judgment, the desire to smoke is purged. It was only ever a substitute addiction.
“I’ll make sure of that.” Handler Valentina lights one cigarette and throws the rest aside. Then She calls me close; I shiver when I feel Her powerful hand wrap around my jaw. “Brace yourself,” She warns. “Show me how well you can take it.”
I try my very best, but even I cannot help but scream when she reaches around and presses the cigarette’s lit tip against the scar where once my neural implant was.
Though it was removed a long time ago, something like that never truly heals. The nerves remain overexposed, begging for connection, and now they find it in fire. I taste metal and see colors I never have before as the pain sweeps through me and leaves me a twitching wreck. But when I recover, I find myself not slumped to the ground, but held against my handler’s body by strong arms.
“Good dog, Tali.” Handler Valentina murmurs, all of Her ice melted into gentleness. “Good hound. That’s my Tali. That’s my girl.”
I melt against her too, free to weep in the knowledge that I have passed the test. Her embrace is a promise: from now on, whatever comes, I will be equal to it. The headaches and the pains. The work and the exhaustion. For Her, I will be strong. The rest of the pack draws close and embraces me on all sides, former disparities forgotten. After this, I am sure, there will be time for claws and teeth. There is a pecking order to work out—but even if I am at the very bottom, I will be content. That is Her gift.
From within the mass of warm bodies, my eyes find Scarlett’s. I love her, and she loves me. What does that mean now? I feel her left hand around me, squeezing me fondly. I sense her right, clinging still tighter to our new handler. From here on, our love is not ours. We belong to another. It’s a strange, new thought, but not a sad one. It simply is. Whatever we had before is gone, and so am I. In this moment, I am both reborn and crystallized. Handler Thalia is dead. There is no use mourning her. This is her last winter. From now on, the seasons will change, but I will not. From now on, as winter’s snows melt to spring’s slush, as the summer dust gives way to autumn rains and then to snow again, I will remain this: Tali, Her hound.
And it is all I will ever be.
—
I would like to express my gratitude for the generosity of all those who support me on Patreon, and to give a special thanks to the following patrons in particular for their exceptional support:
I was wondering while translating Warhound into other languages - is the fact that Sartha means purposeful/fated/important when it was that fated hero nature that broke her purposeful? It really feels like it’s been staring me in the face now at how great the names are in Warhound and I now need to go re-read for more. Oh oh and Thrace being good because when i was doing the Latin translation I ended up either with Thracian or barbarian/barbaric which I feel reflects the other half of her characterisation and especially what Handler draws out more and more from her. Kionne meaning Royal/independent is a good one too.
Kojima strikes again!
Anyway this was a longwinded way of asking: did you plan out these names with these contexts in mind? And have I just been a little slow to notice aka has this come up from others before? :3
First of all, it's VERY exciting to hear about someone translating WARHOUND into other languages!! Let me know how that goes
As for the names, honestly, the meanings themselves are a little bit incidental. I focus a lot more on the sounds and mouthfeels rather than the specific etymologies, and while I often to begin by looking for apt inspiration, it usually drifts a bit from there. I think giving characters names that are a little too on the nose can be irritating sometimes haha
I’m trying to find a specific short story I THINK you wrote and if I’m wrong sorry! It’s one about a college bully getting turned into a lesbian and actually nerd and her and her getting with the nerd girl was that you who wrote that and if so where can I find it??
Pretty sure that one is called Nerdification, and it should be on mcstories
Ik Ancyor and Genetor are sons of Lycaon (Presumably Lenith named her mech Genetor based off of Sartha's Ancyor). Yet, when googling Theaboros, all I find is references to Rescue Hound.
same anon, just wanted to say I also asked b/c I know Kione is public enemy #1 and wanted to let you know (which I’m sure you already do) that there are the few, the proud of us who love this bastard and everything you make her do 🫡
what would you say is the general rate of people who say they relate to Sartha/Leinth/Kione/Kotys/Handler the most from what you’ve seen?
asking because I’m a Kione girlie (please don’t throw me in the pillory for mechsplo townsfolk to pelt me with rotten fruit 🙏)
Sartha WAY in front, which makes sense because she's the central character (and it's something of a meme). Leinth is still in a strong second place though. Everyone else is very, very far behind, although probably with Kione or Amynta in third. It's hard to gauge Handler - I know some people do relate to her in some ways, but for understandable reasons they don't always want to talk about that publicly. I don't know if anyone sincerely relates to Kotys so much as they get their humiliation-related kicks out of being made to lol
Hi Ms Kallie, what colour is Amyntas Daseatus? Ancyor is green on the front cover, and Genetor is black after the imperial up-armouring, but Daseatus doesn’t get much physical description (that I can find at least).
Also everything with Amynta just makes me feel bad. The epilogue to Archon was especially painful .What did she do to deserve any of this ☹️.
Nothing, I'm afraid :(
I imagine it being very functionally coloured. Green, grey, maybe brown to blend in with sand or dirt. But I don't have a concrete answer
Prepare yourself for a very long and rambling post.
After ending last month with my thoughts on all of the Mechsplo writing jam entries I thought it would be fun to write about some of the things that I have enjoyed reading this month. I want to feature a range of writers from the BNOCs to the people making the debuts and I've picked out the ones that I read this month that stand out to me the most.
If you ever have any suggestions of stories in the scene that you think I'd like, that might fit my vibe, then please do recommend them to me. I mostly find stuff through the tumblr tag and through the self-promo channel of the single related discord server I am in. I'm not always the best at discovering new things and would appreciate recommendations!
Archon
By @kallidora-rho (link)
There was new Warhound this month and so it must be talked about. I really liked it.
This is a two part story with an epilogue that focuses on Kione and radio girl. I really liked the return to Kione as a focus. Given that Rescue Hound was the longest part of the series and that it had Kione as a POV character, she has, to me at least, felt like the main character of the series. Perhaps even the protagonist. I understand that this is maybe not a popular view but it is how I view things and it is therefore wonderful to see her back as the driving force in a story. She is spectacular, just as you would expect. She's petty and she's arrogant and I just felt so very sorry for her by the end of part two.
The first part features a really wonderful fight scene. The mech battles are some of my favourite parts of Kallie's writing in recent Warhound. I loved the fight between Ancyor and Kosterion but this one managed to top even that. The writing as radio girl keeps getting more and more desperate just sings out and her deeply felt need for violence and revenge is so wonderful and it is all so almost cathartic. It's not though, the catharsis does not arrive: Kione is who Kione is. I love her. She is, by far, my favourite Warhound character.
The one thing that I didn't really mesh with was the final epilogue in the piece. All the conversation I had seen around Archon had me thinking it was going to be this huge emotional gut punch but, for me, it lacked the weight found in either of the previous two chapters' twists. I do think it works really well as an epilogue but it's just maybe not the emotional sledgehammer that the community had me expecting. I don't know, maybe I'm heartless, but I didn't feel it. No tears for radio girl or her Kione.
All said, this is probably my favourite entry in the Warhound series. I really think that this is a new height. The fight scene is brilliant. Kione is as good as ever. I don't need to tell you to read this because you probably read it months ago.
Beast Beset
by @meli-writes (AO3 link)
There's something about Mel's writing that sparkles. As you pour a part of yourself into the text the meaning refracts through implication and spreads out a universe in front of you. With just a few words the she can capture ideas that fill out whole worlds in the imagination.
Within this space, I think Mel is probably my favourite writer. I've tried in the past to imitate her style, that sparse prose laden with implication and characterisation, but I feel like I've never quite got there. My recent stories Crystal Glass and Orange Juice were both in some part inspired by the way that Mel writes and the things she chooses to write about: it's the little parts of relationships and the struggles and the humanity and the mundane that is made transcendent. In a creative community that is filled with characters that often feel more archetype than human I find that Mel writes some of the most human and most believable characters.
In her recent mechsplo story Beast Beset this strength is really clearly in view. Pell's awkwardness is really wonderful and the way that the two of them navigate this new and complicated relationship is compelling and sweet and emotional. I instantly fell in love with both of them. The setting is great, it's like a space feudalism govern by ancient laws and customs (and also has mechs). There's never any need for tiresome exposition: the ideas of what this setting represents, especially the patriarchy of it, are explored through the characters' relations to each other and the world they inhabit.
It's a short read, coming in at only 3.7k words on AO3 but in those words it captures more story than some works with tens of thousands. It's short enough that I feel safe telling you, the person reading this, to just go and read it now. It won't take you that long. I read it as it was coming out of tumblr and it made it a joy to check this website every day to see the latest part. If you enjoy it and want to read more then check out Long Time, No Shear. That's my favourite Mel story.
The Blissful Dead
by @archangel-roxy (link)
The other week Roxy pointed out to me that both our works lean towards the morbid. It's true. There is a difference though, I think. The death that I write about is the nightmarish void, the thing that necessitated gods. It's Mackenzie staring into the Atlantic, unable to close the curtains. When Roxy write a death it feels different. It's the quiet at the end of the struggle. It's a reassuring voice coming to greet you at the ending of the day. It is something that, in the midst of horrors beyond anything I could imagine, can be welcomed. It is a nightmare ending and it can also be beautiful. It's the same thing but they are different things at the same time. I find that compelling.
So, during the last month one of the major Mechsplo series of the last year finally drew to a close. The last chapter of AotKH was great. I loved the ending. I loved the taxidermy. I didn't love it as much as I loved the previous chapter but that's just because I'm Imeshan's biggest fan. Even more so than both of these though I loved the short story that followed.
I originally had a whole three paragraphs in this review comparing this story to the Herbert Howells/GK Chesteron post-WW1 Christmas anthem Here is the Little Door. But I cut that because I was starting to sound way too pretentious and I don't want to turn this into an analysis of mechsplo through the lens of liturgical music. The important point is that the aesthetics of the Great War often paint it as a meaningless struggle. The deaths achieved nothing, they were just numbers, but when it was over everyone had to try and make meaning out of the meaninglessness. That same line of thought is baked in to the Great War aesthetic of AotKH but this story really elevates those ideas even further.
In The Blissful Dead, death was never going to achieve anything. It was, from the outset and inevitably, doomed to mean nothing. That feeling lingers throughout the piece with the frequent mention of the point of view characters previous work in stables. Hesha craves to be useful, craves to give her inevitable death meaning, but we know it won't mean anything, at least not in the way she wants... There will be meaning though. The story's twist gives her purpose. It is nightmarish and horrible and I love it.
The scene of the death itself is also just wonderful. Barbed wires that grab and tighten and pull Hesha closer and closer to the end until she is just wishing for that sleep that warmly greets her. Sublime, great, delicious. If you haven't already read this one then you should. It is good.
Functional Compensation
by MonaBunny (link)
Here we have a story about a hound in a fairly standard mechsplo setting in which the rebels have won. The imperial base is captured and the rebels find the forgotten hound starving in the kennels. They then do something to try and make her better, to try and recover the person inside.
This short description is a factual accounting of what happens in this story but it isn't why you should read it. I want to say why you should read it but it's a twist and it's a twist I really liked. If you've read my mechsplo series then you know I find changes in narration and tense to be compelling and this does something with that which I really liked. It's short enough, being just under 2k words, that I think you should check it out just to see!
Now I saw this story because it popped up in the self-promo channel of the one mechsplo discord sever that I kind of check sometimes and you know, at the time I didn't think I had read any of Mona's other work, but as I was pulling up the link to write this review I noticed that I had! One of her other stories, Hagiography, was one of my favourites from the September Mechsplo writing jam last year (oh it always comes back to you, my old nemesis: the September writing jam). I had looked for it before in the past and hadn't been able to find it, I had thought that it had been deleted/lost, so imagine my surprise upon seeing it again! I guess it had to be reuploaded for some reason. I was really happy to see it wasn't gone and so I also recommend that story if you enjoyed this one and want more.
Catechism
by EleanorThorn (link)
I think about this story when I walk past the optics labs at work. I think about the ways in which scientific progress is an idea which can be used to exploit people just as much as religion can. I think about how the majority of people doing scientific research at universities are paid less than minimum wage and are discarded by their institutions as soon as the money runs out. I think about the ways that scientific research makes people disposable. I think of how people are willing to put up with that to be part of something bigger, how they are willing to sacrifice their minds and bodies at the altar of science. I think about all the ways I have been exploited, about the free labour that I have done in the name of scientific progress. I think about how that left me burned out and about how it has affected my immigration status and how, now that I have been disposed of, I feel even less human.
That's all just me though. Let's talk about this story!
It's about nuns that work as lab technicians and like I feel that's all I need to say. If you like the idea of nuns that work as lab technicians then you're going to love this. If you, like me, have thoughts about the way institutions exploit these kinds of workers then you're going to like it even more. If you just want to see powerful lasers doing powerful things then just go and read it right now.
As with The Blissful Dead I'm going to resist my impulse to make this entire thing an analysis of liturgical music in mechsplo but given the centrality of the piece of music I feel like I have to talk about it. Aesthetically I think of Be Thou My Vision as a very protestant song. I feel like I have encountered it in the contexts of the Calvinist Church of Scotland or maybe Methodism. Which, to me, initially made it feel very at odds with the more catholic imagery of holy orders. The more I dwelled on it though the more I did come to find something interesting in that idea. It made me think about the way that disconnect is manifesting in USian Christianity today: the adopting of Roman Catholic imagery and aesthetics by right wing nationalism, in what remains a very protestant structure. I don't know, just some thoughts. The choice is great in the sense that the initial line is be thou my vision and someone's about to have their vision taken away by a laser.
What About Me?
It's been an interesting month for my participation in the mechsplo community. When I began writing Orange Juice at the start of March it was intended to be the last thing I wrote in this space. It was going to be a goodbye piece, one last beautiful swan song of a story about queerness and damage and the ways we can rebuild ourselves. I made this decision after finishing Burn With Me. I'm fairly happy with how Burn With Me turned out but in the last couple of weeks when I was trying to edit and proof read it I found myself become increasingly miserable. Nobody read part 2 of Surusm Corda, why would anyone want to read this? I think the final chapter especially suffered from this misery. Nobody was going to read it so why should I care to make it perfect? That was why I decided that I was going to make my exit from Mechsplo.
I don't know what twist of fate put a six month old story with around 30 hits on AO3 in front of the biggest name in the mechsplo community mid-March. That changed things though, it changed things in ways that I'm still trying to come to grips with. I'm still a nobody in this community, I'm still on the periphery, but there are people who really enjoy the stories I write. There are people who have told me they find my writing inspiring, especially Orange Juice seems to have really touched people. It does terrify me slightly that the people who seemed to initially latch on to my writing all had thousands more followers than I can imagine myself ever having, people who seem completely unapproachable to me, but I have managed to find some community, some people who I can talk to about writing.
I'm hugely grateful to everyone who has read my works and especially those who have commented and let me know how much they enjoyed it. Thank you all! It has been humbling and brilliant and heart-warming to see people reading and enjoying the things I wrote and given that I did end up writing two more stories (Crystal Glass and Song of the Mud Crab) I think it's clear I'm going to be sticking around somewhat.
So what's next for me? I've got some work related writing that I need to be focusing on in the next couple of weeks: preparing some articles for publication (no, I'm not getting paid for any of that grumble grumble), so it might be a bit before I work on any major projects. That said I'm planning on doing some microfics as part of an arrangement so keep your eyes open for that. Once I've got more writing time though I do want my next project to be either revisiting the setting of To the Slaughter with another VN or working on Gasworks Girls, the next part of Sursum Corda. I've already put a bunch of work into both of these so it's just going to be deciding which I want to focus on finishing first.
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Thanks for reading through this! I hope you enjoyed it or found a story that you might want to check out. If you do have any recomendations for me please do shoot them my way! I hope to make another post like this at the end of next month. It's fun to talk about the things you liked, it's fun to write about them. Even without my desire to recomend things and shine spotlights on things, there is value to just writing about the things you enjoy. It's part of what makes this feel like an artistic community as opposed to just an internet aesthetic. I want to talk about things. I want to read things. I want to get better as a writer.
I picked these five stories because I loved them, because I had things to say about them. I'd encourage other people to try and do similar things. My post about the March Mechsplo Writing Jam inspired several other people to do thier own read throughs and reviews and I hope maybe this one too will inspire people to think and to write so that we can come together as artists and write good stuff.
I would ask this on blueksy but the sheer anti-Kione Monax rhetoric on that site is deeply distressing to me. Regardless, as I'm in the process of reading HELLHOUND, I noticed that Subject-126's serial number is the inverse of 621. Is this a reference to Augmented Human C4-621 from Armoured Core 6?
Thank you for upholding Kione Monax Thought! And yes - something in the 100-150 range seemed to make sense to me, and since I couldn't think of anything better I decided that I may as well make it a little reference my readers were likely to enjoy
Hii Kallie :3 this weekend I read like all of warhound over the course of 24 hrs and omg it’s so fucking awesome and hot >.< I had a muzzle before I read the stories but since I read it I’ve been almost scared to put it on… also the way Leinth gets broken makes my head spin 😵💫 anyways just wanted to sing ur praises ^^ have a nice day/night whenever :3
Displeased with her conduct in Knossos, Handler decides to show Kione Monax just how much she still has to lose
That's Archon! But HELLHOUND is now out on my Patreon, which I'd encourage you to check out! I write erotica full-time, which means I need your patronage to keep creating, and my Patrons also get benefits like early access to my stories, extra stories, and the ability to vote on what I write next! So, if that sounds good to you, head over and join the hundreds of patrons I already have
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Not for the first time, the creature that was once Amynta Tet loses itself staring at the many sheets of paper arranged in orderly stacks on Handler’s desk. All of them are covered in hundreds of little black scrawls and, as Hound stares at them, it feels increasingly certain that, once, they would have meant something to it. But the more it tries to focus, the more its attention slides between the symbols and lines like nails scraping across glass. The harder it tries to grasp them, the faster they slip away. Its head throbs dangerously. If it does not stop now, it risks a migraine or a nosebleed—or worse. But perhaps, if it could just concentrate properly…
In the end, it gives up. It does not want to upset its mistress. There is no world for it beyond the end of Her leash. Not in the strange, forbidden fruit of the symbols. Not anywhere. It forces its eyes away from the papers, and its attention drifts back to the conversation at hand just in time to catch one final pronouncement, a word imparted with the undisguised contempt usually reserved for hate-filled slurs.
“Sloppy.”
“Sloppy?” Handler Kione Monax repeats, eyebrow cocked, face etched into the smug, lop-sided smirk that rarely slips from Her countenance. “Seriously? You got everything on your wish list, but instead of breaking open a bottle, we’re here to talk about my party manners?”
“Yes.” The tall woman in black leathers sits behind her desk, so serene that the faint hints of her fathomless disappointment are all the more terrifying. She is not Hound’s handler—its one and only handler is Kione Monax—but Hound knows her as ‘Handler’ all the same. She is the very embodiment of the title. “It is of the utmost importance. And your propensity for—as you put it—breaking open a bottle is one of the very problems I intend to correct. Your behavior in Knossos was unacceptable.”
“Oh, I’m not allowed to drink now?” Kione snorts. She stands opposite Handler with Hound at Her heel. “When did I sign up for that?”
“When you gave yourself to me.” Handler’s thin-lipped smile bears as much promise as a mushroom cloud. “Do you remember it, Handler Kione? You knelt to me. You swore fealty. I have, until now, permitted you such liberties as befit a woman of your talents. But if a child cannot behave itself with a toy, it is liable to be placed on a high shelf.”
“That…” Kione lets out a dark laugh as Her fists clench. In sympathy for Her, Hound growls faintly. It is supposed to be still and quiet here, and it has inherited from Handler Kione a certain reverence for the woman sitting behind the desk, but its fierce, protective instincts cannot be fully quenched. “That is ridiculous.”
Hound’s growl stirs its rival from her reverie. Behind Handler, Sartha Thrace stands at attention, hands clasped behind her back, gaze far away. Most of the time she seems barely present, but even the suggestion of a threat to Handler has her as sharp as a fresh-honed knife. Hound shows her an ugly grin. In the privacy of its mutilated soul, it longs for a chance to put Sartha in her place. Though it does not understand why, it knows that her presence deeply unsettled Kione. Even now, She refuses to look in Sartha’s direction. That is more than enough reason for Hound to despise her.
“It is my instruction,” Handler replies icily. “For you to reflect on and heed. From now on, you will not partake.”
Handler is accustomed to utter obedience. Even a creature like Hound, unbound from the restrictions of personhood, feels the weight of her gravity. Perhaps that is why she is already turning her attention back to her papers as if oblivious of the struggling swelling within Hound’s mistress. Kione stands stiff and still for a moment, knuckles white, gathering Her courage.
“No.”
For a dozen seconds, Handler does not acknowledge Kione’s defiance. She simply sits, perhaps waiting for Her to recant. Kione does not, although She stands trembling in a manner Hound has never witnessed before. She is usually so brash and so smug, a font of supreme, well-earned arrogance. A goddess, and gods do not show fear. Not until now—but now more than ever, Hound’s heart swells. What could make a hound more proud than to see its beloved mistress show such courage? It would follow Kione into hell itself; as it notices Sartha bristle at Kione, Hound does the same, straightening its back and baring its fangs. It wears its muzzle and straitjacket, of course, but should Kione wish, Hound would be proud to put itself to the test.
“No?”
One pointed echo is all it takes for Handler to command the room again. Slowly, she raises her eyes from her paperwork and regards Kione with, perhaps, some measure of respect. Kione trembles again. She is not accustomed to disobeying this woman. But in the end, She puffs out Her chest defiantly.
“No.” Battle lines drawn, some measure of Kione’s famous insouciance returns—and Her smirk with it. “I’m not simply another one of your dogs, and if you want to be my mother, you’re going to have to start complaining at me for wearing skirts. I promised you fealty, yes—but you promised me power and respect. I’ve kept up my end of the bargain. You’ve seen my performance on sorties with the hounds. You know that I can control them and create them. So, it’s a no. But if it’s any consolation, you won’t be the first girl who’s tried—and failed—to fix one of Kione Monax’s vices.”
The silence that follows is thick enough to drown in. The ripples of Kione’s profane boast beat against Hound’s skin. She twitches nervously. Kione does too, when Handler rises abruptly to her feet. Though calm as ever, her footsteps are painfully loud as she walks over to a nearby cabinet, boots clacking against the hard floor. She opens it and produces a small, metal case.
“What’s that?” Kione cannot hide Her nervousness now. She already knows what it is. Hound does too. It has seen it and known its kiss many times; unlike Kione, it is not afraid when Handler opens the small case to reveal a needle-tipped, metal syringe full of liquid starlight.
“A lesson.”
Kione takes a step backwards. “You wouldn’t.”
Handler sighs. At last, the smile slips from her face. “It pleases me that you still possess so much spirit, and frustrates me that you still fail to understand. When I gave you the title of handler, Kione, I was removing the training wheels. Before, I was patient with you. Now you will answer for your mistakes.”
“What mistakes?” Kione hisses. She is a prisoner of Her own bravery. Backing down now would be one more ego death than She can take. Hound tries, ever so gently, to press against its mistress’s side. To give Her support. “I’ve served you faithfully. I’ve done everything you asked!”
“Faithfully, but not perfectly,” Handler replies mournfully. The better part of her attention is on the syringe. She taps on the glass window with gloved hands to bring the air bubbles up, then presses on the plunger until a few droplets of that effervescent, green liquid leak from the tip. “Not yet.”
“B-because I drank some wine?” Kione splutters. She takes a step backward. “You’re insane! I… I refuse to be treated like a child just because you have some puritanical fucking hangup about dr-“
“It is because you showed them weakness, Kione.” The whip of Handler’s voice carves effortlessly through Kione’s protest. She speaks now as a teacher to a student, the needle a birch rod in her hand. “Whatever victory we won in Knossos, make no mistake: all of those men and women now seek to control us using whatever weaknesses or vices they can find. We must give them nothing—but you paraded yours before their very eyes. Drinking to excess. Accosting Sartha. Following your hound into the private rooms to watch like some depraved voyeur. We must be above such appetites.” She pauses. Then smiles again. “I will ensure you are above such appetites.”
At the best of times, Hound struggles to contain the various tics and reflexive stims it has been left with. An ocean of violence and hate still sits beneath the surface of its psyche. Even in the kennels, where it is relatively calm, Kione ensures it wears its straitjacket. Without it, it is liable to bring harm to itself and others. Now, as a truly deadly atmosphere settles across the room, Hound cannot help but strain against the confining leather. It has not been given permission. But its handler needs it. It can tell.
“Y-you’re bluffing,” Kione attempts. Her eyes are fixed on the needle’s poisoned point. Far too late, Kione has begun to understand the gravity of Her crimes in Handler’s eyes. Bargaining is all that is left to Her. “You wouldn’t. You’ve invested too much in me. You need me. You’re not going to risk that… that damage. Not over this.”
“Oh, Kione.” Handler’s smile has not dwindled. Not for a moment. She alone is untouched and unmoved by Kione’s desperation. She alone is perfect. “Now we begin to reach the heart of it. You speak to me with such ingratitude for the same reason that you indulge in liquor. You believe yourself to have fallen so far, you have nothing left to lose to drunkenness or disobedience. In that you are, I am afraid, terribly mistaken.”
Kione recoils as if slapped. For a moment, the look on Her face is almost hateful. “Am I?” She hisses.
“Yes.” That awful smile sharpens. “I would never allow you to reach rock bottom. Whether you appreciate it or not, you possess something very, very precious indeed.”
She turns her head and looks straight at Hound.
Kione shudders like She’s been punched in the gut.
“Administer this, if you would.” Handler shifts her grip on the syringe, offering it to Kione. Kione looks at it like She’s been handed a gun with one bullet.
“N-no,” Kione attempts.
“No?” Handler’s voice makes a mockery of Kione’s defiance. All of them can tell the balance has shifted. Even Hound.
“I… I refuse.” Kione’s eyes flit nervously between Handler, Hound, and the needle. “What then? What if I refuse?”
“Then I will make you.”
“Make me? What, by force?” Kione barks a laugh as she sips at the last, most bitter dregs of Her courage. “That I’d like to see. Pretty sure I’ve been in more barroom brawls. Pretty sure you aren’t wearing your sidearm, either.”
Handler laughs too, like the two of them are sharing a friendly joke—but when she speaks, she is a cold star the light of friendliness has never warmed. “Not like that, Kione. No, all I’d have to do is use those three words.”
“W-what?” Kione blinks. Then She catches her meaning. Her face turns to ash. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
Handler just looks at Her.
“Oh, fuck off!” Kione attempts again. Her desperation is making Her angry now. “Those words don’t mean anything to me!”
Still, Handler just looks.
“They don’t!” Kione is tense all over. She reminds Hound of a tree so drained of moisture, it’s about to snap. “It… it wouldn’t work. It wouldn’t! I’m not like them. You’re not in my head!”
“Are you really so sure, Kione?” Handler takes another step forward; Kione’s wounded pride will not let Her back down, and so Handler is free to descend upon Her like a lover, so close the hems of their sweeping coats touch. So close, she can put her pale lips right to Kione’s cheek and whisper to her, gentle and sadistically slow. “You were in quite the state when I took you in. A full psychological breakdown. I nursed you back to health, but you were so vulnerable at first. Do you imagine me the kind of woman who does not take precautions? Do you think it would have been difficult to make you forget? Shall we put it to the test?”
“N-no,” Kione whimpers. Hound is too stunned to be angry. A goddess afraid is a sight to shake its threadbare soul. “P-please…”
“Off,” Handler begins, as slowly as a torturer. “The. L-”
“Fine!” Kione yelps. She squirms away from Handler until Her back hits the office door, and casts Her eyes down in defeat. “F-fine, you made your… Fine. I’ll do it.”
“Very good.” Handler does not boast or mock in the wake of the capitulation. She simply hands Kione the needle.
Kione hesitates for a moment. When She takes the needle and turns to Hound, a smile like a bent length of rebar forces itself to Her face. “Come here,” She beckons. There is nothing in Her voice.
She doesn’t want Hound to obey. Hound can tell. It knows its mistress intimately. In weeks, it has scarcely left Her side. It can sense from Her a silent plea to stay back, to keep itself distant and safe. Instead, Hound heads immediately to Her side.
It’s a good dog. It does what it’s told. As long as it does what it’s told, Kione will be proud of it.
Even so, it cannot help but flinch when Kione brandishes the needle. Hound knows the starlight drug intimately, and while it has learned to accept its kiss willingly, it remains wary of its power. Kione’s discomfort feeds Her hound’s fear. She does not want to do this; thus, neither does Hound. As it always does during anxious moments, its fathomless, animal rage begins to simmer to the surface. A growl slips Hound’s lips as Kione advances the needle’s tip toward its neck. This is wrong. This is all wrong.
“Hey, girl,” Kione says softly, voice cracking but all the kinder for it. “Relax. It’s all going to be OK.”
That’s all it takes. All Hound needs to hear. When Handler Kione tells it that, it believes. Always. Kione’s free hand comes to its cheek, gloves brushing its skin, gentle pressure adjusting the way Hound holds its head. Hound closes its eyes. Its growls die away. Its rage dies away. Warm waves of pleasure wash through the core of its being, and it melts gratefully into its handler’s caress. One touch, and all is right again.
A sharp scratch pierces the loving tranquility.
“Good,” Handler says to Kione, as she watches Her depress the plunger. Hound lets out a weak groan. The nausea is instant. “You may sit down over there. You have done your part.”
She gestures to a small chair tucked away in the corner of the room. A concession to hospitality, however rarely she invites guests to use it. Kione slumps down heavily, Her fighting spirit already broken. With that, Hound finds herself the sole focus of Handler’s attention. Magnified by starlight, its pressure is almost more than it can bear. Hound can feel something cold and alien flowing through its veins. With each heartbeat, it spreads. Above it, the dim overhead lights multiply in strange patterns. Hound looks at them, then away; by misfortune, its eyes meet Handler’s. They are, at once, hypnotic. Hound can only look deeper; as it does, it finds itself perceiving, impossibly, rings within rings within rings, concentric, growing, somehow, deep and away from her like boreholes in ice. Nausea becomes vertigo. The hound feels itself tumbling to a crushing depth. It feels the gravity of the great, malicious star into which it falls.
And it feels a stirring of the very same all-consuming reverence it feels toward Kione.
Then She turns away. A mercy, but the strange impression persists as a dizzying afterimage etched into Hound’s dilated pupils. Hound is left swaying as Handler returns to Her desk, retrieves a small, leather satchel from beneath it, and sits back down into Her throne of a chair.
“Here,” She commands. Hound follows to the spot She indicated. Handler does not yet fully own it the way Kione does, but still. It understands its place, and the drug soaring through its system has torn disobedience from its mind. “Sit.”
Hound slumps to its knees. Its vertigo worsens. It does not feel grounded. It feels as though it is swimming in the void. With each breath, more and more stars appear in its vision.
“I don’t believe we shall need this.” Handler bends forward and begins to unfasten the straps of Hound’s straitjacket. Within moments, the heavy, leather garment comes loose. “You will behave perfectly for me.”
Hound twitches as it shrugs the straitjacket from its shoulders—but only once. Its instinctive gratitude for the ability to flex its aching shoulders is tempered by an instilled aversion to the very sensation of being unbound. The straitjacket is Kione’s gift, as meaningful as a muzzle or a collar. The straitjacket keeps it safe. Without it, it begins to feel the telltale itching beneath its skin. It yearns to scratch until it sees red, but it will not. In moments, the itching fades. Handler’s words command biology itself. Whatever She speaks is written into Hound’s reality.
It will behave perfectly for Her.
“I do not believe that Handler Kione has instructed you in this particular skill,” Handler says as She sits back and opens Her leather satchel. “She lacks a taste for it. But I shall have you learn. First, take this.” She reaches into it and produces a fine, cotton cloth. After wetting it very slightly from a small bottle, She offers it down to Hound. After it takes it, Handler crosses one of her long legs over the other, presenting, in the process, the tip of one of Her tall, black, leather boots toward it. “And remove the lace.”
Hound hears a faint whimper from the corner of the room.
But it does not heed the sound. Hound will behave perfectly, and to behave perfectly is to obey. With shaking fingers that slowly settle as the liquid starlight performs its work, Hound unties Her bootlace and pulls it free before setting it down on the ground reverently.
“Good. Now use the cloth to clean my boot. Remove every mote of dust.”
Hound obeys.
It is, as Handler suggested, a stranger to the task. In its usual condition it is not well-suited to such service and Kione has never asked it of it, but it quickly discovers that the simple exercise of cleaning a boot is infinitely fascinating. The mere fact that Handler told it to do this ensures that the work takes on utmost primacy in its mind. Hound would sooner stop breathing than leave a single blemish upon the leather. As it cleans, it becomes intimately acquainted with the geography of the sacred relic before her. The crevice of the welt. The slope of the vamp. Each contour of the stitching, and the intimate, inner folds around the tongue. Each detail is, to Hound, a journey and a monument, etched instantly into a mind that has lost track of so many things. And then there is the material itself. The leather, tough yet supple, finished to a perfect, ink-black sheen. In Hound’s starlit mind, it is as though it is touching the very substance of divinity, the texture beckoning it to both worshipful fascination and profane arousal. How could anything be so wondrous?
The only thing that keeps it from drooling all over them is that it dare not risk the grave sin of so soiling Handler’s boot.
“Good,” Handler tells it eventually. Hound must have met Her standards; the implied approval glows warmer in its breast than any fire. She presents Hound with a small tin and another cloth. “Wrap that around your fingertips and use it to apply this polish. Only a little is needed.”
Drugged beyond belief though it is, Hound still spares a moment to admonish itself for ever feeling afraid of Handler—or worse, angry at Her for the way She menaced its handler. It can scarcely believe it ever failed to see Her as She truly is: a guiding star, a font of benevolence, a goddess of endless patience. It seems so obvious now, and no less real for Hound’s previous experiences with the starlight drug. It owes Handler its utmost loyalty. For Her, it would do anything and everything.
It has felt all of this toward Kione too, of course. But not now.
Hound cracks open the tin. The scent of polish slams into its head with such force that it almost passes out. At once, its drug-fucked brain begins to rewire itself, breaking bonds, building associations. The addiction is instant. The sensation is so great that it floods the banks of Hound’s olfactory bulb and swamps its visual cortex, veiling the world with a synesthetic, oil-smear haze of petroleum and turpentine. With utmost reverence, it takes a little of the black wax onto its cotton-wrapped fingertips.
It must not waste even a speck. This is ambrosia.
And it is not merely Hound’s vision that has begun to misfire thanks to the heady cocktail of starlight and polish. It feels the polish’s toxic, jet-black caress racing across its skin. The stimulation stokes its desires. It has never been so hard.
If Handler takes offense, She is kind enough not to show it. “Yes, it’s quite something. Most come to enjoy it greatly. You will too.” Hound nods fervently. Its arousal doubles and strains against its tight-fitting clothes. It will enjoy this greatly—but not like that. Its cock’s plea for release will go unheeded. Polishing Handler’s boot is infinitely more important.
“Alright, that’s enough.” A voice, from the corner of the room. A familiar one. A frantic one. “That’s enough. You’ve made your point.”
Handler ignores it; thus, so does Hound. In this moment, the world is that simple. It bends forward to attend to Her boot.
“Puppy.” That voice again, calling out in plaintive desperation. “My hound. My… Radio Girl. Come here. Heed me.”
Hound’s ears prick up. Yes, it knows that voice. It belongs to its handler, Kione. It must always do what Kione tells it—but it has Handler’s boot to service. Torn between conflicting commands, it begins to turn its head.
“No,” Handler instructs. She does not need to raise Her voice. “Do not look at her. Do not listen. Only to me. All that matters is my voice.”
A smile settles on Hound’s face. So much easier that way. It relaxes back into its place: on its knees, attending to Her boot.
“Please.” There it is again. Hound pays it no mind. None at all. It does not matter. “I… I’m sorry. OK? There. I’m sorry. I-I’ll do what you ask, so just-”
“Be quiet.” Again, She does not raise Her voice. She never does—but the reproach remains sharp enough that Hound flinches from fear. “This is the consequence of your actions, Kione. Bear it with dignity.”
Another whimper. Then—nothing.
Hound has already ceased to listen. As carefully as it can, it uses its fingertips to daub the black polish onto Handler’s boot in several places, then to spread it across the leather surface in an even coat. The scent is overwhelming. Hound has never experienced a more potent aphrodisiac. It could easily let the acrid aroma carry it away. It could easily pleasure itself to a mere whiff for hours—but for now, the only thing it can do is apply the polish to Handler’s boot. Once that’s done, Handler hands down Her next blessing: a large brush, itself a piece of fine craftsmanship.
“To buff the polish,” Handler teaches. “Work the brush in circles. It will take effort and patience. I expect perfection.”
Perfection. The word fills Hound with equal parts anxiety and determination. No matter what, it must not disappoint Handler. Its one and only purpose is the leather wrapped around Her foot. Stars in its eyes, it grips the brush and begins.
As promised, buffing the polish to a shine is hard work. Hound feels clumsy at first as it finds the technique; once it does, once it begins moving across the boot’s surface, its arms, confined in the straitjacket for so long, soon begin to ache from the exertion. Hound does not stop or slow. It does not resent the task. The burning in its seldom-used arm muscles is merely the fire of adulation that drives it onward in search of the perfection Handler requires. Its world has shrunk to the space of one beautiful, glorious boot. To see them at a mirror shine has become an all-consuming obsession. It works the brush in a circle, then another, then another, then another, on and endless, starry eyes widening as, with each stroke, the leather’s luster grows.
“I am not surprised to see that you take well to the task,” Handler muses from on high. Her voice, though light, makes Hound’s head resonate like a struck bell. “So many do, with the proper instruction. There is a calm to be found in it. It is simple and meticulous—just as you ought to be. You may think of it as a form of meditation.”
A calm. Yes. Meditation. Hound nods as eagerly as it can without distracting itself. It understands perfectly. It has never felt such stillness as it does in this moment. Normally, a seething, hateful heartbeat pounds beneath its skin, barely contained. It lives in constant longing for the moments it is permitted to shed its fetters and unleash itself upon the enemy. Any enemy. But not now. Its throat is free of growls. Its hands are still and steady. It wants for nothing.
A gift. A priceless gift.
“And thanks to Handler Kione, you, above all, are such a creature of violence,” Handler tells it. “Let this be an oasis to you. You will find this enjoyable. You will come to long for it. For this peace. This focus. This task.”
Another nod—and with it, not a growl, but a needy whine.
Yes. Hound enjoys this. It longs for it. Its body sings with need.
The only thing that keeps it from attending to its own need is that it requires both hands to properly black Handler’s boot.
“Yes, that’s it. You’re doing well. Good dog.”
The whine becomes a moan. Hound sees white. Those are its two favorite words—but they mean so much more in this moment than they ever have before. It redoubles its efforts. A weak, pained groan drifts from the corner of the room. Perhaps even a stifled sob. Both Handler and Hound ignore it. It doesn’t matter.
“Good dog,” Handler repeats. Another burst of ecstasy. Of perfect pride. “Yes, these are coming to a nice shine.”
They are, and Hound could not be more pleased. The harder it works, the more glorious Handler’s boot becomes. It is an unspeakable privilege to see Hound’s devoted worship made manifest in Handler’s radiance. To see Her walking around in the boot it has polished—its heart could burst with joy at the mere thought. It keeps going. Her boot must be perfect. Everywhere, perfect.
The harder it works, the brighter the starlight glows.
Slowly but steadily, they approach a mirror sheen. And in that obsidian mirror, Hound sees it: the night sky. The cosmos itself. A thousand thousand pinpricks of light that glow and glow with an illumination that defies all reason. They captivate it. They hypnotize it. It feels that same starlight in its veins, and it feels at one with each and every star it sees. There is a mad ecstasy to the moment that surpasses any mundane drunkenness. Conviction seizes it: this impossible starlight is Handler’s. Her radiance. Though the work of Hound’s hands brings it into the world, She is its true author. Hound is a mere vessel; through Her, even it can be a miracle worker. The effort Hound pours into its ordained task echoes back at it, each stroke and ache wearing grooves into its pliable mind and deepening the importance it attaches to Handler’s boot. The work itself becomes a confirmation of faith.
It understands now.
This is more important than anything.
Handler’s boot is more important than anything.
This is what it yearns for. What it needs. Hound’s need is leaking messily through its clothes now, discharged thanks to a surging pleasure even though it has not been touched.
It does not question it. Merely says a silent prayer of thanks to Handler for the reward.
Yes. This is what it lives for.
For Handler. For Her.
“That’s enough. You have finished.”
Those two simple words release Hound from the spell and permit it to rock back onto its ankles, panting from exhaustion. It sets down the brush. It looks around and discovers Handler’s office anew. It had almost forgotten where it was.
It is kneeling before Handler. That, above all, makes sense.
Next it sees Sartha Thrace, muzzled and at attention, still standing behind Handler. Hound feels a brief pang of envy. Why can it not always be Hers, as Sartha is? But Sartha’s face mirrors its envy. She is territorial, and furious that Hound has stolen the privilege of polishing Her boot. That is more than enough to banish Hound’s longing and replace it with a victor’s smugness. Today, Hound is the lucky one. The blessed one.
In the corner of the room is Kione. Hound had almost forgotten about her too. It loves her, of course.
But right now, a brighter star shines in the sky.
“Yes, very good,” Handler murmurs, inspecting Her boot. All over, the leather is resplendent. So polished it is unearthly in its brightness. “Especially for your first time. Good dog. Very good dog.”
Hound twitches and drools its thanks down into its lap as another orgasm hits. Handler’s words of praise will echo through its hollowed skull forever.
“Are you done?” Kione asks, defeated.
This time, Handler turns to look at Kione; thus, so does Hound. The other handler’s eyes are hollowed pits. Her voice, a lead weight. She is not angry. Not anymore. It has been burnt out of her. The punishment has done its work.
“Of course not,” Handler replies. She shifts in Her seat, crossing Her legs the other way. A new object presents itself for Hound’s worship. This time, it knows exactly what to do. It reaches for the cleaning cloth again. “I have another boot, after all.”
By the time Handler Kione and Her hound leave Handler’s office, the starlight drug has almost worn off. Hound is back in its straitjacket. Amidst the strange comedown, it is grateful for the familiar, grounding object. So far, Kione has not said a word to it as She leads it through the labyrinthine passageways of the Kennels. That does not bother Hound. It is far too busy basking in the glory of what it has just experienced. The afterglow is cut short, however, when Kione stops in Her tracks and slumps heavily against the nearby wall.
At once Hound presses close to Her, concerned. Sobriety is reasserting itself. It remembers now what Kione means to it, and the loyalty it holds for Her. Its time under Handler’s spell has not diminished the feeling. Not in any lasting way, at least. Merely shared it.
“I’m sorry,” Kione says quietly. Desperately.
Hound cocks its head curiously.
“I’m sorry, Amynta.” There it is. The strange name that sometimes slips from Kione’s lips when She’s inebriated. It means nothing to Hound, although it has learned to answer to it in moments like these. “I’m sorry, I… I thought… gods.” She goes still for a moment. “I really thought… that I could at least keep Her out of your head. But…”
With that, all the strength seems to go out of Her. She cannot bear to look directly at Hound; Her gaze is cast away and afar, veiled by unformed tears and curdling shame. Hound has never seen its beloved handler on the brink of collapse like this. Its chest throbs with sympathetic woe. It must do something.
“N… n…” Kione twitches sharply as Hound fights to muster its voice. It very seldom speaks. It is a battle to muster the words and fit them in order. It always leaves Hound’s head aching fiercely. But for its handler, it will bear any agony. “No. Need. To. Be. Sorry.”
“N-no?” Kione whispers. She is on the cusp of breaking open. Guilt, stoked into a manic fire, dances in Her eyes.
“No,” Hound tells Her, as firmly as it can. It wants desperately to reassure Her, however little it can fathom of Her pain. All it knows is that Kione is sorry to it for something. “Don’t. Be. Sorry. It’s. OK.”
“But…” Kione stifles Her protest. She hangs on Hound’s words. She needs what’s coming so very badly.
“No.” A starlit smile comes to Hound’s muzzled face. “I. Liked. It.” It sighs fondly, and drools a little down its front. “It. Felt. Wonderful.”
Kione shudders like She has been shot. A long moment passes. Then, stiffly, She hauls herself back upright and begins to walk, leading Hound back toward Her quarters. And She tugs Her handler’s cap down low over Her brow so that nobody they pass will be able to see Her eyes.
---
This story also has an epilogue! However, the formatting involved is a little beyond tumblr, so please go read that over on Ao3 instead:
Archon Appendix: Item 384024
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